Paying the Price

by Maria Quick

  ‘Oh, yeah. Not a day goes by when I don’t think about her. You know, I always wonder what she’d be doing now. She was so full of hope and promise. And she’d always be the one taking the fight to Lola. Me, I’d stopped bothering a long time ago. But Jessica? She kept on fighting.’

  I nodded along and scribbled dutifully. George had a look of confusion on his face, probably wondering why Terry was so forthcoming. Vanity, my dear. People like talking about themselves, especially if they think people are interested.

  ‘And Lola is...?’

  ‘Lola Barker. She was our boss. She decided which libraries got funding. She didn’t like me, for some reason,’ he griped. Hmm, couldn’t think why. ‘She refused to put money into this place. When Jessica first started here, the library was much worse than it is now. She fought for our corner. She sent petitions and badgered Lola on a daily basis for better facilities. She was a real thorn in her side, she was,’ he said smugly.

  ‘I’m sure. And, uh, what happened on the day of her murder?’

  Terry sighed and sniffled, looking heartbroken.

  ‘She was working alone. I had to be with my wife for Christmas shopping. I wished I’d been here instead. Only three people came in the library that day. Jessica, our regular Mr. Banks, and whoever killed her.’

  Wife, huh? The guy was clearly still pining after Jessica after all these years. Man, what a lucky woman.

  ‘Could it have been Mr. Banks?’

  ‘Mr. Banks was eighty-five at the time and Deaf.’

  Not sure how that rules him out, but alright.

  ‘Was there anything unusual that happened around that time? Any suspicious readers? People hanging around, maybe?’

  ‘No, nothing like that. I just remember Jessica being really angry about Lola. She was upset about her attitude. You know, I think she was afraid of her. They argued. A lot. Lola had a temper. A really bad one. She came around every so often just to yell at us. I always wondered if it was Lola who-’

  ‘Yes?’ I asked innocently, forcing down the bile in my throat.

  ‘Never mind,’ he whispered.

  Subtle as a sledgehammer. Gee, I wonder what he wanted me to think? I had all I needed. And honestly, I could’ve gotten it just by looking at him. I know you’re not really supposed to judge by appearances, but it sure speeds things along.

  ‘You’ve given me a lot of information, Mr.-?’

  ‘Roosevelt. Terry Roosevelt. No relation,’ he laughed. And you know what? It was a genuine laugh. Another notch on my con list for Terry. Think about it. You have a name similar to a celebrity and everybody you ever meet makes exactly the same comment. I’d say it’d be about five comments before you considered murdering anybody who dared ask.

  This guy was clearly not normal.

  I laughed along and assured him that I would definitely be speaking with Lola. I, too, pretended I was afraid of her. Then, I quickly left with my body intact and sped away from that place.

  ‘What do you think?’ Leesha asked as she tried hanging onto the dashboard for safety.

  ‘I think we can safely rule out David for that murder,’ I shuddered.

  ‘Lola?’ George nodded in agreement.

  Okay, clearly I was the smart one of this double act.

  ‘No, doofus. Terry.’

  ‘What? Did you not hear what he said about Lola?’

  ‘Yeah, she’s a low-level government employee on civic duty. Big whoop. I mean, did you not hear that guy? He was clearly in love with Jessica. In a very creepy way. But he did a good, bullish job of trying to force my attention in another direction. I’ll give him that.’

  George grumbled and tried to argue but I didn’t bother tuning in. Jessica turned out to be a dud.

  10

  Because I’m such a sucker for punishment, I snooped about and found out Lola’s details when we got back. I thought I’d send her an email. You know, just for the hell of it. I kept up the school reporter identity, but I wasn’t too worried about being found out. Unlike that creep at the library, Lola had retired and was therefore under no obligation to stay professional. Besides, I had a sneaking suspicion that she also found him creepy. I was hoping she’d spill.

  While I was doing this, Leesha was growing increasingly frustrated with me. She really didn’t like me just sitting around, as she’d put it. George had given a knowing laugh at that, which I’d been annoyed at. I mean, I totally do physical things. I’d already been out twice today! Yeesh.

  ‘I thought you were supposed to be helping me and Izzy, instead of finding other dead people to care about,’ Leesha pouted, pacing like mad. She’d been doing that for the past half hour. She was going to wear my carpet out.

  ‘Despite what you see in movies and on TV, police work involves a lot of sitting around and doing research.’

  ‘You’re not a cop.’

  ‘Yeah, well. My point still stands.’

  ‘And if you were a cop, you would’ve actually looked at the physical evidence at some point.’

  ‘I’m banned from all morgues in this state, and six others,’ I informed her sadly. Leesha and George grimaced at me.

  ‘What? Not my body, you freak. I mean the pantyhose. You know? The murder weapon?’

  Oh yeah, the thirty-year old paper-thin fabric that got dropped in the sewers two weeks ago. I’m sure they’re holding up well.

  ‘Okay, one, I am not going into the sewers to get that. Two, I don’t even know how to get in the sewers to get that. Three, unless it fell onto a well-placed nail in the wall, it’ll be long gone. And four, even if it isn’t, it will be totally ruined. I’m not even sure if fingerprints will stay on something like that, but if they do, they will not be there now. That’s a dead end, I’m afraid.’

  As she valiantly tried to find a new reason to get me some turtle powers, I did have to thank her for reminding me of something.

  ‘But I do want to see something there. The crime scene.’

  Leesha shivered, wrapping her arms around her body and cringing away from my words.

  ‘I can’t go back there. I’m sorry, but I can’t.’

  ‘That’s okay, but I need to. You can stay here, or go find Izzy and tell her that I’m doing her dirty work.’

  ‘Alright, I will. Then, I might go see my mom and see how she’s holding up. I’ll be back tomorrow afternoon,’ she said. She paused before leaving. ‘Thank you, by the way.’

  ‘De nada,’ I told her.

  She whooshed off and I finally felt like I could breathe. George and I were alone for the first time in-

  Five hours? Is that all? Man, a lot has happened since this morning. I really needed to chill.

  But before that, we had to go see a crime scene. Well, no time like the present.

  I jumped off my bed and immediately felt like throwing up. I promptly sat back down and closed my eyes, hoping the random nausea would pass.

  ‘Ann? Are you alright?’ George asked, anxious.

  No, I wanted to hurl all over my bedroom. Maybe Izzy was right, and I was eating my way to an early grave. Wait, that couldn’t be right. I always ate crap like this. It must be something else.

  The schizo pill.

  Heroically managing to open my eyes, I rummaged in my bag long enough to find the bottle. I skimmed through the epic saga of possible side effects to find that yeah, it could induce nausea. Along with drowsiness.

  Which meant I couldn’t drive.

  Well, there goes the crime scene plan.

  ‘Ann?’

  ‘I think I need to rest a little,’ I replied long after his initial question.

  ‘Right. I think that might be a good idea. Besides, we have a lot to discuss.’

  ‘Like what?’ I sighed, getting comfortable amongst my three hundred pillows.

  ‘Um, Tommy, for starters.’

  Oh my God. What is with this guy and constantly bringing up my dead friend?

  ‘Pass.’

  ‘Ann! You didn’t tell Tess about him. Why no
t?’ he pressed.

  ‘Um, I don’t like her and I’m not obligated to tell her anything. Besides, she’s never asked if anyone believes me. All I have is an illness, according to her. No point seeing if my friends were whack jobs, too.’

  Eh, little more complicated than that. I kinda felt a little- cough, very – protective of my relationship with Tommy. I told nobody, and I don’t think he told anyone, either. Not because it would be weird with the age difference. It just felt very private. Like, where we met was our spot. Once a week, on the rickety bench outside Baskin-Robbins. We’d talk about anything and everything. We trusted each other. And somehow, we would’ve ruined what we had if we’d brought other people.

  Okay, it was a jealousy thing, in a platonic way.

  And another thing. What if I had told Tess about him? She’d probably want to meet him. How well would that have worked out? Not well, in my mind. I had visions of Tess gently explaining that I was crazy, and then, Tommy would suddenly realize that she was right, and I’d lose the only friend I ever had.

  No, it was better that she didn’t know.

  ‘Who else knew about Tommy?’ he asked, in a tone I couldn’t pin down.

  ‘Nobody.’

  ‘Did anybody ever meet him other than you?’

  ‘Did you hear what I just said?’ I retorted.

  He didn’t answer. I suddenly turned toward him, feeling a little funny.

  ‘What are you getting at?’ I asked.

  ‘Nothing, never mind. Let’s talk about something else.’

  ‘George-’

  ‘This whole thing with your mom’s a pretty big deal,’ he went on, like I hadn’t even spoken. He didn’t really need to. I knew what he was getting at.

  He thought I’d made Tommy up.

  Even worse, a tiny little part of me was agreeing with him.

  Sure, let’s talk about something else.

  ‘Not a huge deal, really,’ I tried to shrug off.

  ‘“Not a huge deal?”’ he parroted. ‘You’re kidding, right?’

  ‘Look, I don’t want to think about this right now. Not until this whole mess with Leesha and Izzy is sorted out. I just can’t even...’ I mumbled, before immediately going back on my word. ‘Am I crazy? Cos I feel like I am. If you’d asked me yesterday why my mom had left, I could have told you.’

  ‘I have asked before, and you did tell me. You seemed pretty sincere,’ he said slowly.

  ‘Right! Because I totally, wholeheartedly believed that to be true. I could’ve sworn that my dad had told me that a million times. Now, I can’t swear to anything.’

  Not my mom, not even Tommy anymore. I really wanted to blame the pill, but there was no way it’d messed me up before I’d even taken it. That was one of the few things I could swear to.

  ‘You know, I always wondered why there were no photographs of your mom in your house. Considering you have two of that racist grandpa everybody hated, anyway,’ George frowned.

  That was true. One on the mantelpiece and one on the landing. I glared at them every time I happened to look.

  My mom had always been different, though. There’d been a reason for that.

  ‘My dad took them all down because seeing them made me angry,’ I automatically said.

  He nodded, looking me in the eyes.

  ‘Why did they make you angry, Ann?’

  Because she left and... no, she had depression. I didn’t blame her for that. I’ve never been angry at my mom. I didn’t know her long enough to be angry.

  Or, I hadn’t thought I did.

  So, if I wasn’t angry at her, and they didn’t bother me, why were the photographs gone?

  ‘I don’t know.’

  Come on, Ann, you’re smarter than this. There’s an easy answer right within reach. You just don’t want to hear it.

  Why? Why don’t you want to hear it?

  ‘This is so messed up,’ I shivered. ‘Regardless of the reason for that, I still forgot her. I can’t remember her at all.’

  Seriously, how do you forget a parent? That is unbelievable. We are talking about one huge chunk of my life that I basically eradicated from my memories. So, the next question - the only question, really - is why?

  ‘Why would I willingly forget my mom’s existence? From what I’ve heard, she was an amazing, kindhearted woman. So, why have I somehow chosen not to remember her?’ I asked out loud. George gave me a worried, but frank, look.

  ‘Do you want me to answer that, or do you already know?’

  I guess I already knew. Memories don’t get deleted just like that. There has to be something to force it.

  Something traumatic.

  11

  ‘I have to see Mickey,’ I decided.

  George blinked a couple times to make sure he’d heard right.

  ‘What?’ he asked anyway.

  ‘I have to go see Mickey,’ I said again, reaching for my car keys. I stopped. Couldn’t drive, remember. That was possibly going to be dangerous.

  Wait, screw it. I wasn’t drowsy yet. I’m driving.

  ‘Ann, what the hell?’

  ‘I made a commitment to a friend,’ I said. Well, not a friend. Or a commitment, either. ‘And he can probably help me out with Izzy’s case, too.’

  George had no choice but to follow as I made my way downstairs.

  ‘Ann, I know what you’re feeling right now-’

  ‘Do ya? I mean, really?’

  ‘Look, Mickey’s not important!’ he yelled as I grabbed my coat. ‘You are on the cusp of figuring out some major event in your life, and you’re ignoring it?’

  ‘Yeah, I am.’

  He swallowed whatever words were coming next.

  I was staring down a hole looking at a rabbit with a pocket watch, and you know what? I didn’t want to follow. Or maybe, it was the other way around. I was in the fantasy world looking out at reality, and I didn’t want to go there. You know why?

  It didn’t matter.

  I didn’t know where my mom was, and I was fine with that. I’ve never needed to know. I could definitely live my whole life without knowing.

  Whatever I found would not be worth the cost.

  ‘Ann-’

  ‘George, stop. I don’t want to know, alright? I don’t want to find out that...’

  I couldn’t even think or say the words. You know, maybe I was thinking about this the wrong way. Maybe my mom had simply passed away from cancer or something. Or she’d gone to live with a lover. Or maybe she’d been on drugs and had OD’d, or she’d joined a cult, or hadn’t been killed by my father.

  Okay, let’s take a step back here.

  ‘I don’t care and I don’t want to know,’ I said, resolute.

  To my utter surprise, he started laughing.

  ‘What the hell is so funny?’ I snapped.

  ‘It’s not, really. But your whole thing with lucies is that you’re only helping them because they shouldn’t be here. You’re exposing people’s awful secrets and you’re perfectly fine with that. You just don’t want to expose your own.’

  ‘So, I’m a hypocrite. Tell me something I don’t know.’

  I reached for the door that’d show me the big, bad world. My front door, not the tiny one in the rabbit hole.

  ‘You can’t keep running away from this,’ he warned.

  ‘Watch me.’

  ‘I don’t want to,’ he said quietly.

  ‘So, don’t. There is a whole world out there George, just waiting for you. You don’t have to be here,’ I informed him, a little petulantly, I admit.

  ‘You know, one day I might actually do that, Ann. But I meant what I said. You can’t keep running. One day, you will have to face the truth.’

  ‘Maybe there is no truth,’ I shrugged. ‘Maybe nothing happened, and I’m just making stuff up, because apparently that’s what I do.’

  He gave me an even look.

  ‘Maybe. Why not ask your dad about it, so you can know for sure?’

  If I didn’t know
any better, I’d say he was goading me. Somewhere in my house, I heard a clock strike three. Great, I was sooo gonna be late now.

  ‘I have to go see Mickey,’ I said again.

  This time, I was free to go.

  Mickey lived in a crappy little apartment block with the steepest stairs known to mankind. There was graffiti everywhere, and smashed windows and pee stains- okay, I’m lying, but it wasn’t far off. It was hella dingy. And the light above the outer door had been flickering for years.

  So, you know, basically what I said.

  George acted as a Sherpa, guiding me up the mountainous terrain. I was working super hard for these mini muffins that I’d already eaten and was about to eat. I waited for a few minutes before I had my breath back and knocked on Mickey’s door. He opened it sullenly, looking at the goodies in my hand.

  ‘You’re half an hour late and you ate four muffins,’ he sighed.

  ‘Hello to you, too,’ I bit back.

  He pushed the door open a little more and graciously allowed me to enter. I put the basket on his coffee table and quickly swiped another muffin as he brought in cans of soda. He stopped as he stared at my suspiciously-chubby cheeks.

  ‘Really? That is literally all I’ve ever asked for you in payment, and you still take half.’

  ‘I pay you money all the time,’ I protested, spraying crumbs.

  ‘And it all goes on my piece of crap car. I thought snacks would be safe.’

  He obviously didn’t know me very well.

  George took a look around as Mickey set up the video game I was being forced to play.

  ‘Where’s your mom?’ I asked.

  ‘Working.’

  ‘Cool. How’ve you been?’

  ‘Good. You?’

  ‘Good,’ I replied.

  We are super close, as you can probably tell. It’s a friendship of convenience, really. We were both losers; still are. I’m crazy, obviously, and Mickey’s horizontally-challenged and has a certain hair type that is disagreeable to most. He’s a fat ginger dude, basically. We kinda stuck together and weathered the storm.

  ‘So-’

  ‘You want something.’

  I scoffed in surprise, but he took no notice and continued loading the game.