Reconstructing Amelia

by Kimberly McCreight

  “Right,” I said. “Sounds totally easy.”

  Woodhouse made a concerned, kind of disappointed face, bringing an index finger up to his lips and staring at me for a long time.

  “Amelia, I’m not saying this is easy. Standing up for yourself never is. But I can see to it that you are protected. You have my word. But it starts with you, Amelia. You need to tell me what happened.”

  “I didn’t cheat on my paper,” I said. “That’s all I know.”

  “Your paper was submitted through the e-mail system.” Mr. Woodhouse’s face got all wrinkly as he rubbed his forehead. “Liv ran that paper through the plagiarism program herself.”

  Of course, that left out Bethany and the fact that she was the one who opened the e-mails first and then did whatever the hell she wanted with them, including switching the papers attached to them. But it wasn’t like I could tell Woodhouse that to get the ball rolling. That would definitely count as telling on the Maggies. And Sylvia would pay for it.

  I shrugged. “I don’t know what to tell you then,” I said. I sounded all flip, but I couldn’t help it. This was all so unfair and totally ridiculous. “I didn’t cheat, and that’s not my paper. I don’t have anything else to say. So can I go?”

  “No, Amelia, you cannot go,” Woodhouse said. “This isn’t Vaseline on a doorknob. Plagiarism isn’t the kind of thing we can just overlook, no matter how great an asset you are to the Grace Hall community. It’s a violation of the school’s code of conduct, Amelia. We could lose our accreditation if it was made public that we didn’t take appropriate action. Not to mention the potential reaction of the other students. There have already been numerous complaints this year about the disciplinary allowances made for academic achievers.”

  “Academic achievers?” I repeated. “That sounds like a disease.”

  “This isn’t a joke, Amelia!” Woodhouse yelled, scaring the crap out of me. His face was all reddish now, too. I’d never seen him like that. “We might have to expel you if you can’t explain what happened. That is how serious this is. Come on, let me help you!”

  I took a deep breath and closed my eyes. I kept them closed, too, as if the secret to the way out might be written on the insides of my lids.

  “I can’t.”

  Woodhouse took a deep, loud breath.

  “I can give you a few days to think about it, Amelia. But in the meantime, I have no choice but to suspend you, effective immediately. That’s nonnegotiable,” Woodhouse said. “Your mother is already on her way to get you.”

  “Seriously? You called my mom at work to come down here? Now?” All I could think about was that suit she’d been wearing. She’d definitely be missing something important if she had to come to get me. It made me feel bad, and really, really mad. “Can’t you just suspend me at the end of the day?”

  “No, Amelia, we can’t,” Woodhouse said. “And you should keep in mind, while you’re thinking about what you want to do, that an academic suspension is not the kind of thing Ivy League colleges will overlook. Not even if it was in your sophomore year.” Woodhouse seemed even more upset about this than I was. “Your fellowship might even be revoked. I don’t know.”

  “Great,” I said, feeling like I was going to cry all of a sudden. First Zadie had taken Dylan; now she was going to take my future, too.

  “Amelia, I’m going to give you one last chance. Do you have anything you want to say?”

  “That’s not my paper!” I screamed as loud as I could, my stupid voice cracking.

  Woodhouse didn’t even flinch. Instead, he made a big show of looking down at my name on the front page.

  “Your name is on it, Amelia,” he said quietly. “Without you telling me something more, that’s all I have to go on.”

  I hated the way he was looking at me, as if I was this huge disappointment. A fraud. A liar. Like there was something I should be ashamed of. But I wasn’t going to be ashamed. I hadn’t done anything wrong, and I wasn’t going to feel bad because I didn’t want to be the school whistle-blower or whatever. Anyway, the real reason I couldn’t do that was Sylvia. Turning in the Maggies would have felt really awesome until they went after her. With Sylvia, they would have so much ammunition to publicly humiliate her with, too. As tough as Sylvia liked to pretend she was, she’d never survive that. After what had happened with her last year, I sometimes worried whether she’d survive, period.

  I wouldn’t turn the Maggies in and risk their doing that to her. I couldn’t. It wasn’t my job anyway. If the school wanted to get rid of the Maggies, they could. As far as I could tell, Woodhouse already knew who a lot of them were. What did he need me for? I stared hard at him, willing my eyes to dig into his face, but all they kept doing was sprouting tears.

  This bad feeling that had swelled up in my stomach wasn’t helping either. Even as I tried to squash it down, there it was, still nibbling at the bottom of my gut. The truth, that’s what it was. Because it wasn’t just Sylvia who I was protecting. It was Dylan, too. Deep down, maybe I even knew that Woodhouse would make sure that nothing happened to Sylvia if I turned the Maggies in. But I couldn’t be so sure what would become of Dylan.

  Was I seriously willing to get expelled for her, though? Like Sylvia kept reminding me, Dylan wasn’t acting the way someone did when she cared about you. How could I pretend that wasn’t true? Because she was a girl? Because I loved her?

  Love. Suddenly the word sounded weird. Like I was pronouncing it wrong.

  No, I wasn’t going to do this. I wasn’t going to be that pathetic. I was a good student. I’d worked hard my whole life. I wasn’t going to give all of that up for the chance to get back together with Dylan.

  “I think I know what happened,” I said finally, staring down at my hands. My voice was small.

  I could do this. I could.

  But there was a knock at the door before I could say anything more.

  “Come in,” Woodhouse called, sounding stressed. He knew I’d been close to coming clean.

  Mrs. Pearl popped her head in. “I’m sorry to bother you Mr. Woodhouse,” she said, kissing his butt so much it made my mouth hurt. “But there’s an issue in the cafeteria that I’m afraid you need to attend to.”

  “Can’t you handle it?” He pointed at me. He was worried that I’d change my mind, and it was a fair thing to worry about. I was on board, but barely. “Can’t you see I’m in the middle of a meeting with a student?”

  “I wouldn’t have interrupted if it wasn’t absolutely essential,” Mrs. Pearl said testily. “A student saw a rat, a large one. And now it apparently can’t be located.”

  “What do you want me to do? Hunt for it? Delia, this is a really important conversation I’m having.” I’d never seen anyone talk to Mrs. Pearl like that. As if she was a pest. It was kind of great. “Why don’t you call maintenance?”

  “Unfortunately, the student is refusing to move until she speaks with you, personally,” Mrs. Pearl said, even saltier. “I assure you, we’ve tried everything. Honestly, for some reason she’s quite hysterical about talking to you, specifically.”

  Woodhouse closed his eyes.

  “Okay,” he said finally. “Amelia, I’ll be right back. You’re doing the right thing. Just sit tight.”

  As soon as the door closed behind them, my phone alerted with a text. I was hoping it was Ben saying he was going to make it out to Brooklyn after all. I was still fantasizing about ducking out and seeing him. As I pulled out my phone, I looked around for how I’d sneak out. But the text was from Sylvia, not Ben.

  Make a run for it. I’ll cover you.

  Kate

  NOVEMBER 30

  “I’m sorry,” Kate said again. She and Lew were standing on Eighth Street, on the meticulous stretch of sidewalk outside the Carmon house. “I just had to go. I know it’s not a good excuse, but I had to see who Ben was.”

  “Hmm,” Lew said. He wasn’t looking at her. He hadn’t since she’d told him about going to Ben’s address and discoveri
ng Jeremy. “So you’ve said.”

  “In the end it was a good thing, right?” Kate tried. But it was hard to focus on her excuses, much less to sound convincing when she still felt so shaken and guilty, for so many different things. “At least now we know that Ben wasn’t involved.”

  “Hmm,” Lew said again, looking utterly unmoved. Kate was glad she’d emphasized how upset she’d been to learn that Jeremy was Amelia’s father. She suspected that was the only reason Lew wasn’t coming down harder on her. “We got the phone company to expedite a response to our subpoena.” He checked his small notepad. “The texts to you about Amelia’s dad came from a phone registered to Daniel Moore.”

  “Oh God,” Kate said quietly.

  If Daniel had been angry enough to tip off insidethelaw—an act that could easily be traced back to him—sending some anonymous texts to Kate would have been nothing. Still, thinking of his writing such vicious things was chilling. It was far beyond trying to publicly humiliate Jeremy. It was threatening.

  “Why would he write that Amelia didn’t jump, though?”

  “He didn’t. Those first two texts to you about Amelia came from elsewhere. I’m waiting for a call on that. But the texts to Amelia about her dad”—Lew nodded in the direction of the house—“those all came from here.”

  “Zadie Goodwin sent them?”

  “I expect so,” he said, looking up at the building. “But all we know for sure is that they were routed through a computer in this house. More than one person lives here.” He turned back to Kate, looking directly at her for the first time. “There is something else you should know,” Lew said. “The tech guys uncovered some more text messages on Amelia’s phone. Deleted ones. They make those little paper notes look like, well, child’s play.”

  “What did they say?” Kate spun around. “I want to see them.”

  Lew shook his head. “They aren’t the kind of thing any parent should ever see.”

  They rang the bell and waited. Kate squinted up at the converted factory’s polished glass and steel facade. The sun was high in the sky now, glinting off the building’s huge windows.

  “We’re sure this is one house?” Lew asked.

  “I think so,” Kate said, but it was conspicuously large, even compared to Park Slope’s largest brownstones. “There’s only one bell.”

  Lew had to ring it three more times before someone cracked the door and pressed her eyeball to it. Through the sliver, Kate spied a small woman with a bent, wary affect.

  Lew ducked his head down to make eye contact with her. “We’re here to see Zadie Goodwin and her parents.”

  “One moment. I will check,” the woman said in her thick European accent. Her one eye narrowed, then she slammed shut the door.

  A beat later, it opened again. Standing there was a towering guy in a flashy gray suit and a pink, French-cuffed shirt. His shiny silver cuff links were shaped like dice, and on his right hand was a ring with a gaudy red jewel in the center. He was handsome, in an overcoiffed, overtanned way that screamed substantial wealth without concomitant sophistication. Even his teeth were too perfect and too white, like someone overcompensating for a history of bad dental hygiene.

  “Hi there,” he said with a smile that shimmied between friendly and fuck you. “I’m Frank Carmon, and you would be?”

  “I’m Lieutenant Thompson, and this is Kate Baron,” Lew began. “We’d like to ask your daughter a few questions about Amelia Baron. She died in a fall from the roof of Grace Hall. She was Kate’s daughter.”

  Carmon frowned and shook his head. “That was a goddamn shame. I’m sorry for your loss, ma’am,” he said to Kate, then turned back to Lew. “What is it you need to talk to my Zadie about?”

  My Zadie. Like she was a toddler or a little porcelain doll. It was disturbing.

  “The girls were in some kind of club together,” Lew said casually. “We’re just trying to gather information about Amelia’s state of mind from every possible source.”

  Carmon stared out over their heads as he ran his tongue over his teeth. Finally, he looked over his shoulder toward the woman who’d answered the door, now looming in the shadows behind him.

  “Go get Zadie,” he said. “Tell her it’s important.”

  He opened the door then, leading the way into the vast, open living-room-cum-dining-area-cum-kitchen, flushed with sunlight from the floor-to-ceiling windows. Carmon picked up a short glass from the otherwise bare granite countertop.

  “Can I get either of you a drink?” he asked.

  “No, thank you,” Lew said. “You used to be at the Seventy-eighth, right? Here in the neighborhood?”

  Carmon laughed, brushing invisible lint from his pants.

  “Yeah, for about five minutes a million years ago,” he said. “Before I decided that there were easier ways to make a living than getting shot at.”

  “Looks like you were right.” Lew motioned to the house. “Don’t know about easier, but it sure looks like it pays better.”

  “So far, so good.” Carmon winked, took a sip.

  “You get a lot of your guys from the Seventy-eighth?”

  Carmon stared hard at Lew for a minute, then smiled.

  “Some.”

  “Including Detective Molina?”

  “Been a long time since I got involved in specific hires,” Carmon said smoothly. “I’ve got people who do that for me these days.”

  “Molina was the detective assigned to Amelia Baron’s case. Looks like he—at a minimum—cut some corners to rule it a suicide. Then a couple of days later, he left to work for you,” Lew said, opting for the full-on, direct approach. “Seems like a pretty big coincidence, don’t you think? Given that your stepdaughter and Amelia seemed to be butting heads quite a bit in this club of theirs.”

  Carmon nodded like he was considering this information. “I can’t speak to any of that. I don’t get involved in the details of my stepdaughter’s high-school drama,” he said. “But if you want to talk to Molina, Lieutenant, I’m sure I could get him on the phone. Right now, if you want. That is, assuming he does work for me.”

  Zadie stomped into the living room then, not stopping until she threw herself onto a stool at the kitchen island.

  “I was doing my homework, you know,” she growled. She was wearing a plaid schoolgirl skirt that wasn’t much wider than a belt and had a bunch of piercings in her ears and a ring through her nose. It fit nicely with her heavy black eye makeup and short, shaggy black hair, which had a huge chunk of white down one side, like the off-kilter stripe on a skunk. Kate couldn’t take her eyes off the stripe. “Just because your friend says they’ll probably let me in, doesn’t mean that Columbia definitely will. I’m not in until I’m actually in.”

  “Columbia,” Lew said. “Impressive. Getting in there sure wouldn’t be a thing you’d want to jeopardize.”

  “Tell me about it.” Carmon shook his head in exaggerated disbelief. “Lucky for her, she doesn’t have my genes. Come on, my Zadie.” He waved her over, then patted the spot on the couch next to him. “These nice folks just need to ask you a couple questions about that girl from your school, the one who died.”

  Zadie rolled her eyes again, then pounded over and dropped down next to Carmon with a big huff.

  “One thing here, before my Zadie answers any of your questions,” Carmon said, feigning nonchalance. “She doesn’t need a lawyer, does she? This is just informational?”

  “She’s not under arrest,” Lew said, notably skirting the question, “if that’s what you’re asking.”

  He wasn’t making any promises, and it wasn’t lost on Carmon. He stared hard at Lew for a long time.

  “She didn’t have anything to do with what happened to that girl,” Carmon said. “So you can ask whatever you want about that. But we’re ending this if we get near anything that could keep her tail out of Columbia. She’s worked too hard, and I’ve spent too much goddamn money—”

  The front door opened then. There were voices in
the hallway—one sharp and rapid-fire, the other mumbled and apologetic, probably the housekeeper. Then there was the sound of high heels clicking loudly across the concrete floor.

  “Oh,” Adele said, her pretty face falling as she rounded the corner. She recovered gracefully, though, smiling easily as she headed straight over to Kate, in her fashionable black A-line dress and big hoop earrings, her hair swept up in a soft but flawless chignon. Adele leaned forward, pressing her cheek hard against Kate’s as she kissed the empty air next to her ear. “What a nice surprise, Kate. But you didn’t have to come all the way over just to talk about PTA matters. I know how busy you are.”

  “We’re not here about that,” Kate said, bracing for Lew to make her stop talking. He didn’t. “We’re here about what happened between Amelia and the Magpies.”

  “The Magpies?” Adele pursued her red lips and looked over at Carmon, who shrugged and took another sip of his drink. “I’m not sure I—”

  “I’ve read the minutes of the school board meetings,” Kate said, hoping things might go better if she kept Adele from embarrassing herself by outright lying to them. “I know that Woodhouse tried to get rid of the clubs and that the school board stopped him.”

  Adele dropped her purse down hard onto one of the kitchen stools, then turned back slowly. She crossed her arms as she leaned back against the counter.

  “Then you also must know that the board was only looking out for the best interests of the school,” Adele said calmly.

  Kate tried not to get angry, but it wasn’t working. “The school had an obligation—”

  “The school can’t control what students do when they’re not on school grounds,” Adele said coolly. If she felt defensive, she was hiding it masterfully. “That kind of monitoring is a practical and legal impossibility, particularly in the age of the smartphone. The responsibility for policing off-campus and cyber-behavior must be left to individual families.”