Eleven
Robin
IN THE DAYSfollowing her father’s death, Robin moved through life as though she were navigating her way through a dark cave, the air around her dank and hard to breathe, the potential for danger beneath every footfall, every brush of the hand, no light to guide her.
She wasn’t sure exactly how much time had passed since the shootings. In this endless cave, one hour was the same as the next and the next. She took pills to sleep but it didn’t feel like sleeping. Waking up was just an opening of eyes.
There were things to do, though, in Robin’s waking hours and so she did them. She signed autopsy reports and answered the cops’ initial questions and put off the follow-ups. She spoke to poker-faced doctors about her mother’s chances at survival. She met with funeral directors and chose a coffin for her father and signed many, many checks and put flowers into vases. She answered emails she barely read. Typed “thank you for your kind words” over and over and over.
Eric was around. He stayed home from work and talked to people on the phone, telling them, “She’s sleeping now. Can I have her call you back?” And, “I know she will appreciate that. Thank you.” He cooked Robin meals that she couldn’t bring herself to eat and sat by her side in intensive care as she held her mother’s cool, dry,mannequin hand. He put his arm around Robin’s shoulders and stroked her hair, and he asked her questions like, “What can I do?” and “How can I help?”
It made Robin feel guilty, all the attention her husband was paying her. She’d been longing for just a fraction of it over the past several months, wishing for it, really. And a part of her worried that she’d wished too hard, that she’d brought this on herself, on her family.
Had she?
She probably shouldn’t have been entertaining thoughts like these, sitting now in the bright of her kitchen, talking to the two detectives in charge of her parents’ case. Their names were Nick Morasco and Ehrlich Baus (“Pronounced Boss,” he had told her, as though she gave a damn) and while she really didn’t have anything against either one of these men—well, Morasco anyway; Baus was pretty annoying—her main goal was to get them out of her house as quickly as possible. Her father’s funeral was this afternoon.
Robin would have preferred not to be talking to them at all, not the way she was right now, with her head all jumbled from grief and worry and the remnants of last night’s sleeping pills and the Xanax she’d taken this morning. But at this point, she had no other choice. She’d been putting them off for so long, and, as Baus (“Boss”) had explained it to her, if they had to wait any longer to question her in full, it could hinder the investigation.You do want to find out who did this, don’t you?he had asked, and Robin could have sworn she detected a hint of suspicion in that smirk of his, those beady green eyes, like shards of glass. When she’d asked if Eric could stay in the room while she was questioned, he’d shaken his head as Morasco had said yes. Yeah,pretty annoyingwas putting it mildly.
Baus was smiling at her now. Smiling.Gulping the glass of lemonade that Eric had brought him and smiling pleasantly, like it wasa church social in here and the square dancing was about to start. “Your husband makes an awesome glass of lemonade,” he said. Robin had no idea how to respond to that. She glanced at Eric.
“It’s... uh... a mix,” he said.
She turned to Morasco. “Did you look into the Femme Seven column?”
“Yes, ma’am.” Morasco, far as she could tell, was his partner’s opposite. Where Baus was short, meaty, and florid, Morasco was tall and sinewy, with a pale cast to his olive skin. Where Morasco was polite and laconic, Baus seemed to be in love with the sound of his own voice. Morasco wore a wedding ring and spoke frequently of his private investigator wife, while Baus seemed like a guy who hadn’t gotten laid in at least half a decade and hated all women as a result. Morasco seemed intelligent. Baus... did not. Maybe it was all just an act. A good cop/bad cop kind of thing. Robin hoped so, for Morasco’s sake.
Morasco said, “We’ve looked into the accounts you received the tweets, texts, and emails from. No red flags yet.”
“Really?”
He nodded. “You’d actually be surprised at how many of them are bots from foreign countries and twelve-year-old boys.”
“Oh.”
“It’s funny, you know, the things that get us worked up into a lather and keep us up at night. It’s words on a screen. And when you pull away the curtain, and you look at who or what is actually typing those words... Go onto one of those private threads with all those frustrated teenagers on it. Tell ’em you’re a cop. It’s like turning on a light and watching the cockroaches scatter.”
“She shouldn’t impersonate a police officer,” Baus said.
“I wasn’t literally telling her to do that.”
“The lady might not have known you were kidding.”
“Oh my God,” Robin whispered. She wondered if Baus was somekind of punishment from the police chief. Maybe Morasco had shown up late for work one too many times.
“Anyway,” Morasco said. “We’ll let you know if any of these trolls turns out to be a potential suspect.”
Baus said, “Tell us about your parents’ marriage.”
Robin blinked. “Excuse me?”
Morasco gave him a sharp look and took out a notepad. “Your dad was a forensic psychiatrist, right?”
“Yes.”
“About how long ago did he go into private practice?”
“Ten years, I think. Maybe more.”
