Dead to the World

Alcee Beck confined this practice to the African-American community, operating on the theory that they’d never report him to the other white law enforcement personnel, and so far he’d been right.
    See what I mean about not wanting to know things I heard? This was a lot different from finding out that Arlene really didn’t think Charlsie’s husband was good enough for Charlsie, or that Hoyt Fortenberry had dented a car in the parking lot and hadn’t told the owner.
    And before you ask me what I do about stuff like that, I’ll tell you. I don’t do squat. I’ve found out the hard way that it almost never works out if I try to intervene. What happens is no one is happier, and my little freakishness is brought to everyone’s attention, and no one is comfortable around me for a month. I’ve got more secrets than Fort Knox has money. And those secrets are staying locked up just as tight.
    I’ll admit that most of those little facts I accumulated didn’t make much difference in the grand scheme of things, whereas Alcee’s misbehavior actually led to human misery. But so far I hadn’t seen a single way to stop Alcee. He was very clever about keeping his activities under control and hidden from anyone with the power to intervene. And I wasn’t too awful sure that Bud Dearborn didn’t know.
    “Detective Beck,” I said. “Are you looking for Jason?”
    “The sheriff asked me to come by and see if I could find anything out of order.”
    “And have you found anything?”
    “No, ma’am, I haven’t.”
    “Jason’s boss told you the door to his truck was open?”
    “I closed it so the battery wouldn’t run down. I was careful not to touch anything, of course. But I’m sure your brother will show back up any time now, and he’ll be unhappy if we mess with his stuff for no reason.”
    “I have a key to his house, and I’m going to ask you to go in there with me.”
    “Do you suspect anything happened to your brother in his house?” Alcee Beck was being so careful to spell everything out that I wondered if he had a tape recorder rolling away in his pocket.
    “Could be. He doesn’t normally miss work. In fact, he never misses work. And I always know where he is. He’s real good about letting me know.”
    “He’d tell you if he was running off with a woman? Most brothers wouldn’t do that, Miss Stackhouse.”
    “He’d tell me, or he’d tell Catfish.”
    Alcee Beck did his best to keep his skeptical look on his dark face, but it didn’t sit there easily.
    The house was still locked. I picked out the right key from the ones on my ring, and we went inside. I didn’t have the feeling of homecoming when I entered, the feeling I used to have as a kid. I’d lived in Gran’s house so much longer than this little place. The minute Jason had turned twenty, he’d moved over here full-time, and though I’d dropped in, I’d probably spent less than twenty-four hours total in this house in the last eight years.
    Glancing around me, I realized that my brother really hadn’t changed the house much in all that time. It was a small ranch-style house with small rooms, but of course it was a lot younger than Gran’s house—my house—and a lot more heating- and cooling-efficient. My father had done most of the work on it, and he was a good builder.
    The small living room was still filled with the maple furniture my mother had picked out at the discount furniture store, and its upholstery (cream with green and blue flowers that had never been seen in nature) was still bright, more’s the pity. It had taken me a few years to realize that my mother, while a clever woman in some respects, had had no taste whatsoever. Jason had never come to that realization. He’d replaced the curtains when they frayed and faded, and he’d gotten a new rug to cover the most worn spots on the ancient blue carpet. The appliances were all new, and he’d worked hard on updating the bathroom. But my parents, if they could have entered their home, would have felt quite comfortable.
    It was a shock to realize they’d been dead for nearly twenty years.
    While I stood close to the doorway, praying I wouldn’t see bloodstains, Alcee Beck prowled through the house, which certainly seemed orderly. After a second’s indecision, I decided to follow him. There wasn’t much to see; like I say, it’s a small house. Three bedrooms (two of them quite cramped), the living room, a kitchen, one bathroom, a fair-sized family room, and a