Slain (8 page)

“Good,” he says. “Don’t you worry, honey. We’re not going to let them treat you like this. Our Heavenly Father entrusted us with your care, and we take that very seriously,” he says. Sometimes my dad forgets that he’s not on the pulpit. I wish, especially right now, that he’d drop the act.
 

“I know,” I say. It’s too warm in here. I want them to crack the window, but I don’t ask.

“Why don’t we pray?” my dad says.

We close our eyes and bow our heads. They put their arms around me, and I want to push them off but I don’t. I count the seconds instead, count the fingers on my hands, count the whorls in the walnut console.

“Dear Jesus, we ask You to guide the detectives in their search. We ask You to bless them with Your infinite wisdom, that they may first cast out the beam in their own eye before attempting to remove the mote in another’s. We ask You to reveal to them the true devil who entered Your house, oh Lord, that he might see Your justice. And we ask You to protect our baby girl. Cover her with Your love, shield her with Your mighty presence. Turn the swords against her into plowshares and show her, through all of this, that You are always by her side.”

I wish he was sometimes, I really do.

“You don’t have anything to worry about. The way I see it, they’re fishing.” The lawyer’s name is Terry Graham. “The girl herself had access to the earring when they were changing. She could have taken it. And there were a lot of people who could have gotten into the choir room.”

There was no question about who my parents would call. Mr. Graham is lean, but has a face like a pit bull. He reminds me of a British movie gangster, only without the accent. We’ve known him forever; he’s on the church board, and his grandson, Andy, goes to elementary school at Summit Christian, where I’m a senior.
 

We’re in Mr. Graham’s office, which is modern and covered in sleek wood paneling. Where there’s not wood, the windows overlook the streets of downtown Denver from twenty floors above, the mountains hovering in the background like sentries.

 
“I called my guy in the force. All they have is opportunity and a very, very weak motive. They don’t have any witnesses. They don’t have a weapon. They really have nothing, which is why I’m guessing no one’s been formally charged.”
 

“Can they do this, then? Treat her like this?” my dad asks. My mother reaches out for his hand. I don’t think she’s eaten much of anything since June died. She’s always been thin, and now she’s starting to look drawn, like a guitar string pulled to snapping.

“Unfortunately, yes. This is the way it goes. They’re pressing everyone extra hard, not just Emma. Sounds like this Detective Boyer is known as somewhat of a bloodhound. They say she’s pretty relentless.”

This is not making me feel better. Maybe I should tell them everything. Now, before this goes any further. Then I think of Jackson. I told him I wasn’t going to say anything, and I have to stick to that, at least until I speak to him first.

“She’s already managed to narrow down the suspect pool considerably. It looks like there were only seven other people not in the two main rooms at the time of the murder: Chuck Rand, Pastor Pete, Hope Crowley, Paige and Michael Kent, Nicolas Lawson, and June herself.”

“They don’t seriously think it could be someone in the congregation, do they?” Mom asks. “Especially one of the kids?”

“That detective, that Boyer woman? She has a chip on her shoulder about religion. I can tell you that,” my dad says.

“I’m getting the same sense about her, Pastor. But there were no signs of forced entry. So whoever did it either had a key, was already there, or got let in by someone who was.”

“What about picking a lock?” Dad asks. “I’ve heard about some very sophisticated devices out there.”

“It’s possible, but they’re not seeing any signs of it, so they’re pursuing what they have. Which leaves us with that list. Everyone else at the lock-in has multiple witnesses for their whereabouts because they were in groups, some playing basketball in the gym and the rest either playing Red Rover in the Youth Center or watching it.”

I remember coming in at the end of the game, racing in feeling like I would burst with happiness. By then, June was already dead.
 

Mr. Graham says, “Pastor Pete, whom I’ve spoken with personally, was disciplining Chuck about some disturbance he had made shortly before.”

“He lit his fart on fire.” It sounds stupid once it comes out of my mouth, and totally the wrong thing to say, but it’s true. They stare at me, not sure whether to chastise me or let it go. “Sorry. It’s true. I saw him do it. Then Pastor Pete and Miss Hope took him out.”

“Yes. They took him to Pastor Pete’s office, after which Chuck and Pastor Pete had a discussion about his behavior, which each of the three verifies.” It was a dumb thing to do, but Chuck is always doing dumb things like that. I’m surprised he’s not caught more often.

“There’s also Nicolas Lawson, the girl’s boyfriend. He says he was looking for June, whom he hadn’t seen since ten or so. Several witnesses report him asking about her whereabouts, but none can pinpoint exact times so he hasn’t been totally eliminated. However, I know the Lawsons personally, and I think it’s unlikely the boy is responsible.”
 

Everyone who knows Nicolas would feel this way. He may be a little on the know-it-all side, but he’s farm-boy innocent and soldier honorable, the kind of guy older girls want to mother and younger girls want to be protected by.

“Which leaves Paige and Michael Kent, who were together getting cases of soda from the coffee shop pantry on the main level.”

Paige. I didn’t even register her name on the list. And the fact that it is on there? It’s totally my fault. I’m the one who asked her to do that. Then I remember something else.

“The police kept asking me about whether or not we were going swimming later,” I say. “Did your contact say anything about that?”

“Yes. He did. Apparently the girl was wearing a swimsuit when she died.”

“But I saw her. She was fully clothed. She was wearing a sundress and tennis shoes and—“

“The swimsuit was under the girl’s clothing,” he says. “They’re not sure what to make of it. She may have been using it as undergarments.”

Was she? Do I remember seeing her in the changing room? I can’t be sure.

“But that’s for the police to figure out. What’s important right now is that we get all the facts. “He gives me his most stern look. “I understand you were alone at the time of the murder? In one of the Kid’s Korner bathrooms?”

“Yes.”

“Now, Emma, this is the time for complete honesty. And I’m sorry, but that just doesn’t make any sense at all.”

“But it’s true.” I’m defensive because it’s not true, not at all. If I admit I lied about this, it will make me look so much guiltier. It feels like he knows I’m lying so I stick to the lie harder, force him to believe. I can see it’s not working.

“Why would you do that?”

“I just…,” I sniffle, for real, frustrated with all of this. I had nothing against June, and I had nothing to do with her death, so why should I have to explain myself like this?

“I get overwhelmed sometimes. And I was feeling sick because I ate too much at the ball and then slammed a Red Bull. It had been a long day, and everyone was there, and I just wanted a few minutes to myself. Sometimes I go up there to be alone. No one’s ever there during youth group stuff.” Some of this is true, and I’m hoping it will make the not-true bits sound true too.

“The thing is, and they haven’t made this common knowledge just yet, but they think they have you gone from the party for more than a few minutes. They think it was nearly two hours.”

“That can’t be right,” I say. It is right.

Mr. Graham seems to soften a bit. “I think I understand, but do you understand how it looks to the police? What would help, what would really help, is if you saw anything while you were away from the Youth Center.”

“I can’t think of anything.”

“Any weird sounds or lights on where they shouldn’t be? Anything out of place? Any cars driving around in the parking lot?”

Then I remember the noise. I remember feeling like someone was there, watching me. Watching us. But what can I say? I was supposed to be across the entire church from where I saw them. What if I said something about it and made it harder to find who really did it?

“No. Nothing.”
 

“This is ridiculous,” Dad says. “Why should Emma have to defend herself here? It’s like they’re not even considering her as anything but a suspect.”

“At least she’s still a minor,” Mr. Graham says. My birthday is on May 31, five weeks away. “They can’t question her without your presence until she’s eighteen, which is good. You did the right thing calling me. I don’t want you talking to anyone about any of this without me there. Anyone, okay?”
 

I nod.
 

“No texting, no calls, no friends, no outside family, no teachers, and especially no police. They show up for ‘just a quick chat’ you call me, got it?”

“Yes, sir.” I can see that he likes it when I call him sir. He was worried before, but now I’m the girl he always thought I was. Polite, contrite, spotless.
 

“Your job is to stay quiet until this all gets cleared up. Keep your normal routine, though. We don’t want you to look like you have anything to hide. Go to school, go to church, then go home.”

“Yes, sir,” I say. He beams.

“We’re not going to let anything bad happen to you, sweetheart, okay? You’re a good kid, and everybody at church knows that. You have nothing to worry about.”

Only I am worried.

A
T
SUNDOWN
THAT
NIGHT
is June’s vigil. There are over a thousand people there, holding candles in silent respect of June. Most of them I don’t know. There are a lot of reporters, a lot of cameras, and a lot of what I suspect are strangers coming out to gawk at tragedy. They all feel like intruders, like gossips holding cups to our door so they can listen to our pain and feed off it.

I look around until I spot the people I do know. Mike and Paige are standing near the front, where someone has set up the cross we danced around at the Purity Ball. It’s right on the front lawn, buried in flowers and teddy bears and florist balloons printed with
We Miss You
and
Rest In Peace
. There are drawings too, and pictures. Someone has put together a collage of photographs, most of which I’ve never seen before, but all of which seem to have been taken at various youth group activities.

And around it all, on the lawn, her name is spelled out in candles:

JUNE

Glowing. Flickering in the darkness. Her name.
 

The sight makes my throat thick.

Paige spots me and waves. Mike nods to me too. I haven’t talked to him since that night, though I’ve been meaning to call, because it’s what I would do if I was really his girlfriend, in my heart. It suddenly seems strange that he hasn’t called me yet. But he’s probably been as sidelined by this as everyone else has.

All the other kids are here too: Chuck, Ruth, Ben, Angela, Erica, Katie, and Nicolas (June’s boyfriend). I walk over to them and join their ranks. I’ve grown up with these kids. I may not believe the same thing as them anymore, but they’re the only ones I want to be with right now. None of them know what the police are thinking about me, and not one of them would believe it if they did.

Paige hugs me when I walk up to her.

“Say something, please,” she says through her tears. “The adults aren’t saying anything, and her parents aren’t even here, and all this silence is killing me.”

I look up and see Angela nod to me, Chuck too.

“Please,” Paige says. “You knew her better than anyone but Nicolas, and he’s mess.” I look over to him. He’s totally destroyed, barely standing he’s crying so hard. I’ve never seen him like this before. The sight of him so broken breaks us all a little bit more, I can feel it.

“What am I supposed to say?” I ask Paige.

“I don’t know. You’ll figure it out. You’re good at this kind of stuff.”

Angela speaks up, “Do it. It would make everyone feel a lot better.”

Then Ben chimes in too. “Come on, Em.”

And Chuck, “Yeah. Say something.”

My hands are shaking as I leave their circle and take a few steps toward the cross. Maybe I shouldn’t do this. Maybe this is a bad idea.

Once I’m there, everyone stares at me expectantly, at least everyone close enough to see. I clear my throat, trying to think of what I should say, but nothing’s coming. Nothing at all. What can I say about her? That she was sweet? That she was brave? That she was loved? I don’t know, not really, if any of that is true. What I know of her seems so small compared to what her entire life must have been made up of. Who am I to say anything at all?

The only thing I can think of, the only thing playing though my head, is the song I sang at my Grandma Betty’s funeral: “It Is Well With My Soul.”

I don’t have anything else, so I sing.

“When peace, like a river, attendeth my way,

When sorrows like sea billows roll;”

The crowd, all of them now, turns their attention to me. My voice quavers, but I keep going, letting it swell and rise with the melody.

“Whatever my lot, Thou hast taught me to say,

It is well, it is well with my soul.”

I take a breath to calm my nerves, then move on to the refrain.

“It is well…”

And I hear it then, the words sung back to me as they are when it’s sung in church. The echo is from my friends. Paige and Angela and Ruth and Katie, joining in so I won’t be alone.

“It is well,” they sing.

“With my soul,” I sing.

“With my soul,” they echo in response, the boys coming in now too. Ben’s deep bass and Chuck's shaky baritone. Then all of us together, and someone from the crowd joining in with a harmony.

“It is well, it is well, with my soul.”

I move on to the last verse, and now they’re all singing with me. The whole crowd, at least the ones who know the church, who know the song. You can tell the intruders by their silence, but the rest of us are singing it out into the night, together. Which is good, because the tears are coming again, too hard to stop, and I wouldn’t be able to do it by myself, not without them.