Life Is Short and Then You Die

by Kelley Armstrong

  She shrugged and followed the women.

  I made myself approach the detective. He held his coffee mug in his palm as if to steal its warmth.

  “Detective Jaggers,” he said. “Are you SimDawg? From the online baseball league? I spoke to your friend Christa on the phone.”

  I had a reputation. “I think I can track down the guy who was threatening Ronan.”

  “Christa already told us about the threats from this PhillyFreak. But you can’t trace an Instagram user.”

  “PhillyFreak also had to register on the site when he joined. That means I have his IP address. We can trace it back to his service provider, and the service provider can find his location.”

  The detective studied my face. I wondered if he read the multicolored markings there as evidence that I was too young to know anything, or, on the other hand, as evidence that I was a loner and therefore likely obsessed with computers, and reliable. I used my phone to call up the administrative version of my site. I showed him the IP address attached to PhillyFreak’s registration.

  Jaggers took down the number. “Why would a kid get murdered over a virtual baseball league? Explain that. Then call me.” He handed me his card.

  Christa appeared in the bedroom door. “SimDawg! Get in here.”

  7.

  Ronan’s bedroom was a museum of baseball memorabilia—stacks of balls in plastic globes, each with a scribble representing the human touch of some ballplayer; display-cased jerseys, some gloriously stained with dirt or sweat; baseball caps dangling from hooks in the wall; baseball cards in protective sheaths; bobbleheads; and more.

  “Isn’t it beautiful?” Christa said.

  Ronan had built a private world out of baseball fantasies, just as I had. Was it beautiful? Maybe, if it had given his lonely life a purpose.

  “All his money went to his collection,” his mother said. “But no one else ever really appreciated it. And then he met Christa!”

  “You should’ve hung out with us, SimDawg.”

  Mounted on a plastic pedestal was a limp baseball glove labeled KEITH HERNANDEZ, 1985. Ronan’s mother picked it up and offered it to me like a plateful of Oreos.

  “Touch it!” Christa urged. “It’s game used!”

  The two women gazed lovingly and gratefully at Christa. The mother whispered, “She loves the collection almost as much as he did!”

  “How did you meet Ronan?” I asked Christa.

  “We messaged after he won your championship. We met at a Starbucks, and then he took me home to meet his collection—and also his mom and grandmom.”

  They hooted at this.

  “Could I see a picture of him?”

  His mother held up her phone to show her lock-screen photo. Ronan’s cheeks were a little gerbilly and his nostrils ornamented with twin bouquets of nose hair, but otherwise he looked normal. Whatever scars or flaws he carried, they went deeper down. No doctor could have fixed them, but the right person—a girlfriend, boyfriend, whoever—could have made them easier to live with. And now he’d never find that person.

  I always assumed that when I got older I would move away, get a job, gather real-life buddies and a girlfriend, enjoy my freedom and my clear face. But Ronan proved that there was no guarantee. You can be lonely all your life.

  “I supposed we should sell the collection.” The mother swept her hand over the room. “We don’t want to. But we can’t care for it properly.”

  Christa picked up the Hernandez glove.

  “We might,” the mother added, “give the collection away. To someone who really appreciated it.”

  Christa nodded as she caressed the glove.

  I felt my face grow suddenly hot, not with embarrassment (for a change) but fear. Christa was sweet, understanding, clever, obsessed with baseball. She seemed perfect to me—she would’ve seemed perfect to Ronan, too.

  But what if she was only pretending to laugh at my jokes? Maybe secretly I disgusted her. Maybe Ronan disgusted her, too. People can hide their thoughts when you meet them, just as they can hide their identities online. There was evil in the world. Ronan’s murder proved that.

  If his killer knew about my sim league, he—or she—might have invented PhillyFreak and faked the threats to put investigators off the trail. Christa knew the sim league. And she had something to gain.

  I had no evidence. But I knew how to get it.

  “We’d better go,” I said. “We’ve got the league meet-up, remember?”

  Ronan’s mother and grandmother hugged us again and said goodbye. The detective had already left.

  Out on the sidewalk, I said to Christa, “Can we stop at your place before the meet-up?”

  “I dunno. My dad’ll be there.”

  “I need a computer. To get started on the week’s simulation.”

  “For real?” Christa’s stare went right to the bottom of my eyes. For once, I was more afraid of what she’d find there than in my face. “You want to sim—at my place?”

  She was all for it. On the way, I texted the detective.

  8.

  Christa’s dad jumped up from the sofa when we came in. It was as if he suspected that I was plotting against his daughter. Which I was.

  “SimDawg needs to use my laptop, Dad,” Christa said. “He’s a computer genius.”

  “That I believe.” As he stared at my face, I could see the telltale wandering of his eyes.

  Christa could, too. She grabbed my hand and hauled me to her bedroom. This was what other kids did—slip away with some girl to a private room. But only normal-looking kids. Christa—at best—felt sorry for me. At worst, she was cozying up to distract me from my suspicions.

  If only I was normal-looking. Then I could forget my suspicions and insecurities and simply enjoy the astonishing full-body sensation of a girl’s hand in my own.

  She let go and snapped open her laptop. We heard heavy steps pounding down the hallway.

  “He’s afraid I’m losing my virginity,” she said. “Hold on.”

  She darted out the door. I could hear harsh whispers outside. I bent to the laptop, confirmed the internet connection, and accessed her router’s IP address.

  My worst fears always prove to be justified. Bus riders really are staring at me. Girls really do feel sorry for me. And Christa’s IP address really was the same as PhillyFreak’s. That meant that PhillyFreak’s threats on Ronan’s life, the ones that had proved so accurate, had come from this router. This house.

  When Christa returned, I made myself stare at her face, which I would normally never dare to do, for fear of provoking someone to stare back. Her skin, flushed with the intensity of whatever she’d been hissing at her dad, was free of even the lightest blemish. How can you trust someone like that?

  “What’s wrong, SimDawg? Are you thinking of Ronan’s mom? I was. Ronan was her only kid. I’m an only, too.”

  “Me too.”

  “Yeah? I think having just one makes parents crazy. They love us too much to think straight.”

  “Christa, I have to ask you something.”

  As soon as I said it, I knew she’d misunderstand.

  She folded her hands, as if to prevent herself from touching me. “SimDawg, we gotta keep the relationship professional. For the integrity of the league.” Her smile was gentle and sympathetic.

  For an instant, my suspicions and fears dropped away, and I felt only disappointed at her preemptive rejection, and at the same time grateful that she had kept herself from laughing or groaning at my supposed confession of love. And then I felt angry and ashamed. Because why should I be grateful for simple decency?

  And then those feelings faded, too. Christa wasn’t asking for gratitude. She was just being herself—kind, generous, and good-humored, even when she had to disappoint me. She deserved my respect, not my resentment, for this part of her nature, at least.

  I heard more footsteps outside.

  “My dad’s listening in,” Christa whispered. “He freaks out over every friend I ever
bring over. Every guy, I mean. Except Ronan, in the end.”

  “When did he change his mind about Ronan?” I asked.

  “Just last week really—after months of being a total jackass about him! But that’s a good sign, SimDawg. It may take a while for you, too, but it’ll happen. We can be friends.” She repeated the last word for emphasis.

  And now I knew.

  The doorbell rang. We heard her mother’s voice in the distance, and then more footsteps down the hall. Christa’s door opened.

  Detective Jaggers was there.

  Christa’s father was right behind him. “What’s he doing here?”

  “The kid says he knows who was threatening Ronan Blitstein,” Jaggers said.

  Christa’s father shook his head in confusion. “You mean the maniac from Philadelphia?”

  “PhillyFreak’s not from Philadelphia,” I said. “Detective, you already wrote down PhillyFreak’s IP address. Now look at this.” I showed Jaggers Christa’s laptop. “That’s the local IP address. Same number. PhillyFreak lives right here.”

  Jaggers checked his notebook.

  “SimDawg?” Christa asked.

  My first new friend in years, and now she’d hate me forever. Her bed creaked as she sat down.

  “The same,” Jaggers said.

  “Are you saying my daughter sent those threats?” her father demanded.

  “No,” I said. “I’m saying you sent them.”

  The detective tucked the laptop under his arm. Evidence.

  “The IP address identifies the router,” I explained, “not the device. Any computer in this house could have sent the messages. PhillyFreak joined the league a week ago and started threatening Ronan just a few days after. He was always planning the murder. He wanted the police to assume the killer was from Philadelphia. Not here.”

  “The kid’s a liar,” Christa’s father said. “Look at him. He’s diseased.”

  “Christa, you told me your dad changed his mind about Ronan a week ago. That’s when PhillyFreak joined the league. We know Ronan was an unusual guy, a thirty-something baseball nut with no friends. We know your dad is nervous. Ronan creeped your dad out. He wanted you to keep away. But you’re not the type of girl to follow rules. Your dad decided the only way to keep you safe was to eliminate Ronan completely. We know Ronan was coming to your house when he was murdered. Your dad knew he was coming, didn’t he?”

  “I—I told him,” Christa said. “I always tell him.”

  The detective asked Christa’s father: “Where were you that night?”

  “Out. With friends.”

  Christa’s voice was cold: “You said you were working.”

  “If it wasn’t you who sent those threats,” Jaggers said, “it was someone else in this house. Your wife. Your daughter.”

  Christa’s father slumped against the wall. “Wasn’t them.”

  “Was it you?”

  “Who else would protect her?”

  Jaggers pulled out his handcuffs.

  “I’m sorry, Christa,” I said.

  “Just leave, SimDawg.”

  9.

  So I left, just as ugly and alone as when I climbed on the bus that morning. Half a dozen kids about my age were standing on the sidewalk by Christa’s stoop.

  “Should we try knocking again?” one of them asked.

  “You knock,” said another.

  They all turned to me as I trudged down the steps.

  “Is Christa in there?” The questioner was a chubby teen whose rectangular glasses formed the only straight lines on his moonish face.

  “Yeah, but she’s busy.”

  “Are you SimDawg?”

  I nodded.

  One of them gasped; the others grinned.

  A gawky, freckled kid in desperate need of a comb bounced up on his toes. “SimDawg! I’m PinstripePlayuh!”

  The bolder ones shouted their handles and crowded forward for half-hugs and high fives; the others hung back and chanted “SimDawg” or “Commish.”

  A police cruiser rolled down the street, and two cops jumped out and lumbered past us, up the stoop, and inside.

  The Worldwide Virtual Baseball League members went quiet.

  “They’re arresting the guy who killed RonanB,” I said.

  “What happened?” PinstripePlayuh asked.

  I told them the whole story. When I was done, PinstripePlayuh laid a hand on my shoulder. “Are they sitting shiva again tomorrow?”

  “I think so.”

  “Then let’s all go. Support Ronan’s family. League members stand up for each other. Right, SimDawg?”

  We agreed. The chubby kid suggested we present them with a plastic trophy in commemoration of Ronan’s championship. We liked that idea, too.

  We all walked back to the subway and bus stop together, telling stories about the league and ourselves. A few people glanced around my face, but I didn’t mind.

  I took everyone’s real-life name and cell number, to arrange the meet-up tomorrow and others in the future. I usually hate selfies, but I admit I took a few with them before we parted. Mostly to show my mom.

  A KILLER STORY

  By Julie Tollefson

  Drought-scorched grasses disintegrate beneath my feet as I lean into Suicide Hill. Halfway to the top, my thighs burn. My lungs scream for a break. The full heat of August pushes against me, but I push back harder.

  With every strike of my foot, the betrayals of summer rise like puffs of dust from the trail and fuel my drive to the peak of the high school’s grueling cross-country course.

  Strike. Ethan’s “I spent the summer in Europe and you didn’t” smirk.

  Strike. Celeste’s sudden and total devotion to summer youth theater, to the exclusion of everything else, even me.

  Strike. And the new journalism advisor, Ms. Compton? She of the too-short shorts and too-tight tank top? Gutless.

  I grind each insult under the heels of my teal-and-fuchsia running shoes. Inhale fury. Exhale resolve.

  Senior year begins in two days, and I am sitting on an explosive story that will set the district on fire. Tantalizing. Provocative. Absolutely true. Journalism gold. If only I can convince Ethan, The Beat’s editor-in-chief, and Ms. Compton to let me pursue it.

  I push myself harder on the final strides up Suicide Hill, the steepest part before I earn a break at the top, but can’t blot out the incredulous look on Ethan’s face when I told him this morning that I want to expose student drinking on campus and worse, that our beloved drama teacher knows about it.

  I fly past the cedar tree that marks the crest of Suicide Hill. Goal achieved. I bend over and gasp for breath. Sweat streams down my back and I swallow hard against bile rising at the back of my throat. It would be so easy to collapse here, to give in to the gravity that tugs at my noodle-weak legs, but I straighten, put my hands on top of my head, the way coach taught us, and take slow steps in a wide circle.

  I won’t let this story drop. To ignore what I’ve seen would be a betrayal of my principles.

  On my second turn past the cedar, I glimpse something so out of place I stumble to a halt in disbelief. A pair of legs poke out of a clump of waist-high little bluestem and twists of poison ivy.

  What happens next is a blur. I somehow manage to call 911, and the next thing I know, cops swarm the trail. I’m bombarded with questions but can’t think clearly enough to answer intelligently. Finally, my mother arrives to take me home, but as we leave, one of the cops calls out to stop us. In a gloved hand, he waves a flip-flop, a lime green thong with a yellow sunburst on its black rubber sole.

  “Does this belong to you?”

  I look from the flip-flop to my dust-caked running shoes. The question is ludicrous. At this time of year, after a summer of neglect, the cross-country trail is rugged, not yet worn down by the daily assault of dozens of teenage runners. Jagged rocks lurk under mats of weeds. Sticks and branches lie in wait to trip inattentive runners. Last year, I ruined a new pair of Nikes when the stump of
a sunflower as thick as a small tree branch burst through the sole of my shoe and barely missed puncturing my foot. It would be stupid to attempt to climb Suicide Hill in flip-flops.

  I shake my head and let my mother lead me away.

  * * *

  An unnatural hush smothers halls that should be crowded with laughter and reunions and lost freshmen trying to find their classes and fellow seniors counting the days until we can put high school behind us forever. This … pall, that’s the word, hangs over everything. The WELCOME TIGERS sign sags, its orange a little less cheery than most years. Teachers cluster in twos and threes, only a few even attempt to smile.

  As I pass, students whisper. “She’s the one…”

  “… Mr. Kendall…”

  “… can’t imagine…”

  Mr. Kendall, last year’s state teacher of the year and the target of my big exposé on student drinking, is dead, and I found his body hidden in the weeds at the top of Suicide Hill.

  I hunch my shoulders against the curious stares, but I don’t know what to do with the toxic mix of fear and rage and guilt that bubbles in my veins. I didn’t even like him, so why should his death make me feel so, so bad?

  Ms. Compton waits outside her classroom, one of the few teachers who offers a smile as she greets students, though her smile is tense and her greeting is little more than a tight nod. Her welcome speech is almost word for word the same talk she gave seniors two days ago in a painful get-to-know-each-other breakfast. Standard teacher bullshit, but her delivery barely breaks from monotone.

  At the end, she gives Ethan the stage and slumps into her chair, as if she has a limited supply of perkiness and now she’s drained. I already miss Mr. Ornelas, my favorite teacher three years running. Why couldn’t he wait one more year to retire?

  Ethan’s summer in Europe agreed with him. He’s taller and stronger and more confident than the Ethan of last spring. The Mediterranean blue of his shirt reflects the deep color of his eyes, and he’s tamed his wild dark brown hair into something resembling a modern style. But he hasn’t reined in his nervous energy. His fingers drum on his thighs as he talks.