Douglas loomed. The silence behind his last words demanded a response, but I didn’t look up. He wanted me to cough up the memory of that night like a bloody tumor so that Mills could paw through it, spread it out like finger paint, and discuss it with other cops over coffee and cigarettes. Cops I fought every day in court. I knew how it worked, the twisted voyeurism of people who had seen it all yet never got enough. I knew how they speculated about rape victims in the halls behind the courtrooms, pawed through photographs, and dissected a person’s humanity in the quest to be the funniest cop of the day. I’d heard them joke about how people had been killed: Did it hurt? Do you think she begged? Was she alive when they fucked her? Conscious when the knife first touched her pale skin? Did he see it coming? I heard he wet himself.

It was a dark farce, a tragedy played out in the pain of victims in every town in the country. But this time it was my pain. My family. My secrets.

I saw Mother at the bottom of the stairs, her open eyes and blood-flecked mouth, her neck bent like a cruel joke. I saw it all: the red dress she wore, the position of her hands, the Cinderella slipper that lay upon the stairs where it had fallen. The memory was cruel and it cut, but if I looked up, I might see Ezra, and that would be worse. I wasn’t ready for that. I couldn’t do it. Not again. For if I looked beyond Ezra, I would see Jean. I would see what that night did to her, all of it, frozen on her face in that horrible tableau that still chased through my dreams. There was horror in her face, and rage, an animal force that transformed her. In that face I saw a stranger, someone who could kill, and that terrified me now more than ever. What had that night made of my sister? And was she now forever lost?

If I talked to Mills, it would all come back. She would poke and pry, try with her cop mind to ferret it out. She might see things, and I couldn’t have that.

“No problem,” I told the district attorney. “I’ll talk to her.”

“Be sure that you do,” he replied.

“Don’t worry.” I unlocked my car, desperate to escape. “Thanks for worrying about me,” I said, but my sarcasm was wasted effort. I climbed into my car, but he stopped me with a hand on my door.

“By the way,” he said. “What were you doing the night Ezra disappeared?”

I tried to meet his eyes. “Are you asking for my alibi?” I asked, as if he was joking. He said nothing, and I laughed, but it sounded hollow. “As a friend or as the district attorney?”

“Maybe a little of both,” he said.

“You’re a funny man,” I told him.

“Humor me,” he said.

I wanted to get out of there, away from his questions and his flat eyes. So I did what any man would have done under the circumstances: I lied.

“I was home,” I told him. “In bed. With Barbara.”

He smiled a thin smile. “That wasn’t so hard, was it?” he asked me.

“No,” I told him, surprised. “That wasn’t hard at all.”

He smiled a wider smile and I saw that food was stuck in his teeth, something brown. “Good boy,” he said, trying to be friendly but sounding condescending. I tried to return his smile but couldn’t. A nod was the best I could do, and even that hurt. He wasn’t sure about me. I saw it in his eyes. Could I have killed Ezra? It was a question for him, and he would check my alibi. I also knew that he’d discussed this with Detective Mills. This was his county and a media case; he’d never sit on the sidelines. So he’d lied to me as I’d lied to him, and that meant one thing. Our friendship was dead, whether Douglas wanted it that way or not. He could hang someone for my father’s death tomorrow, but I could never go back. That bridge was smoking ash.

He left then, and I watched his wide back as he shuffled across the lot to his tired Chevrolet sedan. He got in and drove away. He never looked back, and I realized that he knew it, too. Ezra’s death was like a match dropped into damp tinder; it was a slow burn now, but only a matter of time until it flashed. I wondered what else would end a smoking ruin.

I started my own car and left the windows down. I drove my hair dry and smoked a couple of cigarettes to take away the smell of fresh soap. I thought of Vanessa’s face in the afternoon light. That’s what I would hold on to. How it started, not how it ended. Not what I would say to her the next time I caved to my weakness and sought redemption in her tender mercies.

I said her name once, then tucked it away.

It was almost six o’clock by the time I got home. I knew that something was off the minute I walked in. Candles perfumed the air and soft music played on the stereo. Barbara called from the kitchen and I answered her, dropping my jacket onto a chair back and moving slowly her way. She met me at the kitchen door with a glass of chilled white wine, a chardonnay that probably cost a fortune. She was wearing a smile and a very small black dress.

“Welcome home, baby,” she said, and kissed me. Her lips parted and I felt the tip of her tongue. I couldn’t remember the last time she’d called me baby, and the last time she kissed me that way, she’d been dead drunk. She pressed against me and, looking down, I saw her breasts swell from the top of her dress with the pressure. She wrapped her arms around my waist.

“Are you drunk?” I asked without thinking.

She didn’t flinch. “Not yet,” she said. “But two more glasses and you might get lucky.” She ground against me, making me vaguely uncomfortable. I felt out of my depth. I looked over the top of her head, saw the pot and pans simmering on the stove.

“Are you cooking?” I asked, surprised. Barbara rarely cooked.

“Beef Wellington,” she replied.

“What’s the occasion?”

She stepped back, put her wine on the counter. “An apology,” she said. “For the way I treated you last night. It was a bad time for you, a horrible time, and I could have been more supportive.” She cast her eyes down, but I didn’t believe her. “I should have been, Work. I should have been there for you.”

Barbara had not apologized to me in years, not for anything. I was struck dumb.

She took my hands and peered at me with what had to be mock concern. “Are you okay?” she asked, referring to my fall, I guessed. “I should have come to the hospital, I know, but I was still mad at you.” She made a pout of her lips and I knew that in her mind, that made everything okay. She turned away before I could respond and snatched up her wineglass. Her calm seemed less natural when half of the glass disappeared in one swallow. She turned again to face me and leaned against the sink, her eyes shiny. “So,” she began again, her voice too loud. “How was your day?”

I almost laughed. I almost slapped her, just to see what expression would appear on her perfectly prepared face. Somebody tried to kill me last night and you didn’t come to the hospital. I made love to a fragile and lonely woman, then ground her spirit into the dirt for reasons I’m too chickenshit to explore. My father is dead with a couple of bullets in his head, and the district attorney wants to know where I was on the night in question. I’d really like to choke the fake smile off your face, which, I think, means my marriage is in trouble. And my sister, whom I have failed in every possible way, hates me. And worst of all, this sister, whom I love-I’m pretty sure that she murdered our father.

“Fine,” I told her. “My day was fine. How was yours?”

“The same,” she said. “Go sit. The paper is on the table. Dinner will be ready in half an hour.”

“I’ll go change,” I said, and walked from the room on wooden feet. I felt things as I moved: the wall, the banister. What was real? What mattered? If I walked back into the kitchen with shit in my mouth, would she kiss me and tell me I tasted like chocolate?

I splashed water on my face and put on khakis and a cotton roll-neck sweater that Barbara had given me for Christmas several years back. I studied my face in the mirror, amazed at how complete it appeared, how calm and intact. Then I smiled and the illusion collapsed. I thought of the things Vanessa had said.