“Does it matter how he was killed? I thought the point was to find out who did it,” Tory Hobbes said.
“And does it even matter if we find that out? It's not like it's going to bring him back,” her brother added.
“Yes, it matters. Since one of you three killed him, I would think the other two would want to make sure we lock the killer up, if only to make sure you aren't next.”
Normally, Detective Knox would not have been so blunt, but he considered the circumstances special. Watching the three tear into one another with distrustful looks and snide comments was by no means necessary, but he thought if they were not interested in the solving of the murder, he should at least be able to entertain himself along the way.
“What do you mean, one of us killed George?” Faith asked.
“It's a fairly plain-spoken sentence. One of you is the murderer. I figured you assumed that right from the start. It was like each of you said, you couldn't imagine why anyone else would want to kill him. Therefore, it had to be one of you.”
“But that doesn't make any sense,” Tory said.
“Of course it does. You can protest all you want now about how much you miss him, and how heartbroken you are, but I saw you in the first moments after it happened. None of you showed the slightest bit of grief for your loss. That told me right there all I needed to know about whether any of you were capable of murder.”
“You really think all of us are potential murderers?” Emerson asked.
“I do, but only one of you could have actually done it.”
“Excuse me, but if I recall, you already interviewed us, and we all have alibis,” Faith said.
“Yes you do, but unfortunately for you, they aren't alibis for the murder anymore.”
“Wait. What?” Tory asked.
“I was hoping someone would ask that. As it turns out, our investigation has led us to a new realization. George Hobbes was not killed in this house.”
“Of course he was. You stood over his body,” Emerson said.
“I did, that is true. But he was killed somewhere else.”
“And just how do you suppose someone moved his body into the house, into that room, and locked it from the inside?” Faith asked.
“They didn't.”
“I'm confused,” Tory said.
“That's why I gathered you all here, to explain what happened.”
“I already know what happened. My no good drunk of a son killed my poor, beloved husband, because he's a greedy little sociopath,” Faith said.
“The hell I am. You probably killed him by stopping his heart, because you're so cold,” Emerson responded.
“Stop it, both of you. How can you think that any of us would have killed him? We're family,” Tory said.
“Exactly. No one hates quite like family. And since you said that, it was probably you,” Faith said.
Detective Knox took a step back, listening to the bickering with a hint of a smile on his face. A good show was hard to come by, and he was witnessing one here. The Hobbes family was boiling over, with Knox wondering how many years of therapy it would have taken to dredge up as much dysfunction as he had uncovered. He came to the conclusion that no amount of therapy could fix people who were fundamentally broken, because talking is not a solution. Talk can caress feelings, but it cannot rewire our brains, it cannot change who we are.
Transformations of the necessary kind, the ones that allow us to learn from our mistakes and never repeat them, require a hunger and desire for change. Speaking the words is not enough, it must be a belief that reaches the deepest recesses of our core, where it can be burned as a fuel to seep into every cell of our bodies. Detective Knox listened to the accusations flying back and forth, and what he heard were not genuine expressions of outrage and denial, but merely the facade being stripped off their communication. For the first time, they were saying what they truly thought of one another.
Detective Lane put his hand on Knox's shoulder, pulling him out into the hallway.
“This is getting ugly.”
“No, kid, this is getting real.”
“How long do we let them go on?”
“Just long enough to see if any of them realize just how screwed up they are, and how much they hate each other.”
“What's the point of letting them do that?”
“There isn't a point, really. I just think it might do them a little bit of good to get some of this out of their system before this is over, and they have no reason to speak to one another again.”
“That almost sounds like you care about them.”
“Don't speak of such heresy. My motives are still as selfish as ever.”
“Sure they are.”
“I swear. I'm getting a show right now, and then they hopefully won't kill each other when this is done, so I won't have to deal with them ever again.”
“That's what you tell yourself, but I know better. You want to help them, because that's what you do. You don't normally have the first clue how to do it, other than solving murders, but these are your kind of people. They're screwed up, just like you.”
“I can screw you up, you know.”
“Yeah, but you wouldn't do that to me. Not now. You'd never survive having to break in a new partner.”
“You're right. I'm too old for that.”
“So do you think they've had enough yet?”
“Yeah. It's time for the grand reveal.”
Chapter 29
The Veneer Of Civility
Words flew by one another, overlapping as the bickering and insults flowed freely. Detective Knox had opened the floodgates to a torrent that had been building up, dammed behind the veneer of civility that had been erected to convince the outside world that they were not fundamentally rotten people. The intent was to make them realize they were more alike than they cared to admit, but the plan was a failure, only serving to provide ample evidence than any or all of them were more than capable of murder, and that the wrong member of the family lay in the morgue.
Detective Knox did not often have feelings of empathy, but as he watched the Hobbes family tear themselves apart with their words, he could not help but feel sorry for the deceased. Whatever faults George Hobbes may have had in his life, they were now justified after spending a lifetime in the intolerable position of living with the three of them. No one could endure so much open hostility from their own family, nor spend that much time surrounded by people who were barely human, and not come out scarred by the ordeal.
The conversation had now degenerated to the point of digging up every slight that had amassed over the years, tallying them up to see who was statistically the worst offender. Detective Knox was bothered by the idea that these people had spent their entire lives cataloging every instance where they felt aggrieved, and clung to those petty memories as though they were precious. Enough bad things happened on a daily basis, he knew, that there was no need to preserve residual sins. Doing so was not quite evil, but leaned towards the psychopathic. The only people who would do such a thing, he thought, were those who wanted to feel abused, because the only satisfaction they could achieve was retribution, bringing people down because they were incapable of feeling happy for themselves.
Not being a happy person himself, in general, Detective Knox knew the impulse. He had faced long stretches of black skies, but at no point did he believe raining on a parade would make him feel better about himself. Adding more misery to the world would not lessen his own, it would only suffocate what little hope existed, making it all the more likely he would go the rest of his life without finding any. He was convinced these people didn't know the first thing about life.