Fall Guy

liquor cabinet, then how he got drunk in the woods, how he let the air out of old Mrs. Wilderson's tires, whatever mischief any of them made, they'd tell me Freddy Baker had done it. Until Joey died. That was the e nd of it, of joking, of just about everything.“
    „No more good times?“
    She shook her head. „Not a one.“ She wiped
    her eyes with her fingers and stood. „And it only got worse.“
    „Liam?“
    She nodded.
    „And then your father?“
    „Yes.“
    „Was that right after Liam's death?“
    „No. It was about two months afterward.“
    „And what happened during those two months, Maggie? Did he seem depressed? What was it like at home?“
    „I was just a kid,“ she said.
    „And like any other kid, a sharp observer of your parents.“
    She hung her head, not speaking.
    „Was he sullen, angry? Was it more difficult to talk to him?“
    Maggie looked up and laughed. But it wasn't a funny laugh. Not at all.
    „Talk to him? Did you have a father you could talk to, Rachel? I never did. Everything was the same. It was the same, do you understand? It was as if Joey had never lived, as if Liam had never lived. It wasn't the same for us, for the kids. But when my father came home from work, he still expected to hear good news about school and about friends and about everything. You couldn't say...“
    She stopped and covered her face with both hands.
    „That you were grieving?“
    Maggie nodded. Then she put her hands back into her lap. „You couldn't say you missed your brother or your cousin. You couldn't say that you were scared. Not that you thought...“
    „What did you think?“
    „That I'd be next. That I deserved to be next. Even when I'd wake up screaming, and my mother would come to my room, even then. I'd say, 'Bad dream.' She'd say, 'Don't be silly. There's nothing to be afraid of. You're safe at home.' I remember how the light made her face shine, all that cream she'd slather on every night and the rollers in her hair, everything about appearances, nothing about...“
    „Feelings?“
    „She never asked what the dream had been about. She never wanted to know. That's how they were, both of them.“
    Dashiell turned around and put his head on Maggie's lap. For a while, she held her hands up, then gently lay one on his neck, the other on his broad, warm back.
    „She never sat on the bed, but sometimes she'd sit on the rocking chair. She'd shut off the light and I'd see her face again just for a second when she lit her cigarette. I'd see the shine of that night cream, the kerchief on her head to cover the rollers. Then I'd smell her cigarette and long after she had left, thinking I was asleep, or not thinking about me at all, I'd smell the ashes in the ashtray, a kind of cold comfort telling me my mother had been there, not exactly there, but there in a way.“
    „Did your parents show any emotion about the death of your brother or your cousin?“
    „My mother cried at the funerals.“
    „But not at home?“
    „Not that I saw.“
    „And your father?“
    „If anything, he became harder than he'd been before, more closed, more demanding.“
    „Do you remember right before he died?“
    She nodded. „Locked up in his den all day long.“
    „He'd been home that day?“
    She nodded, then stood. „I'd like to take a bath before we finish up at Tim's, if that's okay, Rachel.“
    „Of course it is.“
    I went to put up coffee while Maggie took a bath, thinking about Freddy Baker all the while. Freddy Baker, the fictitious bad guy. I wondered if Maggie's father had tried to find him, a boy without a last name, a boy who didn't exist.
    I could hear the water running again, Maggie rinsing her hair. I opened the door and walked outside, sitting on the steps where, last night, I had kissed Detective Brody. Last night. It seemed so long ago.
    The phone rang. It was Brody.
    „Don't you ever go home?“ I asked him.
    „Once in a while. Is Maggie awake?“
    „She's taking a bath.“
    „I want to pick her up and drive her uptown, for the identification. Have you mentioned it to her?“
    „Not yet. But I will. Can you give us forty-five minutes?“
    „Sure. That's fine.“
    „And, Michael?“
    „Yes?“
    „When you bring her back, would you bring her to Tim's apartment? That's where I'll be, getting the things she wants packed up so that she can go home.“
    He didn't say anything else. Neither did I. I held the phone a moment too long, waiting for him to hang up, then I hung up