The Good Girls

by Claire Eliza Bartlett

  “The girls all had holes in their stories, but there were too many variables, too many alibis to give us a clear path toward one,” said Deputy Chief Bryson, the spokesperson on this case. “Once we started looking at it as a possible team effort, a lot of things fell into place.”

  Emma was well liked at her high school, Jefferson-Lorne, though her busy schedule meant she had few true friends. She was slated to be the recipient of the prestigious Devino Scholarship; following her disappearance, the scholarship was given to one of the young women now in custody. Emma was quiet and hardworking and had been granted early admittance to CU Boulder.

  It is currently unclear as to whether a video, taken the night of Emma’s disappearance and ostensibly showing her death, was to be used by the culprits as part of a blackmail pact or something more sinister. “We’re still looking through all the options,” said Bryson. The video shows a large figure, presumed to be dead hit man Randy Silverman, pushing Emma over the bridge at Anna’s Run. Silverman’s body was found in the river two days after Emma’s disappearance, and his gun was recovered Saturday evening. Fingerprints on the gun belong to the three suspects—and Emma Baines herself.

  A candlelight vigil will be held for Emma at Jefferson-Lorne High School on Tuesday.

  29

  The Victims

  BRYSON: It’s Saturday, December 8, 2018. The time is 11:43 p.m. Deputy Chief Bryson and Chief Baines interviewing Miss Gwendolyn Sayer.

  GWEN: Can I ask you something? Do my parents know I’m here? Could you tell them?

  CLINE: It’s Saturday, December 8, 2018. The time is 11:43 p.m. Officer Cline interviewing Miss Claude Vanderly. Miss Vanderly, would you like to tell us what you were doing with that gun?

  CLAUDE: I was planting it.

  What? You thought I’d come up with some excuse?

  MUÑEZ: It’s Saturday, December 8, 2018. The time is 11:43 p.m. Officer Muñez interviewing Miss Avery Cross. Miss Cross, congratulations.

  AVERY: I—Excuse me?

  MUÑEZ: Your cheer competition. I hear you placed second. Congratulations.

  AVERY: Uh, thanks.

  BRYSON: Gwen, can you tell us why you were in Greeley tonight?

  GWEN: I was in Greeley because of him. Because of Lizzy.

  BAINES: This is shit—

  BRYSON: You were in Greeley because of your dead sister? Not because of Avery Cross?

  GWEN: Yes, I was there for Aves. But it’s more complicated than that.

  BAINES: Seems simple to me. You killed my daughter. You’ve been scrambling to cover it up. If Bryson weren’t here, I’d be turning off the security camera and this line of questioning would be taking a different direction.

  BRYSON: Chief, I got this.

  Gwen, go ahead. Tell us why you were in Greeley.

  GWEN: Okay.

  I’m ready.

  It starts a while back. When Lizzy was still alive.

  CLAUDE: So I’ve always been easy, right? I mean, that’s what you’d say. I prefer the term sexually uninhibited by bullshit gender norms, but the world we live in puts a lot of pressure on how other people see me. For example, I wanted to get a job as soon as I could drive. But no one in Lorne wanted to leave me alone with the male staff, like I’d turn into Sexual Fantasy Barbie the minute the boss’s back was turned. And because no one would give me a job, I started dealing pills.

  CLINE: Did Emma buy pills from you?

  CLAUDE: You bet she did. Adderall.

  CLINE: It was Valium that was found in the locker.

  CLAUDE: Well, maybe those pills weren’t from me. Or for her.

  CLINE: Did she ever owe you money?

  CLAUDE: Nah, she was a good client. But that’s not the point. She wasn’t my only client. I had a lot of them. And Lizzy Sayer was one of the first.

  GWEN: I was starting high school and I was going to be just like Lizzy. Top of her class, a finalist for the Devino Scholarship, well liked. She had as perfect a life you can get if you grew up eating government-provided cheese. She was supposed to be my mentor in all things.

  But when we entered the official JLH mentorship program, I got paired with Brittany Landry, and Lizzy got Emma Baines. Siblings don’t mentor siblings, but it bothered me that Lizzy’s attention was divided. Emma was needy. Emma was ambitious. Emma wanted my scholarship. And Emma and Lizzy talked about things that Lizzy wouldn’t talk about with me.

  It was like she’d upgraded baby sisters.

  It was Emma who told me that Lizzy had a boyfriend. “Any idea who it is?” she said, fake casually. She was always such a liar.

  “None of your business,” I replied, because it isn’t, and also why did Emma know Lizzy had a boyfriend when I didn’t?

  I thought it was because—you know.

  BRYSON: Because you’re gay?

  GWEN: Yes. It felt like she didn’t think I’d understand her attraction to boys. It hurt. She said she’d always be there for me, but she wasn’t letting me be there for her.

  I asked her about it. She blew me off. She started staying late after school and coming home right before bed. At first, it didn’t bother Mum and Dad so much. She’d always been a good kid, so they trusted her. They trusted the adults of JLH to look after her.

  CLINE: Lizzy Sayer’s car was found full of prescription drugs and cocaine. Was that you?

  CLAUDE: The prescriptions, yes. The coke, no. Kyle Landry’s the dealer for the hard stuff around here.

  Hm. Probably should’ve kept that to myself.

  Lizzy first came to me for Adderall. The preppies always do. I was starting to see her at parties, and I figured she wanted both the grades and the fun. And unlike some people, I don’t judge. A lot of kids actually need something, for stress or for energy or for depression, but their parents won’t take them to get help.

  Thing is, she disappeared from the party scene. But she still showed up at my car before first period, looking like she slept in a parking lot and drank Jack for breakfast. And then she didn’t want Adderall. She wanted Xanax. She wanted codeine. I said no. She wanted whatever she could buy with a crumpled twenty. And yeah, I sold it to her. I figured as long as she was coming to me, I could control what she took. I didn’t want her doing coke.

  CLINE: And it didn’t bother you that Lizzy overdosed and died?

  CLAUDE: Hey, fuck you. Of course it bothered me. I quit selling for ages after she died. Especially when I didn’t know it was coke they found in her system.

  But then I found out it wasn’t really the booze and pills that killed her. It wasn’t a something, it was a someone.

  CLINE: Was it Randy Silverman? Is that why you shot him?

  CLAUDE: I didn’t shoot him.

  CLINE: Your fingerprints were found on the gun.

  CLAUDE: We struggled for it. He was trying to kill my friend. But I wasn’t anywhere near it when it went off.

  AVERY: I’ve . . . always been worried around him.

  MUÑEZ: Around who?

  AVERY: Mr. G. Mr. Garson.

  I met him when I tried out for varsity cheer, freshman year. He and Mrs. Anderson were the judges for the varsity squad.

  He seemed nice, right? Harsh but fair. He said I had potential, could maybe even get a cheer scholarship for college.

  The first time I came out in my cheer uniform, I knew he was looking at where my hem hit my thighs. I didn’t want to bend down, or squat, or high-jump.

  MUÑEZ: What . . . you think Mr. Garson had sexual designs on you?

  AVERY: See? Even you don’t believe me. Stupid little cheer girl thinks everyone wants her. She doesn’t understand how counselors and coaches work.

  But I do know. I know the line was crossed. The whole school convinced me I didn’t.

  GWEN: Lizzy never told me who her boyfriend was. She was all glowy and giggly, like you get when you start a new thing. Her smiles were brighter, her laugh louder. And she started dressing differently. She wore V-neck shirts and push-up bras. She wanted to be noticed by someone.
She just wouldn’t say who.

  I didn’t tell Mum and Dad. I thought I was being a good sister. And when I heard other students trying to figure out who it was, I told them to screw off.

  But things started going downhill midsemester. I heard Lizzy crying in her room. She spent hours with concealer, erasing the hollow rings around her eyes. She disappeared from her after-school curriculars. Mum’s phone started ringing at midnight, one, two a.m. Lizzy’s voice slurred and fuzzed. School rumors got vicious. Lizzy was getting blackout drunk every night. Lizzy would snort anything from crushed-up candy to cocaine. Lizzy was fucking a teacher, a parent, the entire lacrosse team.

  I don’t know. Would you believe every rumor you heard?

  And then.

  The phone call.

  The drive.

  The empty car. The empty bottles.

  The almost-empty police report.

  None of it mattered to me. Lizzy was just . . . gone. An empty death, I thought. But that wasn’t true.

  MUÑEZ: You know what I think? I think you’re trying to distract me from the real problem. The Emma problem. Some of your student colleagues suspected that you and Emma were an item.

  AVERY: Yeah. I mean, yes, those were rumors. I guess I understand why. Boys like to, um. Imagine things. Be gross about it. And Emma was so hopeless at cheer, and I wanted to help her. I know people think a lot of things about bi girls, but I’m not into Emma just because I’m bi and we’re friends.

  MUÑEZ: Do you have proof that you and Emma weren’t together? That you didn’t want to be with her?

  AVERY: Uh, no? We just hung out?

  MUÑEZ: And what did you do when you “hung out”?

  AVERY: We did cheer routines. I did cheer routines. She tried to follow. But honestly, she didn’t really care, and she cared even less after Lizzy died. She was the first to notice that Garson was . . . interested in me. She asked if I thought it was creepy, the way he always asked how I was, put his hand on my shoulder, that kind of thing. And she started poking around, right? She said she was worried about Lizzy, but I didn’t put the two things together until after Lizzy died. Long after.

  The thing is, girls can tell. There’s a little voice in our heads that says get out, get out, but men spend years convincing us to ignore it. To tell ourselves we’re wrong. Women, too, like the teachers at JLH.

  The first time I was called into Garson’s office, that voice was screaming.

  Garson called me in for a health check. It was announced at cheer practice and I was first, so instead of changing into my jeans I went to his office in my cheer uniform, sitting on his pleather couch and trying to tug the skirt as far down my thighs as it would go. As he flicked through my file, I kept my eyes on the office—tall chipboard shelves stuffed with medical and physiotherapy books, dotted with weights and exercise bands. Pictures of the lacrosse team, newspaper clippings of the trees he planted, the students he mentored, the ways he made Lorne love him.

  I could feel my heel trying to bounce. I smoothed my skirt and pressed down on my legs, taking a deep breath. Garson’s eyes flicked to my chest. “Avery Cross.” He leaned back in his chair. He folded his arms, making his biceps bulge. I got the feeling he was doing it on purpose. “How are we doing today?”

  “Fine,” I said, because that’s what I always am. Even though I wanted to run.

  “You have a good form out there. I was watching your high kicks. You could make captain, if you practice.”

  I felt a surge of hope. I was angling for captain, but the position’s more about social standing than ability, so I just shrugged and looked at my knees.

  “Your mom says you take some medications. Mind telling me what you’re on?”

  My mouth fell open. Get out.

  Garson seemed to read my mind. “If there’s an accident at practice and we have to call an ambulance, then I need to know your medical history.”

  “Um.” I closed my mouth. “Ketamine, vitamin C, vitamin B.”

  “Birth control?”

  He asked it so casually, but I could see in the way his head tilted that he listened carefully to the answer. Lie, said the little voice inside me.

  But Mom always said I should be honest with my teachers. She wouldn’t want me getting caught in a lie and embarrassing myself, or the family. So I said, “Yeah. Yes. For, um. Period pain.”

  “Anything else?”

  “Xenadrine,” I whispered.

  Garson gave me a sharp look, then examined his file. His pen tapped against the paper. “That’s a weight-loss supplement,” he said, as if I didn’t know.

  He put the paper down. His eyes moved to me—moved over me, caressing. My knees jerked together and stuck. “Adolescence is hard. Your body’s changing, and you don’t always like what you see. Maybe you think others don’t like what they see. The cheer image puts pressure on your body. But, Avery, a weight loss pill isn’t the answer. You need to appreciate yourself. You need to love yourself.” His voice turned soft.

  We sat like that, for a long minute. I was supposed to say something, but what? And Garson just looked at me. Looked at the cut of my shirt and the swell of my breasts, at my bouncing knees and skinny thighs. I stared at my knees, too, hoping that he’d just tell me to take care of myself and let me go.

  Instead I heard the scrape of his chair on the linoleum floor. “Come here,” he said.

  Bile rose in my throat. My heart was a hummingbird, desperate to flee. But Good Avery knows that her teachers want the best for her. Good Avery does what she’s told. I stood, letting my hands come down to the edge of my skirt, curling around the hem and pulling it as low as I could. My shoes tapped on the floor like hooves.

  Garson pulled a scale out from under his desk. “I know my weight,” I mumbled, too afraid to say it loudly in case he thought I was talking back.

  “It’s all right. Come.” Garson put a hand on my shoulder and guided me onto the scale. The numbers flickered, ticking up. This is Avery Cross. I’m a number. And when my number doesn’t look right anymore, I don’t get to do the lifts in cheerleading. I don’t get to be a perfect girlfriend. I don’t get breakfast. I don’t get to be anything.

  “Avery, you’re on the lower end of normal for your body mass index,” Garson said. His arm slipped from one shoulder to the other, pulling me in toward his ribs. I couldn’t move. “You’re active. You’ve got perfect arms, perfect thighs, the perfect stomach. . . .” His hand drifted down my back, circling my rib cage, pausing at my waist as if to measure it. My breath had stopped and I couldn’t make it start again. My lips, my thighs, my fingers—everything squeezed together, as tight as it could go. If I didn’t keep it all in, I’d throw up or scream or fall completely apart.

  “You’re perfect,” Garson whispered. His hands inched down to the sharp points at my hips.

  Breath exploded in me and I vaulted off the scale. My face burned. The heat became tears behind my eyes as I tried to grab my backpack without bending over and giving him a look at my backside.

  Garson was sitting in his chair by the time I turned back around. He held my file. His voice was casual. Normal Mr. G, who never had anything but support and encouragement for us, who was a good and responsible coach. “You need to talk to someone about this. I’m going to start you on counseling. Girls like you shouldn’t be worrying about weight-loss supplements. You should be focusing on the positive power of your body.”

  He looked up at me then. “O-okay,” I stammered past the choke point in my throat.

  And all I could think as I fled the office was No way. Not possible. Mr. G couldn’t have done . . . that. He was just trying to help. Be encouraging. I misinterpreted. I started it.

  MUÑEZ: So . . . you’re saying that Mr. Garson touched you inappropriately. And that Emma knew about it.

  AVERY: You don’t believe me. I shouldn’t be surprised. Mrs. Willingham didn’t believe me. Mr. Mendoza didn’t believe me. I didn’t even tell my parents; good girls don’t spread rumors like tha
t. And anyway, Avery’s too stupid to know the difference between well-meaning and predatory.

  MUÑEZ: I never said that.

  AVERY: You don’t have to. It’s clear what you think.

  MUÑEZ: I think you’re a liar. I think you’re concocting a story to hide the truth: that you were in on a plot to kill Emma Baines, and you killed Randy Silverman, too. Bitterness for an ex can cause a lot of heartache. Gwen would have done anything to help you get rid of her.

  AVERY: That’s not what happened.

  MUÑEZ: Then why are your fingerprints on Randy’s gun?

  AVERY: He tried to kill Emma. We were fighting him. Someone kicked the gun and it hit a rock. It went off.

  MUÑEZ: So you didn’t mean to kill him.

  AVERY: I didn’t kill him at all.

  CLAUDE: Lizzy got . . . problematic. She’d follow me around school until I gave her what she wanted. Teachers started to notice. It was difficult.

  One day I ducked into an empty classroom and shut the door.

  “What the hell, Liz?” I snapped. “Are you trying to get caught?”

  Maybe she was. Maybe that’s what I was missing.

  “I know you have them,” she said. The them was still Adderall. It was all I’d agree to get her anymore. It sounds weird, but I wanted her to ace the tests, grab the scholarship, and leave us all in the dust. I wanted her to get out of Lorne, away from whatever the hell was killing her, and get a new life at college.

  Yeah, yeah. Pathetic excuse for dealing. I know.

  I pulled the goods out of my bag. “Next time, we meet by the river—” I started.

  The door behind Lizzy opened. Garson stood there. His eyes landed on the clear plastic bag.

  Fuck, I thought. Fuckshitshitshitshit—

  When he crossed his arms and said, “And what’s happening here, girls?” I couldn’t come up with a single fucking thing to say.

  Lizzy lifted her chin. “Nothing. None of your business.”

  His eyes glinted. “That’s no way to speak to a teacher, Miss Sayer. Please wait for me outside.”

  She straightened her shoulders. “What if I don’t want to?” she said, tone sullen.