To Catch a Killer

by Sheryl Scarborough

  Journey’s all like, “Of course.”

  Meanwhile, I’m worried that we’re barely ten feet from Principal Roberts’s office window. His blinds are closed now, but I know what a dedicated spy he is. And, while I fully expect something to come along and ruin this amazing moment, I don’t want it to be Rachel overreacting to a tip from Principal Roberts.

  32

  The leading cause of wrongful convictions in our country is eyewitness IDs that are wrong.

  —VICTOR FLEMMING

  The memory of my morning classes is a vague fog compared with the memory of Journey’s kiss and the worry on his face. On the other side of my brain is all the evidence stacking up against Chief Culson. There must be a way that these pieces fit together.

  Tomorrow marks two weeks since the horror of Miss Peters’s murder, and the weird suspicion about us being the ones who killed her has nearly died down. Spam and Lysa and Journey and I have fallen into a lunch routine, meeting up at the secluded table behind the building. And even though my best friends are really polite to Journey these days, I sense there’s still a little bit of he and I on one side and them on the other.

  Today, we sit at our usual table unwrapping our lunches. No one is really talking when, all of a sudden, there’s a cell-phone sound. It’s not a cute ringtone but a loud vibration. In unison, Journey and Lysa pull out their phones to check. I shrug. “Not me.”

  “Me, either,” Journey says, stuffing his phone back in his pocket.

  “Me, either,” comments Lysa, returning her phone to her purse.

  Spam’s phone was already lying on the table facedown. She lifts it, looks, shrugs, and keeps eating.

  The phone not only continues to buzz, but it also starts to ping. Journey, Lysa, and I look around, trying to figure out where it’s coming from.

  Spam stands up. She’s wearing a pair of bright red Wellington rain boots that match her T-shirt. She props her foot up on the bench and digs deep into the boot.

  “It’s just my ankle phone,” she says.

  “Since when do you have an ankle phone?”

  She pulls out a smaller phone with a slide-out keyboard, sits down, and starts reading the messages. “I set up a little gossip hotline,” she says. I notice she’s not making eye contact. “I wanted to keep it separate, so I sent it to a different phone.”

  “Gossip hotline?” I can’t hide the surprise in my reaction.

  She shrugs. “Well, we completely stopped getting Cheater Check requests after the thing with Miss P, and I had some time, so I figured I would start a little schoolwide TMZ.”

  “I love gossip,” Lysa says, squirming in her seat. “What are they saying?”

  Spam flips through a couple of screens with her thumb, tilting her head right and then left at each one. “Yep. Thought so,” she says. Finally, she turns the phone around to show us. “It’s all still about you two.” The photo is a shot of Journey and me from this morning, in front of the flagpole, with our arms around each other.

  Journey and I exchange a look. I turn a little pink, because my first actual boyfriend—I guess I can call him my boyfriend now—happens to be the boyfriend that every girl wants. Was it my imagination, or is there a bit of bitterness in Spam’s voice?

  Just this morning, Journey kissed me for the first time, and my best friends still don’t know. On a normal day, we would have spent the entire lunch—and a full day’s worth of text messaging—dissecting every detail of that one kiss. Obviously, we can’t do that with him here. But even if he wasn’t here, I’m not sure Spam would be on board with my new romance.

  Spam shakes her head and gives me a little eye roll. There’s no way she knows what I’m thinking, but her reaction makes me wonder if I’m putting out the wrong vibe.

  “What’s with the silly smirk?” she asks.

  I shrug. What does she want me to say? My cheeks turn warm and my grin stretches from ear to ear.

  Spam scowls. “You look like one of those creepy Disney princesses who’s about to start singing to birds.” Not only is Spam’s tone mean, but she flutters her hands under her chin in an extra mocking gesture.

  Ouch. I blink back the hurt. “Geez, Spam.”

  Lysa, who normally stays pretty neutral, jumps to her defense. “Maybe she’s waiting for you to tell us what you found out about the fingerprint scans. I know I’m dying to know. Journey, aren’t you dying to know? You did run them, right?”

  I glance at Journey. There’s an uncomfortable hesitation. He’s torn. I know he wants to support me, but he also wants to know what’s going on. “Erin says she’ll tell us when she’s ready.”

  “And there’s the problem,” Spam says. I don’t have to wonder this time; there is a definite sting to her voice. “We’re not a team if we have to wait until she’s ready to tell us what she’s found.”

  “Spam, I always tell you eventually.”

  “Right. Emphasis on eventually,” she says. “Meaning when you eventually need our help again.”

  “I promise I’ll tell you everything as soon as I can, it’s just that Victor and I…”

  “See, this is how you are,” Spam snaps. “First it was all Journey and I, Journey and I, and now it’s all Victor and I, Victor and I.” She gets up from the table and wags her finger between she and Lysa. “We are the ones who have been in on this with you from the beginning. When Journey and Victor bail on you, you’ll come crawling back to us. Until then, peace out.”

  Spam turns and walks away. Lysa glances back at Spam and then at me. “I’ll talk to her,” she says as she gets up, and she leaves, too, slapping the table once in solidarity.

  “Oh my god. Did you see that? I mean, did you hear her?” I turn my palms up.

  Journey slides his arms around my waist and pulls me to him. “The question is, did you hear her? I trust you and I believe you, but you aren’t telling us everything.”

  I give him a guilty look. “I think she’s jealous of you.”

  “It’s not that,” he says. “I think she’s worried about you. We all are. You want us to work with you to help you stay safe, but how can we if you won’t tell us what you know?”

  “Don’t worry. I’ll be fine. My uncle won’t let anything happen to me.”

  The bell rings, signaling that lunch is over. Journey kisses the top of my head, balls up all of our trash from lunch, and makes a long lob into a trash can. “Two points,” he says, flashing a brief smile. He gives me a quick hug and then heads off in one direction while I head off in another.

  33

  We have a joke in our business that forensic science is like climate change. There are those who believe it and then there are the people who think it’s a load of crap.

  —VICTOR FLEMMING

  Spam has always had strong opinions, so storming off at lunch isn’t exactly out of character for her. But the fact that she hasn’t answered my last ten text messages is a bad sign.

  Lysa hasn’t answered, either.

  My final class of the day is biology, which Spam and I share. She won’t be able to ignore me straight to my face. I’ll convince her to ditch class and go somewhere to talk everything out. I’ll even tell her about my theory about Chief Culson. Bio’s been a complete flush anyway. In two weeks, we’ve gone through four substitutes and eight movies. Yesterday the sub told us to work in small groups, which meant everybody just talked for the whole period. I’m sure today will be the same. Wash. Rinse. Repeat.

  But when I peek in the door to the classroom, I’m not prepared for what I see.

  Victor is standing at the whiteboard, writing his name.

  I step back and flatten my back against the wall. I’m trying to catch my breath when Spam sails past me into the room.

  “Whoa.” She steps back into the hall to face me. “What’s he doing here?”

  “I have no clue.” My face flames. It’s one thing to have a cool uncle who works at the FBI. It’s another to have someone who lives in your house teaching your class.
/>   Since ditching is out of the question, I grab Spam’s arm and pull her in the door. Using her as a shield, I press her into the seat in front of me. Then I take out a large folder, prop it open on my desk, and prepare to hide for the entire class.

  The bell rings, but barely half the class is even in the room. The rest of them straggle in slowly, talking and laughing and pushing one another. They slam their books on their desks and mill around the room. There’s an unwritten law that says students aren’t allowed to show respect to a substitute teacher. I keep my head down behind the folder.

  I’d rather no one knows that Victor and I are related.

  For the next forty-seven minutes, the class pays no attention to Victor. I sneak a peek over the top of my folder at his face and I see terror.

  Victor might be an awesome forensic scientist, but he pretty much bombs as a high school teacher. There’s a knack to being just cool enough to make thirty high school students sit and pay attention, and he doesn’t have it.

  He tries to appeal to their sense of reason. “Just because you don’t want to learn doesn’t mean the person next to you isn’t interested,” he attempts.

  Yeah, except they know the person next to them isn’t interested.

  He tries negotiating. “You give me what I want, which is for you to sit down and be quiet, and I won’t summon Principal Roberts.”

  They don’t care. Bring him.

  He tries threats. “Okay, that’s it. I’m taking names.” The entire class, except me, does exactly what they want for the whole period. And I’m guessing Victor—like most substitute teachers who venture into the high school system—won’t be back tomorrow.

  In the wrong circumstances, one hour can feel like a week. Today’s biology class has dragged on forever. When the bell finally rings, Spam bolts out of her seat and heads for the door. I don’t even try to catch up with her.

  Instead, I catch a ride home with Journey. I want to talk to him about the blowup with Spam, but there’s no time. He’s frantic over not being able to find his cell phone.

  “I’m 100 percent certain that I put it in my locker after lunch,” he says. “And it’s not there.”

  “Maybe it slipped between some books or something.”

  “Impossible. I completely emptied my locker,” he says.

  “We can go back. I’ll help you look for it,” I say.

  “I can’t,” he says. “I have to start my new job in twenty minutes.”

  “Aggh. Sorry. Do you want to take my phone?” I say as he pulls into my driveway.

  “No. But that’s sweet of you.” He gives me a quick hug. “I’ll figure something out.”

  We say good-bye and I slip out of the van. I’m not surprised to see that Victor’s not home. I wouldn’t show my face around here tonight, either. It’s at least two hours before Rachel will be home, which gives me some time to go back through my evidence on Chief Culson and see if I missed anything.

  I charge up the back stairs and bang open the door with my hip. Rachel is sitting at the kitchen table, which scares the hell out of me.

  “I didn’t know you were home,” I say, once I’ve recovered from the shock. Rachel parks her car inside the garage, so there’s no way I would know. “Are you sick?” To tell the truth, she doesn’t look good.

  Rachel gives me a warm smile, but that doesn’t hide the bags under her eyes. She obviously didn’t get much sleep last night. She pulls out the chair next to her and moves a carton of orange juice in front of it. “I’m fine, Erin. Come. Sit down and let’s talk.”

  “Is everything okay?”

  “Everything’s fine. But I think it’s time for us to be 100 percent honest with each other.”

  Uh-oh … the honesty speech. As I move toward the chair, I run through all the lies I’ve told recently, in order to get my stories straight in my head. Just in case. Maybe Principal Roberts saw Journey and me together and reported it to her. Now I’m going to have to listen to what happens when I break her trust. I cringe inside, while at the same time keeping my expression neutral. “Rachel—I…”

  “No. Let me go first,” she says. “I’m sorry about yesterday. What I said had everything to do with my frustration with my brother and nothing to do with you.”

  “It’s no big deal.” I shrug.

  “No, it is a big deal,” Rachel insists. “You know how I’m always telling you that it’s important for us to be honest with each other because we’re all we have?”

  I keep my gaze down because here it comes. The Journey lecture.

  “Well.” Her voice trembles. “I’m the one who broke that trust, Erin. Not you.”

  What? Her eyes are watery and her mouth quivers. I start to protest and she holds up a hand.

  “Let me finish before you say anything, okay?”

  I nod.

  “Charles Culson and I have been friends a very long time. He was one of Victor’s best friends in high school.” She pauses and blows her nose into a Kleenex. “I don’t want to go into details about those days, it was a very long time ago.” She flashes me a smile. “I felt very grown-up, though, dating my big brother’s friend. But then when a problem developed between Charles and me, Victor took my side.” She smiles and looks down, picking at her nails. “It’s what a good brother is supposed to do.”

  I wanted Rachel to open up. But this much all at once is making me squirm. Is this Rachel’s version of Victor’s “I’ll tell you my secrets and you tell me yours”? I shudder just thinking about it.

  Rachel looks toward the ceiling, summoning the courage to continue. “But a few years later, when your mother was murdered and my own brother didn’t even come home for her funeral, Charles was there for me every moment of every day.”

  I suck in a sharp gasp of air. In the entire time Rachel and I have been together, I’ve never heard her say the m-word in front of me. Not once.

  It’s a showstopper.

  Rachel studies my face. “I’m sorry,” she says. “I shouldn’t have been so blunt.”

  “It’s okay.” I take her hand to support her, but my voice is shaky.

  “It’s not okay.” She switches it around so that she’s holding my hand. “All those years, when I was taking you from one therapist to another, well, I was seeing one, too. In fact, I’m still seeing one.”

  Wow. Apparently, everyone in this house is keeping secrets.

  “You’re not the only one with survivor’s guilt.” She examines her nails again. “Your mother was my very best friend. She was like a sister. She’s gone, and I got to live her life. I got to raise you.”

  I, of course, knew this. But this is the first time Rachel’s admitted it. I prop my elbow on the table and rest my chin on my hand, anything to control the tremors taking over my body.

  “I was so lucky to have you, Erin. You are—and have always been—the sun and the moon and the stars in my life. You were such a gift, and I felt compelled to do it right. No mistakes. I wanted to make up for everything you lost. I wanted your life to be perfect. That’s why I’m so protective … and it’s why I can’t talk about her.” She lowers her head. “I feel guilty for every breath I get to have that she didn’t.”

  I squeeze her hand. “Rachel … I…”

  Her expression is intense. “There’s more. When Charles … um, you know, Chief Culson and I started dating again a year ago, I hid it from you. I’m the one who broke our trust, Erin. Not you.”

  Trust is a very strange word.

  Every day I do things I can’t tell Rachel about, and she does things that she can’t tell me about. I think I’m protecting her and she thinks she’s protecting me. For a brief moment, I consider confessing everything, including the box and the DNA/dad investigation that led me to find Miss P’s body. Getting it all out in the open would be transformative for me. I even think for a wild moment that Rachel will understand and want to help. But then I see the pain and longing in her face to rewrite history, and I decide not to go there.

  I d
on’t know why she thinks I wouldn’t want her to date. If anything, it’s the exact opposite. I used to wish she would date just so she wouldn’t be so focused on me all the time. It’s not a good thing to be someone’s sun, moon, and stars. Rachel needs to spread that intensity around a little.

  I slowly become aware that while I’ve been processing stuff in my head, she’s been waiting for me to say something back.

  “Don’t worry about me. I’m good,” I say. “And I really think it’s great that you have someone—” I catch myself, almost saying “someone, too.” But she doesn’t seem to notice.

  Her face brightens like the sun breaking through a thick bank of clouds. “You mean it? You won’t mind if I start dating someone … well, not someone.” She actually giggles. “Charles. You won’t mind if I start openly dating him?”

  I don’t know what to think. I want to make Rachel happy but I still have a lot of unanswered questions about him. I choose my words carefully. “If he makes you happy, I’m happy.”

  She giggles again and I’m struck by how I’ve never seen this side of Rachel before, which means she must really like him.

  “I knew I could count on you, Erin. You are an amazing gem. My life wouldn’t be the same without you.” She looks at me for a minute, considering. “Now I need your help on an important decision.” She jumps up from the table and rushes off to her room. “Don’t go away. I’ll be right back.”

  She returns with an elegant black dress on a hanger and two pairs of shoes: one a pair of simple black pumps, and the other a pair of very high, strappy copper sandals with stiletto heels. She stands before me, eyes glistening. “We’re going to the opera in Portland tonight. Which shoes should I wear with this dress?”

  Wow, high heels and the opera. This is so unlike Rachel I hardly know what to say. I’m drawn to the copper sandals because they’re sparkly. “I’ve never seen those before.”

  “They’re Sydney’s. Aren’t they great? She let me borrow them. With the right jewelry, what do you think?”

  I shake my head. “Go with the black. They’ll look classy and they’ll be more comfortable—look at the heel on those copper ones. Your feet will kill.”