Matthew doesn’t wait to see if he’s following, just turns and steps inside the house.
McCluskey stands on the drive, hands on hips, the heat battering him as the voice says it again. You gotta hear the guy out.
Fuck you, Mikey, he whispers, heading down the path to the porch, then through the front door, closing it behind him.
We’re all in here, Detective, he hears Matthew call out from a room beyond the end of the hallway, where McCluskey can see a kitchen counter and a bunch of black metal skillets hanging from hooks.
He enters the kitchen, Matthew and a black woman standing at the stove, their backs to him, the room smelling of bacon grease. At a large kitchen table sits an old man in a billowing nightshirt, three-quarters bald but with long cirrus wisps of hair sprouting from his crown and the sides of his head.
Matthew reaches across the stovetop for a piece of bacon that hisses away on a griddle, and just as his fingers pinch the end of a slice, the woman slaps his hand with a spatula, Matthew yelping, turning to McCluskey.
Take a seat, Detective, he says. Coffee?
Nah, says McCluskey, I’m bitter enough already.
He sits down at the end of the table, and then Matthew heads over, cup of coffee in hand, and takes the seat opposite the old man, who looks like he’s about to fall asleep. Matthew picks up the old man’s hand, and says, Look, Pete, we have a visitor. But the old man’s sagging head doesn’t move, and Matthew speaks to him louder this time, Pete, Pete, this is Detective McCluskey.
And not looking up, the old man says, Do I know him?
No, you’ve never known him, says Matthew.
The old man sighs, hunching farther down in his seat.
Please, Detective McCluskey, says Matthew. You can speak freely, Pete’s not going to remember anything you say to me.
McCluskey glances toward the stove.
Celeste, Matthew calls over his shoulder, will everything keep in the oven for a few minutes? This shouldn’t take long.
Is he here to arrest you or me? says Pete to the table.
McCluskey twists in his seat. What was that, sir? he says. Arrest someone? Why would I want to arrest anyone? Has Matthew done something wrong?
Pete is opening and closing his eyes, one then the other, looking confused and upset, as if someone is deliberately misconstruing his words. Matthew squeezes his hand encouragingly.
He shot her in the eye, Pete snorts.
Celeste, who has finished stowing breakfast in the oven, starts to leave the kitchen. Shout when you ready, Mr. Matthew, she says, McCluskey noticing a Caribbean accent. I be in my room till you need me, she calls out, her voice fading away down the hallway before her feet hit the stairs.
Pete, they already arrested me for that, says Matthew. I went to prison, remember? You came to visit me every month for two years. Every single month without fail.
The old man looks annoyed at the latest misunderstanding, and slaps the table. I could never have done it, he says, becoming quickly upset. I could never have gone through with it. And then his fingers start to trace lines following the grain of the wood, as if something is written there, but when he can’t find any words, he shakes his head and closes his eyes. Matthew eighteen? he says, No, Matthew … A moment later, Pete sighs, and starts to breathe deeply, McCluskey hearing that he is already asleep, the air catching in the old man’s throat now and again, before exiting with a low whistle.
Matthew drops Pete’s hand gently to the table, stirs his coffee a few turns, and looks across at McCluskey. Pete gets easily confused these days, Detective, he says.
McCluskey runs a hand down his cheek, feeling the scrape of his missed morning shave. Your father has Alzheimer’s, right? he says.
Matthew nods. Yes, he says, only Pete’s not my father. Pete’s a friend.
McCluskey feels like he’s being played, and yet he’s not sure the guy’s playing him. Yeah, he says, you know, my grandfather had the same thing, the Alzheimer’s. Me and my little sis, we were just kids, right, so we thought it was funny. He’d put stuff on back-to-front, like this wifebeater he always wore down to breakfast, so you could see all the white hair on his back, then he’d get lost buying the newspaper, knock on the wrong houses coming home, accuse the people opening their own doors of being burglars. And after that he’d yell the whole street down and my dad would have to come running. Me and my little sis thought it was this funny kind of joke, right? Just a couple of dumbass kids, what did we know? Anyway, I guess I get it now, now that it’s too late. So I’m sorry about your friend, Matthew.
Thank you, Detective, says Matthew, running his finger around the rim of his coffee cup, looking first at Pete, then down at the cup.
The bacon smell still hangs in the air, like some kind of Abu Ghraib fuckin torture, McCluskey glancing out of the kitchen windows to the back of the property, large lake with a rowboat, and what must be a hundred-plus trees. He scratches his ear. You know what, Matthew? he says. I guess things got a little heated this morning, so thank you for inviting me in. And in return, I’ll level with you. I got two questions, that’s all. Then I swear I’m out of here. Do you mind?
Ask me anything, Detective.
Appreciate it, says McCluskey. So, not to waste anyone’s time here, straight on to the first one. This morning, right? Why’d you say sorry to Hannah?
Matthew smiles, cocking his head, as if McCluskey has wasted one of his questions. I said sorry because I’m sorry about what I did to her, Detective.
McCluskey turns away, as if there’s something unpleasant in the air. Yeah, he says, that’s what I was worried you’d say.
Worried, Detective? Why?
Because it makes the answer to question number two a lot more complicated.
And question two is?
McCluskey shrugs. If you’re so fuckin sorry, he says, why’d you go and buy Hannah’s house?
Matthew takes a sip of coffee. That is complicated, he says.
Fuckin A, says McCluskey. Because the way it looks to me sitting here, you buying the house of someone whose eye you shot out? I gotta say, that seems like a provocative act, you know? Not exactly some kind of so fuckin sorry behavior.
Provocative? I can see that, Detective.
So was it?
Matthew blinks, once, twice. Yes, Detective, I suppose that it was, he says.
Now McCluskey wants to hit the fuckin guy, not for anything he’s said exactly, but just because throwing a punch would make him feel a whole lot better. You wanted to provoke her why? he says. Because maybe you wanted her to come see you?
I suppose, says Matthew. Or to make contact by some other means, perhaps. I’m not sure I really self-analyzed the whole thing at the time, Detective.
McCluskey makes his hand into a fist, bounces it three times on his thigh, like he’s playing rock, paper, scissors. So what was the angle? he says. What did you want from this contact with Hannah?
Matthew keeps his eyes fixed on McCluskey as he thinks it through, like being stared at by one of the big cats in the zoo, and then finally he speaks. Detective, I’m not really interested in psychotherapy, he says, but perhaps some part of me wants Hannah to acknowledge what she did.
Acknowledge? says McCluskey. What she did?
That’s right.
And you wanna tell me in your own words what Hannah did?
Not really.
No? You mean she didn’t tie her fuckin self to the tree?
Matthew crosses his arms. Detective, he says, the problem for you here is that you’re swimming in the waters of a story you don’t understand.
McCluskey laughs. Nah, he says, that’s not a problem. Most days of the week that’s the top line of my job description. And then he stares at Matthew, because if he’s being played, the guy’s good, and Matthew just gives him that cat-on-the-prowl stare again.
But then Matthew’s cell phone, on the kitchen counter beneath all the hanging black skillets, interrupts the staring match with a bleep, McCluskey leaning back in his seat as Matthew reaches over his shoulder, picks up the phone, and glances down at the screen. Could you give me a moment, Detective? he says. I have to reply to this. He looks up at a clock on the wall, peers at it thoughtfully, and then pecks away at the cell phone one-fingered.
Sorry, says Matthew, placing the phone facedown to the table. Where were we?
You have someplace you need to be? says McCluskey.
I can spare a few more minutes, says Matthew. And look, he says, there’s something important I need to add, Detective. You see, I didn’t buy this house solely to provoke Hannah Jensen. That might not even have been the main reason I bought it. Does anyone really know why they do all the things they do? But you asked me a question and I answered it as honestly as I could, provocation was an element in the decision, I suppose. However, also I had the money to buy this place, Detective, and it’s arguably the finest house in the area. I wanted somewhere for Pete to live that would be big enough for a caregiver as well—Celeste looks after him full-time when I’m not here. I wanted Pete to stay in Roseborn, near the Swangums, where he’s lived all his life. He loves the mountains, Detective, he spent years working up there. You can see the escarpment ridge from all of the windows at the front of the house—I suppose I hoped it might jog something. But I didn’t actively come looking for this house, Detective, I was working with a real estate agent on finding a place in the area and suddenly this property came on the market. And there’s something else important, maybe more important than anything else. I first saw this house when I was fourteen years old. Did you ever see something when you were a child, Detective—a friend’s clothes, their mother’s jewelry, their father’s tie—and realize there existed an entirely different world from the one in which you’d been growing up?
And McCluskey knows this is it, he’s got all he’s going to get. Yeah, he says, Benny Fazio’s record player. Big, beautiful beast, red leatherette. You could stack five records and play them one after the other. First time I ever heard The Beatles was in Benny’s bedroom, his parents were out somewhere and he pounded I Wanna Hold Your Hand through these speakers half the fuckin size of my bedroom.
Matthew nods encouragingly. Right, he says, and if you saw a record player just like it in a store tomorrow, maybe even the very same one, might you not be tempted to buy it?
And he waits a few beats before giving the answer. Nahhh, says McCluskey, milking the exhale. Thing is, Matthew Weaver, I’m a CD guy. Switched over my whole collection years ago—Huey Lewis and the News, that was the first disc I ever bought. Oh, you know what? That was probably around the same time you were tying a girl to a tree and shooting out her eye. Early eighties, right?
Fair enough, Detective, says Matthew, glancing up at the clock. Have I answered both your questions now?
Sure, deal’s a deal, says McCluskey. But before I go, do I need to run through my whole stay-the-fuck-away shtick again?
I already gave you my word, Detective. But if you need me to say it again, I promise you I won’t go anywhere near Hannah Jensen.
McCluskey stands up with an uneasy sense of believing the guy means what he says, the legs of his chair scraping the floorboards, the noise waking Pete, who comes to with a snort.
Pete, our visitor’s leaving now, says Matthew. Would you like to say goodbye?
But still Pete doesn’t lift his eyes from the table as he speaks. No, I could never have done it, says Pete, his fingers tracing the wood again. Better to have … better for him to have a large millstone hung around his neck and to be drowned in the depths … Pete hesitates, starting to sound doubtful … How does it go? To be drowned in the depths … to be drowned in the depths of…? What comes next? Pete asks, looking up at Matthew. To be drowned in the depths … of the ocean? says Pete, quickly becoming upset, his fingers stiffening on the table. No, that’s not it, he says, looking back down at the table, that’s not what it says, those aren’t the right words.
Matthew gets up and walks around the table. He crouches down beside Pete and puts a hand on his shoulder. Do you mind seeing yourself out, Detective, he says.
No problemo, says McCluskey.
Detective? says Pete, his fingers starting to tremble. Detective you say? Is he here to arrest me?
No, Pete, says Matthew, taking Pete’s hand and rubbing his shoulder. No one’s arresting you, not today, not ever. The detective was only here to see me, but he’s going now. I know you can’t remember but it was a long time ago. And I promise, Pete, I promise, you didn’t do anything wrong.
Pete squints at the table. Yes, he says, with a relieved sigh. Matthew eighteen, he nods, Matthew eighteen.