Oh. I guessed that made sense—he would’ve been my dad’s neighbor, after all. Still, the thought that he’d been there, that he’d had all that time to observe me and my family, before I even knew that he existed... it made me feel prickly and self-conscious. And sure, he had no reason to pay any particular attention tome. But I couldn’t help but see myself as I’d been that day through a stranger’s eyes, and I didn’t like what I saw.
I’d looked like shit, for one thing. Conner and I, in a rare moment of sibling bonding, had decided to get drunk together the night before. We’d both rolled into the funeral hungover, but while Conner still looked like a human being, I looked like I was wearing Halloween makeup, I was so pale with purple circles under my eyes.
I’d also forgotten to pack the right shoes to go with my black dress, so I’d ended up wearing these gold sparkly pointy-toed flats that had been like a flashing neon sign in the midst of all the somber clothes. This, from a woman who dressed in black ninety-five percent of the time. I shouldn’t have been able to fuckthatpart up, of all things.
The dress itself had been made of this draped, diaphanous gauze that looked ethereal on the size 2 model in the sponsored post. On me, it looked like I was carrying an entire dance troupe’s costumes around my body. When I sat down, I worried people would throw dirty laundry on me.
But worse, perhaps, I didn’t know if I’d looked... grief-stricken. The entire funeral had been a blur. My dad’s death had come as a shock—he was still in his fifties, he was supposed to have plenty of time left. But the whole day had felt surreal, like I was in a dream, or in someone else’s life. I hadn’t known what to say or how to act, and so I’d just kind of shut down, retreated inside myself to the place I could always go as a kid when I needed some quiet.
And now people were always saying this kind of thing to me. My dissertation advisor, when she heard why I’d need to push our meeting back. A couple people in my program, when I let it slip at a board game night hosted by a professor and his partner. My landlord, when I’d told him why I was leaving for Florida.
This time it was Sam, saying the words he’d probably said to me at the funeral, too, although I didn’t remember. I didn’t know what to say now any more than I had then.We weren’t that close?Actually, he hadn’t been a part of my life since I was a teenager?He wasn’t that nice to me?
“Thanks,” I said instead, because it was the safest response, the one that most people wanted so we could move on to the next topic.
But Sam was looking at me, and for a minute I worried that it all showed on my face—my ambivalence, my guilt, my anger. I did a finger-gun gesture toward the box in his hands that would haunt me for the rest of my life.
“If that’s a severed head, I’m going to be very upset,” I said, and then, at his confused expression, I added, “That’s aWayne’s Worldreference. Never mind.”
He started to say something, but I was suddenly desperate to get out of there. So, before I could make the exchange any weirder, I turned on my heel and headed back.
?OVER THE RESTof the week, I didn’t have much other opportunity to observe Sam further. His comings and goings were still baffling to me. He’d leave the house dressed in that same bland business casual attire—sometimes he was gone only for an hour or so, while other times he could be out half the day. On Wednesday a nondescript sedan parked in front of his house, but I missed seeing the person it belonged to either entering or exiting his house, so no leads there.
He was also up late most nights, almost as late as I was, if the lights in his windows were anything to go by. I knew it was none of my business, but that didn’t stop me from becoming obsessed with figuring out the answers to things likeWhat does he do for his job?orWhat Myers-Briggs type is he?I almost wished another package for him would be mistakenly delivered, just so I would have the opportunity to go over there again. But wonder of wonders, he’d actually taken my advice and stuck vinyl numbers to the side of his mailbox.
Regardless, I needed to buckle down and focus on my dissertation rather than the psychological profile of my neighbor. I owed another chapter to my advisor by the end of next week.
It hadn’t been easy to convince the English department to let me study true crime in the first place. I still remembered the first time I’d ever stepped onto campus, for an interview and informational tour before I was technically accepted into the program.The grad student showing me around had explained the coursework for the first few years, the way you branched out depending on if you were on a literature, rhetoric, or technical communication track, then the terror that was comps exams. After that, she said, her eyes lighting up, you could basically “study whatever you want.”
What they’d really meant was you could study the emasculation of Hemingway’s wounded characters or Faust allusions inLolitaor the intersection of composition and creative writing pedagogy.
But true crime was a genre like anything else, with conventions and expectations. It was nonfiction but never wholly objective, always instead reflecting trends or cultural reactions or public desires. I’d been fascinated with it since I was thirteen and had readHelter Skelterfor the first time.
Which, incidentally, was the book at the heart of the chapter I was working on. I’d decided to focus on the relationship between author and subject in true crime, with sections on professional, personal, and familial relationships. When I’d first readHelter Skelter, a book subtitledThe True Story of the Manson Murders, it hadn’t even occurred to me to doubt any of its information or second-guess the author’s motive in writing it. As the lead prosecutor, Bugliosi had practicallybeen there, after all. It was still an amazing book, but you gotta think about the inherent bias of a dude writing a book literally defending the job he did in putting the criminals away.
My current problem was that I absolutely could not find my flagged, underlined copy I’d been working from. I tore through every box I’d brought from my apartment, double-checked thatI hadn’t put it in my backpack to keep it that much closer to my heart, but came up empty.
There was a chance I still had my childhood copy in my room somewhere. I’d brought a lot of that stuff with me when my mom and I moved out, of course, but I’d kept enough stuff at my dad’s to keep me entertained when I’d had to spend weekends there. A quick search of my bookshelves showed that I’d left all three books in theEmily of New Moonseries and a giant tome on Rasputin I’d loved to lug around but never read, but no dice on the only book I needed.
I knew I could order another copy through some fast-delivering capitalist website, but something in me balked at spending another fifteen dollars on a book I’d already owned multiple copies of in my lifetime. I brought up the county library’s online catalog and confirmed that they had the book sitting at my local branch. If I was going to be stuck here all summer, it would make sense to apply for a library card anyway. I went ahead and filled out all the information, using my dad’s address as my own.
I’d just submitted the form when I heard a loud clatter outside. If this was the start of some Golden State Killer shit, it was probably not a great idea to go to the window to check out what it could be. But then again, presumably a serial killer would be a little more slick than going around neighborhoods dropping suitcases of wrenches or whatever that sound had been.
I tweaked the blinds to see Sam, emerging from his open garage. He was barefoot again, and holding his arms awkwardly out from his body. They appeared to be covered in... whatwasthat? It was liquid, but in the darkness it was impossible to tell color. Could it be red? Could it beblood?
He went to open the door of his truck, then stopped when he realized his hands were covered in the liquid, too. He just stood there for a moment, the set of his shoulders expressively conveying the curses he was probably muttering under his breath, before turning to head back to the garage.
It was eleven o’clock at night. What the hell was hedoing?
He emerged again, seeming cleaner this time, and using a rag to open his truck door. No fingerprints. Savvy.
(Although if the handle wastooclean, wouldn’t that look more suspicious? Since it was his own truck?)
When he pulled a roll of plastic dropcloth from his truck, I let the blinds fall closed and stepped away from the window. This was too weird. I knew I was a little jumpy, given how marinated I’d been in matter-of-fact descriptions of brutal crimes over the last year, but all I could think was how this scene would play out in theForensic Filesreenactment and it wasn’t good. I hoped at least they cast a fat actress to play me. Representation was important.
Before I could think too hard about it, I dialed Conner’s number, breathing a sigh of relief when he picked up with his usual cheerful hello.
“What do you know about this neighbor,” I said, not really a question, as I tweaked the blinds again. Sam was nowhere in sight, but the light from his garage still spilled over his driveway. That had to be a good sign. He wouldn’t be working in hisDexterroom of plastic for the whole street to see, right?