by Amy Brashear
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
I sit on a wooden pew next to my parents on the left side of the church, staring at the four cold gray steel caskets in a row in front of the pulpit. People I don’t even know are sitting near me, whispering, spreading rumors about how they died. Two hundred seventy people live in Holcomb; lots of them could have done this.
“Did you know the deceased?” a man dressed in black sitting directly behind me asks a grief-stricken woman to his right.
“No,” she whispers. “Did you?”
“No, ma’am,” he says in a soft voice. “I’m from out of town, just wanted to pay my respects.”
I want to stand and scream at these funeral crashers, YOU DIDN’T KNOW THEM! GET THE HELL OUT OF THIS CHURCH. But I don’t.
I think Nancy would have hated this.
My aunt Trudy once said, “People always think highly of the dead when they’re dead. It’s definitely not how they thought of them when they were alive.”
They canceled school today so anyone who wanted to come to the funeral could. Mary Claire’s here, along with Karen. So is Audrey Phillips. She doesn’t go to HHS. She attends church here. That’s how Audrey knew Nancy. Audrey’s with her parents. Her dad’s a deputy with the GCPD. He was one of the first on the scene.
Seth’s not here. He chose fishing with Alex instead of being here, with me.
“God bless you,” Mrs. Parker sobs to Beverly Clutter, one of the two surviving daughters as Beverly walks by on her way to the front pew. Rumor has it Beverly and her fiancé are thinking about moving up the date of their wedding to this weekend. Everyone’s already in town and the family needs a shred of happiness during this horrible time.
Mrs. Parker sits beside me without asking if the seat is taken. She goes to all the funerals, whether she knows the deceased or not. She always makes an appearance, carrying that oversized purse of hers. She reaches over and touches my knee with her thick hand. “Everything’s going to be all right. She’s in a much better place.”
I laugh.
“Carly Fleming, this isn’t the time for jokes,” she says, and my mother pinches my right thigh.
I don’t know why people say they’re in a “better place” or any other phrase of comfort, encouragement, or just plain Kansas niceness. It doesn’t make sense. “You know, they look at peace,” some people say. You just want to reply, “Why, yes, they do, because they’re dead.” No comforting phrase can make up for the fact that we shouldn’t be here today.
Despite the fact that there isn’t an empty seat in the sanctuary, people keep coming into the church. They stand in the aisles and up against the walls, anywhere there isn’t a seat. I see Sue sitting across the way. She sees me. We smile and shake our heads. This shouldn’t be happening.
Reverend Cowan stands at the pulpit and talks about the Clutter family. Everything he says we already know. Everyone has a Clutter family story, especially if you live in Holcomb. The Clutter family was a whole. Together they worked hard, supported each other, supported their neighbors.
Then he talks about each family member, starting with Kenyon. He starts to speak in short dramatic bursts. About the boy’s love of basketball. About the boy’s devotion to his friends. Asher starts to bawl beside me. I find that I am crying, too.
Mom and Dad are stoic.
Next comes Nancy, “the town darling,” as the reverend calls her. By now he’s almost crying himself. I don’t blame him. Funerals are rare around here.
Reverend Cowan draws a deep breath and intones Nancy’s virtues in a shaky voice. How she respected her parents. How she was a beacon, the embodiment of “what we in Holcomb call the Christian thing to do.” How she took it upon herself to befriend everyone in the community. On and on he goes about what a nice, sweet, good girl she was.
Suddenly I’m not crying anymore. I’m almost laughing. My mom pinches me as I fidget. True, Nancy was the “town darling.” She knew it. But she was also a liar, and she knew that, too. Does anyone here know that she smoked cigarettes? Sometimes when I tutored her, she would sneak a smoke. If her parents smelled it, she would blame it on Kenyon. And I think of the way she acted at Landry’s house that day I first met him, the way she laughed at me when I couldn’t handle Mary Claire’s slaughtered cow. But no one knows any of these things. I probably shouldn’t know these things. These things are meant for a friend to keep secret. They’re not meant for someone who would betray you after you were murdered.
And she would have been my friend, if we’d just had a little more time.
I’ve had this thought more than I’d care to admit.
The service is coming to an end. Reverend Cowan prays for peace at this time and hour; he petitions the Lord to give us power to understand the sins of a mind that has confusion. My dry eyes dart around the sanctuary. I spot two men I’ve never seen before, in front. They’re hunched over; hair greasy and unkempt. I wonder who they are and why they’re here. I don’t know them from Adam. Maybe they’re just strangers to Holcomb, like I was. Are the murderers here? Did they come to gloat? A camera clicks as the choir sings. A hymnal drops to the floor with a thud. A noisy diesel truck drives past the church. A few people whisper to their neighbors, “How dare they drive down the street on this day, don’t they understand we’re trying to mourn here?”
We say a final prayer and leave. Asher stays behind; he’s a pallbearer for Kenyon. He’s dressed in a black suit he’s never worn before—one of Dad’s. It’s a little big. Asher’s grown a lot. Mom didn’t think he would need a new suit anytime soon, living in Kansas. A friend’s funeral isn’t an occasion you plan for. His eyes are puffy like he’s been crying, but he isn’t crying now. Probably all cried out. Unlike me, Asher actually is crying over a friend.
Four black Cadillac hearses are parked in a row, waiting for the caskets. The bodies come out of the church in a line. Nancy’s is brought out first, followed by Mrs. Clutter, Mr. Clutter, and then Kenyon. Mom grabs my hand and holds it tight.
The evening paper is on our doorstep when we get home. $1,000 reward for information on clutter killers is on the front page of the Gazette. The Hutchinson News is offering a reward for any piece of relevant evidence to the case.
“I bet everyone, whether they know something or not, calls them,” Asher grumbles. “No matter how stupid or useless. Or untrue.”
He’s so bitter now.
I want to comfort him. I want to tell him that there might be real leads, that there are plenty of Good Samaritans in Holcomb. But what do I know?
“Mail,” Dad says, handing Mom the letters and keeping the bills for himself.
“Carly, you have something from Aunt Trudy,” Mom says, handing me a package.
I run upstairs as I tear it open. Inside is a half-written note on beautiful personalized stationery. I slam the door behind me.
Darling,
Here’s the piece from the Times, and Psycho, the novel. Be well.
Love,
Aunt Trudy
P.S. Don’t tell your mother.
I toss the book on my bed and pull out the clipping from The New York Times. Mr. Clutter’s photograph is displayed with the headline, wealthy farmer, 3 of family slain.
h. w. clutter, wife and 2 children are found shot in kansas home
I hear heavy footsteps. “What do you have there?” Mom asks from behind the closed door.
I know I can’t lie. “It’s about the murders.”
“Now, Carly.”
“I asked her to. I wanted it.”
“Carly, I don’t want you to become obsessed with all of this.”
I whirl and scowl at the door. “All of this? Really?”
Mom sighs, and I hear her plodding back downstairs. I wonder how she’d feel if she’d been Mrs. Clutter’s tutor? Obsessed? And what about Asher? Is he obsessed with Kenyon’s death? I try to return to the artic
le. I hadn’t even realized I’ve crumpled the newspaper clipping into a ball with my right hand.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
“They found blood out on the Arkansas River Bridge,” Seth tells me, as if he’s letting me in on a secret.
We’re sitting side by side at the counter at Hartman’s Café. He knocks my arm with his elbow, almost spilling my cherry limeade.
“Careful,” I say. I try to edge away from him but can’t. The stools are built into the floor, close together.
“Did you hear what I just said?” he asks.
I take a sip of my drink, my eyes roving over his pudgy face, his beady eyes. There’s something mean in his smile. I can’t put my finger on it. Dirty satisfaction. Or maybe I’m just thinking those words because his flannel shirt is so grimy. When was the last time he washed it? It occurs to me, sitting there: I find him repulsive. I take a last slurp of the sweet, slushy liquid and place my glass on the counter.
“I know they found blood on the bridge, because I was the one who found it.”
He rears back and frowns. “What?”
“You heard me. Mary Claire, Landry, and I went searching for clues.”
“Landry,” he says with a laugh. “Why are you hanging out with that rectangle?”
“He’s not a rectangle.”
Seth’s lips turn down. “You’re right. He’s worse.”
I roll my eyes. “Why weren’t you at the funeral?” I ask, changing the subject. “Was fishing more important?”
“Listen—” he says, grabbing a menu from the stack next to the napkin dispenser. “I want to remember them alive, not like that, not forever lying in those death boxes. Plus, seeing dead bodies.” He shivers, waving the waitress over.
I was foolish ever to have gotten involved with this boy. It was Mary Claire’s idea. The only reason I began dating Seth Patterson was because he was best friends with Bobby, and Bobby was dating Nancy. I was the new girl, the outsider in this small town. I needed all the help I could get when it came to making friends.
“It’s easy . . . Date Seth,” Mary Claire said as she sat on my front porch flipping through back issues of Teen magazine. She smirked at a cover headline from July:
does father REALLY know best?
“I don’t even know Seth,” I said.
“Yes, but he knows you.” She kept her eyes on the magazine.
“How does he know me?”
“You’re exotic.”
“Exotic? I’m from Manhattan—”
“Yes—and not the good one.”
The whole good-versus-bad Manhattan was made abundantly clear each time someone brought up that I wasn’t from Kansas.
You know how, in The Wizard of Oz, Dorothy talks about Kansas and how great it is, and you can tell that the Tin Man, the Cowardly Lion, and the Scarecrow don’t exactly care? That’s me. But in reverse. New York City is my Kansas; Holcomb is my Oz. The whole talking-about-my-home thing became a drag. Mary Claire made it pretty clear that New York City was as boring to her as a wide-open prairie was to me.
“He likes you,” she said, grinning but still not looking at me.
“Seth likes me?”
“Yes.”
“But he doesn’t even know me.”
“He’ll get to know you.”
“Is that how ‘like’ works out here?”
That made her lift her head. “Out here?” she asked.
“Past the Mississippi.”
Mary Claire rolled her eyes. “If you don’t want to be forever known as the outsider, then yes, it’s how we do it out here.”
The problem was that dating Seth didn’t make me an insider. Bobby may have liked him, once, for reasons I’ll never know. But Nancy could not stand him. She once told me that the thing that annoyed her most about Bobby was his loyalty. He refused to cut anyone loose, to grow apart. Bobby’s friends were friends for life. “Like the chicken pox,” she said. “Once you catch it, you’ll always have it. Bobby gets infected with people that way.”
I didn’t think loyalty was like a disease then, and I don’t now, either.
Seth’s problem with loyalty is that he has none. He didn’t even go to her funeral.
“What would you like?” the waitress asks him.
“Cheeseburger and a Coke, and she’ll have—”
“Don’t bother,” I interrupt. “I can’t believe you can be this heartless.” I grab my bag, take a dollar out of my wallet, and throw it on the counter.
“What?” he asks, staring at me as if I’m the one who lost my mind.
“Don’t act so surprised,” I say, putting my purse strap around my shoulder. “And by the way, the caskets weren’t open.”
He starts to laugh. “Why do you even care? It’s not like she was your best friend.”
“Jerk,” I say under my breath.
Walking to the exit, I look in the mirror next to the door. I see Seth pocket my dollar bill, like I left it for him.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
Police, continuing their investigation of the tragic Clutter family slaying, have requested that anyone with pertinent information please contact the sheriff’s office.
Seth is right, as much as it burns me. But just because Nancy and I weren’t exactly best friends, it didn’t make me care any less that she’s dead. We never got the chance. I was never going to tell anyone that she needed tutoring. I would have kept that secret. I’ve kept Mary Claire’s secrets. I would have done the same for Nancy. I did keep her secrets, the ones she let me in on without even knowing.
Night has fallen and it’s cold out, but inside my car it’s warm and quiet. I cross the Arkansas River Bridge and roll to a stop once I hit the dirt road. The police barricade has been torn down. Slowly, I make my way down the Chinese elm–lined drive.
The Stoeckleins’ porch light’s still on. I bet he sees my car, but I don’t even care. He could be calling the cops for all I know. But he didn’t call them that night. Why didn’t he hear anything? Why didn’t he do anything to stop it? He lives right here; so close. He must have heard the gunshots. He must have heard them scream. I don’t understand. I don’t understand at all.
There’s this eerie feeling, like someone’s watching. It’s dark, though, so anyone could be nearby. In the glove compartment there’s a flashlight. I step out of the car with a shiver. The flashlight’s beam is weak; it doesn’t give much light as I walk up to the porch. The door’s unlocked. There’s a single light left on in Mr. Clutter’s office.
“Anyone here?” I whisper. Thankfully, no one answers.
I close the door behind me, as silently as I can, and tiptoe toward the light. Inside, boxes are stacked on each other. Some are filled with trinkets, and picture frames are stacked ever so neatly on the floor. The Venetian blinds still cover the windows; papers are spread on the desk. Mr. Clutter’s sweat-stained gray Stetson hangs on a hat peg on the wall. Even his coats are tucked on posts on the coatrack. It’s just the same, as if they still lived here. Grabbing his Stetson off the peg, I put it on my head. The brim falls just below my eyes. Pushing the cowboy hat back, I sit in his oversized chair, which is against the wall. I try to determine if anything is missing. The desk looks exactly as I remembered it, everything in its place, except for his binoculars. They’re gone. Maybe they’ve already been packed away. I hang the hat back on the peg.
In an empty house all you can hear are the creaks and moans. Holding on to the railing with each step, I climb the stairs.
There are four bedrooms on this floor. One is Eveanna’s room, and one is Beverly’s. Kenyon’s room is just as I remembered it. Pale gray and green walls; his Hardy Boys books still on the bookshelf, along with his plastic cars from model kits. Pictures of his prizewinning sheep hang on the wall. But his radio’s gone. It could have been packed up, but nothing else looks out of place.
; Nancy’s small bedroom is across the hall. Like her father’s study, there are brown boxes stacked on top of one another. But photos of her friends and clippings from the school newspaper are still pinned to the cork bulletin board. A nightstand, a wooden chair, and a bed frame are what remain. The paint’s faded where someone took soap and water to it, but no amount of scrubbing could get everything clean.
I drag the wooden chair across the hardwood floor and sit next to the nightstand.
Nancy kept her diary in the top drawer. I won’t read it. Just holding it in my hands will be enough. But reading something that she wrote will make her alive again. Authors always say that when they die, they’ll live through their words. Can that be said for one’s diary?
It doesn’t matter; it’s not there. Nancy’s sisters must have taken it.
My hair falls in front of my eyes. Hoping to find a bobby pin, I dig through the drawer. Tucked at the back is a hairclip. It’s probably been there for years. It’s one that we made in the ninth grade during Home Ec. The paint’s faded but it’s still in one piece. A clip with an old button painted green, yellow, and brown to resemble the state flower. I twist my bangs and pin them to the side.
In the middle of the room I sit in complete darkness.
There’s a crash downstairs. It makes me jump. The chair shifts and slides against the hardwood floor. Mr. Stoecklein doesn’t need to come in and find me here. Shaking, I hold the flashlight in both hands like a weapon. Slowly, I tiptoe across the creaky hardwood floor, out of the room and down the stairs to the front door. The sound of the back door snapping shut stops me.
I spin around, swinging the flashlight like a club. The sound of objects crashing to the floor makes me regret that.
Bending over, I pick up Mr. Clutter’s Stetson and place it back on its peg.
There’s another noise. It sounds like it’s coming from the kitchen. Holding the flashlight out in front of me, I feel my way to the back of the house. The moon shines through the curtains. Outside I hear an engine starting. Peering out the glass panels on the door, I don’t see a truck. There’s a red substance smeared along the brass knob. I bend over to take a closer look. It smells metallic. My stomach clenches. I know that smell.