AHMM, July-August 2010

by Dell Magazine Authors

  Graden put his fork down and turned his chair slightly, so that he could see both his sister and Donovan. The younger sister started stirring her food again, as if this had nothing to do with her.

  "Do you know anything about your mom's business?” Donovan asked.

  Hannah shrugged. “Some."

  "We helped in the summer,” Graden said.

  Donovan looked at him. His face was still swollen from crying, but his eyes weren't as red. They shone with the same kind of intelligence that Hannah's had.

  "Do you know if she cleaned out any of the other foreclosures in the Martins’ neighborhood?” Donovan asked.

  "All of them,” Hannah said. “It was some kind of deal with the bank. It was the first one she got, and that neighborhood was a—what do you call it?—development."

  "Mom called it a development gone bad.” This from the youngest daughter, Raffaella. The food on her plate didn't look like food at all. It looked like badly mixed house paint.

  "Yeah,” Graden said. “Everyone was upside down and getting out. That's what she said."

  Hannah's lips had thinned. She looked scared. “Why do you want to know?"

  Donovan wasn't going to answer that question yet. “Did Micah Collingsworth always go with her when she first visited a foreclosure?"

  "No,” Hannah said. “It was whoever was available."

  Two of Donovan's hunches were right. Now she needed to confirm the third.

  "Muscle,” Graden was saying. “She wanted muscle in case something went wrong. She said I could go with her when I came into my growth."

  He sounded like he regretted not being at her side now. Donovan wondered if he had some kind of rescue fantasy going on in his head. Had he thought he would have been able to save his mom when the first bomb went off?

  "Last time I was here,” Donovan said to Hannah, “you told me about Richard Martin. You said he was mean, but when I asked you if he was mean to everyone or just to you, you didn't answer."

  "He was mean to Hannah,” Graden said.

  "He was a prick,” Raffaella said almost at the same time. The word was shocking coming from such a beautiful young girl.

  Hannah glared at her sister. “Don't talk like that."

  The grandmother and Neygan came into the dining room. The grandmother returned to her chair, but Neygan hovered near the door. Hannah's gaze lifted, acknowledged him, and then went back to Donovan.

  Graden said, “He hated Hannah."

  "Really?” Donovan asked. “Why?"

  "Because she told him off,” Graden said with just a bit of pride.

  "I did not.” Hannah sounded tired, as if they'd had that discussion before.

  "You did too,” Graden said.

  Obviously Hannah didn't want to talk about this. But Donovan had to know. She turned slightly in her chair so that she faced Graden.

  "What happened?” Donovan asked.

  Graden glanced at Hannah, who shook her head. His lower lip pushed out slightly, pouting, and for a minute, Donovan thought he wasn't going to answer her question.

  Then he said, “It was last year, the day they posted the PSATs."

  Over his head, Donovan could see Neygan frown. So she asked for her partner's sake, “The PSATs?"

  "You can take a preliminary SAT test for college, you know, and see where you stand. It doesn't count. But everyone does it to practice."

  "And they post the scores,” Donovan asked. She was a bit shocked about that. She thought the scores would be private.

  "They hand them out on a sheet of paper, but everyone tells,” Graden said. “If you didn't tell, everyone would think you flunked."

  "You can't flunk the SAT,” Hannah said quietly, but her complaint obviously wasn't about the test. It was that her brother was telling this story.

  "Hannah got a perfect score. Perfect. And Richard was being a dick about it like he always was."

  "Graden,” the grandmother said in the same tone that Hannah had used for her sister. “Language."

  "Were you there?” Donovan asked. “Did you see this?"

  "Yeah,” Graden said. “It was outside. School had just got out and everyone was comparing scores. I just wanted to go home, so I was trying to get Hannah to come with me."

  "How was Richard being—” Donovan stopped herself. The grandmother's tone was affecting her too. “What was he doing?"

  "He was saying that Hannah's just a brain. She's really boring and no one'll ever like her because she's so smart."

  "He hated that about her,” Raffaella said. “She was always doing better than him."

  "You saw it too?” Donovan asked.

  Raffaella shook her head. “I seen it other times. He didn't like anyone to do better than him. He beat up some kid on the soccer team for getting a goal in practice. Richard was goalie that day, and the ball just got by him."

  "Nice kid,” Neygan said.

  Everyone turned to him. Graden and Raffaella looked surprised to see him. They hadn't realized he was in the room.

  "That's my partner,” Donovan said. “So Richard was mean to you, and anyone else who was smart."

  "He was just mean,” Hannah said.

  "But something different happened that day,” Donovan said to her. “Tell me about it."

  Hannah shook her head again. “It's not important."

  "What happened was she got mad,” Graden said. “For her whole life, she let him talk bad to her and that day she didn't take it anymore."

  "She was mad anyway,” Raffaella said. “Dad was dead, and Mom needed help, and Hannah wasn't getting any sleep."

  "I was too,” Hannah said.

  "I hear you at night,” Raffaella said. “You weren't sleeping then, just like you're not sleeping now."

  Hannah shot her a nasty look, one that complained she was giving away secrets not hers to give. In spite of herself, Donovan felt her heart go out to Hannah. Hannah was trying so hard to be tough so that everyone would think her strong enough to care for her family, and yet her family knew how hard it was for her to get through each day.

  "What happened?” Donovan asked softly.

  Hannah bit her lip. When she didn't speak, Graden again filled the silence.

  "It was great,” he said. “Richard asked her score, and she told him. Then he was making fun of her, calling her Miss Perfect, the Ugliest Girl in School."

  Graden was talking directly to Donovan, but Donovan watched Hannah. When he said that, Hannah's eyes filled with tears. Even now, those words had the power to hurt. Did Hannah think she was ugly? Probably, in comparison to that younger sister.

  "And Hannah just had it, you know?” Graden continued. “She gets this voice when she's really mad, all quietlike, and that's what she used on him. She says, ‘What's your score?’ and he tells her, and it's really low. Everybody laughs, and usually that would've been enough for Hannah, but it wasn't."

  This time he looked at his sister. She was just watching him implacably, a single tear hanging on her eyelashes. He shrugged a little, as if in apology.

  "Then what?” Donovan asked.

  "Then he said something about how he'd be going to an Ivy even with his score, and that's when Hannah let him have it. She said he'd be going to an Ivy because of his parents, not because he did anything. She said Ivys took rich stupid people so that they could get enough money to let poor smart people in. He knew it was true. Everybody knew it was true, and he got really, really mean after that."

  "I wasn't very nice,” Hannah said.

  "What's really really mean?” Donovan asked Graden.

  "He said horrible stuff about Mom. Every time we saw him, he said stuff about her being a cleaning lady and us being white trash and no good and not even a good education would make us classy and stuff like that.” Graden didn't sound bothered, but Hannah's expression became more and more strained.

  "Sounds like you hit a nerve,” Donovan said to Hannah. “Do you think, maybe, your comment about being rich and stupid bothered him beca
use his family was going broke?"

  "What do you mean?” Hannah asked.

  "You told him poor, smart kids could get into an Ivy League school, but by implication, you meant that poor dumb kids couldn't."

  "He wasn't dumb,” Hannah said. “He just didn't try hard. His math score on the PSAT was really, really high. It was his verbal that was the problem."

  "Did you ever tell him that?” Donovan asked.

  Hannah shook her head. “He really hates me,” she said quietly.

  Donovan sighed. Then she asked a few more questions, wrapping everything up so that it wasn't all about Richard Martin.

  Even though it was.

  As she and Neygan got into the car, he said to her, “You think that's enough motive? You think that Richard kid blew up her mom as some kind of revenge for what she said?"

  Donovan shook her head. “I think Richard Martin was miserable. I think everything he knew was falling apart, and he was looking for someone to blame."

  "So he blamed that girl's mom?"

  "I don't think so,” Donovan said. “I think he couldn't get the idea Hannah planted out of his mind. I think he blamed her for making him so afraid for his own future. I think he decided to get revenge by making her afraid for her future."

  "You haven't even met the kid,” Neygan said.

  "No, I haven't,” Donovan said. “But I've seen people kill for a whole lot less."

  "Well, I think we got a whole lot of less,” Neygan said, “and the chief is gonna want evidence and proof that we didn't just go after some kid on a hunch."

  "I know,” Donovan said. “We still have a lot of work to do."

  And work they did. They interviewed everyone they could think of with connections to the case. The developer knew nothing about computers, the mortgage brokers knew nothing about bomb making, and the neighbors couldn't get into the house.

  It took some time for Donovan and Neygan to find the Martins, but by the time they did, Computer Crimes had traced a contact between the house and an off-site computer linked to the Martins. Not to mention the Sun River Internet café connection. The family used to ski there in the winter. The café owner remembered Richard, saying he looked like a kid who was “about to blow."

  Donovan got five minutes alone with Richard—a slender, athletic boy with scary intense eyes—but couldn't get him to say much. Except when she mentioned Hannah.

  "You realize,” Donovan said as they waited for Richard's lawyer to arrive, “that you just made it easier for Hannah to get into an Ivy League school."

  Richard's cheeks flushed. “What?"

  "Private schools,” Donovan said. “They take all kinds of things into account. Not just SAT scores and high grades, but hardship factors as well. She's an orphan now, raising her siblings, and keeping her grades up. She just went way up on their list."

  "No way,” he said. “You're making that up."

  Donovan shook her head. “If you had left her mom alive, Hannah probably wouldn't have had a chance of getting into a good school. You just did her a favor."

  He slammed his fist onto the interview table. “I didn't want to do her a favor. Miss Perfect—she always lands on her damn feet. Dammit!"

  And that was when the attorney came in, shut Richard up, and kicked Donovan out of the room.

  But that little outburst was all she needed. It confirmed her hunch. The Bomb Squad and Computer Crimes confirmed the rest. The Bomb Squad found components that matched the setup in the house, and Computer Crimes found various videos of the house on computers that Richard had used since he moved out.

  "It was set up like this,” Keyla told Donovan over a beer the night Richard was arrested. “He had designed the first bomb to go off at a touch. He knew that a house cleaner would clean that up. The first bomb would notify him that she was in the house. Then he'd see if it was her. If it was, he would set off the second."

  "Do you think he would have set off the second if someone else had been in the house?” Donovan asked.

  Keyla shook her head. “You can't figure these guys out. Bombers are crazy. Bombers and arsonists. They've got something missing."

  "Even young guys?” Donovan asked.

  "Especially young guys,” Keyla said. “Most of them don't live long enough to become old guys."

  And that was that. Richard decided not to have a trial, instead pleading twenty-five to life, with the possibility for parole. His parents and younger sibling left Oregon, and the bank bulldozed what was left of the house, selling the vacant lot instead.

  Donovan drove by the house a few times while it was still standing, trying to understand—truly understand—a boy's jealous mind. She finally decided she couldn't.

  But she also knew she couldn't let the case go.

  So the day after Richard's allocution in court, she drove to the Ansara house.

  It looked the same, except someone had pulled blinds over all the windows. When she knocked, the grandmother answered. As she led Donovan inside, the grandmother told her the kids weren't home. They were in school.

  "I thought you were going to take them to Seattle,” Donovan said.

  "I was.” They stood in the foyer. “But I listened to what you said that night."

  "What I said?” Donovan asked.

  "What you all said. Those kids, they were fighting for what they saw as their future."

  Donovan tilted her head. She hadn't expected insight from this woman. “I guess you could say that, yes."

  "And if I took Hannah to Seattle, she would have fought me for the rest of her life,” the grandmother said. “If I let her be the one to raise those kids, they wouldn't have much of a future either. She'd go to a local school, which she didn't want, and she'd resent them. She didn't know that yet, but she would."

  Donovan nodded. She had underestimated this woman tremendously.

  "So I did the math with her,” the grandmother said. “I have my own retirement. I decided to sell my house. We're using the money from the sale of Gracie's business and from her life insurance for the kids’ school. I don't have to work, so I can take care of things."

  "She seemed so angry with you,” Donovan said.

  The grandmother smiled. “We talked after you left about how anger can be misdirected."

  "She knew you weren't just talking about Richard Martin's anger?” Donovan asked.

  The grandmother nodded. “Hannah's not dumb."

  "No,” Donovan said. “She's about as far from dumb as any girl can get."

  As she left the house, the school bus pulled up across the street. She waited. Hannah and Graden got off along with some other kids. Hannah and Graden walked separately, as if they didn't know each other.

  They didn't see Donovan until they were almost beside her.

  "He shouldn't get a chance at parole,” Hannah said without saying hello.

  That wasn't Donovan's decision to make, but she didn't defend it.

  "You can stop it,” Donovan said. “When his hearing comes up, you can testify. I'm sure they'll listen to you."

  Hannah straightened. “You think?"

  Donovan nodded. “But I also think you shouldn't do it."

  "Why not?” Hannah said. “He killed my mom."

  "Your mom wanted you to have a great life. If you pay attention to him, you stay stuck in this horrible year. He probably won't get out. And I'll be around. I'll make sure I testify for you."

  Hannah's eyes narrowed. “You'd do that?"

  "I would,” Donovan said.

  "I'm transferring to Portland State,” Hannah said. “I tested out. I'll be out in two weeks."

  It took Donovan a moment to realize she meant that she had tested out of high school. “I thought you want to go to a major university."

  "I do,” Hannah said. “Just not this year."

  Then she walked off without saying goodbye, her head down. She still looked like she had the weight of the world on her shoulders.

  Graden had been standing silently nearby. He watche
d her go. Then he looked at Donovan.

  "She didn't want to be known as the kid whose mom got blown up,” he said. “She wants to be Hannah again."

  "Are you having that problem?” Donovan asked.

  He shook his head. “Nobody pays any attention to me."

  Donovan didn't know what to say to that. By the time she had formulated a response, he lifted his hand in goodbye and hurried to the house.

  She watched him go. No one paid attention to him, but they needed to. If she hadn't paid attention to him, she wouldn't have caught the killer.

  She had initially thought Hannah was the strong solid core of that family. She had been wrong.

  Graden was.

  She wondered if the grandmother had noticed. For a moment, Donovan toyed with telling her, then remembered that she had underestimated the grandmother too.

  That family had shattered, but it was rebuilding itself. She didn't need to interfere. They were a lot stronger and a lot healthier than the Martins had been.

  Although anyone looking at the families one year ago would have thought otherwise.

  Which only went to show how flimsy appearances were—and how she needed to remember that. Not just from case to case, but from moment to moment.

  She silently wished them well. Then she got into her car and left the neighborhood, passing half a dozen for sale signs as she went.

  Copyright © 2010 Kristine Kathryn Rusch

  [Back to Table of Contents]

  Fiction: INDEPENDENCE DAY by R. T. Lawton

  "Talk about ironic,” muttered Beaumont.

  Yarnell, who was more concerned about catching the bartender's eye for another drink and hadn't really been paying close attention to the conversation, suddenly realized he had no idea what Beaumont was talking about. “What's ironic?"

  "After all them lottery tickets I bought and didn't win anything, here my number comes up in the state drawing."

  "You won the state lottery?"

  "You could say that,” replied Beaumont, “but I doubt they pay more than fifty bucks a day, plus mileage and meals."

  "What kind of lottery pays mileage and meals? Last I heard, the pool was up to sixty million dollars, if you had all six numbers, that is."