Ravi is focused on the preacher and misses the entire interaction—if I can even call it that—and I’m grateful for that small mercy at least. The last thing I need is for Ravi to go all knight-in-shining-armor at our friend’s funeral.
I find myself wishing for another task, another person to search for, anything that could take my attention away from the sound of crying and the reality of the situation. The choking odor of incense has made its way to the rear of the church, and it feels like it’s infecting my lungs.
When Kylie’s best friend, Anna Torres, steps up to the pulpit to read a poem, Ravi’s fingers twine into mine, and something hard and crinkly presses between our palms. I accept the mystery object—a green apple Jolly Rancher—and unwrap it gratefully. The pungent apple-shampoo scent of it helps to chase away the stink of incense. I pocket the wrapper and find Ravi’s hand again. Our fingers lace together and stay that way until the end.
The number of mourners swells between the church and the reception, and the function room at Giovanni’s, where a buffet is being set up along one wall, is overflowing. Mourners spill into the restaurant itself, especially the men. Groups of middle-aged dads hug the bar, looking simultaneously horrified at the Augers’ loss and grateful that it isn’t their own daughters being buried.
Ravi removes his tie, stuffs it in his pocket, and undoes the top button of his starched shirt. “So, who are we looking for?” The hair at his temples is damp with sweat. “It’s bloody hot in here.”
“You’ll survive.” I pat his arm. “We still need to talk to Owen and Jacob and the person who saw her last.”
“Oh, hey.” Ravi waves to someone behind me. “Sorry, it’s Ms. Larson. There was eye contact; I couldn’t ignore her. Okay, so Jacob, Owen, last known sighting. Got it.”
“And anything we can pick up about manner of death. This might not be the best venue for this, but people will be talking. We just need to listen.”
We split up, circulating through the room. I absorb snippets of conversations as I walk, slowing when something sounds important, but it isn’t until I reach the table where Kylie’s grandmother sits that I actually stop.
The old lady has a small, puckered mouth and the same sharp blue eyes as Kylie. “Don’t you dare talk to me about sin,” she says, jabbing a finger at the two women sitting with her. A near-empty tumbler of amber liquid is on the table before her. “My granddaughter was not suicidal. Not for an instant.”
“It’s teens these days.” One of the other women clucks her tongue. “Such horrible decisions they make, putting Lord knows what poisons into their bodies with no regard for their families or their own immortal souls. It’s just so sad. I blame society, I really do.”
“My granddaughter’s death was an accident. Her immortal soul has nothing to worry about. I don’t need you old biddies acting like you know more about my family than I do. My daughter’s doing enough of that for everyone.”
I don’t even pretend I’m not eavesdropping. When silence falls on the trio’s conversation, I square my shoulders and introduce myself. “I couldn’t help overhearing what you said about Kylie’s death being an accident.”
Kylie’s grandmother shoots a smug look at her tablemates. “It’s just awful, isn’t it, dear? How everyone’s spreading such terrible rumors?”
I nod sympathetically.
“And so few real answers,” the grandmother continues as the other two women excuse themselves. “I blame that school. What were they thinking, letting her muck about in that auditorium by herself with no supervision at all?” Her voice thickens with tears, but she doesn’t cry.
“I’m so sorry for your loss, Mrs. Auger—”
“Oh, dear, Maggie is fine.”
“Maggie, I’m so sorry to ask you this, but it might help me move on. It’s so hard to have closure when we don’t even know how she died. I keep imagining such horrible things.” The lump that rises in my throat on that last sentence betrays the truth of it, and I have to swallow hard to keep from choking. Set it aside. Get the story.
Kylie’s grandmother lays a wrinkled hand on top of mine. “The police don’t know,” she says. “They’re calling it an accidental overdose because of the needle marks, but they can’t tell us what the drug was yet, so it’s technically still pending. They’re doing some sort of specialized testing at the state lab, and the waiting is just dreadful.” She shakes her head, the bitterness—or denial—twisting her mouth into a hard frown. “It’s maddening her poor mother.”
The words hit like a kick in the gut. More needle marks? So the killer is consistent, then, which makes sense. Once a murderer finds a method they like, they don’t usually switch it up.
Over Maggie’s shoulder, I see Kylie’s mother marching toward us and try to work out a tactful way to ask when the last time she saw her daughter was, but the younger Mrs. Auger doesn’t give me a chance.
“You,” she snarls. Her hands clench into knobby fists at her sides. “How dare you show your face here?”
Kylie’s grandmother clucks her tongue and raises a hand, palm out. “Maura, leave the girl alone. She’s been through enough.”
Mrs. Auger is mere feet away, and I rise, taking a step away from the table. I have no idea what I’ve done to upset her, but Kylie’s mother looks dangerously unhinged. “Mrs. Auger, I’m so—”
“Don’t you ‘Mrs. Auger’ me.” Her breath is sharp with wine fumes. “You think I don’t know who you are? This is your fault, you know.”
“What? No. I-I’m sorry,” I stammer, my brain whirring ahead of my tongue as I try to get a fix on what’s going on.
“You’re the reason my girl is dead!” Mrs. Auger’s wrath draws stares from surrounding tables, and silence spreads like a sickness through the crowd.
The accusation roots me to the floor. I’m stunned into silence.
“Her death was an accident, Maura,” Kylie’s grandmother says, but no one acknowledges her.
“There was a note, Mother! You don’t accidentally leave a note!” She jabs a finger at me. “It’s you and that goddamn Monitor. You think my daughter didn’t tell me what was going on in her life? Well, she did. I know all about how bitter you were about missing out on your little internship and how you need some big story to win a prize. But nothing ever happens in this Podunk town, so you had to make your own news. Like you haven’t done that before. Kylie told me all about your little ‘senior curse’”—she hooks exaggerated air quotes around the phrase—“but there is no curse, and you know it. And when poor Emma Morgan died, you saw a golden opportunity, didn’t you? You could make your own curse.”
Blood roars in my ears.
Mrs. Auger sways, unsteady on her feet, but manages to stab a finger into my chest. The force of her rage rocks me back a step. “You published all those stories about Emma and how tragic her loss was, like she was the only one in the world who mattered, knowing that that kind of attention would encourage others to follow in her footsteps. You wanted them to. And my Kylie, who only wanted to be friends with you, who was only worth your time when she was giving you stories, paid the ultimate price. Is she worth your time now? Is my girl worth a story yet?”
I have no comeback, no words at all, because I can barely comprehend the onslaught of anger and accusations being hurled at me. Had I treated Kylie the way Mrs. Auger claimed? I’d thought it was the other way around, but maybe I’d misread things.
“Did you encourage her? What did you say to her that led her down this path?” Spittle flies from Mrs. Auger’s mouth as tears rain down her cheeks. “Did you tell her what drugs Emma used? Because the police can’t even figure that out. But they will. My little girl has never touched a drug in her life, and now she’s covered in needle marks? It’s not right. If you have a shred of human decency in you, you’ll tell the police what the drug was and where it came from. You owe us that. Your story wasn’t worth the price of my daughter’s life, you selfish little shit.”
Footsteps pound behind me, and Ra
vi’s voice cuts through the air, demanding to know what’s going on. I stumble as someone pushes past me, not realizing it’s Mrs. B until she wraps Mrs. Auger in a hug that forcibly turns the furious woman away from me. “Maura, Maura. Shh now,” she soothes. Mrs. B meets my eyes over her friend’s shoulder and tilts her chin toward the exit, a signal to leave that I can’t obey because my feet are still frozen to the floor.
I jolt at a hand on my back, but it’s only Ravi saying, “Let’s go.”
I allow him to lead me away, aware of all the eyes that follow our retreat and unable to set the scrutiny aside. I soak up the stares like a sponge, and they water the seed of doubt that has planted itself in my belly.
Ravi drives in silence, and I love him for it. He goes through the Dunkin’ drive-thru and orders a tooth-rottingly sweet iced coffee that I don’t have to ask for. He lets me finish half of it before asking, “What the hell was that about?”
I shake my head. I have nothing resembling an answer.
“I mean, I heard what it was about. Everyone heard, but holy shit. Now we know where Kylie got her dramatic streak.”
I let miles go by without answering. Doubt blossoms into a writhing thing inside me. I don’t want to give voice to it, but I can’t help it. I have to know. “Was she right?”
“What?” Ravi’s head snaps around, along with the wheel of the car. He rights the car and returns his eyes to the road before saying, “You’re kidding, right?”
“I don’t know. She could’ve been right.”
“About which bit?”
“Any of it.” I use the straw to stab at the ice in my cup. My cheeks scorch with shame at the possibility of how badly I might’ve fucked up. “All of it.”
“Talk,” Ravi orders when I lapse back into silence.
“Okay, so if you’d asked me a year ago, or even last week, what I thought of Kylie Auger, I’d have called us…casual friends. More than acquaintances, but less than you and me.”
“That’s fair.”
“But what if she really did think we were proper friends, like you and me. But I didn’t. What if she really did tell her mom how awful I was? What if, in her mind, I really was just using her? I think every conversation we’ve had has been story related.” The next admission is hard to say, even to Ravi. “I sent her eight texts before her body was found and not even one was asking if she was all right.”
“Don’t do that. Don’t torture yourself with this. You can’t know or control what was going on in her head.” He pulls in to my driveway and turns the engine off. “If you had asked me, I would’ve called us acquaintances too. And I think Kylie would’ve as well. Her mom was probably just looking for someone to blame, and you were who she latched on to.”
“But if she’s right—”
“Which she’s not.”
“But if she is, and I really did make Kylie feel like shit… What if she really did kill herself?”
The doubt grows like ivy until it’s twined around my every thought. If I was wrong about Kylie, what else have I been wrong about?
The day after the funeral, I’m the topic on everyone’s lips, and the Monitor’s inbox overflows with requests for the whole scoop on the funeral fight. The gossip mill has turned it from the horror show it was into a physical confrontation with blows exchanged and police involvement.
I almost write the story just to set the record straight and stop the speculation, but I don’t. I tell stories; I don’t star in them. In the days I lose to doubt, I wonder if I even belong in journalism at all.
But stories are in my blood, and they’re what keeps me going. Even as I back off from the murder investigation, I pour myself into the I Am Maplefield project. I corral the missing students, personally march them to 331, and conduct detailed interviews with the ones sharing the most interesting statements. And then doubt worms its way into that too, because who am I to decide what’s interesting? Isn’t the kid who wrote I Am Lactose Intolerant every bit as story-worthy as the one who said I Am Hiding Every Day?
“I think we should merge projects,” I announce after our very last holdout—a junior who held her I Am Camera Shy confession so that it completely blocked her face—is gone. “I want to do write-ups of everyone we shot and tell their stories.”
“Bullshit you do,” Ravi says. “And we still have to do our shots, by the way. Then we’ll literally have the entire school.”
I allow myself a moment to revel in the awesomeness of that fact. It’s hard enough to get the entire school to do something required, like show up for ID pictures, never mind something that was one hundred percent optional. But once people started hearing about the project, they wanted to add their voices to the collective. Even the rebels and the apathetics had turned up, offering gems like I Am A Potato and I Am Trying Not To Fart.
With Mrs. Auger’s accusations still ringing in my ears, I’m overcome with a rush of affection for the people who stood before Ravi’s camera and bared pieces of their souls. I want the world to know who they are. They deserve that. Kylie deserved that.
Ravi checks the time on his phone. “We’ll have to do ours later. We gotta get to the shop before Dad has an aneurysm.”
We agreed to help Mr. B with four hundred specialty donuts for a wedding, and if I’m honest, I’m craving the distraction.
The four hundred donuts turn into five hundred by the time we don our aprons. They’re all cake donuts, five flavors total, baked and ready for decoration. Mr. B leaves the sketch he did with the bride, barely explaining the scribbled image, before disappearing out front to deal with customers, cursing his regular afternoon counter girl for calling out as he goes.
I gather bowls of white icing for dipping while Ravi arranges the various sprinkles, rock sugars, and edible bling we’ll need. The sketch leaves a lot to the imagination, but after a few false starts, we fall into a rhythm. We work in companionable silence, and I’m finally able to set aside the feelings that have plagued me since the funeral.
At least until Ravi ruins it.
He’s focused on swirling his donut through the icing, letting the excess drip off in tendrils, when he says, “You’re not hijacking my project because Kylie’s mom fucked with your head.”
My hand freezes above a donut, grip tightening on the paintbrush I’ve got loaded with edible glitter. “I’m not hijacking your project.” I tap the brush harder than I mean to, and a massive clump of glitter lands in a blob on the icing. “Shit,” I mutter, blowing on it to try to spread it out.
“You are.” Ravi sets the iced donut on a tray for me to decorate. “And I get it.”
I give up on the glitter blob and add a few extra sprinkles to cover it up. No one will notice. “I am not. I just think I was shortsighted in dismissing the idea of human-interest profiles being important.”
“More important than a murder investigation?”
Heat floods up my neck, but my hands don’t slow. “Possible murder investigation, you mean.” I add a swirl of sanding sugar to the icing with more care than is required.
“Bullshit. What about Emma’s feet?”
“I don’t know.” I try to acknowledge and set aside my rising anxiety.
“You do know. If you want to give up this investigation because the facts tell you you’re off course, fine—admit defeat and move on. But don’t you dare quit because someone tried to make you her whipping girl. The Kennedy I know is better than that.”
The heat spreads from my neck to my temples, and my hand shakes when I pick the glitter brush back up. “The cops don’t think there’s anything to investigate.”
“Because they’re morons.” Ravi slams the donut he has onto the tray. “You saw something. You convinced me that what you saw mattered. I don’t think you’re wrong about this, and if you give up now, you’re not only letting someone get away with murder, you’re pissing all over Emma and Kylie’s memory. And you’re better than that.”
“That’s not fair.”
“Life’s not fai
r. I’m not going to watch you throw all your work away over one stupid conversation.”
I finish the donut I’m working on, stalling because I’m embarrassed to admit what I’m feeling even to Ravi. Finally, I just blurt it out: “She might’ve been right. I might be responsible for what happened to Kylie—at least a little bit.”
“And I might be the sexiest man on the planet. Fuck ‘might.’ What you do know is that your gut is telling you that Emma was murdered. Then Kylie dies and you, Miss Morally-Opposed-to-Coincidence, are just going to back off? Bull. Shit.”
“What do you want me to do?” I’m dangerously close to tears and grab another donut, desperate for something to occupy my hands.
Ravi slaps the edge of the stainless steel tabletop. “Investigate, dammit. Tell the story. That’s what you do,” he says. “It’s who you are.”
We decorate the next two dozen donuts in blistering silence. The doubt might be a cancer infecting my brain, but Ravi’s words are radiation, shrinking it enough to focus.
“How do we know Emma was murdered?” Ravi asks, voice low and even, as conversational as if he were inquiring about the weather.
“Her feet,” I answer. “They were clean, and she was in a forest. They should’ve been dirty.”
“What else?”
“She wasn’t suicidal. She was planning for the future. She was actively engaging in life.”
“What else?”
“The texts she sent to Vic were off, and the note. They didn’t sound like her.”
“What about Kylie?”
“She wasn’t suicidal either, and her note was too vague, like Emma’s was. She would have left a manifesto if she’d done it herself.”
“What else?”
Something in me starts to thaw. My hands move faster over the donuts, sugar and glitter flying. “Kylie’s grandma swore she wasn’t suicidal. And even if she were, she went to church. She’d have thought it was a sin.”
Bury the Lead Page 18
