People Like Us

by Dana Mele

  I try to swallow the lump rapidly forming in my throat, but my mouth is bone dry. She’s already checked the logs and confirmed my exact sign-in and sign-out times. “Sounds right.”

  She scoots her chair a little closer to me, almost imperceptibly, but her face is still in the dark. “So you were running, alone, unaccounted for, between seven thirty-eight and ten forty-two. That’s a hell of a run. You’re a Class A athlete, Kay.”

  “I do okay.”

  “You look like you’re heading out for a run right now.”

  “I run every day. I have to.”

  She scoots closer again, the wooden claws of her chair scraping across the floor. “You have to. What happens if you stop?”

  “The same thing that happens to everyone if they stop conditioning. Their body weakens. They lose strength, stamina, their heart and muscles suffer, they don’t perform to the best of their ability. They die sooner. Do you run every day?” I doubt Morgan has the discipline to even take a five-minute walk every day.

  As if reading my mind, she yawns lazily. “No. I walk my dog, though. It clears my head. Beautiful scenery up here. Especially when the leaves turn. I guess you’ve heard about Dr. Klein’s cat.”

  “I heard they found a cat.”

  “I did. I found a girl trying to dispose of a body.”

  “That’s horrible.” I’m strangely relieved that she only saw one of us.

  “It is. It’s also unusual, for a number of reasons.” Again, she slides the chair forward, just an inch. Now I can see half of her body, up to her waist, but her face remains in the dark. “Typically, when a household pet is mutilated and killed, it isn’t buried. It’s left on display. The killer is proud of what they did and wants to savor the reaction of the pet’s owner.”

  I am suddenly painfully aware of Dr. Klein hunched in the corner of the room. Although her face isn’t visible to me, and although I didn’t do anything to actually harm Hunter, I feel a stifling guilt that makes it difficult to breathe. I have a sudden incredible urge to look at her, to blurt out an apology, and my bones itch to jump out of my body and run, get me the hell out of the room before I say something that will ruin my life.

  I shift my weight uncomfortably in the chair. I feel like I’m sinking into it, like it will be impossible to rise up out of it without an enormous amount of strength and maneuvering. “That’s weird.”

  “The other thing is how much time has passed. For the killer to wait over a year to suppress the evidence is curious. Why now?”

  I shrug slightly, just a tiny gesture.

  “Well, there is the other body in the lake,” she continues, and she hitches her chair forward again. “Do you see what I’m seeing?” I can see her jutting chin, her sharp nose, but not her eyes. Everything about her is sharp, angles and corners. Maybe she’s not as stupid as she comes off. Every time she questions me, she starts the conversation like a kindergarten teacher and ends up giving me mental whiplash.

  “Now, I’m thinking maybe the person who killed Jessica also killed Hunter. And when you put two and two together, it looks like the killer is a student at Bates. Possibly with a close group of friends willing to do some covering up. Lying to the police.” She finally makes that last nudge forward, and I see her beady eyes fixed on me. “Do you know what we found on Jessica’s bed after we secured the crime scene?”

  I shake my head, jarred by the sudden change of subject.

  “A phone, a photo, a message, no fingerprints. Nod if any of this sounds familiar.”

  She’s speaking so quickly, analyzing every breath I take, every blink, every swallow, every minute eye movement. I’m afraid to breathe.

  “A photo of her body floating in the lake, on her phone. And something else. Something of yours.” She waits, her eyes sharp and dangerous.

  “Do I want to talk to a lawyer or something?” I whisper.

  Her thin lips break into a grin. “I’m not questioning you, Kay. We’re just chatting. You’re a witness. If I really had something on you, we’d be down at the station. You’d be in custody, your parents would be here, an officer would’ve read you your rights, you’d have all the lawyers you want.” She pauses. “There’s still something that doesn’t make sense to me, Kay. You freely told me you had no alibi at the time Jessica was killed. Every single one of your friends contradicted that in their witness statements.”

  I nod hesitantly.

  “They said they were by your side the entire night. If you tell me the truth now, it makes it a lot easier to believe you going forward. Where were you when Jessica Lane was murdered?”

  My mind races. The last time she asked me, I told her I was alone and it backfired. I can’t risk doing that again. Besides, Greg is the top suspect. I just have to follow Brie’s advice and lie low. “With my friends,” I finally say.

  She looks down and sighs heavily, and then meets my eye coldly. “Lying to the police is a crime, Katie.”

  “I’m not lying,” I whisper.

  “We found your shoes behind the ballroom. The ones you claimed to be changing in your room at the time of the murder.”

  The time of the murder.

  When Brie left us outside the party, I did mean to go back to my room to change. But everything was ruined and wrong. My head was blurry from the prosecco and my heart felt gigantic and painful in my ribs and I just wanted to bury myself in ice until it all went away. I walked barefoot down the lake path toward Old Road, pressing the cold mouth of the bottle to my lips, dialing Spencer’s number, not really expecting him to pick up. And then he did, and he said this horrible, shocking word I will never be able to scrape out of my mind.

  He said, “Jess?”

  Then he said, “Be there in five.”

  Now, as Detective Morgan looms in front of me, I’ve never been more spooked in my life. If I weren’t so terrified of my parents’ reaction, I would call them immediately. But they would flip. Then suddenly the thought of my parents flicks a little switch inside, and the other Kay, the Kay I’ve been trying to kill, sparks and ignites. I stand abruptly and look down at Detective Morgan, at her ratty brown hair, the one yellow front tooth that doesn’t match the others, her ugly, smug smile with those thin paper lips.

  “Is your life actually so pointless that you have nothing better to do than to harass seventeen-year-old girls?”

  Her smile fades, and her mouth literally drops open.

  “You’re delusional if you think you’re going to intimidate me into a false confession. How many murders are committed by teenage girls, statistically? How many by pervy old men or jealous ex-boyfriends? Why don’t you start looking at some of them and stop stalking me, bitch.”

  I storm out of the room and head outside. I’m going to be late for my first class, but I don’t care. If I don’t run this off, I’m going to explode.

  11

  I avoid Brie all day. I’m not prepared to face her yet after learning that she set Spencer up with Jessica. It’s a double gut punch. The fact that she would do that to me is bad enough. But that she acted for weeks like nothing happened makes my brain pulse until I feel like it’s going to crack my skull.

  Instead, I prepare for our first soccer practice since Jessica’s death. I show up early to try to give Nola a bit of last-minute coaching, but she’s late. Maddy is just finishing up field hockey practice at the adjoining field, and I wander over to chat while I wait.

  She looks surprised to see me. “Kay. I didn’t know you were holding practice today.”

  “Why wouldn’t I?”

  “I don’t know. You’ve seemed distracted lately.” She sprays her face with a water bottle and then rubs it vigorously so her skin turns bright red.

  “That doesn’t mean I’m not a hundred percent committed to winning.”

  She grins. “So nothing’s changed, really.”

  I pick up a field ho
ckey stick and swing it. When I was a kid, my parents put me in softball and I sucked. I struck out, threw short, and couldn’t catch. The only thing I could do was steal bases, but since I rarely made it to first, it was pretty painful. I hated sports altogether until the day Todd dragged me into the backyard with a soccer ball and challenged me to get it away from him using no hands. It took a while but I was determined, and eventually something clicked.

  I smile at Maddy. “Nah. Nothing ever changes.”

  She looks behind me and her expression freezes. “Oh dear Lord.”

  Nola has finally shown up, dressed completely inappropriately in a pair of tiny black terry shorts and knee-highs, black Converse, and a white T-shirt with the words I DO SPORTS printed on it in stark lettering.

  “Awesome.” I jog over to Nola.

  Maddy follows and sits on the bench to watch. “This should be fun.”

  “You’re going to freeze,” I tell Nola, unzipping my hoodie and handing it to her. I have a long-sleeved T-shirt under my jersey and I’m still going to be shivering until I run a couple of laps. I start to do some stretches and she watches me uncertainly and tries to mimic me, and then gives up and launches into her own stretch routine.

  “Revisited the website?” she asks.

  “Actually, I’ve been sidetracked by the murder investigation. The police detective paid me another unfriendly visit.” And then it hits me. When Detective Morgan warned me about lying to the police, she called me Katie.

  I grab my bag and dig my phone out of it.

  Nola performs a practice kick. “Soccer!”

  I consider for a moment, and decide that after all we’ve been through, I can trust Nola with the original Jessica email. “Come here.” I show her the email as we start a slow lap to get some distance from Maddy.

  Nola hovers over my shoulder and reads out loud. “‘At the risk of sounding cliché, talking to the police would not go well for you.’ Acknowledging that it’s cliché doesn’t negate the fact that it’s cliché.”

  I take a moment to choose my wording carefully. “There was an incident where I witnessed a crime, and for whatever reason, the police didn’t believe my story. It was the worst. I had to be interviewed over and over and over.”

  Nola gasps. “Jessica knew about it.”

  I nod. “Somehow.”

  “And no one else would know that about you,” she says doubtfully. But she stops and looks around the field, as if someone might be watching us right now.

  “No one.” But it’s a lie. One other person knows what I did. The only person who knows that people called me Katie back home. Spencer Morrow.

  It’s impossible to concentrate during the rest of practice. Nola is horrible. She can’t kick, she can’t steal, and she can’t defend. She can run, but by some ridiculous clause of Murphy’s law, she can’t run in the same direction as the ball. And she falls. A lot.

  By the end of practice, everyone is pissed at me, except Nola, who by some miraculous brand of self-delusion seems to think she did well. Coach pulls me aside and tells me my judgment is sliding; there is no way we are going to make it to states or that I’m going to win a scholarship with Nola so much as wandering within fifty feet from the field. No one will talk to me because they love Holly Gartner, the alternate I had to bench to add Nola to the roster. Holly sat there in tears the entire time as Nola made an ass out of herself and me, and when I tried to approach her after the practice, she stormed off before I could open my mouth.

  If I urge Coach to keep Nola around, my chances at being scouted are shot. I have to close a perfect season. Our biggest games are coming up right after Thanksgiving, and once we crush it, I feel confident I can win a scholarship. But I can’t do it without Holly. Nola has to go. And I have no idea how to tell her.

  Maddy watched the entire practice. I caught her glaring at Nola, but she waved at me sympathetically a few times. I wish there weren’t any witnesses to my epic humiliation, but she jogs over afterward and invites me to grab a coffee before dinner. I’m torn. I’m behind on studying and want to open the next revenge-blog clue. But I also want to vent about this disaster of a practice, and it would be a major relief to focus on something mundane for once.

  “Sure,” I say.

  “Yay. Are we going to that cute cat place?”

  Maddy shoots an annoyed look over my shoulder. I hadn’t seen Nola standing there. I sigh. So much for venting.

  * * *

  • • •

  WE SIT AWKWARDLY around a small table—Nola with her tea and Maddy and I with coffees—and make small talk until Nola goes to the bathroom.

  Maddy bangs her head against the table. “Oh my God, she is so weird.”

  “We’re friends.”

  Maddy blushes. “Sorry. I figured you were just sleeping together.”

  “I see.” I take a sip of my coffee. “You’re not here to dole out sympathy. You’re here for gossip.”

  “No.” She sighs into her hand and lowers her eyes. “I wanted to see how you were doing. Everything’s been so bizarre lately. First Jessica turning up dead, then Tai and Tricia dropping out. Neither of them will return my texts. But people seem to think—”

  “Yeah. Kay ruins the world.”

  She shakes her head emphatically. “Bates isn’t the world, and you didn’t ruin it.” She plays with the ends of her silky scarf, running it over the smooth tabletop. “Have you talked to Spencer lately?”

  I sigh. “Depends on what you mean by talk.”

  “Are you getting back together?”

  “Definitely not.”

  She chews on a strand of hair for a moment and then smooths it out. “It just seems like you’ve been having a kind of tough time, and I wanted to let you know, I’m here. If you want to talk.”

  I eye her suspiciously. “Or I could just tweet it.”

  She stands up. “Point taken.”

  “Hey.” I grab her hand and pull her back. Her eyes are filled with tears and I’m shocked into silence.

  “I just meant, I know how it feels to be shut out.”

  “When did we ever shut you out?”

  She shrugs. “No one ever tells me anything. And it’s more than that. Sometimes you can be in the middle of everything and still be completely alone. I’m just saying, call me if you need to.”

  I stand and hug her hard. “You call me. I never sleep. Ever. Rest is once upon a time for me. And if you want me to talk to the others about the stupid Notorious R.B.G. thing, consider it done.”

  Maddy looks startled for a second. “What would you say?”

  “I don’t know. Maddy’s smart, but she’s no Ruth Bader Ginsburg?”

  She laughs and wipes the tears away. “I’m fine. You call me.”

  I nod. “Of course.”

  Her phone vibrates and she looks down at it. “I should run before your girlfriend comes bouncing back.”

  “She has energy,” I manage. “Not so much control.”

  “Bench her.” Maddy twists her scarf back around her neck. “Bring Holly back. If Nola’s a friend, she’ll understand. She sucks. You don’t even have to tell her it’s your decision. It’s okay to put yourself first. Just don’t let her find out.”

  “I promised her.”

  “Well, everything breaks. Bones, hearts. Better a promise than an undefeated record.” She gives me a meaningful look and then one more hug before disappearing out the door.

  When Nola comes back from the bathroom, though, I can’t bring myself to say anything. Not yet, anyway. I need her too much.

  * * *

  • • •

  I MANAGE TO successfully avoid Brie the rest of the week despite a constant barrage of texts, throwing myself into studying and soccer and eating with Nola. I can’t get two things out of my head: the fact that Brie set up Spencer and Jessica, and the fa
ct that Detective Morgan might know about my past history with the police.

  Honestly, I don’t know which one is worse.

  After Megan committed suicide in the girls’ locker room, officers interviewed every female student in eighth and ninth grade. Then, when they found her video suicide note posted online, they interviewed me again. And again. And again.

  Her parents had it removed immediately, before I could see it, and the cops never let me know if or how it referred to me. Maybe it didn’t mention me at all. But they kept asking me questions. What did I know about her relationship with my brother? Did she tell me anything about the pictures? Did she show me the pictures? Did Todd show me the pictures?

  That was the thing. I never saw the pictures at all.

  A bunch of ninth- and tenth-grade boys saw them, and some of the girls. Megan was in ninth grade, and she knew a lot of them. But I didn’t. I never saw any of the pictures and I never spoke to anyone who did. I only had that one moment, that shock out of the blue when she told me she had taken them and sent them to him, and he had sent them to everyone, and in that split second between our friendship being everything and nothing, all I could think to say was “I’m sure it was an accident.”

  I never had a chance to fix things between us because she never spoke to me again.

  When I crept into his room later, he looked sick and pale and scared and he said someone stole his phone. Todd, the oldest friend I had. The one who gave me soccer, my saving grace, my ticket out of Hillsdale and into Bates. The kid who got his teeth knocked out standing up for me when Jason Edelman called me a dyke in fourth grade, when I didn’t know what that word meant.

  What the fuck was I supposed to say in that three-second window?

  And that’s what I told myself, and the police. Someone stole his phone. Someone stole his phone.

  If you say something enough times, it becomes true.