White Lies

by Jeremy Bates

  She climbed out of bed—still fully clothed, she noted—and went downstairs. Monica was in the kitchen, boiling water on the stove’s ancient burner. “Where’s Jack?” Katrina asked right away.

  “No idea,” Monica said. “I’ve been up for about an hour and haven’t seen him. Must be an early riser. But you don’t know? Didn’t you?—well, it’s none of my business. But I thought that maybe you two would have both slept upstairs? Did you sleep separately?”

  The truth was Katrina had no idea where Jack had slept, whether with her or on his own. After the kiss halfway down to the lake, she’d told him she was going to get some water. She’d wanted some space. She hadn’t been ready for the kiss. Not then. Not until she’d sorted her feelings out better. Once alone, she’d gone up to the loft and, emotionally drained, was out in seconds. “I drank too much,” she told Monica by way of explanation. “Was out like a light. I’m not sure where he slept. What about Zach and Crystal? Are they around?”

  “They took off again last night. I’m not sure where. Where’s there to go, right? It’s crazy. Like they have some secret love nest. Oh, I’m sorry! I shouldn’t say that. I wouldn’t want Zach dating my little sister either. Dating? No—I didn’t meant that either! I’m sure they’re just friends.”

  Katrina merely nodded, realizing how trivial such concerns still felt. The water came to a boil. Monica made them both mugs of instant coffee. Katrina’s mug had the red-and-blue Esso logo on it, below the words “Thankful Tankful ‘87.” Probably a promotional giveaway from the gas giant. She wondered if it had meant anything special to Charlie, had any sentimental value? A profound sadness welled up inside her.

  Monica withdrew a box of Special K from her backpack, along with a carton of UHT milk. She offered Katrina a bowl, but Katrina declined. She was far too upset to stomach anything. While Monica ate her cereal, they made small talk, mostly about the party— apparently a couple teachers had gone skinny dipping—but Katrina wasn’t listening. Her mind was a million miles away.

  At half past eight, Jack came through the front door, carrying two brown paper bags from McDonald’s. Katrina greeted his arrival with conflicting emotions. Relief he was back from wherever he’d gone. Pity for him that she’d dragged him into this god-awful mess. Even fear, mild and uncertain, but there nonetheless. It wasn’t a fear for him but a fear of him. The way he’d acted last night—his calm coolness, his rational persuasion, his apparent lack of remorse at what they’d done—it was not normal and thus somehow frightening. Nevertheless, more than any of that she felt a burning curiosity. Had he spoken to the Good Samaritan? Was their secret still safe? Was the red-haired man going to hold up his end of the deal?

  She saw the newspaper rolled up beneath his arm and her breath caught in her throat. Had the media reported the car accident? What was the verdict?

  “Hope you two haven’t eaten.” Jack said, grinning, and he seemed as upbeat as usual. He looked around the empty room. “Where is everyone else?”

  “Down at the dock,” Monica said. “Apparently morning is the best time to fish.”

  “Tell them there’s food here if they want it.” He looked directly at Katrina. She couldn’t read anything in his eyes. “Want to come outside for a minute, Kat? I have something to show you.”

  It was another beautiful day. The sun was burning brightly in the cobalt-blue sky, lighting the timbered slopes of the Cascade Mountains a brilliant emerald green. Puffy clouds drifted lazily overhead on unseen currents. There were a few canoes out on the lake, as well as a motorboat, sounding like an ambitious bee in the otherwise still morning air. Jack stopped when they were a safe distance from the cabin and held up the paper that had been beneath his arm. It was the Leavenworth Echo. “Nothing in here,” he said with a triumphant smile.

  “Is that good?” she asked hopefully.

  “Accidents aren’t newsworthy.”

  “But that’s just the Echo. Isn’t there a Skykomish paper?”

  “I didn’t see one. But I also have the Everett Herald and the Wenatchee World in my car.”

  “And nothing?”

  “Zip. I went through every page.”

  “Do you think it just didn’t make the morning edition?”

  “It’s possible. But I doubt it. Whoever we saw behind us last night would have reported the burning truck. Editors would have had all night to get the story together. As for that other loose end, I returned the car to our red-haired friend. I repeated my threat. His lips are sealed. He won’t be saying a thing. Trust me on that.”

  It’s over then, Katrina thought, overwhelmed with relief, although the relief was tainted with the guilt of knowing they’d gotten away with something very wrong.

  “So what does this mean?” she asked, wanting Jack to confirm what she had just concluded.

  “It means,” he told her, “last night never happened.”

  Zach was stretched out on the rocky outcrop to the west of Katrina’s cabin. Or whoever’s cabin it belonged to. He’d pressed Crystal about that slipup the night before, but she hadn’t given him anything more. She was beside him now, her head on his chest. The morning sunshine was warm on his face. There was a refreshing breeze coming off the water. It should have been a pleasant Sunday morning. A picture-postcard morning. But it wasn’t. How could it be after what he’d seen? He’d witnessed a goddamn murder. A murder he’d never reported. He’d been close. Very close. He’d pressed 9-1-1 into his phone, but he’d backed out before he’d pressed Send. Why? He’d asked himself that a dozen times since, and he kept coming up with the same answer.

  Crystal.

  He liked her a lot. It was crazy, but he did. He’d known that as soon as they’d started talking down at the dock. It wasn’t because she was Katrina’s sister or anything like that. They simply connected. And therein lay the problem. If he turned Katrina and Jack in, he could kiss whatever he had going with Crystal goodbye. Girls weren’t so interested in guys who sent their older sisters to prison. It was a selfish reason, he knew. But the truth was he didn’t know that old man from squat. If he reported the murder, he would be alienating the first person he truly liked—and who liked him—in years. Besides, it wasn’t as if he was going to keep the murder a secret forever. He was just going to be prudent about what he knew. Justice might be delayed, but it would be served eventually, he was pretty sure about that. What was that old expression by Pope? Wise men say only fools rush in? No—that was Elvis. For fools rush in where angels fear to tread? Yeah, that was it. Zach was no angel, but he was no fool either.

  So what was his next step then? He didn’t know. But he would have to figure it out. And soon.

  “What are you thinking about?” Crystal asked him, pushing herself up on an elbow.

  “You,” he said.

  She smiled. “Really? What about?”

  “Just stuff.”

  “Me too.”

  “What kind of stuff?”

  She shrugged. “You know. Like what’s going to happen when I go back to college. Because, you know, you’re still going to be here. What are we going to do?”

  Despite his attraction to her, Zach knew he couldn’t pursue anything with Crystal right now, not until this mess with Jack and Katrina was resolved—if he didn’t turn out to be the bad guy and she still wanted to see him, that is. “We should get back to the cabin,” he said, sitting up. “Your sister probably wants to leave, and I have to see if I can catch a taxi with someone.”

  “I’m going to be at Kat’s all day. Why don’t you come by after you get back?”

  “I better not.”

  “Oh.” She looked at him for a long time, reading between the lines. She got to her feet. “I think I should go.”

  “I’ll go back with you.”

  “No. I’m fine.”

  Zach watched her walk away, wondering what the hell he was doing.

  Katrina glanced over her shoulder at Crystal, who was crammed into the backseat of the Porsche, looking out the window. S
he’d been unusually quiet all morning. “Anything wrong, Chris?” she asked.

  Crystal seemed about to shake her head, but then she said, “You were right about that Zach guy. I should have stayed away from him.”

  “What did he do?” Katrina demanded. The last thing she needed was for Zach to start screwing up her sister’s life as well.

  “Nothing.” She frowned. “I mean, we got along fantastic and everything, right? I know you said he’s weird, but he’s not. Not really. He’s nice. Then this morning we went for a walk, hung out at the water. I asked him about, you know, about what’s going to happen with us later on, because I’m at school and everything. And, well, he sort of brushed me off.”

  “I told you—”

  “I know what you told me. Okay? I don’t need you to remind me.”

  “Sorry, Chris. It’s just that— Oh, I don’t know. Forget it.”

  “He has a few marbles loose,” Jack said.

  “That’s what you say,” Crystal said. “I don’t think so. The thing is, I think I really liked him.”

  “The best thing you can do, Chris,” Katrina told her, “is to forget about him. You’re at college. It’s a big place. You’ll find someone else in no time.”

  “Yeah, I know. I guess.” She didn’t sound too convinced or happy about the prospect. “By the way, where are we? How much farther?”

  “Almost there,” Jack said. “Another twenty minutes.”

  Katrina asked, “What time is your bus again?”

  “Whenever. They leave pretty regularly. Just drop me off at the station. I’ll wait around.”

  “You don’t want to stay for dinner? We can make it early.”

  “Nah. It’s okay. I have all my stuff I brought with me anyway. I’ll come back and visit again. I think I just want to go back to campus now.”

  “I have a question for you,” Jack said, lifting his eyes to the rearview mirror. Katrina knew he’d been waiting the whole car ride to spring this. “It’s about last night. When you and Zach met us back at the cabin, just after everyone else had left on the bus, you said something about Zach following my friend’s truck. But Zach said he was relieving himself. Which was it?”

  “Why?”

  “It’s not a big deal. I’m just curious about something.”

  “What?”

  “It’s complicated, Chris,” Katrina said. “Just tell Jack what he asked.”

  She shrugged. “We were sitting down on the dock—the neighbor’s dock—and this truck drove by. I thought Zach said something about seeing who it was. Maybe he didn’t though. Maybe he just needed to use the bathroom. I can’t remember.”

  “Why would he have wanted to see who it was?” Katrina asked.

  “I have no idea. Wait! That’s not true. I just remembered something.”

  “What is it?” Katrina turned farther in her seat, so she could watch her sister closely.

  “Umm. I might have let it slip that the cabin wasn’t really yours.”

  “What?” Katrina said, incredulous. “To Zach? What did you say?”

  “I’m not sure. I can’t remember everything. I was drinking.”

  “Try to remember, Chris.”

  “I don’t know! He was talking about the cabin like it was mine. I told him it wasn’t. He said yeah, yeah, your sister’s place, and I started to say it wasn’t yours either. I tried to stop myself, but it was too late.”

  Katrina noticed Jack clench his jaw tight. “So he might have wanted to find out what was going on?” he asked.

  “Maybe. Who cares? What’s the big deal?”

  “How long was he gone?” Jack demanded.

  “Not long, I don’t think. Like a couple of minutes, maybe.”

  Katrina realized this was turning into an interrogation, but she didn’t care. The implications of Crystal’s revelation were staggering. If Zach had seen Jack murder the old man, well, he was Zach. The only person he likely despised more than Katrina herself was Jack. He wasn’t going to keep quiet, not in a million years. He was going to sing like a canary on a world tour, and he was going to do it with a big smile on his face.

  Had he already? Would the police be waiting for her back at her house?

  Katrina and Jack exchanged glances. She saw skepticism in his eyes, and that’s probably what he saw in hers. She asked, “What did he say when he returned?”

  Crystal shook her head. “Nothing. He didn’t say anything.” Her voice became petulant. “Are you guys going to tell me what the big deal is? You’re acting really weird, you know that?”

  “Someone keyed my friend’s truck,” Jack told her smoothly.

  Katrina studied Jack for a moment, torn between admiration and apprehension by how easily he could tell a lie. On the one hand, she was very happy he was on her side. All she seemed to be doing when she opened her mouth was digging holes, while every time he opened his, he was getting them out of those holes. Yet at the same time she knew nobody should be so good at telling lies. It was like being good at being bad, and it made her wonder if he had told her any lies. About his past? About old Charlie? About the Good Samaritan?

  “Oh my God!” Crystal exclaimed. “You gotta be kidding?”

  “All along the driver’s door,” Jack said. “We don’t know who did it.”

  “Why would Zach do anything like that?”

  “He’s not exactly my best friend. Not after I showed him the door.”

  “Why wouldn’t he just scratch your car then?”

  “I’m not saying it was Zach. I just want to rule him out.”

  “Well, he didn’t do it,” Crystal said matter-of-factly.

  Jack didn’t press any more. Katrina didn’t either. Crystal was a dead end; she knew nothing more helpful. To lighten the mood, Katrina changed the topic to what Crystal had planned the following week at school, and they continued on that track until they pulled up to the Kwik Stop on the corner of Highway 2 and Icicle Road at the western edge of Leavenworth. Crystal went inside the service station to check the Greyhound bus schedule and returned a minute later to inform them a bus would be arriving in forty minutes. Katrina offered to wait with her, but she said she had a book to read and would be fine by herself. So they hugged, said it was good to see each other again, and promised to catch up again soon.

  As Jack pulled back onto Highway 2, Katrina said, “Are we going to my place?”

  “You have somewhere else in mind?”

  “No, but what if Zach already called the police? What if they’re at my house, waiting?”

  “They won’t be.”

  “How do you know?”

  “Because he hasn’t told them anything—yet.”

  “But how can you know?”

  “If he had, he would have done it last night. The cops would have come up to Charlie’s cabin right away to investigate. We’re talking about a dead body here. The fact they didn’t means he never called them.”

  The python that had been tightening around Katrina for most of the trip slithered away. “God, I was so worried. So that means Zach didn’t see anything?”

  “Maybe,” Jack said. “I really don’t know. But I’m going to find out.”

  She frowned. “What do you mean? You can’t just go up and ask him whether he saw you kill someone. That’s ridiculous.”

  “That’s exactly what I’m going to do.” He made a left onto Ski Hill Drive.

  “But what if he didn’t see anything?”

  “What if he did?”

  “Then he would have called the police by now, right? Or he would have at least said something to one of us. You saw him last night. He certainly didn’t act like he saw something.”

  “I told you I got a bad vibe from him.”

  “And I told you he had good reason to be uncomfortable around you.”

  “Because I kicked him out of the party? Or because he saw me hit Charlie?”

  “No, Jack.” She was shaking her head. “I’m going to see him tomorrow at school. I’ll be able t
o read him. Let me deal with it.”

  “Dammit, Katrina. He might be considering calling the police right now. I’m not waiting around for a day to see what he decides to do. Now listen.” He swung left onto Wheeler Street. “After I drop you off, I’m going to drive over to his place and have a little chat with him. A friendly chat. I won’t come right out and say anything incriminating. But I want to feel things out. I should be able to tell whether he knows anything or not.”

  Jack pulled up to her long driveway. No police cars waiting out front with their gumballs flashing. Katrina released the breath she’d been holding, but she didn’t get out of the car.

  “How are you going to explain an unannounced visit to his house?” she asked. “You don’t think that will look suspicious?”

  “I’ll tell him I want to apologize.”

  Katrina hesitated, thinking it through. She said, “Okay, fine. But I’m coming too.”

  “Out of the question,” Jack said immediately. “You’ll make him nervous.”

  “I’ll make him nervous? You’re the one he’s scared of.”

  “It will be strange, the two of us going there.”

  “No stranger than you showing up alone.”

  “I’m not arguing this, Katrina. And we’re wasting time.”

  Katrina shook her head angrily. Trying to change Jack’s mind, she’d found out through trial by fire over the past fifteen or so hours, was about as easy as moving a mountain with a shovel. “Fine,” she snapped. “Do what you want. You’ll do it anyway.” She was halfway out for the car when she had a terrible thought. “Jack,” she said, looking through the open door, “you’re only going to talk to him, right?”

  “Jesus Christ, Katrina. What do you think I’m going to do? Break his knees?”

  She didn’t know. Break his knees? Or something worse? “Promise me you’re only going to talk to him.”