Love Can Be Murder

housing brought in kids from broken homes with too much time on their hands. Graffiti spread from one end of River Hills to the other. And she had her own theories about the glowing power plant's effects on the residents' health—physical and otherwise.
    Her mother's discontent with the area had been the beginning of the end of her parents' marriage. Her father detested change, and refused to leave his circle of friends and his favorite fishing hole. The first day Roxann had come home from second grade and her mother wasn't waiting by the front door remained vivid in her memory. She'd sat in the front-porch swing, terrified, until her mother arrived, flushed and apologetic, making Roxann promise not to tell her father.
    The disappearances became more frequent, then her mother gave her a key to let herself in the house after school. A blue car would drop her mother off in time to get supper started before her father came home from work. It was only a matter of time, though, before Walt discovered his wife was keeping company with another man. One day he'd torn the seat out of his work coveralls, and had come home for a change of clothes to find Roxann alone. He was there when the man dropped off her mother. He'd thrown a loose brick from the front steps through the back windshield as the blue car raced away, and he'd made her mother leave.
    The next few months were a painful blur, with the exception of the phone conversations she'd overheard. The ugly, ugly things her father had called her mother still stung. After the custody hearing, she rarely saw her mother. Her father hired a woman in the neighborhood to cook and clean, but Mrs. Holt was a dour person who didn't like to be bothered while she watched television.
    Emotion crowded her chest as she slowed to turn onto the road where her father still lived. Braeburn Way seemed too pretty a name for an overgrown, shabby street. When she pulled into her father's driveway, sadness plucked at her. The pale green bungalow looked tired and tucked into itself, the eaves sagging, the clapboard siding in desperate need of a fresh coat of paint. The yard was a tangle of ivy and weeds, strewn with limbs from a wild apple tree that hadn't borne fruit in years.
    The gravel driveway and covered carport were empty, so she assumed her father was out fishing or drinking. Or both. She pulled under the carport so they could enter the house without getting wetter. Lurching over the uneven ground roused Angora, and when Roxann turned off the engine, her cousin opened her eyes.
    "We're here," Roxann announced.
    Angora groaned and moved slowly, lifting her head to squint out the window. "Where?"
    "My dad's, remember?"
    Her cousin winced. "Oh, yeah." Her crown sat at a precarious angle.
    "Come on, Queenie, let's get you into some dry clothes."
    She swung down, then walked around to collect Angora, who practically fell out of the van after she unhooked her seat belt.
    Angora cried out when she saw the part of the train that had been flapping against the van for the past twenty-some miles. "It's ruined."
    "Were you planning to wear it again?" Roxann asked wryly.
    "No, but..." Angora burst into tears again, and fell against Roxann, who hustled her to the side door.
    The key on Roxann's ring still worked, as she'd expected. She led Angora into the musty kitchen, flipping on lights before depositing her into the only chair at the table that wasn't stacked high with newspapers—her father was a voracious reader. A fishy smell permeated the air, and dust motes floated lazily, disturbed by the opening of the door. The old brown linoleum popped and cracked under her feet.
    A crucifix adorned the wall next to the kitchen table, testament to the fixation on morality Walt Beadleman had developed after the divorce. At every chance, but especially when he drank, her father sermonized the virtues of chastity and honesty. Look at what her mother's deceit had done to their family, he would rail, and how it had led to her untimely demise.
    I'VE GOT YOUR NUMBER, YOU FAKE.
    Shaking off the heebie-jeebies, Roxann glanced around the cramped space, her heart squeezing at the clutter and neglect. Old feelings of shame resurfaced. She'd hated other kids knowing that she lived in River Hills, and her father was so slovenly, she'd been too embarrassed to have friends over. Angora had never been there—God only knew what she must be thinking.
    "I'll get my bag so we can change clothes." Roxann trotted outside, and