A Line in the Dark

by Malinda Lo

  DC: Why?

  AR: She didn’t know anyone, and I was busy with Margot, so . . . she was kind of on her own.

  DC: Okay. Jess and Ryan are in the kitchen. How did you know they were fighting?

  AR: It was obvious. Ryan was telling Jess to take back what she said about her.

  DC: And what was that?

  AR: I didn’t hear it directly but Jess accused Ryan of cheating on her boyfriend, and she said it basically right in front of him. Noah was at the party. It must have been awful to hear that. So I get why Ryan was mad.

  DC: When we talked to Noah, he said that Jess had a gun in the kitchen. Do you remember seeing that?

  AR: Um . . . yeah, now that you say that, um, yeah, I remember that. When I came inside she was holding this gun. It was gold, really shiny. It looked fake, really. I didn’t think it was important, that’s why I didn’t mention it. But I told Jess to put it down and that’s when I tried to get her to leave, but Margot apologized, and then we stayed a little longer.

  DC: Okay. Do you know where this gun came from?

  AR: No, I have no idea.

  DC: Were you curious? Did it seem surprising to see your best friend holding a gun?

  AR: Of course, but it was all—it was just a weird night, and I was upset with Margot and I just wanted to leave.

  DC: Okay. You said that you and Jess argued on the drive home. What was that about?

  AR: It was so stupid. She was so drunk, and I told her it was not okay for her to spread those rumors about Ryan when she couldn’t have any idea if it was true or not. She got really sick on the ride home. I had to pull over, and she threw up. I felt really bad for her. She does this sometimes. She drinks because she’s nervous, and I really worry about her.

  DC: Why do you think Jess couldn’t know if the rumor about Ryan was true or not?

  AR: Uh—I guess I just didn’t believe it. Jess doesn’t know Ryan. How could she possibly know anything like that about her?

  DC: We’re almost finished here, but I want to go back briefly to the moment you came back into the kitchen from the deck, when you saw Jess holding that gun. How do you think it looked to Margot?

  AR: To Margot? Um, I—I guess Margot was behind me, so she probably saw the same thing I did.

  DC: Can you walk me through that? Pretend that you’re Margot seeing the situation, and describe what you see.

  AR: Okay. If I’m Margot coming into the kitchen, I see Ryan and Jess at the island. Oh, there are some people behind them—some of their other friends. I don’t remember who. Maybe Noah. Noah and one other girl. So Margot comes into the kitchen, sees Ryan and Jess standing facing each other. I think the gun is in a box on the island between them. Ryan is telling Jess to take back what she said, that she would never cheat on Noah. And then Jess picks up the gun. She’s not pointing it at anyone, she just picks it up like she’s looking at it. And I—Margot sees me go over to Jess and tell her to put the gun down. Jess doesn’t do it at first so I take it out of her hands and put it back in the box. And then I—Margot sees me grab Jess’s hand and tell her we have to leave. And then we walk out of the kitchen, and Margot follows us. But she doesn’t follow us immediately—now, I remember. I think she probably stopped to talk to Ryan. Jess and I are already at the door, with our coats on, before Margot catches up to us. And then she apologizes for what she said to me. I thought she was—pretty sincere. So I forgave her. That’s all. Then I drove home with Jess, and when we got back, Jess went to her house and I went to bed.

  DC: Is there anything else you’d like to tell us? It’s not a trick question. I always ask everyone if there’s anything they want to say that we didn’t ask about. You’ve been really forthcoming and we appreciate it.

  AR: No, there’s nothing else I want to say.

  DC: Do you have any questions for us?

  AR: No.

  JR: I do. Does my daughter need a lawyer? I can get a lawyer.

  DC: That’s up to you, sir, but Angie’s only a witness at this point.

  JR: At this point. Is that going to change? She didn’t do anything. She lied to us, and that’s not going to go unpunished, but that’s all.

  DC: I can’t predict the future, Mr. Redmond, but as of now, your daughter is only a witness. It’s your right to consult with legal representation if you wish. Is there anything else I can answer for you?

  JR: No.

  DC: Then that concludes our interview.

  [End of recording]

  ANGIE REDMOND’S FACE IS PALE AS SHE LEAVES THE conference room, eyes downcast. As she brushes past Jess in the hallway, she shakes her head almost imperceptibly. Mr. Redmond nods to Mr. Wong as the two men pass each other. Jess says nothing and heads into the conference room with her father behind her.

  It looks nothing like a police interrogation room. The long oval table is made of polished dark wood, surrounded by wooden chairs imprinted with the Pearson Brooke crest. There is no lock on the door; there is no two-way mirror on the wall. There are three tall windows flanked by dark blue draperies overlooking the snowy quad, where footprints leave meandering trails across the white. Jess takes off her coat and hangs it on the back of a chair, then takes a seat with her back to the windows, facing the detectives. Her father sits beside her.

  “Mr. Wong, Miss Wong. Thank you for joining us today,” Cardoni says. She’s wearing small silver hoop earrings, the remnants of lipstick, and a slightly wrinkled, unfashionable blue suit with no lapels over a cream-colored shell. “We appreciate you coming in voluntarily,” she says. “As a reminder, you’re free to leave at any time.”

  Cardoni flips to a new page in her notebook and turns on a digital recorder set in the center of the table. Griffin gives Jess an encouraging smile. He’s dressed in a crisp dark gray suit over a light blue shirt and a dark blue tie that looks like it’s fresh off the rack.

  Jess side-eyes her father as Cardoni drones through the formalities. He is sitting up straight, frowning as he pays attention. Jess slouches back against her chair’s wooden spindles, draping her hands over the armrests.

  “. . . no detail is too small,” Cardoni is saying. “So please tell us everything you remember, starting with when you left for the party.”

  Jess blinks. “I . . . I didn’t really want to go. Angie wanted me to go. She made me promise to go with her, so I did.”

  The basic facts of the night are straightforward. Angie drove them to Marblehead. Jess had a terrible time while Angie disappeared upstairs with Margot. Jess drank too much and got sick on the way back. Angie and Jess argued, so Jess went home instead of spending the night at Angie’s house. Her story takes only a few minutes, and as she finishes, she glances at Griffin, who is spinning his pen through his fingers. Cardoni flips through her notes.

  “You haven’t mentioned Ryan,” Cardoni says. “How well did you know her?”

  “Not well.”

  “Had you met her before the party?”

  “Um, once or twice. We barely talked.”

  “We’ve spoken to several other people who were at the party,” Cardoni says, “who say that you argued with Ryan and made a very personal accusation at her.”

  Jess presses her back against the spindles of her chair, and the crossbar digs into her spine. “Is that what they say?”

  “Jessica, tell the truth,” Mr. Wong warns her.

  Cardoni’s eyes flicker to Mr. Wong, then back to Jess. “Can you tell us what happened? From your perspective?”

  Griffin shifts in his seat, eyeing his boss for a second, then scribbles something in his notebook.

  “Jessica?” Cardoni prompts.

  “From my perspective,” she says flatly, “Ryan was kind of a bitch to me. So I told her about some rumors I heard.”

  “What did she do?” Cardoni asks.

  “She was just a bitch. What does it matter?”
>
  “Watch your language,” Mr. Wong says.

  “You wanted the truth,” Jess shoots back.

  Mr. Wong exhales and shakes his head.

  Griffin leans forward and stops playing with his pen. “Let’s back up a little, okay? How about we walk through the party from the beginning again. You said you didn’t want to go to the party in the first place. Why did you go?”

  “Because Angie asked me to go,” Jess answers, looking at Griffin. “She’s my best friend.”

  He nods. “And you do that stuff for your best friend.”

  “Yeah.”

  “So it must have sucked to do this thing for your best friend—going all the way to this party where you don’t know anyone—and when you get there it’s totally boring, right?”

  “Yeah. It was a stupid party. All they were doing was drinking and watching videos.”

  Griffin laughs shortly, shakes his head. “Rich kids. What dumbasses.”

  Cardoni purses her lips but stays quiet.

  “If I were you, I would’ve gotten a couple of drinks right away,” Griffin notes with a slight smile.

  Jess eyes her father.

  “It’s completely normal,” Griffin assures her, keeping his gaze on her and not on Mr. Wong. “We’re not looking to bust anyone for drinking. You had a couple drinks, right?”

  Jess tucks her hands beneath her thighs and sits up slightly. “Yeah.”

  Mr. Wong rubs a hand over his eyes.

  “What was Angie doing while you were trying to survive this party?” Griffin asks.

  Jess fidgets. Her chair creaks. “She was with Margot. I didn’t see her for most of the party. I mean, I guess she and Margot were, you know, together.”

  Griffin nods blandly. “So what did you do while your best friend abandoned you?”

  Jess relaxes a little. “I walked around the house. It was a big house. That’s when I ran into Ryan. I went into an empty room and was just sitting there, minding my own business, and then Ryan came in and started talking to me, saying stuff that pissed me off. So I threw my drink at her.”

  “I bet that felt good,” Griffin says.

  Jess shrugs.

  “When you threw the drink at her, were there other people around?”

  “No. That was upstairs. It was just Ryan and me. That’s when she found the gun.”

  Cardoni pauses in her note taking and looks at Jess.

  “There was a gun?” Mr. Wong interjects.

  Jess ignores him.

  Griffin says, “The gun was upstairs?”

  “Yeah.”

  Griffin and Cardoni briefly trade glances.

  “It was in Margot’s mom’s room,” Jess says. “Ryan found it in the closet.”

  “How did that happen? Can you walk us through that?” Griffin asks.

  “Um, I was in Margot’s mom’s room. That’s where I was when Ryan came in. We were talking—or Ryan was saying that shit about—sorry—she was talking about how Margot’s mom’s decorating was trashy. She went into the walk-in closet and was looking around—I think she was looking for pills or something—and when she came out, she had the gun.”

  “What did it look like?” Griffin asks.

  “The gun? It was gold,” Jess says. “I remember it looked like a toy.”

  Cardoni says, “Several people saw the gun downstairs in the kitchen. How did it get downstairs?”

  “I don’t know. I don’t remember.”

  In the silence, the sound of Cardoni’s rollerball scraping across her notebook seems unnaturally loud.

  “Okay,” Griffin says. “Let’s go back a little. What happened after you threw the drink at Ryan upstairs?”

  “I left,” Jess says. “I went down to the kitchen. I think I got another drink. I wasn’t driving or anything.”

  “Do you know how many drinks you’d had by then?” Cardoni asks.

  Jess stiffens. “No.”

  Mr. Wong exhales loudly again.

  “When was the next time you talked to Ryan?” Griffin asks.

  “Um . . . later? I don’t know exactly when. It was in the kitchen. She—she came up to me and said—I can’t remember exactly what happened, I was—my memory’s a little fuzzy.” Jess rubs her damp palms over her jeans.

  Griffin nods. “Some people who were at the party say they saw you arguing with Ryan in the kitchen. Do you remember that?”

  “I remember yelling at Ryan. I was just really pissed about what she said to me, so I—I said I knew she was cheating on her boyfriend.”

  “How did you know that she was cheating?” Griffin asks.

  “Because I found these letters some guy had been writing to her. Love letters. The guy wasn’t her boyfriend.”

  Looking at Jess, Cardoni stops taking notes again.

  Griffin says, “Tell us more about the letters. What did they say? Where did you find them?”

  “They’re in the park. Ellicott Park. Ryan hid them in a bag under a log. I found them by accident last fall, when I was sketching in the park. I overheard Ryan and Margot talking about them nearby. So after they left, I went and read them. Ryan’s totally seeing some guy who’s not her boyfriend.”

  Jess pauses, watching the detectives watching her. Cardoni’s gaze is focused and sharp, like a mother alert for any hint of a lie; Griffin’s is open and expectant, like a friend’s.

  Jess says, “I think the guy Ryan was seeing is a teacher.”

  Griffin’s expression immediately tightens. “Where are the letters now?”

  “I don’t know, probably still in the woods.” Jess hesitates, then offers, “You want me to take you to them?”

  “That would be very helpful,” Griffin says. “How far away is the location?”

  “Not far. Like a ten- or fifteen-minute walk into the park.”

  “We would like to see the letters, but I have a couple more things to ask,” Cardoni says.

  Griffin looks impatient.

  “What?” Jess asks.

  “Did you touch the gun at Margot’s house?” Cardoni asks.

  “Did I touch it? I—” Jess’s forehead wrinkles. “I think I did. It looked like a joke, not a real gun.” She meets Cardoni’s gaze directly. “Why?”

  Cardoni doesn’t blink. “Did you see anyone else handle the gun? Besides you and Ryan?”

  Jess shakes her head. “I don’t remember.”

  “What did Ryan say to you that made you so upset?” Cardoni asks.

  Jess goes very still. Her fingers clutch the edge of her seat. “What does it matter?”

  “Just trying to get a full picture of what went on,” Cardoni says.

  “I don’t think it’s relevant,” Jess says.

  Griffin says, “It’s okay, it’s just between us.”

  Jess narrows her eyes at him. “Between us and the digital recorder.”

  He smiles tentatively. “And we’ll keep that private.”

  “Tell the truth, Jessica,” Mr. Wong says.

  Jess doesn’t look at her father. Cardoni continues to watch Jess calmly, pen in hand, while Griffin shifts in his seat. Finally Jess says, “Do you want to see the letters or not?”

  JESS’S FATHER DRIVES THEM BACK TO THEIR neighborhood in West Bedford, the detectives following in their sedan.

  A block away from their house Mr. Wong says, “You didn’t tell us about the gun.”

  Jess clenches her teeth. “I forgot.”

  “How could you forget about that?”

  She doesn’t respond. She stares out the window at the snow-covered houses, many still ornamented with sagging Christmas decorations.

  “Don’t lie again,” he says.

  “I’m not, Dad.”

  He shakes his head as he pulls into their driveway. “You need to—”

&
nbsp; She climbs out of the car before he finishes his sentence and slams the door behind her. The detectives are parking their sedan across the street in front of the trailhead with the defaced sign.

  “Jessica,” her dad calls.

  “I have to go meet them,” she says, not turning around. “Are you coming or not?”

  She hears his footsteps crunch across the snow behind her as he follows her across the street.

  “It’s this way,” Jess says to the detectives, and heads into the park.

  Last night’s snow covered up the icy crust that formed over the past week, making the trail deceptively even looking. It’s only mid-afternoon, but the winter light coming through the bare branches is watery and gray, already hinting at the approaching dark. The snowfall of the past several weeks has blown in drifts against the boulders and hills, like ocean waves frozen in mid-surge.

  Jess misses the white oak that marks the way to the hollow because its bulbous roots are hidden under the snow, and has to double back. When she strikes off the trail, her father and the detectives follow. Cold clumps of snow slip into the low tops of her sneakers. She scrambles down the side of the hollow, slipping into the drifts, and then climbs awkwardly up the other side. Snow encrusts her jeans up to her knees.

  At the top of the hill she goes directly to the place where Ryan hid the bag. She kneels as Griffin joins her. Cardoni and Mr. Wong are slower to climb to the top. Jess starts to paw the snow aside, uncovering the fallen log that has nearly disappeared beneath the white. When she clears off the log, she leans over to peer into the gap beneath it. She sees nothing but darkness, so she thrusts her hand beneath the log, her fingers scraping the frozen ground. She almost misses the end of the leather strap because it’s farther back than it was last time. She has to tug hard to drag it out, but at last, it pops free. She shakes the dirt and snow off, then holds the leather messenger bag out to the detectives.

  Griffin takes it in a gloved hand. “Thanks. The letters are in here?”

  “Yeah.”

  Behind Griffin, Mr. Wong is staring at something on the ground, something yellow—a fluttering piece of plastic bag, as if he’d rather look at trash than his daughter.