Now Janet was the one who snorted. Russ turned on the tap and unhooked the wooden cutting board from beside the kitchen window. As his sister rinsed the potatoes and began her rapid-fire peeling, he threw open the freezer door. “Mom! You got any salt pork?”
Her voice floated over the sound of running water. “That stuff will clog your arteries, sweetie. Never touch it.”
“How about some real bacon, then?” He withdrew a package of 100% Lean Turkey De-Lite Bacon and waved it in Janet’s direction. “Look at this crap,” he said.
“Nope. What you see is what we’ve got.”
He swung the freezer door shut. “I’m going to the market. I can’t make potato soup without pig fat.” He stepped into his boots, waiting on the soaking board next to the back door. “Try not to tear each other’s hair out while I’m gone.”
Janet smiled at him. “Watch yourself, smart-ass. Mom believes she can fix anything if she just tries hard enough. If you don’t sort things out, and fast, she’ll make you her next cause.”
Russ was clearing off his windshield and headlights when his cell phone, plugged into a wall socket in the kitchen, began ringing. He was carefully pulling out of the drive when it let off a series of sharp beeps, indicating he had a message. And he was well down Old Route 100, absorbed in his wipers beating away the fast-falling snow, when his mother got up from the dining room table to answer her own phone, ringing off the hook in the living room.
FOUR
Later-much later-Officer Mark Durkee would wonder what might have happened if he hadn’t gotten the phone call. It wasn’t a foregone conclusion. He often popped in a video and turned off the phone about an hour before Rachel got home from her shift as a surgical nurse at the Washington County Hospital. Maddy, their five-year-old, was like a crack addict getting a pipeload when it came to her Disney Princess tapes. She wouldn’t budge until her mother arrived, and by then he’d be an hour into his evening nap, soaking up enough sleep to make it through another eight-hour overnight in his squad car.