The Secrets of Lily Graves (16 page)

“What?”

He cupped my cheek. “Analyze Troy Polamalu's defense. Because if I don't think about football, I will go crazy thinking about you.”

I felt a tingling sensation on my ass. It took a second for me to realize that it wasn't the effect of Matt about to make a pass, but my phone.

“Hold on,” I said, wiggling it out of my jeans pocket. “It's probably Sara wanting to know if you've killed me yet.”

He groaned.

The screen said
Barb Graves
, aka Aunt Boo. “No, it's my aunt wanting to know if you've killed me.” I pressed Answer. “I swear I'll be home soon.”

She did not sound happy. “You better be, because according to the scanner the police are swarming the cemetery. Apparently, someone reported that they heard a girl screaming, and I just prayed to God it wasn't you.”

Had I screamed? “Okay. Well, don't worry. I'm turning the corner to Cedar Crest.”

“Hurry. Before your mother gets back—and another thing: don't talk on the phone and drive.”

I hung up and bit my lower lip, trying to figure out how I was going to get out of this one.

“You're not on Cedar Crest,” Matt said. “What's going on?”

“The cops are here. They heard a girl scream. Boo thought it was me.”

“With me, right?” Matt ran a hand through his hair. “If they find the two of us together, it will not be cool.”

“Ditto. What are we going to do?”

“Classic football strategy. I head toward them and cause a distraction while you slip out the back and go through the fence to Hennessy. Where are you parked?”

“Dry cleaners across the street. Is that really a football play?”

“Kind of. When are we going to see each other again?”

“At the wake.”

He nodded. “I'll find out about the party.”

“I'll find out about Alex.”

“Sounds like a plan.” He hesitated as if he wanted to say something else. “Lil, we're going to get through this. We'll figure out who killed Erin and put this behind us.”

I bent over and turned off the light so it was pitch-black. “Matt?”

“Yeah?”

“What did you do with my Persephone necklace?”

“Huh?”

“The cameo I used to wear. The goddess of death.”

“That thing? Nothing. Why?”

There was the crackling sound of police radios squawking in the distance. The cops were here. “Nothing. You'd better go.”

“Good luck,” he whispered.

I felt something warm and vaguely rough on my cheek as he leaned down and, missing my lips, ended up brushing his lips against my ear. Then he yanked open the door and ran, hollering with all his might, while I headed silently in the opposite direction, my heart pounding for a zillion different reasons.

UNCORRECTED E-PROOF—NOT FOR SALE

HarperCollins Publishers

..................................................................

I
t is a truth universally acknowledged that
Homo sapiens
flourished because he, better than all other creatures on the planet, was uniquely hardwired to adapt. This ability to easily adjust to one's environment meant that we could learn to walk upright, create tools, and eventually even get used to the metal detector at the door in high school every morning.

But there was a downside to evolution too. The confidence I felt in the tomb was gone by morning. When I woke, I lay in bed contemplating the evidence stacked against us, and how bleak our chances were of finding Erin's killer.

“Justice is not only blind, it can be deaf and dumb,”
Sara said as we ate lunch outside in the courtyard, despite the bleak November sky that added to the general atmosphere of hopelessness. “The best homicide prosecutors are the ones who make the mental effort to put themselves in the minds and bodies of the murderers. Therefore, if you're going to abandon my advice and investigate Stone Bone instead of Matt, then the questions you need to ask are not only how Alex drugged and killed Erin, but why.”

“Because she was pregnant,” I said, biting into my apple with a definitive crunch.

“So? What does Alex care? When you've got nothing, you've got nothing left to lose. For all we know, a baby could have brought purpose to his otherwise nihilistic, coffee-brewing existence.”

I thought of this, swinging my legs and watching the TNs cross the grass to their next classes. Kate and Cheyenne were acting as if nothing had changed, laughing and texting as they walked. Allie, however, was like a silent shadow three paces behind.

“She knows something,” I said.

Sara watched her for a bit. “What?”

“That's what we have to find out.”

Sara tossed her empty bottle into the recycling bin, wiped her mouth, and brought out her math notebook, flipping to a fresh page and handing it to me. “Ready?”
she asked, as a damp breeze blew back her long, white-blond hair.

During the drive to school this morning, Sara and I agreed that any investigation we conducted needed to be cloaked in utmost secrecy. We could not risk creating a digital trail with texts or emails. Not even phone calls. Every note had to be on paper. And that paper would eventually be burned since, as every mortician knew, ashes told no tales.

“We have to start from ground zero,” I said. “We need to go to the crime scene and interview witnesses.”

“Like Erin's neighbors.” Sara wrote that down. “They've already been interviewed. Cops were in and out of Pinewoods for two straight days. People started to complain.”

“Too bad. We have to find the next-door neighbors with the dog who saw Erin fighting with Alex.”

“
Allegedly
,” Sarah said. “That's the Krezkys. Mrs. Krezky is super nosy. Figures she peeped in Erin's window. I sold Thin Mints to that woman for three years, and she would sit me at the kitchen table and grill me about the teachers at Potsdam Elementary.”

“What are the chances that they'll be at the wake tonight?”

“Pretty good. But let me talk to her. Not you. It's a more efficacious approach.”

I looked up, slightly offended. “Why?”

“You know how some people treat those with physical disabilities like they're retarded?”

“No.” Despite her obsession with Investigation Discovery, Sara was second in our class—right behind Erin. Smart was her middle name.

“Well, they do, and Mrs. Krezky falls into that category. I'd take her cold, hard cookie cash and make perfect change, and she'd speak really slowly and pat me on the head.”

“You're kidding, right?”

“Am I laughing? Anyway, this is one case where I can see her stupidity working to our advantage. So let me do the questioning tonight while you're busy refilling the coffee or whatever it is morticians' kids do at wakes.”

“Empty garbage,” I said, writing
S
next to
Krezkys
. “In the meantime, what are you doing eighth period?”

“Cramming for the physics test during my free band. Why?”

“Because I was thinking maybe we should be doing our studying at the café.

As far as coffee shops went, the Pots & Cups—a name that was supposed to be some sort of play on the word Potsdam—fell short on the necessary inspirational
atmosphere found at, say, any given Starbucks.

The concrete floor that was supposed to be hip ended up costing the establishment untold dollars in broken ceramic cups. The cappuccino maker was forever getting clogged and exploding onto the brown walls. And the jazz was just plain annoying.

At 2:00 p.m., not much seemed to be happening. Sara and I strolled in and noted with disappointment that Alex Bone did not appear to be on duty. There was only one person working, a girl, and she had her back to us.

“Excuse me,” Sara said after we'd waited a good five minutes for her to finish whatever she was doing.

“Just a minute,” the girl said, smearing her fingers on her apron as she came to the cash register.

I did a double take. “Tam?” I barely recognized her from last spring when she graduated. She must have gotten fifty pounds lighter since Jackson held up her soda and made fun of her for washing down a Magic Bar with a Diet Coke.

Tam smiled wide. “Hey, Lily and Sara. What are you guys doing here? I thought you were still in school.”

“We are,” Sara said. “Just skipping eighth period.”

“Ah, yes, the pleasures of senior year,” she said, her dark eyes flashing. “Wait till second semester.
You'll never go to class. So, what do you guys want? You should definitely try the pumpkin hot chocolate. Sounds gross, but . . .” She licked her lips. “To die for.”

I checked to see if Alex was around. “Actually, we came here looking for someone. Alex Bone.”

Tam's face fell. “Oh, him. Really? What for?”

Sara leaned over the counter. “It has to do with Erin Donohue.”

“Isn't that awful?” Tam asked. “That's all anyone here's been able to talk about since the cops said it was a murder. You should have been here for the morning rush. There were people crying.”

“Including Alex?” I asked.

Tam bent back and looked out the window toward the patio. “You see him out there?”

She pointed to a set of tables under the awning that faced the alley. Sure enough, there sat Alex Bone holding a lit cigarette between his fingers as he scribbled something in a journal. Now that he was up close, I was shocked at how old he seemed, with long, stringy black hair pulled into a ponytail and a soul patch under his lower lip.

“Is he supposed to be working?” Sara asked.

“He's on break, though he claims he's too depressed to deal with the public, so the manager has him cleaning equipment,” Tam said. “But all he's done since
Erin died is sit and write and smoke and drink coffee while the rest of us pick up his slack. I want to kill him myself.”

Sara read my mind. “Can we get two pumpkin hot chocolates?”

“Sure, I'll bring them out to you,” Tam said.

At the glass door to the patio, Sara stopped me. “Look, I don't think we should mention the pregnancy unless Stone Bone brings it up.”

That struck me as odd, since that was one of our main reasons for talking to Alex. “Why?”

“Because it's not cool to spread personal information that you got from a confidential death certificate. I'm surprised you're not more worried about the legal ramifications, Lil. You could get in serious trouble.”

Sara was right. She usually was whenever it came to legal stuff. “I guess finding a murderer was more important than obeying the law.”

She pushed open the door, clearly dismayed by my lack of respect for bureaucratic protocol.

The temperature must have dropped ten degrees while we were in the café. The long sleeves of my knit dress felt flimsy in a breeze that was almost wintry in its sharpness. Sara found a small wrought iron table in the corner and rubbed her good hand over her bad arm, though she had on a warm baby-blue cashmere turtleneck.

“Feels like it's going to snow,” she said loudly, to attract Alex's attention. “Wish I had your coat.”

Alex did not look up from his writing or offer his coat, which was draped artistically over his shoulders. We brushed dead leaves off our chairs and positioned ourselves so that I had a good view of him while appearing to watch the foot traffic parading on the cross street. He scribbled madly, occasionally crossing out words with violent strokes, pausing now and then to sip his coffee or puff on his cigarette.

“Cough, cough!” Sara made a big production of faking an asthma attack. “Can you believe people still smoke in this day and age?” She waved her hand back and forth. “Cancer much?”

Alex calmly placed his pen on the tablet and rotated in his chair. “It's a free country. If you don't like it, may I suggest you find somewhere else to sit?” He trailed his fingers toward the door. “Perhaps inside, from whence my kind has been banished.”

Tam appeared with our pumpkin hot chocolates and, sensing the tension, cautioned Alex with a scolding glare. “Now, now, Al,” she said, placing our cups on the table. “Let's play nice with Sara and Lily.”

He must not have seen me before because as soon as Tam said my name, he got all excited, as if we were long, lost friends. “Lily Graves? Hey, how are you?”

“Um, hi, Alex.” I smiled as Sara stifled a laugh with a gulp of hot chocolate.

His eyes were so red, they almost glowed. “You know, when I was at that pit called Potsdam High, you were the only one I thought might be able to understand my interests, seeing as how you too were mocked and ridiculed for yearning to be among the dead.”

I shifted uncomfortably in my chair. “I don't know if I
yearned
to be among the dead, exactly. Since I live in a funeral home, the dead pretty much come with the territory.”

Sara put down her cup. “You love the dead!” She cut her eyes to Alex, a cue to play along.

“Oh, the
dead.
Yes, I suppose that's why I'm having such a hard time dealing with Erin Donohue's murder, because I know—as do you, I'm sure, Alex—how death is so . . . permanent.”

“What a segue.” Sara kicked me under the table so hard I nearly let out a yelp.

Alex stubbed out his cigarette. “It's especially hard for me, because not many people are aware of this, but Erin and I were
very
close.”

“Really?” Sara said, resting her cheeks on two fingers. “How close?”

I kicked her back. She blinked, but otherwise acted as if she were hanging on his every word.

“So close, that . . .” He shook out a cigarette from his pack and lit it with a pink Bic. Then he exhaled and went on. “. . . I think I know who killed her.”

“You do?” I said. “Wow.”

Alex played with the silver lip ring at the corner of his mouth, debating, I supposed, whether to divulge this nugget of info. “I must explain my relationship with Erin.” He took another drag. “She used to come into the café every morning in her prissy clothes with not a hair out of place and ask for a chai soy latte, no sugar. Just another Potsdam homecoming queen wannabe, right?”