Jonathan Kellerman - The Murderer's Daughter

Dodie clamped her hands on her hips and didn’t move them at all. The more Ardis wiggled, the stiffer she got. Sniffing her fingers, she cursed and frowned and washed some more. “Well, look what the wind blew in. Figures.”

“Hey, dinner.” Ardis wrinkled his nose. “Stinks like shit in here.”

“Yeah, well, that’s what it’s like in a luxury condo.” Dodie eyed the bucket. “You’re at KFC, now? They kick your ass out of Mickey D?”

“Nah, still Mickey D, but I got connections.”

“Connections for some fuckin’ chicken.” Dodie curled a finger. “Whoopy doo.”

“Breasts and thighs.” Ardis winked. Checked to see if Grace had noticed. She had but she’d turned around to pretend she hadn’t.

“Breasts and thighs, thighs and breasts,” said Dodie, with lightness in her voice.

“Uh-huh.”

The two of them shuffled off to the sleeping space, Ardis taking time to put the bucket on the kitchenette counter.

Grace went outside. When she passed Mrs. Washington’s trailer, Mrs. Washington was having a sober evening and called out, “Child? C’mere,” and gave Grace a rib from a batch she’d cooked yesterday on her outdoor grill made out of an oil can.

“Thank you.”

“Least I can do, you living with those... never mind, go on and find yourself a place to eat.”

Grace didn’t settle, she just walked around the trailer park, eating the rib. Gnawing on the bone well after she’d stripped it of meat. Her tooth still hadn’t come in totally and the hot sauce made the hole Ardis’s fist had created weeks ago tingle and hurt.

When she returned to the single-wide, Ardis was inside sitting on a lawn chair with a bottle of whiskey and Dodie was cutting up chicken in the kitchenette.

He looked mean and Grace stayed out of arm’s reach.

Dodie said, “Fuckin’ KFC, what’s with all the bones.”

Ardis said, “Chicken has bones, stupid. If it didn’t, it would be... boneless chicken.” Throwing his head back, he laughed and took a swallow from the bottle.

Dodie stopped cutting. “You just call me stupid?”

No answer from Ardis.

“I asked you a question. You call me stupid?”

“Whatever.”

“Whatever?”

“Hey,” said Ardis, taking another drink. “Stupid is like stupid does.”

“Fuck that,” said Dodie. “Fuck you — I gotta take that from a retard ?”

“Who you callin’ a retard?”

No answer from Dodie.

Ardis repeated the question.

Dodie snickered. “If the retard shoe fits.”

Both of them talking in that loose, hard-to-understand way they always did when they drank too much or smoked too much weed or took pills. Which was almost always when they emerged from the sleeping space.

Ardis said, “What fits is my dick up your fat ass.”

Silence.

Dodie said, “What’d you just shit outta your pie-hole? Retard.”

Ardis repeated the insult. Stood up and advanced toward the kitchenette.

Dodie said, “You know, you just need to just leave. And never come back. Retard.”

“Fuck that. This is my home.”

“Like hell it is,” said Dodie and now she was screaming. “I pay, you don’t do shit. Your home is someplace they stick useless retards!”

“You pay ?” Ardis bellowed. “Your welfare pays, bitch. You’re useless, sitting around, that ass a’ yours getting bigger and bigger, soon you’re not gonna fit through the fuckin’ door.”

Dodie turned from the chicken and faced him.

Ardis said, “What?”

“You ain’t worth the time — you just go.”

“I go when I say I go, I stay when I say I stay.” Ardis gave a crooked smile. “My dick goes up your ass when I say it’s the time for fun.”

He laughed.

Dodie had turned red as ketchup.

“Look at you.” Ardis laughed. “You like a... tomato. You all ugly, you been whupped with the biggest fuckin’ ugly stick in the biggest fuckin’ planet.”

“The planet is earth!” screamed Dodie. “We can’t live on another one ’cause there’s no air. Retard. You don’t know shit about science or anything because you’re stupid, know what they call you, even people you think like you? Dead Brain! Dead Brain Retard!”

“Bullshit!”

“Bull -no shit!”

Quick as a snakebite, Ardis lunged toward Dodie, shooting out a shaky hand that still managed to connect with her nose. Blood spurted. Dodie’s nose looked different than ever before. Flat. Crushed.

Breathing must’ve hurt because she began crying, tried to stanch the blood with KFC napkins, white turning to red real fast.

Ardis laughed and hit her again, this time with the usual open hand, like he didn’t even care. But hard, slapping the side of her head so hard that it flipped to the side and sprayed blood from her ruined nose.

This is different, thought Grace.

Then something really different happened. Dodie turned and put her weight into it and hit Ardis back. A real fast upward swoop.

Tracing the space beneath his chin.

Weird place to hit someone. Then Grace saw it.

A thin red line forming, Ardis’s eyes opening in wonder as the line started seeping and Ardis stumbled back causing the line to widen into a gaping slash.

A second mouth, grinning across his neck.

Now Ardis’s blood was coming out a lot faster than the blood from Dodie’s nose.

He staggered, tried to talk. Nothing came out. One hand flew toward his throat but dropped before arriving. Weakly, he waved a fist at Dodie.

Then he collapsed. Blood pooled beneath him.

Dodie stared at him. Shifted her eyes to the knife in her hand. Little tan specks and bits — breading from the chicken pieces — clung to the blade, turning into red lumps as they mixed with blood.

Dodie looked down at Ardis. Screamed his name and went over to him and shook him.

He didn’t move. Flat on his back, eyes sightless, mouth gaping. The blood kept spurting out of his neck.

Dodie’s attention now shifted to Grace, hugging herself with crossed arms. Pressed to the wall, wishing she could push herself through the wall.

“You saw that,” said Dodie. “I had to.”

Grace said nothing.

“What? You think I started it?”

Grace tried to shrivel to nothingness.

“What?” screamed Dodie, advancing on her. “You’re saying it was my fault? That what you’re saying?”

Grace remained silent.

Dodie said, “You keep looking at me with that look. Like I’m — fine, have it your way, remember this.”

Giving a weird, drunken smile, Dodie clutched the knife with both hands and raised it high. Letting out a laugh that sounded like a screaming coyote, she stiffened her arms and plunged the blade into her own belly.

Laughter turned to an agonized shriek as the pain hit her and she looked down and saw what she’d done. Shaking hands fumbled to dislodge the blade, buried in her abdomen to the hilt. Each attempt twisted the knife, doing more damage.

Dodie fell to her knees. Inches from Ardis.

Her hands faltered and dropped. The knife remained deeply embedded but turned to one side.

“Hep me,” she croaked to Grace. “Puh it ou.” Eyes dropping to the knife.

She moaned in pain.

Grace stood there.

Dodie’s eyes fluttered. Slammed shut. The trailer was quiet but for the drip-drop of blood on the linoleum floor.

Grace watched as the room turned red.

By the time Grace was sitting behind the precious barrier provided by her desk, Andrew Toner was perched rigidly on the edge of the patient chair, shoulders tight as bridge struts, looking everywhere but at Grace.