One of Us Is Lying

by Karen M. McManus

  Cooper

  Saturday, November 3, 3:15 p.m.

  It’s hard to evaluate exhibition games anymore, but overall this one went pretty well. My fastball hit ninety-four, I struck out the side twice, and only a few guys heckled me from the stands. They were wearing tutus and baseball caps, though, so they stood out a little more than your average gay basher before security escorted them out.

  A couple of college scouts showed up, and the guy from Cal State even bothered to talk to me afterward. Coach Ruffalo started hearing from teams again, but it strikes me as more of a PR play than genuine interest. Only Cal State is still talking scholarship, even though I’m pitching better than ever. That’s life as an outed murder suspect, I guess. Pop doesn’t wait for me outside the locker room anymore. He heads straight for the car when I’m done and starts the engine so we can make a quick exit.

  Reporters are another story. They’re dying to talk to me. I brace myself when a camera lights up as I leave the locker room, waiting for the woman with the microphone to cycle through the usual half-dozen questions. But she catches me by surprise.

  “Cooper, what do you think about Nate Macauley’s arrest?”

  “Huh?” I stop short, too shocked to brush past her, and Luis almost bumps into me.

  “You haven’t heard?” The reporter grins like I handed her a winning lottery ticket. “Nate Macauley’s been arrested for Simon Kelleher’s murder, and the Bayview Police are saying you’re no longer a person of interest. Can you tell me how that feels?”

  “Um…” Nope. I can’t. Or won’t. Same difference. “Excuse me.”

  “The hell?” Luis mutters once we’re past the camera gauntlet. He pulls out his phone and swipes wildly as I spot my father’s car. “Damn, she wasn’t lying. Dude.” He stares at me with wide eyes. “You’re off the hook.”

  Weird, but that hadn’t even occurred to me till he said it.

  We’re giving Luis a ride home, which is good since it cuts down the time Pop and I need to spend alone. Luis and I drop our bags in the backseat, and I climb into the passenger seat while Luis settles himself into the back. Pop’s fiddling with the radio, trying to find a news station. “They arrested that Macauley kid,” he says with grim satisfaction. “I’ll tell you what, they’re gonna have a pack of lawsuits on their hands when this is done. Starting with me.”

  He slides his eyes to my left as I sit. That’s Pop’s new thing: he looks near me. He hasn’t met my eyes once since I told him about Kris.

  “Well, you had to figure it was Nate,” Luis says calmly. Throws Nate right under the bus, like he hadn’t been sitting with the guy at lunch all last week.

  I don’t know what to think. If I’d had to point a finger at someone when this all started, it would’ve been Nate. Even though he’d acted genuinely desperate when he was searching for Simon’s EpiPen. He was the person I knew the least, and he was already a criminal, so…it wasn’t much of a stretch.

  But when the entire Bayview High cafeteria was ready to take me down like a pack of hyenas, Nate was the only person who said anything. I never thanked him, but I’ve thought a lot about how much worse school would’ve gotten if he’d brushed past me and let things snowball.

  My phone’s filled with text messages, but the only ones I care about are a string from Kris. Other than a quick visit to warn Kris about the police and apologize for the oncoming media onslaught, I’ve barely seen him in the past couple of weeks. Even though people know about us, we haven’t had a chance to be normal.

  I’m still not sure what that would even look like. I wish I could find out.

  Omg saw the news

  This is good right??

  Call when you can

  I text him back while half listening to Pop and Luis talk. After we drop Luis off silence settles between me and my father, dense as fog. I’m the first to break it. “So how’d I do?”

  “Good. Looked good.” Bare-minimum response, as usual lately.

  I try again. “I talked to the scout from Cal State.”

  He snorts. “Cal State. Not even top ten.”

  “Right,” I acknowledge.

  We catch sight of the news vans when we’re halfway down our street. “Goddamn it,” Pop mutters. “Here we go again. Hope this was worth it.”

  “What was worth it?”

  He pulls around a news van, throws the gearshift into park, and yanks the key out of the ignition. “Your choice.”

  Anger flares inside me—at both his words and how he spits them out without even looking at me. “None of this is a choice,” I say, but the noise outside swallows my words as he opens the door.

  The reporter gauntlet is thinner than usual, so I’m guessing most of them are at Bronwyn’s. I follow Pop inside, where he immediately heads for the living room and turns on the TV. I’m supposed to do postgame stretching now, but my father hasn’t bothered to remind me about my routine for a while.

  Nonny’s in the kitchen, making buttered toast with brown sugar on top. “How was the game, darlin’?”

  “Fantastic,” I say heavily, collapsing into a chair. I pick up a stray quarter and spin it into a silvery blur across the kitchen table. “I pitched great, but nobody cares.”

  “Now, now.” She sits across from me with her toast and offers me a slice, but I push it back toward her. “Give it time. Do you remember what I told you in the hospital?” I shake my head. “Things’ll get worse before they get better. Well, they surely did get worse, and now there’s nowhere to go but up.” She takes a bite and I keep spinning the quarter until she swallows. “You should bring that boy of yours by sometime for dinner, Cooper. It’s about time we met him.”

  I try to picture my father making conversation with Kris over chicken casserole. “Pop would hate that.”

  “Well, he’ll have to get used to it, won’t he?”

  Before I can answer her, my phone buzzes with a text from a number I don’t recognize. It’s Bronwyn. I got your number from Addy. Can I call you?

  Sure.

  My phone rings within seconds. “Hi, Cooper. You’ve heard about Nate?”

  “Yeah.” I’m not sure what else to say, but Bronwyn doesn’t give me a chance.

  “I’m trying to set up a meeting with Nate’s mom and Eli Kleinfelter from Until Proven. I’m hoping he’ll take Nate’s case. I was wondering, did you get a chance to ask Luis’s brother about that red Camaro from the parking lot accident?”

  “Luis called him last week about it. He was gonna look into it, but I haven’t heard back yet.”

  “Would you mind checking in with him?” Bronwyn asks.

  I hesitate. Even though I haven’t processed everything yet, there’s this little ball of relief growing inside me. Because yesterday I was the police’s number one guy. And today I’m not. I’d be lying if I said it didn’t feel good.

  But this is Nate. Who’s not a friend, exactly. Or at all, I guess. But he’s not nothing.

  “Yeah, okay,” I tell Bronwyn.

  Bronwyn

  Sunday, November 4, 10:00 a.m.

  We’re quite the crew at the Until Proven offices Sunday morning: me, Mrs. Macauley, and my mom. Who was willing to let me go, but not unsupervised.

  The small, sparsely furnished space is overflowing, with each desk holding at least two people. Everyone’s either talking urgently on the phone or pounding away on a computer. Sometimes both. “Busy for a Sunday,” I comment as Eli leads us into a tiny room crammed with a small table and chairs.

  Eli’s hair seems to have grown three inches since he was on Mikhail Powers Investigates, all of it upward. He runs a hand through the mad scientist curls and sends them even higher. “Is it Sunday already?”

  There aren’t enough chairs, so I sit on the floor. “Sorry,” Eli says. “We can make this quick. First off, Mrs. Macauley, I’m sorry about your son’s arrest. I understand he’s been remanded to a juvenile detention center instead of an adult facility, which is good news. As I told Bronwyn, there’s not mu
ch I can do given my current workload. But if you’re willing to share whatever information you have, I’ll do what I can to provide suggestions and maybe a referral.”

  Mrs. Macauley looks exhausted, but like she’s made an effort to dress up a little in navy pants and a lumpy gray cardigan. My own mother is her usual effortless chic in leggings, tall boots, a cashmere sweater-coat, and a subtly patterned infinity scarf. The two of them couldn’t be more different, and Mrs. Macauley tugs at the frayed hem of her sweater as though she knows it.

  “Well. Here’s what I’ve been told,” she says. “The school received a call that Nate had drugs in his locker—”

  “From whom?” Eli asks, scribbling on a yellow notepad.

  “They wouldn’t say. I think it was anonymous. But they went ahead and removed his lock Friday after school to check. They didn’t find any drugs. But they did find a bag with Simon’s water bottle and EpiPen. And all the EpiPens from the nurse’s office that went missing the day he died.” I run my fingers along the rough fiber of the rug, thinking of all the times Addy’s been questioned about those pens. Cooper, too. They’ve been hanging over our heads for weeks. There’s no way, even if Nate were actually guilty of something, that he’d be dumb enough to leave them sitting in his locker.

  “Ah.” Eli’s voice comes out like a sigh, but his head stays bent over his legal pad.

  “So the police got involved, and they got a warrant to search the house Saturday morning,” Mrs. Macauley continues. “And they found a computer in Nate’s closet with this…journal, I guess they’re calling it. All those Tumblr posts that have been popping up everywhere since Simon died.”

  I raise my eyes and catch my mother staring at me, a kind of disturbed pity crawling across her face. I hold her gaze and shake my head. I don’t believe any of it.

  “Ah,” Eli says again. This time he does look up, but his face remains calm and neutral. “Any fingerprints?”

  “No,” Mrs. Macauley says, and I exhale quietly.

  “What does Nate say about all this?” Eli asks.

  “That he has no idea how any of these things got into his locker or the house,” Mrs. Macauley says.

  “Okay,” Eli says. “And Nate’s locker hadn’t been searched before this?”

  “I don’t know,” Mrs. Macauley admits, and Eli looks at me.

  “It was,” I recall. “Nate says he was searched the first day they questioned us. His locker and his house. The police came with dogs and everything, looking for drugs. They didn’t find any,” I add hastily, with a sideways glance at my mother before I turn back to Eli. “But nobody found Simon’s things or a computer then.”

  “Is your house typically locked?” Eli asks Mrs. Macauley.

  “It’s never locked,” she replies. “I don’t think the door even has a lock anymore.”

  “Huh,” Eli mutters, scribbling on his pad again.

  “There’s something else,” Mrs. Macauley says, and her voice wavers. “The district attorney wants Nate moved to a regular prison. They’re saying he’s too dangerous to be in a juvenile center.”

  A chasm cracks open in my chest as Eli sits bolt upright. It’s the first time he’s dropped his impartial lawyer mask and shown some emotion, and the horror on his face terrifies me. “Oh no. No, no, no. That would be a fucking disaster. Excuse my language. What’s his lawyer doing to stop that?”

  “We haven’t met him yet.” Mrs. Macauley sounds near tears. “Someone’s been appointed, but they haven’t been in touch.”

  Eli drops his pen with a frustrated grunt. “Possession of Simon’s things isn’t great. Not great at all. People have been convicted on less. But the way they got this evidence…I don’t like it. Anonymous tips, things that weren’t there before conveniently showing up now. In places that aren’t hard to access. Combination locks are easy to pick. And if the DA’s talking about sending Nate to federal prison at age seventeen…any lawyer worth a damn should be blocking the hell out of that.” He rubs a hand across his face and scowls at me. “Damn it, Bronwyn. This is your fault.”

  Everything Eli’s been saying has been making me more and more sick, except this. Now I’m just confused. “What did I do?” I protest.

  “You brought this case to my attention and now I have to take it. And I do not have time. But whatever. That’s assuming you’re open to a change in counsel, Mrs. Macauley?”

  Oh, thank God. The relief surging through me makes me limp and almost dizzy. Mrs. Macauley nods vigorously, and Eli sighs.

  “I can help,” I say eagerly. “We’ve been looking into—” I’m about to tell Eli about the red Camaro, but he holds his hand out with a forbidding expression.

  “Stop right there, Bronwyn. If I’m going to represent Nate, I can’t speak with other represented people in this case. It could get me disbarred and put you at risk of implication. In fact, I need you and your mother to leave so I can work out some details with Mrs. Macauley.”

  “But…” I look helplessly at my mother, who’s nodding and getting to her feet, securing her handbag over her shoulder with an air of finality.

  “He’s right, Bronwyn. You need to leave things with Mr. Kleinfelter and Mrs. Macauley now.” Her expression softens as she meets Mrs. Macauley’s eyes. “I wish you the best of luck with all this.”

  “Thank you,” Mrs. Macauley says. “And thank you, Bronwyn.”

  I should feel good. Mission accomplished. But I don’t. Eli doesn’t know half of what we do, and now how am I supposed to tell him?

  Addy

  Monday, November 5, 6:30 p.m.

  By Monday things have gotten oddly normal. Well, new-normal. Newmal? Anyway, my point is, when I sit down to dinner with my mother and Ashton, the driveway is free of news vans and my lawyer doesn’t call once.

  Mom deposits a couple of heated-up Trader Joe’s dinners in front of Ashton and me, then sits between us with a cloudy glass of yellow-brown beverage. “I’m not eating,” she announces, even though we didn’t ask. “I’m cleansing.”

  Ashton wrinkles her nose. “Ugh, Mom. That’s not that lemonade with the maple syrup and cayenne pepper, is it? That’s so gross.”

  “You can’t argue with results,” Mom says, taking a long sip. She presses a napkin to her overly plumped lips, and I take in her stiff blond hair, red lacquered nails, and the skintight dress she put on for a typical Monday. Is that me in twenty-five years? The thought makes me even less hungry than I was a minute ago.

  Ashton turns on the news and we watch coverage of Nate’s arrest, including an interview with Eli Kleinfelter. “Handsome boy,” Mom notes when Nate’s mug shot appears on the screen. “Shame he turned out to be a murderer.”

  I push my half-eaten tray away. There’s no point in suggesting that the police might be wrong. Mom’s just happy the lawyer bills are almost over.

  The doorbell rings, and Ashton folds her napkin next to her plate. “I’ll see who it is.” She calls my name a few seconds later, and my mother shoots me a surprised look. Nobody’s come to the door in weeks unless they wanted to interview me, and my sister always chases those away. Mom follows me into the living room as Ashton pulls the door open to let TJ enter.

  “Hey.” I blink at him in surprise. “What are you doing here?”

  “Your history book ended up in my backpack after earth science. This is yours, right?” TJ hands a thick gray textbook to me. We’ve been lab partners since the first rock sorting, and it’s usually a bright spot in my day.

  “Oh. Yeah, thanks. But you could’ve given it to me tomorrow.”

  “We have that quiz, though.”

  “Right.” No point in telling him I’ve pretty much given up on academics for the semester. “How’d you know where I live?”

  “School directory.” Mom’s staring at TJ like he’s dessert, and he meets her eyes with a polite smile. “Hi, I’m TJ Forrester. I go to school with Addy.” She simpers and shakes his hand, taking in his dimples and football jacket. He’s almost a dark-skinned, croo
ked-nosed version of Jake. His name doesn’t register with her, but Ashton exhales a soft breath behind me.

  I’ve got to get TJ out of here before Mom puts two and two together. “Well, thanks again. I’d better go study. See you tomorrow.”

  “Do you want to study together for a while?” TJ asks.

  I hesitate. I like TJ, I really do. But spending time together outside school isn’t a step I’m ready to take. “I can’t, because of…other stuff.” I practically shove him out the door, and when I turn back inside, Mom’s face is a mixture of pity and irritation.

  “What’s wrong with you?” she hisses. “Being so rude to a handsome boy like that! It’s not as if they’re beating down your door anymore.” Her eyes flicker over my purple-streaked hair. “Given the way you’ve let yourself go, you should consider yourself lucky he wanted to spend time with you at all.”

  “God, Mom—” Ashton says, but I interrupt her.

  “I’m not looking for another boyfriend, Mom.”

  She stares at me like I’ve sprouted wings and started speaking Chinese. “Why on earth not? It’s been ages since you and Jake broke up.”

  “I spent more than three years with Jake. I could use some downtime.” I say it mostly to argue, but as soon as the words come out of my mouth I know they’re true. My mother started dating when she was fourteen, like me, and hasn’t stopped since. Even when it means going out with an immature man-boy who’s too cowardly to bring her home to his parents.

  I don’t want to be that afraid to be alone.

  “Don’t be ridiculous. That’s the last thing you need. Have a few dates with a boy like TJ, even if you’re not interested, and other boys at school might see you as desirable again. You don’t want to end up on a shelf, Adelaide. Some sad single girl who spends all her time with that odd group of friends you’ve got now. If you’d wash that nonsense out of your hair, grow it a little, and wear makeup again, you could do much better than that.”

  “I don’t need a guy to be happy, Mom.”

  “Of course you do,” she snaps. “You’ve been miserable for the past month.”