Gradually the hallway got quieter and quieter. Gina still didn’t show up. I headed home.
I was standing on the porch unlocking the front door when she waved to me from the side of the house.
“Where were you?” I asked.
She didn’t answer.
“Well, come on in,” I said.
She didn’t move. She stayed where she was and glanced nervously across the street. What was going on?
“Come on, Gina,” I said. What did she want? An engraved invitation?
“You come here.”
I pulled my key out of the lock and trudged down the porch steps toward her. When I got to the side of the house, she grabbed my arm and dragged me around to the backyard.
“What’s the matter with you?” I said.
“Nothing.”
“Where were you? You were supposed to wait for me.”
Her eyes shifted to the ground.
“Sorry,” she murmured. “Jamie was waiting for me in the hall after class. He walked me home.”
“While I was standing at your locker pretending I didn’t notice that everyone was making a point of not looking at me.”
“I’m sorry, Teeg. You must have just missed me.”
“Mr. Ashton was out sick. We had a spare. I spent last period in the library. I was at your locker before the last bell rang. I waited for half an hour.”
Gina glanced at me for a nanosecond before returning her eyes to the apparently mesmerizing scene in my backyard.
“Oh,” she said. “The thing is, Jamie and I left straight from class.”
“So you didn’t go to your locker at all?”
“No, I guess I didn’t.”
I looked at the bulging backpack she was wearing. There was no way she had dragged it to her afternoon classes. I felt like I was going to throw up. My best friend in the whole world was lying to me. She must have stashed her backpack somewhere else besides her locker—maybe in Jamie’s locker. And the only reason I could think of for doing that was that she had wanted to avoid me.
“Did you talk to Jamie?” I asked.
“Yeah. But,” she added quickly, “we didn’t talk about you. I—it just didn’t seem like the right time, you know?”
“Well, I guess that explains why you’re hiding around here.”
That got her attention. She looked up at me.
“What are you talking about?” she said. “Who says I’m hiding?”
“Well, aren’t you? Isn’t that why you waited for me around the side of the house and why you didn’t come up on the porch when I asked you to? You didn’t want Chris to see you, did you?” Chris Finney lived across the street. He was Jamie’s best friend. “What’s the matter? Afraid he’d tell Jamie you’re fraternizing with the enemy?”
“No!” She even managed to look indignant.
“No?” I grabbed her hand. “Okay, so let’s go sit on the front porch where we can get some sun.” I started to pull her toward the side of the house.
“Hey!” She resisted. “Hey, let go!”
I dropped her arm as if it were on fire. Gina’s shoulders slumped.
“I was going to talk to Jamie. Really, I was. But, well, it just wasn’t the right time, Teeg. And he had his arm around me all the way home. And I—”
“You didn’t want to kill the fairy tale. Yeah, I get it,” I said.
“I’m going to talk to him.”
“Right.”
“I am!”
“Sure. And I guess you didn’t want Chris to see you with me before you got the chance to have that talk with Jamie because you didn’t want him to get the wrong idea, right?”
“Right.” She sounded relieved.
Who did she think she was kidding?
“Let me know when you’ve found the guts to stick up for me.”
I pushed past her and unlocked the back door.
“I said I was going to talk to him,” she said, angry now, like she was the victim, like I was being unfair to her.
“If it was the other way around, if you were the one who was getting the silent treatment, I’d stick up for you,” I said. “You know I would.”
“And if I’d been in that car and had seen what you saw, I’d have told the cops everything the first time they asked me. I wouldn’t be holding back because I was mad at one of the victims.”
SEVENTEEN
Kelly
INT.—TYRELL KITCHEN—DAY
KELLY is standing at the kitchen sink, listening to voices outside.
GINA’S VOICE
And if I’d been in that car and had seen what you saw, I’d have told the cops everything the first time they asked me. I wouldn’t be holding back because I was mad at one of the victims.
KELLY goes up on tiptoes so that she can bend over the sink and look out the window.
TEGAN’S VOICE
What are you talking about?
GINA’S VOICE
You know.
TEGAN’S VOICE
No, I don’t.
GINA’S VOICE
You were mad at him.
KELLY frowns.
KELLY
(to the camera)
Mad at who?
TEGAN’S VOICE
Mad at who?
GINA’S VOICE
Mad at who? Mad at Martin, that’s who. Because of what I told you.
KELLY leans even closer to the window.
TEGAN’S VOICE
For your information, you’re wrong. He didn’t say a thing about her. In fact, he told me I was beautiful. And he had his arm around my waist.
GINA’S VOICE
He was probably trying to work up his nerve to tell you.
TEGAN’S VOICE
He was not!
GINA’S VOICE
He was worried. He told me so. But he said he had to do what he had to do—he said it was his heart.
KELLY
(still frowning, to the camera)
His heart? Something was wrong with Martin’s heart?
TEGAN’S VOICE
He told you? You said you overheard him talking to Clark. Now you’re saying he told you?
GINA’S VOICE
He came up to me. He wanted some advice.
TEGAN’S VOICE
Martin wanted advice from you? About me?
GINA’S VOICE
He liked you, Tegan. He didn’t want to hurt your feelings. He didn’t want you to be mad at Kelly either.
TEGAN’S VOICE
You don’t know what you’re talking about! He wasn’t interested in Kelly, not the way you’re saying. And I’m not refusing to cooperate with the police! Get out of my yard!
KELLY watches out the window. A few moments later, a key turns in a lock. KELLY drops away from the window and goes to the door to the kitchen. She watches from that vantage point as TEGAN comes into the house and slams her backpack down onto the floor.
KELLY
You lied to me.
TEGAN barely glances at her sister. She heads for the stairs. KELLY rushes at her and grabs her by the arm.
KELLY (CONT’D)
You lied to me. You told me Martin was your boyfriend.
TEGAN wrenches her arm free of Kelly’s grip.
TEGAN
If you don’t mind, I’ve already had a crappy day.
KELLY
He wasn’t your boyfriend. I heard what Gina said. He wasn’t interested in you. He was interested in me. He was going to ask me out.
TEGAN stares stonily at her sister.
KELLY (CONT’D)
You knew it. You knew it, but you pretended you didn’t.
(studying her sister’s face)
Is Gina right? Is that why you haven’t told the police anything? Because you were mad at Martin? Because you’re mad at me?
TEGAN
Martin never said a word to me about you. I have no idea what he really wanted. I don’t think he knew what he wanted. He was going through a lot of changes.
KELLY
(to the camera)
Changes for the better.
TEGAN
Even if he did plan to ask you out, that doesn’t change things. I didn’t see who shot him. If I’d seen, I—KELLY turns her back on her sister.
TEGAN (CONT’D)
Kelly—
KELLY
I can’t see you and I can’t hear you.
TEGAN stares at her sister’s back for a moment before running up the stairs to her room. From above, a door slams.
EIGHTEEN
Tegan
I told myself over and over to stay away from my computer. I already knew what people were saying. I’d seen firsthand how they were treating me—including my best friend and my own sister. Why would I want to subject myself to more of the same?
Maybe someone had posted a positive message. Maybe someone was able to see things from my perspective. Maybe someone was actually defending me. I’m not sure I believed it, but that’s what I told myself when I logged on to the Internet and pulled up the What Tegan Saw site.
There were a lot of new messages, and they were from all over—from other cities, other states, even a few from other countries. Some were comments on similar cases— it was kind of creepy to read about so many people who had been shot dead in their cars. A couple of those cases were ones in which there were so-called witnesses who had, for some reason, been left alive and who had either cooperated or refused to cooperate with the police. In one case, the witness committed suicide, which the person who posted the message said was totally cowardly: “Rather than see justice done, the jerk-off played right into the hands of the killer.”
Then there was the message that hit me like a kick in the belly: $50,000 reward for information leading to the arrest and conviction of the person or persons responsible for the death of Martin Genovese. No questions asked, the message said. No names, no in-person interviews, just call the police tips line, give the information, get a special id number and collect the money when it’s all over.
The reward was being offered by the Genovese family. It ended with these words: We pray that anyone with information that can help the police will examine their soul and do the right thing.
It made it sound like there was a devil on one shoulder of that “anyone with information” and an angel on the other: the first one telling that person (as if everyone didn’t know exactly who the Genovese family was referring to) to shut up, save yourself, nothing you can say will bring those boys back to life; and the other one insisting that virtue is its own reward, stand up, tell the truth and trust that you will be protected.
I sat in front of my computer, hitting the Refresh button every now and again, and reading the new posts, a lot of them cynical, asking which was worse: keeping your mouth shut and letting someone get away with murder or collecting a big fat reward for doing what any self-respecting person should have done in a flash because it was the right thing?
My legs wobbled as I approached the construction site on what used to be the site of an auto factory. The factory had been demolished, the land cleaned up, and a new subdivision was going in, built by Genovese Construction. There were gaping holes in the ground in some places, holes filled with concrete foundations in other places, wooden frames of houses in others. One hundred and sixty houses were going to be built, all massive. “My dad’s going to make a killing on the project,” Martin had told me.
I’d been at the site twice, both times with Martin, both times when he had to stop by to get some cash from his dad. I’d never asked what the cash was for. Now I couldn’t help wondering. I stood across the street, scanning the site until I spotted Mr. Genovese in front of one of the wood-framed houses. He was talking to a couple of guys wearing jeans, construction boots and hard hats. I watched him, my heart hammering in my chest. Finally he turned and strode to the trailer that sat at the edge of the site. He went inside.
I waited a moment to see if anyone else was going to go in with him. No one did. I walked haltingly toward the trailer. When I knocked, Mr. Genovese called: “Come!”
I pushed the door open. Mr. Genovese was sitting at the desk in one corner of the trailer, but he got up when he saw me. I don’t know what he really thought of me— nothing good, according to Anna—but his eyes lit up and he came toward me as if he were going to hug me.
“You’ve made a decision,” he said. It wasn’t a question. He was telling me that he knew why I was here, and he sounded happy about it. There was no contempt in his voice, nothing to make me feel like total garbage for having come to see him only after he had announced a big reward. “You’re doing the right thing,” he said.
“Mr. Genovese, I had to come. I want to make sure you know. If I’d seen anything, anything at all, that could help the police, I would have told them. I lov—I cared about Martin. A lot. He was my friend. Clark too. But I didn’t see anything.”
The joy vanished from his face.
“But you were right there,” he said. “The police figure you got lucky—the shooter didn’t see you because of the tinted glass. But I know what those windows are like. It’s hard to see in, but you can see out. Unless you had your eyes shut—”
“They were wide open.” I wished they hadn’t been. I wished I hadn’t seen the surprise on Martin’s face. I wish I hadn’t seen him draw his last breath.
“Then you saw.”
I shook my head. “I’m sorry.”
“Maybe you were in shock. What am I saying? Of course you were in shock. I talked to some people I know. They say if you tried hypnosis, maybe you’d remember something.”
“You don’t understand, Mr. Genovese.” I wished I’d never come to see him. But he was Martin’s dad. I couldn’t let him hold out any false hopes that I was going to be able to help him. “I was looking at Martin when it happened. It was so sudden. One minute he was turned around in his seat, smiling at me.” Smiling and making me feel like I was the only girl in the world as far as he was concerned, and I’d been willing, even eager, to believe it, even when I knew it wasn’t true. “And the next minute—” The next minute I wasn’t even sure what I was looking at. A turned head, a look of surprise, blood, Martin slumping forward, the back of his head—which didn’t look like a head anymore; it looked like a smashed melon—and more blood…
“I couldn’t believe what had happened. It was like I was in some kind of nightmare. I wanted to close my eyes and make it all go away, but I couldn’t take my eyes off him. I was looking at him the whole time, Mr. Genovese. I was looking at Martin. I didn’t turn my head until it was too late.” I hadn’t looked at Clark until later either. “I’m sorry, Mr. Genovese. There’s no point in hypnotizing me. I didn’t see anything.”
He towered over me. He was a tall man, like Martin, and powerfully built. He looked like he could do everything any man on one of his construction crews could do, and when things got tight, when deadlines were closing in, he probably pitched in. I saw his arm muscles flex as his hands curled into fists.
“There’s a reward,” he said. “Fifty grand.”
“I know.”
“That’s a lot of money. It could pay for your education.”
“I wish I could help you, but I can’t.”
“I’ll make it a hundred grand.”
“Mr. Genovese—”
“A hundred and fifty. You were there. You were in the car with him. You saw my boy die. I understand if you’re scared. If he’d lived, Marty would probably be scared too. But he’d do the right thing. He’d step forward.”
“I’m sorry.”
I turned and opened the trailer door.
“Two hundred grand.”
I stepped outside. He appeared in the door behind me.
“Name your price,” he called as I ran down the stairs. “Tell me what you want. Anything!”
I ran until I was out of sight of the subdivision-to-be. When I got home, I unplugged my computer. I didn’t want to know what people were saying. I didn’t want to know
anything else about it.
NINETEEN
Kelly
EXT.—SIDEWALK IN FRONT OF THE HIGH SCHOOL—DAY
KELLY is standing on the sidewalk with LACEY. Kids are streaming out of school. Classes are over for the day.
LACEY
If I were her, I’d have caved by now. You know Carly Jessup and Andrea Cornish?
KELLY
Sure. They’re tight with Anna Genovese.
LACEY
They’re also talking about freezing Tegan out for the rest of the year. You know how popular Clark and Martin were—especially Martin. People are never going to forgive her for what she’s doing.
KELLY
What if she’s telling the truth? What if she didn’t see anything?
LACEY
Do you believe that?
KELLY
I don’t know what to believe.
(to the camera)
She’s my sister. I should be sticking up for her. But you know how they say familiarity breeds contempt? Well, that’s because the more familiar you are with someone, the more you know about her, the clearer it is to you when she’s not exactly a saint. Tegan isn’t a bad person. But she is a little self-absorbed. What am I saying? She’s completely self-absorbed. And she’s capable of being really vindictive. She adored Martin. She talked about him all the time. All she ever wanted was to go out with him—and it turns out he just thought of her as a pal. It turns out he was more interested in me. I can see Tegan getting really mad about that. I hate to say it, but it’s true. And I can see her taking it out on Martin—and me—by keeping her mouth shut about what she saw. It’s a terrible thing to have to say about your sister, but it’s the way I feel.
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