by Lamar Giles
A picture of Eli at his desk in the J-Room. I took it on my first day, mostly to distract him while I erased the pictures he’d taken of me. Him recruiting, me scamming.
Of all the places I’d been, all the kids I met, he was the first to ever ask me to be a part of anything. Mostly, people were scared that I’d come to their school to take something from them. Their girl, or their spot on the team, or whatever attention they craved. So they pushed back, with attitudes or fists. Not Eli.
I spoke to the camera. “I’m going to find out what happened to you, man.”
Grabbing my phone, I called Reya. She picked up before I heard a full ring “Sí.”
“Hey, it’s Nick. I know you said you’d call me, but I was really curious if you got a chance to check Eli’s room for his laptop?”
Pots clattered against plates in the background, only to be eclipsed by loud Spanish voices. “I’m sorry, Nick, say that again.”
“The laptop. Did you find it?”
“Uh-huh.” Distracted, she said, “Un minuto. I looked, didn’t see it any—” More noise, something breaking. “Really?! Nick, I’ve got to go. I’ll call you tomorrow.”
The call ended quicker than it began.
No Dad. No Dustin. No laptop.
I looked at the camera display, where Eli sat frozen in a moment. “I’m still going to find out what happened. But probably not today.”
CHAPTER 22
I TRIED DUSTIN A FEW MORE times. Sent texts and left voice mails. No luck. My eyelids got sumo heavy as I pondered what else he could give me on Eli. I didn’t know I’d fallen asleep until morning sun turned the insides of my eyelids blood orange, waking me. Bacon sizzled, maple permeating the air. I went down after I showered and dressed, found a cooling plate waiting. A cooler Mom didn’t greet me; she stayed overly focused on Good Morning America.
When did she get in? Where had she gone? I said, “You missed your curfew, young lady.”
She gave me an evil, narrow-eyed stare but didn’t respond.
I don’t talk to liars. Not anymore.
There was no second plate for Dad and I didn’t see him on the couch. I was sure he didn’t stay gone all night, not after yesterday’s fight, but it wasn’t beyond him to make a predawn escape, especially since he owed me a conversation. My breakfast remained untouched as I left for school.
Classmates poured into the front entrance, clowning around as usual. Many ignored the folding plastic tables set up in the foyer, a construction paper banner along the edge that read: Grief Counseling Available for the Rest of the Week.
Three counselors manned those tables, a couple of clipboards between them. A short line formed as students waited their turn to sign up for appointments. I doubted they knew Eli at all. Any excuse to skip class, though.
At the head of the line was Zach Lynch himself, his crew in tow. He clutched a tissue in his fist, pretending to be choked up. I wanted to clutch his neck.
He leaned forward to sign up for a slot and I found myself on autopilot, veering toward him. My hand whipped forward, hammering his elbow and causing him to scrawl a crooked line across the sign-up sheet before the pen went flying.
“What the—” He bucked, but Russ grabbed his elbow. Zach’s grief had been replaced by much less subtle rage.
I told the counselors, “I just saved you guys a half hour. He’s cured.”
Zach’s chest heaved. The morning buzz ceased, all eyes on us. Zach didn’t seem to like the idea of so many witnesses. He did an about-face into the crowd, shoving aside smaller kids in his way. His crew followed like the lemmings they were.
I retrieved the pen Zach dropped when I felt a counselor staring me down. I laid the pen directly in front of him and went on my way. At the same time, Vice Principal Hardwick appeared from the main office and approached the table. They chatted, watching me until I turned the corner.
Three periods later I knew why.
The office runner appeared in the middle of a lecture on World War II and the Axis Powers, handed my history teacher a slip of paper.
“Nick Pearson.”
I ignored the barely whispered comment from the back of the room about “the dead kid’s friend,” and left with the hall pass in my fist.
My path to the office took me past the journalism hall, where the lights still flickered, making shadows jump and disappear. I noticed a sheen on the freshly waxed floor tiles. Did that mean some crew came in and mopped away all of Eli’s blood? Was everything sterilized? Lysol clean?
I reread the pass in my hand: Report to main office for grief counseling.
A dingy yellow trash canister stood nearby, its flap smeared with years-old gum and grime. I tossed my pass in and made for the exit.
The bike rack stood at the end of the school bus driveway, in plain view of the cafeteria. We were still a period away from lunch. I wasn’t worried about being seen. A mistake.
I worked my bike lock combination with shaky hands and blood on my mind. I thought of the way it coated the floor that day, that way it smelled like bad meat and made a wet kiss sound when I stepped in it.
A car approached, what I assumed was normal midday traffic. Only, it never passed. A man-sized shadow fell over me. I turned; two of me stared back from the reflective lenses of aviator glasses, the eyewear of choice for Southern law enforcers.
The man who’d had a hard-on about getting my statement the day I found Eli, Sheriff Hill, motioned to his idling cruiser. “Get in the car.”
Scrambling, I pretended I was just arriving, not leaving, “I’m sorry, Sheriff. I’m running late and was on my way to—”
“Get. In. The. Car.”
“Sir, I’m going to miss science.”
He plucked his glasses off, leaned in, exhaled a hot cloud of cigarette and coffee breath, a smell like fresh asphalt. “Don’t make me cuff you. At this point, I’m not above it.”
At what point? Hill’s cruiser door hung open like the jaws of a flytrap.
I heard Mom’s voice in my head—pre-Program—talking about stranger danger and how I should never, ever get into a car with someone I didn’t know. I knew Hill, sort of, but couldn’t shake the urge to run screaming like I was eight and he was offering candy. I didn’t though, because of an alternate picture: me running, only to get Tasered then flung on the hot hood of his cruiser just in time for lunch crowd witnesses.
I slipped into the car. Hill slammed the door hard enough to break my leg if I hadn’t snatched it into the vehicle in time.
This is okay, I told myself.
I wondered if flies told themselves the same thing?
The police radio squawked and we bumped over an occasional pothole. Two blocks from the school Sheriff Hill lifted the radio mic and thumbed the transmitter. “This is car eleven, I’m ten-nineteen to the station house. I have a truant in custody.”
“Truant!? I wasn’t truant.” Not technically. I never actually got away.
He went on like he didn’t hear me. “Pearson, Nick. Papa-Echo-Alpha-Romeo-Sierra-Oscar-November.”
The female dispatcher snapped back, “This ain’t the army, Rodney. You don’t have to use all that Foxtrot-Delta stuff.”
“Do you copy?” Sheriff Hill said, his words clipped.
A crackling sigh. “Ten-four.”
“No one wants to do things right around here,” he said, slowing for a stop sign. He twisted in his seat and spoke to me directly through the metal mesh between us. “I bet that’s how you like it, huh?”
“Dude, I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“First of all, I ain’t your ‘dude.’ And of course you don’t see my meaning. Nobody ever does. I’m the crazy old-timer.”
I’d just go with crazy.
He stomped the gas and we lurched into motion. I felt some mild comfort from him calling in my so-called truancy. At least I knew he was taking me to the station and not some dark alley.
I hoped.
“What’s up on my phone call?”
>
Three times I’d asked that question. Three times that dick Hill picked up his Styrofoam cup, sipped the bitter-smelling coffee, and leaned back in the chair across from me as if he were on the verge of a nap.
Truth: growing up around the people I’d been around, being part of a family like mine, I used to think being dragged to a police station was cool—a rite of passage. I heard my dad’s friends tell jail stories like they were vacation memories.
I knew better now. Jail was not someplace I ever planned on getting familiar with. Which made me being in this place, when I hadn’t done anything wrong, that much harder to handle.
Sheriff Hill brought me to the station house unscathed and without any more crazy talk. Or any talk at all, besides issuing a command to empty my pockets at the processing desk. No fingerprints. No mug shots. Instead, he ushered me directly to an isolated room that locked from the outside. A table, two chairs, and an ancient chipped ashtray occupied the tiny booth. Of course there was a two-way (or is it one-way?) mirror along the wall. People said TV didn’t teach you stuff, but I’d seen all this many times on many channels.
I smacked the table, because I’d seen that on TV, too. “Hey, are you listening? Give me my call. I know my rights.”
Hill finally said, “That’s where you’re wrong, Mr. Pearson. Those rights you think you know so much about, they’re for people who are under arrest. I have not read you your Miranda rights. I’m not charging you with a crime.”
“Then you’re holding me against my will. My mom already told you I didn’t have to talk about anything.” I left my chair and pounded on the heavy steel door. “Let me out of here!”
“You’re not here against your will. You got into my car willingly, after I caught you skipping school.”
“Willingly?”
He shrugged. “I didn’t put a gun to your head.”
“Dude, my mom’s going to own the police department by the time this is done. There’s gotta be like thirty lawsuits for holding someone without arresting them.”
“Wrong again. You’re truant. I don’t have to arrest you. According to Stepton City statutes, and I quote, ‘A minor found in violation of the established truancy policy can be detained by a city official until such time as custody is remanded to a school official or the minor’s legal guardian.’”
My TV Land legal knowledge wasn’t helping, but I recalled a bit of my third-period Axis Powers lesson. “What kind of secret-police stuff is that?”
“Only one person in this room is trying to keep a secret. Ain’t me, though.” He sneered. “You people make me sick.”
You people.
My parents, when they weren’t at each other’s throats, sometimes spoke about the racial stuff they’d gone through growing up. Mom was from the South and said she’d been called the N-word more times than she cared to count. Dad, who’d always lived in the city, said it wasn’t as bad for him, but certain neighborhoods were off-limits if you weren’t the right color.
I’d never had much experience with prejudice, maybe because they’d shielded me from it. Until now. “This is because I’m black?”
He jerked, his hard expression cracking. “Don’t try to twist this into something it’s not. That race card stuff’s not going to work in here.”
“You’re the one who—”
“Just know you don’t get a pass with me. I won’t let this town fall apart because you and yours think you have some sort of diplomatic immunity. Witness Protection my ass. Who’s protecting us?”
You people . . . as in me and my family. Witnesses. Criminals. Hill wasn’t racist, just civic-minded. For me and mine, it came out to about the same thing.
CHAPTER 23
I SAT DOWN, SHAKEN. IT DIDN’T matter that he was an officer of the law. No one—no one—but our handler and some higher-ups should have known our identities. That’s one of the things we’d been told. Now I questioned everything we’d been told.
In four years, we’d never been exposed. We kept the secret through Dad’s indiscretions. We never swayed from the legend(s), stayed normal, and boring, and low-key. And Hill blows it up like it’s not our lives at risk, like it’s nothing. The interrogation room got smaller. Hotter. The ticking clock was a slow jackhammer pounding at the wall.
“Why am I here?” I asked.
He said, “Believe it or not, I wasn’t at the school this morning for you. I might not have ever thought about you again—that’s the way this thing’s supposed to work, right? You don’t bother us, we don’t bother you.”
He talked like I was a lion at the zoo. I waited for him to answer my question. And thought about mauling him.
“Stepton High is my daughter’s school. Was my daughter’s school. She graduated back in ninety-seven. When things were still good here. Nick, or whatever your name really is, I care about this town more than I can say. I raised a family here. I’m willing to fight for it.”
He was losing me. “Is this a campaign speech? I’m not old enough to vote.”
“I want to know what you did to the Cruz boy.”
I leaned forward so fast I almost came off my seat. “What I did? I didn’t do anything.”
Hill’s head bobbed while he looked at me. If this were science class and I was something he viewed through a microscope, he’d be twisting all the little focus knobs. He said, “Sure you didn’t. I’m supposed to turn a blind eye, though. Let my town go to pot because you’re some G-man’s pet monkey?”
Okay, maybe he didn’t think he was being racist, but—
“I get it, to an extent, but I never signed on to ignore a murder.” He took another sip of his coffee while I replayed his last statement.
He didn’t sign on to ignore murder. Which meant he’s ignored other things. Like falsified crime stats, maybe. Eli, man, what were you digging into?
Hill threw me off by bringing up the Program, then implying I had something to do with Eli’s death. I settled down quickly. Voices flitted into my mind, ghosts from my old life. Not so much advice but overheard tactics on the formalities of the legal system, how to use them in your favor.
Interrogation Room Tip #1: Assume they’re always watching.
I checked out the mirror. Someone could be taking notes on the other side. Or there could be recording equipment. He’d just admitted he played a hand in sweeping crimes less severe than murder under the rug, though. Not something he’d want on tape. Still . . .
Interrogation Room Tip #2: If you’re talking, say stuff that makes you sound innocent.
“Eli committed suicide,” I said. “I saw the razor he used.”
Hill said, “About that, did you know we treat suicide like a crime? Obviously, if it’s truly what it appears to be, there’s no one to prosecute, but we don’t skimp on our procedures. We take pictures, catalog evidence, all of it. Except in the case of your pal Eli. EMTs were bagging him up before I could get a crime kit going. Fouled the whole thing.”
He talked about Eli like someone’s freaking lunch sandwich. Bag him up. Next order, please! “Maybe you should be talking to those EMTs.”
“Maybe you should tell me what happened between you two. That journalism room looked tossed a bit. You guys have a fight? He say something about your mama?”
“No,” I said. “He did mention yours.”
His chair legs screeched as his weight shifted. He reached across the table, grabbed me by the jacket while his fist hovered by his ear. I braced myself for the punch.
Interrogation Room Tip #3: Piss them off enough to hit you, and it’s a Get Out of Jail Free card.
He vibrated with tension, an internal struggle that could go either way.
A hollow thud sounded on the interrogation room door. He leaped backward like someone had walked in, realized we were still alone, and shouted, “What?”
“Need you in the hall, Sheriff,” a muffled voice said.
Hill rose with his Styrofoam cup. He walked past, switched the cup to his right in order to rest his free le
ft hand on his holstered Taser. Subtle. He maintained eye contact until the last possible moment, then pounded the door with three hard strikes. The lock disengaged and he stepped outside.
I allowed myself a deep breath, sat calmly with my hands on the table.
When Hill returned, he kept glancing at the mirror as if he saw something he didn’t like in the reflection.
He jerked his head toward the door. “You’re free to go.”
This was a trick. It had to be. I hesitated.
Hill grabbed me under one arm and yanked me from the chair. “You may think you’ve gotten away with something, but that’s not true. One day, someone might just find you in some secluded room. Come on.”
The school must’ve called Mom; I looked forward to her ripping Hill a new one. In the reception area, the only adult present, other than the desk sergeant, was a white guy in a blazer and khakis. His hair was mostly dark with a little gray. He was bald up top and the exposed flesh was tanned, brown speckled with pink and red. He smiled wide, joking with the desk sergeant until he saw me.
His smile got wider. “You must be Nicky Pearson.”
“Nick,” I said. What I didn’t say was, “Who the hell are you?”
Smiley guy flashed his hundred-watt teeth at Hill. “I’ll take it from here, Rodney.”
The sheriff gave me one last vicious look then stomped away. The desk sergeant handed me a Baggie with my cell, money, house keys, and a pack of gum. I checked my things while watching the stranger from the corner of my eye. When I was done I faced him, unsure of what would happen next.
He extended a hand. “I’m Rich Burke, the mayor of Stepton.”
Didn’t see that coming.
“The mayor?” I looked to the desk sergeant, who read the question in my eyes, nodded a confirmation, then went back to his paperwork.
“I know you’re wondering why the mayor is picking you up from jail.”
“Yeah.”
“I’m up for reelection and I’m looking for a running mate.”
An awkward pause. The desk sergeant snorted an obligation laugh, so I guessed that was a joke.
