Page 46 of The Family Plot
“If you think it was my father,” I say, “then why would the murders have stopped? He’s lived here all this time, but there hasn’t been another murder on the island since Jessie Stanton. Doesn’t it make more sense, then, that the killer would be someone who… who died, or maybe left the island, or…”
I trail off, hearing in my own words an argument for Fritz’s innocence, too.
But he knew what was under the shed. At the very least, he knew.
“Fritz called them trophies,” I reiterate limply. “So why else… How could…”
My questions wither as I shake my head.
Leaning forward on the couch, Elijah sets his notebook on the cushion beside him. I watch him fold his hands together, and I’m surprised by how thin his fingers are, how clean his nails. Without his pad and pen, he looks almost vulnerable. A detective without a weapon.
“I promise you,” he says, and for a moment, I hear kindness, patience, tucked back into his voice. “I interviewed John Fritz extensively. And his answers, coupled with our findings in the shed, did not warrant his arrest at this time. We’ve let him go for the time being,but as I told you when I first arrived, he remains a person of interest in the case.”
I let out a breath, my shoulders relaxing. “Okay,” I say.
Elijah flicks his attention to the left. There’s a space there, on the wall, prominent as a missing tooth. Two days ago, Elijah pointed to the portrait of Kitty Genovese that hung in its place. Charlie must have removed the painting, planning to include it in his museum, but now, Elijah watches the empty wall like the space itself is a kind of clue.
Tension squeezes back into my muscles as he slides his eyes, narrower than before, back onto mine.
“Person of interest,” I say, echoing the phrase he used for Fritz. “But not suspect. I’ve seen enough documentaries to know there’s a difference.”
“We’ll be thoroughly investigating every possibility,” Elijah says, and it’s like he’s reciting from those films, parroting the lines of detectives who, so often, never caught the killer at all.
He reaches for his notebook again.
“Now,” he adds, smacking the pad onto his lap, “let’s get back to your father.”
twelve
All throughout the mansion,the rooms look like a tornado swept through, leaving nothing untouched. Furniture is askew, drawers ajar. Clothes are strewn; books are splayed. It’s been twelve hours since the police left, ducking back into the darkness, empty-handed but for the warrant they came with. Still, the house retains the feeling of strangers inside it.
Charlie’s in the living room, working on his museum like yesterday never happened. He’s already fixed what Elijah’s search undid: the piles of DVDs, the towers of newspapers, the pyramids of Honoring candles. Bent toward the coffee table, Charlie slams his fingers against the keys of an old typewriter, focusing on it with the intensity of a surgeon.
Beside him is a glass of brown liquid, and as he retrieves a white card from the typewriter, he takes a sip. I should be relieved, I guess, that he’s not slugging straight from the bottle anymore.
“Would you like a monologue?” Charlie asks, and it’s only now I realize that I’ve been hovering in the doorway, drowsily observing him.
“What?”
“Usually people don’t watch me like that unless I’m performing.”Half a smile slithers up his cheek. “I could give you a little Stanley fromStreetcar, if you’d like.”
“I’m good,” I say, weaving through empty boxes toward the couch. “What are you doing?”
“Remaking the artifact cards.” He gestures toward a messy pile of his handwritten labels, right beside a tidy stack of typewritten ones.
“Why?” I touch one he’d written on, tracing that sideways lowercaseihe scrawled beneath them all.Murder Report: The Black Dahlia, this one says.
He slaps my hand away. “The first ones looked amateur.”
“Even with your trademark flair?” I ask, pointing to that mark beneath the words. There’s mockery in my voice, implied air quotes, but he takes the question seriously.
“It looked too busy. These are cleaner. More precise. But here, if you’re going to miss it so much…” He grabs a Sharpie, grabs my arm, and before I understand what he’s doing, he’s scrawled the sidewaysionto my hand. Then he smiles up at me, eyes bright with mischief.
I yank my hand away, rubbing at the ink that’s already seeping into my skin.
“Is this really appropriate? Carrying on with your museum after”—I pause—“yesterday?”
“It’s more appropriate than ever! You handed Fritz over on a silver platter, and what did the police do? They came forus. And they found nothing, of course, but that won’t keep people from talking. From paintingusas the murderers. Is that what you want?”
