by Amy Brashear
“Yes, November thirteenth.”
I blink, my mind racing back in time. “Well, I had school and then the play that night. We put on Tom Sawyer. I was Amy Lawrence. I told this all to Agent Dewey—”
“I know. But I want to hear it from you.”
My mouth feels dry. I rub my palms on my Sunday dress, wilted now after the long day. My skin is clammy. “Hear what?” I ask. The question sounds squeaky in my ears.
“Someone mentioned that you were talking about Nancy.” He speaks in a cold monotone.
“Who said I was talking about Nancy?”
“I cannot say.”
“It was Karen, wasn’t it?” I ask.
“I cannot say,” he repeats.
“Then it was Audrey. She has it in for me. Did she say something to her dad?”
“Carly,” the sheriff warns. “Listen very carefully.”
“I am.”
With a sigh, he leans forward, glancing at the tape recorder. “Do you remember anything unusual from that night?” he asks quietly.
“No. And I don’t understand why this is happening. You know I’m not involved. I didn’t have anything to do with the murders. Why would I want to kill her?”
“Because you weren’t as good friends as you thought,” he says.
The swift response is like a slap. I want to answer, but no words will come. I stare at him, cold all of a sudden.
“I know you tutored Nancy in math,” he adds. His eyes are on me, unblinking.
“How do you know that?” I ask.
“Never mind that,” he says. “Let’s talk about a different night. Why don’t you tell me about the football game?”
“The football game?” I repeat, at a loss.
I wonder if this is some kind of police trick, to make me confused. Holcomb High School doesn’t have a football team. Then it hits me. Garden City. The Buffaloes: Holcomb’s nearest team, the one the guys in town root for. Sheriff Robertson is talking about “the big game.” Not that I even cared, which is why it hadn’t occurred to me. But I was there.
Dad drove us—me, Asher, and Mary Claire—to Dodge City to see the Buffaloes versus the Red Demons. We met up with Seth and Alex in the parking lot. When we got inside the stadium, Mary Claire made herself comfortable with Alex, but I stuck with my father at the top of the bleachers, bundled under the blankets he brought. Seth moped. It was cold. That’s all I remember. I’m wracking my brain to think of something, anything, but I can’t.
“Sheriff, I—I just watched the game,” I stammer.
“Did you talk to anyone?” he asks.
I throw my hands up. “My father? My brother? My friends?”
He pulls a pair of reading glasses out of a pocket and peers at his notebook. “Carly, someone overheard you say, and I quote, ‘Since she’s gone, I can maybe make her my best friend.’ End quote.” He looks up, gazing at me over his wire rims.
Oh, no. It can’t be.
The realization crashes over me: a nauseating wave. I see it all now. I relive it.
Dad ran to get us some pop and some hot dogs. I asked Asher where Kenyon was, why he hadn’t come. Asher wasn’t in the mood to chat. I should have dropped it. I should have kept my mouth shut. But I started talking about their friendship. How I envied it. I was talking to my brother, but not really, because I assumed he wasn’t listening. I was mostly talking to myself about things I never should have shared with anyone . . .
Asher not only heard every word; he told the police.
Does he think I killed Nancy? I can’t bring myself to believe that, but I also know that Asher would never think to hide anything from the police. The interrogation room spins. For an awful second I’m worried I might be sick. I grab the edge of the desk and squeeze my eyes shut until the feeling passes. Then I try to compose myself.
“Sue,” I gasp. My eyelids flutter open. I’m unable to meet the sheriff’s gaze.
“Beg your pardon?”
“Sue,” I repeat. “I . . . wasn’t talking about Nancy. I was talking about Sue.” I can feel my throat tighten. I don’t want to cry, but I fear I will anyway.
“You’re really going to have to explain,” he says.
So this is what an interrogation is like when you’re guilty. This is what it feels like to be a criminal. I know that now. I never thought I would. But here in this terrible place, with this terrible weight on me, all I want to do was confess. The urge to cry has passed. In its place there is only sorrow and regret. I do have some sins to atone for. All I can do now is hope the sheriff will be forgiving. Too bad that, like Karen, I don’t remember seeing him in church, either.
“I thought . . . here’s my chance,” I say. The words seem to come from someone else.
The sheriff’s blank face fills my field of vision. “But it wasn’t?”
“No, sir,” I say, shaking my head. “Not like I wanted it to be.”
The plan wasn’t a long time in the making. It wasn’t some big secret plot. It was an idea that just popped up, the day before the game. An innocent idea, or so I thought.
I was just arriving at Nancy’s house to tutor her when Sue came running out the front door, crying. It was already getting dark. The sun had set a few minutes earlier.
“Sue, are you okay?” I asked.
She shook her head and coughed. I offered her a tissue from my bag. After taking it and dabbing her eyes, she blew her nose. Then she sniffled and looked up at me.
“I had to tell Nancy some bad news. I don’t think she’s up for tutoring today.”
My face went hot. I could feel that I was blushing, and I hated myself for it, but I couldn’t help it. “Wait, you know about the tutoring?” I whispered.
Sue smirked at me through her tears. “I’m her best friend, Carly.” Then she glanced back at the house. “Or I was.”
She shoved the used tissue into my palm and bolted down the street, vanishing into the shadows.
Tucking the tissue into my pocket, I opened the front door. The hall lights were on. I could hear the wailing from the first floor. Nancy’s room was at the top of the stairs, the one on the right, across from Kenyon’s. The door was slightly ajar. I knocked but I don’t think she heard me. Tentatively, I pushed it open.
“Nancy?” I whispered.
Her lights were low. Her books weren’t even on her desk; they were strewn across the rug. She was lying on her bed, clutching her teddy bear, crying into her pillow. She glanced up and groaned.
“What’s wrong?” I asked.
“I’m fine,” she said in between deep sighs. “I just need a minute.”
She sat up, clutching her wet pillow to her chest, trying to get a grip on herself. “Sue just gave me some bad news, is all.”
I hesitated. Nancy’s eyes drifted to the mess on the floor. She groaned again.
“If you don’t want to tell me, you don’t have to,” I offered.
“No—it’s okay. Everyone will find out anyway.”
I sat on a chair by her desk.
“She’s transferring next year,” Nancy said.
“What? Where? When? Why?” I asked.
Nancy shot me a cold glare. “That’s a lot of w questions. I’m not in the mood to be quizzed right now.”
“Sorry,” I mumbled. “Do you want me to go?”
“No,” she muttered. “I probably need a lesson anyway.”
I took a tissue from the box on her desk and handed it to her. “Do you want to talk about it?”
“Nothing to talk about,” Nancy said. She cleared her throat. “She’s being selfish. That’s all. She thinks that by transferring to good ol’ GCHS she has a better shot at going to college.”
“Why?” I asked. “Is Holcomb High for dumb kids?”
Nancy scowled at me and wiped her cheeks dry. “No. Why would
you say that?”
“Because you said—”
“It doesn’t matter what I said,” Nancy interrupted. “She’s transferring so she can get into K-State, leaving me all alone here.”
I turned my attention to my book bag. “You’re not alone,” I quietly replied.
She stood and shambled over to her closet, then started rummaging through the dresses hanging down. “We’d share clothes,” she mused. “Who am I supposed to share clothes with now?”
“You can share clothes with me, if you want,” I said softly, glancing up.
Nancy turned abruptly. She gave me a sour look. “You’re kidding, right?”
I’m not sure why, but I burst out laughing. And miracle of miracles, so did she.
That was it. She sat at the edge of her bed and we went through our regular tutoring routine, just like always. But when I left that night, I felt as if I were floating on the bitter November wind. Something had changed between us. Hadn’t it? With Sue gone, there was an opening. A void. And maybe, just maybe, I could fill it. But it wasn’t just the hope. It was something more.
Because right before I left, she offered to lend me that red dress for the Sadie Hawkins dance.
When my story is finished, the sheriff leans forward and stops recording. Snap: the button cuts the whirring of the tape. In the sudden quiet, the air feels thick and heavy. But neither of us speaks for a while.
Finally he leans toward me. “Carly, living in a small town is not for the faint of heart. Everyone knows everyone’s business. It’s hard to find your niche. Friendships are established from the moment you are born. And if you move into one of these small towns when you’re—”
“An outsider.”
He shakes his head at my interruption. “No, miss. I wasn’t going to say that.”
“But it’s true. New York might as well be Mars. I had friends there,” I say.
“You have friends here.”
“I know. But I thought Nancy could see me as her best friend, not just her friend from the wrong Manhattan.”
He laughs.
“Sue’s from California and she’s not seen as an outsider,” I say.
“Does that make you upset?” he asks.
I frown at him. “Yes. But it doesn’t make me upset enough to kill. This makes me upset. I don’t like being interrogated like a common criminal.”
“Well, we’re almost done.” He pushes the record button again and asks, “When did you decide to go to the spook show after the cast party on Friday, November thirteenth? And I need you to give your answer loudly and clearly for the microphone to pick it up.”
I look at the machine, its hubs turning slowly. “It was Seth’s idea. He mentioned it while we were at the concession stand. He wanted to go. Why don’t you talk to Seth?”
“I will. Did anything out of the ordinary happen at the spook show?”
Now it’s my turn to laugh. “Well, besides peeing my pants at the sight of the deranged psychotic little girl, then no.”
Sheriff Robertson flashes a tired smile. He opens his mouth, then closes it and shakes his head. “Okay. Thanks, Carly. We’re done. I’ll let your parents know you’re free to go.” He looks me in the eye. “Just don’t leave the state.”
“Not planning to,” I say.
He shuts off the recorder and rewinds the tape. I wonder if he thought this was a waste of time. I would. Why aren’t they out there scouring the countryside? Agent Dewey is convinced that it’s someone local. But I’m beginning to wonder if there are any real suspects at all.
CHAPTER TWENTY-five
Three days until Thanksgiving, and Mary Claire’s going to Great Bend to pick up a turkey. I decide to tag along on her little expedition, even though I don’t have permission from my parents. It’s risky, but the possibility of getting away from Holcomb is too irresistible. Once it lodges in my brain, it feels essential. It’s what I need. Most important: the police in Great Bend might have clues that Sheriff Robertson and Audrey’s dad don’t.
I still haven’t talked to Asher about what he told Sheriff Robertson, or even when they spoke or why. More w questions, Nancy would say. I don’t ask them. Asher is still so remote, still suffering over Kenyon. He’s so exhausted after basketball practice, anyway, that there’s no point in saying anything.
I tell my parents that I have a school assignment to work on with Mary Claire. It isn’t a lie, but it’s not exactly the truth, either. They don’t know that I left town and the county. But Great Bend is still in Kansas, so technically I’m obeying Sheriff Robertson.
Mary Claire is delighted. Of course she is. “I’m harboring a felon,” she says as we pick up speed on the highway. She smiles wickedly, checking her mirrors. “Just like you said.”
“I’m not a felon,” I protest. “Not . . . technically.”
“You’ll probably be arrested again if you get caught. You’ll be in so much trouble.”
“The charges were dropped,” I snap back at her, flustered. Then I frown and face forward. “And besides, there weren’t any charges to drop. I am free and clear.”
She laughs. “Well, if you do get arrested, again, I cannot bail you out.”
“Thanks,” I say. I pull out the steno notebook Agent Nye gave me. I hadn’t given this little gift much thought until I was arrested, especially given his snooty attitude. But after that interrogation, things changed. I want to take control. Maybe he gave it to me as a joke, but I want to show him what I can do with the clues I have.
Great Bend—hunting knife. An abandoned car. Two Negroes were seen driving. ’53 or ’54 Mercury, Colorado license plates. Bloody western-style shirt with the sleeves cut off found in ditch north of Hugoton.
I try to concentrate, but all I can think about is Mary Claire, rolling her eyes. I’m not processing what is written down. The words that once seemed so important are a riddle now. I can remember the feeling I had when I put my pencil to the paper, the fierce urgency, but I can’t remember why I felt it. Well, other than it would clear Bobby. But Bobby isn’t the reason I’ve been running myself so ragged. Not entirely. I thought I was so certain of what I’ve been doing.
“Carly, are you sure you want me to drop you off at the police station?” Mary Claire asks in the silence.
“Yes,” I say. I snap the book shut and turn to glare at her.
“Carly, you’re taking this too personal,” she says.
“It is personal,” I say.
“How? You weren’t that close to her.”
“I could have been. We could have been real friends.”
“I’m your real friend,” she says.
The words are quick and breezy. They sound just like any other offhand remark Mary Claire would make. She’s staring at the road, hands on the wheel, relaxed. Hardly anyone would notice any difference in her, but I can see that her jaw is tight. Her cheek twitches, freckles rippling in the cold glare of the afternoon sun.
“I know you’re a real friend,” I tell her.
“So what is this all about? You’re acting strange, like when you moved here. Like when you were trying too hard to fit in.”
My eyes fall back to my closed notebook. I want to answer her, but I don’t have an answer. Not one that I want to say out loud, anyway. Besides, she already knows the truth. Nancy was the real friend I wanted. Mary Claire has always just been Mary Claire. A friend, yes. But not the same. Not the one I wanted.
Before I know it, she’s pulling over to the side of the road.
“Carly, maybe you shouldn’t come with me to get the turkey.” When the car rolls to a stop, she turns to face me with a blank smile. It’s polite, but there’s no warmth. It’s as if we’re strangers meeting for the first time. “I know how you can be when farm animals are killed in front of you. I’d rather not drop you at the police station, either. It doesn’t feel right.”
I nod. “I understand,” I say. “If you don’t mind driving me back home—”
“Not at all,” she interrupts, putting the transmission in gear. With a screech of the tires, she swerves back onto the deserted highway and makes a U-turn back toward Holcomb.
Mom is waiting for me inside the house. She’s sitting on the sofa, reading a book. When she looks up, I can tell right away that she knows I’ve been doing something I shouldn’t have been doing. I’m home earlier than I said I would be, and I haven’t gotten into any trouble at all . . . and still somehow she knows. “Mom, I’m sorry,” I begin.
She doesn’t say anything. She pats the cushion beside her with her left hand. I narrow my eyes at the book in her lap—its thick black cover, the delicate pages, the tiny print in columns. For a moment I can’t quite believe what I’m seeing.
She’s reading the Bible.
I look up at her.
Without a word, she stands and leaves it open for me on the coffee table, then heads to the kitchen. As I flop down onto the sofa, I notice that a passage is underlined and circled in red ink: Deuteronomy chapter 21, verses 18–21.
If a man have a stubborn and rebellious son, which will not obey the voice of his father, or the voice of his mother, and that, when they have chastened him, will not hearken unto them: Then shall his father and his mother lay hold on him, and bring him out unto the elders of his city, and unto the gate of his place; And they shall say unto the elders of his city, This our son is stubborn and rebellious, he will not obey our voice; he is a glutton, and a drunkard. And all the men of his city shall stone him with stones, that he die: so shalt thou put evil away from among you; and all Israel shall hear, and fear.
A not-so-subtle hint from my not-so-religious mother.
I just hope that she’s reading the Bible because she wants to get more out of Reverend Cowan’s sermons.
CHAPTER TWENTY-six
I’m staring at my notebook when Mom calls for me from her bedroom.
10 days since Nancy was killed, no leads.
