Schooled In Lies

by Angela Henry

  He proceeded to drag me backwards down the cellar steps. I could feel cool air and smell dank earth. I felt like I was being put into a grave. I started screaming louder and Dennis slung me hard against the cellar’s far wall. I slid into a heap on the dirt floor and started to sob. My head already felt like a bomb hand gone off in it. So being dragged by my hair had only added to the agony.

  “What the hell did you hit me with?” I clutched the back of my head. He was panting so hard that I thought he wouldn’t answer me.

  “Hey, I couldn’t let you get away. I threw one of the flat rocks edging the flower bed at you. I’m still a pretty damned good pitcher, wouldn’t you say?” he said between breaths.

  “Why are you doing this to me?”

  “It’s nothing personal. I actually kinda like you. But I really don’t have a choice. You’re a big problem.” He grabbed a nearby shovel and thinking he was about to hit me with it, I threw up my arms up to shield myself. Instead, he started digging a hole. Three guesses on who it was for.

  “Like Clair Easton and her dog?” I looked around wildly for a way out. I soon realized Dennis was between me and the only exit. The cellar was dimly lit. But I could see the floor was strewn with tools. There was a pick ax on the cellar floor. If I could get to it I might be able to use it as a weapon, but unfortunately I’d have to get past Dennis first as it was on the other side of him. Dennis didn’t answer my last question. So I asked again.

  “Were Claire and Jeeves problems, too?”

  He sighed and stopped digging, running the back of his arm across his face to wipe sweat from his eyes.

  “I’d just finished burying that stupid cat under a tree when Jeeves got into our backyard and dug it up again. What I didn’t know at the time was that Jeeves hadn’t been alone. Clair had been in the backyard, too, watching me when I chased Jeeves away and reburied what he’d dug up in the azalea bed. I didn’t mean to kill my old man’s stupid flowers in the process. I had to replace them with another color. Clair must’ve been out walking Jeeves and he got away from her again. She’d followed him into our backyard. When my old man asked me what happened to his flowers, I told him Jeeves did it, not knowing Clair had been there too. I never thought he’d actually go and confront the crazy old bitch about her dog and threaten to call the humane society to have him taken away.”

  “Then she came to see me and told me that she saw me that night and if I didn’t tell my father that I was the one who messed up his flowers, she would. So I killed her damned dog with rat poison thinking: no dog, no problem. But it sent her over the edge instead. She kept hanging around our house threatening me and saying she was going to call the police on me because she knew I was up to no good. Wanted to know what I had buried in my backyard, anyway.”

  “And you couldn’t have that, could you?” I inched my way closer to the pick ax.

  “I tried to reason with her. She wouldn’t listen. I had to do something. Even if I moved the cat, I couldn’t have the police snooping around our property and asking me questions. I had complaints against me in California for suspicion of distributing drugs that my folks didn’t know about. Then my parents came home from their walk the other day and told me they saw her yelling and screaming at some woman who’d been at her house. I didn’t know it had been you, but it gave me an idea.

  “You killed Clair hoping the police would think it had been the woman Clair was screaming at?”

  “It was easy. I snuck into her backyard through that back gate. Her door was unlocked. I went inside and saw her walking into her living room. There were hedge clippers on the floor by the front door. I just grabbed them, waited, and stuck them in the side of her neck when she came back out of the living room. She never even knew what hit her. Didn’t even scream.”

  “Was it that easy with Ms. Flack?”

  Dennis laughed out loud. “Now, that was one crafty bitch. Acting like she was a victim like the rest of us when she was the one behind it all. She deserved what she got.”

  “How’d you find out it was her?” Dennis wasn’t paying any attention to anything but the hole he was digging. I was almost poised to make a lunge for the pick ax but wanted to keep him talking and distracted.

  “My mother sent me to tell her she’d be willing to donate money so we could still have our reunion. I went to her office. She was busy talking to her secretary and I started flipping through a magazine on her desk and noticed it was cut up and had letters missing just like that threatening note she claimed she found in the cafeteria. But it wasn’t until I went to her house to give her the check that I realized she was the blackmailer. All her bags were packed. She was ready to skip town with our money. She’d be out there somewhere free to blackmail me for the rest of my life.”

  “What did you do?”

  “She was running bath water when I got there. Told me to wait while she turned it off. I followed her into the bathroom and knocked her out then turned off the water and put her in the tub. Then I plugged in her blow dryer and dropped it in. You should have seen the way she twitched.” He laughed again. I inched closer to the pick ax while he continued to talk.

  “Then her damned cat attacked me when I came out of the bathroom.” He pulled the bandage off his wrist revealing several long deep-looking scratches. “I wrung its neck good.”

  “And you couldn’t leave it behind because then everyone would know she’d been murdered,” I said. He grinned and I took that as a yes.

  “But one thing I could never figure out is how she found out about what I did,” he shook his head in confusion.

  “All anyone would have to do is call your former employer to find out about the allegations about you giving steroids to the student athletes you worked with. It wouldn’t be hard to find out at all,” I pointed out.

  Dennis stopped digging and looked at me strangely. He immediately realized I wasn’t against the wall where he threw me. He followed my gaze to the pick ax and we both dove towards it at the same time. I got there first, grabbed the handle, and swung out wildly, missing him by a mile. He knocked the ax effortlessly out of my hands with one vicious chop to my sprained wrist and backhanded me across my face, sending me flying back against the wall. Then he picked up the pick ax and drove it hard into the ground in a corner out of my reach

  I felt something warm trickling down my face and put a hand to the wetness. My nose was bleeding. Dennis picked up the shovel again and continued to dig. How was I going to get out of this? No one would ever find me down here. I’d go missing, never to be found again.

  “She wasn’t in on it alone. She had a partner. If you let me go, I’ll tell you who it is,” I said, desperately trying to buy some time.

  “You’d say anything right about now, wouldn’t you? I’m not that stupid. You were probably the one in on it with her. But, don’t worry, babe. You won’t be down here in the dark all by yourself. You’ll be in excellent company.”

  I looked around the small dank cellar trying to figure out whom he could be talking about. We were the only two people down there. Was he hallucinating?

  “Dennis, what are you talking about?” I asked slowly. “Who else do you think is down here?”

  “Shut up! I gotta get this hole dug. I don’t like being down here any longer than I have to. Brings back bad memories.”

  “What bad memories?” I asked. But clarity was beginning to dawn on me. This wasn’t about steroids or being fired from his last job. He’d done something else, something much worse, and that’s what he’d thought Ivy Flack had found out about.

  He didn’t know that Cherisse had been the one making the phone calls to the reunion committee telling them how much they needed to pay to keep their secrets buried. Only Dennis’s secret was buried in this cellar—literally—and that’s what he thought he was being blackmailed about. That’s why he’d killed Ivy Flack.

  “Dennis, my God, what did you do? Who else is buried down here?”

  Dennis turned abruptly and came at me with
the shovel. “I told you to shut up!”

  Before he had a chance to get to me, however, I heard a loud clicking noise, followed by a soft thud, like someone pounding a steak. Dennis screamed and dropped the shovel. He twirled around desperately grabbing at his back. When he turned I saw a large nail sticking out of his back just above his shoulder blade. He grabbed the nail and pulled it out with a loud grunt and threw it against the wall. I looked beyond Dennis and saw Cherisse Craig standing at the bottom of the cellar steps holding the nail gun in her badly trembling hands. She was sobbing.

  “He killed my sister, Kendra. He killed Serena. Didn’t you, you sorry motherfucker?” Cherisse squeezed the trigger on the nail gun again firing another nail, this time deep into Dennis’ left shinbone. He fell to the floor of the cellar screaming.

  “She’s lying! She’s crazy!” Dennis said, sobbing and clutching his leg. I doubted he’d be able to pull this nail out.

  “I knew something wasn’t right about what you said about Serena at Estelle’s the other night and it didn’t hit me until yesterday what it was. Serena told me the last time I talked to her, the day she took off for California, that she was getting a tattoo of her and her girlfriend’s names in a heart. Her girlfriend was having second thoughts about going to California with her. She was going to do it to prove her love. But I never saw the tattoo because she hadn’t gotten it yet. You must have seen her right after she got it done. How did you see it, Dennis? She wouldn’t have shown it to you. You two weren’t friends. She couldn’t stand you because of the way you treated me. How did you know about the tattoo?” she screamed. When Dennis didn’t answer her, she raised the nail gun again.

  “Wait a minute!” he said, throwing up a hand.

  “Tell me!” She started to squeeze the handle slightly.

  “Okay, okay! I was in love with Serena! Are you satisfied? But, she never gave me the time of day. I sent her flowers with an anonymous note telling her to meet me here at the house. Julian and I used to come here and chill and get high all the time.”

  “Then what happened,” I asked him. I had to go past Dennis to reach the safety of Cherisse and the nail gun but I was afraid Dennis would grab me. I stayed put.

  “I had a candlelight dinner waiting for her. But when she got here, I could tell I wasn’t who she was expecting. I told her how I felt anyway and she…she…just laughed at me!” Dennis moaned like the memory of that rejection hurt him more than the nail sticking out of his shin.

  “Go on!” Cherisse took a step closer.

  “At first I thought it was because of the way I treated you. I told her I would apologize to you and get my friends to do the same. But she called me a stupid asshole and said she could never love me because she was gay. I didn’t believe her. Thought she was just making it up to scare me away. That’s when she pulled down her pants and showed me the tattoo on her hip. It was still fresh and had a bandage over it. It was a heart and inside it said Audrey and Serena Forever. She told me she and Audrey were in love and running away to California together. That’s when I knew she wasn’t lying. I realized that’s why Audrey was so hot to pass that science final so she could graduate on time, and that’s why she broke up with Julian. She was in love with Serena. I couldn’t believe it.”

  “So, you figured if you couldn’t have her, no one would?” Cherisse’s hands were still trembling. I was praying she wouldn’t drop the nail gun.

  “No! It wasn’t like that! I thought I could change her mind. I tried to kiss her but she slapped my face. I got mad and shoved her but her pants were still down around her hips and her legs got tangled up and she fell and hit her head on the corner of the table! I swear I never meant to kill her! I swear!” Both Dennis and Cherisse were sobbing now.

  “And that’s why Audrey tried to kill herself, isn’t it? She thought Serena took off without her and it broke her heart.” I stood up slowly. Dennis just nodded.

  “What did you do with my sister? I’ve been following you since yesterday hoping you’d lead me to her grave. Is she down here? Tell me!” She placed the nail gun against Dennis’s forehead.

  As I watched the two of them, it occurred to me that I may not have been the only one to realize someone was buried in the cellar.

  “Dennis, did Julian find out what you’d done? Did you push him off the roof?”

  Dennis buried his face in his hands and howled. “I am such a fuck up! My parents have been telling me that all my life and it’s true. I had no idea Julian had bought this place. I was still living in San Diego. I came home for a visit and he told me he had a surprise for me. Brought me out here and told me he’d bought the place and was going to renovate and sell it. Make a huge profit. Said he was almost finished with the roof and would be working on the cellar next. I couldn’t let him find her. I came out here while he was working and threw a brick at him. I was just hoping he’d fall off the roof and break an arm or leg and not be able to work for a while. I just wanted to buy some time so I could dig her up and rebury her someplace else. I never meant for him to land on the fence. Julian was the only person who loved me.”

  “Where is she? Where’s my sister?” Cherisse screamed in his face. Dennis flinched and timidly pointed near the place where he’d sunk the pick ax into the cellar floor. Cherisse turned to look, and in that instant Dennis knocked the nail gun out of her hand and shoved her to the floor. He got to his feet and started kicking her with his uninjured leg. She curled into a ball and started whimpering.

  I ran over and kicked the nail protruding from his shin, probably sending it another half inch into the bone. He stopped kicking Cherisse and his face went white. The sound that came out of his mouth was inhuman. He stumbled backward, tripping over the same shovel he’d been digging my grave with, and fell impaling himself on the pick ax sticking out of the dirt floor.

  Damn. That karma’s a bitch.

  Epilogue

  WHEN I GOT HOME early the next morning, after giving my statement to the police, and being checked over in the emergency room, there was a message on my answering machine from Carl. It said:

  Kendra, by the time you hear this, I’ll be on my way to Atlanta. I came by to reason with you and what did I see? You all dressed up getting into another man’s big, fancy car. Guess your paranoia over me and Vanessa was a reflection of your own guilty conscious, huh? I guess I never really knew you at all, did I? Well, I hope you find whatever it is you’re looking for, but I now know it’s not me. Goodbye.

  Carl was gone. I couldn’t believe it. And I didn’t know what was worse, the fact he thought I’d been cheating on him, or the fact that he thought I’d been cheating on him with Lewis Watts! I sat down on my couch and cried myself to sleep.

  I went to four funerals that next week: Ivy Flack’s, Dennis Kirby’s, Serena Craig’s, and Clair Easton’s. The first two I attended purely out of a need for closure more than anything else. Ms. Flack’s funeral was well attended by students and staff at Springmont High. They’d loved her. Despite everything I’d found out about her, she’d been an excellent principal. I tried to think about the Ivy Flack I’d known before I found out about Alice Ivy Rivers. I mostly succeeded.

  Dennis’s funeral was attended by his parents, Gerald, and a few of his coworkers at the college bookstore. I was also surprised to see Ashley, the physical therapist, there. I stood well away from the small group and just observed. Dennis’s parents looked numb with shock and clung to each other. Gerald kept sneaking peeks at Emma Kirby, who totally ignored him. I couldn’t tell if it was because of grief over her son’s death or anger over Gerald’s baby with Sunny. Mostly likely it was both. Ashley and Ellis Kirby also didn’t make much eye contact. I watched Ellis and Emma leave their son’s gravesite to go put flowers on Julian’s grave. Seems Dennis couldn’t even have his parent’s undivided attention at his own funeral. Unnoticed by the Kirbys, Gerald and Ashley left together.

  Serena’s funeral was also sparsely attended by Audrey and her girlfriend, Janice, Cherisse,
and me. Audrey had left her husband and was now living with Janice, the woman I’d seen her with at Estelle’s, and was preparing to fight for custody of her children. Audrey’s grief over Serena’s murder was tempered with a certain amount of joy. Audrey had been waiting for Serena at the bus station the night she died. She was heartbroken when she never showed up. Now she knew the love of her life hadn’t run off and left her eleven years ago like she’d thought. Audrey was at peace and felt free to be who she really was.

  Cherisse was also at peace. She planned to change her major to psychology and become a high school guidance counselor like Ms. Flack. I didn’t have the heart to tell her the truth about Ivy Flack. There was nothing to be gained from shattering her illusions about a woman who was her only high school friend. Cherisse had also stopped seeing Gerald and had let go of a lot of the anger and hurt from high school. I told her I’d never tell a soul about her helping Ms. Flack blackmail the reunion committee and I meant it. I was hoping we could finally be friends. She seemed to want that, too.

  Clair Easton’s funeral was by far the saddest. Mr. Diaz, the landscaper, and I were the only ones who came. None of her neighbors bothered showing up. There were no flowers, and the only music was provided by the church’s minimally talented organist, who must have thought she was performing on Star Search the way she kept cheesing and winking at us. The service was brief and rushed because a christening had been scheduled for immediately after the funeral. So Clair Easton’s fifty-eight years on earth were hurriedly summed up in fifteen minutes by a lisping minister who kept mispronouncing her last name as Eastman and clearly hadn’t known her. Afterwards, I made awkward small talk with Mr. Diaz, who seemed to have had genuine affection for his eccentric client.