Straightened

by Alana Terry

  “Listen,” Kennedy tried, “if we find Marcos fast and prove Noah’s innocent, the media might not have time to learn about everything. Ok? Is there anything you can think of that will help us find out where Marcos lives?”

  Jodie pouted. “I don’t think so.”

  “No last name? Phone number? Anything?” Kennedy hoped she wasn’t being too pushy. She couldn’t tell from Nick’s frown if he disapproved of her prodding or if he was just serious from the entire night’s events.

  An idea flitted into her head, and she sat up taller. “What about his phone? If he talks to Marcos so much, we could get his number off your brother’s cell.”

  Nick shook his head. “Noah’s cell is either with him or burned down at the Abernathys’ place, remember?”

  “Well, maybe ...” She tried to think. Could Detective Drisklay pull up Noah’s phone records or something? It happened all the time in police novels, didn’t it?

  “Wait a minute.” Jodie was always graceful and well-manicured, but it wasn’t until her face lit up that Kennedy could say she was decidedly pretty in every sense of the word. A smile, shy but persistent, spread across her face. “I let Noah use my phone once. He’d left his in the youth group bus that night you all went to play paintball.” She spoke quickly. Freely. For the first time, she sounded youthful.

  Excited.

  “He wanted to borrow my phone. He said he was calling you to ask about his cell.” She nodded at Nick. “But then he talked for like an hour and a half. Wait, that wasn’t you, was it?”

  Nick shook his head. “No, he never called me. I didn’t find his cell in the bus until the next day.”

  “I knew it!” Jodie’s eyes were bright. “That means he was talking to Marcos.” She turned a hopeful gaze to Kennedy, who felt like she had missed something important.

  Jodie jumped up and grabbed a small handbag from a coat rack by her grandma’s entryway. Kennedy wondered what other thirteen-year-old would carry around a Louis Vuitton purse, or any purse at all for that matter. Kennedy had tried a small handbag once a few years ago and then swore them off until she was at least out of school. She hated the way a single strap made her feel so lopsided and off balance, and none of the really cute purses were large enough to fit a book in, anyway. She’d stick with her backpacks for at least the next decade.

  A car pulled into Mrs. Olinstein’s driveway. The headlights shined through the window, beaming shadows across the wall.

  Jodie was scrolling on her phone, her face still radiant. “Look! It’s here. An hour and twenty-three minute call. This is it.”

  The sound of a car door shutting. Then another.

  Nick leaned forward. Kennedy did too, ready to stand up. Jodie buried her face in her screen and didn’t seem to notice anything else. “This is Marcos’s number. We can call him!”

  The front door opened. Detective Drisklay sauntered in, followed by Jodie’s mom who looked nearly as frazzled and frail as Mrs. Olinstein had.

  “Don’t bother. Marcos Esperanza won’t be answering his phone any time soon.” Detective Drisklay slammed his coffee cup onto the yellow laminate counter. “He’s in the ER right now being treated for multiple stab wounds. Doctors aren’t sure he’s going to make it.”

  CHAPTER 17

  Vivian Abernathy all but collapsed onto the couch as she leaned down to hug her daughter. “How are you, sweetie? Are you ok?”

  “Yeah, Mom. I’m fine.” As quickly as it had come, the enthusiastic spark in Jodie’s eyes clouded over again, replaced by a shy quietness. For a thirteen-year-old, she had already been through so much. Kennedy was glad at least something remained of the little girl Jodie should have been. Jodie put her arm around her mother’s shoulders.

  Detective Drisklay didn’t waste any time with greetings or small talk. “So who wants to tell me why you were all talking about Marcos Esperanza when I got in?”

  Kennedy and Nick exchanged a glance. “Jodie overheard Nick talking to some guy before the fire,” she explained. “She thought maybe if we found him, it might give her brother an alibi to prove he wasn’t there when his dad was murdered.”

  “Or else prove that he’s the one that attacked Marcos in the first place,” Drisklay stated in a monotone.

  Right. She’d rushed into the night so sure she’d prove Noah’s innocence, but he was getting more and more enmeshed with every new development. First Wayne’s murder and the arson that burned down his house. Then the fire at the Lindgrens’. And now some mysterious guy named Marcos, a counselor who talked and prayed with Noah on a regular basis, who was dying of stab wounds in the ER. It was a good thing Kennedy had slept so long at the Lindgrens’ earlier, because she knew this would turn into one of those nights that never ended. It was already after three.

  Jodie and her mom were having a whispered conversation on the couch when Mrs. Olinstein shouted out from down the hall, “Is that you, Vivian? This nephew of yours hasn’t stopped crying since ...”

  “Mom,” Vivian called back, “he’s my son now, not my ... Oh, never mind.” She stood up with a heavy sigh. Kennedy couldn’t even begin to fathom the grief she must be experiencing. Her husband murdered. Her son the prime suspect. It sounded like the penultimate act in a Shakespearean play. All they need now was a nurse for Jodie, a lady-in-waiting for Vivian, and a few soldier lackeys to follow Detective Drisklay around. Of course, since this was a tragedy, there’d be no jesters offering witty puns or household servants providing comic relief. There was only one way plays like this ever ended.

  Death.

  “He’s still whining,” Mrs. Olinstein called out. She had a cackling sort of voice.

  “I’m coming.”

  Kennedy had never heard anyone sound as exhausted as Vivian.

  Jodie took her mom’s hand. “I’ll go lie down with him. You don’t have to worry about it.”

  “Are you sure, sweetie?” Gratitude shone in Vivian’s eyes.

  Jodie kissed her mom on the cheek. “Yeah. I’m tired anyway. I’ll go curl up with him and take a nap.”

  Vivian took Jodie’s hand and rubbed it against her cheek. “You’re a sweet girl. Get some good rest now.”

  Jodie left without saying good night. Her footsteps made no noise as she moved down the hall. Kennedy could hear her grandma start to chide her, but she couldn’t make out any of the words.

  “So.” Detective Drisklay took a noisy gulp of coffee. “Who can tell me about Marcos Esperanza?”

  Nobody answered.

  “Nobody knows anything?” Drisklay paced up and down in front of the couch where the rest of them were sitting. “I find that surprising. Well, let’s start then with what I know. What I know is we’ve got a thirty-something-year-old Hispanic guy in surgery right now because someone decided to butcher him with a knife. That someone was an amateur who obviously didn’t know what he was doing, and it was also someone Marcos knew and trusted enough to let into his house in the middle of the night. Based on the wounds, we’re guessing the suspect is right-handed, five-foot-seven or five-foot-eight, no more than a hundred fifty pounds.”

  “You can really tell all that just from the wounds?”

  Drisklay didn’t pay any attention to Nick’s question. He was staring at Vivian Abernathy, who had started to tremble so much that her gold bracelets jingled against one another.

  “My son had nothing to do with this. We don’t even know anyone named Marcos Aspare ... Espar ...”

  “Marcos Esperanza.” Drisklay frowned and smoothed out his salt-and-pepper mustache. “He’s a local Christian counselor. A very specialized Christian counselor. Runs a website claiming to cure gay teens.”

  Nick’s body tensed up beside Kennedy, but he didn’t say anything.

  “I’ve never heard of him before tonight.” Vivian’s voice was quieter now. Less certain.

  Drisklay shrugged. “You didn’t know your son was gay before tonight, either.”

  “He’s not gay. He’s confused.” Vivian spoke like an act
or doing the first read-through of a brand new play.

  Drisklay ignored her.

  “So we’ve got three crimes now.” Nick shifted his weight on the couch as he spoke. “We have Senator Abernathy murdered and his house burned, we have a second fire at the Lindgrens’ home, and we have this Marcos dude stabbed. Noah’s just a kid. If he was distraught enough, maybe he could have done one of these things. But there’s no logical way to connect him to all three of those incidents. No means.”

  Drisklay tossed his disposable cup into the trash. “Means is simple. You drop the kid off at his home at eleven. Fifteen minutes later he’s killed his dad, set the house on fire, and heads over to the pastor’s. Once he starts that fire, he drives himself over to Marcos’s place in Cambridge, and within an hour, he’s hit all three targets.”

  Nick shrugged. “Ok, but that’s still doesn’t explain why. Why would a good kid with absolutely no criminal record start two fires, kill his own dad, and stab someone else in his home? There’s no motive.”

  Drisklay scratched his short beard. “How’s this for motive? You got this kid, a kid from a fundamental Christian home, a kid who’s been told from preschool age on that God hates fags. Ok, cue puberty, and all of a sudden this nice fundamental Christian boy isn’t interested in peeking at his dad’s porno mags or fantasizing about girls on the school cheerleading team. His hormones are all swinging the opposite way. But he knows he can’t be gay, because the only people who are gay are people who turn their back on God and religion. So he waits. Waits for his body to do a one-eighty. Except that doesn’t happen. So he goes online. And since he’s a good, fundamental Christian kid, he doesn’t go to Hot Teen Boys R Us. He searches How do I stop being gay? and he finds this website from Marcos Esperanza, a ‘reformed homosexual’ who promises that a little bit of prayer and little bit of therapy will straighten up even the queerest homo out there. So our kid sends him an email. Maybe it starts anonymous. They build trust. Emails turn into phone calls. Phone calls where this so-called reformed homosexual assures this boy that God will make him straight because that’s what God wants. Except the prayers don’t work. Maybe our kid tries it for a month. Maybe it goes on for a whole year or longer. But at some point, he’s smart enough to realize that Marcos’s so-called therapy isn’t changing a thing.

  “So now, our kid’s got some choices. He can keep praying, keep hoping for that miracle that’s going to instantly turn him into a lusty stallion who’ll chase anything, but only if it’s in a skirt. Or he can quit the Christian life altogether and risk hellfire and brimstone in order to be true to his God-given identity. Or maybe he can find a way to be both gay and Christian, because by now he’s spent enough time online to know that that’s an actual thing. That there are churches out there who would welcome him, queer as a rainbow-colored unicorn and all. Except there’s a problem. Folks like his dad say those churches aren’t real churches at all, see. They’re sellout churches that don’t offer true salvation. And our kid’s had enough fear of hell shoved down his throat since the time he could crawl that now he’s just confused. So confused that he dares to go to Daddy and tell him the whole story. Who knows what he’s thinking? Maybe he thinks Daddy will have an epiphany right then and there and decide he’s been on the wrong side of the gay debate his whole life. Maybe they’ll cry and hug it out. Except that’s not what happens. Daddy doesn’t hug it out. In fact, Daddy threatens to kick him onto the streets unless he stops being gay. Boy says he can’t stop being gay. Maybe he tells his dad about Marcos. Maybe he tells his dad how much he’s prayed and how nothing’s changed. But his dad can’t be known as the politician with a gay kid, so he drags him off to talk to Pastor. If anyone can straighten his wayward son out, Pastor can. So they go see Pastor, and Pastor says homosexuality is a sin just like Daddy does. So here’s Pastor and here’s Daddy both saying the same thing. It’s a sin to be gay. God doesn’t want him to be gay. But our kid’s smart enough that he knows he is gay. And Pastor can’t help him, and Daddy won’t love him, and God hasn’t changed him.

  “So back at home, he gets in a fight with his dad. Gets too carried away, swings a golf club at him. He wasn’t trying to kill him. He just wanted to hear Daddy say, ‘It’s ok, son. I’ll still love you no matter what.’ But Daddy couldn’t say that, and oops. Now Daddy’s dead. So to cover it up, kid’s got this great idea that he’ll start a fire. And bam, the house goes down in flames. It was so easy and felt so good, he thinks he’ll go try it out now at Pastor’s house. That’ll teach Pastor a lesson for calling people like him sinners. So now he’s killed his dad and set fire to Pastor’s house, and then he goes to see his good buddy Marcos. Because if you look at it from the kid’s perspective, Marcos is the guiltiest of them all since he promised to make our boy straight, but all that praying and all that therapy didn’t do jack squat to change him. And our kid’s bolder now. He’s killed his dad. He set fire to two homes. He doesn’t need a golf club this time. He just needs a regular old kitchen knife. And that’s what he uses to hack his old counselor buddy to shreds.”

  Drisklay stopped and stared straight at Nick. “So tell me again how there’s no motive?”

  Kennedy had sat spellbound during the entire recitation. For a few minutes, she felt as if she were part of a crime novel, sitting in the drawing room hearing the hard-boiled detective soliloquize the solution to the seemingly impossible mystery. But then Vivian Abernathy adjusted her assortment of gold bracelets and sat up with her spine rigid, and Kennedy remembered this was a real-life discussion about a real-life child who had just been accused of committing three horrendous crimes.

  Vivian shook her head so her earrings jingled against each other, just like her mother’s had. “I hate to ruin your theory, detective.” Her voice was resolved. Assured. Kennedy wondered if Jodie would grow up to be confident like that.

  “There’s a problem with your explanation,” Vivian continued. “My son couldn’t have killed his father. I’m sure of it.”

  The corner of Drisklay’s mouth turned up. “And why is that?”

  Vivian Abernathy tilted her chin until she looked as regal as Lady Capulet. “Because I killed him.”

  CHAPTER 18

  Detective Drisklay was the only one who didn’t appear at all surprised at Vivian’s confession. Kennedy sucked in her breath. Nick whipped his head around to look at Drisklay so fast his dreads flew through the air.

  “You?” Drisklay didn’t raise his voice. He still wore that bemused smirk on his face. “And why would you kill your husband?”

  Vivian was no longer trembling. “Because he was going to disown our son. And I don’t care what Noah’s done. He’s our child, and nothing’s going to change that.”

  Kennedy heard her throat muscles working.

  “They had a fight,” Vivian explained. “After Noah came home last night, he went to his dad’s office. I listened in. Wayne said he was meeting with the lawyer first thing in the morning. He was going to take Noah out of the will, begin the emancipation process to completely disown Noah. What kind of father would do that to his own child? His own flesh and blood? And so when they were done talking, I went in. Told Wayne he would not write our firstborn out of his will. We fought. I realized my husband wasn’t going to change his mind. His golf bag was there in the corner. I took out a club. And that was that.”

  Drisklay appeared unmoved. “And the fire?”

  “You said it yourself. It was intended to cover up the body. But Noah didn’t set it. I did.”

  Drisklay gave a little shrug. “All right, then. If that’s your story, you know I’ll have to take you in. Shall I put you in handcuffs? Make it look more convincing?”

  “I’m telling the truth.”

  Another shrug. “That’s the judge and jury’s job to determine. My job is to get you booked. By the way, I guess I should tell you that you’re under arrest for the murder of your husband. You have the right to remain silent.”

  Even after hearing Drisklay pull out o
f the driveway with Vivian Abernathy, Kennedy wasn’t sure any of it had actually happened. She couldn’t raise her eyes to Nick. Didn’t know what to say. Didn’t even know what to think. Vivian wasn’t guilty, was she? Something was wrong. Besides, even if Vivian did kill her husband, that wouldn’t explain who set the Lindgrens’ house on fire and who stabbed the Christian counselor. Vivian couldn’t have done all that. She was with Jodie during the fire until the police came to ask her questions.

  That still left Noah a suspect at two of tonight’s crime scenes.

  Where was he?

  “Well that was strange, wasn’t it?” Nick finally asked.

  Kennedy let out her breath. “Strangest night of my life, I think.”

  “Yeah. Mine, too.”

  She wanted to ask him questions. Ask him what he really thought about Drisklay’s explanation. Kennedy had spent all night trying to think of ways to prove Noah’s innocence. What if she’d been mistaken? If Noah hadn’t done anything wrong, he wouldn’t be hiding right now, would he? Unless he thought his dad really had kicked him out of the house. Was it possible he didn’t have a clue about any of this? Didn’t have a clue how thin a line existed between him and a prison sentence for murder?

  Nick stood up. “So, do we tell Vivian’s mom?”

  “I suppose we have to.” Kennedy hoped Nick would volunteer to be the one to break news like that. She’d be more comfortable sitting in the bus listening to the Babylon Eunuchs. “I guess we need to let Jodie know, too.”

  “You’ll do no such thing.” The crackling voice from around the corner sent cold goosebumps racing up Kennedy’s neck.

  Mrs. Olinstein emerged from whatever crevice she’d been hiding behind. “My daughter’s a fool. A fool to have married an Abernathy in the first place. You two get yourselves home.”

  “What will you tell Jodie when she ...”

  “I’ll tell her what I decide is important and relevant for her to know.” Mrs. Olinstein stretched out a bony finger. “Now leave, and I expect you’ll be so kind as to lock my door on your way out.”