Page 75 of Call Off the Dark

“Could you give me one more week?”

“Of course.”

Helen hung up and got out of bed. It was time to go to the gun range. She had been riding her bicycle there almost every day in sweats and a baseball cap, two energy drinks in the basket on the front of the bike. One for the ride there, one for the ride back. They tasted like chemical shit, but they gave her a bit of a zing. She’d go to the corner market and buy any brand except Boom Now. When she saw those cans sitting behind the glass, she knew she was supposed to feel proud that her team had designed it, but she mostly just thought, Design #4 of 37.

There had been one time though when those cans had seized her with a crippling thought: She’d wondered if it hadn’t been for how stressful the Boom Now account had been, maybe she and Tyler would have bought a house. Then they wouldn’t have been in the apartment that night. Then he wouldn’t be dead. It was such a terrible concept that Helen had to write herself a text message from Tyler’s phone and send it to her own:

Of course it’s not your fault, Helen! We both decided to stay in the apartment. And remember, we were so happy again! Don’t think silly thoughts. I love you so much, Tyler

Some days, she read that message dozens of times.

Firing a gun and hitting the target was the only thing that gave Helen real, visceral satisfaction. It galvanized something in her, made her feel her anger more than her sadness.

The afternoon that Darius called, she returned from the gun range with the sour taste of apple-watermelon artificial flavor on her tongue, and she phoned Calhoun to inquire about progress in the case. Calhoun gave impossibly vague answers to Helen’s questions about suspects and evidence. Finally, Helen fell silent on her end.

Calhoun asked, “Is there anything else I can help you with?”

Anything else? She’d helped with nothing so far.

“Yes, there is,” Helen said. “I’d like to know if there’s a detective I could talk to who’s not a fucking idiot.”

There was a long pause on the other end of the line, and then Calhoun said in a kind voice, “I know you’re upset, Helen, and I know you want answers, but I don’t have any for you. Not yet. But I’m trying.”

“Sorry,” Helen said, feeling smaller and smaller. “I’m sorry.”

“I know. Okay, I’m going to let you go, okay?”

“Okay,” Helen echoed.

“Okay,” Calhoun repeated, still in that kind voice.

Helen hung up before Calhoun did.

When Helen had left Tyler lying on the floor of the bedroom, there was something he’d been trying to tell her. Helen, I need to tell you . . .

Now she would never know what it was.

She hadn’t even been able to give her husband the dignity of his final words.

“I’m going back to the apartment,” Helen said.

Helen’s mother lowered her fork and glanced at Helen’s father across the dinner table.

“You mean to sort through some things?” her mother asked.

No, that wasn’t what Helen meant. She lowered her own fork. She hadn’t really been eating much of the lasagna anyway. She was down six pounds now.

Her mother said, “If you wait until Saturday, I’ll go with you.”

“No,” Helen said. “I’m going to move back into the apartment.”

“Oh, honey. I already talked to the landlord. You don’t have to finish the lease.”

“I know. But I’m going back to work in a few days, so I need to be there.”

Her mother looked at Helen’s father again to silently request help, but her father was worse at this stuff than her mother was. He just stared at his plate.

“It will be fine,” Helen said.