Truman tried to get up out of his chair, but the kid put his hand out.
“Chill,” he said. He looked at me and smiled. “I’m Rog.”
I could stand, as stoned as I was, and I did.
“Carly,” I said. I put out my hand and he came to me and took mine in his. It was soft and very warm.
“Wow,” he said. He turned to Truman. “You are fucking right, Tru. Model material.”
I heard Logan smirk.
“Jesus,” he said. “Spare me.”
I looked over and saw Truman had stood and was walking toward Rog. He put his arms out and they hugged. Truman kissed him on the cheek.
“Jesus,” Logan said again, now standing. He had the blunt in his hand and offered it to Rog, who was now facing me again.
Rog shook his head. “No.”
He looked at me again and smiled, this time squinting his eyes as if he were about to paint me. “My God, you are beautiful, girl. Where have you been all my life?”
I was so stoned and so relieved to finally feel the warmth from this guy I could’ve fallen into his arms, but I also knew, immediately, that he was gay.
Truman put his arm around Rog’s shoulder and looked at me.
“Didn’t I tell you? She’s my best friend, and she’s beautiful.”
“Yeah, okay, Truman,” Logan sneered. “Have some more weed.”
Rog ducked out from under Truman’s arm and stepped back from him.
“Wait a minute,” Truman said. “Wait just one fucking minute.”
Truman looked at me as if he were making some assessment…or it could have been he was just so fucking stoned. I couldn’t really tell. Finally he shrugged and moved over to me, turning so he was standing alongside me. He put his arm around my waist.
“So you’re the famous Carly,” Rog said. “You’re all Truman talks about. I should be jealous.”
“Oh, my God!” Logan shouted. We all turned toward him. He was holding the blunt in his hand and was staring angrily at Rog. “Does anyone want any more of this, because if you don’t, I’m for chucking it.”
Truman took his arm from around my waist, walked over to Logan and took the weed out of his hand. He went to the glass coffee table, stubbed it out in an ashtray, blew on it to make sure it was cool enough and then put it in his jeans pocket. He looked at Logan.
“No one wants any. I thought you knew that.”
“How the fuck would I know anything?” He nodded toward me. “I mean, talk about acting like two sick dudes. What the fuck?”
Rog ignored them and walked over to me. He leaned into my face and whispered, “Don’t mind him. He’s in love with Tru and he knows that you and I are further up on the pecking order.”
I laughed, again with a kind of relief. I could tell Logan was very angry and most of it was directed toward me, or at least that’s what I thought.
“I’m Roger Claus,” Rog said, still whispering. “I think Truman loves you.”
“Please don’t say that,” I said, not knowing what else to say.
I realized what I really wanted to do was get my bag and leave. I felt sad, suddenly. I guess I’d never really seen Truman as a gay kid. I mean, most of what we did together was alone and he was just Truman to me. But now I was clearly in the middle of a quarrel between three gay guys and it seemed Truman was the reason there was tension. He hadn’t done anything, really, except hug Rog and kiss him on the cheek, but I didn’t know what the relationship was between Logan and Truman.
The worst part, though, and the part that was staring to piss me off, was that in a way Truman and Rog were transferring their feelings for each other by using me. Their fake interest in me, my looks, how much Truman talked about me to Rog, was all a way to tell Logan he was the odd man out. At least that’s how I interpreted it. I knew Truman, and him suddenly being this demonstrative, especially with other people around, was not too fucking usual.
“Tell you what,” I finally said. “I’m going to head on out.”
I went to the couch where I’d been sitting and got my bag from the floor. I fished through it and found Truman’s trunks and tossed them to him.
“If you want to stay,” I said as I watched the trunks sail through the air.
“Hold it, Carly,” Truman said. “Don’t go. You said you wanted to go swimming with me.”
I could tell Truman was sincere, but I’d had enough.
I looked over at Logan, who was standing there with a kind of smirk on his face.
“I don’t know what exactly is going on here, but I don’t want any part of it, Truman.” I looked back at him. “Do you want a ride home or are you staying?”
“Logan will take you home, Truman,” Rog said quickly. “But really, Carly, you should stay. I’ve heard so much about you and now that I have the chance to meet you, you’re going to disappear on us.”
I shrugged and looked at Truman. I could tell he was stoned and I think he didn’t know what to do. He knew I felt uncomfortable and that he’d invited me with him, but, now that Rog was here, I knew what he really wanted to do was stay. I hoisted my bag on my shoulder and started to walk toward the door.
“It was nice meeting you, Rog,” I said over my shoulder. “I’m sure we’ll meet again.”
“C’mon, Carly. Don’t be that way. Please stay,” Truman said in a pleading way.
Truman didn’t want me to go, but at that point I didn’t really care what he wanted. I wanted to go home and just try and process all that had happened. I knew I would probably like Rog. He seemed genuinely sweet and I could tell he was in love with Truman. I could also tell the feeling was mutual, although that was really hard for me to admit.
All of that part would get settled. I knew it would. But what really rattled me was this side of Logan Marsh I’d never seen before. I sensed from the moment I walked through those glass doors that there was a mean part to that guy. He’d hurt me, and I could tell he wanted to hit someone once it became clear to him how close Truman and Rog really were. That was the part I knew would take some getting over. Logan was a friend of Truman’s and yet I couldn’t believe that Truman didn’t see in that kid what I’d just seen. Maybe he didn’t want to, or maybe, because so few people in Persia were gay, he felt he had few options. I opened the door and went out. I followed a flagstone path around the fenced-in pool, and then the path led to the front of the main house. I was about to walk through a garden of flowers and hedges when I heard someone calling my name. I was hoping it was Truman. When I turned, I saw it was Logan. I stopped and waited for him to get to me.
He stood in front of me and smiled, but it didn’t feel to me like he was smiling. I thought to walk on, but he put his hand on my arm to stop me.
“I just want to know one thing, Carly.”
“What?” I said.
“Did you invite yourself over here today?’
“Fuck you, Logan.” I looked at his hand and he took it away.
“I mean, because you need to know something, Carly.”
“I don’t really feel like talking to you, Logan. I really don’t.”
He ignored that and said, “Truman’s gay, Carly. I suppose you know that. What you don’t seem to know is that he doesn’t really give two shits about you.”
I looked up and for a very small moment I thought of slapping him. Instead, I walked on. This time he ran in front of me and stood in the way of the path.
“I know all about your friendship with Truman, how long it’s been going on and all that. But what I mostly know, that most people have no idea about, is that you think you still have a chance to have him. Which is, of course, a laugh on so many levels, the least of which is the fact that you are dating a moron.”
I stared into his face for a long time without moving my eyes away from his own. Finally, he looked away. When he did, I moved around him and started to walk again.
“So my advice to you, Carly, is to stay the fuck away from him. He doesn’t want you around and I don’t want you fucking around him. He’s too kind to say it so I’ll say if for him. He’s in love with me, Carly.”
He shouted all this as I was walking away, and when he was done I started walking faster. As I finally got toward the front of the main house and the circular driveway, I heard him shout something, but I’m not sure what it was. It sounded threatening. When I got into my car, I tried to put the key in the ignition, but my hand was shaking too much. I started to cry and I think I cried for a long time. I don’t know how long, but I knew it was very long.
When I could see well enough to drive I went home and ran up to my bedroom, taking two stairs at a time. I closed the door and fell onto my bed. I realized, as I lay there in the silence of my room, that I had never been so sad in my life.
Detective Parachuk
Six days after Truman’s death
There is no evidence to speak of. No hair left behind, no prints, no weapon, no cell phone, no footprints. That was the greatest setback: There were no footprints. The rain had begun, the coroner was certain, at almost the same time Truman Engroff was bludgeoned to death by what the coroner was also convinced was a baseball bat. The bruises—few, because death came after four blows—one to the stomach, one to the kidneys, one to the neck and finally, the blow that killed him, the one to the head—and the indentation in the skull all were consistent with a baseball bat. My leads, weak and probably going in the wrong direction, were Steve Brown, because he clearly had a thing for Carly Rodenbaugh; Tommy Beck, one of the prime suspects in my mind because of his violent tendency and jealousy toward Carly; and Logan Marsh. I don’t know why exactly I felt they were important. But all other avenues were murky at this point and I wanted to stay on the case as long as I could before I succumbed to Riddle’s pressure to turn it over to the state police.
Like the town itself, which had been smudged for a protracted period of time by wealth and privilege, Steve Brown had an attitude of entitlement. He was a tall kid, probably nerdy in most kids’ eyes, and fashioned himself as something of an intellectual. He was going off to Cornell in the fall as an engineering major. His parents allowed me to question him at home, in the father’s study, and alone without the participation of the father. He sat on a leather chair, and directed me to the desk chair “where it will be easier to write in your notepad if that seems necessary.”
He had dark hair, dark eyes and very dark eyebrows. He wasn’t particularly handsome, but I could see that there was an energy about him, or perhaps a confidence, that would’ve given him a certain appeal and, most likely, would be a stronger and more attractive part of his character as he grew older. He was still too tall for his personality, which he tried to hide by stooping when he walked.
“You’ve had plastic surgery recently, I’ve been told.”
I saw no signs of it on his face, which was testament to his parent’s wealth.
He looked at me and narrowed his eyes. “Who told you that?”
I smiled at him. I didn’t want confrontation. I wanted him to be forthright.
“Carly Rodenbaugh told me. She said Tommy Beck broke your nose and your ribs.”
At the mention of Tommy Beck, I saw a mixture of wariness and distaste. He was safe at home, though, and soon he would be in a world where Tommy Beck would have no influence on his life.
“It’s true,” he said. He subconsciously put his fingers to his nose.
“You decided not to press charges.”
“
We
decided to not press charges.” He nodded his head toward the closed door and his two devoted parents on the other side, I presumed.
“Why, Steve?”
“Well, for one thing, we’d all been drinking and most of us had been smoking weed.” He knew he had impunity and it probably made him feel good to tell a law enforcement official he’d been smoking marijuana at a party.
“Is that the only reason?”
I could tell he was weighing whether to say more. He was attempting to grow a beard, but it looked more like a lawn that had suffered from heat and lack of water. He rubbed it now in a display of contemplation.
“I didn’t know what he’d do if I turned him in. Carly told me he had a full ride to the University of Virginia—not for academics, you can be sure—and if he got into trouble with the law, he’d more than likely lose it.”
“What do you mean you ‘didn’t know what he’d do’ if you turned him in?”
He shook his head and I could tell his ego was standing in the way of him telling what I knew he wanted to say.
“Were you afraid he’d come after you?”
He looked at me quickly and smiled. It was genuine.
“Yeah, I guess I was. I mean, he was a fucking lunatic that night. All I’d done was talk to Carly. God knows what he’d do if I was responsible for him
not
getting into school.”
I made as if I were writing something important in my notepad. I looked up with my pen poised.
“I think I know what you’re saying.”
“What?”
“Well, if he was that off the wall that night, then if he lost a scholarship because of you, in his eyes, anyway, no telling what he’d do. Right?”
“I did think about that, yeah.”
“Did you have a thing for Carly?”
He laughed. I liked him for that. The laugh was genuine, too.