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A gun rests on the linoleum. It’s silver and black with the Smith & Wesson stamp on the side. I stare at it, and stare, like I’m seeing it wrong. Like it’s going to turn out to be a toy. After a moment I hold up the wide-collared coat. Black. Big. Like the one on the video.
Which makes that gun the one that killed my brother.
I put both the coat and the gun back, carefully, thrusting the evidence as far into the closet as it will go.
I wonder when she decided to shoot Philip. It must have been after she came back from Atlantic City. I can’t believe that she knew about his deal with the Feds before then. Maybe she went to Philip’s house and saw some of the papers—but, no, he wouldn’t be that stupid. Maybe she spotted Agent Jones or Hunt talking to Philip. It would take only a single look at either one of them to know they were law enforcement.
But even that doesn’t seem like enough. I don’t know why she did it.
I only know that this is my mother’s house, and my mother’s closet, making that my mother’s coat.
Making that my mother’s gun.
12
AT SCHOOL MONDAY morning I catch up with Lila on my way to French class. I touch her shoulder, and she spins around, her smile tinged with longing. I hate having so much power over her, but there is a sinister creeping pleasure in knowing I am so much in her thoughts. A pleasure I have to guard against.
“Did you go to Philip’s house?” I ask.
She opens her mouth uncertainly.
“I found one of your cigarettes,” I say before she can lie.
“Where?” she asks. Her arms wrap around her chest protectively. She grips her shoulder tightly with one gloved hand.
“Where do you think? In his ashtray.” I see her expression darken, and I abruptly change my mind about what’s going to make her talk. She looks utterly closed to me, a house locked against burglars, even ones she likes. “Tell me it wasn’t yours and I’ll believe you.”
I don’t mean that for a second, though. I know the cigarette was hers. I just also know the best way to get into a locked house is to be let in the front door.
“I have to go to class,” she says. “I’ll meet you outside at lunch.”
I lope on to French. We translate a passage from Balzac: La puissance ne consiste pas à frapper fort ou souvent, mais à frapper juste.
Power does not consist in striking hard or often, but in striking true.
* * *
She’s waiting for me by the side of the cafeteria. Her short blond hair looks white in the sunlight, like a halo around her face. She’s got on white stockings that stop at her thighs, so that when she swishes her rolled-up skirt, I can almost see skin.
“Hey,” I say, determined not to look.
“Hey yourself.” She smiles that crazy, hungry smile she has. She’s had time to pull her act together, and it shows. She’s decided what to tell and what to hide.
“So…,” I say, gloved hands in my pockets. “I didn’t know you still smoked.”
“So, let’s take a walk.” She pushes off the wall, and we start down the path toward the library. “I started again this summer. Smoking. I didn’t really mean to, but everyone around my father smokes. And besides, it was something to do with my hands.”
“Okay,” I say.
“It’s hard to quit. Even here at Wallingford, I take a paper towel tube, stuff it with fabric softener sheets, and exhale into that. Then I brush my teeth a million times.”
“Rots your lungs,” I say.
“I only do it when I’m really nervous,” she says.
“Like when you’re in a dead man’s apartment?”
She nods quickly, gloves rubbing against her skirt. “Like that. Philip had something that I wanted to make sure no one found.” Her gaze darts to my face. “One of the bodies.”
