Page 30 of Murder on Charity Lane

“I checked his pulse?”

“Who else was there?”

“Right beside him? CJ, of course. She ran downstairs when he fell. Sunny and George, I think? Everyone was milling around, calling for an ambulance. Jane and Helene went upstairs to Karina who, uh, said that CJ pushed him.”

Vernon tapped his pen on his notepad. “You think that’s what happened?”

Pax shook his head. “No way. She loved him.”

“CJ did?”

“Yeah, like a father.”

Vernon wondered if Frank DeYoung loved CJ like a daughter, or something else. “What about this noise in the great room?”

“Oh, yeah. That came before the scream. There was a pop of glass shattering. I thought a caterer dropped a stack of plates but someone said it was a wine bottle?”

The sudden distraction of a loud noise struck Vernon as a little too convenient. “How’d it break?”

“No idea.”

“And you definitely heard the sound before the scream?”

“I think so.” Pax scratched the tattoo on his arm. “Yeah, I heard the crash from outside. I mean, the windows were open in the great room.”

“Quite the coincidence,” Vernon said, trying to draw him out.

“There’s no such thing,” Pax told him, with complete assurance. “We simply overweight unlikely events when we attach meaning to them.”

“Oh, is that what we do? So you massaged Frank four times a week. Talk to me about his physical condition.”

“He’s been getting shakier,” Pax said. “The past two months in particular. Between you and me, I’m surprised he hadn’t already had a fall. It’s just a tragedy he was at the top of the stairs.”

“Tragic coincidence,” Vernon said aloud, as he wrote the words.

And he would’ve believed them, too, if not for the eyewitness.

17

OCEAN

The third time Mrs. B returned from errands with a dent in her Prius, Ocean realized she needed to step in. She’d geared herself up for a fight. She hadn’t wanted Mrs. B to stop driving completely, just … mostly. Frankly she hadn’t trusted Mrs. B behind the wheel in years, not since she’d admitted that she didn’t look over her shoulder before switching lanes anymore.

“I listen to the beeps!” she’d said. “That car is always beeping at me for something. I just never know what.”

“That’s not as reassuring as you think,” Ocean told her.

She hadn’t taken Mrs. B’s keys, but she’d insisted on driving her anywhere farther than the local co-op. Everyone else helped, too, including Anthony after he got his license. Well, except for Hamilton, of course. And to her relief Mrs. B hadn’t felt infantilized; instead she enjoyed the extra time with her favorite people.

Ocean felt like a caricature of “Mom’s Taxi,” though, as she drove Mrs. B around more than her kids. At least she’d gotten in the habit of handling her emails while waiting in the pickup area outside the YMCA. At the moment she was rereading CJ’s email for the third time—the reply to the voice message and texts Ocean had left her.

I’m shaken up. I don’t know. He was my rock and now he’s gone. There’s this empty space. I’m all unbalanced, I don’t know where to put my feet. Does that make sense? I’m afraid I’m not good for anything right now. I’m too shaken up. Thank you. Thank you for wanting to take care of me. You’re wonderful, but I’m a little terrified of becoming … needy? A burden. You take care of so many already, Ocean. I don’t want to be one of them. I want to be something else to you.

I don’t know what I’m saying so I’m just going to send this and tell you that you’d better keep texting me and leaving me messages! I love hearing your voice. And please tell me normal things! I just might not be great at replying?

Everything feels off. The house isn’t the house without Frank. Karina hates me. I don’t know. I’m okay, though. Just shaken up.

Ocean sent her a voice message, saying that she understood, then shared her favorite new fact: while doing geographic flash cards with Anthony, Miles had fallen in love with Montevideo, Uruguay. She said she hoped that was normal enough, because she’d kind of lost track of “normal,” then Mrs. B flung the passenger door open.