Quicksand Pond

by Janet Taylor Lisle

  Jessie listened to this conversation with a galloping heart from the upstairs hall. She expected her father to call her down, already had one foot on the top stair when she heard him say:

  “Jessica is out at the moment. At the beach with her sister, I think. What sort of thing did you want to ask her?”

  “Mainly about Teresa Carr. Terri, she’s called. Do you happen to know if she’s a friend of your daughter’s?”

  With amazement, Jessie listened to her father’s answer.

  “A friend? No, I wouldn’t say so. I believe they’ve met. My daughter did find a raft when we first moved in here. Just bobbing in the pond. She’s spent some time on it, but from what I understand, the Carr girl has it now. She more or less took it over. Jessica hasn’t been on it recently, I know.”

  “Well, that’s about what we figured.”

  “Has there been some trouble with Terri, I mean Teresa? She’s from a family that lives down at the end of the pond, isn’t she?”

  “The Carrs. Yes. There’s some thought she may have been involved with the fire. We have her in custody now.”

  “She’s in jail ?”

  “Not jail. She’s just a kid. The correctional center up in Canville. You know, for juveniles. She’s there temporarily while we get an understanding of what went on. She hadn’t been home for several days when we found her. She’s been in trouble on and off in the past. The family’s pretty dysfunctional.”

  “I see. I see.”

  “Mr. Kettel, I’d appreciate it if you’d ask your daughter when she comes in about her relationship with Terri, if there was one. There are signs that this raft might’ve been going in there at the Cuttings’. We think it might’ve been a landing spot Terri was using. There’s some indication the garage was broken into before the fire started.”

  “Well, my goodness. That’s terrible. I’ll certainly ask her. I don’t think she’ll know much. She hasn’t spoken about anything like that.”

  “No, I’m sure not. It’s not the kind of situation she’d be likely to get in. But give me a call, if you would, one way or the other.”

  Jessie sat down on the top step while her father walked the officer out to his car. She was still sitting there when he came back in and shouted: “Jessica Kettel!”

  “Dad, I’m here.”

  He appeared below her with a horrified face.

  “Dad, I was here the whole time. You know, I was friends with Terri. You didn’t have to lie about it. And you didn’t have to pretend that you didn’t know the Carrs.”

  He came up the stairs and stood before her. “Jessie, my Lord! Were you and Terri at the Cuttings’? Were you taking the raft in there?”

  “We were,” she said. “A lot of times. That’s where we were fixing it up.”

  “But why? Why there, of all places?”

  “We were borrowing tools from the Cuttings’ garage. There’s an old workshop in it. Or there was until it burned. We didn’t take anything.”

  Richard Kettel ran his hands through his hair.

  “I need to hear the whole story. Beginning to end, the whole blasted story of what you’ve been doing since we got here. Do you realize you’re on the edge of being dragged into something serious? Do you know how close you just came?”

  Jessie followed him to the kitchen, where he made himself a double espresso, or perhaps it was a triple, while she explained everything. Including how Henrietta Cutting had come down from her mansion and more or less invited them to use the tools.

  “Did she actually say that? ‘You can use my tools’?”

  “No, but . . .”

  Her father groaned.

  She told how someone, maybe Terri’s brothers but maybe someone else—“There’s a lot of drug use around here, you know, Dad”—began to break into the garage and steal things. How she and Terri couldn’t bring the tools back right away because of that, but Terri did return them eventually.

  “Terri returned them or Terri said she returned them?” her father wanted to know.

  “She told me she did.”

  “I see. And you believed her?”

  “Yes! You know, you could’ve let me say all this to the policeman. You didn’t have to pretend I wasn’t here. Why did you even do that? We didn’t do anything wrong. I would’ve just told the truth.”

  But her father, who’d finished his coffee and was alternately shaking his head and holding it in his hands, said: “I’d better call your mother.”

  “Why?”

  “She’s a lawyer. She’ll know what to tell the police. We’re going to have to handle this carefully.”

  “But why?”

  “Because the truth might not be enough. Not with Terri saying God knows what about you. She must’ve told them already that you were out there with her, landing at the Cuttings’. That’s why the police were here. Who knows what else she’ll say? She might even blame you.”

  “She wouldn’t do that.”

  “How do you know?”

  “I know her, Dad. She’s a good person.”

  Her father sprang up and went for the telephone in the living room. “Don’t you go anywhere!” he bellowed. “From now on, you’re staying right here in this house. I’m calling your mother!”

  * * *

  It was amazing how fast she came. Jessie had thought of her as disconnected, unreachable, hundreds of miles and many hours away. She’d forgotten how swiftly her mother could move when trouble threatened. By noon the next day she’d arrived (via air) and been delivered (via taxi) and gotten settled into Julia’s room. In Julia’s bed, actually. Julia moved in with Jessie and Jonathan, taking over Jonathan’s bed while he was relocated to cushions on the floor and a sleeping bag borrowed from Philip’s family.

  “This is the best!” he shouted, trying it out the first time. “This is the way I always wanted to sleep.”

  “You are like the old-time Japanese,” his mother told him. “They slept on the floor with their heads on blocks of wood.”

  “Well, where’s my wood?”

  “You are a modern American boy, so you have a pillow.”

  Jonathan gazed at her with adoring eyes. He was the one who’d truly missed her. The others smiled at her carefully. Julia, dislodged from her room, hoped that at least her midnight curfew wouldn’t be downgraded to eleven thirty. Richard worried that the house, whose dim lights and peaceful evenings he’d come to cherish, would bore her. Jessie, expecting to be grilled at any moment, watched her mother sponge off the sticky kitchen counters and purse her lips at the washing machine.

  “We aren’t doing our laundry here,” Jessie informed her. “Dad takes it up the road to a Laundromat. Then we all fold our own when he brings it back.”

  “Jonathan folds his own clothes?”

  “Well, we help him,” Jessie admitted.

  She was not grilled. Not right away. She was hugged, and her bangs were ruffled back from her forehead. She was told how blond she’d become, how browned and freckled by the sun, how much taller she seemed. And how quiet.

  “Has she been this quiet all summer?” Jessie heard her mother ask her father in a moment when they thought they were alone.

  “No. I don’t think so.”

  “Is she depressed, do you think?”

  “Why would she be?”

  “Well, that friend. Terri. What do you think was going on?”

  “Nothing, as far as I can tell. They were hanging out on the pond, on that raft. They were using an old clothesline prop for a pole. Jessie found it in the backyard.”

  “This backyard?” Marilyn Kettel asked, glancing outside. “Does anyone ever come to cut the grass?”

  “Not that I know of,” Jessie’s father replied. “I’m afraid there’s no wireless connection either, or cell service. I go up to the library when I need to connect. That’s where I found out about . . .” His voice dropped to a level Jessie couldn’t hear.

  “Tell me about Terri’s family,” Jessie heard her mother say. But t
hen, as if they knew she was listening, the kitchen door was firmly closed.

  They all went out to dinner the first night, to a local tavern. Also the second; Chinese this time. They took sandwiches to the beach, swam, and ate lunch together on their towels. They shopped for food, all five of them, at a big supermarket out of town. They went to the whaling museum in New Bedford and played a hilarious game of Animal, Vegetable, Celebrity on the way home. (Jonathan, in league with Julia, won with Snoop Dogg.)

  Julia came in at ten p.m. without anyone telling her to. Jonathan said he was tired of Philip and gave up the pool. Their father asked their mother in a kind voice how the law firm was faring without her, to which she gently responded, “Let’s not think about that.” She didn’t mention water pollution once. The kitchen was “a darling little nook.” Swimming in the ocean was perfectly adequate for staying clean, she announced. Who needed a shower, rusty, trickling, or otherwise? It was the worst kind of excess! (Recognizing himself, Richard Kettel erupted in laughter.)

  She bought everyone flip-flops and summer hats and caps. She took photos of them together against backdrops of coastal beauty. In the space of three days Jessie’s mother charmed her husband and drew her children around her. She brought them out of their corners and united them into the kind of family other people smiled at in restaurants. She made them laugh and she made them impregnable.

  Then: “Jessie,” she said, pulling her daughter aside at last. “There’s something we need to discuss.”

  By this time the story of Terri Carr and the fire at the Cuttings’ garage had gone the rounds. New evidence was being examined by the police. A single flip-flop had been found floating in the pond near the Cuttings’ landing. A tube of first-aid cream had been left in the bushes. Muddy footprints had been discovered in the garage workshop, the only section that had escaped damage from the fire.

  The Kettels had been contacted again by Sergeant Jared Smith. This time he requested a formal interview with Jessie. It was now clear that she and Terri had been something more than just acquaintances. Their month-long connection was known at the beach, where a member of the Kettel family had spoken of it to her friends. (“Oh, I’m so sorry!” Julia exclaimed. “I hope I haven’t gotten you in trouble!”)

  “Jessie,” her mother said. “We need to talk. Let’s go shopping.”

  They drove out of town to the highway, up the highway to a mall.

  “A little seedy, but there’s a Macy’s. I’ll bet we can find you some new things for school.”

  Jessie nodded.

  “You used to love to go shopping. Don’t you anymore?”

  “I still do. I just can’t think what I need.”

  “Shoes?” her mother asked. “A new pair of boots?”

  “I guess.”

  “A nice winter jacket. Or a hoodie?”

  “Mom.”

  “How about one of those suede vests everyone’s wearing now?”

  “Mom.”

  “I’ll try one on too. I’ve always wanted something with fringe.”

  “Mother!” Jessie burst into tears.

  Suddenly they were crying and hugging in the front seat, in the middle of the mall parking lot. Cars arrived and departed around them, drivers pretending to ignore their teary drama.

  “I am so sorry, sweetie! I can see you’re tied up in knots over this whole situation,” her mother said, offering a tissue.

  “I am!” Jessie wept. “I don’t know what to do. Terri’s such a great person. If you knew her, you’d see. She tries so hard. It’s completely unfair that they sent her to that place for juvenile delinquents.”

  “I’m sure it is,” her mother sympathized. “I’m sure she’s wonderful.”

  “She really is! It’s not her fault.”

  “I’m sure she has terrible trouble at home.”

  “Oh, she does. They don’t have any money. She has to steal from her father when she needs some. And he beats her up.”

  “Oh dear!”

  “At school they look down on her. The whole town looks down on her family. Somebody poisoned her cat.”

  “No!”

  “Yes, they did. He died.”

  “Terrible! But what do you really think, could Terri have set that fire?” Marilyn Kettel asked, getting down to brass tacks.

  “No!”

  “Did she steal our laptop?”

  “I don’t think so.”

  “Did she know the Cuttings’ garage was being burgled and trashed?”

  “Maybe. I don’t know.”

  “By her own brothers? Didn’t you tell Dad she said that? So wouldn’t she have known?”

  Jessie was silent. She thought of the pretty china in the box that Terri had admired.

  “All right, we don’t know that for sure,” her mother went on. “But we know quite a lot about Terri otherwise, don’t we? We know she’s used to living on the edge of the law.”

  “She has a knife,” Jessie said.

  “A knife?”

  “A switchblade. It’s for protection. She said if someone came at her in the dark, she could kill them.”

  “Oh my.”

  “She got suspended from school for having it. After a fight with another girl.”

  “Hmmm.”

  “People are always accusing her family of bad things. It started when her great-grandfather went to prison for life. For murder.”

  Her mother sighed.

  “Terri said he didn’t do it. She said he was framed.”

  “Do you think he was?”

  “I don’t know.”

  They were both silent. Finally Jessie said in a hesitant voice, “Mom, Terri had a fire wand. A thing for starting fires.”

  “What?”

  “She said it was for her campfire, when she was living outside. I’ve been thinking of it ever since the Cuttings’ garage went up. She was really upset that I didn’t want to see her anymore. She thought she’d made us friends again by taking back the tools. That was the afternoon the fire broke out. It might be my fault.”

  “Your fault? How ridiculous!” her mother exclaimed. “If there’s one thing I’m sure of it’s that this has nothing to do with you!”

  Through the windshield the scorched wasteland of the mall parking lot spread before them. A young mother walked past, shepherding her three small children, keeping a fierce eye out for oncoming cars.

  Marilyn Kettel stiffened in her seat.

  “Now, Jessie,” she began. “We need to talk about the conversation you’ll be having with the police. They’ll want to know all sorts of things. You must be very careful what you say. Your father and I will be there, of course. We’ll be ready to help you.”

  They spent the drive home going over the details of what Jessie should say. How she must tell the absolute truth of what she knew and didn’t know. For instance, that she didn’t know they weren’t allowed in the garage. She thought they had permission to use the tools.

  “Should I bring Miss Cutting into it?” Jessie asked.

  “I wouldn’t. Just say, clearly, that you thought you had permission. Didn’t Terri’s father used to work for the Cuttings? There’s your answer.”

  “Do I have to tell about the fire wand? I’m not really sure about it.”

  “I think you should. And you must make it absolutely clear that the friendship had broken down by then. You were worried, you must say, about where Terri was leading you. You can mention the laptop, but I wouldn’t get into the thefts in the garage. That brings you a little too close.”

  Jessie nodded.

  “Do you see where I’m headed with this?” her mother asked. “You must tell the truth, but in such a way that you cannot be accused of being involved.”

  “What about Terri?” Jessie asked.

  “Terri must take care of herself,” her mother replied.

  TWENTY-ONE

  The morning of Jessie’s interview with the police dawned a warm summer blue. A clannish murmuring of Canada geese came from th
e pond. Overhead, out of sight, a small plane’s sleepy drone rose on a coastal breeze and faded peacefully over the horizon.

  There was no peace inside the Kettel cottage. The whole family had been jolted awake by a travel alarm at six forty-five. By seven thirty breakfast was being served. By eight o’clock Jonathan was being outfitted for the beach and Julia was at the sink washing dishes. Jessie had been sent upstairs a second time to change her clothes.

  “And comb your hair more neatly,” Marilyn Kettel called after her. “You need to leave a good impression.” She herself was wearing a silk blouse, a pencil skirt, and dark city pumps.

  “Are you going back to work?” Jonathan asked her anxiously.

  At eight fifteen Richard Kettel, in a clean white shirt and jacket, went out to make sure the car would start. The salt air was taking a toll on the belts. A high whine set in whenever he turned on the ignition, and the engine tended to cough. How glad he would be, he announced, to get back to a climate (Pittsburgh) he knew and understood.

  By eight thirty everyone was in the living room, congregated around Jessie.

  “How do you feel?” her father asked.

  “I feel fine.”

  “There’s nothing to be nervous about,” her mother said.

  “I know.”

  “You look nervous,” Julia said.

  “Oh, thanks.”

  “Do you have a pretty good idea of what to say?” her father asked.

  “Yes.”

  “We’ve been over it,” her mother said. “She just has to tell the truth. The police are on our side. They’ll give us the benefit of the doubt.”

  “Is there any doubt?” Julia inquired. “I thought everything was pretty clear.”

  “It is,” her mother said.

  “Why can’t I go?” Jonathan complained.

  “Because you’d be bored,” his mother told him. She pulled his sagging swim trunks up around his waist and tied the string in front more tightly. “You and Julia are going to have a lovely morning at the beach.”

  Julia sighed. “At least you could drop us off in the parking lot. What’s the big rush?”

  “No rush. We just want to be on time. Somebody will probably pick you up on the way,” her mother said. “People are so friendly around here.”