The Lonely Dead

by April Henry

  His message is clear. If any of us get ourselves murdered, it will be our fault.

  “Make sure you are aware of your surroundings at all times. Don’t go places alone, especially after dark. Whenever possible, travel in groups.” He scans the audience. “And effective immediately, Wilson will no longer have an open campus at lunch.”

  A collective groan goes up. The campus is only technically open for juniors and seniors, but pretty much everyone can and does leave during lunch if they want. They grab a sandwich at Subway, hit the gas station convenience store across the street for junk food, or slip behind the bushes that edge the parking lot to smoke.

  “Detective Mark Geiger from the Portland Police Bureau is going to tell you more about what the bureau is doing to find Tori’s killer.” Werdling beckons to one side of the stage. “Mark?” A man in a dark blue suit strides in from the left. A gold shield is clipped to his belt.

  The detective has deep-set blue eyes and a shaved head that’s got the hair version of a five-o’clock shadow. His nose looks too wide and flat, like maybe it’s been broken.

  “I know you kids must be scared,” he says. “Worried. But we are putting a lot of resources into this. And we will not rest until we have apprehended the person responsible. We don’t know yet if this murder was premeditated or just a crime of opportunity—in other words, if Tori was just in the wrong place at the wrong time.”

  “What about a serial killer?” Dylan Borecki calls out.

  At his words, I hear indrawn breaths. Girls clutch each other.

  Geiger shakes his head. “Serial killers usually target vulnerable people who won’t be missed, like those who are homeless or have mental illness. But we don’t have any other open cases similar to this one. All of Portland’s recent murders have been between people who knew each other, or killings over drugs or gang affiliation. Tori’s murder doesn’t fall into those last two categories.”

  I catch on. He thinks whoever killed Tori knew her.

  Which means her killer could be sitting in this auditorium. Geiger’s eyes flick from face to face. “That’s where we need your help. If you saw anything suspicious, we want to hear about it. We understand there was a party at Tori’s house Saturday while her parents were out of town. We need to talk to everyone who attended, as well as to anyone who might have seen Tori after ten P.M. on Saturday. Myself and Jim and some other officers will be in the school office today to talk to you.”

  There were at least seventy-five people at the party, maybe more. I wonder how many will be eager to admit that to the cops.

  As if hearing my thoughts, Geiger says, “We understand there may have been some behavior at that party that wasn’t strictly legal. We’re not concerned with that. We’re only interested in finding whoever killed Tori Rasmussen.”

  At the thought of the stupid thing I did at the party, I shift on the hard wooden seat. It lets out a groan, and everyone’s head turns. Like Luke, I put my hand over my eyes. I just want people to forget about what happened Saturday, but that seems more and more unlikely.

  I barely hear the principal telling the crowd about how, in addition to the police, there are counselors everyone can talk to. About how Tori’s family has said we are all invited for the visitation and funeral, both of which will take place in this very auditorium because it’s the only venue big enough to hold the hundreds of people expected.

  My face is flaming. I hope it doesn’t show. The party. Oh God.

  Someone is going to tell the police what I did at the party Saturday.

  So that someone should be me.

  TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 27, 9:08 A.M.

  ANYPLACE ELSE BUT HERE

  Mrs. Cox finally notices me. The school office, which normally would be quiet at this time of day, is full of students. The chairs are all taken, so people are sitting on the floor. Some wait in silence, while others talk in whispers. A few weep quietly into crumpled tissues. The room is lined with a half-dozen doors leading to small offices. All those doors are shut, but from behind them come the low murmurs of voices urgent with emotion.

  “Oh, hello there, Adele,” Mrs. Cox says over her white-framed reading glasses. She prides herself on knowing the name of every student. As usual, she is dressed in velour. Today it’s a teal tunic worn over black pants. She picks up a clipboard and pen. “Do you want to talk to one of the counselors?”

  “Actually, I need to speak to the police.” I try to keep my voice low, but the room goes still.

  She tilts her head. “You do?”

  I lean forward and whisper, “I was at the party.”

  Mrs. Cox blinks. Twice. Then she picks up a different clipboard. “Okay, I’ll put down your name.”

  As she does, a tall, thin man with a badge clipped to his belt comes out of an office. With him is Charlie. We look at each other in mutual surprise. But when the cop claps his hand on Charlie’s shoulder, I register how much they look like each other. Is this guy his dad?

  Charlie touches my arm. “Can I talk to you about last night?”

  His voice is a whisper, but we still attract curious glances. “Umm, okay,” I say, wondering how I’m going to explain things to him. I’d rather never have the conversation. “But not now.”

  I find a spot along the wall and slide down to the floor, uncomfortably aware of how much space my body takes up. Laquanda Quinn, who is sitting on the other side of the room, nods, setting her silver earrings swinging. On one side of me are Jazzmin and Ethan. On the other is Aaron Lum. He’s talking to Justin, both of them swearing about how messed up everything is.

  “Tori was drinking,” Ethan says softly to Jazzmin. “She didn’t know what she was doing.”

  “But you did.” Jazzmin turns away from him.

  Was Tori drunk Saturday? Every time I saw her at the party, she had a glass in her hand, and half those times she was shouting, “Shots!” then tossing down her drink. But then again, she had seemed completely sober when she was screaming that she never wanted to see me again. She hadn’t been slurring or staggering or anything.

  And me? I drank enough on Saturday to do something stupid.

  One by one, people come out of the offices, and other people get called in, and new people join those of us waiting. After about thirty minutes, a door on the left opens. Luke comes out, accompanied by Detective Geiger. Everyone stops talking. Luke’s eyes are red and wet, and his lips are pressed into a thin white line. He keeps his head down, not making eye contact with anyone as he pushes open the door to the hall.

  The detective takes the clipboard from Mrs. Cox and says, “Adele Meeker?”

  After getting to my feet, I follow him into what is normally a vice principal’s office. He sits behind the desk. I take one of the two straight-backed chairs in front of it.

  “I’m going to take notes,” Geiger says, “but is it okay if I also tape-record this?” A small silver recorder sits on the edge of the desk.

  “Sure, I guess.” What did Luke tell him about Saturday night? Does the detective already know what happened? I rub my damp hands on the knees of my jeans.

  “Okay.” He presses a button and then picks up a narrow notebook. “Today is November twenty-seventh, and this is Detective Geiger talking with Adele Meeker.” He asks me my name, my date of birth, my address, my phone number.

  “Okay, Adele. How long have you known Tori Rasmussen? And can you tell me a little bit about your relationship with her?”

  “I’ve known her since kindergarten. In grade school, we were pretty tight, but as we got older, we drifted apart.”

  He scribbles down what seems to be a single word. I wish I could see what he wrote.

  “And before her death, how often on average would you say you saw or spoke to Tori?”

  “I probably saw her every day at school, you know, in the hall or something. But we didn’t talk that much.”

  “And how would you describe her?”

  In my mind’s eye, I see her laughing with a group of people, Luke�
�s arm around her shoulders. “She has—had—a lot of friends. She was popular. But she was smart, too. And funny.”

  “You say she had a lot of friends. Did she have any enemies?”

  I hesitate. There are lot of people like me, people Tori teased, or cut off, or ignored. “I can’t think of anyone who would kill her.” And even when Tori finally accepted that she was dead, there was no one she pointed the finger at.

  Geiger taps his pen on his notebook. “Sometimes people can get pushed into doing something they never intended to. If emotions are running high, or if they are under the influence.”

  I nod, then realize I’m chewing on a fingernail. I pull my hand away from my mouth.

  “Why do you think Tori was killed?”

  “I have no idea.”

  “Was there anyone she was afraid of?”

  That’s easy. Tori wasn’t afraid of anyone or anything. Except for being left alone in the woods forever. “No.”

  The detective makes another note. “If Tori were threatened, how do you think she would have reacted? Would she have fought back, or would she have tried to run away?”

  Tori has always been fierce. I’ve seen her argue with teachers. And once she cussed out Justin, even though he towered over her. “Fought.” But she didn’t have a chance, did she? I wince, thinking of the scratches on her throat, the marks left by her own fingers when she tried and failed to stop herself from dying.

  “What?” Geiger tilts his head.

  “Nothing.”

  “You told Mrs. Cox you were at the party Saturday night?”

  “Yeah.” Here it comes.

  “And did anything unusual happen at the party?” His expression is noncommittal. What did Luke say?

  “Well, Tori asked me to go. That was unusual. Because like I said, we weren’t that close anymore.”

  “Why do you think she asked you?”

  “She was in a really good mood that day. It was after class, and she was telling everyone about how her parents were going to be out of town the Saturday after Thanksgiving and she was going to have a party. And then she looked at me and said, ‘You should come, Adele.’”

  I had felt so proud to be asked. It had felt like another part of my new life was falling into place.

  “And how did Tori seem Saturday night?”

  “Happy. They have a karaoke machine, and she was killing it.” I half smile, remembering her exaggerated gestures. “And when she wasn’t singing, she was dancing.”

  “Was she drinking or using drugs?” The detective’s tone is matter-of-fact.

  “Drinking. But she wasn’t drunk. She didn’t like girls who throw up or pass out. She said she could drink as much as Luke and still keep going.”

  “And Luke—he’s her boyfriend?”

  “Yes.” We are circling closer and closer to the story I don’t want to tell.

  “Did anything else unusual happen at the party?” He knows. I can tell he knows.

  “Tori and I—we had a fight.”

  “What was it about?” His voice is calm, almost bored.

  “I kissed him. I kissed Luke. And then Tori found us. And she wasn’t happy.”

  THREE DAYS EARLIER

  SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 24, 8:10 P.M.

  EASY THERE, TIGER

  My hand trembled as I drew liner on my upper eyelid. Ten minutes earlier, Grandpa’s friend had picked him up to go bowling. He wouldn’t be back until midnight or later.

  The old me didn’t wear makeup. She never would have snuck out, never have gone to a party. But the new Adele was going to see what she’d been missing.

  Maybe I could even be friends with Tori again. Sure, she’d done some mean things to me, but I remembered how close we’d been as kids. Occasionally I still saw flashes of the old Tori. Sometimes I even got the feeling that deep inside she was just as lonely as me.

  I didn’t want to waste time walking or waiting for a bus, so I rode my bike. At Tori’s house, I hid it behind a hedge. Standing in the darkness, I unzipped my coat and flapped it, trying to cool down from the mostly uphill ride. As always, I was dressed in black, but tonight my mom’s antique silver locket was on the outside of my shirt, not nestled against my skin.

  The street was lined with cars. Tori’s three-story house, angular and modern, sat back from the street. Through the windows, I could see dozens of people.

  What was I doing here? No one had seen me yet. Maybe I should just get back on my bike and ride away.

  “Adele?”

  It was Luke. I hadn’t noticed him leaning against a tree. In his hand was a red cup. The light was behind him, leaving his face in shadow, but I would have recognized his voice or silhouette anywhere.

  My heart started beating faster than it had while I was riding my bike. “Oh, hey.” Was Luke wondering why I was here? “Umm, Tori invited me.”

  “Hmm,” Luke said, but I couldn’t tell if it was in agreement or surprise. “Then we should get you a drink.” He turned toward the house, and I followed.

  We had gone to different elementary and middle schools, so Luke hadn’t known me before high school. For people like him, I had always been the plump, quiet girl.

  I had been afraid all eyes would be on me when I walked in, but the opposite turned out to be true. The music was pounding, and people were focused on what was right in front of them—their Solo cups of beer and their shouted conversations. Perversely, I suddenly wished a hush had fallen, that people had looked up to see me with Luke.

  The only person who noticed was Laquanda. She was standing by herself, holding one of the ubiquitous red cups, a row of bracelets running up her arm. She raised one eyebrow, and I nodded back at her. I felt a tiny spike of joy. We weren’t exactly friends. But now that I had more energy, now that I was awake, maybe we could be.

  Luke showed me where to put my coat, so I added it to the pile draped over a chair. Then I followed him back to the crowded kitchen. The counter was littered with bottles and bags of tortilla chips that now contained mostly crumbs. On the floor a tub of ice held a stainless steel barrel. He filled a cup from the keg and handed it to me.

  While the walls had been painted new colors and the couch we’d walked by wasn’t the same one from a half dozen years ago, so much of Tori’s house still felt like my home away from home. I knew the location of the four bathrooms. I was sure if I opened the freezer door, there would still be neat stacks of low-calorie frozen dinners, plus a hidden pint or two of Ben & Jerry’s. Tori and I always ate them, knowing her mom wouldn’t complain because the ice cream wasn’t supposed to be there.

  After taking the cup from Luke, I immediately drank half of it, trying not to wince at the sourness. My thoughts flicked to the basement. If I walked downstairs, would I still see the parakeet? But I didn’t really want to know. I just wanted to be a normal girl at a normal party. Doing all the things I had missed out on for years. Like talking to a beautiful boy.

  Only what should I talk about? “How’d you do on the test?” I asked, then wanted to kick myself. Luke didn’t want to talk about our history class. But I couldn’t imagine what he did want to talk about.

  As I waited for his answer, I tried not to gawk, like how staring at a solar eclipse will ruin your eyes forever. Luke’s own eyes were as green as a cat’s. His jaw was square. His brows were horizontal lines that angled up at the ends. Lighter strands, left over from summer, threaded through his brown hair, which was swept straight back.

  “Okay, I think—a B. Maybe an A minus.” He smiled then, the right corner of his mouth lifting higher. “I just wish I’d been born a thousand years ago.” His lips were shaped like a valentine. There was an extra dimple on the right side of his mouth.

  “Why?”

  He leaned closer, and my heart stilled. “Because then there would be a lot less to study for class.”

  It was kind of a stupid joke, but I didn’t care. At all. I just laughed.

  His gaze dropped. “I like your necklace.”

 
“It’s a locket.” I touched it. “It’s been in my family for a long time.” When my grandpa told me my mom was gone, I hadn’t believed him. Not until he handed me her locket.

  Luke bent down to look at it. I sucked in my breath and then hoped he hadn’t noticed. His thick fingers closed on it and lifted it. “It’s heavy! And what’s the design?”

  “Mostly flowers. With a tiny bird in the center.”

  Luke thumbed the catch. On one side was a black-and-white photo of my grandma wearing a pearl choker and matching earrings. Her short black hair showed off her strong brows and high cheekbones. Around her shoulders was a white wrap or stole or some other piece of clothing no one wore anymore. She died when I was in the first grade, and by that time she didn’t look anything like that picture.

  On the other side was my mom. It was the only photo I had of her. My grandpa claimed he didn’t have more. And he was probably telling the truth, because I’d looked.

  In it, my mom had the same dark hair as her mom, the same heart-shaped face and deep-set eyes. She wore a black turtleneck and lipstick that set off the bow of her mouth.

  Luke’s eyes looked back and forth from the photos to me. “Whoever they are, you really look like them,” he said.

  “It’s my mom and my grandma. They’re both dead.” It came out blunter than I had intended.

  “I’m sorry.” He gently closed the locket and then let it go. It thumped on my sternum. Inside my chest, my heart was beating just as hard. To hide my nervousness, I drained the rest of my beer.

  Luke held out his hand for my empty cup and refilled it. “Easy there, tiger,” he said as he handed it back.

  I was so focused on Luke that it was a shock when Tori came up behind him and slipped her arm around his waist. “Just don’t throw up, Adele! Especially on my mom’s carpet. I can’t stand girls who can’t hold their liquor.” She tugged Luke by the hand. “Come watch me. I want to sing!”

  Not knowing what else to do, I followed the two of them into the living room. Tori pushed some buttons on a console, and the music changed to a driving beat and guitars, but no vocals. Then she grabbed up a cordless mic and began to sing that old Journey song about a small-town girl. She danced in place, shaking her hips, adding gestures and dramatic expressions. All eyes were on her. Including Luke’s.