Kyung nods again, staring at the checkered tile floor. This is too much to say in front of his in-laws, too much history that he’s guarded from people like them.
Connie seems to sense this because he steps toward him, lowering his head to look Kyung in the eye. “She said you mentioned something about your father before the ambulance arrived? He’s done this kind of thing before?”
Connie’s eyes are blue, blue like Gillian’s. For the first time, Kyung sees something resembling kindness in them. Not suspicion, like the day she brought him home to meet the family. Or apathy, like every other Christmas and Thanksgiving since. Being married to his daughter wasn’t enough to earn this man’s affection, but being a victim somehow is.
“It used to be pretty regular. A long time ago.” Kyung pauses. “My mother told me he did this to her—when she came to the house today, she said so.”
Lentz is taking notes with a small blue pencil, the stubby kind used by golfers. Kyung watches the lead leave a neat trail across the page. Every letter is perfectly slanted and looped; it looks like a woman’s handwriting, or a young girl’s. He wonders if Lentz has ever been assigned to anything more serious than a bike theft.
“That seems like enough to go talk to him, don’t you think?” Connie asks. “Mind if we come along?”
Although he phrased it in the form of a question, it’s obvious that Connie expects the younger man to defer to him, which he does.
“I want to go too.”
The three men look at Kyung, then at each other.
“That’s probably not such a good idea,” Tim says. “Maybe you should wait—”
Connie swings his arm in front of Tim’s chest like a barricade. “It’s okay if he wants to come. Someone does this to a guy’s mother, he has the right.” He doesn’t bother to consult Lentz about this. He simply starts walking toward the exit. “Just promise me you’ll stay out of the way.”
What he promises to do and what he thinks he’ll do are two different things. Kyung is convinced that when he sees Jin, he’ll go straight for the old man’s throat, pressing his thumbs into the hollow until someone pries him off. Connie and Tim might respect him more for the effort, although the McFaddens are the kind of men who always seem ready to fight, which ensures that they never have to. Kyung doesn’t feel comfortable around them, making their presence today even odder. He reminds himself that Gillian couldn’t have known any of this was going to happen when she called. It’s not her fault that he’s sitting in the back of Connie’s Suburban, following Lentz’s squad car up the hill toward Marlboro Heights.
“I keep forgetting,” Tim says. “What’s your dad teach again?”
“Engineering. Mechanical engineering.”
“College professor ought to know better than to hit a woman, don’t you think?”
Tim turns around in the passenger seat, his expression a cross between menacing and sly. He’s a hulk of a man, even taller and thicker than Connie. The question was probably his dumb idea of a trick. Kyung is a college professor too. Tim wants to hear him say the right thing.
“Everyone,” he answers.
“Everyone what?”
“I think everyone should know better.”
The main road into Marlboro Heights is a wide, neatly landscaped street. The houses along this stretch are the cheapest in the neighborhood because of their proximity to traffic. Still, Tim whistles at the sprawling Victorians with their chemical-green lawns and tall, leafy shade trees. It occurs to Kyung that his in-laws have never visited his parents’ house before. They were invited once, shortly after he and Gillian eloped, but they declined the invitation, which was never extended again. Under different circumstances, he would have been proud to bring them here. Mae and Jin live near the top of the hill in a stunning Queen Anne, built in the 1860s and restored to ornate, expensive perfection.
When they pull into the horseshoe driveway, Tim leans out his open window, taking it all in. “This doesn’t look like a college professor’s house.”
“My father still earns money from his patents.”
“His what?”
“He invents things.”
“Never mind all that.” Connie turns around in his seat. “Remember what you promised. You’re going to keep your head in there, right?”
Kyung feels like a bullet sitting in a chamber. Compressed and powerful, ready to inflict damage. Sending his father to jail isn’t the same thing as killing him, but it’s close. Close enough.
“I’ll be fine.”
Lentz is waiting for them on the doorstep. As they walk up the flagstone path, Kyung notices that all the drapes have been pulled shut. Lentz picks up the brass knocker and raps the handle against the door. When no one answers, Connie pounds on it with his fist.
“I guess he took off,” Lentz says. “No cars in the driveway.”
Kyung lifts a flowerpot filled with marigolds and removes a spare key from the draining dish. His father is smart, smart enough to park the Lincoln a few blocks away to give the appearance that no one is home. That would explain the drapes. He tries to offer the key to Lentz, who steps away as if it’s a grenade.