“Who will play you in the movie?”
“Richard Gere, of course,” he answered without hesitation. “He’s secretly gay, you know.”
“You think every good-looking man on the planet is secretly gay.”
“No, I don’t. The hot detective from this morning? Definitely not gay.”
“You didn’t see him. How do you know he’s hot?”
He grinned like the Cheshire Cat. “You just told me.”
Heat rushed to Anne’s face. She blamed the wine.
“You should definitely take a run at him.”
“He’s a little busy right now,” Anne said. “So am I. I need to find a way to get through to Dennis. Frank Farman tells me Dennis is fine. He found a horribly murdered woman, but why should that bother him? I guess if it wasn’t the first dead person he’s seen buried in the woods, it’s old hat to him.”
“He probably made it up, honey,” Franny said. “Dennis Farman is a nasty, creepy little shit. He’s been looking up his teacher’s skirts since he was in the third grade. He’s probably got a collection of S and M porn magazines under his bed by now. It’s not a stretch to imagine him making up stories about bodies buried in the woods just to scare other kids.”
Anne sighed, reaching out a hand to touch the nose of Chester the basset hound, who had lumbered up the steps to check on them. “I guess not. He did try to bring a dead cat for show-and-tell one day.”
“No effing way!”
“Oh, yeah. The first week of class. He found it on the road on the way to school, flattened.”
Anne shuddered at the memory of the incident, and at the memory of the look in Dennis Farman’s eyes. She had dismissed it that day, preoccupied with the need to properly dispose of the carcass, but she could see it now in her mind’s eye: a weird kind of excitement that went beyond a child’s natural curiosity.
“He probably bit it and gave it rabies,” Franny said. “Why didn’t you tell me about it?”
“You were out sick,” Anne said. “The root canal.”
“Oh my God!” he exclaimed, dramatically throwing his head back and clamping his hand over his heart. “I thought I would die! That was horrible. I thought I would have to go directly from Dr. Crane’s office to the morgue.”
“Peter Crane?” Anne asked. “Tommy’s father?”
“Yes. Dr. Dream Dentist. He’s hot.”
“But not gay.”
“No. And his wife scares me. Have you seen those shoulder pads? Yikes! Honey, Joan Crawford had nothing on that one.”
“So I’m learning,” Anne said.
She checked her watch and sighed. She had gone to the sheriff’s office to speak personally to Mendez, but had been told he was gone for the day. She had called the number on his card and left a message for him to call her back as soon as possible. She had yet to hear from him.
Now that it was getting late and she was worn out from the day’s events, she began to think maybe she had overreacted, that Mendez would listen to her message and roll his eyes and think she was being hysterical. He and Frank Farman could have a laugh at her expense.
“You know,” she said. “I’ve always felt like I can read my kids pretty easily. I’m a quick study. I meet their parents at conference time and think I have a handle on their home life. Boy, was I naïve… or arrogant… or something.”
Franny put his arm around her and hugged her tight against him. “Put it away for tonight. Tomorrow is another day, Scarlett.”
“That’s what I’m afraid of. What happens tomorrow? The four horsemen of the apocalypse ride into town? I’ve lived here my whole life. People don’t get murdered in Oak Knoll. Women don’t get kidnapped. Fifth graders don’t find dead bodies in the park,” she said. “I’m upset. I’m scared. How are my kids supposed to deal with it? How am I supposed to convincingly help them deal with it?”
“You do the best you can,” Franny said. “It’s easier for me. Five-year-olds are focused on themselves, their immediate little worlds. And their immediate little worlds are safe and mostly happy. They don’t really understand death. They don’t know what evil is.
“Your kids have started to figure out there’s a world out there that isn’t always a nice place. I don’t think it’s a bad thing that you let them know it scares you too,” he said.
“Fear: the human condition,” Anne said. “Hey, kids, this is what you have to look forward to as you grow up: a world gone mad.”
Franny tossed back the last of his wine and set the glass aside. “Enough of your dark thoughts, Negative Nancy. I’m going to pour more wine, and then we’re going to talk about my favorite topic: me! I’m going to throw a fabulous party for my fortieth birthday next year. It’s going to have a carnival theme. I’m calling it Franival!”
Tired as she was, Anne managed to laugh. “I love you, Francis.”
He smiled like a saint. “Everyone does.”
21
Game one of the 1985 National League Championship Series. The St. Louis Cardinals versus the incredibly awesome best team in basebalclass="underline" the Los Angeles Dodgers.
The day before, Tommy had thought about how much fun it would be: just him and his dad on the couch in the family room, watching the game, eating hot dogs and popcorn, drinking sodas (strictly forbidden by his mother). Wednesday nights his mother had a meeting of one of her many organizations and didn’t get home until late.
Now the game was playing, and Tommy wanted to lose himself in it and get excited and cheer for his team, but he couldn’t make himself feel the way he wanted to. He sat on the couch, his too-big Dodgers T-shirt swallowing him up, his scorecard abandoned on the coffee table with his Dodgers souvenir pencil. Fernando Valenzuela was pitching. The Dodgers were up by one in the top of the sixth.
His father sat at the end of the couch, reading newspapers during the commercials. Los Angeles Times, Santa Barbara News-Press, The Oak Knoll Independent. Every so often he would look over.
“What are you thinking, Sport?”
Tommy shrugged.
“Are you hungry? I can make the popcorn now.”
Tommy shook his head. He glanced over at the paper his dad had put down on the coffee table. There was a photograph of yellow crime-scene tape tied to two trees and uniformed deputies bent over looking at the ground. The headline read: MURDER IN THE PARK. Below it, in smaller bold type: CHILDREN MAKE GRUESOME DISCOVERY.
“I’m just making sure none of these has the names of you kids in the story,” his father said.
Tommy said nothing. He didn’t want his name in the paper. Unlike Wendy, he wanted this all to go away as quickly as possible.
“Dad? What’s a cereal killer?” he asked. “How can you kill someone with cereal?”
“Not cereal, like breakfast cereal,” his father said. “Serial with an s, as in a series of events. A serial killer kills a number of people over a period of time.”
“Why would anyone do that? Are they mad at the people they kill? Or are they just crazy?”
His father seemed to think about his answer before he gave it. “I don’t think people really understand why someone turns out to be a serial killer. I think it’s really complicated. But it’s not something you need to worry about, Tommy.”
“How do you know? What if the killer saw us, and now he wants to kill us too?”
“That isn’t going to happen,” his father promised. “I’m not going to let that happen. Miss Navarre isn’t going to let that happen. Detective Mendez isn’t going to let that happen. You don’t need to worry, son. You’re safe. We’re all going to keep you safe. Okay?”
Tommy didn’t answer because he didn’t want to tell a lie. Instead, he sat closer to his dad and pretended to feel safe while the Dodgers came up to bat.
Later in the evening, a few blocks away, Wendy sat under her covers with a flashlight illuminating her makeshift tent as she scribbled away in a spiral notebook.