We Are All the Same in the Dark

by Julia Heaberlin

“All right,” Rusty says smoothly. “Did Odette think her father killed Trumanell and Frank Branson?” My head snaps up. That was loaded and ready to go. Not the question I was expecting first. “I don’t have any idea. What’s your second question?” “Did Odette think Wyatt Branson had a role in killing his sister and father? Was she protecting him?” “Odette and I never got that far, either. I did get myself on the list to visit Wyatt as a pro bono therapist during one of his court-required bouts in a mental factory. Odette’s face that last day of her therapy haunted me. She was a vulnerable child. One leg. Sixteen years old. No mother. A father out of No Country for Old Men. I needed to reassure myself that Wyatt Branson wasn’t going to get out and kill her because he thought she knew something. It wasn’t ethical for me to see him, so I never went back. But I’ll tell you this: I left his room knowing he was fully capable of murder.” It’s like the real Dr. Greco stepped out of a cracked egg. This is the woman who flipped juries.

Yeah, cool. No actual information, just continued mystery and more fucking vagueries.