The Substitute

by Nicole Lundrigan

  She may have been blind, but I had a firm grip on the personality of our generous Uncle Larva. A bitter dog, dripping, moping around. I crossed my fingers, wishing, wishing I would be there when he finally shook himself dry.

  [16]

  As they walked through the police station, there was a sour smell of food in the air. Takeout, Warren guessed, or an open container of cold food. Detective Reed led him to a room, grey floors and walls, a single table bolted down. Two parallel navy lines circled the room at eye level, and Warren detected the slightest angle, only a few degrees, and then the subsequent correction in the paint. A woman brought him a warm soda, opened it, and snapped off the tab. “Saving these,” she said, “for wheelchairs,” before dropping it into a hip pocket and leaving through the steel door.

  “Take a seat,” Detective Reed said.

  Warren nodded, slid into a metal chair. As he tried to pull the chair toward the table, he realized the legs, too, were fixed to the floor. He was an unnatural distance from the table. His fingernail moved across the silver seat, the sound sending an electric rush through his teeth, his body.

  “I just want to pick your brain a little. To get a better feel for who this kid was. It will help.”

  Her words echoed off the cement walls, and sounded as though they were coming from somewhere behind Warren. He resisted the urge to turn around and look.

  “I mean, I don’t know,” he said. Her shirt had nine buttons, though that was an estimate as he was unable to see whether there were one or two hidden inside her pants. “I don’t really know her.” Clearing his throat. “Didn’t, I mean.”

  “Anything you can think of might help. Did she have friends in the class?”

  “I don’t think she had a lot of close friends. It’s hard to tell. She worked hard, though.”

  “How do you mean?”

  “I mean, she really wanted to get the best grade. The top mark. She would ask me who got the highest.”

  “And did you tell her?”

  “No. I keep grades confidential. I don’t post grades on the wall, like some of the others. I did at the start, but I changed my mind. I don’t think it’s good practice.”

  “Yes. Okay. You mentioned some difficult students.”

  “I mean, well, a lot of them are difficult. Maybe they don’t belong.”

  “What do you mean by that, Mr. Botts?”

  “I mean. I’m not sure.” Quite often, when his father was not working at Feed ’n Seed, he kept Warren home from school. “Sometimes it’s good,” he would say, “not to be alone.” They tinkered in the barn, weeded side by side, plucked apples from the old tree, and once even made a butter pastry and created a pie. In his nearly inaudible voice, his father taught him about black holes, aquatic plants, the clever innards of a light bulb. “Though sunlight is the perfect creation, my darling,” he had said. “Nothing made in a factory will ever compare to what nature can produce.”

  Warren tugged at his ear. “Maybe some students should be out. Working.”

  “Quite the statement coming from an educator, Mr. Botts. Just what sort of employment would you offer a thirteen-year-old?”

  “I mean, out working, learning. Learning in different ways. That’s a child’s work, isn’t it? To learn? Not sitting for eight hours at a desk. I’m not — I’m not explaining myself properly.” He looked at the metal table, the corners rounded, edges pinched up. No one would be able to cut themselves. He tried to estimate the square footage of the floor. The walls, minus the door and mirrored window. The ceiling, minus the caged light fixtures.

  “Mr. Botts?”

  “Yes.”

  “I said your name three times.”

  “I’m sorry. I was thinking.”

  “Thinking.”

  “I mean. Just.” Counting.

  “Mr. Botts, are there any of Amanda’s classmates that cause you concern? Considerable, or otherwise?”

  “One, maybe?”

  “Name, please.” She flipped open her notepad.

  “Adrian.” He closed his eyes, and pictured the attendance list. “Adrian Byrd.”

  “Did he have interactions with Amanda?”

  “Well, I’m not sure, but I did see them talking. And you hear whispers among students, sometimes, right? When they sound off. But who knows if any of it is true.”

  “What sort of stuff did you hear?”

  “That they were, I don’t know the term they would use, but spending time together?”

  “Boyfriend-girlfriend sort of thing?”

  “Oh, I can’t say.” He wove his fingers together, clicked his nails. “Does that happen at this age?”

  Detective Reed cleared her throat. “Did you ever see them together?”

  “Not really.”

  “So, just whisperings.” Gripping the pencil and pad in one hand, she lifted the other, notched the air with two fingers.

  “I suppose.”

  “And how was his manner in class?”

  “Manner?”

  “How was he acting today? Did you notice anything different? Was he uptight? Irritable?”

  Warren pinched his chin, looked to the left. Visualized his empty desk. “I — I don’t think he was here today. Yes, he was absent.”

  “Absent.” She scratched something on her pad. “Okay, Mr. Botts.” A rapid glance over her shoulder at her partner. “We have determined time of death to be between midnight and three a.m. Can you tell us where you were then?”

  “I was with my — my friend. At my house.”

  “Your friend’s name?”

  “Nora.” He blinked. “Nora.” At that precise moment, her last name escaped him.

  “I know a Nora. She works at the supermarket. Makes the best sandwiches. Always gives me extra tomatoes.”

  “That’s her,” and Warren found himself grinning. “Yes. Extra tomatoes. That’s exactly who she is.”

  “You were with her the entire time?”

  “I don’t think so.”

  “Can you give us an estimate, Mr. Botts?”

  “We were watching a film. It got a little late. She fell asleep. I think she left after one.”

  “A movie-type thing? What one?”

  “I can ask her. I don’t remember.”

  “You watched an entire movie, but can’t remember anything about it, Mr. Botts?” Detective Reed tilted her head backward, raised her eyebrows.

  “I guess I found the story rather dull. There was a girl in it.”

  “Girl caught your eye?”

  Warren flushed. “No, no. Nothing like that.”

  “Fine. Did you do anything after your friend left?”

  “A drink of water? Around eighteen minutes before two.”

  “That’s precise.”

  “I went to the kitchen. Stephen was sleeping on the stove, and I lifted him down, saw the clock.”

  “You don’t remember the movie, with the exception of a young actress, but you remember the time, Mr. Botts?”

  “Numbers stick. I don’t know why.”

  “Anything else? Anything at all? No matter how small it might seem to you.”

  Warren paused, pulled his bottom lip in between his teeth, and pressed down. There was something else, though it was just beyond the film of his memory. He had placed Stephen on the floor of the kitchen. The cat had stretched, appeared annoyed. Warren had gotten himself the water. Used a mug that was beside the sink. It had the faint flavour of coffee. And then he went to the window. Looked out. And.

  “Yes. I saw a light.”

  “A light?”

  “Just a quick glow. I looked out the window, and I saw a flicker of light. Almost like a firefly. But higher up. Near the tree.”

  “A firefly? In November?”

  Warren took a breath. “Well, of course it
wasn’t a firefly. I don’t know. Maybe it was a reflection of something. Maybe I was confused. It was probably nothing.”

  Detective Reed made a note.

  “One last question, Mr. Botts. Would you take a look at this?” She handed him a photocopied paper. “Please take a look at the portion inside that highlighted square.”

  Bright yellow ring circling a force diagram, three pulleys, a winding rope, arrows, and a trapezoid to represent a one-hundred-pound weight.

  “Did you draw that?”

  “Yes,” he mumbled. His knees shifted back and forth. “It was a challenge question. I put it on the test.” Though three or four attempted it, Evie was the only student who completed it. Found the correct answer. A perfectly drawn solution, though he did not mention this to the detective.

  “A challenge question.”

  “Yes.”

  “Well, that’s really curious.” She tapped her front tooth with the nail of her index finger. “Would it surprise you to know this exact set-up was used to suspend Amanda Fuller from a branch in your backyard?”

  Warren folded his tall frame into the back of the police car, and the officer pulled out of the station parking lot. Instead of driving straight back to the school, they went in the opposite direction, onto a country road. He stared out through the glass, past the streaks and fingerprints. The sky was heavy grey, black clouds moving in, and now that the light snow had melted, the land was a blur of brown and beige, dirt and dying grass.

  “Where are we going?”

  “Just the roundabout way. Traffic gets thick at this hour.” Detective Reed was in the passenger seat, and she flipped her visor down, flicked across the plastic slide covering the mirror. Warren could not shift out of her line of vision, and she watched him relentlessly. “Better to use a service road.”

  “Oh. Okay.”

  They reached a fork, and Warren knew if they turned left they would pass the pig farm, and if they turned right they would pass an ice creamery to the east. The community was supported by two industries, and depending on the direction of the wind, the whole place either smelled like sour blood or sweet vanilla. Or some cruel combination of both.

  Detective Reed was still staring at him. He tried to angle his shoulders, raised the collar on his coat, but he could not avoid her eyes. His chest felt tight, as though a fat fist was nestled there, taking up room. He exhaled with some force, but he could not dislodge it. A permanent, solid weight. Even though he knew he had done nothing wrong, his lungs strained with panic.

  “You good back there?”

  Warren nodded, rubbed his hand over his ribs. Two years ago, he had driven twelve hours just to see his childhood doctor. It was near the home where his mother still lived, but he had not slowed as he passed her driveway, and instead went straight to the clinic. After he described this constant sensation to the doctor, the old man nodded, pushed a prescription into his palm. “Try it, Warren. What can it hurt?” A very light dose. Warren began swallowing the pills, but after eight days, became preoccupied with edges. Edges of arcs and lines. Edges of dice and countertops and sheets of paper. Edges of spoons and shiny knives. Edges of cliffs. After sixteen days, the anxiety reducer had left him paralyzed with fear, and he flushed the remainder down the toilet. Stayed inside his apartment, often soaking in warm salty water, until his system cleared. When he called the clinic, the doctor said they could try another. “Sometimes it’s hit or miss. We need to figure out what works with your brain chemistry, or else you’ll have to find a way to cope.” “Counting helps,” he had told the doctor, and the doctor replied, “If it improves the quality of your life, then why not count?”

  They turned right, and soon passed the enormous ice cream statue, with its painted sneer and gloved hands bouncing on rusted springs. Some part of him found greater comfort in the dirty white buildings of the pig farm, the sheltered funnels leading in but not out, and if the air was still, the faintest squealing of nervous swine. As he looked out the window, trying to ignore Detective Reed’s gaze, thoughts fired inside his head. Hounding him, too many images, words, his mother’s broad face, Sarie’s single angry eyebrow, Ms. Fairley’s teeth and gums, Amanda’s purple fingers, such a deep purple, his father’s sopping feet, his peaceful black mollies coursing back and forth in their tank, Detective Reed’s irritated stare, Nora, Nora, the musty stench of overcooked vegetables rising up from her soup when she peeled off the lid.

  “Stop, just stop,” he whispered. He pressed his fingers into his scalp.

  “What was that, Mr. Botts? Do you want us to stop?”

  Warren grimaced, flicked his head back and forth. He leaned his head against the glass, tried to find something to count, but on the open road, nothing was constant, or predictable. And Detective Reed’s earlier statement, swirling around and around his mind. “Would it surprise you, Mr. Botts?” “Would it surprise you?” “Would it?”

  He had shaken his head, but no, the page from his notes had not surprised him. He had recognized the real-life application of his challenge question as soon as he entered his backyard. The three pulleys, two fixed, the rope, the branch as the stable structure, Amanda Fuller instead of the cement weight. Someone had recreated it. Someone had been paying attention. Someone besides Evie, of course. She was not capable of hurting someone. He was certain of that.

  Crack of thunder, and round drops knocked on the roof of the car. The officer flicked the wipers on full force, and Warren sighed, began counting the number of times they slapped side to side. As they drove over the potholed road, he tried to think of Nora. But even with the numbers ticking away in his lower mind, her happy face would not emerge through the snarl.

  When they turned onto the dirt road behind the school, Warren saw a man standing on the edge of the ditch. Leaning against the wooden post of a stop sign. He held his breath as he recognized the plaid shirt, three buttons undone, sleeves rolled up, fabric clinging to his body. On his head, the man wore a faded ball cap, bright orange block letters: Feed ’n Seed. Warren was positive he could read those words. Absolutely positive.

  Warren pressed his glasses up his nose, and a memory from his childhood fluttered into his mind. He had slept in a small room beside the kitchen. His parents and Beth slept upstairs, and many nights he awoke, alone and afraid. The house shifted, creaked. Finger shadows edged across his walls, and often he heard something enormous skittering and scratching behind the faded sailboat wallpaper. Directly below his head.

  If he could not fall back to sleep, which was often the case, Warren would sob, just loudly enough so someone might hear him. Without exception, his father arrived in the doorway. Always his father, never his mother.

  “Kinda dark in here, hey, my darling?” his father whispered one night, as he sat down on the edge of the mattress.

  “Uh-huh.”

  “Another dream?”

  “Not a dream. Just pictures in my head.”

  “Tell me your pictures, and I’ll take them away.”

  “You can do that?”

  “Yes. Yes, I can.”

  “Okay.” Warren spoke softly into his father’s chest. “A fist. I think a man’s fist. Holding something. A big worm or a rope. His hand is all dirty.”

  “Good. I got that one.”

  “Then there’s a box all taped up. He was standing on it. Oh, and a door that’s painted really blue.”

  “Like our basement door?”

  “Yes. The same one.”

  “That’s easy. Got it.”

  “Then there’s a picture of steps going down. I can’t see the bottom. And spiderwebs up in a corner. A dirty window. I can’t see out cause it’s got grime on it. Nobody cleaned it.”

  “They’re mine now. Is that all?”

  “No. A pair of old socks.”

  “Old socks?”

  “Yes,” Warren replied. “Wet and smelly. Grey. A hol
e in the heel.”

  “So there are feet in those old socks?”

  “Of course, Dad. How else could you see the hole?”

  “Well. That’s very specific.”

  “There’s other pictures in my head, but I can’t remember.”

  “I’m relieved. That’s all I can hold. I have them here, tucked inside my palms.”

  “How many was it?”

  “Seven, I think. Maybe eight.”

  “Are they heavy in there?” He touched his father’s clasped hands.

  “Nope. No heavier than a button.”

  When his father asked him to explain his boyhood fears, Warren said he did not understand them, but when he saw those pictures, he had the sense something was there. Something unpleasant, waiting, and at any moment, he was going to bump into it. Then he would know, and he did not want to know.

  “Darkness,” his father replied. “That’s what those pictures have in common. Though I’m not sure about the woolly socks.”

  “Oh.”

  “You know, my darling, when I was your age, I used to be scared of the dark, too.”

  “Really?”

  His father lifted the quilt and slid his body in beside Warren. “Someone once said, I can’t remember who, that there’s no shame in being afraid of the dark. The real sadness comes when someone fears the light.”

  Warren was not certain what that meant, but he pressed his body against his father’s soft pajamas. Yawning, he inhaled the smell of smoke and spice and earth. He felt his father’s hand patting his back, and listened as his deep voice slowly counted the stars.

  Hours later, Warren awoke, and his father was still there, elbow bent, chin in his hand. Moonlight streaming through a curtainless window, he could just see his father’s features, those pale eyes open, staring at him.