The Last September: A Novel

According to the coroner, Charlie had been killed by the hammer. A blow to the back of his head. Why would he have turned his back on Eli in the midst of trying to provoke him? Charlie would turn his back on me, on Ladd, even on Deirdre. But on Eli he would have remained focused, watching him, registering his every move. I remembered the way Eli’s hands had come down on Charlie’s head, regretful, after knocking him down. Whoever had killed Charlie with the hammer had also slit his throat, still vengeful.

I stood up and walked around to the garage to retrieve the hidden key, then let myself into the house through the side door. Upstairs, the books I’d left out on the desk had been moved back to the shelf. Rowing in Eden. Open Me Carefully. Master Letters. The Life of Emily Dickinson. Austin and Mabel. There were too many to carry at once, so I made a couple trips to the car. Then I went into the kitchen and started collecting all of Charlie’s good pots and pans. His wood knife block, minus the one the killer had used. I couldn’t shake the feeling that I was trespassing. And stealing. But I wanted Charlie’s copper pots. Never mind that I couldn’t remember the last time I’d cooked anything more complicated than instant oatmeal or scrambled eggs. I carried them to the car a few armloads at a time, the metal conducting particles of Charlie into my bare skin.

But before I left, I went back to the house and walked through each room, looked under every bed, and opened every closet door. Just in case Eli was there hiding. When I got back into the car, Lightfoot had moved to the floor of the front passenger’s seat, rolled into a little black pile like a roly-poly, quivering. I leaned forward and stroked her back.

“It’s okay, baby,” I said. “It’s okay.”

She unzipped herself in one quick motion and jumped into my lap. I backed out of the driveway. The dog’s trembling slowly subsided as we made our way past the cranberry bog, away from the house. And I couldn’t believe the dog would feel so afraid—still so afraid—if she’d only arrived late at night with Eli to find Charlie already dead. I felt sure that she had seen it happen, that she had been there. Which meant that one way or another, Eli had been there, too.

BY THE TIME DANIEL knocked quietly on the door of my bedroom, I had stacked the books on the desk in the corner. Sarah sat on the floor, surrounded by her father’s pots and pans. Daniel stood on the threshold, staring at her, his brow furrowed, and for a moment I worried he thought I’d stolen them from his kitchen.

“I went over to the Moss house,” I said, hoping my voice sounded calm and not defensive. “The pots belong to Charlie.”

Daniel nodded. “Of course,” he said, as if nothing could make more sense than a pile of good copper cookware in an upstairs bedroom. “Would you like a box for them? You can store them in the garage if you like. Or in the hall closet, I don’t think there’s much of anything in there.”

He turned to walk down the hall and I followed him. The wide closet was almost as big as my study at the Moss house had been. There were rolls and rolls of toilet paper and paper towels, and a carton filled with cleaning supplies, along with miles of empty floorboards.

“See?” Daniel said. “Plenty of space in here. Unless . . . you’d rather keep them in your room?”

He seemed not only poised and ready but forgiving in advance for any grief inspired lunacy. Perhaps he pictured me sleeping with the pots, the smallest sauce pan clutched to my chest like a teddy bear.

“No,” I told him. “The closet would be fine.” And then I added, more to myself than Daniel, “I need to get his clothes, too. At some point.”

We walked outside to the garage, where he thought there was a collection of boxes. Sarah toddled after us. Daniel leaned over to pull up the door with a graceful and effortless arc of his back. As soon as the door disappeared overhead, Sarah darted underneath it. A small red wheelbarrow sat toward the front, filled with plastic beach toys, but Sarah bypassed it in favor of a yellow flyswatter, which she picked up and began swishing at the air.

“Do you want me to take that from her?” Daniel asked as I stepped around a lawn mower.