Simon was everywhere all at once. He dragged Jonathan and me onto the porch, went back inside, and reemerged with a large, wet, hot bath towel. He rubbed our faces as if to wake us from a coma. While he wiped at mine he put his lips by my ear and asked if I’d done any shooting. I tried to talk but all I could do was tremble and shake my head. Jonathan sat next to me staring fixedly at the street. Although it was damn near freezing, both of us were oblivious to the cold. Simon told us to stay put as he went back inside.

I jammed the towel into my mouth and bit down hard to keep my stomach from wrenching. Barrie looked at me with dull, lifeless eyes. I wanted to talk, to ease his misery, but my misery had no words. Instead, I grabbed his hand.

Simon reappeared on the porch. “I’m glad you called,” he said somberly. “Can you take the towel out of your mouth?”

I nodded dumbly and let the thing fall.

Simon leaned over and pulled it away. “Can you give me a handle for the police?” he asked tersely.

“I’ll try.”

I thought I’d spoken but Simon shook my shoulder. “I know you’re in shock, but if you can talk it will help,” he repeated.

“It was a murder, then suicide,” I said, then cracked. Blood pumping from Therin and the thought of Melanie sprawled on the floor drove my stomach into a paroxysm, and I grabbed for the towel. Jonathan just sat there holding my hand. I couldn’t tell whether he heard anything or not.

I struggled to push the splattered floor from my mind. “The woman was responsible for two deaths. One recent, one twenty years ago. Her murder was really a suicide, induced, something she concocted with the kid.”

“With the kid?”

“Yeah. He wasn’t wrapped tight and she brought him over the edge. I don’t know what else went on between them, but tonight was her idea.”

Simon looked at me carefully. “Was your gun used?”

I shook my head. “No. It should be somewhere on the floor, still in the holster.”

Simon nodded. “I hoped that was yours. Basically, it’s the same story that Jonathan told me?” “With a different ending. I had him get you to help her with the cops and to get her treatment or something, I didn’t guess this was coming.”

Talking helped clear my head. Somehow the words distanced me from the pictures, the smells. I thought for a moment then asked, “Can we leave her killings out of it? Say she went nuts about Darryl’s death? That it drove her into memories of her brother’s accident and she couldn’t take it? Or just make something up? The cops have the drownings as accidents, anyhow.” I felt Jonathan look at me, but he didn’t let go of my hand.

Simon searched my face. “Why?”

“I don’t know exactly. Respect for the dead. For all the dead. The less anyone knows, the better they’ll be remembered.”

I felt Jonathan squeeze my hand. Simon shrugged and said he could try. He asked if we would rather go inside, but neither of us budged. He stayed with us in our silence until the house was awash in blue and red flashing lights.

Suddenly there were swarms of people everywhere. Blues, plainclothes, medics, and Suits from the coroner’s office. Simon steered everyone away from us and, almost as suddenly, Jonathan and I were left by ourselves. Out in the cold.

I expected to go downtown, but eventually Simon reappeared alone, holding my jacket, and told us we could leave. They all had questions but understood we were still in shock. Simon had called a couple of his contacts; the cops would leave us alone for at least forty-eight, though they would hang on to my gun. Simon added that they’d bought the double suicide. He suggested we call him early the next day to get the story straight. I tried to grin and nod my head—it was good to see him.

Simon went back inside, and I stood up. I didn’t want to be there when they dragged the bodies out in plastic bags. Despite a look of apprehension, Jonathan got up as well.

“I don’t think I can be by myself right now,” he said.

I nodded and said I’d take him home. He held my arm all the way to the car, reluctant to let go, even to open the door. I sort of pushed him inside and drove to his house, where I parked across the street and shut off the engine.

He made no move to leave. The car smelled like death and I rolled down my window. Tonight there would be no escape from the cold. We sat in the silence of our private horrors for a very long time. Finally Jonathan said, “I don’t understand why she is dead.”

I expected him to cry; but he sat there rock-faced, waiting. Waiting for what? I couldn’t make it any better. “Melanie knew she was out of control. She was afraid she might kill again. Melanie did what she believed needed to be done.”

He raised his hands in helpless bewilderment. “I don’t understand how she could live with what she did to Peter and keep it secret.” The skin on his face was drawn tightly over its bones, magnifying the raw guilt that shone from his eyes.

I reached across the seat and took one of his shaking hands.

“She never really understood that she had killed someone else until she killed Darryl.” His mouth was open and I wasn’t sure he got what I said. I tried again, for the two of us.

“Peter wasn’t another person to her; he was something she couldn’t, then wouldn’t, find inside. The night of the party, when she followed Peter and Emil to the quarry, she thought she discovered, in Peter’s street life, what she most hated and feared in herself. She thought she found her mother. She had no boundaries with Peter. He was an extension of her insides, the piece of her she couldn’t let exist.”

I flashed on Melanie’s dead body dripping dark red on the floor. “The hot summer night at the quarry started what she finished tonight.”

Someday, with somebody else, I’d finish what happened at the party.

“She didn’t trust me to help her at all.” Though forlorn, his voice was calm.

“She trusted you as much as she could trust anyone. She might have finished killing herself twenty years ago if it hadn’t been for you.”

“It might have been better that way,” he said bitterly.

I thought for a moment. “Not better, different.” I kept guessing. “If we pushed deeper into what really went on when Peter and Melanie were still living in their home, we’d find it was worse than we know.”

“Should I push, Matthew?”

I grimaced. “It’s over. You were the only separate person she ever really loved. Her desire to stop herself, as insane a way as she chose to do it, came from what little self-respect you gave her. It’s time to leave the dead alone; we have our own mourning to do.”

I pulled my hand free and lit two cigarettes. Jonathan’s face was still midwinter white, but some of the shock had drained. Tears were edging down, but the hand that held the cigarette was steady. I suddenly felt the cold draft, but kept the window open. “Maybe she knew there was no recovery from what happened to her? That she couldn’t have that much of her childhood stolen by poverty and abuse, and expect to get well?

“She had no hope for herself or Therin. But she had hope for you. I said it earlier—you were a good father to her, Jonathan. Her years with you were the best and only years of her life. To the end, she knew you to be a good man.”

Jonathan sat next to me sobbing. I looked past his head, across the street, to his house. It stood large and gloomy, the porch light scant welcome. I thought about offering him my vacated office couch, but he suddenly reached across and threw his cigarette out the window. “I have to go in there some time, don’t I?” he asked.

“Not right away,” I replied. “You can stay with me until you’re ready.” He shook his head. “No. I’m grateful for the offer, but I want to be alone.” “Are you sure?” An anxious thought skipped through my head.

He looked at me and smiled grimly. “You don’t have to worry. There’s been too much death.” We sat breathing quietly until I lost all track of time. Finally he sighed and opened his door. He had one leg outside before he swung back in, reached over, and kissed me hard on the cheek. “You did right by her. I know that,” he said.

I resisted a desire to grab him by the shoulders and pull him toward me. I too was afraid of being alone. He looked at me, made an effort to smile, and pulled himself out into the cold. I rolled up the window.

He was halfway across the street when he turned around and came back. I rolled down the window. “I want to thank you, Matthew,” he said, his voice thick. “And to tell you that you don’t have to wait around, I’m okay,” he said.

I started to tell him he was more than okay, but he was already gone.