The Cave Dwellers, Christina McDowell [ap literature book list .TXT] 📗

two-hundred-year-old tulip poplar tree leaning toward the chimney of their house. The arborist: yellow hard hat, clear safety glasses, khakis, and old tennis shoes. He’s inspecting the health and structure of the tree, using all kinds of state-of-the-art instruments, searching for its cracks, splits, saturated soils, poor architecture, root problems, and symptoms of decay.

Already hiding her vulnerability, Meredith recently discovered some of her family’s financial pressures after a paralegal at a Washington law firm left a message on the home voice mail. It was often said that the level of wealth the Bartholomews locked up was nearly impossible to reach even by a lawsuit, blocked by settlements and payoffs. But when 2016 hit, the ability to get closer to someone’s personal records in the age of waning privacy was becoming an increasingly apparent threat. Google somebody’s name, and websites such as mylife.com, nuwber.com, and whitepages.com will release the date of birth, home address, and the names of relatives of anyone. Meredith was beginning to worry. And with the murder of the Banks family, about what it might suggest: Will there be another?

The arborist drills a hole in the trunk of the tree. He stops, takes out another gadget to peer inside of it, when the sound of the ringing landline echoes through the Victorian stained-glass front door that’s been blown open by the wind. Meredith breaks her distressed trance and walks inside, immediately engulfed by red toile wallpaper depicting the image of a family outdoors having a picnic in colonial America. A portrait of Bunny, age three, wearing a smock dress and sitting in a Chippendale dining chair, hangs above the china bowl of potpourri. Meredith enters the kitchen and picks up the cordless phone, reads the caller ID: Phyllis Van Buren.

“Hi, Phyllis,” Meredith answers as if she’s already spoken to Phyllis several times today. Phyllis Van Buren and her husband have been the Bartholomews’ friends and neighbors for nearly twenty years. Her husband is president of the Atomic Heritage Foundation, the organization preserving the legacy of the Manhattan Project and the atomic bomb that addresses the scientific, technical, political, and social/ethical issues of the twenty-first century, working with the government and, most important, the Department of Energy. All those years ago when they discovered the coincidence, it brought the families close.

“Did you hear the news?” Phyllis asks, her tone less concerned than riveted.

As Phyllis relays everything Meredith has already gone over within her inner circle, she yanks open the junk drawer, pushing papers and receipts and takeout menus out of the way before she finds her emergency pack of Carlton cigarettes. She holds the phone against her shoulder, banging the pack in the palm of her hand before opening the lid. Meredith notices as she pulls out the cigarette and puts it in her mouth that her hand is shaking. She lights it as fast as she can, takes a deep drag, the end lit like a summer firefly, then raises her right hand to the steel fan above the kitchen stove. She presses the On button, leans over, and exhales into the vent, a vacuum of smoke now circulating through the entire house. Phyllis is still talking. Speculating.

“Meredith, are you there?… The police just came by, so I wanted to let you know. They’re looking for information in the neighborhood, they think they have a suspect but he’s not been arrested yet.…”

Meredith does not reply.

“Meredith? Honey?”

“Jesus, Phyllis.” Meredith, back in her trance.

“I’m so sorry, honey, I know.… There will be a service at the National Cathedral next week, I’m sure you will get the details.”

“Phyllis,” Meredith says, “who did you say the suspect was?”

“Well, everything is just speculation at this point.…”

“Is he”—Meredith winces—“African American? Don’t tell me.…” She winces again, this time in pseudo pain: the cliché, the stereotype, if true, does not look good for her newfound liberal politics. She waits for Phyllis’s answer.

“He is, honey. Well, that’s the rumor anyway.”

Meredith cringes as if she’s just witnessed a missed serve at Wimbledon. She rinses her cigarette under the faucet and shoves it down the garbage disposal. “How could something like this happen?”

“I know, honey, I think—I think they wanted information, they don’t know anything yet, but, Jesus Christ, to tie up and torture someone’s child.… I can only think that they wanted something—money or, I don’t know, information.…” Phyllis suddenly seems distracted, “Oh, honey, that’s the doorbell—the decorator is here to look at the house. We’re on the Christmas homes tour. They start early. You should buy tickets, bring Bunny, it will be a nice mother-daughter day and she’s old enough to attend this year.”

“Oh, congratulations, sounds lovely, we will,” Meredith replies, bleak to be switching gears to Christmas celebrations so soon.

“Call if you need me, dear.”

“Will do.”

A sharp grating sound juxtaposes the afternoon stillness amidst the clustered town homes of Georgetown. The arborist saws a tiny branch from the trunk as dead leaves swirl around him. He pauses when a district police car bobbles along the cobblestone road, stopping behind the arborist’s white truck.

Officer Gomez steps out of the vehicle and approaches the arborist. “Are the homeowners around?” he asks.

Before the man can respond, Meredith steps out into the light. “I am she.…” she says, a regal figure among these blue-collar men.

“Ma’am, I’m sorry to disturb you this afternoon, but I’m in the neighborhood to ask a few questions regarding an incident that happened last—”

“I think it qualifies as a little more than an incident, don’t you?”

Officer Gomez glances at the arborist: the all-too-familiar upper-class white woman they’re used to dealing with.

“It was a horrific tragedy that occurred last night, and I can assure you we did everything we could… and we’re hoping to get more information.”

“Well, I’m not sure how much help I’ll be.” Meredith purses her lips, swallowing her emotion, and crosses her arms.

“Were you home last night?”

“Yes, I was—well, we were after dinner… at the club, we were home by about nine thirty p.m.”

“Who else lives in the home, if