House Rules Read online

  1. Clean up your own messes.

  2. Tell the truth.

  Regarding Jess's death: I have done both.

  Imagine what it would be like if you were suddenly dropped from America into England. Suddenly bloody would be a swear word, not a description of a crime scene.

  Pissed would be not angry but drunk. Dear would mean expensive, not beloved. Potty isn't a toilet but a state of mind; public school is private school, and fancy is a verb.

  If you were dropped into the UK and you happened to be Korean or Portuguese, your confusion would be expected. After all, you don't speak the language. But if you're American, technically, you do. So you're stuck in conversations that make no sense to you, in which you ask people to repeat themselves over and over, in the hope that eventually the unfamiliar words will fall into place.

  This is what Asperger's feels like. I have to work so hard at the things that come naturally to others, because I'm just a tourist here.

  And it's a trip with a one-way ticket.

  Here are the things I will remember about Jess:

  1. For Christmas she gave me a piece of malachite the exact size and shape of a chicken egg.

  2. She is the only person I've ever met who was born in Ohio.

  3. Her hair looked different indoors than it did outdoors. When the sun was shining, it was less yellow and more like fire.

  4. She introduced me to The Princess Bride, which is possibly one of the greatest movies in the history of filmmaking.

  5. Her mailbox at UVM was number 5995.

  6. She fainted at the sight of blood, but she still came to my presentation this fall in physics about spatter patterns, and she listened with her back to the PowerPoint presentation.

  7. Even though there were times when she probably was sick of hearing me talk, she never, ever told me to shut up.

  I am the first person to tell you that I do not really understand love. How can you love your new haircut, love your job, and love your girlfriend all at once? Clearly the word doesn't mean the same thing in different situations, which is why I have never been able to figure it out with logic.

  The physical side of love terrifies me, to be honest. When you are already hypersensitive to the feeling of anything against your skin or to people standing close enough to touch you, there is absolutely nothing about a sexual relationship that makes it an experience you look forward to attempting.

  I mention all this as a disclaimer to the last thing I will remember about Jess: 8. I could have loved her. Maybe I already did.

  *

  If I were going to create a science fiction series on television, it would be about an empath--a person who can naturally read the auras of people's emotions and, with a single touch, can take on their feelings, too. It would be so easy if I could look at someone who was happy, touch him on the arm, and suddenly fill with the same bubbles of joy that he's feeling, instead of anguishing over whether I'd misinterpreted his actions and reactions.

  Anyone who cries at a movie is a closet empath. What's happening on that screen bleeds through the celluloid, real enough to evoke emotion. Why else would you find yourself laughing at the hijinks of two actors who, offscreen, can't stand each other? Or crying over the death of an actor who, when the camera is turned off, will dust himself off and grab a burger for dinner?

  When I watch movies, it's a little different. Each scene becomes a catalog card of possible social scenarios in my mind. If you ever find yourself arguing with a woman, try kissing her to throw her off guard. If you are in the middle of a battle and your buddy is shot, friendship means you have to go back under fire to rescue him. If you want to be the life of the party, say, --Toga!||

  Later, if I find myself in that particular situation, I can shuffle through my file cards of movie interactions and mimic the behavior and know, for once, that I will be getting it right.

  Incidentally, I have never cried at a movie.

  Once, I was telling Jess everything I knew about dogs.

  1. They evolved from a small mammal called miacis, a tree dweller that lived 40 million years ago.

  2. They were first domesticated by Paleolithic cavemen.

  3. No matter the breed, a dog has 321 bones and 42 permanent teeth.

  4. Dalmatians are born all white.

  5. The reason they turn in a circle before lying down is because when they were wild animals, this helped mat the long grass into a bed.

  6. Approximately one million dogs have been named the primary beneficiaries in their owners' wills.

  7. They sweat through the pads of their feet.

  8. Scientists have found that dogs can smell the presence of autism in kids.

  You're making that up, she said.

  No. Really.

  How come you don't have a dog?

  There were so many answers to that question, I didn't really know where to begin.

  My mother, for one, who said that anyone who could not remember to brush his teeth twice daily did not have the fortitude to take care of another living creature. My brother, who was allergic to nearly anything with hair on it. The fact that dogs, which had been my passion after dinosaurs but before crime scene analysis, had fallen out of favor.

  The truth is that I would probably never want a dog. Dogs are like the kids in school I cannot stand: the ones who hang around and then leave when they realize they are not getting what they want or need from the conversation. They travel in packs. They lick you and you think it's because they like you, but it's really just because your fingers still smell like your turkey sandwich.

  On the other hand, I think cats have Asperger's.

  Like me, they're very smart.

  And like me, sometimes they simply need to be left alone.

  Rich

  Once I leave Mark Maguire to steep in his own conscience for a few minutes, I grab a cup of coffee in the break room and check my voice mail. I have three new messages. The first is from my ex, reminding me that tomorrow is Open School Night for Sasha--an event that, by the looks of things, I'm going to have to miss yet again. The second is from my dentist, confirming an appointment. And the third is from Emma Hunt.

  --Emma,|| I say, returning her call. --What can I do for you?||

  --I ... I saw that you found Jess.|| Her voice is husky, full of tears.

  --Yes. I'm sorry. I know you were close to her.||

  There are sobs on the other end of the line.

  --Are you okay?|| I ask. --Do you need me to call someone for you?||

  --She was wrapped in a quilt,|| Emma chokes out.

  Sometimes, when you do what I do for work, it gets easy to forget that, after you close the file on a case, there are people who suffer with the fallout for the rest of their lives. They'll remember one little detail about the victim: a single shoe lying in the middle of the road, a hand still clutching a Bible, or--in this case--the juxtaposition between being tenderly tucked into a quilt and being murdered. But there's nothing I can do for Jess Ogilvy now except bring the person who killed her to justice.

  --That quilt,|| Emma sobs, --belongs to my son.||

  I freeze in the act of stirring cream into my coffee. --Jacob?||

  --I don't know ... I don't understand what that means ...||

  --Emma, listen. It might not mean anything at all, and if it does, Jacob will have an explanation.||

  --What do I do?|| she cries.

  --Nothing,|| I tell her. --Let me. Can you bring him down here?||

  --He's in school--||

  --Then after school,|| I say. --And, Emma? Relax. We'll get to the bottom of this.||

  As soon as I hang up, I take my full mug of coffee and empty it in the sink; that's how distracted I am. Jacob Hunt admitted to being at the house. He had a backpack full of Jess Ogilvy's clothes. He was the last person known to see her alive.

  Jacob may have Asperger's syndrome, but that doesn't preclude his being a murderer.

  I think of Mark Maguire's flat-out denials about hurting his girlf