by Joe Clifford
“If I remember right, everyone sort of went with everyone.”
Seven years, the girls hadn’t changed much. Meaghan was a little heavier now, but she’d been thick back then too. Trista towered above the rest, the four of them together in almost every picture, like a little gang.
“You know Cole? Cole Denning?”
Greg shook his head. “Wasn’t in our class.”
She flipped through the book, searching for Kira, who didn’t arrive on the scene until much later. There were a couple shots of her with the color squad, at the county fair in an oversized varsity jacket. Then there she was, another troublemaker with too much eyeliner, smoking cigarettes, posing tough against a brick wall.
Alex tapped a photograph, where a boy sat on a picnic table, arm draped around Patty Hass. “Who’s he?”
“Jeremy Fisk. Dude’s a lunatic. Joined the army after high school, came home freaked out. Tim McVeigh conspiracy shit. The events of September eleventh were an inside job, you know the type. He’s still in Reine. A buddy ran into him at the Fireside. Got in a fight about gun control. His family used to own that shooting range in Rensselaer, Locked and Loaded. I think they shut it down a couple years ago.”
Some of the boys looked familiar. Alex wasn’t sure if any of them had been part of the Plotter Kill club last night. Might’ve been. Lurking on the porch, rattling chains, inhaling chemical concoctions from jagged light bulbs. She hadn’t gotten the best look. Was Jeremy the one taking phantom pot shots with the shotgun?
“Sounds crazy,” Greg said, “but I always wondered what would’ve happened if we’d tried harder to pull Kira over to our side.”
“You think her friends had something to do with what happened?”
“No. Not directly. I don’t know. I mean, everyone knows Benny Brudzienski killed her.”
“Dan Brudzienski was in your class, wasn’t he?”
“Dude was weird. Wren’s a real shit, too. But Dan, even though he played football, he didn’t have many friends, kept to himself, scribbled in journals in the library. Then I think, man, how hard that must’ve been? Having your mom die so young, your dad so soon after, forced to take care of someone like Benny? That family was cursed. We’d be hanging out in the supermarket parking lot after practice, and here would come Benny, shuffling down the road, all cross-eyed, hunting for his French-fried potaters. Sometimes he had a bicycle, but he didn’t peddle any faster than he walked. He’d putz along until Wren and Dan would pull alongside him in the family truck, load him on the flatbed. You know Wren came back to help around the farm, right? Gave up a football scholarship. Could’ve gone pro. Dan wasn’t half the size his brother. Looked like he’d blow a gasket trying to haul that tub of lard up there.” He waited. “He was in love with Kira.”
“Dan?”
“Benny. I remember early on, back when she still hung around with us, she’d go out of her way to be nice to him at the games. Like how some people adopt the mangiest, ugliest dog, Kira always made sure to wave to Benny, smile, give him a hug if we were close enough, treat him like a regular person. Benny swept the football field before Friday night games. The rest of the town knew better and steered clear of him. But I think Kira felt sorry for Benny, which sent the wrong message.”
“Because Benny thought they were in love?”
“Or whatever a guy like Benny calls it.” Greg laughed. “Then again, who wasn’t in love with Kira Shanks at some point?”
“You know how I can find any of these guys? Jeremy, Sharn?”
“Jeremy’s still around. I think. But I couldn’t tell you where to look other than the Fireside. I know Sharn’s in some lame local band.”
“You got a name?”
“Of the band? Jesus, what’re they called? Something ridiculous. The Groove Guppies. Used to play that big college bar off campus. A joke band. I hate the shit. Half the songs are about erectile dysfunction, pigs in space, crap like that. Dudes like Sharn take nothing seriously. It’s easy to make fun of everything when you don’t stand for anything. But he has money, so he knows a lot of that Uniondale crowd too. Operates both sides. Cool Moose, that’s the name of the bar. Went there once and his shitty band had just finished a set. That was, like, ten, eleven months ago? Maybe longer?”
“How well did you know her?”
“Kira? A little. We had biology together. We didn’t talk about what her childhood was like or anything. Once she started hanging with Meaghan Crouse and that crew, the Sharn Prima Donna dipshits, she didn’t come around much.”
“What about the reputation she had?”
“For sleeping with every guy who walked? Sure, I heard that. But you know high school. It’s vicious. Once rumors get started, they’re hard to stop.” Greg finished his macchiato and shook his head. “I don’t know what went on with that bunch, but like I said, when Kira hung around with us? She was a real sweetheart. What happened to her was a travesty.” Greg thumbed over his shoulder. “Thanks for the coffee. I have to get to work.” He climbed on his bicycle and strapped on his helmet, then stopped.
Alex looked up from her railroad tie seat.
“I wasn’t going to say this, but I know who you are. I remember that story from when I was a kid, and I think it’s pretty bad ass that you survived, got out of here, moved on to something better. I don’t know why you’re asking these questions. I’ve heard the rumors too, how someone egged Benny on, put him up to it. I don’t know. Maybe that’s what happened. But if you really think it had something to do with that crew? Be careful. This crowd you’re asking about? They were trouble then. And they’re trouble now.”
Greg slung his bike bag in position and disappeared between the sardined cars, wheeling through the trampled weeds, back on the road.
Walking to her car, Alex scanned the yearbook, judging proximities, hand-to-hip ratios, mouth placement, studying snapshots as if each one potentially held all the answers.
Her cell buzzed. Nick. She hoped he wasn’t still butt-hurt over last night. She didn’t have time to deal with boyfriend drama right now.
“Hey,” she said. “Got my hands on a copy of the Reine High yearbook from seven years ago—”
“You know the football field? By the turnpike?”
Alex had to think. She wasn’t much into sports but, sure, she knew the spot.
“My Uncle Jimmy and I have to be in Saratoga Springs after lunch. We’ll be gone all afternoon. Won’t get back till late. Anyway, I’m over here at the football field now, hauling these old speakers. Worth like six bills each—”
“Okay…”
“Sorry. The guy my uncle is having me pick them up from, Stan Supinski, used to be Benny Brudzienski’s boss, back when Benny cleaned the football field before games. He has some interesting things to say about that time. I think you’re going to want to hear this. I mean, see this.”
“See what?”
“Benny kept a diary.”
“I didn’t know he could write.”
There was a long pause on the line.
“Nick?”
“He couldn’t.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
On the way over to the football field, Alex tried the Cool Moose, inquiring after Sharn DiDonna, about his band, the Groove Guppies, a show that may’ve taken place there “maybe ten, eleven months ago?” The guy who answered the phone had no idea what she was talking about, didn’t know anyone named Sharn or anything about any band, and he didn’t appreciate being bothered, slamming down the house phone to hammer home the point. Alex looked up the number for Locked and Loaded in Rensselaer, hoping Greg Judd had been wrong and she’d get a bead on Jeremy Fisk, find out if he was, indeed, the same hillbilly cleaning the shotgun on the porch. But Greg was right about it being closed down. He just had the dates wrong. The shooting range had been out of business since before the murder. She couldn’t fault Greg for screwing up the timeline—she’d be hard pressed to recollect the names of anyone from her
graduating class, save the ones she’d had sex with—she was lucky he had given her any names at all.
Reine High played its home games at Forsman Field, the park on the north side of the turnpike. Alex had been there a few times, mostly to get stoned and screw around under the bleachers. But that had been fifteen years ago. Since then the town had pumped a ton of cash into athletics, and Forsman Field looked better than ever. Big, paved parking lot; brand-new, high-tech scoreboard; a concession stand to rival the pros.
Alex spotted Nick’s truck, crested on the dirt hill leading up to the storage shed and equipment trailers. He was kneeling in the flatbed, straining to tighten yellow canvas straps around a pair of massive speakers, securing hooks to the tailgate as he cranked the ratchet. The autumn winds chewed with an icy bite but he’d worked up a good sweat, muscles wrought underneath the tee shirt he’d stripped down to. No matter what else she thought of him, the kid was a hard worker. His apartment was a dump, his truck a piece of shit, but he wasn’t lazy. She’d never had that work ethic. If the job didn’t benefit her, right here, right now, Alex didn’t play. No wonder she was losing the game.
“Where’s your uncle? I want to thank him.” Things had been too chaotic the other morning. Alex didn’t even get to meet Uncle Jimmy, let alone tell him how much she appreciated the new set of tires.
Nick jumped over the railing, wiping his hands on an oily rag, snagging his sweatshirt and jacket. “Already on his way north.” He started toward the trailer above the equipment sheds, waving for Alex to follow, waiting till she caught up. “I was talking with Stan Supinski this morning about Benny. You’ll want to take a look at this.”
“A look at what? A diary? How could Benny have kept a diary if he can’t write? And why wouldn’t the cops have it?”
Nick motioned for her to keep her voice down as they approached the trailer door. “Supinski is a mountain man from out west. He still rodeo circuits in the summer, old school. He’s pretty distrustful of the media. I wouldn’t mention the story or newspaper.”
A stocky cowboy—snakeskin boots, embroidered shirt, Stetson buffalo hat, the whole wrangler nine, an odd look for Upstate New York—opened the door, all howdy ma’am smiles but still retaining an air of distrust, like Alex might be working for the Man. He might’ve busted a button if he knew anything about Alex.
Nick introduced her, and Supinski wedged past for a handshake. “Friends call me Smitty.” He even had the yokel twang when he spoke. He motioned to a little sofa covered in homemade quilts. The trailer obviously doubled as a residence. “So Nick tells me you don’t think Benny did it?”
“I wouldn’t say that. Still trying to figure stuff out.” Even if Alex had told Nick that, she wanted to appear impartial before Supinski shared whatever he had to show her.
Nick dropped into the sofa, happy to get off his feet, but Alex remained standing.
“I get you a beer or anything? Might have some pop in the cooler.”
“No, I’m good. You wanted to show me something?”
Smitty picked up a mud-stained, weathered shoebox from the table and passed it along. Alex stared down at the closed, crumpled lid. The box looked like it had been buried deep in the dirt.
“Go on,” Smitty said. “Have a look.”
Alex peeled the top. Inside the box was a leather-bound book, the kind you find at indie bookstores or flea markets, with stamped gold leaf and unlined pages. It stank of mildew. Inside the book were photographs. Old photographs. A lot of Polaroids, yellowed by time, edges taped, surfaces bubbled from the heat, like they’d been stored in the attic during muggy summer months. She recognized Benny, even though he was younger. His parents had probably taken the photographs since Benny stood alone in most of them, the fashion firmly rooted in the 1970s, denim one-pieces and Dorothy Hamill bowl-cuts. Benny still had hair then, and his eyes and face didn’t look so smushed together. If you looked closely, you could tell he wasn’t all there mentally, but if you just glanced at them, he almost appeared normal. Then Benny disappeared, replaced by newer pictures of a girl, separate setting, locale. These were actual photographs taken with a good camera, cut from sheets of polished paper, as if they’d been stolen from the internet, dragged, cropped, printed out. Alex had a good idea who the girl in the pictures was but showed them to Nick anyway.
“Yeah, that’s Kira.”
They weren’t scandalous pictures but wholesome ones. A young, pretty girl with blonde hair and blue eyes, dressed in big sweaters, oversized sweatshirts. In the stands at football games, laughing at the Dairy Queen, reclining on the hood of a car. There were other pictures when she was younger, too. Family holidays, church steps, Fireman’s Bazaar. The last couple photographs featured ripped jeans and too much eye makeup, the angry, wounded expressions. But there were only a couple like that, tucked way in the back, a postscript. On several pages, even the ones with Benny, someone had scrawled snippets of verse in the margins, poetry or song lyrics. Alex didn’t recognize the source material—they weren’t from any musicians or authors she knew. Even if Benny could write, the penmanship was definitely feminine. There were flowers pressed between the pages. Dandelions.
Sifting through the pictures, Alex glanced over at Smitty Supinski. “How’d you find these?”
“Nick tell you Benny worked for me? Worked for a lot of folks around town. He was kinda, you know, special, but he could do a job once you showed him how, if it was repetitive enough. He was good at patterns, repeating them. Couldn’t beat the price neither. Ron Earl wanted him off the farm, being a productive member of the community. Pay the boy a few apples, he was happy as a pig in shit.”
“You think this book belonged to him?”
“How else them old family photos get in there?” Smitty said, before interrupting himself. “Sure I can’t get you anything? I got some pop in the cooler—”
“We’re good, Smitty,” Nick said. “Tell her what you told me.”
“One day Benny doesn’t show up for work. Now even though he was a retard, er, what folks call special nowadays, he never missed a day. Regular as rain in March. I call out to the farm, and his dad, Ron Earl—he was a good man—he says Benny’s been having a hard time, slipping a bit, ’specially since Dot, that’s the mom, died. Docs think he might need to be hospitalized, get ’round the clock care. Now I don’t know what was wrong with the boy, exactly. If he was a run-of-the-mill mongoloid, but he had been a little slower of late. I thought it was because of that girl.”
“Kira?”
“Oh he was star-struck with that one, over-the-moon in love with her. Caught them two beneath the bleachers plenty.”
“Caught them? Doing what?”
“Oh no not like that. I don’t think that boy would know where to put his pecker if you gave him a honey pot and drew a map.” Smitty’s face winced red. He took off his rancher’s hat. “I beg your pardon. Don’t get much company up here. Sometimes I forget how to talk. I ain’t from here, in case you can’t tell. Come from out in ’rado. No, I mean, I’d catch her petting his head, being nice to him, feeding him kibbles like you do a barn animal. After that, I had to tell him to stop plucking them damned dandelions. Poor fool gave her a bouquet of dandelions every time he saw her. Those kids laughed at him. But not Kira. It was her fault, giving him the wrong idea. You can’t expect someone like Benny to know the difference.”
“When was the last time you saw him?”
“Maybe a few weeks before it happened. Benny used to ride his bike here or else he walked—that boy loved to walk, could walk for miles and miles, from one end of town to the other, all day long—Wednesdays and Fridays were his schedule. In the fall. Before the football games. After Dot died he didn’t come as regular. You had to use a separate standard with Benny. A big bird flying by could distract the boy.” Smitty Supinski shook his head. “But I tell ya, you get that boy to focus, he wasn’t a total ret—specially challenged, mentally deficient individual—could put a tractor back tog
ether blindfolded. You see those speakers Nick’s loading up? Benny hardwired those bad boys from scratch. And he was stronger’n a field ox.”
“Benny had a key, I take it? To the equipment sheds?”
“He did, and I never got the key back.” Smitty looked away, overcome with grief. “That poor boy. That poor family. When Deidre—that’s the mom—everyone called her Dot—when she got the cancer, it was hard on them all. Benny couldn’t express himself too good. If he really put his mind to it, he could squeak out a yes or no, but I’m tellin’ ya, some things he could do as good as a regular person. Same as you or me.” Smitty appeared pained. “I hate to admit it, but I wasn’t always very nice to him. He had a tendency to daydream and we don’t get a lot of time to get the field ready. I drank more than beer in those days, and I could get whiskey mean. Maybe if I’d been nicer…”
“Why didn’t you show the book to the cops?”
“Two reasons. One, I don’t trust the po-lice. Never have. Never will. But the other—and this’s where things get weird—I found the box in the storage shed about two weeks after that girl went missing.”
“Two weeks?”
Smitty Supinski nodded.
“They’d already found Benny beaten to hell by then,” Nick added.
“That doesn’t make any sense.”
“I’m telling you the God’s honest truth. Damn box was in plain sight so I don’t know how I’d miss it. I go in that shed every day. Wasn’t there until after that girl got killed, Benny run down, after everything. Someone dug it up, left it there for me to find.”
Alex turned over her shoulder. Nick shrugged, as unsure as she what any of this meant.
“Who had keys?”
“Me and Benny. Although I’m sure parks and rec kept a duplicate set somewhere. Nothing in there but sod and fertilizer, mowers, weed whackers for field upkeep. I’ve been doing this job almost thirty years. No reason for anyone to go up there. A goddamn mystery, that’s what this is. When cops come around, they searched the areas Benny had access to, so if that box and book had been there, means they didn’t do their job neither. ’Course could mean the po-lice planted it. But no one ever came back, and I wasn’t volunteering the information.”
