Kisscut

by Karin Slaughter

  He looked down, mumbling, “Rory.”

  “All right, Rory,” Lena said. “Did she have sex with any of you on the retreat?”

  “Fuck no.” Carson crossed his arms angrily. “That was the thing. Why the fuck else would we go on that stupid retreat?”

  “You were having sex with her then?” Lena asked.

  “No,” he said, still angry. “She wouldn’t go near us. She was fine at the party. Couldn’t get enough of it.” He grabbed himself, as if Lena needed the visual aid. “But over Christmas she was tight as a drum. Wouldn’t even talk to us.” His lip curled. “The bitch.”

  Lena bit her tongue.

  “She was a cock tease,” Carson said. “She would’ve fucked a dog if Mark asked her to, but on the retreat it was like she was better than us.”

  “What do you think changed this?” Lena asked.

  He shrugged. “Who the fuck cares?”

  “Did you approach her on the retreat, or did she just ignore you?”

  His lip curled. “It was this way, all right? We offered her a little something to help her relax, told her we all wanted to party, and she froze up.”

  “Exactly,” Rory said. “It was like we weren’t good enough for her all the sudden.”

  “Hell, yeah,” Carson agreed. “She was pretending like it didn’t happen, and I said to her, ‘Hey, you know what you did, you whore.’”

  “Should’ve offered her money for it,” Rory suggested. “Should’ve offered Mark money for it.”

  “Right,” Lena mumbled, trying to remember the third boy’s name. He had been very quiet during all of this, not hostile like the others. “Cooper?” she guessed. He looked up, and she asked, “Did you ever wonder why a thirteen-year-old girl would do something like that in the first place?”

  “She liked it,” Cooper suggested, shrugging like they all shrugged. “I mean, why else would she do it?” He looked up at his friends and his whole demeanor changed. He was more adamant and just as hateful as his friends when he insisted, “She was a whore and she liked it.”

  “Yeah,” Rory said, his tone filled with spite. “I mean, you could tell she liked it.”

  Lena suggested, “Even though she was drunk?”

  They didn’t answer her.

  “How could you tell she liked it?”

  “Hell, man,” Rory said, “who knows? Her face was buried in the couch the whole time.”

  “Dude,” Carson laughed, holding up his hand for a high-five.

  Lightning fast, Lena reached out and grabbed his hand. She was holding on to his wrist tight enough to feel the bones, and he grimaced from the pain.

  She said, “You think she enjoyed it, huh?”

  “Hey,” Carson said, looking around the room for help. “Come on, we were just having fun.”

  “Fun?” Lena asked, jerking his arm like she might rip it out of the socket. “Where I come from, we call that rape, you little shit.” She let go of him because there was nothing else she could do short of taking out her gun and pistol-whipping him, which was tempting in light of the smirk that returned to his face when he sat back in his chair.

  The bell rang for class changes, and Lena had to force herself not to jump at the loud sound. The boys had a Pavlovian response, gathering their bookbags, not waiting for Lena to release them.

  She told them, “Give Officer Stephens your phone numbers and addresses in case we have any questions.” She made sure she had their attention. “I’m going to make sure every cop at the station knows your name.”

  “Yeah,” Rory said. “Whatever.”

  They started to shuffle away, but Carson stayed, asking, “You gonna tell Dr. Clay to search me or what?”

  “I’m going to do every possible thing I can to make sure you’re in jail before you’re old enough to vote.”

  “Shit,” he groaned, shuffling off.

  Lena stood, wanting to get away from the table where she had heard their vile talk. She walked over to the computer area and rested her hand on the top of a monitor, feeling a cold sweat break out all over her body. It sickened her to know that boys this young were already learning to think this way about women. Lena could imagine him feeling the same way at that age, like girls were expendable. They all liked it. They were all whores.

  “Lena?” Brad said, pulling her out of her thoughts. She looked back at the table and saw a couple of older women and one man taking their seats. “Jenny’s teachers,” Brad told her.

  Lena put her hand to her chest, feeling claustrophobic. Brad was standing too close, and the room felt like it was getting smaller. “Why don’t you start?” Lena suggested, thinking she needed to get out of here to catch her breath. She walked toward the doors, but he stopped her.

  “By myself?” he asked, standing too close to her again. She could smell his aftershave, and something that smelled like a strong breath mint. She could not lose it here. Lena knew if she got sick in front of Brad she wouldn’t be able to go back to work again.

  She indicated her cell phone as she took another step back. “I’ll call back to the station and check on things there, maybe see if we can find out who owns a black Thunderbird in the area.”

  “I bet the principal would know,” Brad suggested, stepping forward. “They keep logs on that, right? You can’t park here unless you’ve got a parking pass.”

  “Good thinking,” Lena said, taking another step back, aware that if she didn’t get her breathing under control she would hyperventilate. “I’ll check that out while you interview them. Be sure to ask about what the girls said.”

  He gave her a funny look. “Are you okay?”

  “Yeah,” she said. Suddenly, the room felt hot and unbearable, and she could feel her shirt starting to cling to her back. “Just get preliminary stuff, an impression of what she was like. I’ll be back as soon as I make some calls.”

  He gave her a quick nod, his jaw tightening. “All right,” he said, and she could tell he wanted to ask her again if she was okay.

  She walked quickly into the hall, taking a deep breath to calm herself. She was still sweating, and took off her jacket. A kid jogged by. He slowed when he saw Lena’s gun in her shoulder holster.

  Lena slipped the jacket back on and leaned her head against the wall. She closed her eyes until the nausea passed. After a few deep breaths she felt better, if not a hundred percent.

  Lena flipped open her cell phone to give herself something to do. She dialed the station and talked to Marla about the car, glad that Frank wasn’t in. It was still hard for Lena to talk to Frank, and part of her felt that he blamed Lena for what had happened. That same part of her agreed with him. She had been so stupid.

  Even though she was standing less than a hundred yards from the front office, Lena called the principal and asked him about the black car. He went through his records while she waited on the phone and gave her the answer she had assumed all along: No one in the school had registered a car fitting that description. Lena thanked the principal, then hung up, thinking it felt good to get some things done instead of just treading water. The more time that passed on this case, the more they seemed to be moving away from solving it. She should talk to Mark again and see what his reaction was to this latest information. Jeffrey probably wouldn’t let her near Mark again after what happened last time.

  Lena opened the phone again and dialed her voice mail at home. The first message was from the video store in town, telling her that her tapes were late. The second was from Nan Thomas, Sibyl’s lover.

  “Lena,” Nan said, her low voice an irritated grumble. “I’ve still got this stuff, Sibby’s stuff. If you want it, let me know. I don’t…” She stopped, then, “It’s just…”

  Lena looked at her watch, wondering how much Nan’s stuttering was costing her.

  “I’ll be at Suddy’s tonight around eight,” Nan said. “I’ll have the boxes in my car if you want them. Meet me there if you…Otherwise, well…” Again, she stopped.

  Lena fast forward
ed, skipping the rest of the message. Suddy’s was a gay bar on the outskirts of Heartsdale. There was no way in hell she was going to meet her sister’s lover in a gay bar.

  Lena’s heart dropped into her stomach when she heard the next message. Hank said, “Lee, Barry’s sick. I gotta cover here tonight, maybe tomorrow.”

  She closed her eyes, leaning her back against the wall as Hank explained that it would be easier for him to stay in Reece because there was a beer delivery tomorrow morning. She felt panicked again, then angry, because he had taken the coward’s way out, leaving the message instead of calling her cell phone to explain.

  Lena walked over to the other side of the hallway, looking out the window. There was an atrium in the middle of the school, and across the way she could see the cafeteria staff setting up the tables. She was so absorbed in their movements that she missed part of the last message. She rewound it and listened again.

  “This is Pastor Fine, Lena,” the message began. “I apologize, but I’ll have to cancel our appointment this evening. One of our parishioners has taken ill. I need to be with the family right now.”

  Lena snapped the phone closed as he asked for her to return his call so they could reschedule. She would let Jeffrey deal with that. She was not in the habit of letting herself think too far ahead, but the meeting with Fine had been something she had settled her mind on as something to do tonight. In a flash, she saw herself going back to her empty house, being alone. Panic enveloped her.

  She put her hand to her chest, feeling her heart pounding against her rib cage. She was sweating, she noticed, and the back of her knees felt hot and sticky. She wanted to hear Hank’s message again, to see if there was a nuance in his voice she had missed. Maybe he had left an opening. Maybe he was playing some kind of game to make her say that she wanted him there.

  The final bell rang, a loud, piercing tone that vibrated in Lena’s ears. She looked around the empty hallway, forgetting for a moment exactly where she was and why. As if out of a dream, she saw the image of a woman walking toward her. Lena’s eyes felt like they blurred for a moment, then with a start she realized that she was in Jenny Weaver’s school, and that Dottie Weaver was walking down the hall toward her.

  “Shit,” Lena mumbled, looking down at her cell phone, willing it to ring. She flipped it open like she might make a call, but it was too late. Dottie Weaver was less than ten feet away holding a heavy-looking textbook in her hands.

  Weaver stopped in the hallway, her mouth an angry straight line. Her eyes were bloodshot, like she had been crying for the last year. Red splotches were all over her face.

  “Mrs. Weaver,” Lena said, flipping her phone closed.

  Dottie shook her head, like she was too angry to say anything.

  “We’re just talking to some classmates and teachers to see if they can shed any light on—”

  “Why can’t you just leave her alone?” Dottie begged. “Why can’t you just let her rest in peace?”

  “I’m sorry,” Lena told the woman, and she meant it.

  “She was my baby.”

  “I know that,” Lena answered, looking down at her phone.

  “You’re here raking her name over the coals, trying to make her out to be a bad person.”

  “That’s not my goal.”

  “Liar!” Dottie screamed, throwing the book at Lena. Lena dropped her phone to catch it, but missed. The spine slammed into her stomach and she winced as it dropped to the floor.

  “Mrs. Weaver,” Lena began, stooping to retrieve the textbook.

  “The school wanted her book back,” Dottie said, her bottom lip trembling. “Take it. Take it and tell them all they can go to hell.”

  Lena tried to close the book without damaging the pages. She picked up her phone, which didn’t seem to be broken.

  Dottie dabbed her eyes with some tissue, then blew her nose. She did not leave, though, which Lena could not understand until she spoke again.

  “Jenny loved this school,” the mother said, wrapping her arms around her stomach as if it brought her pain to speak. “She loved being here.”

  Lena thought now was as good a time as any to get this out of the way. “Was she seeing anybody, Mrs. Weaver?”

  Dottie shook her head. “A psychiatrist?” she asked.

  “A boy,” Lena clarified. “Was she seeing any boys?”

  “No,” Dottie snapped. “Of course not. She was just a child.”

  Lena nodded, feeling an encroaching dread. “Some of the girls said she was.”

  “Which girls?” Dottie asked, looking around as if they might be there.

  “Just girls,” Lena answered. “Friends from school.”

  “She didn’t have friends,” Dottie told her, narrowing her eyes, sensing some kind of trick. “What are they saying about my daughter?”

  Lena tried to think of a way to say it. “That she…”

  “That she what?” Dottie demanded.

  Lena said, “That she saw a lot of boys. That she was with a lot of boys.”

  The slap came suddenly, and stung so much that after a few seconds the right side of Lena’s face went numb. Before Lena could think to respond, let alone react, she was looking at the back of Dottie Weaver as the woman left the school.

  The library door bumped open, and Brad stood there, holding the door for the group of teachers he had been interviewing. They looked tired, and a bit irritated, but this was pretty normal from Lena’s recollection of teachers around lunchtime. One of them looked at Lena, and she could tell from the way the woman assessed her that she sensed something was wrong. The teacher raised an eyebrow as if to invite conversation, but Lena was too shocked to speak.

  “Lena?” Brad prompted. She nodded that she was okay, wondering if her face was red where Dottie had slapped her.

  Brad introduced all of the teachers, whose names Lena promptly forgot. He said, “They know about the rumor.”

  Lena blinked, not understanding.

  “The rumor about Jenny,” Brad clarified. “They said they had heard it.”

  “None of us believed it,” one of the teachers said, her voice indicating that she had resigned herself a long time ago to the fact that there were things that went on in the school that no teacher would ever know about.

  “She was a good student,” another teacher said. “Very quiet, turned her work in on time. Her mother was involved.”

  The other teachers nodded, and Lena duplicated the gesture, still too shocked to offer anything of consequence.

  “Thank you for your time,” Brad said, moving things along. He shook hands with each of them in turn, and to the last one they gave him an encouraging look.

  “I’m sorry we couldn’t help more,” one said.

  Another told him, “If we think of anything, we’ll call you.”

  The woman who had looked at Lena was last, and she told Brad, “You did an excellent job, Bradley. I’m very impressed.”

  Brad beamed. “Thank you, ma’am,” he said, tucking his head down like a happy puppy. He waited until the teachers were gone before asking Lena, “Whose book?”

  “Jenny Weaver’s,” Lena provided, thumbing through the pages to see if any notes were tucked in. It was empty, just like the others.

  “How’d you get it?”

  Lena could not answer him. “Here,” she said, handing him the book. “Take it to the front office, then meet me in the car.”

  THE parking lot of Suddy’s was pretty empty, even at eight o’clock. If Sibyl and Nan’s life had been any indication, probably most of the lesbians in town were at home, watching sitcoms. Not that Sibyl could watch them, she was blind, but she liked to listen sometimes, and Nan would narrate what was happening.

  Lena crossed her arms, thinking about Sibyl, and how she had looked the last time Lena had seen her; not the time in the morgue, but the day before she had died. As usual, Sibyl had been full of energy, and laughing at something that had happened in one of her classes. Above everything, Sibyl loved
teaching, and she had taken great joy from being in front of a classroom. Maybe that was why Lena had had such a negative reaction to being at the school today.

  Before she could stop herself, Lena got out of the car. Suddy’s was nice by most bar standards. Compared to the Hut, Hank’s bar over in Reece, it was a palace. Outside, the decor was spare, probably because a place like this would not want to draw attention to itself. Other than a Budweiser sign with a neon rainbow flag incorporated into the logo, the building was pretty nondescript.

  The interior was more festive, but the lights were down low, making the room a little too intimate for Lena. Something soft played on the jukebox, and a spinning mirrored ball did a slow turn over what looked like the dance floor. Lena had always been uncomfortable with this side of Sibyl, and never understood how someone who was so pretty, who was so outgoing and energetic, could choose this kind of life for herself. Sibyl had always wanted children, always wanted to be taken care of and loved. Lena would not have predicted this kind of life for her sister in a million years.

  When Sibyl had first come out to Lena fifteen years ago, Lena’s response had been an emphatic, “No, you’re not.” Even after Sibyl moved in with Nan, Lena had still let herself believe that Sibyl was not gay. It sounded trite to say, but Lena could not help thinking in the back of her mind that it was just a phase, and that one day Sibyl would laugh about her confusion and settle down and have children. Being Sibyl’s twin complicated matters, because Lena had always felt that a piece of herself was in Sibyl, and a piece of Sibyl was in Lena. It was unsettling to think that Lena might somewhere in her psyche share Sibyl’s sexual leanings.

  Lena dismissed this as she walked across the room. Two women at a corner table ignored her completely, seeming more intent upon pushing their tongues down each other’s throat than seeing who had walked through the door. The bartender was reading a newspaper when Lena approached her, and she looked up, doing a startled double take.

  The woman said, “You must be her sister.”

  Lena sat a couple of stools down from her. “I’m meeting someone here.”

  The woman closed the paper. She walked over and offered Lena her hand. “I’m Judy,” she said.