A Good Idea

by Cristina Moracho

I cried harder.

  “I guess when Leroy found out Owen had covered his tracks with the pills,” Serena went on, “he decided to pin something else on him. But look, we know he didn’t do it, we know there’s not a single shred of proof. This is just a stunt Leroy is pulling. Owen’ll be okay. Please stop crying.”

  I did, abruptly, like a faucet turning off. I stood up.

  “Where are you going?”

  “All I have done since I got back here is make things worse. At least this I know how to fix.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “I’ll go in there and tell the police I did it, and they’ll let Owen out. So I go to prison. Who fucking cares? Maybe NYU will let me defer for the length of my sentence.”

  “Are you joking?”

  “I don’t know, am I?”

  “You can’t do that.”

  “Don’t worry, I’ll leave your name out of it. I’ll say I acted alone.”

  “Finley, look, just think for a minute.” She came after me, grabbing my arm.

  I whirled around in a rage, and for one hideous second I thought I might hit her. She had the same thought; I could see it in the way she flinched, dropping my arm and taking a step back. It occurred to me that Serena had never seen me like this; she’d seen me angry, because I was angry all the time now, but she’d never seen me lose my temper.

  “Owen is in jail because of something that we did. That I did. Caroline is in the hospital, and when she gets out she’ll probably get shipped off straight to rehab. Danny—you know Danny? From the trader?—came to my house last night to tell me he thinks he saw Betty’s ghost waving at him from across Main Street. He nearly had a breakdown on my back porch. My father threatened to kick me out and send me home. I don’t know what the fuck we thought we were going to accomplish, but we failed, okay? Even that goddamn dog that ran away—that was us. There’s been nothing but collateral damage. Betty’s still dead and Calder’s still free, and the world has one more lacrosse-playing sociopath on the loose, despite all our best efforts. But if I can help Owen, then I will.” I started walking away.

  “And what about me?” Serena called after me. “You think they’ll believe you did it alone? You think you and I are some big secret?”

  “I told you, I’ll leave your name out of it.”

  “Goddammit, Finley! You were at graduation. You saw what I did. That makes me the girl most likely to set fire to the school. Nobody really thinks Owen did it, it’s just Calder’s dad trying to scare him, trying to scare us. If you tell them you did it, they’ll know I was there, too, no matter what you say, and then they’ll come after me next.”

  I stopped.

  “If you wait a week,” she went on, “they’ll drop the charges and we can get back to business. What happened to Caroline is not our fault. Her brother’s a murderer and she knows it and it’s fucked up her head big-time. You’re telling me that Danny thinks he saw Betty the other night? Come on, we’ve got these people seeing fucking ghosts. We can’t blink now.”

  I didn’t say anything.

  “Let’s at least go talk to Emily, okay? See what she says. If she really believes they can make a case against Owen, then fine, go confess, martyr yourself, whatever. But for Christ’s sake, he’s only been in jail for like an hour. They’re probably still taking his fingerprints. Just breathe and think about what you’re doing.”

  “Fine,” I said after a long pause. “We’ll go see Emily.”

  • • •

  Emily lived right outside of town, in a small one-story house you could actually see from the road. Her place looked shabby and cozy, the porch crowded with a precarious-seeming swing and old rocking chairs; hummingbird feeders and long vines of night-blooming jasmine hung from the railing. She hadn’t always lived alone; when I was a kid she’d had a willowy “roommate” with auburn hair and a kind smile. One summer I’d come back to Williston and she was gone.

  Emily herself emerged as we were pulling into the unpaved driveway; she watched us from the front door, drinking a PBR longneck inside a Red Sox beer koozie.

  “Can you do me a favor?” I asked Serena.

  “What?”

  “Will you wait in the car this time? Please?”

  The pleading tone in my voice must have softened her. “Fine,” she said. I leaned over and kissed her, hard, before I got out.

  “I was wondering when you would show up,” Emily said, taking a seat in one of the rocking chairs. “Come on.”

  I took the sagging steps up to the porch and joined her. There was a moment of silence.

  “So you heard,” she said.

  “Yeah.”

  “Poor kid.” Emily shook her head and took a long pull from her beer. “Poor kid.”

  “What’s going to happen to him?” I asked.

  “He’ll spend the night at the station. Tomorrow they’ll set his bail, and I’ll post it. He’ll come home, and then we’ll see. Maybe they’ll drop the charges, maybe they’ll try to indict him. From what I understand, there’s no evidence, but Leroy’s got it out for him pretty bad. He knows Owen was selling to Caroline, even if he can’t prove it. And even if the police drop the charges, they’ll be watching him. I’m afraid Owen’s little side business is over.”

  I thought of Silas, and the ten thousand dollars’ worth of pills I’d helped Owen hide, and my heart constricted inside my chest. It seemed possible Owen would actually be better off in jail.

  “How are his parents?” I asked.

  Emily just shook her head again.

  “What do we do?”

  She looked at me like I was an imbecile. “I’m pretty sure, Finley, that the best thing for you to do is nothing. Do you understand now what I was talking about that night?”

  “You said that Leroy would go after the people I love. Is that why he’s doing this to Owen? Is it because of the drugs, or is it because of me?”

  Emily rocked in her chair and stared out over her front lawn, the grass lush and almost psychedelic green from all the rain. “He’s not an evil man. I don’t like him, and I never have, but I don’t think he’s evil. I think he’s just trying to protect his family. You should be able to understand that. You two share the same brand of blind loyalty.”

  “But—”

  “Have you ever asked yourself what you would do? If it were Owen? Or your dad? Or even her?” She nodded toward the car, where Serena was still waiting patiently in the driver’s seat. “Or Betty. If Betty killed somebody, would you turn her in? Would you call the cops? Or would you help her hide the body? Would you do everything in your power to protect her? The difference between Leroy and the rest of us is he’s got more power than most. Owen’s guilty, Fin. Maybe he’s been accused of the wrong crime, but he’s guilty, and if you could just make that go away, you would. So would I. You think about that the next time you want to have a go at Calder. That’s Leroy’s son. His son.” She sighed. “Maybe this’ll be the best thing for Owen. Scare him straight. I don’t know.”

  “It’s not that easy. It’s not like he can give two weeks’ notice and just quit,” I said.

  “Owen’s smart—”

  “I know how smart Owen is,” I snapped.

  “Then you know he’s smart enough to figure something out. Once this stunt with the arson charge blows over—and I’m pretty sure it will—he’ll be motivated to get his shit together. He’s young enough, he can still leave Williston, go to college and do whatever he wants, and someday he can look back at this as the dark times, and he’ll just be grateful that he made it through.”

  “Do you think that’ll happen to Calder?” I asked quietly. “That he’ll grow up and once in a while think about that time he killed a girl, until maybe it starts to seem like a dream he had? Maybe he’ll actually convince himself he didn’t do it. Or he’ll remember when he confessed to murder and g
ot away with it anyway, and he’ll be so grateful, too.”

  “What exactly is it that you think you want?”

  “To see him punished.”

  “Look around you,” Emily said. “This town is hanging on by a thread. All it needs is one more good yank and it’ll come straight apart at the seams. We’re all being punished. And that’s exactly what I think you want. You’d see all of Williston burn to ashes if you thought for one second it might make you feel better.”

  “I’m not fucking delusional, Emily. I don’t think anything’s going to make me feel better. Not even watching Williston self-destruct, although I’ll stick around to watch it happen, and if anyone wants to blame me I’ll be flattered they think I have that kind of influence around here. If Williston’s unraveling, it’s not because of me—it’s because of Calder. He killed her, and everyone’s trying to pretend he didn’t, and that’s what’s poisoning this town. It’s like you’ve all been having the same dream. And you know what? It’s time for everybody to wake up.” I stood. “Thank you for helping Owen. Tell him to call me when he gets out.”

  “Be careful, Finley. That’s all I’m saying,” Emily said as I went down the steps.

  I turned to her from the lawn, where the grass, still damp from the last rain, came up well past my ankles and soaked through my Chucks. “I think I’m done being careful. But thanks anyway.”

  • • •

  Serena drove me back to my car, still parked in front of the Halyard. We made plans to meet later that night, but in the meantime all I wanted to do was go back to sleep. She kissed me good-bye standing by my Subaru—I’d meant it when I told Emily I was done being careful—and a few minutes later I was shambling inside my front door, shucking off my tennis shoes with my toes, leaving my sweatshirt and messenger bag in a pile on the floor. I headed to the back porch to smoke one last cigarette before I went upstairs and passed out.

  I smelled him before I saw him—weed, patchouli, body odor. He was sitting in the shadows, waiting for me. His feet were bare, as usual, but this time he was wearing a shirt, a striped Baja pullover hoodie. A damp, briny breeze swept in through the window screens to let me know more rain was on the way. I froze in the doorway and Silas smiled.

  “Finley,” he said. “Hello, sister.”

  I didn’t ask him what he was doing there. I didn’t ask him how he got in. I didn’t ask him what he wanted, because I knew if I stood there long enough he would tell me. My sense of self-preservation might have been wildly underdeveloped, but I knew the less I said, the better. I just tried to concentrate on staying perfectly still so he wouldn’t see me shaking.

  “I heard a rumor about our mutual friend. Heard he went and got himself arrested. You know anything about that?”

  “It’s got nothing to do with you,” I said, my voice coming out in a whisper. “He got in trouble for something else, something he didn’t do.”

  “It doesn’t work like that. Everything that has to do with Owen now also has to do with me.”

  I didn’t answer.

  Silas stood up and came toward me, his calloused, filthy feet soundless on the floor. His toenails were long and yellow, like an old man’s. “Sometimes when people are in jail, they’ll say anything they think might get them out. Start telling tales out of school, so to speak. I like to think Owen’s better than that, that he’ll keep his head down and his mouth shut, but really, you never know what someone will do until they’re tested, and Owen, he’s being tested now.”

  I resisted the urge to take a step back; I didn’t want him to know how scared of him I truly was. “I told you,” I said, “he’s in there on a bullshit, made-up charge that has nothing to do with whatever it is he’s got going on with you. It’ll get cleared up in a day or two, and then everything will be back to normal.”

  “Maybe so. Nevertheless, in the meantime, he has something of mine. I know Owen’s too smart to keep the shit at his place. I checked there anyway. And then I thought, why not come ask Owen’s little friend? She knows where I live, so maybe she knows some other things, too. So tell me, sister, where did he put it?”

  “I don’t know.” Even as I was saying it, I remembered what Owen had told me, about Silas’s sixth sense, but I kept my eyes focused and my voice even, and I swear even I would have believed me.

  “You sure about that?”

  “Look, dude,” I said, “I don’t want to be a part of your drug operation. I don’t want to know anything about what Owen does for you, and he certainly wouldn’t have told me where he put his stash.”

  Lying to Silas was risky, but if he had his drugs back he wouldn’t need Owen anymore; someone else could sell the pills, and Owen would just be a loose end. As long as Silas needed something from Owen, I reasoned, Owen would be safe—as safe as he could be from Silas.

  “You tell Owen he has four days to get me what he owes me.”

  “Is that, like, four days from right now? Or four days starting tomorrow?”

  Silas only grinned. His teeth were perfectly straight and a vivid white; further proof, to me, that he’d grown up in a Canadian suburb somewhere with a great orthodontist. “I like you, Finley. Tell Owen I said that, too. I like you, and I wouldn’t want anything bad to happen to you. Not like what happened to Betty.”

  You’ve seen how easy it is for a girl to go missing in this town, Owen had said.

  “What do you know about Betty?”

  “She was a friend of mine,” Silas said. “When Owen wouldn’t sell to her anymore, she started coming straight to me. She had a bold, troubled soul. Lonely, I think. I wasn’t surprised at all when I heard about what happened. You get what you ask for in this life, sister. A lot more than people realize.”

  “She wasn’t asking for it,” I said. “She didn’t want to die.”

  “Are you sure about that? When the darkness comes—what did she call it? The unlights?—you make a choice to let it in. And Betty let the unlights in. You should be careful you don’t make the same mistake. You’re so angry, so full of negative energy.” His voice dropped to a whisper. “Don’t you know how vulnerable that makes you? What happened to Betty could happen to you, too. But there are worse things, I guess. Wherever she is now, she’s happier than when she was alive. Her suffering is over.”

  “Don’t talk about her like that, like she was an old dog that needed to be put down.” I didn’t know what enraged me more, the way he spoke about Betty or that she’d told him about the unlights, a word that was part of our secret language.

  “I’m sorry,” he said. “I wasn’t trying to be disrespectful. I just want you to understand that she’s free now. I had a vision of her in the sweat lodge, a few months after she disappeared. She was a sparrow, watching over Williston, flitting from house to house, looking in on all the people she loved. And later, when I came out of the sweat, there were sparrows everywhere, hundreds of them, all around me in the forest. I felt her spirit then. Sometimes I think I feel it still. I miss her laugh. Don’t you?”

  I nodded mutely.

  “Not everyone is meant to live a long and happy life, Finley. We’re born with a certain number of breaths, and when we’ve used them all up, we die. Every year we celebrate our birthdays, but as those months go by, we pass our death days as well. We just don’t know when they are yet.”

  I had the horrible notion that this kind of faux profundity scored Silas an unbelievable amount of pussy. To me, it was clearer than ever that he was just a little bit insane, but his particular brand of crazy, combined with how seriously he took himself, was what made him truly dangerous. He seemed like he might kill someone, not necessarily out of malice but out of the conviction he was doing them a favor. Please, God, I thought, I hope Betty never fucked this guy.

  “I never slept with her,” he said, and I struggled not to show how unnerved I was. “It wasn’t about that. I just liked her energy.”


  “You just said she was all about the darkness.”

  “Everyone needs a little darkness sometimes, to balance out the light. But I can tell that right now, your whole world is darkness. You might think it can’t get any blacker, but believe me, it can. So I’ll ask you one more time. Where is my shit?”

  I forced myself to meet his glacial blue eyes. Show no fear. “I don’t know.”

  He nodded thoughtfully. “Not bad. I almost believe you. Almost, but not quite.”

  Then he punched me in the face, a sharp hook to my cheekbone that knocked me back a couple of steps and rang and rang inside my head. He took me by the shoulders and straightened me up, propping me against the wall; I was sure he was about to hit me again, but instead he took my chin in his hand and surveyed his work.

  “I think that should do it,” he said almost thoughtfully. “You show that to Owen, and you tell him four days, and that’s four days starting from right fucking now.”

  My face throbbed where he had hit me, but something about it felt almost good at the same time, bracing, exhilarating, like a plunge into an icy lake. I surprised myself by laughing, maybe a little hysterically, but also with something like relief.

  “My God,” I said, wiping away the tears that streamed from my swelling eye. “You have no idea how long I’ve been waiting for someone to do that.”

  Through my good eye I saw it—a momentary crack in his cool, mellow facade, a flash of discomfort across his face, proof that I’d succeeded in unsettling him, even if it was just for a second. He hit me in the stomach and the laughing stopped; I deflated like a balloon, sliding down the wall until I was on the floor.

  “Four days,” he repeated, and then he slipped out the back door and vanished into the woods behind the house.

  • • •

  When I could finally get up I went inside, put my shoes and sweatshirt and bag on again, and got back in my car. I glanced into my visor mirror and winced; a perfectly cinematic shiner was already forming around my eye, blooming like a flower in vivid purples and blues. I had no doubt Silas had done it that way on purpose; this was part of his message to Owen.