The Telling (14 page)

“Ben was not my brother,” I say moodily, half to be difficult and half because that's who Ben is—
was
. “His mom married my dad, making him my stepbrother.” I finish less hotly than I started.

In a strained voice, Ward says, “I know what a step-sibling is. Answer the question.”

I whip my ponytail back and forth. “And it wasn't that Maggie was
just questioned
. She was suspected of planning the carjacking. She knew who Ben's attacker was.” I pause, searching his face for a muscle twitch or clue. “I—I don't understand what you're asking.” My fingers press at my temples.

He takes his time, reclines in his seat, rubs the knuckles of one hand before switching to the other. “Would you be suspicious if you were me?” he asks slowly.

“Of what?” I cry. My heart is knocking against my rib cage like an unfamiliar and insistent fist on a door. At present Sweeny is squinting at me under the lone lightbulb, just as she was in the glare of the flashlight as she took Maggie's and my statements that awful night.

“There's one problem with the little tale you and your bosom buddies have woven,” Ward says. “The coroner's report for Ms. Lewis came back this morning. Really, kids as smart as you lot should have foreseen the complication. You might have gotten away with it. You waited two months. You recruited six witnesses to lie for you. How long were you and your friends at Swisher Spring yesterday? Approximately?” He jabs his finger viciously.

“Seven hours,” I say.

“And did you ever leave the spring as a group?” Both his elbows are on the table as he strains forward.

“No, we were there from two to after nine, when the police arrived.”

“At what time did you find Ms. Lewis?”

“Um, it was almost dark. After eight, I guess.”

“Is the spring large? Are there any sides obstructed from view or shielded by trees?” His chest presses against the table.

“No, it's not big.
We were on the rocks.” He saw the spring for himself. “We could see the whole thing, the whole day.”

Both his palms strike the table. I jump. He raises one finger in the air between us. “Ms. McBrook, Maggie had been dead for one hour before you pulled her from the water.”

I am sinking. Ward and I are on a seesaw, and I'm slowly weighing my side lower as I lift his. His ravenous scowl is bearing down on me.

“One hour,” he repeats emphatically. “Placing her murder at Swisher Spring at roughly seven in the evening, when you and your friends swear that you were the only people in sight. And what's more, the deceased was fed a poisonous substance only hours before death. A poison that immobilized Maggie and prevented her from fighting as you held her under the water and waited for her to stop struggling.”

I
shouldn't stay in the room with the detectives, who are determined to drag me backward. June is wafting through the air duct in the ceiling as neon, toxic fog. It brings the snowflake petals on marionberry bushes into sharper focus than the ceiling tiles and the periwinkle of Sweeny's blouse. It hurts to think of firework stands at every turnout in the highway, the end-of-the-year assembly, the drive to the airport, and the promise of Ben home and then in college.

Sweeny leans forward, electrified. “Lana, was there someone else at the spring?” Her nail taps the table for my attention. I wince at the gentle click like I did at Ward's pounding. “The vagrant schizophrenic man who camps at Swisher Tunnel, did you kids see him? Did Maggie arrive with your group? The two boys, Mr. Harper and Mr. Alvarez, who were injured in a scuffle at the spring, did one of them hurt Maggie?” Her eyes beg me to open up like she's some after-school special. “You kids think you're doing everyone a favor by lying? You can tell me if there's someone you're protecting.” She keeps at it with her gentle prodding, and Ward bursts in with intervals of shouting, not even coy about accusing me of orchestrating Maggie's murder.

Sweeny tries to lessen Ward's verbal blows by offering alternative explanations that all boil down to me lying because I'm protecting someone. One of my friends. Skitzy-Fitzy. A passing acquaintance.

I watch the ceiling sag. A hundred yellowed squares stretch at the seams. Their corners break free and curl like the worn stickers on the inside of my school locker. Ribbons of tile peel slowly until they're shed as dead skin, falling to Ward's boxy shoulders like snow or dandruff. I rub my eyes. We didn't lie about Maggie. I didn't see her underwater when I leaped from the ridge. Maggie appeared as a fourth atom with the hydrogen and oxygen of the water.

There's a twinge between my brows as I ask Sweeny, “You're sure that Maggie was dead for one hour? They're able to tell even if the body's in water?”

Sweeny's head bows in confirmation. “The medical examiner is certain.”

“Poison,” I whisper.

“The autopsy confirmed that she ingested
Abrus precatorius
, a deadly neurotoxin, five to six hours before she drowned,” Sweeny says. “It affected her nervous system after several hours. She would have been unsteady on her feet and afflicted by slurred speech.”

“Abra-what?”

“Rosary peas,” Ward cuts in. “But you knew that, Lana. The red berries that used to be threaded along with a cross to make a rosary. Clever of you to know that the berries and their seeds have paralytic properties when ingested. Did you conceal them in Maggie's lunch? Did the rest of you eat as you waited to incapacitate her for your attack? Did you drown her as a last resort once you saw the dose you'd given her didn't prove fatal?”

Rosary: a trinket held close by old ladies and priests in foreign films. Creased and papery fingers worrying over red berries as they mumble prayers like spells. There's a familiar quality to this scene, like a recollection you have in the morning and assume it's the flash of the previous night's dream because the details are vague and disjointed.

“Rosary peas aren't indigenous to this region, Lana,” Sweeny says.

“We have officers contacting every hothouse in a day's drive to see if they grow the plant. This isn't something your parents are going to be able to save you kids from—it won't matter who they are. We'll get warrants. We'll find the proof we need. Soon. If you tell the truth now, save us all the trouble, we'll be able to say you're cooperating,” Ward whispers like he's telling me a secret. “Lana, I'm told you're bright. One of your friends is going to come clean. It's just a matter of when. Don't you want it to be you? Is that where you got the poison? A hothouse? Or did one of you kids have an antique rosary? You have a flair for the dramatic?” He's hoping one of us will confess, thinking that the consequences might be lighter for whoever spills.

“Maggie wasn't with us,” I say. It's the truth. “I haven't seen her for eight weeks.” That's true too.

When the police told us there was likely nothing recognizable of Ben left to find, I wished it had been Maggie to die. Not only in the trading places scenario of Maggie dead meaning Ben alive. I wanted Maggie to die regardless—
in addition
. My mouth salivated for revenge. I even imagined taking it myself. Whether the police found her responsible or not, whether Dad believes that she meant to hurt Ben or not, there was something off about that night. It felt
sinister. In my head, that night seems less like an ending and more like the beginning to one of Ben's stories.

Wishing someone dead is different from killing them. I know this, but as Ward stares me down, accusation written all over his face, I think,
Did I do it
? Did I want it badly enough? My thoughts land on Rusty joking that it was Ben's ghost. The chair screeches as I slide away from the idea. Sweeny's calm exterior falters; the muscle under her right eye twitches as she looks from me to Ward.

“I think Lana's been through enough today,” she says coolly, calmly, but her gaze goes from me to the door. Is she telling me to leave? Should I run? Ward presses a firm hand to my shoulder as I stand.

“Detective,” Sweeny says sternly, “Lana's given us her witness account, and she's clearly upset and has nothing more to offer at this time. To press the issue would be presumptuous without comparing all witness statements.”

Ward's face goes purple. I don't wait for them to have it out. I mutter good-bye. As I pass over the threshold, Ward calls, “This isn't over, Ms. McBrook. You're looking far from innocent.”

I don't doubt that he's right.

Each heartbeat bleeds into the next until there's a sustained, battering pressure in my chest. It carries me forward to vomit, or gasp, or scream. The faces in the hall are too similar to tell apart. My boots squeak as I dodge through the human obstacles. I angle outside.

My forearms hit the back door and I jog down the cement stairs to the parking lot, dark from the night's rain. The smells of wet asphalt and the brine of the neighboring oyster shack are a noxious blend. I lurch between two police cruisers, brace myself on my knees, and breathe deeply. Black spots wriggle like spiders on my field of vision.

A palm rests on my lower back, and I whirl around with a yelp. Josh has one hand in the air. “It's just me,” he says. He smiles nervously, a bit out of breath. “You looked bad coming out of the interview.” He scratches his head. “Not
bad
. You look like you.” He says
you
as if it's synonymous with pretty. “Upset is what I mean.” He shifts his weight, hesitates for a moment, and puts his arms around me.

My eyes scrunch shut against his shoulder. “This can't be happening. . . . I didn't survive this summer to—to go to jail.”

His arms slacken and we're toe to toe, looking at each other. “No one's going to jail.” A corner of his mouth picks up. “Well, maybe I'm going to jail since I'm eighteen, but you're going to juvie. Too soon for jokes, huh?” His blue eyes are apologetic.

I get a whiff of Josh's freshly laundered shirt. Josh is the kind of boy who eats kale salad at dinner with his moms and has a clean room and laundry folded in his dresser drawers and doesn't know what it's like to get picked last. What happens to boys like Josh in jail? “They said Maggie was dead for one hour,” I whisper. “She was poisoned.”

Josh is frowning. “I know. I was interviewed while you were, although mine lasted only half as long.”

The tissue between my ribs constricts, knitting the bones tighter. “What did you tell them?”

“Nothing.” Josh eyes the exterior of the building. “There's nothing to say. We didn't do what they're accusing us of. Duncan went in after me, and Ward called Carolynn in once you were done. Becca, Willa, and Rusty are still waiting for their turns.”

“I should talk to my dad,” I say.

“He's out front with my moms, conference calling a lawyer,” he explains.
He pauses, expression turning uncertain. “Look, I know we haven't really talked about what you saw happen that night and that Maggie was the reason you guys were in the car, and she planned the whole thing. I guess that goes without saying, since everyone in Gant knows. I mean that I get that you probably felt like killing her and you didn't even hurt her.” His eyes grow big and sweet. “You're too good for that. And it's really unfair that we're—that
you're
—suspected anyway.” His soft hands rub up and down my arms. “It sucks.”

My smile is feeble. The other boys give Ben credit each time I do something that impresses them. When I jumped from Duncan's roof into the pool with the boys, Rusty whooped that Ben taught his little sis to be a badass. When I lit three Roman candles and sent them careening into the sky, the boys applauded and Duncan asked if I was sure I wasn't blood related to Ben. Ben. Ben.
Ben.
Never me.

Not Josh. He gives me credit. “Thanks,” I say. I appreciate it even if deep down I know that I am not good or forgiving or honest.

We glance to where our chests are together. I step away, my cheeks warm. Josh shakes his hands out at his sides. Nothing's
actually
changed since two days ago. The police believe we're responsible for Maggie's death because the coroner's report is wrong. The mistake will be revealed. We either killed her or we didn't—and we didn't, no matter how much I may have wished for it.

“An officer my mom is buddies with took her aside and said they're hoping that if they scare us, one of us will spill.” Josh flicks his honey hair from his forehead.

“We told them everything we know.”

He hooks his thumbs in his front jean pockets. “They were suspicious of Rusty's and Duncan's injuries from the start. They let it go.
Boys get after each other all the time. Then they did the exam, and the results say we aren't being truthful with them. There's your connection with Maggie. There's Rusty and Duncan's blowup. We look suspicious.” He exhales slowly; his shoulders shrink with the lost air and he never quite inflates again.

Perception is nine-tenths of everything, and if we look like liars and murderers, that's what the police will assume we are.

Carolynn and Duncan file out the back door of the station, spot us among the cars, and come toward us. Duncan's left his skipper hat at home, and he's stiff and uncomfortable-looking, closing his eyes in intervals. Beads of sweat cling to his greenish face. Hungover.

Carolynn avoids looking my way. Duncan glares at the station over his shoulder before speaking louder than necessary. “The jack-off who questioned me said that he'd find fingerprint bruises on Maggie from whoever held her under. I told him good.” He thumps his chest and looks greener for it. “I didn't kill a girl.”

Carolynn waves dismissively. “The c-u-next-Tuesday who questioned me with Ward said that they could tell by the food in Maggie's stomach that
I
fed her poison. As if I'd buy that there were fingerprints on digested muck in guts.”