Page 39 of The Family Plot
My fingers loosen and the key slips against my palm.
“Tro-trophies?” I stammer. “That’s what you call them?”
It’s a common enough term. Robert Hansen, the “Butcher Baker,” kept his victims’ jewelry. Ivan Milat, the “Backpacker Murderer,” collected the camping equipment of the people he killed. But hearing the word now, about the photographs I just saw—faces with swollen lips, necks reddened by rope—I feel dizzy.
Fritz lumbers forward, arm outstretched, fingers bent into hooks. I recoil, pressed against the counter with nowhere to go. Turning my head, I squeeze my eyes shut.
He doesn’t touch me. Instead, there’s a squealing, sliding sound, and when I open my eyes again, he’s holding a roll of double-sided tape, removed from the drawer left open beside me. He crouches down on the floor, careful with his bad leg, and rubs pieces along the edges of the carpet. He works quickly, methodically. He’s done this many times before.
Words lurch into my throat. “Is that what Andy was? A trophy?”
Fritz stiffens, tape hanging from one finger like a strip of molting skin. For several moments, he’s doesn’t move—a blinkless, frozen figurine. Then, without warning, his palms strike the floor as he slumps onto his knees.
“Andy,” he groans. He’s hunched like someone about to retch. “That poor boy.” He lifts his head, nearly in tears. “I didn’t know he… I would have never…”
But he doesn’t tell me what he would have never. The sentence dissolves as I watch his cheeks grow wet with silent crying.
Who is this man? Whose legs did I hold on to as a kid, laughing as I used him as a barrier during tag with Andy? Surely this isn’t the same man who lifted his arms like branches, pretending to be an impenetrable tree that Andy couldn’t find me behind. Surely he’s not the man who let Andy pretend to chop at him, my twin’s hands gripped aroundthe handle of an invisible ax, Fritz slanting, then stooping, then staggering to the ground, at which point Andy erupted into cheers.
“Andy,” the man on the floor now murmurs. He slams his fist against the wood, a spurt of anger that makes me jump.
“Andy,” he repeats.
Each time he says his name, the shed seems to shrink around me.
I need to get out of here, get away. I need to call the police.
But as soon as I take one step, Fritz jerks out an arm and seizes my ankle. I cry out, try to shake him off, but his hand tightens like a tourniquet.
“Wait,” he says. “We don’t have to seal it up. Help me get rid of it all instead.”
His eyes flick to the trapdoor, half covered by the carpet. Anguish has slipped from his face, replaced instead by desperation. And finally, I can picture it: Fritz wearing that same expression when he discovered Andy knew what was beneath the shed. Some cool, stunned part of me can even understand it—almost: the fear of getting caught, the instinct toward self-preservation.
I look down at my foot, his hand circling it like a cuff, and somehow, I find the strength to crouch down beside him, to bring my lips right next to his ear.
“You’re disgusting,” I murmur.
He sucks in a breath. His grip loosens. Wrenching my ankle free, I take off running.
Right away, tears blur my vision, springing up with every step. I’m not sure if it’s sorrow or fear that keeps them coming—part of me is still too numb to know—but it doesn’t matter. My body is ahead of my mind, erupting with sobs as if trying to shed the shock of what I’ve witnessed.
Ripping open the back door, I burst into the house. Then I race down the hall until I collide with Charlie, who’s rounding a corner.
“Jesus, Dolls,” he says.
“Don’t let Fritz in here!”
Charlie recoils, startled by my shout. “Why not?”
I shake my head, reaching into my pocket for my phone. My fingers tremble as I punch in the passcode, failing two times before I get it right.
“What are you doing?” Charlie asks.
I dial 911.
“What’s in your hand?”
Phone to my ear, I open my other fist, surprised to find the key still inside it. Charlie reaches for it, right as the dispatcher picks up, and I snap my fingers closed.
