“I guess.”
“So, why’d you leave, Mr. Fielding?”
He shrugged again. “I dunno. Didn’t get along with the old man, I guess.”
“How about your sister? Did she get along with him?”
Neil was silent, staring at Bob Barker. Louis was looking at the line in the old police report about the car accident. He was thinking about a drunken Cliff Parker driving off that dark two-lane highway, plunging his pickup into the black water. But he was seeing his own mother, Lila, seeing her and hearing her and smelling her the way she was when she would come home drunk.
“Mr. Fielding,” Louis said, “was your stepfather an alcoholic?”
Neil didn’t answer.
“Is that why you ran away?”
Neil’s eyes didn’t leave the television. Louis waited.
“I got out,” Neil said.
“What about Emma?”
Neil’s pasty face had gone lax as he continued to stare at the game show.
“Mr. Fielding?”
“Where the hell do they get these cretins?”
“What about your sister, Mr. Fielding?”
“Higher, asshole!”
Louis reached over, grabbed the remote, and clicked off the TV. Neil’s face swung toward him.
“Talk to me, Mr. Fielding.”
“I talked to the cops thirty-four years ago.” He shook his head slowly, looking away. “I don’t want to do it again. I can’t.”
“Why, Mr. Fielding?”
“Emma’s dead. What does it matter now?” Neil’s eyes shot back to Louis’s face. “Get out of my house.”
Louis shook his head. “Not yet. Not until we’re finished.”
Neil was gripping the arms of his chair. Louis watched his hands, watched the knuckles turning white.
“Mr. Fielding —-”
“Look, I can’t throw you out or I would. Now just leave! Please.”
Louis focused on Neil’s face. His pupils were jumping, like there was something deep inside him fighting to get out.
“Talk to me, Neil,” Louis said.
Neil ran a hand through his sparse, oily hair. He was shaking his head slowly, deliberately.
“Whoever killed your sister is still out there,” Louis said “We’re trying to find him. You can help.”
Neil closed his eyes. “He killed her,” he said.
“Who, Neil?”
“My stepfather. That fucker killed Em.”
Louis was silent. Finally Neil looked at him. His eyes were watery. “The fucker just wouldn’t leave Em alone. He kept at her and kept at her. And I couldn’t stop him. Then, one night I heard him going into her room again, heard her crying again, so I went out there in the hall and and —- ” Neil drew in a breath. “He was standing there with his pants off and his dick hard.”
Neil took another deep breath. “I told him to do me, to do me instead and leave her the fuck alone. That was the only night he didn’t go into her room.”
Neil ran a hand roughly over his face. It was quiet except for the wheezing air conditioner.
“I left the next morning,” Neil said. “It was really early. The sun wasn’t even up. But Em heard me and came running out in her nightgown. She started to cry and said she wanted to come with me.”
Neil stopped again, but Louis didn’t prod him. Finally, Neil let out a long breath.
“I said, ‘Em, I can’t take you with me. I gotta go, Em. I gotta go.’ And she got so mad and screamed at me, ‘Just go then! Just go!’”
Neil looked at Louis. “So I did.”
His eyes held Louis’s steady for a second but then wavered and he looked back at the television.
“Fuck it,” he whispered.
Neil was quiet, hands hanging limp over the arms of the wheelchair, eyes fixed on the blank television.
“Mr. Fielding, one last question,” Louis said. “Did you or your sister know anyone named Frank Woods?”
Neil looked at him. “Woods? No, why?”
“Nothing,” Louis said. He rose and placed the remote in Neil Fielding’s lap. “Thank you for your cooperation, Mr. Fielding,” he said.
Neil Fielding grabbed his pack of Marlboros and lighter off the TV tray. His hand shook slightly as he lit up a cigarette. He sucked in a quick drag and blew it out, not looking up at Louis.
Louis let himself out, pausing to take in a deep breath of fresh air. He heard the sound of groans and Bob Barker yelling that the woman in the purple tube-top had just lost out on winning a brand-new, all-equipped 1987 Corvette.
He got in the Mustang and started the engine. He sat there, his hands gripping the wheel. Finally, he slapped the car in gear and drove out, not looking back until the trailer had disappeared from his rearview mirror.