It’s not morning. It can’t be.
Groaning, I glanced over at the alarm clock. 5am. I’d been asleep for a little over an hour…
That’s when I heard it, the dull metallic bang from below. I jerked up in bed, panting. What was that?
There was another bang, followed by a series of rattling noises.
The sounds are coming from the basement.
My body was frozen in fear, but I forced myself to make it move. Breathlessly, I tossed the quilt aside, and slipped out of bed. Tiptoeing to the bedroom door, I took a deep breath then I slowly unfastened the lock.
I opened the door a gap, peering out with one eye. The hallway was dark and quiet—did I turn out the hall light last night, or did someone else do it? I wondered, my throat constricting.
For a brief moment, I almost believed that I’d imagined the sound below.
But then I heard another clank and I leapt back from the door, clutching my chest in horror.
Despite my fear, there was something else growing inside of me … anger. How dare someone make me feel afraid in my own home?
Could it be those teenage girls again, playing more pranks to try and scare me?
Determined, I thrust the door open and stepped out into the hall. It was dark, but there was a beam of light shining from the stove top in the kitchen.
The hallway was empty.
I tiptoed down the hall and through the kitchen. The door to the basement was right there, in between the living room and kitchen. It was usually kept closed up tight, but now it was ajar.
Impulsively, I grabbed a bread knife from the counter and gripped it stiffly in my palm.
I opened the door and shouted, “Who’s down there?” My voice not my own, thick with fear and something else … adrenaline.
With the knife held out in front of me like a shield, I took two nervous steps down into the dark hole.
“I’ve called the police! Who’s down there?” I bellowed.
I nearly fell back on my haunches as a moon-white face emerged at the bottom of the stone staircase and stared up wearily at me.
“It’s only me,” Chrissy said. “Your pilot light went out. Heat’s not working. I was trying to fix it for you.”
There was a grill lighter in one of her hands and a screwdriver in the other.
Her eyes traveled from my face to my hand, widening as she saw the knife.
“What’s that for?”
“Why didn’t you wake me up? I heard something … I thought…”
Chrissy frowned. “I tried. Your door was locked.”
She tried to open the door to my room?
I lowered the knife, but kept it tucked close to my side. Nervously, I climbed down the stairs to meet her.
One dusty yellow bulb was lit, illuminating my washer and dryer, and the furnace.
And the plastic tubs of family photos and documents. Immediately, I noticed that the lids were gone from two of them—did I do that when I came down here months ago, or was she snooping through my stuff?
“I’m sorry if I scared you,” Chrissy said.
“I wasn’t scared.” I moved past her to get a better look at the tubs. The lids were lying on the floor a couple of feet away. She was definitely snooping.
“No offense, but you’re holding a knife. I think I scared you, and I’m truly sorry. Can you set that down, please?”
She was so close to me; I could still smell last night’s whiskey on her breath. Her hair was disheveled. Her clothes the same, wrinkled outfit from the night before.
“You know how to fix a furnace?” I asked, finally resting the knife on top of the dryer.
“Somewhat. But I think it’s just the pilot light. I had to light ours all the time in the trailer when I was a kid.”
I tried to imagine Chrissy, a young child, fiddling with the gas on her furnace. It made me sad. She hadn’t lived an easy life, not as a kid or an adult.
In the cavernous cellar, yellow light cast strange reflections off her new hair color. Combined with the sickly glow of the room, the color resembled that of a bruised apple.
I took a seat on the bottom stair, probably coating my sweatpants in mold and dust, but I didn’t care. I felt tired and wiry.
As I watched Chrissy kneel on the floor in front of the furnace, I shivered. It was so cold down here, my breath forming icy puffs in the air.
“Are you sure you know what you’re doing?” My teeth chattered uncontrollably.
“I think…” she muttered, turning a switch and lifting the lighter to ignite the pilot light. “There we go. It’s lit now. Hopefully it stays on this time.” She remained there for another minute, holding the button and examining the tiny orange flame inside it. Then she replaced the panel, as though she’d done it a million times before.
My mind fluttered back to Jenny’s hands … those eerie burn marks … everyone had assumed they were torture marks, inflicted by the killer—but could she have burned them on something earlier in the night?
“You okay?” Chrissy asked, getting back on her feet, knees cracking.
“Yeah, I think so. Thanks for fixing that. It’s been fucking up for weeks now…” I placed my head in my hands, elbows resting on my knees as I sat on the dirty old cellar step.
“Again, I’m sorry if I frightened you…” Chrissy placed the lighter on a thin wooden shelf along with the screwdriver she’d used. I recognized it—the shiny red handle covered in grooves and nicks. I hadn’t seen it in so long … my father’s tools.
“It’s not that. I barely slept. I can’t stop thinking about our talk, the things you said…”
“I was wasted, Natalie. I’m truly sorry. I have some extra money still. I’ll use it to get a hotel tomorrow,” Chrissy said.
“Drunk or not, I know you remember. You said there was someone else in that field. That you were covering for them … I need to know who it was, Chrissy.”
Chrissy shook her head, walking towards me as though she meant to skirt around me on the stairs and dart back up. I stood, blocking her way.
“I can’t tell the story if you won’t let me. You can trust me, Chrissy. I will listen to anything you tell me. I’m willing to keep an open mind.”
Chrissy gave me a steely look, her face hard like a mask. “You sure about that?”
“I am.”
Her shoulders relaxed and suddenly, she seemed smaller and shrunken, inches shorter than before. “Then I guess you better sit down for this.”
Chapter Nineteen
The chessboard was still a mess, my king defeated, slumped on his side from earlier.
“Just a minute.” As Chrissy walked over to the thermostat, I stood my king upright.
He looks much better this way.
She tapped the dial, then perked her head up. A blast of heat whistled through the vents.
“It’s working,” she said, smiling weakly.
“Thank goodness. I’m freezing,” I moaned.
Chrissy sat on the couch beside me. “You were suspicious when you saw me down there. You thought I was looking around.”
“It’s not that … it’s just…”
“Well, you’re right,” Chrissy finished. Her eyes were pupil-less in the dark.
I stared at her, dumbfounded.
“Why?” I asked.
“It needed re-lighting. Your pilot light, I mean … but that’s not the only reason I went down there. I couldn’t find what I was looking for upstairs.”
I scanned her face for answers, a trickle of anger forming in the pit of my belly. What’s she playing at?
“And what might that be?”
“Proof,” Chrissy said, simply. She unfolded herself on the sofa beside me, resting her chin in her hands.
I leaned forward, smacking my palms down on the table with the chess board, surprising myself, as pieces scattered, knocked to the carpet below. “If you’ve got something to say, go on and say it. As much as I want to help you, I’m sick of you talking in circles.”
But instead of talking, Chrissy leaned forward, her face mere inches from mine, and then she reached back for something in her back jeans pocket. She removed it and placed it in the center of her lap.
A single piece of lined notebook paper folded into a square.
I plucked it up, narrowing my eyes at her as I unfolded this piece of so-called “proof”.
I scanned the words, unblinking, then tossed it back at Chrissy.
“It’s a note that Jack wrote, telling my mom he’s going out with friends and he’ll be back by curfew. It’s not dated. And if you’d taken the time to look around more down there, then you’d have found hundreds of ones just like it. My mom was a pack rat. She saved everything. Notes and papers and stupid drawings. I wouldn’t be shocked if my baby teeth and hair are tossed in one of those tubs downstairs … why is this important?”
Chrissy frowned. “His name isn’t on it. How do you know your brother wrote that?” she asked, tapping her finger patiently at the top.
Why is she obsessed with a scratchy old letter Jack wrote as a kid decades ago?!
“I know it’s his writing…” I stared at Jack’s words, my voice suddenly thick with grief. “I know because I’ve seen his writing a million times … when he, when he was still alive.”
I stared at the letters, my eyes burning and threatening to tear up … the loopy Ps and the blocky Bs…
“But you didn’t recognize it when you read his letter in my box, did you?”
I narrowed my eyes at the letter, head tilting to the side as I tried to remember the words. Come on. Sneak out and meet me tonight. Let’s have our own party, beautiful. -J
My breath lodged in my throat. I shook my head, looking up at her and back at the letter.
“You and my brother … but I thought those letters were from John?”
I don’t believe her. If she and Jack were together, I would have known. Right?
“Wait here,” I said, stiffly.
Moments later, I returned to the living room with her shoe box of crap in my hand. I’d barely glanced at it the other night, planning to come back to it, but I still hadn’t…
I took the letters out, one by one, setting aside the one from Jenny and John.
As I held the mysterious J’s letter next to the one of my brother’s, there was no denying it now. How come I didn’t realize before?
“In your defense, you probably haven’t seen your brother’s handwriting in years.” Chrissy’s voice was soft, like a thousand tiny whispers in the room.
What does this mean? Why is she telling me this now?
“He would have told me,” I said.
Chrissy smiled, but there was something empty behind it. Something sad.
But would he have told me? If he was having a relationship with our neighbor across the creek, we would have known about it, surely…
My thoughts swirled with memories of Jack at that age … around the time of Jenny’s death, he was so private, fiercely protecting his space, his inner world… We were close, but as a teen … he pulled away from me then. Nothing was the same after that summer Jenny died. Nothing was ever right again with my family.
“Your brother was a good man, and I was devastated when I learned of his suicide,” Chrissy said.
“You said you didn’t know,” I growled. First, she pretends she didn’t know he was dead, and now she acts like she mourned for him? Implies there was something going on with my brother that I didn’t know about?!
I could feel my fingers balling into tiny fists, rage versus confusion in my head.
“He had these stupid binoculars … always watching me from his window. I loved to sneak through the trees at night, crossing the river, and I’d stand at the edge of the tree line and wave … sometimes he’d sneak out and meet me there. He was gentle … and kind. The only boy in this town who truly seemed to like me for me.” Chrissy’s eyes were watery, lost in thought.
For some reason, the mention of his prized binoculars broke something inside me. I gasped with grief, tears flooding down my face now…
Chrissy reached a hand across the table, touching mine. I jerked back, surprising myself and her.
“So, my brother had a crush on you? That doesn’t mean he hurt Jenny. He wasn’t even here on the night she died… He was staying with my Aunt Lane then. Because that’s what you’re implying, isn’t it? I’m not stupid, Chrissy.”
Chrissy frowned. “I know that’s what they told you, but I saw him the night before … he was here, in the house and the next day…”
“No.” I shook my head back and forth like a whiny toddler.
“For the longest time … I thought … I thought maybe he … he…” Chrissy sputtered.
“No. Don’t even say it,” I warned.
But Chrissy wouldn’t stop talking. “When I saw her that day, crossing the field … I thought she was coming to me. But she wasn’t. She was on her way to your house.”
I leaned forward, elbows grinding into the edge of the forgotten chess board.
“Don’t you see? She wanted to deal with the John situation the way most girls do … she wanted revenge. Jack liked her, of course he did! Every fucking guy in this town swooned over Jenny! And my first thought was: she’s going to get back at me by sleeping with the guy I love. I slept with John and now she’s going to take my Jack…”
Hearing Chrissy refer to my brother as “her” Jack made my stomach coil in disgust.
He wasn’t her Jack. He was mine … my brother, who I thought told me everything. Who I loved more than life itself… My mind flashed back to his lifeless body on the bedroom floor, his skull blown to pieces with our daddy’s gun. Did his suicide have anything to do with this? Nonono…
Oh, Jack. What kind of secrets were you hiding from me, from us…?
Chrissy said, “The next time I saw Jenny, she was lying dead in the field. The sun hadn’t come up yet. And I wasn’t wearing shoes out there … I rarely did. So, I don’t know how those muddy Converse got in my closet. They were mine, but I didn’t put them there … and Jenny was with your brother before she died. That’s all I know…”
Chapter Twenty
Three truths.
One lie.
Chrissy Cornwall loved my brother.
My brother loved her back.
Jenny tried to hook up with him to get revenge.
Chrissy didn’t kill her.
I threw my wallet on the kitchen table, then started digging. I fished out two twenties and a couple ones and thrust them into Chrissy’s hand.
“Here’s money for a cab or Uber. I’ll even call one for you. But you have to leave. I need time to think.”
When she made no move to leave, the money frozen in her hand, I said, “Please.”
Chrissy looked like she was on the verge of tears. As bad as I felt for tossing her out, I couldn’t deal with her being here for one second longer. If she’s implying that my brother killed Jenny … no. No, I refuse to believe that.
“I can’t think straight. My head is throbbing…”
“But you didn’t even let me finish. I don’t necessarily think your brother killed her. I don’t have proof of that…” Chrissy said.
I was shaking, my head spinning like a tilt-o-whirl.
“Those first several years in prison, when he never wrote me back or came to see me … I was devastated. But then, he did. He was like an angel on the other side of the glass, with that messy hair of his … he hadn’t changed a bit…”
My brother visited Chrissy in prison? This is news to me…
“I thought he’d come to tell me the truth. To thank me for taking the fall. But then he asked me why I did it. Said he’d been trying to forgive me those first couple years but couldn’t understand. When I told him about Jenny going to the farmhouse, that I saw her going to see him … he swore he never slept with her. He said they talked for a while, then she went home. He thought all along that I was the one who killed her as she left that day. And I th
ought it was him who did it … I thought I was covering for him. Proving my love.”
“Well, of course he thought you did it, Chrissy, you confessed!” I said, exasperated.
“But I did it to protect him, don’t you see?! He never told the cops he was with her the night before. And … and … I thought I was doing the right thing. His future was so much brighter than mine…”
“That’s such bullshit, Chrissy. My brother didn’t kill her. He wouldn’t…”
But Chrissy was rambling now, talking more to herself than to me. “I— I thought he and I were the only ones who knew the truth. But, as it turns out, neither of us really knew it. I swore to him it wasn’t me … but, just like you, I don’t think he believed me. He said he saw her that night. He admitted to me that he was hanging out with her, even kissing her … but he swore she left. So, somewhere between your house and mine, that little girl was murdered. I thought it was him. He thought it was me. If it wasn’t one of us, who was it? That’s what I’m trying to understand. That’s what I need you to see…” Chrissy whined.
I allowed myself to fall back in one of the kitchen chairs, my head and heart pounding with disbelief. How could any of this be true?
Sure, there were all sorts of wild theories online. The conspiracy theorists on Reddit loved to pick apart the case. I’d read theories about my mom and dad … and Chrissy’s brothers and parents. Hell, some of the theories even cast blame on Jenny’s own parents and the local police chief. But they were all just tales … never any evidence to support them. And Jack was cleared right off the bat, because he was staying with my Aunt Lane. Supposedly…
Chrissy turned away slowly, and I watched as she trudged upstairs. I sat at the kitchen table, wondering if she would stay after all. I shouldn’t force her to leave … she seems honest, like she’s telling the truth … but this isn’t the truth I want to hear.
Moments later, I heard the jingle of her backpack. Slowly, she came back down the stairs, barely glancing back at me as she turned to go.
At the doorway, she froze momentarily, shoulders slumped in defeat. This was a much different version than the Chrissy who preached on my porch that first morning like a messiah. She looked defeated.
She Lied She Died Page 11