by B K Stevens
“That was the afternoon Nina committed suicide?” Graciana asked.
“Yes.” Ms. Nguyen rubbed her forehead. “I keep telling myself nothing we might’ve done could’ve made any difference. Nina probably did it right after sending that message. Even if we’d called the police and organized search parties right away, we couldn’t have found her in time. But when I think of how frightened Marie was, and how glib I was—damn.”
“Why did Marie come here to look for her sister?” I asked. “Was Nina in one of the scenes?”
“Yes, but she wasn’t rehearsing that afternoon. Until the last week or so, we don’t try to get through all the scenes in one day. It’s better to focus on a few and go over each again and again.” Ms. Nguyen shook her head slightly. “Nina’s scene was spot-on from the first time. She and Angie Kovach did a scene from Othello. Angie played Desdemona as a ditzy teenager—really funny—and Nina’s Emilia was amazing. So smart, so cynical and irreverent, so sexy! It made me want to reread the play.”
“That’s great,” I said, not all that interested. This wasn’t getting us closer to figuring out who hired Davis. I decided to skip some softball questions. “Coach Colson was always so upbeat and enthusiastic,” I said. “Lately, though, he seemed a little down, like something was troubling him. Did you—”
She dropped a handful of plastic daggers into the Julius Caesar envelope without looking up. “You mean Marie’s doubts about Nina’s suicide? He mentioned those to you? Yeah, they were on his mind. I don’t think that belongs in the newspaper, though. Now, I know I spotted the Much Ado box. Where did it run off to?”
I remember how that moment felt, how everything seemed to freeze, how I got a sharp sense that we’d turned a corner. I hadn’t been expecting Ms. Nguyen to say anything about Nina’s suicide, but as soon as she did, it felt right. It felt inevitable, like something I’d almost-thought since the day of the tournament but never faced before.
And obviously, Ms. Nguyen had misunderstood me and thought Coach told me something he hadn’t, and the honest, straightforward thing to do would be to clear the confusion up right away. But then she probably wouldn’t tell us anything more. I glanced at Graciana, and she nodded sharply.
So much for being honest and straightforward. “It’s not for the newspaper,” I said. “It’s just been bothering me. I’d hate to think Coach died with unfinished business on his mind.” I remembered the phrase Graciana used. “Anything you tell us would be off the record.”
Ms. Nguyen stopped going through boxes and turned to face us. “Strictly off the record, okay? Not one word goes into the newspaper. But I don’t want you feeling upset for no reason. Okay. First, Marie was reacting the way we’d all react if someone we loved committed suicide. We wouldn’t want to believe it was really suicide, because then we’d have to wonder if it was partly our fault. So when Marie came to Randy—I don’t think she had anyone else she felt she could turn to, poor thing—and told him her pathetic theories, he understood and said he’d look into them.”
I wanted to ask what those “pathetic theories” were, but that’d be a mistake—Ms. Nguyen probably assumed we already knew. “That sounds like Coach,” I said—feeble, but safe.
She nodded. “It sure does—anything to help a student. Anyway, I asked about it a few days later, and he said he’d learned some things but shouldn’t talk about them yet. Then—then the damn tournament happened.” She shook her head. “The damn, damn tournament. But you shouldn’t worry that he died with some big unfinished business on his mind, Matt, or that he’d found real evidence of bullying, much less of anything worse. If he had, he’d have reported it to Dr. Lombardo or the police. I think he looked into Nina’s death simply so he could help Marie find closure. And maybe he wanted to understand suicide in general more fully, so he could spot warning signs in the future. He asked me some questions about The Bell Jar.”
I hadn’t thought about that title in days. Hearing it gave me a jolt. “The Sylvia Plath novel?”
“Right. You keep surprising me, Matt. I wouldn’t have thought that book would interest you.”
“I haven’t read it,” I admitted. “But Coach’s landlady said he’d asked her to check a copy out of the library for him.”
She smiled a tight, sad smile. “That’s Randy for you. So diligent. He must not have been satisfied with what I could tell him. No wonder—it’s been ages since I read that book, and it was never a favorite of mine. I don’t enjoy novels about suicide.”
Later, as Graciana drove me home, I gave her an accusing look. “You didn’t tell me that book’s about suicide.”
“That’s not the way I see it,” she said. “Some people do, but that’s too narrow. Yes, the protagonist attempts suicide—so do some other characters—and yes, Plath herself committed suicide not long after the book was published. But it seems reductive to—”
“Sounds like a book about suicide to me.”
She rolled her eyes. “Whatever. Anyhow, it’s interesting it was on Coach Colson’s mind. It shows he took Marie’s concerns seriously.”
“I guess.” I really, really didn’t want to go down this road, but I knew we had to. “Don’t string things out for me, Graciana. Say what you think. You think this is a big break, don’t you? You think Coach got killed because he was trying to help Marie.”
She sort of dipped her head around—not quite denying it, not quite nodding. “It’s possible. Two violent, awful things have happened in our town in the last few weeks. It almost makes sense to wonder if they’re connected. And it could explain the way Marie’s been acting. Coming to the tournament, crying when Coach got killed, making a donation to the bake sale. If she asked him to help and thinks he got killed as a result, naturally she’d feel guilty and horrible.”
All that had occurred to me, too. “You might as well say the rest of it,” I said. “You think this ties in with what Paul Ericson said. You think he’s responsible for Nina’s death somehow. And when Coach figured that out, Paul had him murdered.”
Graciana grimaced, pulled to the side of the road, and turned to face me. “I don’t think that, Matt. Honestly, I’m miles and miles from thinking that.” She paused, avoiding my eyes, looking down at the upholstery. “But yesterday, when you said Coach Colson seemed to have something on his mind, Paul got upset, and he asked you if Coach had said anything about him. If Coach was looking into Nina’s death and spoke to Paul about it—well. There’s probably no connection. But I think we should ask Marie exactly what she said to Coach Colson and why.”
“You’re right.” None of it felt real—it was too new, too impossible. “Do you know where she lives?”
Graciana nodded. “There was a kind of wake there, after the funeral.”
I hated to think of what Marie might tell us, but anything would be better than all the ugly possibilities that kept rushing into my head. “Then let’s go,” I said.
Seventeen
Ridgecrest’s a nice place—nothing too fancy, but nothing too rough or run-down, either. One part of town’s pretty sad, though, down by the train station that closed long before I was born. It used to be the center of town, according to Dad, but those days ended when the trains stopped running and most businesses that’d depended on the trains dried up. A few businesses still hang on, though, including a red-brick diner that’s supposedly famous for its chili. If putting a fried egg on top of chili is a big deal, I guess it deserves to be famous. Marie Ramsey’s mother worked in that diner, and her family lived right next door, in a walk-up apartment above an out-of-business beauty parlor.
Graciana parked across the street. “Let’s hope Marie’s home,” she said, “and no one else is. She seems to trust me because I went to the funeral, so maybe I should go in alone first. I could explain things, ask if you can join us. If we both show up at the door, she might freak out.”
I looked doubtfully at the boarded-up wind
ows of the beauty parlor, at the peeling pink paint on the upper floors. “I don’t know. That place doesn’t look safe. I’d better go with you.”
Graciana raised both eyebrows. “It doesn’t look dangerous, Matt. Just inexpensive. Besides, I’m becoming a krav maga master. Any bad guys lurking in there better watch out. I’ll call as soon as I have something to tell you.”
That settled it—Graciana had made up her mind. I watched her hurry across the street and disappear into the building. I’d heard plenty of stories about the Ramsey family, none of them good, most of them about Nina.
I’d never spoken to Nina, but I’d known who she was. Of course I had. At a school like ours, someone who dresses and acts like she did stands out. She was striking in a hard, defiant way, with huge dark eyes, wavy red hair, and a body so incredible I’d heard guys compare her to Angelina Jolie. That didn’t seem far off. She’d never looked like she was impressed by anything, always seemed on the verge of smirking. She’d been sent home from school lots of times because her skirt was too short or her top too low cut, and she always wore tons of makeup. She’d caught me staring at her once, and she’d given me this mocking, smoky grin, like she’d known exactly what I was thinking and didn’t mind at all. It’d embarrassed me so much that I’d promised myself never to risk getting caught like that again. But it was hard not to look.
Everybody always said Nina was a hard-core drinker and drug addict; some people said she’d sold drugs, too. And everybody said she’d slept around a lot, sometimes for money. None of that had been hard to believe.
When she’d killed herself, there was more talk—of course there was. Some people said they’d seen her wandering around the halls at school that day, looking ready to cry; some said she’d been so high she was bumping into walls. I don’t think the coroner’s office ever said if it’d found evidence of drinking or drug use, but everyone assumed she’d jumped because she’d been stoned out of her mind. I’d felt bad about her death, the way you’d feel bad about anybody who died, but I’d never thought there was any question about what had happened or why.
I looked at my phone. Graciana had been in that building for almost twenty minutes. Damn—who knew what was going on in there? Five more minutes, I decided, and then I’m coming in after her.
My phone rang. “Marie says you can come up,” Graciana said, keeping her voice low. “Watch what you say, all right? She’s pretty raw.”
I sprinted across the street and started up the dark, narrow stairway. The higher I went, the more depressing it got—only a little light making its way through dirty windows, a dank, stale smell I didn’t even want to try to identify. On the second floor, Graciana stood waiting. She gestured me into an apartment, into a long, narrow room that seemed to be part kitchen, part living room—aging appliances and a row of white metal cupboards, a sagging lime-green couch, several mismatched chairs. Everything was jammed up against walls, making the place look more like an understocked used furniture store than a home. There was no clutter, and also no pictures, no books, no plants. Everything felt tired and old and bare.
Marie sat at a linoleum kitchen table at the far end of the room, hunched over her sketchbook, drawing. Her face was mostly hidden by her long black hair. Graciana took a seat at the table, too, and I followed her lead.
“Thank for talking to me, Marie,” I said.
A shrug happened somewhere beneath all that hair. “You can’t stay long. It’s not safe,” she said. The voice sounded hollow, almost like it came from underground.
I searched for something to say—something, anything that wouldn’t make her clam up. “I’m sorry about your sister. That must hurt like hell. It must hurt every minute.”
Her head moved slightly—a nod, probably. She didn’t stop drawing.
Graciana sat forward. “Marie and I have been talking about Mr. Colson. I told her we have doubts about whether his death was really an accident. Marie said she’s wondered about that, too. She’s also wondered about Nina’s death. She talked to Mr. Colson about it.”
Finally, Marie looked up—only part way, but enough to fix her eyes directly on mine. The intensity of it made my head jerk back. “They lied,” she said. “They made things up. They said she was depressed, but she wasn’t. She was happy. She couldn’t wait to graduate, and she had tons of plans—we had tons of plans. And why would she steal The Bell Jar?”
She kept looking directly at me, as if she expected me to give her the answer. Me, I was trying to get over the surprise of hearing that title again. “Who said she stole it?”
“The police,” she said. “They found a copy in Nina’s locker—it was from the school library, but it hadn’t been checked out. This police psychologist or whatever said the book proves Nina was thinking about suicide. But she had her own copy of The Bell Jar—I gave it to her, for her sixteenth birthday. Why would she take a library copy? Someone must’ve planted it there, to make it look like she killed herself.”
I felt awful for Marie, but I felt relieved, too. If she didn’t have more concrete reasons for thinking Nina hadn’t committed suicide, maybe I didn’t have to worry about hearing some horrible revelation. Maybe Marie simply couldn’t face the truth, like Ms. Nguyen had said. Don’t challenge her, I decided. There’s no point. “That seems strange, all right,” I said.
Her eyes grew harder, driving clear into me. “You don’t really think it’s strange. You think I’m being stupid. That’s what the police thought. When I told them she owned a copy of the book, and they said, okay, show it to us. But I couldn’t find it. So they said maybe she’d lost it, and that’s why she took the library copy. But she’d never lose that book. She loved it, because I gave it to her. Why would she lose it?”
God, I thought. She’s in rough shape, if she can’t think straighter than that. I nodded, not letting myself look skeptical.
Graciana took over. “How could someone plant something in her locker? Didn’t she keep it locked?”
“Yes, but I know her combination, and she knew mine. We’d leave each other notes and little gifts. She’d exchanged combinations with Angie, too. It was a sign of trust, like if Nina wanted to get close to someone, she might give him her combination.”
Him, I noticed. Marie thinks Nina gave her combination to a boy. “Do you have any ideas about where her copy of The Bell Jar might be?” I asked.
“Nina had a special place,” Marie said. “She went there when things got really bad at home, and she called it Sherwood Forest, like in Robin Hood. You know?”
Graciana nodded. “A sanctuary from oppressive authorities.”
“Right,” Marie said. “A hideout for outlaws—Nina liked that idea. Anyway, she kept some of her things there. I don’t know where it is—she offered to tell me, but I said no. I was afraid Dad would beat it out of me.”
I had a hard time even imagining how miserable Marie’s life must be. We shouldn’t make her keep torturing herself with this stuff, I thought. She doesn’t have anything real to tell us. She’s just ripped apart because the only person she could love is dead. “Thanks for talking to us,” I said. “We—”
“Will you tell us about the text messages now, Marie?” Graciana asked. “You said you showed them to Mr. Colson. Will you show us, too?”
Marie lifted her shoulders half an inch, then let them droop. “You won’t believe me. The police didn’t. Not even my mother did. Nobody does.”
“Maybe we’ll be the people who do,” Graciana said. “The police don’t believe us, either. Give us a chance.”
Marie’s hand kept moving over her sketchpad. I glanced at her drawing. It was a sneering portrait of Lieutenant Hill, and I was shocked at how good it was. Finally, she stopped drawing. She pulled her phone out of her pocket, found a message, and handed the phone to Graciana. “Here,” she said. “This is the first one. She sent it to me at 3:52 that afternoon.”
I looked o
ver Graciana’s shoulder to read the message: It’s official—tomorrow night, Little Becky deflowers Captain America in a doubly shady spot! Take that, Big Brother!
What had I expected? Of course it didn’t make sense. Everybody said Nina was stoned stupid that day. I looked away.
Graciana frowned at the message. “I don’t understand. These names—some kind of code?”
“Nicknames,” Marie said. Again, she’d started drawing. “Nina and I always used nicknames when we texted.”
That sounded like a convenient way of explaining away nonsense. Might as well humor her, I decided. “So who’s Captain America?”
Slowly, Marie looked up, locking her eyes on mine. “Paul Ericson. Mr. Clean-Cut Superhero. Nina couldn’t stand him.”
So now Paul’s name was out there. I’d half-expected that, but it hit me hard.
Graciana didn’t show a trace of surprise. “And Little Becky?”
“That was Nina’s nickname for herself,” Marie said, “ever since she read Vanity Fair last year. She loved that book.”
Graciana nodded. “Becky Sharp. I can see why Nina would identify with that character.”
Naturally she’d read Vanity Fair. I’d never heard of it, I had no idea who Becky Sharp was, and I was getting tired of listening to Graciana show off. We’ll, she wasn’t the only person who’d ever read a book.
“And Big Brother’s from Orwell’s 1984,” I said, nodding. “Nina’s obviously referring to the guy who’s always spying on everyone.”
Marie blushed. “Maybe. Or maybe she was referring to Ted. He’s our big brother. He’s from our dad’s first marriage, and he gave Nina a hard time about everything she did and everyone she saw.”