The Singing Bone (37 page)

“Did you think you would do it—that you would kill someone for Jack Wyck?”

“Yes. Yes, I did. Just after it got light, there was a man in the woods taking a run, and I was very quiet so he wouldn't hear me, and I held the gun up and pointed it at him, but I couldn't do it.”

“But you had to have done something?”

She nods, bites her lip. “I shot a deer. I soaked the shirt with its blood. I took the shirt back to the house.”

“And what happened when you got back?”

“I lied. I told him I killed the man. I described him. I said that I hid him under branches and leaves. I buried him under a bunch of stuff. I had this idea that he'd say ‘Why did you do that? I wasn't serious when I said to kill someone,' and then I could tell the truth, but he didn't say that.”

“What did he say?”

“He said ‘Give me the shirt' and I gave it to him. He smiled when he saw the blood. He said no one would find the man until spring. And then I was his favorite again. He said there was something new between us. A secret. We both had to keep the secret.”

“Why did you stay with him at the house?”

“Because—” She bites her lip, which is almost as pale as her cheeks, and when she looks at Hans, he sees that her eyes are large and dark. “Because I wanted him to—” She leans forward a little. “I wanted him to
love me
.”

“Did you feel loved?”

She shakes her head. “I must have. And all my friends were there. It seemed there was nowhere else to go. I thought about leaving sometimes, but it was easier to stay. Stover said we should leave, but we all ignored him. If we'd left, Stover would still be alive. He was only there because of me.”

Hans gives her some time. She's rocking a little, her arms wrapped around her. He wonders if she takes medicine here, if there was something—some illness—that might explain what she did, but he doesn't ask. Instead, when he sees that she's waiting again, waiting to be asked because she won't continue on her own, he says, “Could you tell me about the night of February second?”

“The night he turned us all into murderers?” She exhales a single, bitter
hah
after the word “murderers” and then closes her mouth, swallowing as if taking the laugh back into herself.

“Yes.”

“I'll just go straight through,” Trina says. “If that's all right. I'll do it as quickly as I can.”

“That's fine,” Hans says.

She nods. “Alice came back from a mall where Lee had taken her to buy some new clothes. She'd gotten a ride back with someone—we didn't know who. Lee came back first without her. Lee couldn't stand Alice. I mean, not that that matters, but he
hated
Alice, so we just figured he'd left her somewhere on purpose to mess with her. But when she finally came back, she was shaking really bad and she wouldn't talk to anyone. She went upstairs and went into the crawl space. We all tried to talk to her, but she wouldn't come out. Mr.—
Jack
Wyck kept telling Alice that if she didn't come out and tell us what had happened he'd have to come in there and make her tell him. I went in and I got out the story about running into Greta at the mall, and how she thought she'd given everything away. I came out and told him.

“We went back in the crawl space and talked to Alice. Mr. Wyck kept reaching for her feet, but she'd shoved herself all the way into the back so he couldn't get her. Eventually, he gave up, and then we had a meeting with Lee, and Mr. Wyck said ‘Cat's out of the bag. We've got to clean shop.' I didn't know what that meant, but Lee must have, because he went down to the cellar and came back with two guns and some very long knives. The knives were wrapped up in paper. I'd never seen knives that big. I guess they were butcher's knives. They were different.” She stops and closes her eyes, bringing her thumb and index finger to the bridge of her nose. She squeezes, breathes, and then begins again.

“Mr. Wyck told me to get Stover. ‘It's going down,' he said to me. I still didn't know what he meant, but I acted like I did. He asked me if I loved him. ‘Yes,' I said. ‘Yes, of course.' ‘Then prove it,' he said. I brought Stover in. ‘They don't know you, Stover,' Mr. Wyck said. ‘They've never seen you. We're sending you in,' he said. ‘Be a soldier.' He handed Stover a hat to hide the Mohawk and told him to put on one of his blue shirts. ‘Yes, sir,' Stover said, but he looked at me and I knew he wasn't going to do it. I could tell by his face. I'd known him since we were babies. He wasn't going to do it. ‘Where's Alice?' he asked. ‘She's up in the crawl space,' Lee said. ‘She's fucking crazy. This is all her fault.' Stover wanted to know if Alice was alone. Maybe he imagined he could get us all out of there. ‘She's with Molly,' I said. ‘Molly's trying to talk to her.' ‘Before you go,' Mr. Wyck said, pack a bag. We're leaving here tonight.'” Trina pauses, looks at the ceiling, and squints as if trying to remember something.

“Do you remember what you were thinking?”

“Oh,” she says, meeting Hans's gaze. “Thinking? No. I really don't. I don't think I was thinking. I was more like—” She looks at the ceiling again. “Obeying. We'd done some coke and I guess I was sort of excited, like: something is finally happening. Before that night, I didn't realize I'd been waiting for something to happen—and there were more drugs.” She shakes her head.

“He gave you something that night, yes? Some drugs?” Hans knows he's still looking for a reason—drugs, mental health, ­anything that will release Trina from her crime, but then he understands: It doesn't matter why she did it. The horror of her crime is trapped here in this room, will be evident in the film. Most people, he knows, if you said the name
Trina Malik
to them, would recoil in horror. “Yeah. He came towards me with a needle and said it was good stuff. ‘Speed,' he said. ‘You'll be up and far away and done and none of it will be real. I'm looking out for you,' he said. He said he would be with us, but he couldn't come. And so I put out my arm and I remember he kissed me. He kissed me and injected me.” She coughs.

“What did you think would have happened if you refused to do any of the things Jack Wyck asked of you?”

“The weapons were out. Lee was holding a gun. I think Jack Wyck would have killed me—or he would have had Lee kill me.”

“Did Stover take the drugs, too?” She nods and Hans wishes they were in the main visiting room. Then she could look out the window and see her tree—a life in the distance.

“He injected Stover and Lee, too. I think it was a methamphetamine. And then we were out the door. Lee drove. In the truck, he had us all singing something. He kept screaming at us.
Faster.
We were very loud. I don't know what we were singing. We parked down the street from the Smiths'. All the lights were off. It was past midnight. Lee had a plan. He said Stover had to knock on the door. ‘They're not going to let Stover in,' I said. ‘Mr. Wyck says they're afraid of black people.' I was rocking back and forth. I had one of the knives. Stover didn't say anything, but Lee laughed. He called me stupid. He said, ‘You all believe every fucking thing that man says. It's sick. He only did that so if we needed Stover we could bring him in later. You're really so fucking stupid, T.' Stover reached over the back of his seat and tried to get his hands around Lee's neck, and then they were on each other. Lee got free and climbed into the back of the van and put a gun to Stover's head. Lee said, ‘If you don't do what I say, I'll fucking kill you.' And that was it. Stover had to go to the house.

“I kept thinking maybe the plan wouldn't work. Maybe it wouldn't work and we could all go and just go back to the way things were. The plan was that Stover would knock on the door and say he needed to use the phone. I think Stover wanted to run, but Lee had the gun on him. He walked behind Stover to the house with the gun on him. Greta answered the door. See, Stover had a real sweetness about him. I guess she picked up on that because she let him in to use the phone. Me and Lee were right behind him.”

“Is that when Greta was killed? When she answered the door?” Hans glances up at Ariel. She has her headphones on, but she's not looking through the camera lens. She's staring at Trina. Hans motions to her. He sees her wake up, separate herself from the nightmare.

“Yes. Lee did it. He shot her. She was saying his name and asking
why
, and then Bob came down the stairs to see what was going on and I stabbed him from behind, but he was a large man and I was so high I could barely hold the knife, so Lee shot him. And then Lee said, ‘Trina, go do the kids,' and Stover was freaking out. Stover was losing his mind. ‘What the
fuck
are you doing?' he kept screaming, like he didn't know it was supposed to go down like that. But I did what Lee said. I killed Matty and Tilly Smith.”

“How did you do it?” He doesn't really want to hear it. He's seen the photos, but hearing her tell the story is more vivid. Her words are delivered in short bursts, as if she's pushing the story away from her as she speaks. She's not really looking at Hans. She's not looking at Ariel.

“They were sleeping,” Trina says. “I put the covers over their faces. I put the covers over their faces so I couldn't see them. I don't know if they ever even woke up. I stabbed them.”

“How did you feel?” Hans wants her to explain herself to him, but they're both at sea.

“I was too high. I don't know. It was like—we had to take care of business for Mr. Wyck. That was really all I was thinking of. He said we should mess up the house and make it look like a robbery.”

“Did you take anything?”

“I opened drawers and pulled stuff out and put it on the floor. That's all. Lee and I were covered with blood. He made me snort some coke. We got in the van and drove back to Mr. Wyck's. Stover was sobbing. Lee was laughing and making these monkey sounds. I don't remember what I was doing. What I remember is how cold it was. And how dark. I kept thinking we'd wreck the car—that something would happen. That we'd somehow be punished right away, but nothing happened. It was so quiet.”

“What did you tell the others when you got back to the house? It must have been very strange coming back—realizing what you'd done, what might happen. Were you cognizant of any of that?”

“I remember Molly saw us. She heard me tell Mr. Wyck that Lee said I had to kill the babies. ‘You killed the babies?' she said. ‘You killed the babies?' Alice had a black eye. Her face was swollen. I guess Mr. Wyck finally got her out of the crawl space. She just looked at me, I remember, and kind of smiled and said the play was going to end soon. We all thought she'd forgotten the play, but there it was. Molly ran out of the house and Mr. Wyck told Alice to go after her. And then he went out, too. I had this—” She stops and looks around. She puts her hand on her stomach. “I had this heavy feeling. Right here.” She touches the space below her ribs. “It was like I couldn't move anymore. But Lee made me get in the van. And the next thing I knew, we were all in the van and driving very fast, but Molly—” She looks at the empty doorway, lays her palms flat on the steel table. “Molly wasn't with us.”

Alice wouldn't come out. Mr. Wyck crawled in after Trina and tried to grab Alice's feet, but Alice made herself into a ball and moved farther back. From there, she told them what had happened at the mall. “You stupid bitch,” Mr. Wyck said. “You little cunt.”

“I'm sorry,” Alice said through tears. “I didn't know—”

“You didn't know what?” Trina said gently.

She pressed her palms to her eyes. “My lines.”

“Oh, for fuck's sake.” Mr. Wyck kicked at her. His foot hit her face. He kicked again. Harder. “We've got to act,” he sad. “Now.”

“Act?” Alice said. She was so tired of acting. Mr. Wyck told her to shut up. Then they crawled away, and when the door opened again, a little light came in. Alice squinted. They didn't close it. She moved away from the band of light, turning her back on it. Her face hurt.

“Alice?” It was Molly. Alice felt Molly's fingers pulling at the back of her dress. “Alice? You can come out now. Mr. Wyck is gone. Everyone is.” Molly had a flashlight. She turned it on and off. Dark. Light. Dark. Light.

“Leave it off, Molly,” Alice said, and she did. Alice could hear Molly's breath, short and fast. After Allegra left, Molly kept drinking the beet juice, but she had a nebulizer again, too. Mr. Wyck brought it home one day. He didn't say how he got it.

“You can come out now,” she said again. Dark, light, dark.

Alice rolled towards her. “But you have to leave the flashlight off,” she said. “I asked nicely. Molly?”

“Yeah?”

“Can we go back?”

“Back where?”

“To before?”

Molly didn't say anything. She turned the flashlight on but pointed it away from Alice. “No one's here,” she said again. “You can come out now.”

“I want to go home. I'm going home.”

“You are home, Al.”

“No. I'm in a play.”

“No, you're not, honey.”

“Alice Pearson will be playing the role of The Creeper tonight. Alice Pearson will be playing the role of the babysitter today.”

“Come out. I'll make you some coffee. Do you want a glass of wine? You have to pack, too.”

“Pack?”

“We're all leaving.”

“I'm leaving.”

“You're coming with us.”

“I'm going to visit my mother.”

“No. Just come out.”

“All right.”

But Molly had lied. As soon as Alice crawled out, she saw that Mr. Wyck was sitting next to the door, waiting. He grabbed her. He didn't hit her, but he held her wrists tight. She tried to run, but he grabbed her feet. “Where are you going?” he yelled. “Where do you think you're going?” He pinned her on her back and looked into her face. His face was transforming: first Mr. Wyck; then a wolf with long, sharp, white incisors, jaw unhinged. He would eat her. Then Mr. Wyck again. Dark, light, dark. He let her up. She sat on the steps.