Once Upon a River Page 0,17

normal within the Murray family, though it had driven Margo’s daddy crazy.

“It’s after noon. Everybody’s worried about you,” he said, sitting on the edge of the bed where she was lying. “I came over to tell you that the cops are on the way.”

“What?”

“Ricky’s working in the township office, so he heard they were coming over. That’s Ricky in the kitchen.”

“Why are they coming here?” Margo heard a vehicle pull into the driveway.

Junior said, “That sounds like a cop car to me. They probably want to ask you a few more questions. They have to make sure you’re okay. It’s the law that cops have to hassle people who don’t want them around.”

“Cops are here,” Ricky yelled from the other room. Ricky was their youngest uncle, Cal’s littlest brother, twenty years old. He was studying to be a paralegal.

Margo wrapped the covers around herself, sat up, and leaned against her cousin. She was afraid that Junior would go away if she didn’t say something. “I’ve missed you,” she whispered.

“I’ve missed you, too, Margo,” Junior said and put an arm around her. “I’ve missed everything and everybody. It makes me suicidal to even think about going back to that academy.” Someone knocked on the door, and when voices sounded in the next room, Junior stood up. “You’d better cover up those tiny titties before you come out.”

Margo adjusted her blanket. When he left the room, she put on a pair of Crane’s jeans, one of his turtlenecks, and a flannel shirt. She went into the kitchen, where two officers were talking to Junior, who was taller than either of them. The smaller cop, whom everyone at school knew as Officer Mike, said, “We wanted to make sure you were okay, Margaret.”

“See, everybody was worried about you, Margaret,” Junior said. Margo had the feeling he was making fun of the cop, but she didn’t understand exactly how.

“We need to look around, see if there’s anything here to help us figure out why Mr. Crane would have been shooting at Cal and Billy Murray. Did he keep anything like a diary?”

Margo shook her head. The most they would find from Crane would be a grocery list jotted on an empty matchbook. His anger at Cal would not be written on anything they could find.

“Any other firearms here? Any unregistered pistols? Can we look around?”

She shrugged, and they took that as a yes.

“Cal Murray said if your daddy didn’t have any money, he’d pay funeral expenses,” said the bigger cop, when the two had given up on finding anything of interest. “Can we give you a ride to Cal’s?”

She shook her head.

“Are you sure?”

“I want to row my boat over there,” she said. When they kept looking at her, she began to fear they wouldn’t leave. “My mom will come to get me. When she hears about my dad.”

“We’ll get her over to our house, Officer Mike,” Junior said, adopting a trusty Boy Scout demeanor.

“Let us know as soon as your mother contacts you,” said Officer Mike. “We may need to talk with her. And we’ll contact you again in a few days if we need an additional statement.”

“And if there’s anything for your ma in the estate, we’ll have to track her down,” Ricky said.

Margo knew there’d be no estate. Crane still owed payments to a guy on his ten-year-old Ford, and he owed the dentist, too. He had sent Margo to get her teeth cleaned every six months—even when he had been drunk and unemployed, he’d sent her with a twenty-dollar bill against the account.

“There won’t be a trial, will there?” Junior said.

“Nobody’s denying what your brother did was self-defense, but he did kill a man. Someone’s evaluating him now.”

“I’m sorry, Margaret,” Officer Mike said. He held up a business card and placed it on the counter. “Call my number if you need a ride to Cal’s. Or if you need anything.”

“We’re sorry for your loss,” the bigger cop said.

When they closed the door, Ricky Murray spoke up. “We ought to find your dad’s papers, any official documents. If he’s got a will, you’ll want to locate that.”

Margo’s eyes were swollen from crying, and when she leaned down beside her father’s bed, her head ached. From beneath it, she produced an army-green tin box. It felt like a violation putting it on the kitchen table and opening the lid in front of Ricky and Junior. The first thing she saw inside was her cut-off ponytail, wrapped in wax paper. In a bulging