Kelson drove to his office, got his laptop from the top desk drawer, and searched for the name Felbanks in Sioux City, Iowa. There were seven families with the name. But the town had fewer than a hundred thousand residents, and he figured they might know each other – maybe even be related. He typed in the name Christian Felbanks and found a high school photo. He typed in Trina Felbanks and got nothing.
He said to the computer, ‘His mom and dad will be here now. Meeting with the police. Asking questions no one will answer. Collecting the body. Taking it home. Should’ve asked Raima Minhas.’
He made two more searches and found a phone number for one of the Felbanks families. Although he figured no one would answer if he called the right one, he dialed it. On the third ring, a man picked up, and Kelson said, ‘I’m looking for Christian Felbanks’s family.’
He’d reached Christian’s uncle, who confirmed his guess – Christian’s parents had driven five hundred miles east from Sioux City to Chicago when they got the message from the police.
‘I hate to ask,’ Kelson said, ‘but what can you tell me about Christian’s sister?’
‘Oh, she’s been at the center since she was fourteen. Too much for my brother and his wife to handle. God knows, they tried.’
Kelson thanked the man, told him he was sorry about Christian’s death, and hung up.
He leaned back in his chair. He’d followed the only obvious leads. Now, unless he tracked down Christian’s parents wherever they were staying in Chicago, or walked into Dan Peters’s office and demanded information the detective would never give him, he was done. His wallet felt a little thicker with the cash from the woman who lied about being Trina Felbanks, his credibility a little thinner, and his overall circumstances about the same as where they’d been since he got out of rehab. He should take the lawyer’s advice – stop worrying, relax, and make himself happy. ‘No harm in that,’ he said as he put on his coat. No harm until the next trouble came. ‘It’ll come,’ he said as he left his office. ‘Over my right shoulder. Over my left. Straight on like a truck.’
He drove north through the city to Hayt Elementary where Sue Ellen was in sixth grade. At three fifteen, she came from the building, squealed at the sight of him, and clambered into the Dodge Challenger.
They spent the afternoon at his apartment, playing a game of Stump Dad – which Sue Ellen invented when she realized she could ask Kelson anything and his cross-wired brain would compel him to answer. Today, she started easy. ‘If you could be any animal, what would it be?’
‘A tiger,’ he said.
‘Would you worry that you were an endangered species?’
‘Yes.’
‘If a hunter tried to kill you, would you eat him?’
‘Yes.’
‘Would you worry that you were a cannibal?’
‘Only if you were the hunter,’ he said.
‘Uh-huh,’ she said, then turned to body functions. ‘Do you fart in the bathtub?’
‘I take showers,’ he said.
‘Do you ever blame someone else when you fart?’
‘Not since I got shot in the head.’
‘Before?’
‘All the time.’
Her laugh sounded like music to Kelson. Then, as she often did, she got personal. ‘Do you still love Mom?’
‘I have mixed feelings.’
‘That’s sad.’
‘Yeah, it is,’ he said. ‘She doesn’t love me.’
‘Yes, she does.’
‘How do you know?’ he asked.
‘She told me. She said she’s no longer in love with you, but she loves things about you.’
‘That’s a nice way of saying she doesn’t love me.’
She thought about that for a moment. ‘Tell me something mean about Mom.’
‘Really?’
‘Uh-huh.’
‘She farts in the bathtub.’
Again Sue Ellen squealed with laughter – as if she needed to laugh the way she needed to breathe.
Kelson said, ‘You shouldn’t ask me to do that. And anyway, you should play this kind of game with kids your own age.’
‘They all lie,’ she said.
‘Lucky them,’ he said.
They went out for dinner at Taquería Uptown, a plain-walled place that made great carnitas tacos, and when they returned to his apartment, Sue Ellen did her homework and Kelson spread blankets on the floor to sleep on while she took the bed.
The next morning, eating a bowl of cereal at his kitchen table, Sue Ellen tried to stump him again. ‘Will you buy me a kitten?’ she asked.
‘No.’
‘Why not?’
‘The building doesn’t allow pets.’
‘We could keep it at Mom’s house.’
‘Then yes.’
‘Mom hates cats.’
‘Then I’ll buy you two.’
Sue Ellen squealed with laughter, and Kelson grinned so wide the scar on his forehead hurt. ‘Get your book bag.’
She stuck her tongue at him. ‘You get it.’
‘Don’t be a little shit,’ he said.
A couple minutes later as they walked down the hall from his apartment, he said, ‘Sorry for swearing at you.’
‘It’s all right, you can’t help it,’ she said. ‘Will you buy me a horse?’
‘Won’t fit in the elevator,’ he said.
He felt so good after dropping her off at school that he skipped his breathing exercises and went straight to his office. He wished good morning to two strangers outside the building, to the man who staffed the downstairs reception desk, and to a crowd outside a conference room used by a computer training company that rented space on his floor.
He put a key into his door lock but didn’t need to – it was already unlocked. ‘Huh,’ he said, and opened the door.
The woman who called herself Trina Felbanks sat in the client chair at his desk. She wore skintight black leather leggings, black leather boots, and a white fluffy jacket. Her purse matched her jacket. She had a half-moon bruise on her cheek.
She arched an eyebrow at him.
He frowned and said, ‘Good morning, Hot Pants.’