Dark Places

Chapter 40
Libby Day NOW

Thirteen days after Diondra and Crystal went missing, and the police had still not found them, had still not found any physical evidence to link Diondra to Michelle. The hunt was dissolving into an arson case, it was losing steam.

Lyle came over to watch bad TV with me, his new habit. I let him come if he didn't talk too much, I made a big deal about him not talking too much, but I missed him on the days he didn't come. We were watching some particularly grotesque reality show when Lyle suddenly sat up straighter. "Hey, that's my sweater."

I was wearing one of his too-tight pullovers I'd taken from the back of his car at some point, and it really did look much better on me.

"It really does look better on me," I said.

"Man, Libby. You could just ask, you know." He turned back to the TV, where women were going at each other like angry pound dogs. "Libby Sticky Fingers. Too bad you didn't leave Diondra's with, like, her hairbrush. We'd have some DNA."

"Ah, the magic, magic DNA," I said. I'd stopped believing in DNA.

On the TV, a blond woman had another blond woman by the hair and was pushing her down some steps, and I flipped the channel to a nature show on crocodiles.

"Oh, oh, my God." I ran from the room.

I came back, slapped Diondra's lipstick and thermometer on the table.

"Lyle Wirth, you are goddam brilliant," I said, and then I hugged him.

"Well," he said, and then laughed. "Wow. Huh, brilliant. Libby Sticky Fingers thinks I'm brilliant."

"Absolutely."

DNA FROM BOTH objects matched the blood on Michelle's bedspread. The manhunt ignited. No wonder Diondra had been so insistent she was never remotely connected to Ben. All those scientific advances, one after another, making it easier and easier to match DNA: she must have felt more endangered each year instead of less. Good.

They nailed Diondra at a money-order dive in Amarillo. Crystal was nowhere to be found, but Diondra was nabbed, although it took four cops to get her in the car. So Diondra was in jail and Calvin Diehl had confessed. Even some skeevy loan agent had been rounded up, his mere name giving me the willies: Len. With all that, you'd think Ben might have been released from prison, but things don't go that quickly. Diondra wasn't confessing, and until her trial unfolded, they were going to hold on to my brother, who refused to implicate her. I finally went to visit him at the end of May.

He looked plumper, weary. He smiled weakly at me as I sat down.

"Wasn't sure if you'd want to see me," I said.

"Diondra was always sure you'd find her out. She was always sure of it. Guess she was right."

"Guess she was."

Neither of us seemed willing to go past that. Ben had protected Diondra for almost twenty-five years, I had undone all that. He seemed chagrined but not sad. Maybe he'd always hoped she'd be exposed. I was willing to believe that, for my own sake. It was easy not to ask the question.

"You'll be out of here soon, Ben. Can you believe it? You'll be out of prison." This was by no means a sure thing - a strip of blood on a dead girl's sheets is good, but a confession's better. Still, I was hopeful. Still.

"I wouldn't mind that," he said. "It may be time. I think twenty-four years may be enough. It may be enough for ... standing by. Letting it happen."

"I think so."

Lyle and I had put together pieces of that night from what Diondra had told me: They were at the house, ready to run away, and something happened that unraveled Diondra, she killed Michelle. Ben didn't stop her. My guess is, Michelle somehow learned of the pregnancy, the secret baby. I would ask Ben one day, ask for the details. But I knew he'd give me nothing now.

The two Days sat looking at each other, thinking things and swallowing them. Ben scratched a pimple on his arm, the Y of the Polly tattoo peeking out from his sleeve.

"So: Crystal. What can you tell me about Crystal, Libby? What happened that night? I've heard different versions. Is she, is she wrong. Bad?"

So now it was Ben wondering what happened in a lonely, cold house outside of town. I fingered the two tear-shaped scars on my cheekbone, imprints from the iron's steam ducts.

"She's smart enough to duck the police all this time," I said. "Diondra will never say where she is."

"That's not what I asked."

"I don't know, Ben, she was protecting her mother. Diondra said she told Crystal everything, and I think she meant it. Everything: I killed Michelle and no one can know. What does it do to a girl who knows her mother is a murderer? She gets obsessed, she tries to make sense of it, she clips photos of her dead relatives, she reads her dead aunt's diary until she can quote from it, she knows every angle, she spends her life ready to defend her mom. And then I show up, and it's Crystal who blows it. And what does she do? She tries to fix it. I kind of understand. I give her a pass. She won't go to prison because of me."

I'd been vague with the police about Crystal - they wanted to speak with her about the fire, but they didn't know she'd tried to kill me. I wasn't going to snitch on another member of my family, I just wasn't, even if this one happened to be guilty. I tried to tell myself she wasn't that disturbed. It could have been momentary madness, born out of love. But then, her mom had had a case of that, and it left my sister dead.

I hope to never see Crystal again, but if I do I'm glad I have a gun, let's put it that way.

"You really give her a pass?"

"I know a little bit about trying to do the right thing and f*cking up completely," I added.

"You talking about Mom?" Ben said.

"I was talking about me."

"You could have been talking about all of us."

Ben pressed his hand against the glass, and my brother and I matched palms.