The Good Girls

by Claire Eliza Bartlett

  She said once that she wished she could join us at the Morning House after practice. I offered to drive her home early, before her dad got off shift. She said he’d know anyway. She said he even kept cameras in the house to make sure she didn’t sneak out after bedtime.

  CLINE: Cameras?

  AVERY: Oh. I shouldn’t have said that. I’m so sorry. Can we, like, strike it from the record or something? He’s the police chief, so I’m sure he had his reasons. Maybe that’s standard police officer protocol, what would I know? I really don’t want it getting back to him, and like I said, my dad and her dad are kind of buddy-buddy.

  Honestly, if you find any clues at all, they’ll be in her diary. I told you about her diary, right? She wrote in it all the time, and since it was by hand, it’s not like anyone can spy on that. It would be the one place that Emma had freedom from everything. From everyone in her life, even herself.

  And if she had something in that diary that she didn’t want her dad reading, she wouldn’t keep it at home. She’d stash it here. Did you check her locker?

  CLINE: We are looking into all aspects of this case. Thank you for taking the time, Miss Cross.

  AVERY: I know it’s stupid. Of course you’ve checked her locker. I’m not the detective here. But she didn’t just have the one locker—you know that, right? Just want to be as helpful as possible. She had her own locker for gym, for one thing. Oh, and she also had a desk at the high school paper. The diary has to be in one of those places.

  Diary Entry

  Emma Baines—September 21, 2017

  Diary, if I don’t come to school tomorrow, I hope the police ransack my stuff and find you. And when they do, they’ll flip to this page. POLICE: MY DAD DID IT. HE KILLED ME AND HE BURIED MY BODY SOMEWHERE YOU’LL NEVER FIND.

  Oh, who am I kidding. Dad is the police. Dad, if you end up reading this:

  Ugh. I don’t even know what to say.

  The problem is, the cheer squad doesn’t get it. They’re all “Everyone’s parents are overprotective, Emma.” Avery goes on about how her mom measures her weight each day, and okay, like, that probably does suck, but dammit, Avery Cross, I still have a freaking baby monitor and nanny cam in my room. Dad saw me get up at two in the morning and work on my APCoGo paper. And then he TOLD ME OFF for it over breakfast.

  He dropped the bomb after that. He said, “I’ve changed my mind about the Devino Scholarship.”

  I almost choked on my cornflakes. “What?” Mom and Dad hardly agreed about anything, as far as I could remember, but the one thing they were united about was my studies. I should always devote myself to my studies. Of course, as soon as Mom left town with a trucker, she stopped giving a shit about my studies. She hasn’t called in the last three years. So I guess it was only Dad who really cared. Well, not anymore.

  “You need to stay in Lorne. I’ll get you a job at the station after school. We can always use another dispatcher and assistant in the office, and if you do well we can send you to the academy in Fort Collins.”

  “No.” I wasn’t thinking. I never say no to Dad, not like that. It’s always couched in soft language, like what about or I’ve been thinking. I realized my mistake as I saw his face turn red. But a rare anger swelled in me. Some things he can decide as my father. But not my life. Not my future. “I don’t want to be a police officer.”

  “Then we’ll get you something else. The Christmas shop is always hiring, and in a few years we’re going to have a big boom. Lorne’s going to be the next ski town. Everyone’s saying it, and Greg Cross is building like it’s going to happen yesterday. The tourists will want their fancy coffees, and their fancy cafés, and their private security. You’ll have plenty of opportunities here.”

  They weren’t the opportunities I wanted. But I didn’t know how to say it.

  Dad caught the look on my face. I expected him to scream or snap. But he put his spoon back in his cereal and his voice softened. “I need you here, Emma. I need you safe. You’re all I’ve got since your mother . . .” He stopped, swallowed, stared hard at his breakfast.

  And then I realized why he didn’t scream. I was supposed to feel sorry for him. Poor Chief Baines, he spends so much time caring about his daughter when his evil wife abandoned him. What happens when he’s injured on the job? What happens when he’s old? Emma can’t abandon him, too.

  Only Emma didn’t ask to be abandoned by her mom. Emma didn’t ask for security cameras through the whole house. Emma didn’t even ask to be born. The rage came back, and worse. “Really? You want me safe? Or do you just want me here? Controlled?”

  Dad’s lip curled. “You’re not going to college. It’s a waste of time for people who think they’re better than everyone else. And while you live in my house, you follow my rules.”

  “If I win the scholarship, you can’t stop me.”

  “You don’t talk to me that way,” Dad barked.

  “I’m not Mom,” I shouted. All the color drained from Dad’s face, like I’d sucker-punched him. My brain was stuck on a loop of shitshitshit and my whole body wanted to run. But I stood my ground. “I’m not going to leave and never come back. But that’s what this is about, right? Mom, me, women in general?”

  “Get your coat,” he said. “You’re going to be late for school.”

  The problem is, I am turning into Mom. I hate her, too, but all the same, I want to leave this place and never come back. And if Dad wanted to prove to me that he cared? About me, about women in Lorne, about futures?

  He should’ve investigated Lizzy’s death like a murder.

  12

  Like Mother, Like Daughter

  “Hi, Mom.” Claude’s voice is quiet, lacking the ragged-rough edge that she brings out for her classmates and teachers. She’s crouched against the end of a long line of lockers at the edge of a hall, squashed between gray-brown metal and yellow brick, bag tucked between her knees. She runs her finger along the spine of a textbook inside it.

  “Is something wrong?” Mom says. In the background, Claude can hear the beginnings of a heated argument.

  “I can call you back if you’re busy—”

  “No. Don’t worry about that—” Mom turns away from the phone and Claude hears, in distinct but hushed tones, “Can you fuckers be quiet?” Her voice softens again as she comes back. “Okay, honey. What do you need?”

  “It’s about Emma Baines. They’ve interviewed me twice and I know they don’t believe me—”

  “Claude, calm down.” Mom’s voice is even. Claude takes a deep breath. Lets it out slowly. “Have they charged you with anything?”

  “No, but they clearly think I had something to do with it.” Her fingers snag on the zipper, tugging it back and forth.

  Mom’s voice is gentle. “We’re going to take this one thing at a time, okay, Claude?”

  Claude sniffs. But the tears haven’t dropped yet. “’Kay.”

  “Finish the school day. I know I don’t normally say this, but don’t push the status quo. Come right home and we’ll figure the whole mess out. And Claude?”

  “Yeah?”

  “If they detain you after school, don’t say anything. They can’t question you without your lawyer present.” Mom takes a deep breath. “It’s going to be fine. They’re letting your reputation color their opinions. You didn’t do anything wrong last night.”

  “No, I didn’t.” The bell rings and she flinches. Doors scrape open for passing period. “I gotta go. Love you.” Claude smiles at her mother’s reply before ending the call.

  Passing period is filled with whispers. All day they’ve incubated, and now they’re coming up for air. Emma took pills. Emma cheated. Emma liked risks. Emma was on the verge of solving Lizzy Sayer’s murder. No one knows truth from lie, and no one cares. There is only one truth, the universal one—the dead girl is tragic. She can’t be anything else. Her story sucks at the town, pulls the vitality like endless matchstick-hot summer days without rain. It looms, larger than the mountains that surround Lorn
e. And everyone in the hall drinks up that story, spitting it back out with a new rumor attached.

  It started snowing last period. Fat flakes fall past the windows at the top of the hall and the big glass wall at the end. Students pull sweaters from their lockers and curse Colorado’s weather gods. Then, with a last quip, they head for their final class of the day.

  Claude carefully touches her finger to the space under her eyes, collecting her unshed tears so they don’t ruin the eyeliner she reapplied after lunch. She runs a hand through her short black hair, and when she picks up her bag, she’s back to her usual fuck you appearance—skinny jeans, leather Docs, chipped polychrome nail polish, bored expression.

  A few people eye her as they pass, perhaps eager to see if Claude Vanderly is as collected as she was before her first interview this morning. Claude leans against the lockers, staring at the gray world outside and the snow that sticks to the windows.

  One boy stares a little too long, so she turns her head. She looks him up and down, assessing his sharp chin, the way his hair brushes his jaw, his large eyes under a sweep of too-long eyelashes. He blushes and walks right into a door before realizing he probably should have opened it first.

  The second bell rings. The halls are empty.

  Claude pushes off the wall and begins to prowl. Her boots click on the floor, echoing in a hall that is suddenly silent. She leans around the corner, and there’s Emma’s locker.

  In its sea of dirty-dishwater compatriots, her locker bursts with color. A bouquet of garish multicolored roses has been taped to the front. Cards surround it, spilling apologies, love, and remorse with the frenzy of unsaid prayer. Please don’t blame us.

  The community that cares, now that their consciences are at stake.

  A detective stands in front of Emma’s locker, spinning the combination lock. On the third try he swings it open—just as Principal Mendoza calls down the hall for him.

  His shoes squeak like caught mice as he leaves without closing the locker. The police of Lorne truly are fools. But their inability is Claude’s good fortune. She steps out from behind the corner. As she does, two freshmen girls approach. One of them says something behind a curtain of loose blond hair. The other one giggles. They shush each other, like they’re sneaking out on a date.

  They don’t notice the sound of Claude’s Docs on the floor. “Fuck off,” she hisses. They stare at her in openmouthed amazement for a moment. Then they fuck off. Their laughter erupts behind her, but she doesn’t care about them. One long finger touches a cream envelope with Emma’s name written neatly in blue pen. For a moment Claude lingers at the envelope’s flap—then she turns her attention to the locker itself.

  The inside of the locker would be neat, except for the notes that have been shoved through the slats. More you were the greatests from people who’ve only known Emma as “that girl.” People are scrambling for even the smallest excuses to say they knew her. A couple of notebooks lean against one side of the locker.

  Claude’s eyes narrow at the sight of the notebooks, but they’re not what she’s looking for. She pulls a nail file out of her pocket. Sliding it into a crack at the bottom of the locker, she jiggles the nail file, then again. The bottom pops up with a soft sound. Reaching in, her hands curl around something. She pulls out a battered iPhone. One eyebrow arches. She drops the phone into her bag and reaches back into the secret compartment. She rummages until she hears a crinkle. Her expression twists in satisfaction.

  Claude pulls out a bag of tiny white pills. It goes into the messenger bag, too. Then she slides the false bottom back into place with a click.

  A muffled “thanks” from the conversation around the corner makes her leap back. She spins on her heel, takes a few trotting steps, and when she’s out of sight, she stops and straightens her clothes.

  Claude doesn’t go to class. She goes straight to her car.

  The Vanderly home is a little two-story box tucked on the “wrong side” of the mountain, the side that was developed during the mining days. The Vanderly women have lived there since time immemorial, which means the cabin is half Grandma’s attic, half hectic-lawyer single mom. A cuckoo clock sits on the wall next to pictures of the Vanderly family from four generations back. Ms. Vanderly’s law diploma is crammed among them. A high shelf running around the living room wall holds a ceramic angel collection that props up vinyl records Claude and her mom rescued from flea markets and estate sales.

  Claude and Mom sit at a rickety wooden table covered in bills, newspaper pages, and junk mail, eating Red Runner takeout. Mom’s eyes sag from fatigue. A pile of notebooks—math, history, psychology—sits in in front of the third chair, as though obscuring it from view.

  “Lily Fransen’s case got dismissed,” Mom says.

  Claude drops her burger in disgust. “What the fuck.”

  “Statute of limitations was past.”

  “Yeah, because she was younger than me when it happened.” Claude rubs at her eye, then looks down at her uneaten food.

  Mom puts a hand on her arm. “I thought life would be easier for you than it was for me. That the world would change faster. But all we have now is smear campaigns and interviews and . . . dead girls.” She raises an eyebrow, but Claude doesn’t look up. “Want to tell me what happened?”

  Claude shrugs. “They asked me where I was last night. They asked me if I knew her, they asked me what I did between yesterday and today. Then they pulled me back in around lunch and asked everything all over again.”

  “What did you tell them?”

  Claude sighs. Her burger bun sags with too much ketchup, and a pickle falls out as she lifts it again. “I don’t need the third degree from you, too.”

  A line appears between Mom’s eyes, but a moment later it’s smoothed out, and she’s all sympathy. “I don’t want them targeting you.” They both know how easy it would be. The school slut could have gotten into a fight with Emma over a boy. The school vandal could have taken a prank too far. The school delinquent could have been one step from psychotic the whole time. Claude happens to be all three of those.

  Claude nods grudgingly and takes another bite of the burger, washing it down with orange juice. “I told them the truth.”

  “The whole truth?”

  Claude puts the burger down and looks her mother right in the eye.

  They wait. The silence turns cold and brittle.

  The door rattles as someone hammers on the other side. Mom’s face flushes. She glances at Claude; Claude shakes her head. It’s eight in the evening and they’re not accustomed to uninvited guests.

  The Vanderly household abhors guns, but as Mom slides toward the door on the balls of her feet, she grabs a baseball bat from where it rests against the balding couch.

  The pounding comes again. “Open up! Police!”

  Mom’s apprehension coalesces into cold anger. She unlocks the door. “There’s no need to break down my door. What can I help you with, sirs?”

  The cop all but punches her in the face with the paper, brandished like a talisman. But he drops it when he sees Ms. Vanderly’s sharp cheeks and wide brown eyes, the curly mane of hair. He tries not to stare at the triangle of skin exposed by the unbuttoned collar of her dress shirt. His face softens a bit. Men have a tendency to go gooey around her. “Sorry, ma’am. But we have a warrant to search the premises.”

  “What?” But Mom has no choice. She steps aside and allows a team of three to shove past her. The last cop has a German shepherd on a leash. “How did you get that? You can’t come in here and implicate my daughter, just because you don’t have any real evidence—”

  No one’s listening, least of all Claude. The moment she sees the German shepherd, she springs from the table and leaps for the living room, where her bag is tucked against the couch. The nearest cop scoops it up, putting out a hand to keep Claude at bay. He turns the bag over and dumps its contents on the floor.

  “If you’re going to riffle through our lives, the least you can do is
treat my child’s belongings with re . . . spect. . . .” Mom’s voice peters out as the cop leans down and pulls a plastic bag from the mess. The German shepherd barks.

  The pills are white, small, round. Not terribly interesting. The cop hands them off and leans down again, pulling a phone from the chaos of notes and pens and open candy wrappers. “This yours?”

  He looks past her to where two phones sit on the table.

  With a gloved hand he activates the lock screen. The photo is of a girl, smiling. A girl with ice-blond hair cut close to her chin. A girl who’s gone with the current.

  The world rushes through Claude, dragging her down, stealing her breath. She hears the cop muttering the usual “You have the right to remain silent . . .” but his voice is lost in the river of noise—the bark of the dog, the shouts of the cops, the click of the handcuffs as they slide around her wrist.

  And standing in the middle, silent, the rock around which the noise froths—Ms. Vanderly, staring. Shocked into a rare loss of words.

  It doesn’t last. She swallows, and her voice comes back, louder than the rest, cutting through the cacophony. “Don’t say anything, Claude. Anything. We’re getting a lawyer. Do you understand? Don’t say anything.”

  And then Claude’s mother is lost, left behind, as the current sweeps downstream.

  THE LORNE EXAMINER ONLINE

  Thursday, December 6, 2018, 7:00 P.M.

  Missing Persons Case Officially Declared Murder

  Police arrested a suspect this evening in connection with the death of Emma Baines, a high school senior at Jefferson-Lorne High School.

  The Baines case, previously categorized as a missing persons case, was declared a murder investigation when a video posted to the girl’s Facebook page was further examined by the police and determined to be authentic.