The paramedics did a quick examination, then slid her into the back of the ambulance. They tore away, the siren wailing.
It seemed like it had taken forever for all of this to happen. But when I checked my cell phone, only five minutes had passed.
Adam stood there staring at the departing ambulance. I thought I heard him saying something, though with all the noise, I couldn't be certain. I took a step closer to him. He was saying something.
“She's going to be all right,” he said over and over again.
And I started to wonder what the hell was going on.
For some reason, we were sitting outside the hospital at three in the morning. Matt had gone home while Adam and I loaded all my stuff into Adam's car. Then we'd had to answer the same questions over and over again.
I imagine I looked bored, tired and confused by it all. Adam, on the other hand, looked guilty of something. I had no idea what, but he was nervous and sweaty and kept staring out the window at the blank, white expanse of parking lot.
I figured at the time that it was because being grilled by the police makes anyone feel guilty. Like you must have done
something
or you wouldn't be sitting in the back of a police cruiser.
Adam had then driven silently through the dark, empty streets. Resurrection Falls looked strange in the middle of the night without streetlights or the blue glow from the odd television set behind curtained windows.
The hospital was blazing with light. Big, thick plumes of smoke pumped from the smokestacks on the roof. I could smell the diesel generators running from inside the car.
“What are we doing here, Adam?” I asked.
“What's that girl's last name?” Adam said.
“McNally,” I said. Adam repeated it.
“She go to your school?”
“Yeah,” I said. “She's in a few of my classes.” He nodded to this. He'd shut the car off, and it was beginning to get cold. I wanted to tell Adam about how I lusted after Mary Jane. I could have told him how her hair smelled, because I sat behind her in history and leaned forward now and then to breathe it in. How far too many of my dreams placed her in a starring role.
But then I'd have to get into my asking-her-out scheme. And that would just be embarrassing.
“She nice?”
“Yeah,” I said. “Totally.” He nodded to this.
“She's pretty.”
“Yes,” I said. “This is true.”
“Shit.”
“What?” I said. He shook his head.
“Nothing. I'm going in.” I was about to ask Adam why he was going in, but he was already out of the car and crossing the parking lot. I got out and followed.
The bright lights of the hospital entranceway were startling at first.
“Why are we here?” I asked again as the automatic doors closed behind us.
“Just to see.”
“See what?” He turned to me. His face was still white. His eyes were red-rimmed, as if he hadn't slept in days. He looked as if he was going to say something but only shook his head.
It was impossible to get information out of anyone at the front desk. No, we weren't family. No, we weren't close friends. We were just the guys who'd found Mary Jane and brought her out of the club and were wondering if she was going to be all right.
Eventually, we gave up and went to the waiting room and sat down.
I hate hospital waiting rooms. I never want to touch anything for fear that I'll pick up some superbug and die for no good reason. So I sat totally upright, my hands clasped in my lap.
There were six other people in the room. Every so often one of them would get up and go off somewhere. He or she would eventually come back shaking his or her head and looking mystified. After a while, by listening to them talk to each other, I realized that it was Mary Jane's family, her mother, father, aunt, sister, cousin and grandfather.
At around four thirty, her father stood up and announced that he was going to get some answers.
“We should go,” I said to Adam. He didn't respond. He was staring at a place on the far wall. I was about to suggest we leave again when a bellow echoed down the hall.
It was the worst thing I had ever heard.
If you want to know what it's like to have your insides slowly scraped out, listen to a bellow like this. Mary Jane's mother leaped from her seat and darted out of the waiting room. A second later, I could hear her saying, “No, no, no.” Adam shuddered beside me, stood up, slammed a fist into the wall and left.
Outside, I started yelling at him.
“What's going on?” He didn't respond. “Adam. What the hell were we doing in there?” I was certain Mary Jane had died. If I'm honest, I would even say I sensed her leaving. Like there was this giant inhale followed by a long, slow exhale, and she was gone. “Adam!” I yelled again. We'd reached the car. Adam got in and slammed his door. I got in the passenger side.
Adam had his head in his hands. He was shaking and sobbing.
“What is going on, Adam? What were we doing in there? Why were you asking me about her?”
He shook his head and turned the ignition. He dropped the car into gear and drove down a walkway past the pay station.
“What the hell are you doing?” By the time we hit the main road, we were moving at almost double the speed limit. “Adam! Slow down. You're going to get us killed.” He swerved to make a turn, and the car shifted sideways. We slid across the road and smashed into a snow-bank. Snow flew everywhere, coming back down and rattling against the roof. Adam tromped on the gas again, but the tires just spun on the ice and snow. He started jamming the car into Reverse, then Drive, over and over again until the air was filled with smoke.
He slammed the steering wheel.
“What the hell is going on, Adam?” He turned to face me. His eyes were filled with water, and tears ran down his cheeks.
“I killed her,” he screamed. “All right? I killed her.”
“Who? Mary Jane?”
“Who else?”
“What are you even talking about?”
He started pounding on the driver's side window until I thought it was going to shatter.
“I screwed up. Man, did I ever screw up.”
“What are you talking about, Adam?” He looked ten years older than he had seconds before. Older than I ever could have imagined him.
“She OD'd,” he said. “And I was the one who gave her the drugs.”
“Let's get out of here before someone calls the cops,” I said.
“What for?”
“Well, we just rammed into a snowbank and then spun out on ice for, like, five minutes. Someone might call that in.” Adam breathed heavily. “I don't need to have any more interaction with the police tonight, all right? Get out and push. Come on.” I shoved him. I'm not sure if, at first, I shoved him because I was angry or simply to get him to snap out of it.
Later I would know exactly why.
“Screw off,” Adam said.
“Get out and push,” I said again, hitting him.
He turned toward me. Something rose from deep inside me. I punched him in the face.
“What the hell!” he yelled. He undid his seatbelt and came across the seat at me. He managed to get me pinned with one hand and started hammering on me with the other. I covered my head and face with my hands and arms and bent over. “Why'd you hit me?”
“Because you didn't do anything,” I shouted.
“I did,” he said, still punching me. “I killed her.”
I suddenly shot my left arm out. Caught him under the chin. As he fell back. I undid my seatbelt and rolled out of the car. I crab-walked away from the open door. Adam got out and, holding on to the hood, maneuvered himself around the front of the car. He let go for a second and slipped on the ice, hitting the ground with a sharp, fast exhalation of air.
“You didn't kill her,” I yelled. “I don't know what happened, but you didn't shoot her or stab her or strangle her. You didn't kill her.” Adam pulled himself up and leaned against the hood of his car.
“I gave her the pill,” he said.
“What are you?” I said. “A drug dealer? Is that what you do at the club?”
“No. Not really.”
“What then?” I said.
“I just give them to people.”
“So you're like, what, an illegal-substance Santa Claus? I don't get it.” Every time one of us spoke, the air filled with the warm white clouds of our breath. Whenever we stopped talking, the world seemed entirely silent.
“No. It wasn't like that. It was⦔ The door of the house we were standing in front of opened. A guy came out in a worn-out bathrobe.
“What's going on out here?” he yelled.
“We hit some ice,” I said.
“Okay, so what's all the yelling about?”
“We're on our way,” I said. I looked at Adam. “Right?”
“Just trying to get the car out of this snowbank!” Adam called. He turned himself so that his hands were on the hood, with one leg stretched out behind him. “Get in and back it out.”
I got into the car and turned the ignition. I put it in reverse and gave it some gas. With Adam pushing, the car popped off the icy patch and out of the snowbank back onto dry pavement. I put the car in Park and slid across to the passenger seat. Adam got in and slammed the door closed.
“Why were you handing drugs out?” I asked.
“It was just something I did, man. It was nothing. I mean, everyone there is on E or something. It's no big deal.”
Well, I thought, someone died because of it. So maybe it is a big deal.
“Where were you getting the drugs from?”
“Sly,” he said. “And it was just E. Nothing else.”
“Was he paying you for doing this?”
“Not really. Not officially or anything.”
“How did people pay for the drugs?”
“They gave me the money. But I never kept any of it. I put it in this box.” It was beginning to sound ridiculous.
“Man,” I said. We were at a T intersection at the end of the suburban area. If we went right, we'd head toward the downtown core. To the left was the highway. “So what are we going to do?”
Adam rested his head on the steering wheel. “I don't know. There's going to be an investigation. As soon as the police start asking who people were getting drugs from, my name is going to come up. I guess that's why Sly had it set up this way. He never talked to anyone about drugs. He never handed anything out or was seen with the money.”
I looked out the window. Adam had been used. He knew it and I knew it, but neither of us were going to say it. Adam was the front. The one everyone knew.
The one who had sold Mary Jane the drugs that killed her.
“So what are we supposed to do?”
“We can just leave,” Adam said. He looked to the left. It was almost six in the morning. My stomach felt filled with acid. Absolutely nothing was making sense.
“Leave? And go where?”
“I don't know. We can figure something out.”
“Just leave Mom? Leave town? Leave everything? No way.”
“What other options do we have?” Adam asked.
“What's this âwe' stuff?” I said. “I never had anything to do with it.” I regretted saying that the second it escaped my mouth. Adam's face dropped. He had never looked so alone.
“Then hop out, man. Just go.”
“I didn't mean it like that,” I said. I wondered how much time we had before Adam's name started popping up all over the place. The investigation would be in full swing come morning.
“Man, I'm an idiot,” Adam said.
“The police will be looking for the dealer and the supplier,” I said. “You're the small fry in all of this.”
“I'm the front, Rob. That's what you're not getting here. I'm the guy people know. And⦔ He stopped. “And everyone knows I'm full of shit a lot of the time. If the police question me and I tell them the truth, they'll have, like, fifty people who'll say I'm a big talker. That I lie all the time. And Sly will be the first one to point the cops my way. He's totally clean in all of this.”
“Sly never once gave anyone anything?” I asked. Adam shook his head.
“No, man, it was all me. He never even talked about drugs. What am I supposed to do?” I looked at the road that led to the highway. I could hop out, and Adam could drive away. He could be hundreds of miles from Resurrection Falls by the time the police came knocking at our door.
He could just leave.
Looking back at it now, I wonder what would have happened had I let him go. Not that it was up to me, really. But he was looking for a way out at that moment. He was looking for permission.
And I made him stay.
It was Tuesday before the police landed on our doorstep. I'd been home from school for about an hour when it happened. I had an Xbox controller in my hand.
Grand
Theft Auto
was paused on our television.
A burly man in a long coat stood on the front porch.
“Robert MacLean?” he said. A wiry mustache tickled his upper lip. He had no sideburns. In fact, he'd trimmed his hair up above his ear, thus producing negative sideburns.
“Um, yeah?”
“Detective Weir. Can I ask you a few questions?”
“About what?”
He pulled a pad and pencil out. “About the death of Mary Jane McNally. You obviously knew her, right? She was in your class? And you were at the club on the night of her death?”
“We were in the same grade. Some of the same classes as well. I was DJing that night. My friend and I found her.”
“What was your relationship with the deceased? You did know she was deceased, correct?”
“I heard, yeah,” I said. “We were in a couple of the same classes. And then I found her at the club during the blackout.”
Detective Weir looked around me. “Would you mind if I came in? Are your parents home?”