by B K Stevens
So much for showing off my knowledge of literature. From now on, Foley, I thought, keep your stupid mouth shut.
Graciana was still frowning at the message. “So when she talks about deflowering Captain America, what does that mean?”
“She wanted to seduce Paul Ericson,” Marie said. “She’d been working on it for weeks. She thought it’d be funny. Like I said, she couldn’t stand him, and she especially couldn’t stand his girlfriend, that horrible Carolyn person. She talked about getting him in bed and filming it on her cell phone and posting it on the Internet. She wanted to prove what a hypocrite he is—him and Carolyn both, with all that no-kiss-until-the-altar garbage. The message proves she got together with him that afternoon and set things up for Friday night.”
No, it didn’t. It proved Nina had been fantasizing about it, maybe, but it didn’t prove anything had actually happened. If she’d been high enough, she might’ve imagined the whole thing. Or maybe Marie was imagining things. How could we know “Captain America” really meant Paul, and “Little Becky” really meant Nina?
“You mentioned a second text message,” Graciana said. “May we see?”
“I got it at 4:43,” she said, and found the second message and handed her phone to Graciana. Marie—I’m sorry. I can’t take any more. It’s too hard. I’m too miserable. I need rest—I need peace. Never blame yourself. You did everything you could, but I’m not strong enough. Love, Nina
No wonder Marie had come running to the auditorium that afternoon. I couldn’t imagine anything that would sound more like a suicide note. “I’m sorry, Marie,” I said.
She grabbed a pencil and started drawing again—hard, quick strokes. “Why are you sorry? Nina didn’t write that. It doesn’t sound anything like her. Look at it! It starts with my name and ends with ‘Love, Nina.’ Nina never did that in a text message! And all this melodrama and self-pity—‘it’s too hard,’ ‘I’m not strong enough.’ No way would Nina write that kind of poor-little-me crap!”
“So you think someone else wrote it?” Graciana said. “You think someone took Nina’s phone and—”
“Of course someone took her phone!” Marie was raging now—she hardly seemed like the same girl she’d been when we came in. “They never found it, did they? So what happened to it? And the blouse she was wearing wasn’t the one she’d worn to school that day—it was one I’d never seen before. Where did it come from? And here—here!”
She seized the phone again, punched buttons, and shoved the phone at Graciana, who looked at it and then handed it to me.
Paul Ericson, kneeling, holding a pink rose, his head bowed. It took me a second to figure out where he was—a long rectangle of dirt surrounded by grass, two containers of flowers set out on the ground. Then I saw a tombstone off to his right.
I handed the phone back to Marie. “Nina’s grave?”
She nodded. “I went back the day after the funeral. It was almost closing time—there didn’t seem to be anyone else around. Then I saw him, and I took the picture and stood behind a tree and watched. After a few minutes, he walked away. See? He left the rose for her.”
“Did you show this picture to the police?” Graciana asked.
“I showed them everything,” Marie said. “I told them everything. And Hill said he’d look into it and get back to me, but he didn’t, and finally I called him. And he said the investigation was closed and there were no unresolved issues and I had his sincere condolences. Then he hung up on me. I tried to—”
The door to the apartment opened, and a man walked inside. I recognized him as the one we’d seen in the parking lot with Marie—twenty-five or so, just over six feet, with broad shoulders, close-cut dark brown hair, and a bushy mustache. It had to be the older brother, Ted.
He did a double-take when he saw Graciana and me. “What’s going on, Marie?” he said. “Who the hell are they?”
Marie stuck her phone in her pocket and went back to drawing, faster than ever. “Nothing’s going on. They’re friends.”
“Don’t give me that. You don’t have friends.” He walked toward us, his eyes fixing on me. “You selling something?”
I stood up. If we had to defend ourselves, I didn’t want to start from a sitting position. “We’re talking to Marie. I’m Matt Foley, and this is Graciana—”
“Never mind. I’m not interested in your names, just in how fast you can leave.”
He came closer, crossed his arms against his chest, and stood staring at me. I don’t know if I actually smelled liquor on his breath, but it sure felt like I did.
“Marie’s not allowed to have people up here,” he said. “I don’t want people messing with my stuff. And don’t get any ideas about messing with her. She’s feeble-minded. It wouldn’t be right. Go on, now. Get out.”
I hated letting this guy push me around, hated letting him talk about Marie like that. But I didn’t want to make things worse for her. I glanced at her to see if she was going to stand up to him, if she might want our support. No. If anything, she was more hunched over than before, her shoulders drawn in close, her eyes focused on her sketchpad. Probably, the best thing we could do for her was to leave.
“Nice talking to you, Marie,” I said, not taking my eyes off him. “We’ll see you in school tomorrow.”
Graciana rested her hand on Marie’s shoulder. “That’s right. We’ll see you tomorrow. Take care of yourself.”
As we started toward the door, Ted stepped into Graciana’s path. “Maybe you could come back some time,” he said, grinning, looking her up and down. “But not with him, and only when I’m here. You’re sure a pretty one.”
If there were a market for pure hatred, I thought, I’d find a way to bottle the look Graciana was giving him. “Thank you,” she said, but it wouldn’t take a genius to translate that to what she was really thinking. She stepped around him, and we left.
Before we were halfway down the stairs, Graciana exploded. “God! I hated leaving her with him! He could be hitting her, Matt. He could be hitting her right now!”
“I hate it, too,” I said. “But if we’d tried to stay, we probably would’ve made things worse for her. We should see if there’s a way of giving her real help, long term. Maybe there’s some agency we could go to. Maybe Mr. Quinn would have some ideas.”
“That idiot! When has he ever had a good idea about anything?” She yanked her car door open, then stopped and caught her breath. “No. Sorry. That’s a sensible suggestion. He’s a natural person to consult. We’ll think about it.”
We got into the car, and she pulled onto the road. I sat there numbly as streets got cleaner and buildings got newer, trying to sort out things we’d heard. “So,” I said. “What do you think?”
She sighed. “Nothing’s conclusive. But that picture of Paul Ericson—something must’ve been going on. Coach Colson took it seriously, even the part about The Bell Jar. We can’t simply dismiss it.”
“Probably not,” I said, hating it.
“And we’re getting together with Berk and Joseph after krav tonight. We should probably tell them everything we’ve learned and see what they think.”
“I can tell you right now what Berk’s going to think. We’ll be lucky if he’s still speaking to us tomorrow.”
She grimaced. “I’m sorry. I know you worked hard to make things all right with him again. But we agreed we’d all work on this together. I don’t see any way to avoid telling them. Do you?”
“No,” I said, and settled back in my seat to stare blankly at the road. This was going to be one long, awful night.
Eighteen
When Graciana dropped me off at home, Mom was standing at the stove, frying chicken and making mashed potatoes. That was a shock. Mom and Dad aren’t vegetarians, not quite, but we don’t see much meat at our house. We don’t see many potatoes, either. Why eat potatoes when you can eat polenta or pureed r
utabaga or some other weird starch? Then I saw the chocolate cake on the counter. Too much comfort food, I thought. Something bad must be happening.
I was working on my first drumstick when Dad cleared his throat. “There’s something you kids ought to know. This morning, I handed in my resignation at Edson Construction. I’ve enjoyed working there these last twenty-two years, but I can’t support some company policies. I’m going into business for myself, as a contractor and handyman. The transition may be challenging, but I’m confident I’ll make things work. I think this will be an exciting new phase for our family.”
The chicken turned to cardboard in my mouth. Handyman, I thought. He’s fifty-three, fifty-four, and he’s giving up a good job to be a handyman. What about college?
“Dad and I talked about this for a long time,” Mom said. “We’re sure it’s the right decision. It may take a little while to build the business, but in the meantime we’ll have my job, church choir, piano lessons—I’ll take on more students. You two don’t have anything to worry about.”
I made myself swallow the chicken and look at Dad. “What were the policies you couldn’t support?”
“I won’t bore you with details. When Frank Edson retired and his son Neil took over, things changed. I’ve gone along with Neil as much as I can, but I can’t go any further.”
“So he fired you?” Cassie asked.
“No, he wanted me to stay, but only if I’d do things his way. It was my decision to leave. I won’t mislead you about that.”
“I think it’s great,” Cassie said, excitement building in her voice. “We should move to a bigger city, so you can get more customers. We should move right away, this week. We can rent the house and move to Richmond, or—”
“Hold on,” Dad said, smiling. “I love your enthusiasm, but we wouldn’t take you and Matt away from your schools and your friends. I can make a good living for us right here. Matt? What do you think?”
“Fine.” I put down my fork. The mashed potatoes looked like goo now. The thought of putting that slop in my mouth made my stomach turn. “It’s your decision, so fine. I’ve gotta get ready for krav. Joseph’s mom is picking me up in a few minutes.”
She was picking me up in half an hour, but I couldn’t stay at the table. I sat on my bed. A handyman. Fifty-three, fifty-four, and he’ll be sanding doors that don’t close right, prying old toilet seats off rusty hinges. I’d always been proud to say my father was a general contractor for Edson Construction, and now I’d have to say he was a handyman. And how could he fix enough toilet seats to pay for college?
Mom tapped on my door. “Matt? I’m putting some cake and milk on the hallway table. If you don’t want them, I’ll get them later.”
I didn’t want them. After twenty minutes, I left the house without speaking to anyone and waited on the porch until Joseph’s mom arrived.
For the first time, I felt sorry when physical conditioning ended. It felt good to run and do push-ups, to move and sweat and not think. The best part was when we took out punching bags and paired up, one person punching while the other held the bag. Derrick was my partner for that, and I punched so hard I knocked him down, twice.
It was hard to stop punching and sit on the floor for instruction. “Let’s try a defense against what’s called the tough-guy grab,” Aaron said. “I’ll need help. Suzette?”
She sat folded up, hugging her knees, staring at the floor. “No thanks.”
“Are you sure? It’s not rough, and everyone takes a turn sooner or later.”
She still didn’t look up. “Not tonight.”
“All right.” He glanced around. “Graciana?”
She joined him up front. “Let’s say we’re in a diner,” he said. “I’m minding my own business, but you’re in the mood for a fight. You grab the front of my shirt with your right hand—like this—and say something aggressive. Got it?”
Graciana nodded. She twisted her face into a sneer, lowered her voice, and grabbed his shirt, scrunching it in her fist. “Your momma,” she said.
We all cracked up, including Aaron. “Very intimidating. So I take my right hand, reach over the top, and grab your hand, pushing down with my thumb. Then I twist my body and push your elbow down with my left hand—see? That’s called an arm lock. Now I’ve got you bent over. If I want, I can get you in the face with some knee strikes. But you don’t look dangerous, so I’ll simply force you to the floor on your knees—like this. Great. Let’s go through that again.”
When we paired up, Suzette walked over and raised an eyebrow. “Hey, tough guy. Wanna grab my shirt?”
That embarrassed me, but I said okay. I made damn sure I never grabbed anything but her shirt. When she was the tough guy, she told me not to force her to the floor, to just fake knee strikes. Too bad—I’d wanted to try it both ways. She doesn’t really like krav, I thought. Fine. Not everybody has to. But I didn’t want to think she was taking krav just to be around me. Had she joined the martial arts club at school to be around me, too? In a way, that’d be flattering. But I didn’t like thinking she’d planned everything out months in advance, and I’d fallen in with it.
Another instructor took over when we circled up to practice disarming techniques, so I asked Aaron if we could talk. We stood off to the side, and I lowered my voice.
“It’s about the tournament,” I said. “What you told that uniformed cop, about Bobby Davis deliberately kicking Coach Colson in the armpit and the throat—did you tell Lieutenant Hill that, too?”
Aaron sighed. “I told him. I don’t know if he listened. As soon as I started talking, he stopped taking notes. I guess that’s natural. All the other judges said I was wrong, and most were closer than I was. I probably was wrong.”
“I don’t think so. Some of us have been looking into it. It sounds crazy, but we think someone hired Davis to kill Coach. Berk and I went to Richmond and followed Davis to a fight club. Do you know about fight clubs?”
Aaron started to look concerned. “I saw the movie. I don’t know if there are any real fight clubs. I’d be surprised if there’s one in Richmond.”
“Trust me, there is. We saw it. Davis is at the center. Two men fight, he fights the winner, and people make bets. The point is, he’s really good. We’ve done other investigating, too. We’re trying to figure out who hired him, and—”
“Hold on, Matt. I can see how much you and your friends care about Coach Colson, and that touches me. It really does. But why would someone hire Davis to commit murder in front of hundreds of witnesses?”
“We think we can explain that. We’re gathering evidence to take to the police. I want to make sure if they question you again, you’ll say the same thing.”
“There’s nothing else I can say. I’ll describe what I saw, and I’ll say, to me, it looked deliberate. I can’t say I’m positive, because I’m not.”
“Good enough. Thanks, Aaron.”
“Wait a minute. Frankly, this sounds farfetched to me. But if you’re right, if Davis committed murder, if someone hired him to commit murder, these are dangerous people. Who knows how they’d strike back at someone who tries to expose them? Whatever investigating you’ve done, I hope you don’t do any more. Give any evidence you’ve got to the police and let them handle it.”
“We’ll do that soon. Thanks again.” I started to walk away but turned back. “I know you can’t be positive, but you think it was deliberate, don’t you? You don’t really think you were probably wrong about what you saw.”
Slowly, he shook his head. “No. I don’t think I was wrong.”
Nineteen
After class, when the four of us got together in Joseph’s family room, Berk was already in a bad mood. He and Joseph had finished their interviews. Graciana must’ve done a good job of assigning them the least promising people, because they’d learned exactly nothing.
“Hours of interviews,”
Berk said. “And not one scrap of information that brings us an inch closer to understanding what happened. I told you this would be a huge waste of time.”
Graciana pressed her lips together. “I’m sorry it’s been so frustrating. At least we’ve got plenty of information for the memorial issue. That’ll be a nice tribute to Coach, and I hope it’ll comfort his parents.”
Berk blushed, mumbling about how of course that was the most important thing. I felt sorry for him. He’d let frustration push him into making it sound like he didn’t care about Coach, when of course he did, and now Graciana had him on the defensive.
She reached for a yellow pad. “Matt and I did pick up some information that could prove useful—nothing conclusive, but we should investigate it further. I’ll explain.”
“No, let me,” I said. They wouldn’t like the things we had to say—Berk, especially, would hate them. If somebody exploded, I didn’t want Graciana to take all the heat.
I started with the way Paul responded to our questions on Sunday. Joseph looked intrigued; Berk looked confused. When I described what Ms. Nguyen said about Marie, both of them looked interested. Then I started talking about our conversation with Marie. Out of the corner of my eye, I watched Berk’s face shift from skepticism to anger, getting so hot and red it looked ready to melt.
“Stop,” he cut in. “What the hell, Matt? You’re swallowing this garbage? You think Paul was messed up with Nina Ramsey? Why would he have anything to do with her?”
“I don’t know why,” I said, “but it’s beginning to look like he was—well, involved with her somehow, yeah. I don’t know how much, but that picture of him at her grave—”
“That’s nothing. He heard she’d killed herself, he felt sorry for her, so left her a flower. That proves he was a nice guy. It doesn’t prove he was involved with her.”
“You may underestimate,” Joseph said. “It is foolish to assume too much, but assuming too little is also unwise. When I heard of Nina’s death, I too felt sorry, but I never thought to leave a flower. It is a thing few people would do, unless there is some special connection.”