Broken Monsters by Lauren Beukes Page B

and he can make us all some coffee. And maybe you could show us Daveyton’s room?” They’re looking for signs of an unhappy home, the markers of violence, hidden doors, secret rooms, locked basements, the smell of blood or bleach.
    “No, no, I’ll make the coffee. I think I should keep busy, don’t you?” Mrs. Lafonte flashes them a brittle smile. “You get on without me. I’ll be right back.” But she drifts up the stairs leading up to the second floor. Marcus moves as if to go after her, to steer her toward the sunlight coming in the kitchen windows down the hall, but Gabi shakes her head. Leave her be.
    “Could we see his room?” Gabi tries again.
    “Are you sure it’s our boy?” Mr. Lafonte says, daring her to be wrong about this thing they have brought into the house.
    “You’ll need to identify him. I think maybe it should be you, Mr. Lafonte. No need to put your wife through that.” She looks him in the eyes. “But yes, we’re sure.”
    He lets go of hope like a helium balloon. It seems to have been the only thing holding him up. His shoulders hunch over and he tilts forward, his whole body crumpling. “We moved up here to get away from all that,” he says. “After the shooting. It’s a good neighborhood. This isn’t supposed to happen in good neighborhoods.”
    “Bad things happen everywhere, Mr. Lafonte. Forgive me, but I have a list of routine questions I need to go through with you. You won’t like some of them.”
    “My son is dead, Detective—”
    “Versado,” she fills in for him.
    He waves the name away. “You think your questions can hurt me?”
    So she goes through them, systematically. Where Daveyton was last seen. Who he was seen with. Did he have any friends who might have been a bad influence? Any gang-related activity? Any adults who showed a special interest in him? Did he have any hobbies? Had he mentioned any encounters with strangers? Any medical conditions? Was he on any medication? Or drugs? Any trouble at school or in the neighborhood?
    “In this neighborhood?”
    Behind him, Mrs. Lafonte plods down the stairs, carrying a plastic laundry basket, and vanishes into the kitchen. Routine, like small talk, to find your way back, because the most risible thing about death is that life carries on.
    “You got any hunting buddies?” Boyd asks.
    “No. Why would you ask that?” Mr. Lafonte is getting more and more confused.
    “You ever take him out into the woods?”
    “What is this?” Outrage jerks Mr. Lafonte’s spine upright.
    “We’re trying to cover all the bases, sir. All lines of inquiry. It’s possible it may have been a hunting accident.”
    “What happened to my boy?” He stands up. “I want to see him.”
    “You will, Mr. Lafonte.” Not like she has, of course. The Lafontes will get their son all cleaned up, with a plastic sheet for modesty to cover where his legs would have been. They’ll be able to tell immediately though. The visibility of absence.
    “I want to see him now. ”
    There is a screeching grinding sound from the kitchen. Marcus reacts before any of them, running toward the noise. Beat cop instincts. Gabi and Boyd are out of practice. He stops, frozen in the doorway at the sight of Mrs. Lafonte, her teeth bared, squashing a plastic dinosaur into the protesting garbage disposal. There are shreds of tiger-striped blue plastic around the sink. She’s forcing it in, the protesting blades whirring near her fingertips. The toy grins idiotically with its bulging eyes, even as the soft plastic rips under the blades. The laundry basket is full of toys.
    “Stop, Mrs. Lafonte.” Gabi pulls her hands away. “Please.”
    “Oh, I’m sorry, honey.” Daveyton’s mother turns to them, smiling vaguely. Shock makes people do strange things. Gabi remembers one woman who jumped off her porch and sprinted around her house three times as if she could somehow outrun the bad news. Mrs. Lafonte holds out the shredded plastic. “Did you want them for