"Because of Tabitha's death?" Since we were being blunt.
"Yeah, and because no one here is happy."
"Now that she's been found and she can be buried, don't you think things will get better?"
He shook his head doubtfully. He was eating all the while we were having this incredibly doleful conversation. At least he shut his mouth when he chewed. Suddenly I realized I was closer in age to this boy than anyone else in the house, and I knew that was why he'd sought me out.
"Maybe," he said grudgingly. "But then we gotta get ready for the baby to come, and it'll cry all night. Tabitha did," he added, almost inaudibly.
"You really were fond of her," I said.
"Yeah, she was okay. She bugged me. But she was okay."
"The police gave you a hard time when she was taken."
"Oh, yeah. It was intense. They questioned me, Dad had to get me a lawyer." He was a little proud of that. "They couldn't get that I wouldn't have anywhere to put her. Why would I take her? Where would I take her? We fought, but even real brothers and sisters fight. You fight with your brother, right?"
"We grew up in the same house," I said, "but he's not really my brother. My mom married his dad." I was surprised at my own words. Sentences just kept coming out of my mouth.
"That would be freaking weird, living in the house with someone your own age you weren't even related to. Especially if you're not the same, you know, sex."
"It took some getting used to," I admitted. It hadn't taken long before Cameron and I and Mike and Tolliver had bonded against the common enemy. I took a deep breath. "Our parents used drugs," I said. "They used a lot of cocaine. Weed. Vicodin. Hydros. Whatever they could buy. They used alcohol to fill in the cracks. Did your parents ever have a problem like that?"
His mouth literally dropped open. Not as sophisticated as he'd thought himself, Victor. "Geez," he said. "That's awful. Kids use drugs, not parents."
If that wasn't the most naive thing I'd ever heard, it was pretty damn close. But it was kind of nice, too, that he still had illusions like that. I waited for a direct answer.
"No," he said, having gathered himself. "My folks would never. Never. Use drugs. I mean, they hardly even drink."
"That's good," I said. "I wish all parents were like that."
"Yeah, Dad and Mom are okay," he said, trying to sound tough and careless. But he'd been shaken. "I mean, you can't tell them stuff. They don't know anything. But they're there when you need them."
He even called Diane "Mom," and that reminded me how young Victor had been when Diane had married Joel.
"You've been around a lot," Victor said, running a hand through his auburn hair. "You've had a real life."
"I've had more than my share of real life," I said.
"But you would know…" His voice trailed off, just when the dialogue was turning in an interesting direction.
I didn't try to prod Victor to pick up the conversational thread. I'd covered all the bases I could with this kid, without getting into the realm of questions too strange to ask him. I hadn't initiated this conversation, but I'd learned a lot from it. I knew, as I watched Victor check out the dishes left on the kitchen counter that he hadn't yet sampled, that this boy had a secret. It might be a big secret, it might be a small one, but I needed to know it, too. I thought maybe he would come to me with it; though teenagers could spin on an emotional dime.
The kitchen had one of those little televisions mounted below the cabinet, presumably so the cook could watch Ellen or Oprah while she did her job. Though Diane had boasted that televisions were off and phones were off the hook, someone had turned this one on, maybe to catch the weather or some sports scores.
Though the sound was turned down in deference to the occasion, something caught Victor's attention, and he stood squarely in front of it, plate still in hand. The expression on his face grew startled, puzzled, alarmed, all at once.
It wasn't hard to figure out what he was seeing.
Well, we'd known the news would reach the Morgensterns sooner or later, and the moment was now.
"Dad!" said Victor, in a voice that brought his father to his side at a good pace. "Dad! They found that college guy dead, in Tabitha's grave!"
I sighed, and looked down at my plate. I hadn't thought of it quite that way. After all, it had been Josiah Pound-stone's for much longer. It was a much-used grave.
Quite a hubbub ensued, with the big television in the family room getting switched on, and everyone gathering in front, plates still in hand or discarded where the eater had been perching. I consulted Tolliver silently. He looked at the food regretfully, so I guess he hadn't filled up while he could. He nodded. We needed to be gone.
So as not to be hopelessly rude, we quietly thanked Diane, who hardly knew we were speaking to her. That done, we let ourselves out of the house. I wondered if they even realized we'd slipped out.
"If we go back to the hotel, someone'll want to come talk to us," Tolliver predicted gloomily.
"Let's go to the river."
I don't know why moving water is soothing, but it is, even on a cold day in November in Tennessee. We went to a riverfront park, and even though I was wearing my high-heeled boots, we enjoyed strolling through the nearly empty area. The Mississippi flowed silently past the Memphis bluffs, as it would do long after the city crumbled, I supposed—if the world didn't get destroyed altogether. Tolliver put his arm around me because it was so chilly, and we didn't talk.
It was good to be silent. It was good to be away from the crowd at the Morgenstern house, and alone with Tolliver. I discounted the two middle-aged homeless guys that passed a bottle back and forth when they didn't think we were looking. They were as happy avoiding us as we were avoiding them.
"That was a strange interlude," Tolliver said, his voice careful and precise.
"Yes. Pretty house. I loved the kitchen," I said.
"I had a talk with Fred. He's got an outstanding lease on the Lexus." Tolliver is jonesing for a new car. Ours is only three years old, but it does have a lot of miles on it. "Saw you talking to Felicia," he continued.
"Felicia brought up the fact she'd seen you socially," I said, which was the nicest way I could put it. "She seemed to think you all had had a conversation about not seeing each other."
"Interesting, since she keeps calling me," he said, after a moment. "I can't figure her out. No house in the burbs for us."
Though his voice was light and ironical, I realized he'd been at least taken aback. A woman he'd been to bed with, a woman who'd actively pursued him, had shown no desire to speak to him when she was with her family. Yeah, that would make anyone feel pretty bad, whether or not the relationship was desirable. My ill feeling against Felicia Hart began to congeal into something quite solid. I changed the subject.
"Victor has a secret," I said.
"Maybe he's got jerk-off magazines under his bed. Babes with big boobs."
"I don't think that's his secret. At least, not the secret that interests me."
We walked a moment in silence.
"I think he knows something about one of his family members, something he's trying not to connect to the murders."
"Okay, confused."
"He's a pretty innocent kid, all things considered," I said. I was trying hard not to sound overly patient. "And he's had some big blows in his life."
"Working hard not to draw parallels, here."
"Me, too. But the point is, I think Victor can connect some member of that family to…"
"What, exactly? His half sister's death? Clyde Nunley?"
"Okay, I don't know. Not exactly. I'm just saying, he knows something, and that's not healthy for him."
"So what can we do about it? They won't let him hang around with us. They won't believe us. And if he's not talking… besides, what if the subject of the secret is one of his parents?"
Another silence, this one a little huffy.
"Speaking of Joel," Tolliver said, "how come you're not panting like all the other women?"