by Amy Brashear
She sits in an overstuffed easy chair. The room smells of something. It’s not unpleasant, but it signifies . . . what? Not neglect. Sadness? Loneliness? Maybe it just smells of old age. Behind her on a table is a photograph of a man dressed in a mechanic’s uniform. Light-colored hair, tall, lanky, kind of withdrawn in the eyes. He’s smiling. I can’t tell by his picture whether he’s destined to become a mass murderer or not.
“That’s my Dick,” she murmurs, catching my stare.
Landry reaches over and grabs my arm. I get the message. He wants me to keep my mouth shut. “How is Dick?” he asks. “My mom was wondering.”
She smiles, revealing blackened gums and three yellow teeth. “Your uncle was so kind. My husband respected him. He’s out for the day, my husband.” Her smile disappears. “It has to do with Dick, if you must know. He’s taking care of some mess our son got into . . .”
“A mess?” Landry says, making sure to sound surprised.
“The police were out here yesterday,” she goes on. “I don’t really understand why they were here. They searched around for a good while. Took our shotgun. Took it right out there on our front porch and fired it. Took the empty casing. My son’s a hunter. I don’t understand all the trouble Dick gets himself into, but it’s a mother’s place to worry. He’s a good boy, a good son, though his life hasn’t ended up the way he hoped it would. But isn’t that life, really?”
I’m perched on the edge of my seat. “Was he ever in trouble with the law before?” I ask.
Landry squeezes my hand—hard.
But she just smiles, her eyes far away.
“He tries, he really does. But he’s been in trouble, all right.” She takes a tissue and wipes her eyes, looking at me. “I’m sorry. What’s your name, dear?”
“Carly. I’m Landry’s sweetheart,” I say, squeezing Landry’s hand back. I shouldn’t have said that. His skin is sweaty. He looks at me again. He’s not happy. He looks even unhappier than when I opened my mouth the first time.
“Oh, how sweet. Landry, your family moved to Holcomb, to run your uncle’s farm, right?” she asks.
“Yes, ma’am,” he says.
“Who’s running the farm here?”
“Some hired hands. My dad tries to make it up here to check on things once a month.”
“Oh, I didn’t know.”
Landry nods.
“Holcomb, right?” she asks.
“Yes, ma’am,” Landry says.
“I remember reading about a murder of a family in the paper,” she says, clutching her pearls.
“The Clutter family,” I say.
Landry lets go of my hand, his smile pained.
Mrs. Hickock shakes her head. “Oh, it was such a sad thing to read about in the paper. How horrible. Did you know them?” she asks.
We nod.
“I’m sorry to hear that,” she says. “At least you have each other to lean on.”
In the middle of the night, I wake up screaming, sweating, my heart pounding. Mrs. Davis runs in and turns on the lamp on my nightstand.
She brushes my damp hair out of my face. “You had a nightmare. You’re okay now,” she says, pulling the covers up to my chin. “Try to get some sleep.” She goes to turn off the light.
“Don’t!” I croak.
“Carly, it wasn’t real. It was just a dream.”
“A scary one.”
For a moment, Landry’s mom hesitates. I don’t blame her. What would my mother do if the roles were reversed, if Landry was in our house and he woke up screaming? Actually, I know exactly what my mother would do. She’d make herself a martini.
“Do you want to talk about it?” Mrs. Davis asks.
I shake my head.
“It’s okay, dear,” she soothes. “I’m here if you need me. Good night.”
In my dream, I was sitting in the Hickock house, listening to Dick’s mother talk about her son, about how he was an angel, how he could never do anything wrong. She kept pointing to the picture. He’s safe. She said this over and over. He’s safe. He’s safe . . . Then Dick leaped from the photo. He was armed with a shotgun. He took one look at me, cocked the trigger, and pointed the barrel at my head. Then he blew my brains out. I saw the explosion of blood. I saw myself on the floor. I saw it all.
CHAPTER THIRTY-nine
Monday after school, Bobby is waiting for me by the front door. I can tell something is wrong from his expression. He offers to walk me home.
“No ride this time?” I joke.
He shakes his head, his face somber. “No. But I wanted to tell you something. I was going to call you, but I saw Asher on Saturday, and he told me you were away, looking at KU.”
I nod, not wanting to explain. So I steer the conversation back to him. “What is it?” I ask. “Why did you want to call?”
“I’m transferring schools, and I thought you should know,” he says.
I drag him to Hartman’s Café so I can try to talk some sense into him.
We sit at the booth in the corner, drinking Cokes and sharing a piece of cherry pie.
“But Garden is seven miles away,” I say, stressing the importance of the distance.
“It’s still the same county. It’s nothing. Car—”
“Then why do you think it will be any different at Garden than it is at Holcomb?” I ask, cutting him off.
He shrugs. “I don’t.”
“You just . . .”
“Have to.”
I know why he thinks he has to. I so desperately want to tell him that he should just ignore all the naysayers and stay put at his school, in his hometown, with me. I know he didn’t do it. No one in this town did it. Soon the real criminals will be caught and all our names will be cleared. People will stop looking at Bobby—at everyone—like we’re guilty by association.
He takes another bite of pie. “Have you talked to Mr. Capote yet?” he asks.
I nod. “Have you?”
He nods. “Agent Dewey thought that it was a good idea. He said that if I didn’t talk to Mr. Capote, he’d probably just make it all up.”
I laugh.
Bobby finally cracks a smile. “You know what?” he says. “He told me how he beat Humphrey Bogart in arm wrestling. Sure. Like I believe that.”
“I don’t believe that.”
“You know he has Nancy’s diary?” he adds.
I shake my head.
“I think he just took it,” Bobby tells me. He leans close, pushing the plate out of the way. “Listen, this is going to sound strange, but have you seen Landry in the past few days?”
“We went to Edgerton this weekend,” I whisper.
“You did what?” Bobby’s voice is suddenly urgent. “Did Landry tell you about Dick Hickock?”
“How do you—”
“Mr. Capote told me about Dick Hickock.”
Of course, I think. Unbelievable. Mr. Capote is out there blabbering to everyone about what the Holcomb police know. Doesn’t he know he could get himself arrested for doing that? Maybe he doesn’t care. I don’t care, either. In a way, Bobby’s revelation is a relief. Now I can come clean and tell the truth for once, too.
“Landry’s parents took us to see KU,” I tell Bobby. “They didn’t know we went to the Hickock place. I had to see for myself what it was like.”
“You could have gotten yourself killed,” he says.
“But I didn’t.”
“Yeah, luckily.” He looks around the half-empty café. “Was he there?”
I shake my head. “I met his mom. Landry knew the family, not well, but enough to get us through the front door.”
“Did you learn anything?” he asks.
“Only that his mom thinks her son can do no wrong.”
“That’s what mothers are supposed to think.”
&nbs
p; “Even if it’s not the case?”
“What does your mother think of you?” he asks. He cuts the last bite in two and takes his share. “All mothers think their children are angels.”
CHAPTER FORTY
A few days later, Mary Claire, Landry, and I are sitting at Candy’s Café. It’s not the usual spot where Mary Claire and I meet, but we wanted to go someplace where we wouldn’t run into people. We order French dips, fries, onion rings, and Cokes. I feel better than I have in a long time. We’re so close to clearing Bobby. We’re so close to clearing everybody in Holcomb. We’re getting back to normal. Well, except for Nancy.
But Nancy is the reason we’re doing this. That’s why it’s so important.
Mr. Capote is still staying at the Wheat Lands Motel in Garden, and I have a plan. Or I want to come up with a plan. I want to sneak into his room. I want to know what else he’s managed to get his stubby little hands on, aside from Nancy’s diary and confidential police reports.
“That’s breaking and entering,” Mary Claire reminds me.
“We’ve done it before,” I say, arching my eyebrow.
“You have?” Landry asks.
Mary Claire flashes me a smirk. “Never mind, Landry.” She crosses her arms. “I agreed to come here today, and to go along with you. But after we do this, we’re done. No more playing Nancy Drew.” She holds out her pinkie for me to take. “Swear,” she says.
I’m a little annoyed that she mentioned Nancy Drew, because that’s Karen’s favorite way of making fun of me, but I reach forward.
“I swear,” I say, clasping pinkies.
Landry snorts. “I don’t have to pinkie swear, do I?”
“Girls only,” Mary Claire and I say at the same time, and we both laugh.
“So what’s the plan?” he asks.
I shrug. “I haven’t gotten past how we’re going to get in. We need to find a different way upstairs through the coffee shop on the first floor. I met Mr. Capote and Miss Lee in that coffee shop. There’s a chance the people who work there will recognize me. Or we’ll bump into Miss Lee. It’s too risky.” I look to Mary Claire. “Any ideas?”
A smile spreads across her face. “I know that motel. There’s a maids’ entrance.”
When we meet up at Mary Claire’s house Sunday afternoon, I don’t ask her how she got the two maids’ uniforms. She’s lived here her whole life and knows people. And like she told Landry and me at Candy’s, she also knows the Wheat Lands Motel. So I’m assuming she borrowed them from someone. Borrowed and not stole. When it comes to Mary Claire’s dark side, I’ve learned that it’s best not to ask.
My uniform fits perfectly. For some reason this makes me even more nervous, keeping watch for Mr. Capote or Miss Lee. Mary Claire and I will pretend that we’re cleaning Mr. Capote’s room. Either that or just sneak in and rummage through it if there’s nobody else around. Landry will whistle if he hears anything. Just like what Mary Claire did in the courthouse.
As we park, I slouch down in the front seat. Just in case we see anyone and they start asking too many questions. Everyone thinks Mary Claire and I are studying for our final exams.
Before I know it, we’re out of the car. It’s freezing, and I’m not wearing a coat, but I don’t even shiver. The maids’ entrance is open, and we pass a couple of maids—older women I’ve never seen before—on their way out. Mary Claire smiles and waves and they wave back. Then we’re up the stairs and in the deserted hallway, standing in front of room 202.
“You’re sure this is the right room?” Mary Claire whispers.
“That’s what he said,” I whisper back.
I raise my hand to knock, but she tries the knob instead. It doesn’t budge.
“You learn more if you don’t knock,” she says, pulling a hairpin out of her apron. She leans over and starts jimmying the lock.
After a second, there’s a click, and the door swings open.
Maybe I should be surprised that Mary Claire is good at picking locks, but I’m not.
In my apron is the camera that Aunt Trudy sent me and told me to keep hidden. I’ve only used it once before, so I know it works. (I took a picture of Asher’s room when he and my parents were out of the house, just to prove what a slob he was, but I never showed it to anyone.) I have to say, the contraption is pretty neat and futuristic. If I see something out of place, I press the button and the photograph develops right here. I don’t have to take a film roll to the drugstore and wait for weeks.
Mary Claire and I creep inside. She closes the door behind us. The room is dark. It smells of cigarette smoke and liquor. There’s a stack of papers and a typewriter on a desk, next to a near-empty bottle of scotch whiskey. The top paper is scribbled with a woman’s handwriting. Of course: Truman doesn’t take notes. We start to go through the stack.
“Listen to this,” I say. “‘Mr. West is a portly young man of twenty-eight who looks forty and sometimes fifty.’ Man, I don’t want to know how he describes me.”
Mary Claire laughs, pulling out a different sheet. “Here’s your answer. ‘Carly Fleming—Kind of sad but pretty. An outsider but desperately wants to be liked.’”
I scowl, following her finger. My heart squeezes. She’s telling the truth.
Still laughing, she moves on. “‘Tall, dark, and just plain handsome, Agent Alvin Dewey exudes a grim determination that helps reassure a community terrified by the massacre.’” Mary Claire snickers. “I feel reassured, don’t you? Oh, and here’s a good one: ‘Hurd’s Gas Station: Staffed by cretins.’ Ha! He has a point there.”
I shake my head.
She pauses on some words and her eyes narrow. “Gross!” She wrinkles her nose. “Listen to this: ‘Yes, but nothing beats vinegar for getting the “dead body” smell out of the carpets.’”
“He’s sick,” I say, eyeing the piece of paper sticking out of the typewriter. “Listen to this. ‘Some people in town think that Mr. Clutter was having an affair. The other woman’s husband found out. In a jealous rage, the cuckold went on a killing spree.’”
Mary Claire sniffs. “Wow. That’s kind of risqué. I didn’t think good old Herb had it in him.”
“It’s not funny,” I say. “It’s a lie.”
But she just smiles as she starts pulling out drawers and sifting through them. “You think so? Because you never know how people act behind closed doors.”
There’s a business ledger of some kind half hidden behind the desk lamp. Leaning close, I see that there are at least a hundred names on it. Each has been assigned a dollar amount. “I think he’s paying people for their interviews,” I say.
She stands up straight with her hands on her hips. “I didn’t get paid.”
“Neither did I.”
I snap a picture of the ledger. The blank gray film slides from the camera and I wave it in the air, waiting for the image to appear.
All of a sudden Mary Claire shrieks. I nearly have a heart attack.
“I found the diary!”
Once I’ve recovered, I grab it out of her hand.
“Wait,” she says.
“What?”
“You can’t read that.”
“They did,” I say.
“That doesn’t make it right . . .” Her voice trails off. Maybe she realizes it’s slightly hypocritical to talk about right and wrong when she’s the one who made it possible to break into a hotel room in uniforms we don’t own. But I can tell from her expression that’s not it. She wants to protect her friend, even though her friend is dead. I hesitate, swallowing.
What does it matter now?
Shaking my head, I sit on the bed and flip to the last entry.
Jolene K. came over and I showed her how to make a cherry pie. Practiced with Roxie. Bobby here and we watched TV. Left at eleven.
I glance up and show Mary Claire. “That’s it?”
She sits beside me. “What did you expect it to say? ‘Jolene K. came over and I showed her how to make a cherry pie. Practiced with Roxie. Bobby here and we watched TV. Left at eleven. Getting ready for bed—wait, two men here, a Perry and a Dick, friendly, scratch that, not friendly, a gun, a trigger pulled . . .’”
“Dot. Dot. Dot,” I say.
“Dot. Dot. Dot,” she repeats.
Someone pounds on the door. We hop off the bed and onto our feet. I manage to take two pictures—one of the front cover and one of the last entry—before Mary Claire slams the diary shut and shoves it back where she found it. We’re about to hide in the closet when we hear a faint whistle.
“It’s me, Landry! We got to go; he’s downstairs with that woman. They’re sitting down but I don’t know for how long . . .”
We open up, but Landry pushes us right back in. Maids are coming up the stairs. Out the window we go, climbing down the ice-cold fire escape: Landry first, then Mary Claire, then me. As I close the window of Mr. Capote’s room, I remember my pinkie swear.
No more Nancy Drew.
CHAPTER FORTY-one
At school the next day, Mary Claire and Landry both avoid me. I’m not sure why. I wonder if it’s because they’re still nervous about getting caught for what we did yesterday. It’s too bad, because I have a little gift for Landry—an early Christmas present in return for keeping watch for us and saving us at the motel. It’s more of a joke: an old cardigan I found in a thrift store in Dodge, the last time Dad took us there.
If I’m being honest, I’d bought it intending to give it to Landry all along.
It is pretty perfect. It has a cursive L sewn on the left breast pocket. Mom is sure it was made for a woman, but I don’t care. That’s what makes it funny.
The lights are on in his house when I pull up, so I know he’s home. I knock several times and stand shivering on the porch.
“Be right down!” he calls.
When the door opens, he doesn’t look particularly happy to see me.
“Carly, what are you doing here?”
My stomach sinks. “I . . . I, um, I got this for you,” I say, handing the wrapped box to him.
