“Let’s think this through, Brenda. Right now, I’m not sure what to do. I guess we need to know if it’s her blood. Does she get in fights?”

“No. Merritt’s the family peacekeeper. She believes in unilateral disarmament. I think it’s part of her rebellion against me and my assertiveness.”

“She hasn’t mentioned any problems with friends lately, nothing at school?”

“No.”

“Has she shown any interest in cults, ritual-”

“No, absolutely not.”

The amount of blood screamed serious injury. “Does she carry a knife?”

“Not that I know of. I didn’t find one in her backpack. I suppose that’s where she would keep one.”

An honest answer. Many parents, maybe most, would have steadfastly denied their daughter carried a weapon. Brenda was apparently willing to acknowledge that every adolescent guards some secrets and has some private places that may be as dark as an executioner’s heart.

“Wait,” I said, “Adrienne-the urologist in the ER? She found blood in Merritt’s urine, right?”

“Her urine was pink, that’s all. Dr. Arvin said it could be nothing more than a basketball injury. Not serious enough for this.” She waved her hand at the bloody clothing.

“Is there blood anywhere else in the house? In the yard? Any sign that things were cleaned up? I guess I’m wondering where this happened.”

“I haven’t noticed anything. But I don’t think I’ve been in the yard since March. Since Chaney first got sick. That’s Trent’s domain, the yard.”

“Well, if some of the blood is really not dry, this certainly may be related to whatever caused her to try to kill herself.”

“I know that. I have no idea how long they’ve been here. Putting wet clothes in this case is like sealing them in a plastic bag.” Brenda suddenly sounded despairing. She stood. I felt as though she had expected some breathtaking insight from me and I was letting her down.

I, too, raised myself from my crouch. “Is this where she was found? After the suicide attempt?”

“No, the EMTs told the doctors she was in the bathroom. It’s next door, through there. Chaney and Merritt share that bath.” She crossed her arms and raised her chin before she continued. “Let’s think about what all this could mean. It could be animal blood, right? There’s that possibility. Or it could be something she found, like from a medical laboratory or a blood bank? That seems unlikely, though. She’s smart enough not to touch that. Or it could be intestinal blood, she could have been vomiting blood, right? That’s possible, too. I can check with Dr. Klein on that. He’ll know if she was bleeding internally, although he never mentioned anything to me, which is odd. It’s worth asking, though…”

She paused as she watched me bend back over the open storage case. The sole of the left Nike was turned up. I wanted to look at the tread.

Brenda asked, “What? What are you looking at?”

“I want to see if there’s blood on the bottom of the shoes.”

“Why?”

“I’m still wondering whether she wore them home bloody or whether this-whatever this is-happened here.”

“And?”

“It looks like there’s blood dried inside the treads, but not on the surface.”

“So this happened someplace else?”

“That would be my guess, but I’m no expert.”

“What difference does that make?”

“I’m not sure.”

I stepped toward a closed door across the room. “Is this the bathroom, Brenda? The one where she was found?”

“Yes.”

I pushed open the door. The bathroom had a vanity on either end with connecting doors that separated off a communal section with a tub and toilet. I didn’t see any evidence of dried blood. Certainly not evidence of the amount of blood that was on Merritt’s clothing.

Only one used towel was hanging in the center section of the bathroom. Chaney hadn’t been sharing the bathroom with her big sister lately. I visually checked the dark green towel for blood, but couldn’t be sure of what I was seeing.

I said, “She had to bathe. I mean, to get that much blood off before she took the pills, she had to bathe.”

Brenda replied, “Yes, I’m sure she did. There would be residue on the tile or in the drain, wouldn’t there? Can’t they do chemical tests for that?”

“They can,” I said, considering how much O.J. had changed our society. “Where was she when the paramedics came?”

“Right there, on the floor, between the bathtub and the toilet.”

I continued to look around the narrow bathroom as though discovering evidence that Merritt had showered away the blood would tell me something new and important. If I were covered in blood, what would I do first? I decided that I would wash my hands.

I lifted the bar of soap from beside the sink. The creamy muck below was tinted pink.

“Brenda? Look, she washed up in here.”

Brenda said, “So? She obviously washed up somewhere. It figures that it would be here.”

“You’re right, it doesn’t mean anything.” I put the bar of soap back in place and, to dry my hand, chose a towel from a neat stack on top of the vanity.

Beneath the top towel was a small handgun.

Ten

“Brenda? Brenda?”

In the bathroom mirror I watched her. Her lips parted and she backed slowly away from me, feeling for the cool tile of the wall, edging her sculpted nails into the grout lines, putting distance between herself and the reality of the gun. Her complexion had paled to the same color as the off-white ceramic tile. I tried to imagine what it would be like to discover a handgun in your child’s bedroom and saw the answer in Brenda’s face: shock and horror and disbelief.

“Brenda, come on, let’s get out of here, go find a place to sit down.”

I took her hand and led her back through Merritt’s room to the landing at the top of the stairs, where a pair of ladder-back chairs flanked an elaborately painted hunt table. Meekly, she lowered herself to one of the chairs.

“Brenda, I’m so sorry. This must be yet another terrible shock for you.” Silently, I rebuked myself for how lame my words seemed, how they always seemed to sound in the face of the harsh winds of tragedy.

She moved her lips as though she wanted to speak, but no sound emerged; all she managed to do was shrug her shoulders in resignation, look plaintively back toward Merritt’s room, and start to cry.

I realized as I stood helpless that the house was growing dark. I flicked on a hall light and the brightness seemed to nudge Brenda from her stupor.

She spoke so suddenly and so rapidly, she startled me. I had trouble changing gears to keep up with her torrent of questions. “Why does she have a gun? Why does Merritt need a gun? Is she in some kind of trouble? Why is it in the bathroom? Why would it be there?”

My impulse was to say something perfectly inane like, “Kids today, who knows?” but caught myself enough to offer a less offensive platitude instead. I said, “I’m sure there’s an explanation.”

“She’s my baby, my little girl.” Her words were slower now. After weeks of dealing with Chaney’s illness, she was so accustomed to the shock of trauma that it now energized her only briefly.

“Brenda, the gun in there? Does it belong to you and John? Do you recognize it?”

“No, no, no. God, no. We don’t own any guns. With the baby in the house, oh God, no. I wouldn’t think of it. Trent wouldn’t have it.”

I’ve been told I’m slow sometimes. But it wasn’t until that moment that the events of the previous thirty-six hours joined my current consciousness and I realized that Dead Ed Robilio had spilled a lot of blood recently and that no murder weapon had been discovered at his home. Although a connection between Merritt and Dr. Edward Robilio seemed remote, I feared the worst. Boulder, Colorado, just didn’t have too many pools of unexplained blood, bloody basketball uniforms, or bathrooms with mysterious handguns.