“Soyouknow the leading cause of death of kids in our country,” I said. “More than cancer or car accidents. IfIknow it, you definitely know.”
Bonnie lifted her head so that the reflection in her glasses hid her eyes, and then she took them off and let them clatter to the counter. “Firearms,” she said.
“I’mnot a child,” Sicily said. But of course she was missing the point, like a child.
“Anything specific causing your wife concern lately?” I asked. “Watching too much sensationalist programming? Joining any, uh, new book clubs? Or neo-Nazi enclaves?”
“No,”Bonnie said. “She’s been too busy to get… swept up in anything like that. I told the police all this.”
“Busy doing what? Making merry?”
“Sure. Of course. Getting the house ready for Sis to come home from school.” Bonnie reached to put a hand on her daughter. “Sis is in her first year at Northwest, making us proud. Our alma mater, you know.”
“Yeah, I have a question about that—”
“But,” Sicily jumped in, “Mom was busy working, too, right? Umma?”
“Was she a pediatrician, too?” I asked, with a fat cake-slice of sarcasm for Sicily.
“Office management,” Bonnie said, looking between us. She knew she was missing something. “She took a job with her friend, who’s in real estate. Oh, you might have heard of her. Edith Maxwell?”
“Edie,” I said, trying not to slide into my stage accent. “Well, sure. We go way back. She and I are practically family.”
BONNIE INVITED ME TO STAYfor lunch and wouldn’t take no for an answer. “Something simple,” she said, gazing around the kitchen as though it was a new addition to the house. “Mari’s the one who usually…”
“Come see my room, Dolly,” Sicily demanded.
There was nothing I wanted more than to be the hell out of there before anyone got misty about Marisa again.
Sicily led me out of the kitchen. “Dolly?” she scoffed. “Who’s that, exactly?”
“I thought she might recognize the name Dahlia,” I said. “Maybe not. Maybe she doesn’t know I exist.Youdidn’t. But it seemed to me you didn’t want her to know who I really was, so I had to think fast. Tell me I’m wrong.”
“She’s just so…”
“Hair trigger?”
Sicily frowned. “What’s that supposed mean?”
“Wigged out? Freaked out? Pulling a gun on people? I found my boyfriend dead in an alley yesterday, and a tiny suburban doctor holding a gun is the scariest thing I’ve encountered this week.”
We were standing in the hallway in front of an open door. Inside, a wide bed covered with a scalloped-edge quilt. I nudged the door all the way open with my boot and went in.
“Hey,” Sicily said. “Hey. You can’t just walk into places uninvited.”
Why stop now? “You invited me,” I said.
“Tomyroom,” she said. “Not theirs.”
I’d already figured out it was Marisa’s room. It just had a master’ssuite vibe to it, I guess. On a chest-high dresser, a series of frames showed Sicily from infancy to current age, the hair growing long, getting cut tomboy short, growing out again. The teeth falling out, growing back, and braces coming and going. One snapshot in a frilly gold frame showed the back of a dark head of hair tipped toward a baby, Madonna-and-child style.
No spikes in that monkey mama.
In front of the photos sat a pretty wooden box. I flipped it open.
“What are you doing?” Sicily said.
It was a jewelry box, stuffed with nice things. It had a little drawer, too, with more keepsakes tucked away. I remembered Marisa sitting on my mattress on the floor, gold at her ears, wrist, fingers. “This is hers, right?” I said. “She wears a lot of jewelry for someone who used to have nothing.”
