by Zara Lisbon
* * *
I checked my phone, which I’d left on silent, and saw I had at least a dozen texts from my mom, each one more frenzied than the last.
“Dammit,” I said, coming to as if out of a trance. “I completely lost track of time. I have to be home.” It was ten at night. I wondered how long it had been since she’d realized I was gone.
“I’ll pick you up tomorrow around noon and we’ll pay a visit to Dr. Silver.”
After this, I knew, there was no way my mom would let me out of her sight.
“No,” I said, my phone lighting up with a new influx of irate texts. “That’s not a good idea.”
“Why not?”
“I have to go, I’m sorry.” I stood up and dusted myself off. A call was coming in. “I have to answer this.”
“Where the hell are you, Justine?” my mom shrieked, and I winced, giving Ruby a pathetic I’m sorry wave. “Do you have any idea how much trouble you’re in?”
“Justine, wait,” Ruby tried, calling after me. “Don’t you want to find out what happened? Justine!”
“I’m coming home,” I said into the phone, talking over her panicked squawking. “Please calm down, I’m coming home.” I hung up and sighed deeply. I felt worn out, defeated. I didn’t know yet just how defeated I truly was.
* * *
When I got home, my mom was standing in the alleyway with Detectives Sato and Rayner. Red and white lights swirled from the top of their squad car, projecting a bloody river onto my mom’s white stucco garage.
“What’s going on?” I asked. It was warm out but I was shivering.
“Justine Childs, you’re under arrest,” Detective Sato said. “You have the right to remain silent. Anything you say can and will be used against you in a court of law. You have the right to an attorney. If you cannot afford an attorney, one will be provided for you.” He put one hand on my shoulder and one on my opposite wrist, then spun me around so he could fasten the handcuffs. It was such a swift and graceful motion, it was almost like dancing.
CHAPTER 8
JUSTINE CHILDS—COLD-BLOODED KILLER?
“I was at the Ace,” I insisted for the hundredth time, whimpering and humiliated, “I told you that already.”
“Turns out you weren’t,” Sato said finally, leading me into the station, my wrists bound in handcuffs behind my back. “We checked. They say you didn’t get there until five in the morning. According to the autopsy, Miss Kelly died between midnight and 4:00 A.M.”
“That doesn’t mean I hurt her!” I said. “That’s not proof of anything. If I was at the Ace by five, how could I even have time—” I stopped talking as Sato and Rayner pushed me past an open area full of people and into a room with frosted glass walls, then slammed the door shut.
Rayner opened a black ink pad. Sato removed the handcuffs. My right hand went limp as Sato lifted it, gripping on to my thumb. He plunged my thumb onto the ink pad and rolled it back and forth.
“There’s no way you have enough to arrest me,” I insisted, fully believing this. “All you know is that I don’t have a great alibi. That’s it.”
“Oh, we got a lot more than that, sweet pea,” Sato snickered. “Fingerprints on the athame? Same as the ones on the black coffee you left behind last time you visited us.”
“Where’s my mom?”
“She’s here. You can see her after we book you.”
This isn’t happening, I told myself, feeling my whole body stiffen and chill. Growing up we had rabbits, thirteen total, my favorite one a rusty strawberry color. I named her Strawberry, the way kids do. One day she got out of her hutch and Princess Leia chased her across the yard, scaring her to death. She didn’t mean to hurt her. Strawberry didn’t have a single scratch on her. She was untouched. On the outside, at least. On the inside her heart had burst open in one sudden moment. When I found her body it was rigid and ice cold. Literally frozen to death, frozen with fear. Even through her dense coat of fur, she felt icy against my fingers. I wondered if I felt that way now to Sato and Rayner when they touched me. I wondered if a human could be scared to death the way a rabbit could be.
Sato lifted my thumb from the pad and pressed it onto a ripe white sheet of card stock and rolled it again, left and right, like he had moments before in the ink. The swirled grooves of my skin showed up jet black and broken on the page, looking like an alien language, something the extraterrestrials left behind with their pyramids and their moonstones. I squinted sideways on the off chance I could catch a hidden message.
Ask for a lawyer. The thought shot through my mind like a ribbon, slick and shredded.
“I want a lawyer,” I said. Sato laughed.
“Of course you do,” he said. “If I killed my best friend I’d want a lawyer too.”
“I didn’t—” I started, but stopped, hearing my dad’s voice in my head: If you’re ever arrested, don’t say a single word. Innocent or guilty, do not say a single word. Not a single word, do you hear me? Angry, as if I’d already disobeyed. He’d even make me practice sometimes.
“Justine, you’re under arrest,” he’d say, sitting casually across from me at the dinner table, inserting some arbitrary reason for my arrest—vandalism, theft, arson. “You have the right to remain silent. Anything you say can and will be used against you in a court of law.”
I’d stare, blinking silently back at him, and he’d smile approvingly.
“Can you tell us what you were doing between eight and nine this morning?” He’d readopt his bad-cop persona, my mom looking on, unamused.
I’d keep staring straight ahead, staying quiet.
“Not talking, huh? You know, we have an eyewitness who says they saw you spray painting the side of the science building.” Sometimes I wondered where he grabbed these scenarios from, all of them nerdy and slipshod, impossible to take seriously.
I’d shrug, but not say a word.
“Who do you think you’re fooling? We have a witness who saw you do it. If you just admit to what you did, we’ll let the prosecution know you cooperated and they might go easier on you. But if you keep lying, well, then I won’t be able to help you.”
Shrug. Smile silently.
“If you were really innocent you’d just tell us where you were between eight and nine. Not telling us makes you look pretty guilty, Justine.”
This was where I’d normally break. If I could easily exonerate myself with an alibi, shouldn’t I say something and end the suffering then and there? No, not according to my dad. Getting you to try to help yourself was how they’d get you in the end, use every word against you as soon as they had the chance. He told me over and over again how the cops can make even the most innocent person guilty, but only if you talk. Once you’re arrested, innocent or guilty, the only power you have is your silence.
These mock interrogations started around age seven, but they picked up in frequency and thoroughness when I got home from Bellflower. That’s when he got protective of me, even a little overprotective, after seeing what could happen to me, I guess. That lasted about a year.
Sato guided me by the shoulders against a horizontally striped wall, each line marking an inch of height. In my kitten heels I came up almost to the 5′5″ line. Taylor Swift is five whole inches taller than that, I caught myself thinking, feeling small and inconsequential.
“Look at the camera,” Rayner said, though I couldn’t tell where exactly that was. FLASH! It was an unjust burst of light, catching me at my lowest moment with no do-overs. One tear escaped and slid down my cheek. I tried to comfort myself by summoning an image of handsome-as-hell Frank Sinatra in his famous black-and-white mug shot—see, it’s not so bad, it could happen to the best of us!—but it was no comfort. All I could think was, what had he done to get arrested? And why had I never wondered about that before? Who had he hurt and why had we made it all so glamorous? Then all I could think was how the image had become so ubiquitous that you could even buy it at Target now, and that Frank was probably rolling over i
n his grave at the thought. If you’re lucky, I told myself, one day they’ll sell your mug shot in Target too.
“You have one phone call.” Sato introduced me to a mustard-yellow receiver, nodding at it, thumbs tucked into his belt loops. It was heavier than I expected it would be, and so cold pressed up against my ear. I dialed self-consciously, Sato’s eyes making it all feel like a performance, like a roundoff double backflip I had to land just right. My nerves jitterbugged as the low electronic trill went on in loops. Rrrrrrrr. Rrrrrrrrr. Rrrrrrrr. Finally, someone picked up.
“This is Elliot,” he said.
“Dad,” I croaked wearily, “I need a lawyer.”
* * *
Hours later I was still alone and without answers. I didn’t believe they’d really lock me up like that, but next thing I knew I was behind bars. Afraid, breathing shallowly. Wasn’t I so obviously innocent? Couldn’t they see that in my face?
It wasn’t very cold, but my molars chattered violently. My fingertips went lavender. I sat cross-legged with my back against the wall and buried my face in my palms to avoid looking at cell bars the color of chewed mint gum. Adrenaline ran so resolutely through my veins I couldn’t worry past the current moment, trapped in the dull, deep present, inescapable like a muddy ocean. I thought about killing myself, the idea floating down from above and anchoring itself into the sandy floor of my mind. I could slice my wrists and not have to think for one more second about Eva-Kate or lawyers or what people were probably out there saying about me. Athame. I conjured an image of the shiny blade. Had it really been that sharp? Sharp enough to kill? I hadn’t thought so. I had underestimated, miscalculated.
But no, I wouldn’t kill myself, I wouldn’t even bother trying. The path ahead of me looked grim, but I was morbidly curious to see how it would all unfold. And besides, the free-fall of dread that came with the thought of no longer existing dwarfed any pain of being alive. I’d have to stick around and face the burden of proving my innocence.
At the sound of footsteps, I lifted my head. A man was striding down the hallway, making a somewhat crooked, albeit urgent, beeline for my cell, Detective Sato trailing close behind him. He was tall and looked skinny enough to slip right through the bars of my cell, and as he neared I saw that he wore jeans and a leather jacket, reddish hair slicked carelessly back off his freckled forehead.
“You haven’t said anything, have you?” he asked, gripping one of the bars. He was clean-shaven and his face bore no signs of age. He looked like someone who’d hang out with Rob, the kind of kid you’d see plastered all over I Know What You Did Last Night.
“Me?” I asked. There was no one else he could have been talking to.
“Yes, you. Have you said anything to them?”
“Uh … no, I mean, I don’t think so.”
“Can we get this open?” he barked at Sato. “Come on, let’s go.”
Sato nodded to the guard, who unlocked my cell, then got out of the way.
“What’s going on?” I asked, looking back and forth between Sato and this new man. “Who are you?”
“I’m Jack Willoughby. Your new lawyer.”
“You’re my lawyer?” He had long legs and I had to walk fast to keep up with him, like a teacup dog struggling alongside its owner. He was whisking me away down a long, drafty hallway. “How old are you?”
“How is that relevant?” The smell of coffee, cigarettes, and sharply sweet cologne wafted off him as we walked.
“You look, like … twenty. Are you old enough to defend me? Are you good enough to defend me?” I didn’t have the time or wherewithal to be polite. Whenever I was frightened, niceties were the first thing to go out the window, along with any concern about making a good impression.
“I’m twenty-seven,” he informed me. “And to be frank, I’m the best that there is.”
That shut me up. His confidence was unlike anything I’d ever seen. He wasn’t just saying he was the best, he knew he was the best. I could see it in his eyes, and it stopped me in my tracks. What was that like, living with the knowledge that you are the best at something? Does it make you happy? Proud? Serene? Or do you take it for granted, like air, and go on being dissatisfied, still having to prove yourself every time someone new enters the room?
“You’re going home to await a trial date. In the meantime, do not talk to anybody about the case, do not leave your home. Do you understand? Your parents are outside waiting for you, and for God’s sake try to obey them.”
He didn’t pause after do you understand, so I couldn’t tell him no, I didn’t understand.
“But … I didn’t do this.”
“That’s what we’ll prove in court.”
“Are you sure?”
“Look, I’ve been out of law school for three years and I haven’t lost a case yet.”
“Do you believe I’m innocent?”
“That … that doesn’t matter, Justine,” he said, quicker than I was expecting. “Just go home and try to get some rest.”
“How could I possibly rest? What if we can’t prove I’m innocent? If I have to wait around doing nothing I’ll lose my mind. Isn’t there something I can do?”
“No. That’s my job, not yours.”
“But … But I—”
“Your parents are waiting. Come on, let’s get you home.” He put one hand on my back and used the other to push open the door.
Stepping outside, I was hit with a tidal wave of light, biting at me, crashing over me in painful blasts. At first I didn’t understand. I had lost track of time, but even so, it had to be the middle of the night—the brightness didn’t make sense. Then I realized: It wasn’t the sun that was blinding me, but a sea of flashbulbs. There were at least a hundred people clamoring to take my picture. Then the chorus came:
Justine, who killed Eva-Kate? FLASH! Justine, did you do it? FLASH! Justine, why’d you do it? FLASH! Justine, where were you two nights ago? Justine, Justine, over here! FLASH! Justine, who do you think did this? FLASH! Justine, is it true you were dating Eva-Kate at the time of her death? FLASH! Justine, do you think you’ll go to jail? FLASH! Justine, are you scared? FLASH! Justine, give us a quote! FLASH! Justine, was it self-defense? FLASH! Justine, did anybody have a grudge against Eva-Kate? FLASH! Justine, was it Rob? FLASH! Justine, over here! Over here, Justine! FLASH! Justine, how much was your bail? FLASH! Justine, who bailed you out? FLASH! Justine, where are you going now? FLASH! Justine, how do you feel? FLASH! FLASH! FLASH! FLASH! JUSTINE! JUSTINE! JUSTINE! JUSTINE! JUSTINE! JUSTINE! JUSTINE! JUSTINE! JUSTINE! JUSTINE!
A pair of guards appeared to part the crowd, and Jack Willoughby handed me off to my parents, who ushered me through the aggravating patchwork of noise and light.
“Take her to my office tomorrow at two thirty,” Jack told my parents, handing them a card. “We’ll start discussing a plan. It’s going to work out; let’s stay calm, okay?”
It was hard to believe that all of that commotion was just for me, but when I let myself acknowledge that I was, at least for now, the center of attention, a luminous warmth rolled through my muscles and for a moment, just for one fleeting moment, I had to try not to smile.
* * *
“This is a goddamn nightmare.” My mom put a hand over her heart and took a deep breath. Hot flashes of light hit the car windows like tiny kamikaze assailants.
“Nancy.” My dad fidgeted with his twisted seat belt in the passenger seat, then gave up and left it unbuckled. “She’s going to be fine. Jack is an excellent attorney. He’ll get the charges dropped before it even goes to trial.”
“How do you know that?” my mom quizzed, driving away slowly, trying not to hit any of the dozen paparazzi swarming the car. “He’s just a baby, Elliot. Don’t you know any adult lawyers?”
“It doesn’t get better than Jack Willoughby,” he said. “Age is just a number.”
“Of course,” my mom said, the spirit of an eye roll trapped in her words. “How convenient.”
“What’s that sup
posed to mean, exactly?”
“Saying ‘age is just a number’ is the perfect way to justify spending time with people way too young for you.” She managed to get past the crowd and let her foot rest heavy on the gas, shooting us past the station and onto Third Street, where two men were playing tug-of-war with a shopping cart.
“Chantal is very mature for her age,” my dad argued. “It’s not like I’m dating a thirty-year-old.”
“It’s not like you’re dating a thirty-year-old,” my mom clapped back. “But you are.”
“You wanna talk about age?” My dad smacked the dashboard and I flinched. “Maybe you need to be reminded that you’ve been screwing a bona fide senior citizen for the past decade.”
“Oh, screw you, Elliot.” We swerved onto the 110 freeway with a worrisome screech. “How dare you talk like that in front of our daughter.”
“I’m confused.” He cupped a hand theatrically around his ear. “Am I … am I deaf? Or did you attack me first in front of our daughter? Who, by the way, Nancy, is being charged with murder, so, you know, isn’t exactly a princess herself, is she?”
“She didn’t do it!” my mother shouted. “Our daughter is not a killer.”
“Of course she’s not,” he sighed, taking the hysteria down a notch. “This is ridiculous. I’m sorry, Justine.” He turned around to squeeze my knee. “Everything’s going to be okay.”
I ignored him, not to prove a point or anything intentional like that, but just because I had too much on my mind to really register either one of them. Their quarreling had become white noise, brushing past me like static in the air.
We dropped my dad off at his new place in North Hollywood, and maybe if I hadn’t just been arrested for allegedly murdering the only person I’d ever really loved, I might feel sad that he didn’t live with us anymore. But I didn’t care. He slammed the door without thanking my mom for the ride, and I didn’t care about that either. I put my head against the window and wondered, again, if Jack believed that I was innocent. Did he genuinely not want to know one way or the other? I needed him to believe me. I cared more about if he thought I was innocent than he seemed to care if I was or wasn’t. I closed my eyes and, within seconds, I was asleep.