Juvie (14 page)

“Now, Sadie,” said Detective Boldin, “I want you to take us through the events of that night. And I want you to include the names of everybody you can think of who you met at the party.”

“I didn’t catch any names,” I said. “It was pretty loud, and it’s not like people were introducing themselves or wearing name tags or anything.” I wasn’t trying to be a smart-ass, but it was like these guys had never been to a party before.

“You sure?”

I racked my brain, then suddenly remembered. “There was this one girl. Kendall. I didn’t get her last name, though. But she had a bright-red scar on her cheek, and she went to Stafford High with my sister, Carla.”

Detective Boldin scribbled on his notepad. Good. Maybe she’d get in some kind of trouble for being at the party. “And did she have anything to do with the drugs?”

“No, sir,” I admitted. “She was just somebody I met at the party. But we didn’t talk for very long.”

“Anybody else?”

“No, sir.”

“What about the two men you say had the drugs?”

I opened my hands on the table. “I didn’t catch their names, like I said. They might have mentioned them, but it was so loud I didn’t hear. I just made up names for them.”

“What were they?”

“Dreadlocks and Scuzzy. Because one had dreadlocks, and the other guy just seemed really scuzzy.”

Detective Boldin wrote that down as well. My lawyer did, too.

“Color?”

“They were white guys.”

“Ages?”

“Twenty-something. I’d say mid to late.”

“Identifying characteristics?”

“Well, the one guy had dreadlocks. He was pretty tall, maybe six two. The other guy was just real scuzzy-looking. Scraggly beard, greasy hair, that sort of thing. He had dark hair, but Dreadlocks was blond,” I added.

“Had you ever seen them before anywhere?”

“No, sir.”

“Seen them since?”

“No, sir.”

“Would you recognize them again?”

“Maybe. I mean, I guess so. It was pretty dark at the party, and in the car, but I think so.”

“And your sister?”

“I don’t think she’d recognize them. She was really drunk that night.” As soon as I said that, I wished I hadn’t, since Carla was twenty, so not legal age. But they let it go.

“Where was she during the party?”

“Not sure. Just hanging out with people, I guess. I was outside playing beer pong.”

Detective Boldin looked at me. “Beer pong?”

“Yes, sir, but I didn’t drink.”

“Right,” he said.

“Maybe a couple of sips,” I quickly added, since it was clear he didn’t believe me.

“Right,” he said again. “And you said that was where you met this Dreadlocks?”

“Yes, sir. I just sort of ended up with him as my doubles partner. And then later on, he asked me to take him and his friend to the store. He said they wanted to buy some beer. . . .”

“Is that all?” the detective asked.

I looked at my lawyer. He nodded, which I took to mean he wanted me to just go on and get the rest out.

I stared at my hands, unable to look at the detectives as I continued. “No, sir. He also said they had a package they had to deliver to somebody. They said they would pay me if I took them.” I watched the detectives scribble down my lie, making it a permanent part of my story.

“What happened next?” Detective Boldin asked.

“I went and got Carla. She was pretty out of it and practically passed out in the car. The guys got out at the 7-Eleven and left the package in the backseat. And that’s when the police came and arrested us.”

“And you’re saying Carla didn’t know anything about what was going on?” Detective Boldin asked.

“No, sir. And I didn’t know much, either. They just asked me for the ride, like I said.”

“And you didn’t ask what was in the package or who was picking it up.”

I couldn’t look at him. “No, sir. I guess I wasn’t thinking.”

“Were you drunk? Had you been drinking? Or doing any drugs yourself?”

“No, sir. Just the couple of sips when we were playing beer pong. We’re in season.”

“In season?”

“For basketball. In AAU, we have summer and fall ball.”

“And what did you know about the arrangement for the drug deal?”

“I didn’t know anything about that. Like about how they set it up or anything. I didn’t even know it was a drug deal until we got arrested.”

“What did you think was in the package, then?”

I wished I’d thought through this line of questioning and had an answer ready, but I hadn’t and I didn’t.

“I don’t know,” I said.

Detective Boldin leaned in closer. “You have to tell us the truth, Sadie,” he said. “Because it’s hard to believe what you’re telling us right now — that you just agreed to drive these guys to a drug deal out of the goodness of your heart and your desire to make a few easy bucks. And that you knew they were delivering a package, but it never occurred to you what was in that package. One of you girls — you or your sister — had to know what was going on. You say she was passed out and nobody told her anything. So that leaves just you.”

I nodded slowly, dying inside as I realized what I was going to have to say to keep Carla out of jail.

“They might have mentioned it was drugs.” My voice was a whisper.

“You’re gonna have to repeat that,” Detective Boldin said. “The tape recorder might not have gotten what you just said.”

“Yes,” I said. “They might have mentioned the drugs. To me. Not to Carla.”

“Right,” Detective Boldin said abruptly. “OK. Well, Detective Feagles has a few questions for you now, but before we get started with him, can I get you another soda?”

“Yes. Thank you, sir. Officer.”

Detective Feagles asked me all the same questions, though he phrased them differently. Once he finished, Detective Boldin went over everything yet again, fishing for more details. I was there for three hours. I drank four Pepsis and had to go to the bathroom four times, though once was just to try to stop shaking so much.

Afterward we waited while they typed up a statement and gave it to me to sign. My hand trembled so badly it looked like I hadn’t yet mastered the art of cursive writing.

But in the end it was good enough to save Carla. Or at least to keep her out of jail.

I decided to skip the rest of school and take Lulu to the Bug Box. Mom said it was OK and let me borrow her car, since Lulu wasn’t allowed to ride on the back of my motorcycle. I was surprised Mom agreed to it, and surprised that she didn’t say anything about the interrogation. Maybe she was like me, just hoping and praying that we could make this thing go away and get back to our lives the way they were.

Lulu loved the Bug Box, this strange little bug museum that a local exterminator guy opened up next to his exterminator business south of town. I guess they took kids there on field trips or something, and he got donations that way, for educational tours. Otherwise I wasn’t sure how the Bug Box stayed open. It was really just a big room with dozens of terrariums filled with all sorts of spiders and bugs and pests. Wolf spiders, black widows, tarantulas. Lots of cockroaches, which swarmed all over one another and seemed to multiply while you were looking at them. You needed a magnifying glass to see the bedbugs and fleas and termites. They had a couple of ant farms mounted to one wall so you could check out the tunnels and nests and stuff. There was also a big fire-ant hill in this one big case, with the Latin name that I always remembered for some reason:
Solenopsis invicta
. I looked it up, and
invicta
means “the unvanquished.”

The Bug Box might have been Lulu’s favorite place in the world. Most kids are afraid of bugs, but not her. She especially loved the daddy longlegs and the praying mantises. The proprietor guy let her hold them, and Lulu laughed and laughed and laughed while the daddy longlegs crawled all over her.

Afterward, on the way to the grocery store to pick up some food to take to my dad’s, Lulu and I sang this daddy longlegs song that Granny taught me when I was little.

There were a bunch of different verses about him being on your knee, and your shirt, and your chin, and finally your hair. By the time we got to the grocery store, Lulu was practically shouting the words, which was how she sang when she got excited, and I was practically shouting them with her.

I used my car-wash money to buy that week’s groceries for Dad. Mom never asked me to; I just sort of started doing it every other week when I realized Mom was skipping lunches because we didn’t have enough to go around.

I was pretty sure Dad was out in one of his sheds when we drove up to Granny’s, because a door slammed back there, and then another that I recognized as the back door to Dad’s wing of the house.

Lulu heard it, too. “Is that Granpa?” she asked.

“Yeah. Pretty sure it is.”

She pulled a box of spaghetti out of one of the grocery bags. Lulu always liked to help, but she was too little to carry much. She grabbed a pomegranate, too. I didn’t know why I bought that. Or the avocado. I wasn’t even sure he ate stuff like that. I just hated the idea of him sitting in that drab house all day, eating nothing but drab food. He should have something beautiful and exotic around, like a pomegranate or an avocado, even if he never ate a bite.

“Can we see him?” Lulu asked.

“Probably not,” I said. “You remember how we talked about Granpa, how he has a hard time being around other people?”

She nodded, but I could tell she didn’t understand. She was three years old. Of course she didn’t understand. I was seventeen, and I didn’t, either.

We left the food on the porch the way we always did. Lulu ran off to pick dandelions, and I knocked on the door and waited. Not that I expected Dad to answer. It was just the routine. Then I told him — or told the door — about what had happened with Carla and me and the drug bust. I told him about meeting with the detectives that morning, and agreeing to take the blame, and Carla’s promise to straighten out her life. I told Dad I loved him and I missed him and I wished I could see him. I pressed my palm to the door for a minute, pretending I could feel him doing the same from the other side, feel the heat of his hand through the wood. Then I left to collect Lulu and go pick up Mom from work and get ready for basketball practice.

But when I got to the bottom of the steps, I stopped for some reason and turned back around. Something was lying on the porch where I’d just been standing. Dad must have slid it out under the door. I went back to pick it up: a picture of him when he was a lot younger, standing in his swim trunks in shallow waves at the ocean, cradling a little baby with one arm, a shy look on his face but still managing to smile at the camera. A little girl was clinging to his leg and looking up at him, as if wishing he would pick her up, too. That was Carla. The baby was me.

Mom looks tired when she comes that first Sunday afternoon during visiting hours, which is really just a visiting half hour because that’s all we’re allowed. She’s already there waiting when the guard brings me in. I keep my head down as I take my seat, hoping that my hair mostly covers my face for now. We sit in facing cubicles separated by a Plexiglas divider that runs from the floor to the ceiling and have to talk on telephones though we’re only inches apart. I put my hand on one side of the Plexiglas, and she puts hers on the other. I can’t feel her, of course. It’s just as close as we can get to touching. She starts off smiling, but a look of horror takes over when I raise my head and push back my hair.

She skips the preliminaries. “What happened?”

I touch my nose and imagine what she sees: the swelling, the bruises, the black eyes.

“Nothing,” I say. “We were playing basketball and it got a little rough. I’m OK. It looks worse than it is.”

“Tell me the truth.”

“I am telling the truth,” I say. “I tried to drive the lane when I should have passed off and got sandwiched between two girls. It happens. Really, Mom, there’s nothing to worry about. Everything’s fine. I’m fine. Like I told you.”

“You didn’t tell me about this. We just talked on the phone two nights ago.”

I take the phone away from my ear and tap myself on the forehead with the receiver. “I’m sorry,” I say when I bring it back down. “You were at bingo. I didn’t want to bother you about it. So how are things, anyway?” I ask, trying to change the subject. “What about Carla and Lulu? Why didn’t Carla come?”

Mom doesn’t answer. “Turn your face to the side,” she says, and I do. “Now the other way,” she says, and I do that, too.

“Is it broken?” she asks.

“No,” I lie. “Just sore.”

“What about the black eyes?”

“The nurse said that’s just the way the bruising spreads. I didn’t get attacked or anything. It was an accident. Honest.”

“Well,” she says, “I’m going to speak to whoever’s in charge.”

“No, Mom,” I say. “Don’t do that. I don’t want to call any attention to myself in here. You’re supposed to just keep your head down and do what you’re told to do. Please. Don’t make a big deal out of this.”

Mom still fumes. I lie some more and tell her the nurse came down and checked up on me several times after it happened, and the guards did, too. That seems to placate her, and she finally gets around to filling me in on Carla and Lulu, though there isn’t much to tell. Carla says she’s gone to AA again. She says she put in a couple of job applications and got the community-college spring catalog. I want to believe in Carla, but figure there’s only about a fifty-fifty chance that what she told Mom is true. But maybe part of it is.