by Sara Hammel
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For Ollie and the rescues, who inspired this book; Chris, who gave me the space to write it; and Mom, who nurtured my dreams
August 4
The day they carried sixteen-year-old Annabel Harper out of the club they had to close the pool area because someone had vomited everywhere. They found the vomit before they found Annabel.
She did not have a hair out of place. Her champagne-blond bob framed her face in two perfect angles, even in death. She would have liked that. Her skin, from her shoulders to her tummy to her long legs, was still flawless and bronzed and a little slippery from the water, not blue or red or pale like you might expect.
They carried her away from the pool, through the women’s locker room, into the lobby, and people stood alongside like a receiving line and gawked, but they would not have seen the perfection about her. They would have seen a big lump of dark blue plastic go by. I know because I watched them zip up the body bag.
Seeing Annabel like that was not the worst part of that day. It was Nicholas who got to everyone. He arrived later, as the sun arced higher in the sky and announced it was going to be a scorcher, and he ran to the revolving doors and pushed as hard as he could, shooting out like a bullet onto the pool deck. A detective rushed and grabbed his shoulders, pushed him back, but Nicholas wouldn’t go. He was taller than the detective. Younger, fitter.
“What happened? What happened? What happened?” Nicholas screamed, the question growing louder each time. He was crying and he didn’t care who saw. I watched from behind the glass in the hallway that led from the main building to the pool. Nicholas was Annabel’s brother, almost like a twin but not. He was older by less than two years, protective and so fond of his baby sister. An equally blond creature who tanned in the summer like he was made for the sun, like it was summer that brought him to life. Nicholas, who was tall and muscular but not bulky—he had the build of a catalog model crossed with a soccer player—always said, It’s okay. We’re forever young. It was so wrong that Annabel would now stay young forever.
I remember Nicholas’s face that day, twisted with pain. His voice, feral and telling us he would not be the same person from this moment on. He was this local hero, and so old for his years. Nice to everyone, so composed and mature. Only seventeen. He had saved a little girl’s life earlier in the summer. That was quite a story.
I had to turn away when he started wailing. When the detective dragged him from the scene. That’s when I saw Lisa Denessen standing alone in the pool’s viewing lobby, staring out the big picture windows, a strange look on her face. Half-smile, half-indifference. Or something more sinister; there was no way to be sure exactly what she was thinking.
So much goes on at the club, especially in the summer. There’s always something juicy happening among the members, the staff, the aerobics addicts, the tennis people … Oh Lordy, the tennis people. They alone could star in their own soap opera: As the Yellow Ball Turns.
I remember everything, and I listen. People generally like me around this place. Apparently I’m a pretty nonthreatening figure, and unlike certain others I won’t mention, I don’t seem to alarm or offend anyone. People have gotten so used to me that sometimes I think I’m like wallpaper in this joint. So I hear and see more than I probably should.
You never would have thought that summer would turn out the way it did, but in retrospect, everything that went on—the betrayal and the tears and the raging hormones—was leading up to something dramatic.
After
With the drama unfolding around here faster than Rafael Nadal’s serve, I had to find my best friend—stat. I knew where Evie would be. I cruised through the main lobby toward Court 5, my head down, hoping no one would stop me for a chat.
I knew pretty much everyone around the club because of who my mom is. She pretty much runs the reception area (some say the whole club), and she speaks her mind. I love her, of course. She takes care of me, and every summer she clears it with the owner so I can hang out here while she works.
I ran down past our little café area, where a bunch of policemen were milling around looking serious and drinking the club’s free coffee out of Styrofoam cups. The club is arranged thusly: after you go through the entrance and pass through the main lobby, there are four stairs that lead down to the café—and when I say café, I mean glorified kitchen counter, refrigerator, and creaky, outdated frozen yogurt machine. Our lunch place served snacks, sandwiches, and one flavor of yogurt per month. It wasn’t fine dining, but it was enough for members to grab a little sustenance after a workout or a swim, and the owner had small tables throughout the club so people could sit and watch tennis or just relax. The café had a couple of tables and space for the tennis camp lunch buffet to be set up. From there, glass sliding doors led out to the four outdoor courts: Courts 6 to 9. To the right of the glass doors was the green door that led to the indoor courts: Courts 1 to 4. Just off the café was a narrow hallway that connected the rest of the club to Court 5, which was this big, stand-alone concrete structure. I made a beeline down there and through the door that led to Court 5 and the storage rooms tucked behind it.
I found Evie sitting on a crate full of giant mayonnaise jars in her secret room. This was where they stored all the tennis camp lunch items, along with hoppers full of tennis balls. Evie found solace back there, protected by those heavy plastic green curtains separating the room from the tennis court. Her special hangout was messy and low-lit, and smelled of rubber and feet. But on the bright side, she was safe there—technically, no one under eighteen was allowed inside, but Evie had gotten special permission from the club’s owner because she was a staff member’s kid, and she’d asked nicely.
When I popped my head in the door, Evie was sucking on a coconut Frooti-Freez bar and listening to that song again, the scraggly end of her side braid resting on her right shoulder. Over and over she’d play that song, and I kept waiting for her to get sick of it. It was the biggest hit of the past five summers combined. “Summer Cool” was taking the world by storm. The words were easy:
Summer, summer, summer, yeah yeah yeah
I saw you by the pool and fell in love at first sight
In the summer, summer, summer, cool cool cool
Let’s just say the melody was catchier than the lyrics. Which, by the way, Evie had to listen to on a 1980s boom box. If you’ve never seen one, this antiquated piece of machinery is basically a radio the size of a small bench with two soccer-ball-size speakers whose sound is far less impressive than their size would suggest.
More Summer, summer, summer, cool cool cool … And then the harsh interjection: You’re listening to 98.5, the Zoo! Evie was the only kid within a thousand miles of the club without an iPod—or a cell phone, for that matter. Luckily, the club’s owner didn’t allow kids to bring their phones in the club, period, so Evie was just like the rest of them, at least by day.
She caught sight of me and put her book down. “Annabel lov
es—” She took a deep breath. “Annabel loved that song,” she corrected. She reached over and lowered the volume.
Her voice cracked a little, but she didn’t cry. She sat back on her crate and I joined her. She was still reading A Little Princess, a book in which terrible things happen to a very nice young girl, from what Evie said. Frankly, it sounded a little dark for a summer read. She smiled at me then, but her eyes were sad and, I swear, a duller green than usual because of it. I had to get her out of here. For starters, it was boiling in this place. Evie had a little row of sweat droplets on her upper lip and her face was a nuclear pink. The air-conditioning did not reach the storage rooms, and considering this was shaping up to be the hottest summer ever in St. Claire, it was brutal. I really didn’t get how Evie could stand it.
Today she was wearing her trademark gray sweatpants again because she was ashamed of her legs, which she had referred to more than once as pale, veiny, and gross. She was hidden as usual in her dark blue Reebok T-shirt, a men’s XL. She sucked the frozen stump of her melting Frooti-Freez and looked thoughtful for a moment.
“It’s scary about Annabel, isn’t it?” she asked, licking her lips.
I had to agree. Scary, and sad. I had a feeling the whole thing could get out of control if the police didn’t find out immediately what had happened. I hopped off the crate. Come with me. Evie sighed and looked at the door. I didn’t blame her for hesitating—I mean, people were dying out there. But we couldn’t hide forever. It was time to show Evie the crime scene, and to let her get a load of this detective they’d sent to investigate. I had a feeling we’d be seeing a lot of this strange-looking fellow in the days to come.
Evie sighed again and said, “You’re right, Chels. Let’s go find out what’s going on around here.” We set off together to see what we could learn.
After
Evie blew a stray strand of hair out of her eyes and held a finger over her lips: Shhh. Her fine, dirty-blond locks weren’t suited for the one braid she insited on wearing since she saw the same look on Serene Cowen-Lynch, the coolest girl at her school and also a tennis prodigy who trained at the club.
We were inside the women’s locker room, hunched down against the door that Evie had opened by about three inches so we could see and hear the action. Both the men’s and women’s locker rooms’ main entrances were off the club’s lobby, and if you walked through the changing areas, past the toilets, and beyond the showers, you’d hit their back doors, which opened up to a hallway that led to the pool.
We already knew who the big player was in this tragic case: Detective Ted Ashlock, who was currently cornering the club’s owner, Gene Hanrahan, outside the men’s locker room. Their backs were to us, so we could see and hear them, but for now, at least, they had no idea we were a few yards away, peeking out of the women’s locker room.
Ashlock was in mid-threat when we got to listening: “I can shut this place down right now. Is that what you want?”
Gene held up his hands, his wiry salt-and-pepper hair a mess and the bags under his eyes puffier than ever. “Whoa. I’m trying to cooperate here. I can’t have this—this terrible tragedy—close me down. I’m a small business. I’m finished if I can’t stay open.”
Detective Ashlock, a lonesome-looking man whose paleness stood out big-time among the sun worshippers and tennis people who trained here, held his ground. “A girl is dead. That’s all that matters to me right now.”
That shut Gene up quick. I took a good look at this Ashlock. He wore snug jeans and a canvas belt paired with an azure sports jacket and a white button-down shirt, and he topped off the look with a white fedora that was entirely unfashionable but looked oddly right on him. I didn’t know it then, but I’d be seeing a lot of that getup in the weeks to come.
Gene was wearing his usual white tennis shorts and Adidas polo shirt. He crossed his arms over his chest and stared out at the pool, probably thinking about all the paying members who should be out there splashing around right now. In reality, we were watching a swarm of Stormtroopers—that’s what Evie and I had dubbed these guys dressed in white, with their strange puffy slippers—hanging around the pool area, vacuuming up bits of fluff or pebbles or blood or hair.
“Of course, that’s the most important thing. But it was just an accident … a terrible accident. The girl obviously snuck into the club last night and drowned. Or maybe she got sick. It’s not like there’s any foul play. Not in this town.” Gene was talking fast.
Ashlock blotted beads of sweat off his forehead with a white handkerchief. It was the first week of August, and everyone was tired of the steamy New England heat. Ashlock looked like he was in danger of melting, like one of Evie’s beloved Frooti-Freez bars.
“Well, we think it’s very strange that the upper half of the victim’s body was wet, and yet her hair was bone-dry. And styled. Styled like a perfect doll. So I’m not sure how you can assume it was an accident…”
The funny thing is that anyone who knew Annabel knew she never got her hair wet. She would swim like a Labrador, her head bobbing above the water as she paddled her way across the pool to wherever she was going. Everyone watched her whenever she moved; she knew it, too, and she always planned her migration from the sun lounger to the pool stairs carefully. She was aware she was on display.
I watched her do it so many times, watched her slip her bathing-suit straps back onto her shoulders before sitting up, only the tiniest wrinkles of bronzed skin rippling over her belly. She’d smooth down her hair, and then slowly, slowly she’d stand up while surreptitiously ensuring her bikini area was entirely covered, tucking her index finger under her bottoms to straighten them out. Then she’d stride casually to the edge of the concrete pool stairs and up her foot would come in slow-motion like a crane lifting a girder, and she’d point a dainty, painted toe like a ballerina for a grand dip to test the temperature. You get the idea.
* * *
Things were heating up in that little hallway in more ways than one. The smell of chlorine was wafting in from the pool, making Gene’s face turn beet red as he fielded the questions lobbed at him by the detective.
“You said Annabel might have sneaked into the club. Who has keys to this place?”
“A few of us,” Gene replied. “I’ll get you a list. So, um … when can we reopen the pool?”
I almost felt sorry for the guy. Gene, who’d been a local tennis star in the 1970s and was slim and sinewy but carried himself with a slight hunch and an incongruous little potbelly, was staring wistfully out at the pool. Evie and I both knew who had keys to the club, including at least one person who routinely used them after hours.
Gene looked like he had something else to say, but at that moment my mom poked her nose into the action. I was surprised it had taken her this long to scurry up to Gene’s side, where she commenced speaking sternly to Detective Ashlock.
“Who did this? Our members will be terrified,” she proclaimed. “They’ll need to be assured the killer is not a danger to them.”
Ashlock squinted at my mom, then shot an odd look toward Gene. I could guess why. It was interesting Mom and Gene had such opposing views of what had happened to Annabel.
“We certainly haven’t determined this was a murder,” Ashlock said. He wiped sweat off his upper lip with one knuckle. “Our investigation is ongoing.”
Ashlock took a long, hard look at my mom. Evie turned to me nervously, mouth open. I could read her mind: We did not want any detectives looking hard at my mom. No sirree.
“Tell me, ma’am,” Ashlock said slowly, “what makes you think it was a homicide?”
My mom put her right hand on her chin. She did that when she was thinking about something or when she was stalling. I knew her so well. She recovered after a few seconds. “I just assumed, Detective,” she said coolly. “I mean, a young, healthy girl is found dead after hours, in her bikini? That screams foul play. The poor kid was only sixteen, for God’s sake.”
“Mmmhmm.” Ashlock was taking
notes again. “I’m sorry. What did you say your name was?”
“Beth Jestin. Front desk manager,” she replied. I saw Gene raise his eyebrows, but he was too smart to protest. Mom didn’t exactly have an official title, but apparently he was willing to let it go. “Word gets around quickly here, Detective.”
Ashlock directed his thumb at the owner. “I’m going to need that list of people who hold keys to the club’s entrance as well as to this door.”
He nodded in the direction of the revolving door that opened up to the pool. Evie and I knew better than anyone how hard that door was to open. Made of steel and Plexiglas, it had several special locks on both sides of the doorjamb. Even people with keys had trouble opening it. When summer was over, they would place a great white bubble over the pool, and since the bubble had to stay inflated, there was something about the suction between the bubble and the main building that messed the door up.
Gene nodded, still squinting out at the pool. That rectangular body of water was an oasis during a hot summer, and on a scorcher like today, it gleamed like an Olympic-size baguette-cut diamond that reflected the sun in a million different directions. The pool was surrounded by this fancy new designer caramel-colored pebble decking Gene had invested in, and that, in turn, was bordered by a plush lawn on the back end and the left-hand side. A wooden fence went three-quarters of the way around the whole thing, and at the base of the fence were bushes and flowers. The purple coneflowers and red verbenas were blooming particularly bright these days.
My mom held out one hand and counted off on her fingers while Ashlock made notes on his pad. “Here’s your list. One: Gene. Two: the front desk manager—that’s me. Three: the pool manager and lifeguard, Harmony Goldenblatt. He’s only a kid himself … sixteen, I think. Four: the weekend-morning lifeguard, Nicholas Harper, Annabel’s seventeen-year-old brother.” Her face softened. “Oh, no. Poor Nicholas. Who found her? Who found the body?”
