No Such Person (7 page)

FRIDAY AFTERNOON

The day is summer slow. Swimming, eating, texting, napping.

Henry, Hayden and Geoffrey show up at the same time. Miranda slides into the river with them and they play water volleyball with an invisible net. Geoffrey has excellent aim and can always send the ball straight to Henry or Hayden. Geoffrey is at ease in the water, as if he'd be a better otter than teenager.

When Geoffrey gets out, he is wrinkly and pruny. He ties an old towel around his waist and climbs the stairs. He does not have the fine muscular shape of Jason Firenza or Derry Romaine. He is just big.

“Bye, Geoffrey!” the little boys chorus.

“Bye, Geoffrey,” calls Miranda. “Thanks for playing.” Perhaps this bit of neighborly courtesy will make up for her rudeness on the riding mower.

“Any time,” he calls, not turning around.

Miranda and her parents eat supper on the porch. The sun sets very slowly, as if it is enjoying itself. The dusk is soft and friendly. Bats come out. They swoop so fast she can hardly follow the movement. She's glad the bats eat so many bugs and gladder that she is not outside on the grass with them.

Around nine o'clock she takes a long shower, shampooing and conditioning. One delightful thing about a shabby old cottage is that it has shabby old plumbing and therefore big fat pipes with no water-saving devices: the pressure of the heavy flow is practically a massage.

She towels dry, but in the humidity, remains damp.

They do not have air conditioning here.

In their regular house in West Hartford, they set the temperature at 74 for the entire hot-weather season and would never dream of trying to sleep at night except in air conditioning. But at the cottage, they pretend there is a steady breeze off the river that will cool them.
We just need ceiling fans to keep comfortable,
they claim.

Often, this works.

More often, they swelter.

Her father always says he will put in air conditioning when he can afford it, and his daughters always laugh. He can afford anything. He just likes the cottage this way.

Miranda picks out shortie pajamas. She doesn't blow her hair dry. It will air-dry during the night. Now. Decisions. Should she watch baseball with her father in the living room? Curl up on the king-sized bed with her mother, who watches exclusively house and garden shows? Sit on the porch, watching her own favorites on her iPad?

She is shocked to find herself suddenly close to sobbing. Will this be her life? Sharing screens with her mother and father? She wants friends. Well, she has friends, lots of friends, but they're busy and they're in West Hartford.

The awful stab of loneliness won't diminish.

She is standing in the tiny unlit hall between her room and Lander's.

Both are corner rooms. Miranda's two windows open onto the screened porch on one side and the Nevilles' house on the other. Lander's two windows face the Nevilles and the front yard. Through the open window Miranda hears Barrel snuffling and pacing in his run.

She thinks of Lander's crush on Jason Firenza. Does Lander suffer from stabs of loneliness? Are the crowds in which she travels also lonely? Does everyone feel this way now and then?

She stares through Lander's room and out Lander's open front window. Towering trees in full leaf make the front yard utterly dark. Out her own window, the river glitters in the starlight.

A car inches down their driveway.

It must be Jason Firenza bringing Lander home and if so, it's the first time he's actually approached the house. Miranda tiptoes into her sister's room to watch at an angle, so that she can't be seen. Why am I gathering information about Jason Firenza? she wonders. If ever there was a woman who could take care of herself, it was Lander. Knowing what make of car the guy drives is not going to prove whether or not he's homicidal.

The vehicle is a police car.

Is Jason a cop? No. He would have said so when the trooper was questioning him last Saturday. So is a cop bringing Lander home? Is she drunk? This would be utterly unlike Lander. And realistically, if Lander needs a ride under such circumstances, she would call home.

What are the circumstances?

Lander does not get out of the police car. Neither does Jason.

Two policemen get out.

They are husky, solid men. They are in uniform. They adjust their heavy belts and tug their ties.

Why would the police be here at this hour?

Or any hour?

Icy knowledge comes to Miranda.

There has been a car accident.

If Lander were just hurt, they would call. Actually, the hospital emergency personnel would probably call. There's only one reason for the police to come to the house.

Lander is dead.

Miranda's knees buckle. Her mouth is dry. Her mind swirls.

Out the window she sees a second police car come very slowly down the lane. There is no outdoor lighting, and they cannot see where the driveway leads or where it ends, and they do not want to drive off the cliff.

Has Lander driven off a cliff?

Miranda sits hard on the end of Lander's bed, which will irritate Lander, who makes her bed carefully and tightly every morning.

Oh, Lander! How are we going to be best friends after all? What about your life?

What about medical school and all your work to get there and all your plans?

How will our parents survive this?

She must dress, go into the living room and be a help.

But she is thinking: Did Jason Firenza do this? Is he careless behind a car wheel too? Did he walk away from a car wreck wringing his hands about his passenger's fate, just as he drove a boat away from Derry Romaine?

To capture the breeze, the front door is open. Her parents also see the two police cars come down the drive.

The only one not home is Lander, so the police have to be here about Lander. Her mother flings open the screened door. “Lander!” she cries. “My daughter! Is this about Lander? Is she all right? Was there a car accident? Why are you here?”

The police suggest that they should all sit down.

“Tell me, just tell me!” Her mother's voice is as warbly as an old soprano's and Miranda realizes that this will destroy her mother.

She, Miranda, will not be much consolation. They have staked everything on their older daughter. Miranda does not grieve for herself. It is what it is, and she recognizes it. She grieves for them.

“Nobody is hurt,” says one of the policemen.

Miranda is weak with relief. Lander is not dead. She is not even hurt.

But if nobody is hurt, why are there two police cars? Four police officers?

“I think you should sit,” says the policeman again.

There are shuffling sounds. Miranda assumes that her parents are on the sofa next to each other, upset and yet relieved.

The officer's voice is a very deep, very loud baritone. It's almost comical. “Is Lander Allerdon your daughter?”

“Yes, yes, of course. Please just tell us what's happening.”

“Your daughter is in jail. We received a tip about a delivery of cocaine. We found Lander Allerdon alone on a boat that did in fact have a package of cocaine hidden aboard. In the woods not far from where this boat was tied up, we found the body of a man shot to death. A gun that is probably the murder weapon was found in Lander Allerdon's tote bag. She admits shooting this gun.”

Lander is lying on a hard metal bed with a thin mattress and white sheets. There is no pillow. The room is empty except for the bed. There is one window with wire embedded in the glass. The room reminds her of the nurse's station in elementary school. The window in the jail faces a hall. It does not exist to give her sunlight. It exists so that she can be watched.

A policewoman is standing next to the bed. “You fainted,” she says.

Lander tries to think which, of all the ghastly things that are happening, might have caused her to pass out.

“Derry Romaine,” says the policewoman. “The man shot in the back in the woods where you were using a gun.”

The dead person cannot be Derry Romaine. Derry is in the hospital. Jason visits him daily. Derry isn't even talking yet. How can Derry be the body in the woods? They're making this up to torture her.

She tries to sit up and nothing happens.

“You're restrained,” says the policewoman.

Lander looks sideways. Wide leather bracelets are attached to her wrists, fastening her to the sides of the bed. “This has to be illegal! You can't do this to people!”

“You have a history, Lander. You kicked and hit the officers who brought you in. You tried to bite them.”

“I promise not to do that,” she whispers.

“Good. But for now, we'll just talk this way.”

She closes her eyes instead. “Why am I in a different room?”

“It's not a room. It's a cell.”

She cannot bear this vocabulary. “I don't see how it could be Derry Romaine who was killed. He's in the hospital.”

“Not now he isn't. He's in the morgue.”

How can these people be so cold? How can they talk like this?

“Tell me about the gun, Lander,” says the policewoman.

In the little woods, Lander is shocked to see that Jason has a gun; more shocked when he says he loves hunting and shooting. Lander does not know anybody who would make that statement. People in other states say that. States in the South or the West. But here, where it's civilized, where everyone she knows is civilized, no one would think of guns as a hobby. No one would shoot innocent deer or wild turkeys or beautiful pheasants.

Jason laughs. “Connecticut has as many gun enthusiasts as any other state,” he says, “not to mention gun manufacturers. And plenty of hunters. You just haven't met any until now. You are one lucky girl. You've met me.”

His dancing eyes tease and her heart literally weakens. What matters is whatever Jason wants.

“Come on,” he says. “I'll teach you. We'll shoot targets, not squirrels. Don't worry. You won't shed any blood.”

But did I shed blood?

“Tell me about the gun,” says the policewoman again.

I was laughing, thinks Lander. I was laughing out loud when I aimed.

I killed Derry Romaine.

While I laughed.