She moved her hand to the back of Jean’s neck. Her point was plain, so I addressed myself to Jean.
“I need to talk to you. It’s important.” I saw Alex sneer, thought of her taunting words on my last visit. “I know this is a bad time, but it won’t take long.” Alex released my sister and flung herself onto the couch, her hands again behind her head, a look of wide-eyed expectancy on her face. “I’d like to speak to you alone,” I said.
Jean’s glance moved between us, confusion making her vulnerable, and I remembered how when we were kids, she would go anywhere with me.
“You should talk here,” Alex said to Jean.
“We should talk here,” Jean parroted, and I watched her sit next to Alex, the way she settled against her. “What do you want to talk about?”
“Yes, Work,” Alex said. “What do you want to talk about?” Her eyes were laughing. You have the right to remain silent.
I tried to come up with the best approach, the best way to raise such a delicate subject, but all the rehearsed lines, all the clever ideas that had come to me during the drive to and from Charlotte dried up and blew away like dust.
“You don’t have to talk to the police,” I said. She tensed, alarmed, and turned to Alex. “In fact, it would be best if you didn’t.”
“I don’t know what you mean,” she said, her mouth working as if to find other words. “The police? What are you talking about?” She seemed frightened, nervous, suddenly alive on the couch. Alex laid a hand on her leg and she calmed visibly. Then, as if accepting the inevitable, she said, “Oh, you mean Detective Mills?”
“That’s right.” I nodded. “She’s the lead detective on Father’s murder investigation. We should have talked about this sooner. . . . I just want you to understand how this works. What your rights are—”
Jean cut me off, her eyes wild. “I don’t want to talk about this. I can’t talk about this.” She struggled off the low couch.
“I don’t—”
“Detective Mills said not to talk about this with anybody. She said I had to keep quiet.”
Her behavior puzzled and concerned me. “Jean,” I began.
“I didn’t tell her anything about you, Work. Honestly. She asked a whole bunch of questions, but I didn’t say anything about you.”
Alex spoke into the silence of my dismay. “Just tell him, Jean. It’s the only reason he’s here.”
“What are you talking about?” I demanded, and Jean stared at me as if I were a stranger. Her mouth opened; her lips silvered with saliva from her tongue.
“Mills thinks you did it,” Alex said. “That’s what she wanted to talk to us about. She thinks you killed Ezra.”
“That’s what she said?”
“Not in so many words.”
“What did you tell her?” I asked, my eyes on Alex but the question meant for Jean. Alex didn’t say a word, and Jean seemed to be slipping further away. She nodded several times.
“I can’t talk about this,” she said. “I can’t. Just can’t.”
I saw that tears had gathered in her eyes. She looked panicked, pacing from side to side like a caged animal.
“It’s okay, Jean,” I told her. “Everything’s okay.”
“No!” she shouted. “No, it’s not.”
“Just take it easy.”
“Daddy’s dead, Work. He’s dead. Killed. He killed Mom and somebody killed him. Somebody, somebody.” Her voice trailed away with her eyes, which moved aimlessly across the floor. She stopped pacing and began to rock, her fingers twisted white against each other.
Looking at Jean, at her waxen face, I finally accepted the truth of my worst fear. She had killed Ezra. She’d pulled the trigger, and the truth of that was unhinging her. Her mind was adrift, rudderless behind eyes that saw some unspeakable horror. How long had she been like this? And was she already too far gone?
I found myself on my feet, reaching to offer what comfort I could. I touched her shoulder and her eyes snapped up, wide and white. “Don’t touch me!” she said. “Don’t anybody touch me.”
She backed away, hands outstretched. She found the bedroom door with her back and pushed it open. “You should just go home, Work. I can’t talk to you.”
“Jean,” I implored her.
Her eyes were still wet, glazed under the dim bulbs. She backed farther into the bedroom, her hand on the door, ready to close it. “Daddy always said that done is done, and that’s where we are. I said my piece, Work. I told that woman nothing about