Ronald Malfi - Floating Staircase

“Travis . . .”

“Just look at them.” I turned both photographs around so that he could view them right side up. But he didn’t look down.

Eerily calm, my brother said, “I don’t believe this. I swear to God I don’t believe this.” He regarded me with such abject disappointment, it was all I could do not to get up and flee from his house like a crazy person. “When I opened the door a minute ago, I guess I had some hope that you’d come to your senses and were here to see your wife.”

“You’re missing the point. Look at the photos. Look at the trees.”

“I don’t—”

“Just look at them, damn it!”

Tiny beads of perspiration had popped out along Adam’s upper lip. Finally, he looked at the photos on his kitchen table. He said nothing, waiting for me to continue.

I said, “What do you notice?”

“About the trees?”

“Yes. What do you notice?”

“I see . . . I see trees.”

“Yes,” I said. “That’s right. Trees. A ton of them. A goddamn shitload. It’s the middle of summer, and the whole goddamn yard is infused with trees.”

“Your point being?”

“My point being David Dentman’s statement to the police is bullshit. He said he was watching the boy swim in the lake that day from the house. It’s his eyewitness testimony that claims when he could no longer see the boy, he ran down to the lake to find him. That’s when he noticed he was gone.” Again, I tapped both pictures. “But that’s bullshit. You can’t see the back of the fucking house through the trees, which means you can’t see the goddamn staircase from the house. You can hardly even tell there’s a lake back there in the summer, I’ll bet.”

Adam scowled. “What are you talking about? I’ve seen it from your house. You and Jodie marveled about the lake the day you moved in. You can see it out your bedroom window.”

“Sure,” I said, nodding. “In the winter. And even then you have to look through a meshwork of tree branches. When spring comes and those branches fill up with leaves, you probably can’t see a single drop of water from my bedroom window. Or any other window of the house.”

Adam sighed and leaned back in his chair. I couldn’t tell if he was working over what I’d just told him or if he was about to tell me to get the hell out of his house. His expression was unreadable.

“You were there that day.” I pushed the photo of the cops closer to him across the table. “You couldn’t see the house through those trees, could you?”

“You’re asking me to remember trees?”

“Christ, why are you being so obstinate about this? It’s not just about the fucking trees; it’s about what Dentman said.”

“So this makes David Dentman a liar,” he stated.

“It does.”

“Irrefutably?”

“W-well, sure,” I stammered, trying to think of any holes in the story before Adam could point them out. “He lied to cover up what really happened.”

Adam folded his arms across his chest. “So what really happened?”

I slumped against the chair. “I’m not exactly sure. I mean, I haven’t worked everything out in my head . . . just a . . . a . . .”

“Just what?” That classic Adam Glasgow condescension was in his voice, an uneasy serenity in the face of all I’d just showed him. At that moment I realized that I would never stop feeling like his younger brother—his subordinate, his weak and guilty little brother.

“You’re refusing to put the pieces together.” I slammed one hand down on the table. The photographs fluttered.

“Don’t do that,” he said, glancing at my hand.

“David Dentman has a criminal record,” I trucked on, ignoring him. “David Dentman lied in his statement to the police. Elijah Dentman’s body was never recovered from a goddamn self-enclosed lake!”

Adam breathed heavily through flared nostrils. I found myself temporarily mesmerized by the pores in his nose and the dark sheen of beard that looked painted along his jawline. I couldn’t pull my gaze from him.

“So David Dentman killed his nephew,” said my brother.

“Yes.”

“And these pictures are your proof of that? These”—he gestured at the photographs—”trees? A confused and heartbroken man’s statement taken in the midst of searching for his nephew’s corpse?”

“I know what it sounds like,” I admonished. “But it doesn’t change the fact that—”

“Man, there are no facts.” Adam shocked me by reaching across the table and covering one of my hands with his own. Tenderly.

I fought the electric urge to buck backward as if injured.

“Listen to me, okay? We’ve investigated the matter. It’s not unusual for divers to come up empty, even in what you call a self-enclosed body of water. Do you have any idea how big that lake is? Do you know how many boles or submerged deadfalls or rock formations are on the floor of the lake? How many rocky caves and underground tributaries going out to a hundred rivers? All those places where a body can get lost, get trapped. Forever.” He shrugged. It was a hopeless gesture. “As for these photos, David Dentman says he saw the kid by the lake. Who’s to say he didn’t? And Nancy Stein saw him. Is she a liar, too?”

I pulled my hand out from under his. “Nancy Stein saw him because she was walking her dog by the water. You can’t see the staircase from their house, either. The Steins both said so.”

“Christ, maybe the goddamn wind was blowing, or maybe the trees weren’t as thick—”

“That’s bullshit. Come on.”

“Then where’s the body, huh? If David Dentman killed the kid, you tell me where to find the body.”

The kitchen fell silent. All I could hear was the ticking of the wall clock behind my brother’s head. It sounded like industrial machinery.

“I want you to really listen to me good, Bro, all right?” Adam leaned farther over the table, closing the distance between us. To my horror, he looked close to tears. “This isn’t a book. This is real life. Whatever puzzle you’ve been trying to work out, well, I’m telling you, there ain’t nothing there.”

Angered and frustrated, I could only sit slouched in my chair, my arms folded protectively over my chest, one leg bouncing spasmodically on the floor. Once more I was that punk kid, pouting in the principal’s office.

Adam chewed on his lower lip. It was something he had always done in his youth when he found himself in a difficult spot. “I was putting off saying this to you,” he said eventually, “because I wasn’t sure how to say it. But I’m just gonna say it anyway. Because you’re not getting any better.”

“You make me sound like a heroin addict.”

“You’re acting like one.”

“Go to hell,” I said, kicking my chair back and rising.

“No,” he said calmly. “Sit down. You want to pull the tough-guy routine, fine, but do it after we’re done here. This is important.”

“I’m sick of you telling me what to do.”

Adam took a deliberate breath and said, “Sit down for Jodie’s sake, then.”

Fuming, I sat back down.

“Jodie’s upset. I’m talking really upset. She’s worried you’re falling into another depressive state, just like after Mom died—”

“Jodie’s got her nose in too many psychology textbooks,” I growled.

“—and just like how you were after Kyle’s death.”

“Jodie didn’t know me then.”

“But I did. I saw how it decimated you.”

There was a burning in my face. My eyes itched.

Adam sighed. “You’re making up something because you so desperately need to be the hero.”

Curling my toes in my boots, I turned away from him . . . and found myself staring at a framed photo of us from his wedding sitting on a shelf. I couldn’t wrench my gaze from it. It ridiculed me.