Chapter 7
Pulling up to our apartment ten minutes later, I spotted an empty police cruiser parked at the curb. Robert. Good.
I would tell him about the girl. He could keep an eye out if she was around town somewhere, looking dazed on some park bench or at the train station, without enough money to buy a ticket.
He’d probably laugh at my story—and even more at my bare feet.
He’d scold me for not noticing the boyfriend’s license plate, but he’d also understand the gravity of the situation.
More than half of his patrol calls were about domestic disputes.
All those thoughts vanished a moment later as I approached the door, damp-bottomed pizza box in my hands. Something was wrong.
Robert had said he was working until nine o’clock. Even aside from the fact that we’d broken up six months ago, there wasn’t a reason for him to be inside the house.
To the right of the door, the living room window was open. An insipid sitcom with a laugh track was playing inside. Benjamin hated sitcoms.
I inserted the key before realizing it was the wrong one. I fumbled, dropped the keys once and had to pick them up again.
“Finally,” Benjamin said when I managed to push the sticky door open.
“You could have opened up when you heard me struggling.”
He ignored me, stood up from the couch, and turned down the hall.
“Hold up,” came Robert’s voice. “Don’t disappear into your bedroom yet.”
“She’s home,” Benjamin said, returning to thrust his palm in Robert’s face. “Give me my phone back.”
“Not until I talk to your mom.”
Benjamin shot daggers at Robert before stalking away again.
“Fine,” Robert relented. “Go to your room. I’ll talk to your mom, first.”
“Benjamin?” I asked. But his bedroom door had closed. “Robert? What’s going on?”
He was wearing his patrol uniform and duty belt, but he had a paper plate of Cheetos on the coffee table, like he’d been hanging out casually, waiting and snacking. I slid the pizza box onto the counter. “Is there a reason you let yourself into my apartment when I wasn’t here?”
“I came in with Benjamin.”
“Even if he invited you, that’s not the same thing as me giving you permission. We’re not dating anymore. You do realize that, right?”
“This was a special occasion,” he deadpanned, standing up from the couch. He aimed the remote at the television set, killing the canned laughter of The Big Bang Theory.
“Have a seat.” It didn’t seem like a casual suggestion.
I looked to the blind-covered windows, worry replacing irritation. “You couldn’t have texted me?”
“We did.”
I retrieved my phone from my purse, where I’d stowed it after silencing the multiple texts and the callback from Willa. One missed call, two texts from Robert, one from Benjamin.
Robert tucked his thumbs under his belt. “Benjamin said you went to get pizza. I didn’t think you’d be gone long.”
“You know how Giuliano’s is.”
He unhooked his thumbs and lowered himself to the couch, gesturing to the spot next to him. “Abby, I think you should sit down.”
There was no other living room seating except the small couch. I yanked a kitchen chair over and dropped into it from an awkward six feet away.
“So.” He did the shoulder roll I’d seen him do in public when he was in uniform but trying to convey that everyone should relax. “Benjamin and I both figured maybe you got caught up meeting someone while you were waiting for the pizza.”
“You want to know if I went on a quick date?”
It was all coming back now, the other ways Robert had tried to assert his control, even aside from dropping by unannounced and creating excuses to stay over.
It was the way he wanted me to delete all my dating apps after we’d only seen each other for two weeks.
It was the way he brought Benjamin presents—an Apple gift card for good grades, a pair of wildly expensive basketball shoes—when we’d only been dating one month.
He moved too fast and tried too hard, and when it was over, he kept trying, even when I asked him to stop.
“You don’t get to ask me about my dating life,” I said. “Please just tell me why you felt it necessary to ask Benjamin to let you into our home.”
“I didn’t ask Benjamin to let me in, Abby. I picked him up.”
My indignation shriveled. “What do you mean?”
“After I saw you at the school, I followed Jack Mayfield back to his house, and I checked back again an hour later, just to let him see the car and realize he should stay chill.”
“And . . .”
“Then he comes out and tells me I don’t need to keep hassling him, he’s going away overnight to his brother’s vacation house in Racine, to get some family support.
I tell him that’s a good idea and to convey my best wishes to Geneva, but he says she’s already flown the coop.
I pretend not to know that their marriage is on the rocks.
I circle back a while later, just curious to see if the lights are all off—just wanting to see if Jack was blowing smoke.
Obviously, there’s no law that says he has to leave town just because he said he would—”
“Robert,” I pleaded, wanting him to go faster.
“And when I’m just about to pull away I see a figure, halfway down the block, sprinting across the street, coming from the direction of another yard I recognize.”
I hated how he was telling it like a story, trying to keep me in suspense.
“The person is wearing a Cubs hoodie, which I recognize, because I was the one who bought it for him.”
I felt sick. This wasn’t about Jack Mayfield.
Robert said, “Benjamin broke into the Scarlattis’—technically, there was an unlocked sliding glass door he knew about, but that’s still breaking and entering.”
I put a hand over my mouth. Breaking and entering. Which made no sense. Benjamin wasn’t impulsive, usually. He certainly wasn’t stupid.
“When I picked him up, he had something. A diary. That belonged to Isabella Scarlatti.”
I was nearly speechless now, thinking of the future. Benjamin, with a police record. College applications. Misdemeanor? Something worse?
“What was he doing with Izzy’s diary?”
“Exactly.” Robert’s expression turned grim. “I’m assuming that he wanted to know what Izzy was up to, just before she died. I mean, why else try to read the words of a dead girl, unless you were close to her—unless you cared?”
But Benjamin hadn’t professed any strong feelings about Izzy’s death. He hadn’t even seemed curious.
“And I should tell you,” Robert continued. “Saturday night, a bunch of friends showed up at Izzy’s house for a party. Her parents were out of town. She’d invited a bunch of kids, evidently, but then she must have been in Wadsworth, already.”
“Who let them in?”
“Her sister, Talia, home from college.”
A Scarlatti sister. The comment reminded me. I started telling Robert about the long-haired, shoeless girl on the road and the argument I’d witnessed. How she looked and didn’t look like Izzy. Maybe it was Izzy’s sister. Maybe what I’d seen was Talia reacting to the stress of her sister’s death.
Robert looked annoyed by my interruption. “Talia Scarlatti is a redhead. On top of that, she’s with her parents right now, down at the station, providing statements.”
I nodded, fingers to my temple, massaging away a headache just building. I needed a second to absorb it all. The girl I’d seen had nothing to do with anything except to demonstrate there’s always a girl somewhere, having a bad day or night, walking a knife-edge of safety.
Robert continued, “Saturday, Talia left the house with her own plans and didn’t call their folks or think it sufficiently strange that her kid sister wasn’t home yet for her own party. She regrets it, of course. In any case, she ID’d all the friends this afternoon.”
“Don’t tell me.”
I tried to remember where Benjamin was on Saturday night. Whether I’d gone to sleep early. Whether he might have slipped out to join a party less than four or five blocks away. Whether I heard him return.
Robert shook his head. “No, I’m not saying Benjamin was there. I’m saying he wasn’t.”
“That’s a good thing.”
“No, Abby. It’s not. The other kids have an alibi.”
“My kid didn’t go to some party that shouldn’t have happened in the first place, and he’s the one in trouble?” I paused, the word alibi slowly sinking in. “You’re making it sound like Izzy’s death was a crime. But suicide isn’t a crime.”
“It’s looking more complicated than that.”
“What do you mean?”
The radio at Robert’s belt squawked. “I can’t talk about it yet.”
He stood up and pointed toward one ear while glancing past me, down the hallway, where Benjamin was in his bedroom, no doubt listening.
I whispered, “They think someone hurt Izzy?” I couldn’t bring myself to say killed.
“It’s a developing situation.”
“But wait . . . what about Sidney?”
Robert had rarely been tight-lipped before, even in those months when he was trying his hardest to be a rule follower, preparing for a promotion to detective that never came.
He would tell me when he could. I knew that.
But this was important. So important, I’d actually forgotten for a second about my own son’s harebrained act of petty theft.
“So, you didn’t book Benjamin?”
Robert looked at me with puppy dog eyes. “Of course I didn’t book him. Abby, that would have been a big deal.”
“But you can’t just . . . Someone could . . .”
“Yes. Someone could. But you aren’t going to tell anyone, and Benjamin isn’t either. Listen, I’ve got to get out to the car.”
“Wait. Where’s the diary?”
“I shoved it inside the Scarlattis’ front door mail slot.”
“With a note or something?”
“No note. Hopefully, they’ll just think a girlfriend or someone had it and wanted to give it back.”
“But what if someone saw you?”
“I was in uniform. I can say I found it in the bushes. Who cares where I found it?”
I stood up, calling, “Benjamin, come out here.”
“I’ve got to go,” Robert said. “By the way, I left two Cubs tickets on your fridge.”
A classic Robert ploy. We weren’t an item anymore, but I’d known him off and on since second grade, and he’d never stop trying to manufacture reasons to hang out together.
“And before you ask,” he said, moving toward the door, “I don’t have a third ticket and I wasn’t trying to trick you into spending the whole day with me. Those tickets are just for you and Benjamin. But I understand you may not want to reward tonight’s behavior.”
“So then why are you giving them to me now?”
He stopped with one hand on the doorknob, the other worrying the spot above his top lip where a ginger-colored mustache used to be, before I told him I hated mustaches.
He whispered, “Because you looked pretty wrecked this afternoon. And you look even worse now. That whole story about the hitchhiking girl—”
“I didn’t say hitchhiking. If she was hitchhiking, she would have accepted my ride. I said she was trying to get away from someone. Her face was red. Her wrist was red, like someone had been twisting it. I saw him grab her shirt.”
“But she got away, right?”
“I think so.”
“You didn’t see the guy’s car again?”
“No.”
“All right then. Forget about it. You can’t save a girl today, much as you’d like to. That ship has sailed.”
His comment hit me like a slap.
Softer, he said, “Go talk to your son.”
“I will. But you’ve got to tell me. Why did you let Benjamin get away with it?”
“Abby,” Robert said, arms lifting for just a moment, like he was beckoning me to approach. I knew that gesture. He wanted me to hug him before he left, the way I sometimes still hugged him—unwisely—when we met at a bar for the occasional drink, to watch a game.
“You shouldn’t have put your own reputation at risk.”
Robert rolled his eyes, like it was no big deal, but it was. He could be in trouble.
“Benjamin did something incredibly stupid, but I was less worried about punishing him than finding out why.”
“Thank you,” I said, but carefully. Things were bad enough without letting Robert think I’d start dating him again just because he’d covered for my son.
He opened the front door an inch.
“Plus, Abby . . . I knew it would be an extra big deal for you, having Benjamin picked up for something.”
I wished I’d never talked about my brother. Robert knew us both as kids, and he was in a few of Ewan’s classes in high school. That only made it worse. He thought he knew him. Ewan could seem charming, especially in small doses. But the charm always had a purpose and a plan behind it.
“Benjamin has nothing in common with Ewan,” I said.
“Of course. I gotta run.”
My mind was still racing. “Thank you. For what you did. I just wish I knew what was in that diary. You didn’t get a look inside?”
“Not a peek.”
“You’re sure?”
“There was no time.”
Robert was looking down at the radio on his hip as if he wanted it to squawk again, just so he’d have a reason to bolt.
“I’ll try to call you when my shift ends,” he said. “If not, then tomorrow.”
“I’ll wait up.”
“Don’t. You need sleep.”
He was avoiding my gaze, still.
“I said, I’ll wait up.”