Lemonade
Setting: "An Inconvenient Lie"

"Do you mind if I smoke?"

"No. Go ahead."

Robby Scholl nods, reaches below the table and fishes around in his shorts, comes up with a lighter and a cigarette. I don't say anything as he lights up and exhales, takes another puff. For awhile he just smokes, his attention directed out the window, at the kids playing outside. I let my gaze rove around the room, not really paying attention to anything in particular.

I'm sitting at Robby's dining table in his little ranch-style house, a glass of iced lemonade sweating at my elbow. Despite the overhead fan and the chugging AC unit in a nearby window, it's only barely tolerable in here.

It's hot as hell outside. The heat seems to be slowing everything down to a crawl, including the two of us.

I ended up calling Dt. Cooley yesterday after I finished running all the names from the partial IAFIS matches to Jane Doe 4. He gave me Robby's number. There were other people on that list who could've been my Doe, but of them all Jennifer Gruber was by far the most likely. Lundy agreed after I relayed her record and my conversation with Cooley, then okayed my field trip up here today.

The drive to Arcadia took three hours. I think it's been at least a year since I've been this far out of Miami, and in a way it's a relief. The heat aside.

I take a sip of lemonade, resist the urge to press the glass against my forehead.

The movement seems to snap Robby out of his reverie. He looks over at me, blows smoke out of the corner of his mouth. "So where do we start?"

I decide to leave it open. "Wherever you want."

He props his elbow up on the table, and I find myself wishing I could smoke too. "I didn't know Jenny very well. Honestly, I didn't know my brother that well either. He got into a lot of bad stuff, dropped out of high school, followed his crackhead friends out to Miami to start up some 'DJing career.'" He air quotes, drops his free palm onto his arm. "Whatever that even meant." Pause. "Not that I've led some peach-perfect life, you know?"

"Yeah, I understand," I say.

Another puff. "Anyway, I don't know, I didn't really make an effort to stay in contact with him. I only knew what my parents told me. Sometimes he would drag himself up for a holiday. Usually he wouldn't. Sometimes he'd call and ask for money and Mom would send him a check. Every time he came up here she gave him money. And then one day he showed up with that girl, Jenny."

"What did you think about her?"

"Honestly?" He shrugs, takes a pull on his cigarette. "I don't know. That she was just some bimbo he decided to bring up for Thanksgiving. But then a couple months later or, I don't know, maybe it was February or something, Mom calls and tells me they're engaged. I didn't believe it until I got the RSVP in the mail, and even then…" He trails off, squishes the nub of the butt into a nearby ash tray. "Our family paid for the wedding. Jenny didn't really have any family, though I assume you know that."

"Yeah." I nod. That's why I'm here. Jennifer was a foster kid, so there was a below zero chance of me getting DNA from her biological parents or any siblings. Robby Scholl is basically my only avenue to linking Jennifer concretely to my Butcher victim.

"I don't know why Mom was so excited," he continues. "They were both like 19. Barely even legal. I just stayed out of it. Dad wasn't thrilled either, but I don't know if he ever said anything. Even if he did, it didn't matter." He pauses, glances out the window again.

"Well, anyway, they got married," he continues after a beat. "We all drove to the Keys, to some venue I can't remember. The service was okay I guess. I mostly remember half of us getting toasted." He looks at me, as if suddenly remembering I'm a cop.

I don't say anything, just take another sip of lemonade. The ice numbs my teeth.

"Anyway, I didn't see either of them again for awhile after that." His leg starts jiggling. "I don't remember how I found out she was pregnant. Probably Mom. It wasn't very long after the wedding. She was pregnant before the wedding. That's probably why they got married.

"I don't know how long it was before I actually met any of the kids. Mostly I just saw pictures— you know, Mom put them up around the house. I think it wasn't until after Tori was born. They all came up for Thanksgiving, probably to get money from my parents."

"What were they doing for work?" I ask, unsure if that's going to divert or intensify the incoming rant.

Another shrug. His leg stops jiggling. "He had some music 'gigs.'" More air quotes. "Supposedly she worked at like a Steak 'n Shake or an Applebee's or something over there. But I knew they were into some bad stuff. I caught them snorting something in the car over Christmas while their kids were watching the friggin' Grinch inside. Probably coke or fentanyl or something. My parents were in denial about it, but Dustin was always like that. Always finding empty baggies in his room. And they both had that pasty junkie skin. But, you know, what the heck could I do? And honestly at that point I barely cared. I had my own problems, and I just left my brother to live his life. I barely listened when Mom gave her updates. Summer was probably at least one or two when I found out she was born. And then it was because of all the custody stuff."

"What do you know about that?"

He drinks some of his lemonade. "Honestly, not very much. Not enough." He drains the glass. "You want anymore?"

I glance at my own half-empty glass. "Sure," I say automatically.

Nodding, he gets up and goes over to the fridge, pulls out the carton of Minute Maid. After coming back over and refilling both the glasses, he sets it on the table between us, plops back into his seat.

"Is any of this actually helpful?" he asks after he's taken another drink, then poured himself more lemonade.

"Yeah," I say, not really caring if that's true. The reality is I don't need to know any of this. I could've just taken a DNA swab from one of the kids and left, been on the road back to Miami already. But I want to know more than just what Cooley told me, even though Robby almost certainly won't be able to give me anything that could lead us anywhere near the Butcher. I just want to understand.

"If you say so…" He trails off, pulls out another cigarette. Lights up. Whoosh. "Anyway, yeah, like I said, I don't know very much about what happened." He takes another puff. "In retrospect I wish I'd paid more attention. At the time I never knew about the arrests and the fact that there were always cops trooping in and out of their house. I knew they were junkies but I never knew how bad. And I didn't know the shi— stuff they were into was fentanyl." I'm surprised to see embarrassment flicker across his face at the almost curse, but he moves on quickly, tapping ash into the tray. "Mom mentioned some stuff about jail, but I tuned it out. She kept bailing them out, kept sending them money. It was like nothing he did was bad enough. And we were never exactly well off. Mom was reaching into her retirement fund without Dad knowing. I just… washed my hands of it." Another, longer pull. I'm not sure if it's anger or regret I'm seeing in his eyes. Maybe both.

"And then she got arrested for real. I think it was for distributing. My brother got custody. But instead of acting like a responsible parent, he was still doing drugs, sleeping around. Imagine? With three kids?"

Unfortunately, I don't have to imagine.

He keeps going without my prompting. "At some point they divorced. I think she was still in jail at the time. And then less than a year later he married that new chick, Jill, and moved up to Fort Lauderdale. I never actually met her. I'm not even sure I knew what she looked like. And then, suddenly, I was getting a call from Mom at work, that they were dead. That they'd been shot." After another pull, he squishes the cigarette into the ash tray.

"I'm sure you know more about what happened than I do," he continues. "I only sort of know what happened. They were killed at their house while the kids were at school. They suspected Jenny, but she disappeared after they first talked to her. The police, I mean. But I guess that's because she was dead too."

"That's what it looks like," I say.

He's not looking at me at all anymore. "Did she kill them? Do you know?"

"I don't. I'm sorry."

He nods. Doesn't say anything else.

Some bullshit platitudes pop into my head. I swallow them before I can voice any of them, because I know how fucking useless they are.

"How did she die?" he asks eventually.

There's no civil way to answer it. I take a stab at it anyway: "She bled to death."

He looks at me. "But she was murdered? She was one of those bodies you guys pulled up from the ocean over there?"

"We think so."

"Why?"

I hesitate, even though I knew the whole drive here he'd ask me this. End up giving him the obvious hedge, "At this stage in the investigation, I can't really say."

He studies me for a second. "Yeah, I figured as much."

"I'm sorry," I say again, though he doesn't seem particularly upset about it.

He makes a waving gesture, looks away again. "I guess it doesn't matter. Truthfully, maybe it's a terrible thing to say, but I didn't feel that much when he died. We hadn't had a relationship at that point in like ten years. He ignored me every time I reached out to him, and eventually I stopped. Maybe I could've tried harder, but if I'm honest I just… didn't want to."

"But you took his kids?" I say, then drink more lemonade.

"Yeah. Figured I could at least try to give them a decent life. The day I adopted them was the day I went sober. In a couple months it'll be two years."

"Congratulations."

"Thanks." He nods. "At least they don't remember much. And I'm glad I've got my parents to help." He stops. "You're not planning on contacting them either, right? This would kill Mom."

"No." I shake my head.

"Well, if something changes call me first. I'll try to help you. I don't want all this stuff getting dragged back up for my parents. They've only just started coping with what happened."

"I understand." And now I'm glad I decided to call the brother before the parents. "I'll contact you if there's anything else."

"Thanks."

I pause, thinking of something. "Do you want to know the results of the DNA test?"

There's a long silence. Robby picks up his glass and stares into it, eventually takes a drink. "Yeah, I guess I do. Guess I need to, for the kids." Sniffing slightly, he sets the glass down. "Anyway, I've taken enough of your time. What do you need for the DNA thing?"

Masuka's face pops into my head. Even though I knew how to do this shit before, and it's not very complicated anyway, he still felt the need to go over it when I went in this morning to grab the kit and check out a vehicle. "I need one of the kids," I say. "It's just a quick cheek swab."

"Okay." He nods. He starts to get up, then stops. "If you don't mind, I don't want them to know what this is for. If it does turn out to be her, I'll have to figure out a way to tell them, but not yet. Not until we know for sure."

"I understand," I say, unsurprised. When I arrived he pointedly avoided telling the kids who I was before sending them outside so we could talk.

"Thanks," he says. He takes another quick sip from his glass before rising, heading over to the door to the backyard.

Exhaling, I get up too, grab my blazer off the chair back and slip it back on, smooth it down to make sure it covers the piece sitting in the small of my back and the badge clipped to my pants. Then I pick up the case sitting on the floor, set it on the table, open it, straighten all the crap inside it.

By the time I'm done fussing with it and have started pulling on gloves, I hear the snap of the screen door hitting its frame, and I turn to see Robby coming back in with all three girls in tow. The eldest looks no older than 12, the youngest maybe 5 or 6. They're all staring at me— the youngest curiously, the other two with suspicion.

"Girls, this is Detective Morgan," he says, forgetting my title, or maybe just embellishing it. "Detective, this is Kailey, Tori, and Summer." He points them out in turn.

"Hello," I say, tugging the latex down over my wrists.

Kailey, the oldest one, is now openly glaring at me. "Is this about Mom?" she asks, glancing up at her uncle. Behind her, Tori's eyes get wide.

Robby shifts uncomfortably. "Maybe," he says after a beat.

"Maybe?" she repeats. She looks between me and the box.

I glance at Robby for some direction, because she's clearly expecting me to elaborate. He makes a very slight, helpless sort of gesture. "Yes," I say hesitantly. "This is about your mother."

"Is she dead?" Her voice is flat, but her sisters retract sharply at the D-word.

"Kailey," Robby says sharply.

She turns on him. "What? Why else would she be here?"

I watch as all his well-meaning intentions crumble— deconstructed by an angry, little girl. He folds his six-foot-something frame as he bends to address her. "We don't know yet," he says. "That's why Detective Morgan is here."

"Well, so what if she is?" She crosses her arms.

"Kailey, please." He puts his hands on her shoulders. "Be respectful— for your sisters, and for the detective here."

She glares at him sullenly but doesn't say anything else, then turns to glare at the wall as he straightens and looks at me. "What do we need to do, Detective?"

The urge to correct him itches at me. "I just need to take a quick cheek swab from one of you," I say instead, grabbing one of the tubes out of the box. "With this q-tip." I waggle it. "It'll only take a second."

Kailey's still glaring at the wall, but her gaze darts between that and me. I realize I like her, for whatever reason. Maybe because she's so pissed off.

"I'll do it." Tori walks closer, though she seems nervous.

Summer follows. "I want to try too," she says.

I guess it doesn't matter. "Alright," I say. I pop open the first cap on the q-tip and slide it down. Tori's ahead so I look at her. "I just need you to open your mouth."

She does. I take both swabs, then slide the caps back into place. "That's it?" she asks.

"That's it." I label it, put it in its container, snap the gloves off, then throw them in the little waste pouch. Grab a second stick and another pair of gloves. "Your turn," I say to the youngest. She seems kind of excited about it. Meanwhile Kailey is still glowering over by her uncle.

I definitely like her.

"Alright," I say when I've got the second swab labeled and put in the case. "We're good to go."

"That's it?" Kailey blurts suddenly. "That's all you came here for? Just to take some DNA swabs?"

"Pretty much." I throw the gloves away, snap the case closed.

"Don't you have like pictures or something?"

I look over at her. Fear is leaking through her anger, and I feel a pang of pity. "I'm sorry," I say, "I don't."

"Why not?"

Because she's been sitting in a bag at the bottom of the ocean for two years, and because even the shittiest Polaroid couldn't mask the decomp or the hack marks along the ragged line of her neck. I grasp for the nearest line of bullshit, even if it happens to be true, "Because we need to confirm her ID forensically, like through fingerprints or DNA, instead of visually."

I can't tell if she's mollified by that answer or not, but she doesn't say anything else.

"How did she die?" Tori asks in her stead.

Shit.

I think Robby caught my reaction. "We can talk about this later," he says, thank god. "Right now I think Detective Morgan has to head back."

"Yes." I glance at my watch for no reason, don't actually absorb the time. "Before it gets too much later."

"Give us a minute," he says to the kids. None of them move. "Go on."

"Come on," Kailey says. Her arms are still locked across her chest as she moves away from Robby. "Let's go." She shoots me one last glare before ripping open the door and stomping outside.

Tori looks up at me. "Nice to meet you," she mumbles, then grabs her little sister by the hand and leads her to the door her other sister just disappeared through.

Neither of us move until it's swung shut again.

Robby's the first to speak, as he rubs his neck. "Sorry about that," he says. "All this has been hardest on Kailey."

"It's okay," I say. "I understand."

"She doesn't really talk to me, or to anyone. I tried taking her to a therapist, but…" He drops his hand. "I don't know. I don't know if it's worse thinking that your mom abandoned you or that she's dead."

"I'm sorry it came out like this."

"No." He shakes his head. "There wasn't a good way. I appreciate you being candid." He stops, but I can see he wants to say more. After a beat, he does. "She had a good question though, Kailey. You don't have pictures or any of her things? Not that I would be able to recognize any of them, but one of the kids might."

I shake my head. "She… was down there a long time. If it really is her, we suspect she died pretty soon after she was last seen."

"But what about her things?"

I hesitate, search for some mild phrasing. "She wasn't found with any," is what I come up with.

"Okay. I got'cha." He looks a little disturbed.

"Anyway, I do need to go," I say, because it's really starting to feel that way. "I want to try to get these back and processing before the end of the day." I grab the kit.

"Okay." He nods, and we start walking through the dining area back to the front door. "When do you think you'll know anything?"

"A week, at the latest. Could be as soon as Friday." Or it should be, according to Lundy's goal for the end of the week.

He rubs his face. "I don't know if that feels soon or like forever."

"Yeah," I say. "I know what you mean."

We stop by the door.

"Anyway, it was nice to meet you, Detective," he says as he opens it. "Wish it could've been under better circumstances."

Again I fight the urge to correct him. Overcome it. "Likewise," I say. "Thanks for your hospitality."

"Thanks for maybe finally bringing us some closure. You know, for her kids, anyway."

"You're welcome." I take a step forward. "You'll hear from me soon."

He nods. "Have a safe drive back."

"Thanks."

We exchange goodbyes, and then I step out the door and back into the heat. My car is parked on the curb, several yards down the driveway. I hear the door close as I walk toward it, fishing my keys out of an interior pocket of my blazer. When I get to it, the handle scalds my hand, and I curse at the stupid thing as I yank it open, curse again as I slide inside the oven. Ram the keys into the ignition, leave the door open wide as I turn on and blast the air, stick the kit on the passenger-side floor, lean back against the hot fabric. After a second I strip off my jacket and throw it on the seat.

Take a breath.

I don't know what the fuck I just did to that family. Somehow I forgot coming up here that those were real kids Jennifer Gruber left behind, even if she was a murderous, drug-abusing sack of crap. Somehow I let myself think that all that really mattered was getting a name for the body, because all that really matters is getting a name for her killer. Somehow I forgot I was coming up here to tell three little girls their mother is probably dead, and has been for a long fucking time.

I'm such an asshole.

Exhaling, I slam the door closed, strap on my seat belt, put the car into drive. As I pull away from the curb I can still smell Robby Scholl's cigarettes, like they penetrated my clothes. Cursing the department's smoke-free policy for their cars, I start feeling around the dash for the packet of gum someone left in here at some point, eventually find it.

It's gonna be a long fucking drive back. Maybe I'll stop for coffee and a smoke before getting back on the freeway.

I unwrap the gum and stick it between my teeth. Glance back at Robby Scholl's house in my rearview, watch it until it disappears around the corner.