They stole the street sign from Hulbert, home to the most expensive real estate on the island. They’d watched the sunrise a lot that summer, then went home and slept until two in the afternoon.
“I heard you ran a stop sign and were seen speeding before you got to my house,” Leo says. “I think you were so upset about the photo from Bridgeman that you weren’t paying attention to the road and you hit my mom. And now I think you’re trading on your so-called integrity, and that’s why you haven’t been arrested.”
“Man, f—” Cruz stops himself.
“Say it.”
“Of course I was upset by the photo. I was driving over to talk to you about it.”
“I want you to just admit you hit her, man. She’s gone, nothing can bring her back, I get that, but you need to confess. It was an accident, obviously you didn’t intend to kill my mother—but you were the one who hit her. The police saw you driving recklessly, Cruz.”
Cruz steps up, gets right in Leo’s face. Leo can see the sweat on Cruz’s upper lip, smell the laundry detergent that Joe uses. Cruz is his best friend in the world. His buddy since forever. Vivi had a million things she used to call them: Frick and Frack, Mutt and Jeff, Felix and Oscar, Abbott and Costello, Ben and Jerry, Beans and Rice. Vivi loved Cruz. She took care of him like he was another son. When Vivi cooked, Cruz always got a bigger portion than Leo. She bought special things that he liked: mangoes, cookie dough ice cream, pistachios. She lent him her books. They both read the New York Times and they texted each other about the articles. Cruz and Vivi were “connected intellectually” in a way that Leo and Vivi weren’t. Leo could have been jealous about this, but he wasn’t. He was happy they got along so well. Vivi used to say that Cruz balanced out the family—she had two girls and two boys. With an extra person, there was extra love.
Now love is dead.
“The person who needs to admit something here, Leo Quinboro, is you.” Cruz pokes Leo, hard, in the chest. “You need to face your truth.”
With that, Cruz strides down the dock, and Leo, not sure what to do or to think, blinks at the hot blue sky and the darker blue of Nantucket Sound and the yachts lined up in their slips like really, really expensive toys. Then his walkie-talkie rasps—slip 92 needs ice.
Leo goes home early with a “stomachache” to find the chief of police, Ed Kapenash, knocking on the front door of Money Pit.
“Hello?” Leo says. He wishes he’d stayed at work. He wishes his sister had answered the door and dealt with the Chief, but it’s four o’clock. She’s at the Oystercatcher.
“Hey, there,” the Chief says, offering his hand. “You’re Ms. Howe’s son?”
“Leo,” he says. “Leo Quinboro.”
“Leo,” the Chief says. “The lion.”
“I’m named after Leo Tolstoy,” Leo says. “The writer? He’s Russian. He wrote War and Peace.”
The Chief nods. He doesn’t care; nobody ever does. “You got a few minutes to chat?”
“I guess,” Leo says. He pushes the door open for the Chief and they step into the kitchen. The kitchen has cathedral ceilings and a teal-blue Ilve Majestic stove with a matching hood that Vivi called “the Lambo” because it was the stove-equivalent of a Lamborghini. The kitchen was the first room in Money Pit that Vivi renovated, but no one has cleaned it since Vivi died, and it’s not looking like its best self. On the counter sits the blender, half filled with a purple smoothie that has attracted fruit flies, and there are bagel crumbs and seeds all over the butcher block. The last of the sympathy flowers are dying on the table; the petals are falling, the stamens staining the white surface.
“Can I get you anything?” Leo asks. “Ginger ale?” This is what he’s having. He cracks open a can and takes a sip. He really thinks he might puke. What is the chief of police doing here?
“I’m fine, thanks,” the Chief says. “I have some questions for you. Do you want to sit down?”
“Uh, okay?” Leo says. The table is grimy. He could lead the Chief out to the back by the pool but Vivi’s writing chaise will be there, and for this reason, Leo has been avoiding the pool. Nearly every day in summer, Vivi would lie out back, writing away in one of her notebooks. If