If I Die Tonight

by Alison Gaylin

  Paul was cracking eggs now. “Enjoying the show?”

  Pearl smiled, though she didn’t want to. “Conceited.”

  She clicked on her voice mail, and the automated voice announced the 6:00 AM call, followed by another voice. Her back stiffened. It was Sergeant Black, doing his documentary-voice-over impression. “There is a mandatory meeting for all local and state police officers this morning at seven thirty AM,” he said in those deep, serious tones. “It concerns information obtained this morning in the Liam Miller case.”

  “Everything okay?” said Paul, who was watching her now.

  “It is now,” Pearl said. “But I have a feeling it’s not going to be.”

  “I THINK I know what this is about.” Pearl said it to Romero, who stood next to her in the crowded conference room.

  “Yeah, me too,” he said—the big clue being the large monitor that had been set up on the far wall. “I guess the state lab must’ve bumped Liam’s phone to the front of the line.”

  Wind and Wacksman stood in front of the monitor, whispering, and Wind held a remote. Pearl watched as Sergeant Black entered the room with Bobby Udel at his shoulder, Bobby abuzz with some idea he was trying to get across.

  “We’ll open it up for discussion later,” the sergeant told Bobby in a gentle but firm voice Pearl could hear all the way from the back of the room. Bobby’s face flushed. He headed into the group of uniformed officers; the room was more packed than usual. Pearl even noticed a few cops she didn’t know but whom she vaguely recognized from the Kill, all of them holding broad-brimmed hats in their hands. State troopers.

  “Hey,” Bobby Udel said when he reached Pearl and Romero.

  “You seem awfully awake,” said Pearl, and indeed, Bobby was shot full of extra energy, bouncing on the balls of his feet, every ounce of his attention directed at the front of the room, that monitor.

  “I am,” he said. “You bet I am.”

  It bothered her, like everything else about Bobby Udel had been bothering her lately. Yes, his favorite cousin had lost his best friend, and traumatic events made people behave strangely. Pearl got all of that. What she didn’t get was this bizarre impatience of his, this thirst for closure. She could see it in the way his eyes had gleamed as he introduced Pearl to Ryan and his friends yesterday, the way he’d grasped Ryan’s shoulder—not comforting him at all, but prodding him to speak. Well, you’re going to get your closure now, Bobby. It’s on that screen.

  Pearl took a step away from Bobby. She glanced at Romero, whose eyes were on the monitor too. “What do you think we’re gonna see up there?” he said.

  Pearl thought about the two suspects she knew of: a woman who could barely speak without lying and a boy who barely spoke. “I’m going with headlights,” she said.

  By now, the sergeant, Wind, and Wacksman were up front in their designated positions, all three of them shushing everybody until the room was silent.

  “Thanks for coming, everybody,” said Sergeant Black. “I know many of you aren’t scheduled for today, but the detectives and I thought it imperative you get this briefing.”

  Romero raised his eyebrows. “Imperative. He’s using big words again.”

  Pearl had a strange feeling, that sense you get when you’re just on the brink of learning something you aren’t sure you want to know. In a way, she wished she could grab onto time and freeze it this way. But it all kept moving: Wind readying the monitor, the sergeant speaking in his newscaster’s monotone, Bobby Udel bouncing next to her, aching to dive in.

  “There will be a press conference outside the station following this meeting,” the sergeant said. “Local and state news have been invited, as well as some national outlets—cable TV, places like that. Detectives Wind and Wacksman will be speaking. The rest of us will stand behind them, remaining silent. Understood?”

  “A press conference,” Romero whispered. “Jesus. What the hell press comes to Havenkill?”

  Bobby raised his hand, but the sergeant went on with his prepared speech.

  “Two days ago, Liam Miller’s cell phone was sent to a state lab for JTAG testing,” he said. “They were able to recover the contents of the phone.” He looked around the room. “Those contents included film taken the night of the carjacking. It was one of many video files on the young man’s phone that day, but the others were taken much earlier, on Friday rather than the early hours of Saturday, when Liam was at school.”

  “We’ve downloaded all information from Liam’s phone, pertinent to the case and otherwise,” Kendall Wind said. “If you’d like to take a look at any or all of it, please talk to Detective Wacksman, Sergeant Black, or myself. But right now, we’re going to show you the video taken that night. It lasts just thirty seconds. I’d like to ask everyone to stay quiet throughout, as there is audio as well.”

  The sergeant hit the lights. Wind pressed the remote. Pearl stopped breathing. And so it begins.

  An image appeared on the screen, a fuzzy image of moving figures, the flare of a streetlight, a car . . . Pearl could make out Amy’s rainbow hair, her shiny vinyl jacket. The image grew sharper: Amy grabbing at a taller figure, all in black, trying to yank something out of his hands. Pearl exhaled, that pent-up air spilling out of her. Amy was telling the truth. Until now, she hadn’t quite realized how shocking that concept was to her.

  Pearl peered at the screen. She saw the tall figure push Amy aside and make for the car, her gleaming green Jaguar, light bouncing off the silver grille as Amy fell to the concrete.

  “Help!” she yelled. “Help me, please!”

  Amy’s story, exactly as she had told it.

  Romero leaned in, his lips close to Pearl’s ear. “I just lost three separate bets.”

  The black-clad figure got into the car and slammed the door shut. Pearl struggled to make out his facial features, but on a phone and from this distance both his face and Amy’s were flesh-colored globs.

  The camera moved closer, bouncing up and down with the filmmaker’s joggy steps. Liam started to yell. “Stop!” Pearl heard. “Stop. No! Wait! Stop, wait!”

  And then the camera flew, the images on the screen careening. You could hear the screech of tires, and then the streetlight was in view—the long metal stretch of it spinning almost gracefully before everything went to black.

  “Did you hear that?” Bobby whispered. “Did you hear what Liam yelled?”

  Pearl said nothing. She shook her head, wishing he’d just go away.

  “Liam called him by name,” Bobby whispered. “He said, ‘Stop, Wade.’”

  “He said wait,” Pearl said, her cheeks growing hot. “As in, wait before you jump to conclusions and ruin another kid’s life.”

  Bobby stared at her, jaw working, a look in his eyes that actually frightened her a little. “I’m not jumping to conclusions,” he said. “I know the truth. I’ve known it from the start.”

  “How do you—”

  “I know this town.”

  “As you can see,” Kendall Wind was saying, “Ms. Nathanson was, exactly as she told us, a victim of violent crime. We will step up our efforts to investigate it as such. Anyone with any knowledge of the crime or suggestions as to how we might go forward is encouraged to talk with Sergeant Black, Detective Wacksman, or myself. Are there any questions?”

  There were a few questions—mainly about scheduling, shift changes, added responsibilities as a result of the stepped-up investigation. Sergeant Black assigned a few other Havenkill cops to the local tip line, and Detective Wacksman went over specifics of exactly what would be said during the press conference. Somewhere in there, Pearl stopped listening and focused on Bobby, moving up through the group, to the front of the room. “Udel told me he knows things about the case,” she whispered to Romero. “What do you think he knows?”

  Romero shrugged. “More than I do, clearly.”

  The meeting broke up, everybody readying for the press conference, Romero heading off to the locker room to “make sure the hair’s camera
-ready.”

  Pearl stayed where she was. She kept her eyes on Bobby as he pulled Wind aside and spoke to her. She waited for the dismissive gesture from the detective, the curt nod followed by the fast escape, but it never came. Wind remained still as he spoke to her, leaning in, nodding every so often with her hands clasped at her chest, as though in prayer.

  “DON’T YOU HAVE work today?” Connor said.

  Jackie shook her head and served him another pancake, a few more strips of bacon. “I’m just taking some days off,” she said. “I figured since Wade’s car is in the shop and the weather’s getting too cold for bikes, you guys might need me around for rides.”

  “You’re taking off work to give us rides?” Connor said.

  Jackie took a swallow from her cup of coffee. “You have a problem with that?” It was an old deflecting trick, answering a question with a question. And it seemed to work.

  “I guess not.”

  “Go get your brother,” Jackie said. “We’re going to be late for school.”

  Wade had spent most of last night in his room, and she’d let him. He was hiding from her and Connor, Jackie was certain. But in truth she was hiding from Wade as well. She’d phoned Helen last night, left a message on her voice mail asking if she’d spoken to Garrett and when Wade and she could meet with him, the idea being to let Wade know she’d hired a lawyer once she had a game plan she could explain. The way he’d exploded in the car yesterday was understandable, once you took a step back. His car had been vandalized. He’d been intimidated by suspicious police. And that horrible live-feed post she’d had to report to Facebook . . . The whole world seemed to be ganging up on Wade, everything spiraling beyond his control. Who wouldn’t explode, given that situation? Who wouldn’t want to hide?

  Jackie had hoped Garrett might help her see things more clearly, show her from a legal perspective how this situation could play out with an ending that didn’t feel so dire so she could have some hope to pass on to her son. But Helen had never called back. Wade had stayed in his room. Jackie had even brought him his dinner in there. She hoped he’d eaten it.

  “Mom?”

  Jackie looked up. Connor and Wade were both standing in the kitchen, Connor carrying a couple of big pieces of poster board, Wade looming behind his little brother like a shadow he couldn’t escape.

  “Noah’s mom’s giving me a ride to school.” Connor tapped the poster board with his index finger. “We’re doing our science project at school and need to set everything up in the lab.”

  “Okay, honey.”

  He headed out of the house fast. Jackie looked at Wade. “You sure you want to go to school?” she said.

  He nodded.

  They walked out to the car in silence, Jackie allowing herself the faintest tinge of satisfaction over Connor. Yes, his excuse had been a lame one. She could have taken him and his poster board to school just as easily as Cindy Weston could, but the takeaway here was this: Noah and Connor were friends again. Despite the fact that Connor had bloodied his nose, the boys had smoothed things over on their own. Cindy was giving Connor rides and they were back at work on their science project, good as new.

  If only the world worked like friendships between thirteen-year-old boys.

  On the ride to school, Jackie turned on NPR, determined not to force Wade into conversation, though she did steal a few quick looks at him as she drove. His hair was still slightly damp from his shower this morning, and he was wearing the blue Shetland sweater that Jackie had given him for Christmas last year, her favorite. She loved him so much it hurt.

  They were nearing the school. Wade asked to be let out a block away, the way he used to when he was younger. Jackie pulled over, dread creeping up on her again. She couldn’t help it—just one block away from the school parking lot and all the memories that now came with it: Wade’s defaced car; that horrible live feed of the two of them discovering it. Those comments . . . What was in store for Wade today? It had been twenty-four hours since the police had marched him into the guidance counselor’s office in front of most of the student body. Twenty-four hours for word of it to spread and distort and grow into a monster. If someone had done that to Wade’s car back then, what would they do to him now?

  Before he got out, Wade leaned over. He gave her a kiss on the cheek, taking her by surprise. “It will be okay, Mom,” he said.

  Her heart swelled. “I know it will.”

  But as he closed the door behind him, Jackie was nearly overcome by the urge to pull him back into the car, to strap him in and drive far away and never come back to this town again.

  During Jackie’s drive home, NPR shifted from national to local news. She turned it up, waiting for the weather as she drove down Orchard, watching the gloomy day go by, the browning leaves. In just a few days, fall had peaked and now it was all downhill, the wind and rain accelerating the decay. Quite a few of the trees were near bare already.

  The radio announcer was starting in on the weather now—something about another rainstorm. But Jackie wasn’t sure whether it was the forecast for Dutchess County or across the river in the Catskills. She gripped the wheel, unable to focus.

  What she wanted to do was save the day, to swoop in and make Wade’s life normal again. She wished she could paste the leaves back on the trees and turn back time, turn it all the way back to before the divorce, because that’s when the bad seed had been planted in her son and he’d stopped trusting everyone, including himself. If she had to do it over, she would have insisted on joint custody, or at least enforced visitation. She would have ensured the boys saw their father regularly, that Bill was there for them, whether he wanted to be or not.

  But would she really do that? Jackie refused to admit it even to herself, but the truth was, she’d gone along with Bill’s abandonment of his sons without trying to fight it, without even complaining. And she knew why. In the darkest part of her heart, Jackie had wanted Wade and Connor to resent Bill just as much as she did. Full custody for her; full love for her too. Bill a villain. Jackie a self-sacrificing hero. She’d let Bill get away with so much and she’d deprived her boys of a father, just so she could be that to them. And even now, with Wade so broken and in so much trouble, Jackie wasn’t sure she’d be able to trade that in.

  The radio announcer said Liam Miller’s name and Jackie almost drove off the road. She turned up the volume. “. . . at a press conference in front of the Havenkill station early this morning, police spoke of ‘stepped-up efforts’ to find the carjacker,” the announcer said. “And now in Hudson Valley weather . . .”

  Jackie gritted her teeth. Why wasn’t I listening? And then her phone rang. She picked it up to the sound of her son’s voice. “Hi, Mom, it’s Wade.”

  “Hi, honey. Why aren’t you in class? Is everything okay?”

  “I don’t know. I’m at the police station.” He laughed a little. A frightened laugh. “Can you come meet me here, please?”

  Twenty-Two

  Riding to school in the back of Noah’s mom’s car, Connor felt uncomfortable. The backseat was small, and since the trunk was filled up, Connor had to share the cramped space with the poster board charts for the science project. They were resting on his lap at a weird angle so that Noah’s mom could see out the back window, with the tops of both boards pressing into his forehead. But it was the silence that was the most awkward part. On a regular day, Cindy was one of those moms who was always trying to make conversation, tossing out questions about classes and vacation plans and even how you felt about the weather. But today, she said nothing. Every so often, she’d glance at Connor in the rearview, this look in her eyes as if she’d been assigned to kidnap him and her boss kept asking her to make sure he hadn’t escaped.

  Maybe she hasn’t gotten over the whole nose-punching thing. That was possible, Connor supposed, though he doubted it. Noah had insisted his mom had forgiven him, and Noah didn’t lie about anything.

  More likely, this had to do with Wade, that video of him in the
parking lot, not to mention all the stuff everybody was claiming he’d said to Tamara. It had already cost Connor forty Facebook friends since yesterday morning and made him stop checking his private messages. Your brother’s crazy, you must be crazy too. That was their thinking. And when he tried to defend Wade, to let them know that he hadn’t sent those messages and that his Instagram had been hacked, that only made it worse. Are you a Satanist too? Do you and Wade sacrifice cats together? Somebody had seriously posted those questions on his Facebook wall.

  He was sure Cindy had seen every post, read every comment. The only way Noah was allowed to have a Facebook page was if Cindy friended everyone on his list. She followed everybody on his Instagram too. She was always watching.

  Cindy was watching Connor now, those eyes in the rearview trained on him, shooting lasers, with the radio turned off and Noah stuck in his own world, preparing for a Spanish test by listening to exercises on his headphones. Connor wanted to look out the window, but the poster boards were leaned against it, so he watched the back of Noah’s head, listening to the buzz coming out of his headphones, barely audible, like ants speaking Spanish.

  School seemed as though it were a thousand miles away. Connor’s phone, which usually vibrated nonstop during morning rides like this with texts and messages, was silent. He slipped it out of his pocket, put it on his lap, and checked it. No texts. Nothing on Facebook Messenger, which was understandable; he hardly had any FB friends left.