Джонатан Келлерман: Night Moves

“Fourteen.”

“Chelsea?”

No reply.

Felice said, “She’s seventeen. They’re both minors, so I’m taking responsibility here. They know nothing and I don’t want their ordeal to be exacerbated.”

Milo said, “Fair enough, ma’am. But kids, if you do think of something, tell your parents—”

Chelsea mumbled, “Bullshit.” Turning, she faced us, focused on her mother, glaring. “I can talk, I don’t care what anyone says.”

Chet Corvin said, “Watch your tone, young lady.”

“Bullshit.”

Felice Corvin said, “Cheltz—”

“Bullshit, I can talk.” A lower-lip tremor robbed the statement of potency.

“Cheltz, you said you had nothing to tell them.”

“But if I did I could.”

“ ‘But if I did I could,’ ” said Brett in a baby voice. “Ooooh.”

His sister wheeled on him. “Fuck off you little ass-wipe—”

Brett bobbled his head and waved jazz hands. “Ooooooh—”

Chelsea spat on the floor. “ Ant- dick. I’ve seen it and you are.”

Her turn to smirk. Brett turned crimson and began to rise. His mother restrained him with a hand on his arm. He squirmed. Jabbed the air with a one-finger salute.

“ Midget- balls,” said Chelsea.

The boy struggled to peel Felice’s hand off.

She restrained him with both of hers. “Don’t you dare, Brett Corvin.”

Brett flopped back against the back of the sofa, growling. Flashes of red and blue as he bared his teeth. Designer orthodontics.

Chelsea said, “No-go gonad.”

Chet Corvin, stunned, had done nothing during the exchange, eyes moving between his offspring.

Felice pushed Brett back and wagged her finger at Chelsea. Shooting to her feet, she extruded words through clenched lips. “Both. Of. You. Shut. Up!”

Instant compliance.

“Bar bar ians!” She turned to us, flashed a frosty smile. “Obviously, I’ve proved my point. Here’s what’s going to happen: I’ll talk to you now, and then we’ll be finished.” To her husband: “Watch them properly and find a decent hotel. Make sure it’s got good Wi-Fi.”

Facing us, her back to him.

“Honey,” he said, glancing at Chelsea, then Brett.

The girl trembled. The boy seethed.

Felice Corvin said, “ You handle them. For a change. ”

Felice Corvin walked ahead of us to the Weylands’ kitchen. We sat but she remained on her feet. “I’m at a desk all day. My chiropractor tells me to get off my butt whenever I have a chance. What do you want to know?”

Milo said, “Let’s go over tonight. Your husband said you left for dinner at six fifteen.”

“If he said it, it must be true.”

We waited.

“Sorry,” she said. “I’m on edge. For obvious reasons. Yes, that sounds right.”

“You arrived at Lawry’s at...”

“Whenever Chet says. I’m not a clock-watcher.”

“Out for a normal Sunday dinner.”

“Normal. Interesting word.” She tossed her hair. “Sorry, again. Yes, it was just another meal, no special occasion. We try to go out with the two of them.” She laughed. “Civilization and all that. Honestly, I’m appalled by what you just had to witness.”

I said, “They’re under a lot of stress.”

“Of course they are but I won’t kid you, this goes way back, the two of them have never gotten along. Nothing in common, not that that explains it.” She shrugged. “Brett’s a great athlete, he handles school basically okay. Chelsea...” She sighed. “She’s seventeen but still in tenth grade. There are motor issues as well as cognitive and perceptual problems, so sports are out and learning’s a challenge. That makes her an obvious target and Brett can be unkind — I don’t know why I’m telling you this.” She threw up her hands. “Probably just what you said, stress.”

Milo said, “We appreciate your taking the time—”

“Sure. Can we get on with it?”

“Of course, ma’am... so you had dinner and got back around nine. Take us through what happened then.”

“We all went upstairs then Chet went downstairs for his glasses and I heard this crazy noise. It took a second for me to realize he was screaming. Like he was in pain, last time I heard that was when he had prostatitis.”

A fact Chet had chosen to omit, emphasizing his wife’s emotionality.

“My first thought was, He’s had a heart attack. What with his weight and all the garbage he puts in his system. So I ran down, saw him standing there staring at something. Then I saw what it was.”

She shook her head. “That poor, poor man. It’s still sinking in. Our house? How insane is that?”

We gave her time. She filled it with nothing.

Milo looked at me.

I said, “After you saw—”

“Oh, God,” she said, shutting her eyes, then opening them. “I really don’t want to think about it. Don’t know if I’ll ever get the image out of my head.”

Her lids fluttered. Pretty hazel irises settled on me. “How do you people do it, day after day?”

“Time tends to—”

“So they say, I hope it’s true.” She tapped her forehead. “Because right now it’s just sitting in here like a... a... I don’t even want to fall asleep tonight, afraid of what I’m going to dream.”

She sat down, exhaled, pushed hair behind her left ear. Spotting a Kleenex box, she grabbed a tissue, wadded it, passed it from hand to hand. “Everything’s jangling. ”

I said, “It’s a terrible thing to go through.”

“I think I’d like some water.”

Milo found a glass, rinsed and filled.

“Thank you.” Tentative sips, then a deep swallow. She blinked. “Sorry.”

“Nothing to be sorry for,” I said. “Can we go on?”

“Sure.”

“So you and Mr. Corvin were standing there—”

“Both of us freaking out. Chet’s color looks nasty to me, purplish, he’s got blood pressure issues. I’m thinking, Oh shit, there’ll be two dead bodies, what the hell am I going to do? ”

She drank more water, dabbed sweat from the sides of her nose. “If both of us had the foresight to be quiet... but we didn’t and that brought the kids down and once I saw them, I snapped into mommy mode, not wanting them to see it. But I wasn’t fast enough. At that point, it became utter chaos, Brett’s whooping and yelling how gross it is, Chelsea’s just standing there. Meanwhile, Chet’s his usual inert self — what you just saw. Rooted in place and I’m trying to push the kids out of the room and now Brett’s had an eyeful and he’s white as a ghost. They both are, Chelsea was stunned from the get-go. As you saw, Brett recovered, he’s not one for... lingering. Chelsea, on the other hand... this is the last thing she needs.”

I said, “We can give you referrals for therapy.”

“Could you?” she said. “That’s kind, maybe at some point. But not now, Chelsea hates therapists, we tried a couple, they failed miserably. What can I say? I choose my battles.”

Same thing her husband had said about debating her.

A family that saw life as a war zone?

I said, “So you have no idea who the victim might be?”

“Of course not! Why would I?”

“We need to ask.”

“Proper procedure?” said Felice Corvin. “I get it, I work for L.A. Unified, it’s all about procedure, a lot of it downright stupid. No, I don’t have a clue. Nor can I tell you why they dumped him in our house.”

She bit her lip. “What they did to his hands — was that to hide his fingerprints?”

“Could be.”

“I hope that’s what it is. ’Cause if it’s some crazy satanic thing, that would scare me completely to death.”