He wondered if they would remember him. The next thing he wondered was, what did two senior citizens need a black Cadillac Escalade for? The enormous SUV was parked on the curb outside their house. He parked his car across from it and looked at the open front door. This was not a good sign. He immediately reached in the glove compartment for his Glock, then remembered he didn’t carry it anymore.
One of the changes Donne was going to have to get used to, no longer being a licensed private investigator.
He crept across the front lawn and pressed himself against the gray siding. The grass needed cutting. Envelopes overflowed in the mailbox next to the front door.
He peeked through the slightly open front door but couldn’t see anything except an empty hallway.
The first gunshot sounded like a firecracker. A loud firecracker, but a firecracker nonetheless. Donne hit the dirt because of instinct, but he was immediately on his feet again and moving quickly to the front door. There was no mistaking the second gunshot.
Call the police, he thought. But this was a quiet suburban town. Someone was home and would hear the shots and call the cops. A tall black man dressed in gang colors emerged from the front door as Donne reached for the knob. The man didn’t register Donne, and Donne hit him hard, wrapping him up like a linebacker.
“What the fuck?” he said as he hit the ground. “Get off me, nigga.” Donne tried to push him hard in the grass by his shoulders, but the guy rolled and hit him in the cheek with something metallic. It was Donne’s turn to grunt as he hit the grass.
While Donne was trying to shake off the pain, the guy got into his Escalade. He was down the street before Donne was even able to sit up. A bright blue shirt. What gang was that? When he was a cop, Donne used to know these things, but years away from the force and the shot to the head had slowed him down.
He sat on the grass for a minute, trying to clear his head and let the world come back into focus. As it did, he remembered the two gunshots and pushed himself to his feet.
The inside of the house was quiet, and cleaner than the outside. Everything was neat and dusted. The TV played The Price Is Right. He stepped past a brown recliner and through a doorway into the kitchen. The kitchen was not so neat.
Faye and George were strewn across the kitchen tile on their stomachs. Blood stained the tiles, pouring from their heads. They’d both been shot twice in the back of their skulls. Executions. No point trying to resuscitate them. They were undoubtedly dead.
Whatever had happened in here, it was quick, and his aunt and uncle hadn’t put up a fight. They probably got to their knees believing that act of submission would save them. They probably believed they would live.
In less than twenty-four hours, two of his relatives were dead and his brother-in-law’s restaurant had been blown up. He was going to have to talk to Franklin Carter again.
In the distance he heard police sirens. After a quick sweep of the house, Donne found that nothing seemed to be missing. There was money and jewelry on the dresser in their bedroom. The TV and radio were still there. Even the lockbox in his uncle’s office remained intact. He was careful not to touch anything as he stepped out of the room and back onto the front lawn. Standing on the grass, he let it all sink in. The house was so familiar, pictures on the mantel, the piano they’d had for years but he’d never heard played. He remembered having Thanksgiving dinner here when he was ten, two years after his father left.
They sat at the table, Aunt Faye and his mother next to each other across from Susan and him. Uncle George at the head of the table, carving knife in hand, turkey in front of him. It was all smiles that day, the promise of another family holiday ahead of them. The sides had been passed, a full plate of mashed potatoes, carrots, peas, and green beans for everyone. Per tradition, the orange and lime Jell-Os sat untouched. Apparently, his great-grandmother passed the recipe down, but not the original taste. All that was left to pass was the bird. The play-by-play of a football game added an extra rhythm to the meal.
It was a regular Norman Rockwell moment.
Uncle George sank the knife into the turkey. He smiled as he got a whiff of the aroma and said, “Faye, I can tell already you’ve topped yourself.”
Aunt Faye smiled back at him but didn’t say anything.
Mom and Susan were engaged in an argument about blue jeans, but there wasn’t any anger in the argument. Mom was laughing.
George turned to Donne and asked if he wanted white meat or dark meat.
“Both,” Donne said.
“Thattaboy.” He laughed. “You know, one day you’ll be doing this for your own family. And for us too, I hope.”
“You think so?”
“Think? I know it. Look at the way you take care of your mom and sister since your dad—Well, just look. You do a good job of it.”
“Thanks, Uncle George.”
“Remember that when you get older, okay? Remember moments like these.”
“I will,” Donne said with a ten-year-old’s enthusiasm. “Family,” he said. “It means everything.”
Donne nodded. At the time, he believed him.
After dinner, George took him aside. “Remember what I said. Our family has been through a lot, even before you were born. And sometimes you’re going to have to fix what the people before you did wrong.”
“What do you mean, Uncle George?”
“There’s something I’m trying to put right. It might take a few years, but your aunt and I are going to fix it. Maybe I’ll even tell you about it one day.”
The police sirens grew louder, snapping Donne back to the present. He felt his legs give out. Before today he hadn’t seen his mother since he left to spend a year at Villanova. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d seen Faye and George. Now his mother was in a bed holding on to life and confusing him with her father. His aunt and uncle were dead, lying motionless on kitchen tiles.
He tried to fight it down, and did, barely. He sat on the grass and waited.
***
Susan Carter sat on her couch, glued to the TV. She wondered if this was how the families of 9/11 felt during those first few hours watching as their loved ones were trapped inside the two burning buildings. Hoping, praying there was a way out, some way they were still alive.
No, she decided. They felt much worse. Everyone Susan knew was okay, no one was hurt, and no one was killed. It was just her husband’s business in ruins. And even then, they still had the restaurant in Montclair. The original Carter’s.
The reporter on Channel 4 stood in front of two fire trucks, talking about an “all-too-familiar scene on the Upper East Side.” In between the trucks behind the reporter, Susan saw Franklin talking to a man in a suit. Franklin was hunched over and looked exhausted. She wondered what they were talking about. Why would terrorists blow up their restaurant with no one inside? Why hadn’t the FBI said anything yet?
The news switched to a traffic report explaining when the bridges and tunnels would open again. All this because of her husband’s restaurant. Again, she came back to the question: Why? Things like this didn’t happen to her. At least, they didn’t before she met Franklin.
The phone rang, startling her. She picked it up. It was Jackson, and she expected an update on Faye and George, to hear what they knew about her grandfather. That wasn’t what he told her.
Jackson said that Faye and George were dead. Shot, he said. Murdered.
She didn’t hear the rest, because she dropped