House Rules Read online

  --You can go watch CrimeBusters, || I tell him, and he bolts into the living room.

  The detective stares at me, dumbfounded. --Excuse me, I was in the middle of an interrogation.||

  --I thought this wasn't an interrogation.||

  --A young girl's life might be at stake, and you think it's more important for your son to watch a television show?||

  --Yes,|| I snap.

  --It doesn't strike you as odd that your son isn't upset by his tutor's disappearance?||

  --My son didn't even get upset when his grandfather died,|| I reply. --It was a forensics adventure for him. His feelings about Jess going missing will be determined only by how it affects him--which is the way he measures everything. When he realizes that his Sunday session with Jess might not take place, then he'll get upset.||

  The detective looks at me for a long moment. I think he's going to give me a lecture about obstruction of justice, but instead, he tilts his head to one side, thoughtful. --That must be really hard on you.||

  I don't remember the last time anyone has said those words to me. I would not trade Jacob for the world--for his tenderness, his incredible brain, his devotion to following rules--but that doesn't mean it's been an easy ride. An ordinary mother doesn't worry about whether her son being shunned at a school concert hurts him as much as it hurts me.

  An ordinary mother doesn't call Green Mountain Power when the electricity goes out to say that one of the residents has a disability that requires immediate intervention--because missing CrimeBusters actually qualifies, when it comes to Jacob. An ordinary mother doesn't lie awake at night wondering if Theo will ever accept his brother enough to watch over him when I'm gone.

  --It's my life,|| I say, shrugging.

  --Do you work outside the home?||

  --Are you interviewing me, too?||

  --Just making conversation until the commercial break,|| he says, smiling.

  Ignoring him, I stand up and stir the blueberries I am cooking down for tonight's pie filling.

  --Your son, he took us by surprise the other night,|| Matson continues. --We're not used to minors crashing our crime scenes.||

  --Technically, he's not a minor. He's eighteen.||

  --Well, he's got more forensic scientific knowledge than guys I know who are four times his age.||

  --Tell me something I don't know.||

  --You've got pretty eyes,|| the detective says.

  Fumbling, I drop the spoon into the pot. --What did you just say?||

  --You heard me,|| Matson replies, and he walks into the living room to wait for the opening credits of CrimeBusters to finish.

  Jacob

  I have never been a big fan of I Love Lucy. That said, every time I see the episode when Lucy and Ethel are working at the candy factory and get behind on the packaging, it makes me laugh. The way they stuff the candy into their mouths and inside their uniforms--well, you know it's going to end with Lucy wailing her famous wail.

  Having Detective Matson ask me these questions makes me feel like Lucy at the candy factory. At first, I can keep up--especially after I realize that he is not angry at me for coming to the hypothermic man's crime scene. But then it begins to get more complicated.

  The questions stack up like that candy, and I am still trying to wrap the last one when he sends the next one my way. All I want to do is take his words and stuff them somewhere where I don't have to hear them anymore.

  Detective Matson is standing in front of me as soon as the first commercial airs. It's for Pedi Paws, a new incredible pet nail trimmer. That makes me think of the miniature poodle at the pizza place that we saw, and that makes me think of Jess, and that makes me feel like there's a bird caught inside my rib cage.

  What would he say if he knew that right now, in my pocket, is Jess's pink cell phone?

  --Just a couple more questions, Jacob,|| he promises. --I'll make sure I'm done in ninety seconds.||

  He smiles, but it's not because he's happy. I had a biology teacher like that once.

  When I corrected Mr. Hubbard's mistakes in class, he smiled with the left side of his mouth. I assumed that meant he was grateful. But that weird half smile apparently meant he was annoyed with me, even though if someone's smiling it is supposed to signify that they're cheerful. So I got sent to the principal's office for my bad attitude when, really, it was just because the expressions on people's faces are not always reflections of how they feel inside.

  He glances at my notebook. --What's that for?||

  --I take notes on the episodes,|| I tell him. --I have over a hundred.||

  --Episodes?||

  --Notebooks.||

  He nods. --Was Mark at Jess's place when you got there?||

  --No.|| Now, the commercial on television is for denture cream. Secretly I am very scared of losing all my teeth. Sometimes I dream about waking up and finding them rolling around on my tongue like marbles. I close my eyes so I don't have to watch. --You know Mark?||

  --We've met,|| the detective says. --Did you and Jess ever talk about him?||

  My eyes are still closed, so maybe that's why I see what I do: Mark with his hand sliding up Jessica's shirt at the pizza place. His hideous orange sweatshirt. The earring in his left ear. The bruises I saw once on Jessica's side when she reached for a book on a high shelf, two uneven purple ovals like quality stamps on a cut of beef. She told me she'd fallen off a stepladder, but she looked away when she said it. And unlike me, who looks away out of comfort, she does it in moments of discomfort.

  I see Mark smiling with only half his mouth, too.

  Now the commercial is for Law & Order: SVU, a promo, which means that the next image on the screen will be CrimeBusters again. I pick up my pen and turn the page in my notebook.

  --Did Jess and Mark fight?|| the detective asks again.

  On the TV, Rhianna is in the woods with Kurt, and they're investigating a dead dog with a human finger found undigested in its stomach.

  --Jacob?||

  --Hasta la vista, baby,|| I murmur, and I make up my mind that, no matter what this detective says to me, I'm not speaking again until my show is over.

  Theo

  So I'm headed downstairs to get something to eat when I hear a voice in the kitchen I do not recognize. This is pretty extraordinary--I'm not the only one who doesn't have friends as a result of Jacob's Asperger's; I can probably count on one hand the number of people my mother has ever trusted enough to invite over. The fact that the voice is male is even more bizarre. And then I hear my mom refer to him as Detective Matson.

  Holy crap.

  I run back upstairs and lock myself in my room. He's here because of Jess Ogilvy, and I'm officially freaked out.

  And, for the record, still hungry.

  Here's what I know for sure: Jess was alive and well at about 1:00 P.M. on Tuesday. I know this because I saw her-- all of her. Her tits, let me just say, rank right up there as masterworks of art.

  I'd say we were equally surprised when she reached for her towel, wiped her eyes, and looked in the mirror. She certainly didn't expect to find some random guy in her house, watching her naked. And I sure as hell didn't expect the object of my momentary lust to be my brother's tutor.

  --Hey!|| she yelled, and in one smooth move she grabbed the towel and wrapped it around herself. Me, meanwhile, I was totally paralyzed. I stood there like an idiot until I realized she was pissed and she was coming after me.

  The only reason I got away is that the floor of the bathroom was wet. When she stumbled, I flew out of the master bedroom, where I'd been standing, down the stairs. In my hurry, I crashed into some of the furniture and knocked a whole mess of papers off the kitchen counter, but I didn't care. All I wanted to do was get the hell out of that house and join a monastery or hop on a plane to Micronesia--anything that would put me far away by the time Jess Ogilvy asked my brother and my mom whether they were aware that Theo Hunt was a Peeping Tom, a total perv.

  But sometime between now and then, Jess