Something crashed against the window nearest Gertie.
The creaking air conditioner fell out the window, she guessed. Or maybe it was the old computer that they’d turned into a fish tank. She jolted, struggling, but couldn’t sit upright. Her belly felt like it had been punched by an industrial stapler to the mattress.
Was it the music? The heat? Why was she stuck?
“Arlo! Where are you?” she pleaded. Music played louder. The part where he’s watching cartoons the first time he gets high. “Arlo! Why won’t you answer?”
The lights came on. Skinny Arlo was standing over her, all four tattoos bright and animate against his pale, needle-scarred arms.
“The kids! You need to go check—” Gertie started, but her voice sounded muddy to her own ears.
“Give me,” Arlo said, taking the phone from her bedside table, kissing her cheek and the side of her lip gentle and quick.
“Why am I…?”
She saw then that the window was broken, and the floor beneath it spilled with shattered glass. She followed an imaginary trajectory across the room. Through the window, up toward the bright white ceiling, and then back down, over the bed.
“It’s my wife. I need an ambulance. 116 Maple Street. Can you hear me? Are you getting this?” Arlo looked at the phone. “They got my wife!” he shouted at it, then dialed all over.
By now the kids had woken. They stood in the doorway, Larry in just underpants even though he was too old.
“You’re ’kay, babies. We’re all ’kay,” Gertie croaked as blood surged, sealing her nightgown to her belly.
SNITCHES
July 26–31
Map of Maple Street as of July 26, 2027
*116 Wilde Family
*118 Schroeder Family
INDEX OF MAPLE STREET’S PERMANENT RESIDENTS AS OF JULY 26, 2027
100 VACANT
102 VACANT
104 The Singhs-Kaurs—Sai (47), Nikita (36), Pranav (16), Michelle (14), Sam (13), Sarah (9), John (7)
106 VACANT
108 VACANT
110 The Hestias—Rich (51), Cat (48), Helen (17), Lainee (14)
112 VACANT
114 The Walshes—Sally (49), Margie (46), Charlie (13)
116 The Wildes—Arlo (39), Gertie (31), Julia (12), Larry (8)
118 The Schroeders—Fritz (62), Rhea (53), FJ (19), Ella (9)
120 The Benchleys—Robert (78), Kate (74), Peter (39)
122 VACANT
124 The Harrisons—Timothy (46), Jane (45), Adam (16), Dave (14)
126 The Pontis—Steven (52), Jill (48), Marco (20), Richard (16)
128 The Ottomanellis—Dominick (44), Linda (44), Mark (12), Michael (12)
130 The Atlases—Bethany (37), Fred (30)
132 VACANT
134 VACANT
TOTAL: 39 PEOPLE
From Newsday, July 26, 2027, page 68
A Garden City woman was rushed to NYU Winthrop Hospital early this morning when a brick crashed through the window of her residence, 116 Maple Street. The woman, Gertie Wilde, remains in critical condition. She is twenty-seven weeks pregnant.
Because of satellite interference, an ambulance was not immediately available. An investigation of the incident is ongoing. Detective Don Bianchi asks that anyone with information contact the Garden City Police Department.
From Believing What You See: Untangling the Maple Street Murders, by Ellis Haverick,
Hofstra University Press, ? 2043
With the brick, all of Maple Street became complicit. We know now that nearly every family was represented. These families have been framed as a mob. Angry and intemperate, striking without evidentiary foundation. In the years since, many of them have voiced public contrition.
But many others have not, and it is these in whom I’m interested. A decade later, Linda Ottomanelli has only grown more adamant. “Arlo hurt that girl. Gertie covered for him. We knew that. I mean, the guy ran stark-naked through Sterling Park. Somebody even said he had a boner, and he was chasing Shelly so hard she wound up falling down a sinkhole. Can you imagine how frightened she must have been? I mean, before that, he’d hurt her so badly that she’d bled all over our trampoline. What more proof do you need?” Linda told me in an interview at her apartment in Floral Park, Queens, where she and Dominick have downsized to in order to pay outstanding medical expenses. “Can you imagine, my having to see that horror? To talk my kids through it? Their best friend was murdered right in front of them! The monsters who’d done it were living a hundred feet away, off scot-free. No wonder Mark had a nervous breakdown. No wonder he hung himself, God rest his soul! And Michael, who’s to say his multiple sclerosis isn’t from stress?… I could never get them to admit it—it’s so shameful when it happens to boys—but I’m convinced Arlo hurt them, too. They didn’t turn out normal… Something messed them up.”