"Del," she said. "We need to talk."
He looked at the milk in her hand, and then at her face, and she watched him decide something. He set the plywood down against the wall.
"Okay," he said.
"I don't care," she said. "I want you to know that first. I don't care if you're eating at night. I don't care about the Ding Dongs. I care that you're lying to me. I care that you're hiding food in this house like some—like some kid. Like you're scared of me. You've got a cholesterol of two-sixty and your father died at fifty-two and you're sneaking chili out of the refrigerator at two o'clock in the morning and rinsing out the bowl so I won't know, and I just want—" Her voice broke. "I just want you to talk to me. I'm right here. I've been right here for eleven years."
Del stood very still by the garage door. Milo, under the table, lifted his head.
"I ate one," Del said.
"What?"
"One Ding Dong. The first one. Last Tuesday. I came home and you were at work and I'd had a bad day, and I knew where you kept them, I've always known where you kept them, Jan, and I ate one standing up in the pantry. And then I felt bad about it, so I stuck the wrapper behind the shelf." He took a breath. "That's all. That's the only one. I didn't eat the others. I didn't eat the chili. I didn't drink the milk."
She stared at him.
"Then who did?"
He opened his mouth. He closed it. And the thing went across his face again, the bird-shadow, and this time it stayed long enough for her to see it, and what she saw was fear. Not guilt. Fear.
"I don't know," he said.
"Del, I can't—"
The doorbell rang.
They both turned and looked at the front of the house as though neither of them had ever heard a doorbell before. It rang again, two short polite pulses. Del went and answered it.
It was Arliss Haskell. He stood on the front step in his long dark coat and his earflap hat, holding his hat in both gloved hands the way Officer Brandt had, his thin face red with the cold. Buster sat at his feet, panting little clouds.
"Del," he said. "Janet. I'm sorry to come by so late. I won't keep you." He looked at Janet. His eyes were watery and pale blue behind his glasses, and there was nothing in them but embarrassment. "A police officer came to see me on Tuesday. He said somebody on the street had seen me standing in front of your house."