I felt their eyes. I knew what they wanted, and so I turned to look again upon the almost empty clothes, the flash of bone so pale and curving. But I would give them nothing, and my body did not betray me, for which I was grateful. For what I felt was the return of a long-quiescent rage, and the certain conviction that this was the most human my father had ever appeared to me.

CHAPTER 2

I stared at my father’s corpse, doubting that I could forget the sight and wondering if I should even try. I bent, as if to touch him, and felt Mills shift behind me. She dropped a hand onto my shoulder, pulled me back. “Enough,” she said, and her eyes were hard as she herded me away from the scene and back into my expensive but aging car. I watched her walk back to the gaping door, and twice she turned back to look at me. I gave her a nod as she turned for the last time and disappeared inside. Then I tried to call Jean from my cell phone. Her housemate, a rough-edged woman named Alex, picked up on the first ring. She was tight-lipped and physical. We didn’t get along, and my list of questions was longer than her supply of answers. Her relationship with my sister had long ago poisoned the family well, and she made no bones of how she felt about me. I was a threat.

“May I speak to Jean?” I asked.

“No.”

“Why not?”

“She’s not here.”

“Where can I find her?” There was silence on the other end, then the sound of a cigarette lighter. “It’s important,” I insisted.

I heard her inhale, as if she was thinking about it, but I knew better. Alex never gave willingly, not to me.

“At work,” she finally said, making me wonder when was the last time my voice had been welcome in that home.

“Thanks,” I said, but she had already hung up.

Confronting Jean was the last thing I wanted to do, especially at her work, where the stink of decline must have ground deepest into her skin. Yet it was the smell of pepperoni and mushroom that struck me first as I stepped into the old Pizza Hut on West Innes Street. It was a stale smell, one that churned up memories of junior high dates and fumbled kisses. We used to laugh at people like my sister, and the memory of that pulled my shoulders even lower as I walked to the counter.

I knew the manager by sight only, and was again informed that Jean was not available. “On a delivery,” he told me. “Welcome to wait.”

I took a seat in a red vinyl booth and ordered a beer to keep me company. It was cold and tasteless, which on this day was exactly what I needed. I sipped it as I watched the door. Eventually, my eyes wandered, exploring the people who clustered around their tables. There was an attractive black couple being served by a skinny white girl with studs in her tongue and a silver crucifix jammed through her eyebrow. They smiled at her as if they had something in common. Nearest to the buffet, two women challenged chair legs that looked spindly yet weren’t, and I watched them urge their children to eat yet more, since it was all-you-can-eat Thursday.

Three young men sat at the table next to mine, probably from the local college and in for an early-afternoon beer buzz. They were loud and coarse, but having fun. I felt the rhythms of their chatter and tried to remember what that age had been like. I envied their illusions.

The door opened to a spill of weak sunlight and I turned to see my sister move into the restaurant. My melancholy ripened as I watched. She carried her decline as I carried a briefcase, businesslike, and the red pizza box seemed at home under her arm. But her pale skin and haunted eyes would never fit my memories of her-no more so than the grubby running shoes or tattered jeans. I studied her face in profile as she stopped by the counter. It used to be soft but had grown angular, with a new tightness at the eyes and mouth. And her expression was hard to pin down. I couldn’t read her anymore.

She was a year over thirty, still attractive, at least physically. But she’d not been right for some time, not the same. There was something off about her. It was clear to me, who knew her best, but others picked up on it. It was as if she’d ceased trying.

She stopped at the counter, put down the hot box, and stared at the dirty pizza ovens as if waiting for someone to cross her field of vision. She did not move once. Not even a twitch. I could feel the misery coming off of her in waves.

A sudden silence at the table of young men pulled my eyes away, and I saw them staring at my sister, who stood, oblivious, there in the gloom of the front counter.

“Hey,” one of them said to her. Then again, a little louder: “Hey.”

His friends watched him with open grins. He leaned half out of his seat, toward my sister. “How about I take some of that ass home in a box?”

One of his friends whistled lowly. They were all staring at her now.

I almost rose-it was a reflex-but when she turned to the table of young drunks and stared them down, I froze. Something twisted behind her face. She could have been anybody.

Or nobody.

She raised both hands and flipped them off, holding it for a few good long seconds.

Then the manager materialized from the back of the kitchen. He hitched at his belt, put the belly that covered it against the counter, and said something to Jean that I could not hear. She nodded as he spoke, and her back rounded as she seemed to sink under his words. He gestured minutely at the table, said a few more words, and then pointed in my direction. She turned and her eyes focused on me. At first, I thought she didn’t recognize me; her mouth seemed to tighten with distaste, but then she came over, passing the table of drunks and giving them the finger one more time, her hand tucked against her chest, where the manager could not see it.

The boys laughed and went back to their drinking. She slipped into the booth opposite me.

“What are you doing here?” she asked without preamble or smile. Her eyes were empty above skin smudged purple.

I studied her more closely, trying to find the reason that she seemed so disjointed to me. She had the same clear skin, so pale that it was almost translucent; large, tilted eyes; a delicate chin; and dark hair that spilled across her forehead and down to her shoulders in an unkempt wave. Up close, she was steady. Study her one piece at a time and she looked fine; nevertheless, it was wrong.

Something in the eyes, maybe.

“What did he say to you?” I asked, nodding toward the manager. She didn’t bother to follow the gesture. Her gaze remained fixed on me; there was no warmth in it.

“Does it matter?” she asked.

“I guess not.”

She lifted her eyebrows, turned her palms up. “So?”

I didn’t know how to get to the place I needed to go. I spread my fingers on the slick red-checked material that covered the table.

“You never come here,” she said. “Not even to eat.”

I had barely seen my sister in the past year, so I didn’t blame her. Wrong as it was, avoiding her had become something of a religion for me. Most times, I could never admit that, but those bruised eyes pained me. There was too much of our mother in them, and they’d not worked for her, either.

Indecision twisted my lips.

“They found Ezra’s body,” she stated. It wasn’t a question, and for an instant I felt pressure behind my eyes. “I’m guessing that’s why you’re here.” There was no forgiveness in her face, just a sudden intensity, and in the place of surprise or remorse, it unsettled me.

“Yes,” I said.

“Where?”

I told her.

“How?”

‘They’re calling it murder.” I studied her face. Not a flicker. “But nobody knows much more than that.”

“Did Douglas tell you?” she asked.

“He did.”

She leaned closer. “Do they know who did it?” she asked.