Where the dead lay

FIVE

Susan Durant was in the bathroom peeing on the little plastic tab when she heard a car pull up and Frank’s heavy step sounded on the stairs. It was only supposed to take a minute for the results, but she didn’t have time. Besides, she had her suspicions about the answer and didn’t know how to handle her reaction. She finished up, flushed the toilet, dumped the contents of the small trash can, which contained the box and directions, into the CVS bag, and dropped the plastic tab in on top of it. She was in the living room smoothing her skirt over her hips when he entered. She turned from the mirror and smiled as the door closed behind him.

“Hey,” she said.

Frank didn’t answer.

“Is this skirt riding up? I put on three pounds the past month. You’re gonna have me fat and happy, Behr,” she said, hoping she sounded breezy.

He didn’t respond, and instead entered the kitchen. She heard his hand clattering among glass bottles as he fished around the makeshift bar on the counter. She reached the doorway in time to see him find a small bottle covered by a white paper wrapper. He emptied brown liquid into a glass, tried to add club soda from a bottle that was empty, then splashed tonic in the glass and drank. Susan stepped farther into the kitchen, still holding the plastic bag.

“You’re drinking, what’s wrong?” she asked.

Behr grimaced, finished, held up the bottle for her to see. Angostura. “Just bitters.” He launched the bottle into the sink, where it broke.

“Why are you back so early?”

“Aurelio’s dead,” he said. She absorbed the news, a dozen questions raised and checked in her mind.

“How?” she finally asked.

“Murdered. Shot. At the school,” Behr said, watching her try to understand. Then he looked at her more closely. “What’s up with you?”

“Nothing.”

“No?”

“No. God, Frank, that’s horrible. I’m so sorry. How could this happen?”

Behr shook his head.

“Are you okay?”

He just stared at her. She went to him, put her arms around him. He didn’t return the gesture. He was a log. She stepped back and looked at him. His face was taut, heavy dark brows knit. His black eyes were distant, but focused, as if fixed on something departing far away on the horizon. He wasn’t even there in the kitchen with her, not really. She hadn’t seen him like this since the beginning between them, when he’d been fifty feet deep on a case.

“Was it a robbery?” she asked.

“No.”

“Was it a random thing? Could it have been an accident?”

Behr shook his head again.

“I mean… could he have been… what was he into?” she wondered aloud.

Behr stopped shaking his head and looked at her. “What the hell’s that supposed to mean?”

“Nothing. Just that if it’s not a fluke thing, then-”

“Then what? He was into some shit and had it coming?”

“Frank, no, that’s not what I… Not how it was supposed to sound-”

“Just lay off the theories then, all right? They’re not gonna help here.”

She looked at him. The tension was immediate, thick, and unfamiliar between them. They’d been getting along well this past year and change. Too well, maybe, like a couple of frigging songbirds. But now, with all the thorny Scotch, German, Irish, mid-western, and Pacific Northwestern blood in the room, an apology was a long way off. She stepped back. “I’m here for you if you want, but it’s pretty clear you don’t,” she finally said. “I’m going to work.”

“Fine,” he said, and nothing more.

After another moment she picked up her purse, kept the plastic CVS bag she was carrying, and headed for the door.

“See you,” she said.

“Yeah-” he answered, as the closing door clipped off the word.