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Scottie’s talents. In the first message, he introduced himself and went straight on to demand a meeting with Russo to talk about Braeder Design Systems. When Russo didn’t reply, Scottie ramped it up. He said Russo was a public servant and damn well better answer his questions; he accused Russo of lying about knowing my mother; he ended with another demand that they meet. The third message was the shortest: “I have evidence you knew Denise Oakes. You’ll talk to me about her whether you want to or not.” That was followed by an address in northwest DC.
    â€œThis isn’t Russo’s home address is it?”
    He glanced away. “Yeah, I guess it is.”
    â€œIt’s no wonder the FBI was brought into this. Anybody would see it as a threat.”
    â€œIt’s not right the way he acted. I only need to talk to him.”
    â€œYou can’t do things like this.”
    â€œThat’s just the way you always were when we were kids,” he said. He snatched the tablet from me and grabbed the papers off the table.
    â€œWhat?”
    â€œYelling at me even when I’m right.”
    He put the tablet in his backpack and started to jam in the papers. I pulled his hands away. It was time for us to take a step back. “How did you get into all this? Going to see that woman writer, all this research, calling Russo. I don’t understand.”
    â€œOf course you don’t.” He shook free of my hands and zipped the backpack closed. “You’ve got this nice place to live. A great job. All the way through school to a doctor’s degree. And me? I started college three times and never finished a semester. I only made it out of high school because I was in a special ed. program. I wasn’t always that way. I could do things.” He tapped his head. “My parents had me tested. I was smart. Really smart. I was going to go to a special summer school and everything, in Pittsburgh, with Carnegie Mellon. Full scholarship and I was only a kid.” He hit his head again. “But it’s gone. Sure, I can still figure things out. I’m not really dumb. Things just . . . it’s like a flood sometimes. I get so confused and mad. People treat me like a freak.”
    He couldn’t bear to look at me, so he moved over to his bicycle. “You’ve let it go, and good for you. I can’t. I never did a thing to your mother—to any of you. Why did she do it? What did she have against me?”
    I stepped over and put my hand on his shoulder. “Scottie, that night she wouldn’t have had any idea what she was doing. That’s the way it is with suicides. You were there, that’s all. The wrong place at the—”
    â€œ Don’t you tell me that! ” He flung my arm away so hard I stumbled and almost fell over. Shocked, he looked at his hands, then turned away from me again. “Sorry.” I’d kicked one of the beer bottles over, and he set it back up. “I shouldn’t really drink that stuff.”
    Beer or no beer, I wondered how often his temper blew like that. Too often, I was sure. I sat down on the end of the coffee table. “Why has all this come up now? Because you’ve been thinking about the anniversary?”
    The outburst had calmed him. “Twenty-five years. I never paid attention to it, but every October 3rd my mom had a celebration. Lit candles around the house, a trip to church. Everything but a visit to my grave. Pretty creepy, huh?”
    I shrugged. Scottie had been high-strung as a kid, but he’d been nothing compared with his mother, who’d always reminded me of Dorothy’s wicked witch. “How is she?” I had a good idea what the answer would be.
    â€œDied four months ago—overdose. It was a lot for her, with my dad gone and what had happened to me. She’d taken Valium for years, then that slipped over to OxyContin. I don’t know how she found the