AJ was her favorite. If it were not for AJ, I doubt she would have decided to work for us, given the twenty-mile drive. You might think—certainly, I thought about it—that she would be even more committed to me, motherless baby girl that I was. But Teensy preferred AJ, always. “Boys need mothers,” she would say, rationalizing her bias. “Girls don’t need anyone.” I think she was speaking for herself. Teensy didn’t need anything or anyone. I’m not even sure why she had a husband.
I thought of her as old, always, but she was twenty-three when she came to work for the Closters, which means she was thirty-seven on this August day. When my husband died, Teensy was thrilled to have three new lives to domineer after years of tending to my father. So my children and I moved back into that rambling stone house at the edge of the lake, after my father agreed to add a few rooms and renovate the kitchen and baths, still stuck in the 1970s. My father has supervised this never-ending project and I have since learned that this frugal, careful man can be a libertine with someone else’s money. I never knew drawer pulls could cost so much, or that there are bathtubs that will put you back more than a car. But it made him happy and I could never deny him anything that made him happy.
Another full circle in my life, yet my children’s lives in my childhood home could not be more different from mine. I can’t imagine giving Penelope and Justin the freedom to walk to the 7-Eleven on Green Mountain Circle. Wouldn’t matter if I did; it’s long gone. The lapping wavelets of Wilde Lake, my onetime lullabye, now whisper to me of their intent to take my children’s lives if I ever allow my vigilance to flag. And in my imagination, Columbia’s famous walking paths and bike trails are like a Candy Land board game snaking through a forest of potential pedophiles. I don’t even send my children to the neighborhood elementary school I attended, a ten-minute walk. They go to private school at the opposite end of the county, which means I still have to have a babysitter, Melissa, just to drive them to and from school every day. Fred tried to make that an issue during the election, even tried to suggest I was a racist because the neighborhood school has a large minority population. That backfired on him when I explained that my children had been enrolled in their current school’s pre-K not long after their father died; the school was one of the few constants in their young lives. I was reluctant to remove them from the comfort of a familiar place for what would be shallow, political concerns.
I almost feel sorry for Fred. Almost. It had to be a special kind of hell, running against the unimpeachable Widow Brant. Such a tragic figure, having lost her childhood sweetheart. (Gabe and I didn’t start dating until college, but, you know, print the legend.) A respected figure, daughter and sister to two saintly men. And, by the way, a really good trial attorney. He couldn’t win, and he didn’t. The night of the general election, we were neck and neck the whole evening, but the final precincts delivered the victory to me. A squeaker, 50.5 percent of the vote, but all you need is 50 percent plus one. The gender divide did him in. Women didn’t like him going after my kids. The African American women that Fred thought would vote for him in a bloc much preferred me. Even his appearance at Davey Robinson’s church didn’t help him win those women over.
Besides, if Fred wanted to make it personal, there were better, juicier—truer—rumors to spread. He just didn’t know where to look.
JANUARY 8
They get a hit on the fingerprints quickly, from the door and the thermostat: Rudy Drysdale, a fifty-one-year-old vagrant with a history of loitering, trespassing, breaking and entering. But not a single act of violence, which tempers Lu’s excitement. A smart defense attorney could knock this charge down in a heartbeat. With this guy’s record, it would be easy to argue that he broke into the apartment after the woman was dead, panicked, and left. That wouldn’t answer the mystery of the print on the thermostat, but she’s not going to risk charging him on the fingerprint alone. She’s not even sure she wants to interrogate him yet, but she also can’t afford to leave a killer on the streets. Two detectives are dispatched to the cheap motels along Route 1. Drysdale, on medical disability, apparently stays in motels at the beginning of the month when he’s flush with his government money, then resorts to sleeping outdoors if the weather allows. Howard County is not an easy place to be a homeless man. There are no emergency shelters and only a handful of food pantries. How do you survive the winter if you are homeless in Howard County?