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“I just toss them in the drawer,” I say, dropping my voice low.

“What about socks?” she asks, matching my tone.

“Don’t even match the pairs,” I sniff.

“Demon! Begone!” She makes a cross with her fingers and wards me off with it.

We’re giggling like insane people when my mom cracks the door. “Girls? Sorry, I didn’t want to interrupt—”

“Oh, you’re not,” I reassure her. “What’s up?”

“I was wondering if Bristal wanted to stay for dinner?” Mom asks.

“Cool, yeah, I like food,” Bristal says. “Thanks.”

“No problem,” Mom says, backing out of the closet and closing the door behind her.

“Here are the rules,” I say as soon as she’s gone. “You can’t talk about Denise Halverson; that is strictly off the table. My parents are upset enough about that topic as it is.”

“Got it,” she says. “What about Boggs?”

“I think that’s okay,” I tell her. “But don’t mention Abe Lytle or the school bus situation.”

“What about the heroin and cocaine I brought over the other day?”

I cross my arms. “You know better.”

“Yeah,” she admits. “But I still like watching that little muscle in your jaw twitch.”

Twenty-One

“So murder is totally a thing that happens,” Bristal says lightly, popping a piece of cheesecake in her mouth post-dinner.

“Nice, great segue,” I tell her.

“Why? What were we talking about?” she asks, genuinely confused.

“Whether eating veal is a moral choice,” Mom informs her, and if I’m not mistaken, adds a little eye roll to her statement, along with a nod toward Dad and me, who had—admittedly—done a deep dive into our arguments and counterarguments.

“Yeah, we can’t afford veal, so I don’t know about that,” Bristal says. “But any cow I eat has technically been murdered, so murder is totally a thing that happens. To cows, and to people named Randall Boggs.”

“Your use of the word technically implies that you think a cow is a living thing with rights, otherwise you would simply say it had been killed,” Dad says, leaning forward on his elbows, obviously eager for Bristal’s rebuttal and moving on to his next opponent.

“How about it’s dead, and I don’t really care how it got that way?”

“Fair enough,” he says. “But what were you going to say about Randall Boggs?”

“Uh . . .” Her eyes cut to me, but I’m gauging the mood. Mom is my barometer, and her hand is steady as she lifts her third glass of wine. Boggs is a safe subject; I give Bristal a nod.

“His murder is the only one we’ve got,” she says, making homicide sound like a precious metal. “But it’s an unsolved case, and a cold one.”

“It’s a sad thing to say, but I don’t think the old man was missed much,” Dad says, leaning back in his chair now.

“Now or then,” Mom adds.

“Live dirty, die dirty,” Bristal says, and both my parents nod.

“Why the interest in Boggs?” Dad asks.