Free Thicker Than Water by Brigid Kemmerer

wedding and engagement rings were gone, so either would fit.
    In all cases¸ a stranger. Not someone who knew her.
    Now I think about it. I try to remember if anyone questioned Stan.
    He must feel me looking at him. “What’s on your mind, Tom?”
    “I was wondering what you were doing that night.”
    He knows what night I’m talking about, and he doesn’t pretend not to. “I was on Patrick Street. Staking out a drug dealer.”
    He might be quiet, but he’s intense. It’s hard to hold his eyes, so I push chicken around my plate. “Were you with anyone?”
    “You think the cops are investigating the hell out of you, but they’ve left me alone?”
    The profanity lets me know I’ve gotten to him. Otherwise, his voice doesn’t change. “I’m just asking a question, Stan.”
    He holds my gaze, and for a moment I think he’s going to throw me out of here. I don’t really suspect him, so I don’t know what I’m digging for.
    Or maybe I do suspect him. Maybe I’m wondering if I’ve been living under the same roof as a murderer.
    My head is a mess.
    “No,” he says. “No one was with me. But based on reports and check-ins, I was nowhere near here.”
    This is the first time we’ve talked about my mother since she died, and it’s completely the wrong kind of conversation. We’re not really talking about her anyway. We’re barely even talking about the crime. We’re talking around it.
    “Check-ins?” I say. “Like on a radio?”
    “Yeah. Just like that.”
    “What, you can’t lie about where you are?”
    He puts his fork down. “Do you really want to do this, Tom?”
    “I’m not doing anything.”
    “You’re funny.” The way he says it implies there’s nothing really funny at all.
    “Everyone is pointing at me,” I say. “I didn’t do it.”
    “Do you suddenly think I committed this crime?” he says evenly.
    “You’re one of the few people who don’t think I committed this crime. Maybe that means something.”
    He frowns. “I don’t know what you mean.”
    My heart beats so hard it hurts. “Everyone thinks I killed my mother,” I say, keeping my voice even. “You don’t think that, or you wouldn’t be letting me stay here. Maybe there’s a reason you don’t think that.”
    We stare at each other for the longest time. I can hear myself breathing. I can hear him breathing.
    We’re both sharing the same thought. It’s so clear, I swear I could read his mind right now.
    I don’t think he did it. But I can’t be sure.
    Stan breaks the eye contact first. He slices into another piece of chicken. “Charlotte Rooker doesn’t think you did it either,” he says. “You want to interrogate her next?”
    I wouldn’t mind five minutes to ask her a few questions about what happened in the woods. “I’m not interrogating you,” I say.
    “But you’d like to,” he says. “Go ahead.”
    “What?”
    He looks up again. “I said, go ahead. If you need to clear me in your own way, go ahead.”
    I swallow. I expected a fight. Maybe I wanted a fight. He’s taken me by surprise again.
    People don’t usually surprise me. Definitely not twice in one day.
    When I don’t say anything, he pushes food around his plate again. “I loved your mother, kid.” He hesitates, and emotion weighs down his words. “Sometimes I wonder what she saw in me, because I’m almost fifty years old, and I’m pretty set in my ways. When I bought a ring, I wanted to do some big proposal. Go to a ballgame and write it on a scoreboard. Hire a skywriter. I don’t know.”
    I swear he’s almost blushing, but at the same time he sounds like his voice might crack and he’ll cry. I hold my breath and don’t move.
    “She was so unassuming,” he says. “So simple. In a good way, you know?”
    I know. How could I not know?
    He looks at me. “Of course you know.”
    “Of course,” I agree. My voice is hollow.
    “I had all these plans, but when I had the ring in my pocket, I couldn’t wait. She was coming