I tipped my beer toward her, said, “There you go.”
Jannie came home then, full of funny stories from school and practice. Banneker is known for track, and it was interesting to hear how the school approached the sport. Nana called us all in to eat pan-fried pork chops and kale stir-fried with garlic and sea salt. Of course, she apologized for serving such a simple meal, and we all told her it was fit for a king and his family.
“How was school for you today?” Bree asked Ali as he ate his ice cream.
“Pretty good,” he said. “We got out of social studies to listen to some guy with really red hair. He said you can be anybody you want to be.”
“The man with the really red hair is right,” Nana Mama said. “Anything you can dream, you can become.”
“Yeah,” Ali said. “Like that.”
“What was his name?” I asked.
He thought about that, his nose wrinkled, and then he shrugged. “I can’t remember, but he started some website for kids.”
Bree and Jannie got up and started clearing the table. Jannie said, “I got this, Bree, you look tired.”
“You want to wash them in the bathtub by yourself?”
“It’s not that bad.”
My wife looked at me, said, “Can I use your office for a bit?”
“Sure.”
“Maybe we could go for a drive later?”
“That, too.”
She smiled, got her computer bag, and disappeared upstairs.
“Dad?” Ali said. “Wanna watch the first episode of The Walking Dead with me? I recorded it.”
Zombies weren’t really my cup of tea, but given that my grandmother had succumbed to the show’s charms, I agreed.
Sitting on the couch a few moments later with the DVR cued to play, Ali said, “You’re gonna love this, Dad. It’s based on comic books.”
He said it so earnestly I had to laugh and rub his head.
Okay, I had to admit. It was good. If you haven’t seen the show, it starts with Rick Grimes, a sheriff’s deputy, waking up from a coma only to discover that the world has been taken over by “walkers,” or zombies. The actor who plays Grimes is very convincing and you buy into the situation right away. But it wasn’t until I learned that Grimes’s family had survived and were living with other nonwalkers outside the city that I really got hooked, and—
“Alex?”
My wife stood in the doorwa
y to the dining room, holding a sheaf of papers and staring at it in total disbelief.
“What’s the matter?” I said, getting to my feet.
She shook her head. “You’re not gonna believe what I found.”
Chapter
52
Captain Quintus and John Sampson gazed at Bree and me skeptically around ten the next morning. A Friday. We were in the conference room. The homicide supervisor and my partner had only just arrived.
“Wait,” Quintus said. “You’re saying they’re connected?”