“Lost it? When?”
“I don’t know exactly. But I noticed it missing after school the day before yesterday.”
“The day Ethan Crawford fell from the roof of the rec center?”
“Yes. Where did you find it?”
That’s when it struck me. I had last seen Detective Martin on the roof of the rec center.
“Would it surprise you to learn that I found that”—he nodded at the charm—“on the rec-center roof?”
I stared at it. How had it gotten up there?
“Do you want to tell me what it was doing up there, Riley?”
“I don’t know.” I leaned forward for a closer look. The little clasp didn’t look damaged, and I knew for a fact that the loop on my backpack was in perfect condition. I had checked. So how had the charm fallen off? And how had it ended up on the roof?
“Were you on the roof that day, Riley?”
“No.”
“Are you sure?”
“Yes. I’m positive.”
“And you have no idea how your charm ended up there?” His face was dead serious now. He was scaring me.
“Maybe Ethan found it after I lost it. Maybe he picked it up and was going to give it back to me.” It was possible. But I had no idea if Ethan was the kind of guy who would notice a charm on a girl’s backpack.
“That wasn’t found on Ethan. It was found on the roof.” He sat forward in his chair. “Here’s how I understand the sequence of events, Riley. You told us you were walking across the athletic field on your way to where you had left your bicycle. You said you heard someone scream and that you went to investigate, which is when you saw Ethan lying on the ground. The girls who saw him first didn’t actually see him fall. He was already on the ground. But the one who was the first to see him there turned to look because she said she heard something hit the ground.”
Like a sack of sand. I cringed when I remembered the cheerleader’s words.
“Classes ended that day at three twenty. The cheerleaders got to the area behind the rec center to begin their practice at three forty-five. That means there were twenty-five minutes between the time classes ended and the time Ethan went off that roof.” He leaned forward across the table. “What did you do after school ended that day, Riley?”
“I went to my locker to get my things.”
“You went directly to your locker?”
“Yes. Then I waited for my friend.”
He asked for the name of the friend.
“How long did you wait for her?” he asked.
“Five minutes.”
“Five minutes? Are you sure?”
“She was late. I looked at the clock.”
“And then?”
“We talked, and then she had to go. She had something to do. I went to the rec center to get my bike.”
“And then?”
“I heard one of the cheerleaders scream.”
He sat back and stared at me.
“So if I were to talk to your friend Ashleigh, she would confirm that you and she spoke for approximately fifteen or twenty minutes before you two parted company?”
That didn’t sound right. “It was more like a couple of minutes.”
“So five minutes waiting for your friend and a couple of minutes talking to her. That takes us to three thirty at the latest. What did you do between three thirty and three forty-five, when Ethan was found? And how did that”—he jabbed at the charm inside the baggie—“get on the roof?”
“I don’t know how it got there. I told you. I’d lost it. I was looking for it.”
“Did you go up to the roof to look?”
“No!” Maybe I said it too loudly. Maybe I sounded too insistent. Detective Martin leaned forward again and stared at me as if he thought he could read my thoughts. “I looked for it in the schoolyard,” I said. “I thought maybe it had fallen off my backpack, so on my way to the bike lockup, I looked for it. That’s what I did after I left Ashleigh.”
“Did you see anyone else outside the school at that time? Anyone who might have seen you?”
I tried to think. I didn’t remember seeing anyone, but that didn’t mean there wasn’t someone out there who might have seen me.
“I don’t know.”
“You don’t know if you saw anyone?”
“I was looking at the ground the whole time.”
“Nobody called to you—a friend, a classmate?”
I shook my head. “I was looking for that charm when I heard a scream.”
“You’re sure you weren’t up on the roof?”
“I’m positive. I didn’t even see Ethan that day. Not until after.” After he’d hit the ground.
Detective Martin let silence fill the room. He seemed to wait forever before settling back in his chair and saying, “Tell me about the last time you saw Ethan. When was that?”
“Saturday. He texted me. We met up at the park.”
“Because he texted you?”
“Yes. He said he wanted to ask me something.”
“About what?”
“He never said. He seemed, I don’t know, distracted.” Half the time I’d been sure he wasn’t even listening to me. I couldn’t figure out why he’d wanted to see me when clearly he had something else on his mind. Had he been thinking about whatever led to his fall from the roof?
“Did he say anything? Do you know what he was distracted about?” Detective Martin prodded.
Had I missed something in Ethan? What if he’d wanted to tell to me what was bothering him but had difficulty finding the words? If I’d forced him to talk, could I have prevented his death?
“You said I didn’t have to answer any questions if I didn’t want to,” I said. “It says the same thing on that paper I signed. Well, I don’t want to answer any more. Not until you tell me what happened to Ethan.”
“You knew him. As I understand it, he broke up with his girlfriend so that he could be with you.”
“That’s not true.” Who had told him that? Serena? “What happened to Ethan? Did someone kill him? Or are you saying he…” Had he really jumped?
“It would be helpful if you would answer my questions, Riley.”
I crossed my arms over my chest. Traveling with Jimmy, I’d spent a lot of time sitting by myself while the band rehearsed or played. Sometimes the band had played big venues, like arenas or halls. But a lot of times they’d played in bars or legions. It seemed like every second place we went, there was someone who wanted to give me a hard time for being a kid in a place that didn’t allow kids. Jimmy always told me, Just because you’re a kid, that’s no reason for anyone to push you around, and it sure as heck is no reason to let yourself get pushed around. You speak up for yourself when I’m not there. I got good at speaking up for myself.
“I’m not answering any more questions until you tell me what happened to him.”
We locked eyes. He blinked first.
“The chief is going to make a statement,” he said, clearly begrudging me every word. “The medical examiner says Ethan was in some kind of altercation right before he died. Do you know what that was about?”
“An altercation? You mean a fight? You think someone pushed him?” He didn’t answer. He didn’t have to. That was exactly what he was thinking. Either someone pushed Ethan or someone got into a fight with him and that’s why Ethan fell. So far, whoever it was hadn’t come forward. “It wasn’t me.”
“You said Ethan texted you because he wanted to ask you something.”
“Yes.”
“But he didn’t ask you?”
“He said he didn’t think it was such a good idea to talk about it then and that he’d catch up with me later.” But later never came.
There was a knock on the interview-room door. It opened.
“Sorry to bother you, boss.” It was Aunt Ginny’s voice. “But I think we may have something.” She poked her head into the room and did a double take when she saw me. “Riley? What are you doing here?” She turned to
Detective Martin. “What’s she doing here, Josh?”
“She’s being interviewed.”
“Interviewed as what?”
“A witness. Someone who knew the victim.”
Aunt Ginny crossed her arms over her chest and waited.
“Someone who spoke to him the day before he died,” Detective Martin continued. “I’m interviewing everyone who knew the victim. You know the procedure.”
Aunt Ginny’s eyes darted back to me.
“I—” I began.
“Don’t say another word, Riley.” She turned on her boss. “She’s a minor. You can’t interview her as anything without a parent or guardian present.”
“She waived the right to have anyone in the room.”
“I’m responsible for her, Josh. You know that. You should have told me you were going to question her.”
“He said if you were here, it would put you in a conflict of interest,” I said. “I didn’t want you to get taken off the case.”
Aunt Ginny’s eyes bored into her boss’s. “That’s crossing the line. You pretty much coerced her into talking to you alone.”
“She signed a waiver.” He held up the sheet I had initialed and signed. “And I found this on the roof. You recognize it?” He nodded at the baggie.
Aunt Ginny stared at the four-leaf-clover charm. She said, “Come on, Riley. I’m taking you home.”
“I’m not finished with her.”
“You are now. She doesn’t have to talk to you if she doesn’t want to. And she doesn’t want to. Come on, Riley. Now!”
I was glad to be able to leave. I didn’t want to answer any more of his questions. He was twisting what I said and trying to make me say things that weren’t true. He’d said I wasn’t a suspect, but he was acting like I had something to hide.
Aunt Ginny grabbed me and pushed me out of the room.
“Wait a minute, McFee.” Detective Martin came to the door. “You said you had something. Did the rec-center administrator ID someone?”
“She recognized a lot of kids from the school yearbook. But she can’t say which of them, if any, she might have seen go up to the roof that day. Same for the security guard.”
“And that helps us how?” Detective Martin said, as if she had wasted his time.
“There’s one thing the guard does remember. He says he saw someone come out of the stairwell just after the junior swim meet ended at three forty-five.”
Detective Martin dropped his look of indifference. “Can he identify this person?”
“Like I said, the junior meet had just ended. The lobby was full of little kids in rain gear, looking for their rides home. And the stairwell to the roof isn’t always clearly visible from where the security guard sits.”
“Is that a no, Detective?”
“Whoever it was didn’t leave by the front door.”
“Oh?” Detective Martin came toward us.
“Apparently, this isn’t unusual. The high school kids who use the roof often come and go by a side or rear entrance. He says they’re good kids and he doesn’t worry about them.”
“So he’s saying it was a high school kid?” He looked sharply at me. To Aunt Ginny he said, “Perhaps Riley would be more comfortable waiting for you outside with Sarge.”
Aunt Ginny didn’t respond to that suggestion. Instead she said, “He says the person was carrying something yellow. Bright yellow. He called it neon yellow.”
“Something yellow.”
“Maybe a raincoat. I’m going to ask around at the school and see if any students have a jacket that matches that description. That is, assuming I’m still on the case.”
There was a long pause.
“You’re still on it. Good work, McFee.”
Aunt Ginny didn’t say anything, but I saw a little upturn of her lips—the closest she ever came to smiling (even if it was more of a smirk) when she was on duty. She shoved me ahead of her out of the police station and across the parking lot.
All I could think was: Charlie.
Aunt Ginny drove like a maniac on the way home, which would have been bad enough under ordinary circumstances, but she was driving a police car because her car was still in the shop. Two different people slowed and pulled to the side of the road when they saw her bearing down on them. I glimpsed puzzled and relieved drivers in my side-view mirror as Aunt Ginny whizzed past them without stopping. She was too busy grilling me about why I had been brought in for questioning and what I had said.
I told her everything.
Well, almost everything. I didn’t tell her about Charlie’s jacket. Not right away.
“You do not talk to another police officer without me being present. I don’t care what’s going on. Do you understand?” She was finally winding down.
“I understand.” I waited a few seconds. “Aunt Ginny, why do you think Ethan had two cell phones?”
She looked annoyed but not surprised by the question. She drove the rest of the way home in silence while I texted Charlie: We need to talk.
He didn’t text me back. He didn’t answer when I called him either.
SEVEN
I texted Charlie again as soon as I got up the next morning. Still no reply. I dressed, grabbed my stuff and rode to his house.
“My goodness, everyone is up and about so early this morning,” his surprised mother said when she answered the door. “He left ten minutes ago. He said he had a homework assignment he had to finish for first period.”
I raced to school.
Charlie wasn’t at his locker. He wasn’t in the library either. I roamed up and down the hallways, peeking into classrooms. I even checked the gym, where a bunch of girls were practising gymnastics routines. No Charlie anywhere. I didn’t see him until math class, right before lunch.
“Psst! Hey, Charlie!”
Mr. Carver turned from the whiteboard, where he had been writing equations.
“Is there something I can help you with, Ms. Donovan?”
“No, sir.”
“Good. Then I suggest you get to work.”
I glanced at Charlie from time to time while I copied the equations into my binder. He didn’t look at me even once.
I grabbed him as soon as the bell rang.
“We need to talk.”
If I was ever asked to describe Charlie, the first thing I would say is that he has a friendly face. A face that usually wears a smile. A face that tells you instantly he’s a nice, easygoing guy.
His face wasn’t friendly this morning. He wasn’t smiling. He wasn’t even trying to be nice.
“So talk,” he said.
“Not here.” I pulled him out of the classroom and around a corner, where it was quieter.
“What do you want?” He looked around impatiently, as if he had somewhere else to be, somewhere more pleasant.
“Why are you acting like that? And why are you avoiding me?”
“I’m not avoiding you. Look, you said you wanted to talk to me. Do you or don’t you?”
At that exact minute, I didn’t. He was being a jerk. I had to remind myself that he was my friend.
“It’s about your jacket,” I said.
“What about it?”
“Where is it?”
“What’s it to you?”
He was doing his best to make me go away, but I refused to leave. Jimmy always said that if you wanted to get anywhere with people who were all worked up, then the ruder or more obnoxious they got, the calmer you needed to stay. He called it Bomb Defusing 101.
I took a deep breath.
“It’s nothing to me. But it’s a big deal to the police.”
“The police? What do you mean?”
“When I ran into you that day, you said you’d seen Ethan. You made a comment about him, something about how charming he was. Did you talk to him, Charlie? When? After school? Were you on the roof with Ethan?”
“Are you accusing me of something?”
“I was at the police station last night. They que
stioned me about Ethan. When I was leaving, I heard someone”—I didn’t tell him it was Aunt Ginny—“say that the security guard at the rec center remembered seeing someone carrying a bright-yellow jacket come out of the stairwell to the roof.”
“I didn’t wear my yellow jacket that day, so it couldn’t have been me.”
“Can you prove it?”
“Prove it?” He pulled his head back a little, as if I had insulted him. “Prove what? To who? To you? Or the police?” He was angry again.
I thought back to when I had met him on my bike that afternoon. He hadn’t been wearing his yellow jacket. I was positive. But had it been in his backpack? I had no way of knowing.
“The cops think that a yellow jacket or raincoat is the lead they’ve been waiting for. They’re going to ask around, Charlie. Everyone has seen your jacket. Half the kids in school have teased you about it. The police are going to get around to you. They’re going to ask you about Ethan. And your jacket.”
Nothing.
“Charlie, no one’s said anything yet, but the cops…they say Ethan was in some kind of fight just before he died. They think that has something to do with him falling off the roof.”
Charlie glanced down at his right hand. Scabs had formed over the knuckles that had been raw three days earlier.
“How did you skin your knuckles?”
“I told you. I punched a wall.”
“That’s what you told Ashleigh. You told me you fell.”
He shoved his hands into his pockets.
“I know you saw Ethan that day, Charlie. You told me so yourself.”
He said nothing.
“I also know you’re mad at me because of Ethan,” I said. “But I had nothing to do with him hanging around me. I still don’t know what he wanted. But I was never interested in him, Charlie, if that’s what you think. And I don’t think you would ever push someone off a roof.” Not on purpose, anyway. But maybe, just maybe, if he was mad enough, and it happened that Ethan was standing somewhere precarious… “Like it or not, though, it won’t take long for the police to find out who at school owns a bright-yellow jacket, and to get the security guard to look at a photo array that includes your picture. So if you were up there that afternoon, and if those skinned knuckles have anything to do with Ethan, I think it would be better if you talk to the police before they come looking for you.”
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