I have, but it was a bad Kurt Russell.
I phoned him, gave him my address (an unusual choice for me) told him he could come over if he wanted. In the background I could hear a woman’s voice asking who it was, telling Lyle to ask me something—-just ask her, don’t be silly, justaskher—and Lyle trying to scramble off the phone. Maybe Magda, wanting a report on Runner? I’d give it. I wanted to talk, in fact, or I would get in bed and not get out for another ten years.
While I waited, I prepped my hair. I’d bought a dye kit at the grocery store on the way home from seeing Ben. I had planned on grabbing my usual blonde—Platinum Pizazz—but in the end I left with Scarlet Sass, a redhead smiling saucily at me on the box. Less upkeep, yes, I always preferred less upkeep. And I’d been thinking about changing back since Ben remarked how much I looked like my mother, the idea irresistible to me, me somehow thinking I’d show up outside Diane’s trailer, looking like Patty Day resurrected, and maybe that would be enough to get me inside. Goddam Diane, not phoning me back.
I packed a crimson glob of chemicals on my head, the smell like something gently burning. Fourteen minutes more to go when the doorbell rang. Lyle. Of course he was early. He rushed in, talking about how relieved he was to hear from me, then pulled back.
“What is that, a perm?”
“I’m going back to red.”
“Oh. Good. I mean, it’s nice. The natural.”
In the thirteen minutes I had left, I told Lyle about Runner, and about Diondra.
“OK,” Lyle said, looking to his left, aiming his ear at me, his listening-thinking stance. “So according to Ben, Ben had gone back home, that night, briefly, got in a fight with your mom, and then left again, and he knows nothing after that.”
“According to Ben.” I nodded.
“And according to Runner, what? Either Trey killed your family because Runner owed him, or Ben and Trey killed your family and Diondra in some sort of Devil worship ritual. What’d Runner say about his girlfriend recanting his alibi?”
“He said she could suck his dick. I gotta rinse.”
He trailed me to the bathroom, filling the doorway, hands on each side of the frame, thinking.
“Can I say something specific about that night, Libby?”
I was bent over the tub, water dribbling out of the attachable nozzle—no showers in Over There That Way—but I paused.
“I mean, doesn’t it seem like it could have been two people? Somehow? Michelle’s murder was just—Your mom and Debby were like, uh, hunted down almost. But Michelle dies in her bed, covers pulled up. They have different feels to them. I think.”
I gave a small, stiff shrug, the Darkplace images swirling, and stuck my head under the spray, where I couldn’t hear anymore. The water started running toward the drain, burgundy. While I was still upside down, I could feel Lyle grab the attachment from me and pat at the back of my head. Clumsy, unromantic, just getting the job done.
“You still had some guck,” he yelled over the water, then handed the hose back to me. I rose up, and he reached toward me, grabbed an earlobe and swiped. “Some red stuff on your earlobe too. That probably wouldn’t go with earrings.”
“My ears aren’t pierced,” I said, combing out my hair, trying to figure out if the color was right. Trying very hard not to think about my family’s corpses, to concentrate just on hair.
“Really? I thought every girl had pierced ears.”
“Never had anyone to do them for me.”
He watched me brush, a sad-sack smile on his face.
“How’s the hair?” he asked.
“We’ll find out when it dries.”
We sat back down on the soggy living-room couch, each of us at opposite ends, listening to the rain get going again.
“Trey Teepano had an alibi,” he finally said.
“Well, Runner had an alibi too. Apparently they’re easy to come by.”
“Maybe you should go ahead and officially recant your testimony?”
“I’m not recanting anything until I’m sure,” I said. “I’m just not.”
The rain got harder, made me crave a fireplace.
“You know that the farm went into foreclosure the day of the murders, right?” Lyle said.
I nodded. It was one of forty-thousand new facts I had in my brain, thanks to Lyle and all his files.
“Doesn’t that seem like something?” he said. “Doesn’t this all seem too weird, like we’re missing something obvious? A girl tells a lie, a farm goes under, a gambler’s bets are called in by a, jeez, by a Devil-worshiping bookie. All on the same day.”
“And every single person in this case lies, is lying, did lie.”