As Good as Dead

by Holly Jackson

  She couldn’t be too eager to tell him, or too rehearsed.

  “That’s the night Jason Bell was killed?” she asked, checking.

  “Yes, it was.”

  “Erm, well, I went over to my friend’s house—”

  “Which friend?”

  “Cara Ward, and Naomi Ward,” Pip said, watching as he took note. “They live on Hillside. That’s where I was when I made the phone call to Christopher Epps at…what time did you say?”

  “Nine-forty-one p.m.,” Hawkins said, the answer ready on the tip of his tongue.

  “Right, nine-forty-ish. And I arrived at their house several minutes before then, so I guess at nine-thirty I would have been driving to theirs, across town.”

  “OK,” he said, “and how long were you at the Wards’ house?”

  “Not long,” Pip said.

  “No?” He studied her.

  “No, we were only there for a little while before we decided we were all hungry. So I drove the three of us to go get some food.”

  Hawkins scribbled something else. “Food?” he said. “Where did you go?”

  “To McDonald’s,” Pip said with a small shameful smile, dipping her head. “The one in Darien Service Plaza, off I-95.”

  “The service plaza?” He chewed his pen. “Was that the closest place you could have gotten food?”

  “Well, it was the closest McDonald’s that we knew would definitely be open.”

  “Which rest stop? Southbound? Northbound?”

  “South.”

  “And what time did you arrive?”

  “Um…” Pip thought about it. “I wasn’t really keeping track of the time, especially as I didn’t have a phone, but if we left not long after my phone call to Epps, then we must have gotten there just after ten-ish.”

  “And you said you drove? In your car?” he asked.

  “Yep.”

  “What kind of car do you have?”

  Pip sniffed. “It’s a VW Beetle. Gray.”

  “License plate number?”

  She recited it to him, watching as he noted it down and underlined it.

  “So you arrived at McDonald’s around ten-ish,” he said. “Isn’t that a little late for dinner?”

  Pip shrugged. “Still a teenager, what can I say?”

  “Had you been drinking?” he asked her.

  “No,” she said firmly, “because that would have been a crime.”

  “That it would,” he said, eyes flicking back down his page of notes. “And how long were you at this McDonald’s for?”

  “Yeah, a while,” Pip said. “We got our meals and we sat there for like an hour and a half-ish, I’d guess. Then I went up and got us a couple of ice creams for the journey back. I could check on my banking app what time that was; I paid for the food.”

  Hawkins shook his head slightly. He didn’t need to see it on her phone; he had his own ways of verifying her alibi. And there he would see her on the footage, clear as day, standing in line, avoiding eye contact with the camera. Two separate payments made by her card. Airtight, Hawkins.

  “All right. So you think you left McDonald’s around eleven-thirty?”

  “That would be my best guess, yes,” she said. “Without checking.”

  “And where did you go from there?”

  “Well, home,” she said, lowering her eyebrows because the answer was too obvious. “I drove us back to Fairview, dropped the Ward sisters home, and then I drove back to my house.”

  “What time did you get back to your house?”

  “Again, I wasn’t really keeping an eye on the time, especially because I didn’t have my phone,” she said. “But when I got in, my mom was still waiting up in bed for me, and it must have been after twelve because she made some comment about it being after midnight. We were getting up early the next morning, see.”

  “And then?” He glanced up.

  “And then I went to bed. To sleep.”

  Covered, for the entire time-of-death window. Pip could see it playing out in the new lines wrinkling across Hawkins’s forehead. Of course, she could be lying; maybe that’s what he was thinking. He’d have to check. But she wasn’t lying, not about this part, and all the evidence was there, just waiting for him.

  Hawkins exhaled, running his eyes down his page again, something troubling him, Pip could see it in his eyes. “Interview paused at eleven-forty-three.” He clicked stop on the machine. “I’m just going to grab a coffee,” he said, rising from his chair, gathering up the files. “Would you like one?”

  No, she didn’t. She felt sick on the comedown from the adrenaline, her gut finally untwisting now she knew she’d survived, she’d won, that Max had killed Jason and it couldn’t possibly have been her. But it hadn’t untwisted all the way; it was that look in his eyes she couldn’t work out. Hawkins was waiting for an answer.

  “Yes, please,” she said, even though she didn’t want to. “Milk, no sugar.” An innocent person would take the coffee, someone who had nothing to hide, nothing to worry about.

  “Two minutes.” Hawkins smiled at her, shuffling out the door. It clicked shut behind him, and Pip listened to the muffled clip of his shoes, carrying him down the hall. Maybe he was going to get coffee, but he was probably also handing that new information off to another officer, directing them to start looking into her alibi.

  She exhaled, slumped in her chair. She didn’t have to perform just now, no one was watching. Part of her wanted to cup her hands over her face and cry into them. Bawl. Scream. Laugh. Because she was free and it was over. She could lock that terror away and never let it out again. And maybe one day, years from now, she’d even forget about it, or life would have dulled its edges, made her forget the feeling of almost dying. Only a good life would do that, she thought. A normal one. And maybe, maybe, that’s what she’d have. Maybe she’d just earned it back.

  Pip’s phone vibrated in her pocket, against her leg. She pulled it out and looked at the screen.

  A text from Ravi:

  How’s your day going?

  They had to be careful texting each other; that left a permanent record. Most of their texts were in code now, unassuming, or simply arranging a time to speak. How’s your day going? really meant What’s happening, did it work? Not to any outside eyes, but a secret language they were working out together, like the million small ways they had of saying I love you.

  Pip flicked through the keyboard onto the emojis. She swiped through until she found the thumbs-up symbol and she sent that, just that. Her day was going well, thanks, was what it could mean. But really what it meant was: We did it. We’re in the clear. Ravi would understand that. He’d be blinking at his screen right now, and then letting out a long breath, the relief a physical sensation, unraveling inside him, changing the way he sat in his chair, the shape of his bones, the feel of his skin. They were safe, they were free, they were never there.

  Pip slipped her phone away as the door into the interview room clattered open, Hawkins walking in back-first to push the door, his hands filled with two cups.

  “Here.” He passed one over to her.

  “Thank you,” she said, cupping it between her hands, forcing down a small sip. Too bitter, too hot, but she smiled at him in thanks anyway.

  Hawkins didn’t take a sip. He put his cup down on the table and pushed it away from him. Reached out and pressed a button on the tape recorder.

  “Interview commenced at”—he pulled up his sleeve to glance at his watch—“eleven-forty-eight.”

  He watched Pip for a second and she watched him. What more did he have to ask her? She’d explained her call to Epps and she’d given him her alibi—what else could he need to know from her? Pip couldn’t think. Had she missed something? No, everything had gone to plan, she couldn’t have missed something. Don’t panic, just sip,
listen, and react. But first she had to wipe her hands because Stanley’s blood was back.

  “So,” Hawkins said suddenly, tapping one hand against the table. “This podcast, this investigation, you’re planning to carry on with it?”

  “Kind of see it as my duty,” Pip said. “And, like you said, once I’ve started something, I like to see it through to the end. Stubborn like that.”

  “You know you cannot publicly post anything that would hamper our investigation?” he said.

  “Yes, I do know that. And I won’t. I don’t know anything. Vague theories and background are all I’ve got at the moment. I’ve recently learned a lesson about online defamation, so I won’t post anything without ‘allegedly’ or ‘according to a source.’ And if I do find anything concrete, I’d come to you first anyway.”

  “Oh,” Hawkins said. “Well, I appreciate that. So, with this podcast, how do you record your interviews?”

  Why did he need to know that? Or was this just idle chitchat while he waited on something? What—for a colleague to look into her alibi? Surely that would take hours.

  “Just this audio software,” Pip said. “Or if it’s a phone call, I have an app that can do it.”

  “And do you use microphones, say, if you were recording someone face to face?”

  “Yes.” Pip nodded. “Microphones that plug in by USB to my laptop.”

  “Oh, that’s very clever,” he said.

  Pip nodded. “Bit more compact than this guy,” she said, gesturing her head toward the tape recorder.

  “Yes,” Hawkins laughed. “Quite. And do you have to wear headphones when you’re interviewing someone? Listen through those while you record?”

  “Well,” Pip said, “yes, I put on my headphones at the start to check the levels, see whether they are too close to the microphone or there’s background noise. But I don’t usually need to wear them throughout an interview.”

  “Oh, I see,” he said. “And do they need to be specialist headphones, for that purpose? My nephew wants to start a podcast, see, and he’s got a birthday coming up.”

  “Oh right.” Pip smiled. “Um, no, mine aren’t specialist. Just some big noise-canceling ones that go over your ears.”

  “And can you use them for everyday use too?” Hawkins asked. “Listening to music, or podcasts, even?”

  “Yeah, I do that,” she said, trying to understand the look in Hawkins’s eyes. Why were they talking about this? “Mine connect by Bluetooth to my phone. Good for music when you’re running or walking.”

  “Ah, so good for everyday use, then?”

  “Yep.” Pip nodded slowly.

  “Would you say you use them daily? Don’t want to get him something he won’t use, especially if they’re expensive.”

  “Yeah, I use them all the time.”

  “Ah great.” Hawkins smiled. “Do you know what brand yours are? I’ve had a look on Amazon and some are ridiculously expensive.”

  “Mine are Sony,” she said.

  Hawkins nodded, a shift in his eyes, almost a flicker.

  “Black?” he asked.

  “Y-yes,” Pip said, her voice catching in her throat as her mind doubled back, trying to understand what was going on here. Why she had a sinking feeling in her gut; what had it realized that she hadn’t?

  “A Good Girl’s Guide to Murder,” Hawkins said, running one hand up his sleeve, fidgeting. “That’s the name of your podcast, isn’t it?”

  “Yes.”

  “Good name,” he said.

  “It has pizzazz,” Pip replied.

  “You know, there’s just one other thing I wanted to ask you.” Hawkins sat back, one hand crawling down toward the outside pocket of his jacket. “You said you haven’t had any contact with Jason Bell. Not since the memorial in April, right?”

  Pip hesitated. “Right.”

  A twitch in Hawkins’s cheek as he dropped her eyes, glancing down at his fingers as they dug inside his pocket, bulky with something Pip finally noticed. “Explain to me, then, why your headphones, the ones you use on a daily basis, were found inside the home of a murdered man you’ve had no contact with in months?”

  He pulled something out. A clear bag with a red strip at the top reading Evidence. And inside the bag were Pip’s headphones. Undeniably them: the AGGGTM sticker Ravi had had made for her wrapped around one side.

  They were hers.

  Found at Jason Bell’s house.

  And Hawkins had just made her admit it on tape.

  The shock didn’t last long, not before the panic set in. Curdling in her stomach, rising up her spine, quick as insect legs or a dead man’s fingers.

  Pip stared at her headphones in the evidence bag and she didn’t understand. No, that couldn’t be right. She’d seen them in the last week, hadn’t she? When she was working on the audio of Jackie’s interview. No, no, she hadn’t been able to find them; she thought Josh had borrowed them again.

  No, the last time she’d had them was…that day. She’d taken them off, put them in her backpack before knocking on Nat’s door. But then Jason grabbed her.

  “Are these yours?” Hawkins asked, his gaze a physical sensation on her face, an itch she couldn’t ignore, watching her for any giveaway. She couldn’t give him one.

  “They look similar,” Pip said, speaking slowly, assuredly over the panic and her hummingbird heart. “Can I see them closer?”

  Hawkins slid the evidence bag across the table, and Pip stared down at the headphones, pretending to study them while she bought herself time to think.

  Jason had had her backpack in his car. She’d checked before she and Ravi left the scene and she thought she had everything she’d packed that afternoon. She did, except the headphones. She hadn’t been thinking about them because they’d gone in after. But where, when…

  No. That sick fuck.

  Jason must have taken them out. When he left her there, wrapped up in tape, he went home. He looked through her bag. He found the headphones and he took them. Because they were his trophy. The symbol for his sixth victim. The thing he would clutch close to relive the thrill of killing her. Her headphones were his trophy. That’s why he took them.

  That sick fuck.

  Hawkins cleared his throat.

  Pip glanced up at him. How should she play this? How could she play this? Was there any play left to make? He’d caught her in a lie, a direct link to the victim.

  Fuck.

  Fuck.

  Fuck.

  “Yes,” she said, quietly. “Those are mine, of course. The sticker.”

  Hawkins nodded, and now Pip understood that look in his eyes and she hated him for it. He’d trapped her. He’d caught her. Spun a web she couldn’t see until it was wrapped around her, cutting off her air. Not free, not safe, not free.

  “And why did a forensics team find your headphones inside Jason Bell’s house?”

  “I—I,” Pip stuttered. “I honestly cannot tell you. I don’t know. Where were they?”

  “In his bedroom,” Hawkins said. “Top drawer of his bedside table.”

  “I don’t understand,” Pip said, and that wasn’t true because she knew exactly why they were there, how they got there. But she couldn’t find any other words because her mind was busy, the plan shattering into a million pieces, cascading behind her eyes.

  “You said you use your headphones daily? ‘All the time,’ ” he quoted her. “Yet you haven’t had contact with Jason Bell since April. So how did your headphones get there?”

  “I don’t know,” she said, shuffling in her seat. No, don’t shuffle, that makes you look guilty. Stay still, stare back. “I use them all the time, but I haven’t seen them lately—”

  “Define ‘lately’?”

  “I don’t know, maybe a week or more,” she said. “Maybe I left th
em somewhere…. I can’t really remember.”

  “No?” Hawkins said lightly.

  “No.” Pip stared him down, but her eyes were weaker than his. Blood on her hands, gun in her heart, bile at the back of her throat and a cage tightening around her, squeezing the skin on her arms. Biting, like the duct tape had. “I’m as confused as you are.”

  “You have no explanation?” Hawkins said.

  “No, none,” Pip said. “I didn’t realize they were missing.”

  “So, they can’t have been gone long?” he asked. “Maybe nine or ten days? Could you have lost them on the same day you lost your phone?”

  Pip knew then. He didn’t believe her. He wouldn’t follow the path she’d created for him. She wasn’t a peripheral outsider to the case anymore—there was a direct line between her and Jason. Hawkins had found her, the real her, not the one she’d planted for him to find. He’d won.

  “I really don’t know,” Pip said, and the terror was back, that cliff edge inside her own head, breaths coming faster, throat narrowing. “I guess I can ask my family, see if they remember when they last saw me with the headphones. But I can’t think how this happened.”

  “Right,” Hawkins said.

  She needed to leave, get out before the panic took over her face and she couldn’t hide it anymore. She had to leave, and she could—this interview was voluntary. They couldn’t arrest her. Not yet. The headphones were only circumstantial; they’d need more.

  “In fact, I probably need to get going. My mom’s taking me shopping for college supplies in a bit. I’m going this weekend and, unlike me, I’m not organized. I’ll ask my family if they remember when I last had those headphones, and I’ll get back to you on that.”

  She stood up.

  “Interview terminated eleven-fifty-seven.” Hawkins clicked stop on the tape and stood as well, picking up the evidence bag. “I’ll walk you out,” he said.

  “No,” Pip said from the door, “no, don’t worry. Been here enough times, I know the way.”

  Back out into that corridor, in the bad, bad place, blood on her hands, blood on her hands, blood on her face and everywhere, marking her out in red as she stumbled outside.