The Best Kind of People Read Online Free Page A

she just kept asking questions as though she were conducting a survey.
    “Have your father’s moods changed lately? Has he been irritable?”
    “No. My father is … honest, kind. He never even looks at women,” she said. “He’s a nerd. He knows what’s right and wrong. God, he gave me this .” Sadie pulled out the red plastic whistle she always wore around her neck. She’d tied the leather string with a double knot and just never took it off. “It’s a rape whistle,” she said, a frustration building in her chest. She blew it sharply. Everyone in the room was silenced, looked in her direction. She spat the whistle out, the taste of stale plastic and trapped lake water lingering on her tongue as everyone went back to destroying their home. She felt as though she were having one of those dreams where she was screaming but no one could hear her.
    “It’s my birthday,” Sadie said. “I’m seventeen. We have plans to celebrate. This can’t be happening.”
    The cop showed no emotion. She transcribed whatever Sadie said. When she leaned over to write, a tattoo of a swallow was visible underneath her clavicle. Her ponytail ended in a web of split ends touching the collar of her uniform shirt. Her gun lay so casually on her hip. There are guns in our house , Sadie thought. Our anti-gun house is full of steel and bullets. They had an old rifle in the basement, but it was ornamental, historic, passed down for generations. Sadie couldn’t even look at it; that’s how much guns scared her. She flashed to the man with the gun at school. The rain on the black and white floor tiles.
    “I think that’s enough,” Bennie said, sitting down beside Sadie and Jimmy, shutting down the conversation. “All other questions should go through me.”
    Joan, who had been following the detectives around, walked into the room holding a dripping mop, which was oozing soapy water into the carpeting.
    “Can I go pay bail now? This is ridiculous,” she said, looking at her watch as if she were in a waiting room and the doctor was hours late.
    “He’ll be arraigned Tuesday morning, and bail will be set then,” Bennie explained.
    “He has to sleep … in jail , for two nights?”
    “It’s late, and the paperwork takes a bit of time.”
    THE DETECTIVE LOOKED at her. It was the same look she gave people at the hospital when they were being entitled and clueless, acting as though the emergency room was an extension of their living room. Joan noted the scar on his left cheekbone, spreading out like a tree limb towards his ear.
    “Burst appendix, last spring. Your wife’s name is Josie. You’ve got twin boys.”
    The detective took a step back and cocked his head to the left in a question.
    “I was the head trauma nurse on duty when you came in.”
    He had been stoic at first, and then a classic baby, like most men when they get sick, especially cops and other authoritative types. He was wailing and afraid. His wife left the twins, six years old at the most, to wander through the waiting room. Groups of other cops showed up, demanding and dramatic, and caused problems.
    The detective blushed a little. “Yes, that sure, uh, was painful.” He laughed as though they were engaged in casual small talk. She knew then that he’d mistaken her for some Woodbury Lake society wife, someone he could delight in bringing down. His body language changed after that. He softened, convinced the group to gather and head out the door quickly, with a nod and a motion of his hand.
    Joan paced the house cleaning up, talking to her sister Clara and son Andrew on the speakerphone as they drove towards Avalon Hills. The drive normally took over three hours, but she knew they’d be speeding, and there wouldn’t be much traffic in the middle of the night. In his early thirties now, her first-born returned home infrequently for short weekend visits. He was often too busy for anything beyond Christmas and Thanksgiving. His agreement to drop everything