Burning September

by Melissa Simonson

  I’d never held a microphone in all my life. I never wanted to again.

  I cleared my throat. The noise ricocheted off the walls like there were three congested Kats onstage. “Thank you all for coming. This whole…” I sucked in my bottom lip and let it slide slowly from between my teeth. If Kyle hadn’t trained me not to glance at the floor by rapping on my knees with a ruler back in his office, I would have been watching the carpet instead of the reporters. Their hairdos weren’t as strange as Professor Lawlis had led me to believe, but one of them had hair like Caroline’s. I focused mainly on her. The familiarity was comforting, like Gemma’s touch.

  “This whole thing has been a nightmare. The police have turned Caroline into something she isn’t. My sister raised me. Our mother died when I was three, and my father was an alcoholic. He died seven years later, but it didn’t change my life much, since Caroline had always been the parent in our household. She’s always been responsible. She didn’t have any other choice, really. She’d grown up knowing I was her job, that raising me was her responsibility, and she was great at it. I know it’s kind of cliché to say your sister is your best friend, but she is my best friend, and always has been.”

  The Caroline-haired woman smiled softly, holding eye contact, but I broke the spell before it became conspicuous.

  “They’re saying she’s a monster, but a monster wouldn’t have given up her life to take care of a little girl who really wasn’t her problem. Especially not for someone like Brian Calvert. I know when somebody dies, they’re automatically turned into a saint, but he wasn’t.”

  A few eyebrows arched. I fought the urge to blow out an annoyed sigh—Kyle had threatened to spray me with Axe when I’d done it during our rehearsals, back in his office.

  “Not by a long shot. My sister turned him down the first hundred times he asked her out. He started stalking her. Showed up at her art galleries and our condo, something tons of people can attest to. Eventually she gave in, thought his persistence was kind of cute, even though he wasn’t her type. She didn’t realize until later that he sold drugs, that he wasn’t the kind of person she wanted to associate with. So she cut it off. She could…” I trailed off, staring into the blinding white abyss of camera lights and bright reporter teeth. “She could have had anyone she wanted. Literally anyone. She has everything going for her. For the police to assume she killed him, and for no reason, is ridiculous. Their relationship lasted three months, and it was never exclusive. Anyone could have done this, but the police didn’t look any further than Caroline. They didn’t care when I told them I knew for a fact she wasn’t guilty. They told me I was a liar. A sad little girl who clearly didn’t even know my own sister, like I was some naïve idiot with the IQ of a squirrel.” Kyle’s shoes crept into my peripherals. I hoped I wouldn’t get a talking-to for veering off-script. “They were nothing but dismissive when I gave them my statement. They know perfectly well their evidence doesn’t support Caroline’s guilt. She was just the easiest scapegoat. If it’s always the husband who kills the wife, I guess they think it’s always the ex-girlfriend who kills the drug-dealing ex-boyfriend. And I can’t do much to help her if they don’t listen, but I have to do something. I have to tell all of you the truth, because the police haven’t been interested. I can’t go to class every day, knowing my sister—my mother, really—is getting screwed because of sheer disinterest in anything resembling the truth.”

  Gemma rubbed her thumb against my knee. Up, down, then up again. It looked idle, something the casual watcher could mistake for a reassuring gesture, but what it really meant was wrap it up.

  “This guy sold drugs,” I said, picking up the pace. “But they never took the time to question clients and other dealers. He was seeing multiple women at the same time, but they did nothing but cursory interviews with those women. Caroline’s alibi is ironclad. And it doesn’t matter to the police, but…” I pressed my eyes shut for a few beats. “I hope it’ll matter to you. This could happen to anyone. Everyone always says I thought it couldn’t happen to me, but it can. It can happen to you, because it happened to me, and to my sister.” I let that hang in the air with the sister, sister, sister reverberating around the room and tacked on a stupid sounding, “Thank you.”

  I felt Kyle’s presence behind me, but didn’t bother looking up at him as he pulled the microphone from my grip.

  “We’ll take a few questions.” He handed the microphone back and locked eyes with someone in the front row. “Go ahead.”

  “What is this “ironclad alibi” she has?” The woman said, elbowing her cameraman.

  “She was with me the entire day, at our condo. Her phone records support that too, even if the police were to think I was lying to cover for her. Her cell never pinged off any other tower than the one mine did, the one closest to our place.”

  “She could have left her cell phone behind,” she countered, to more than a few nods from the audience.

  “She could have, but she didn’t. She had it on her all the time, in case I needed to get a hold of her. Nobody goes anywhere without their phones anymore.”

  “Next question.” Kyle snapped an annoyed finger. “You’re up.”

  “Your contention is he sold drugs—do you have any proof?” The woman thrust her ABC News microphone toward the stage.

  “My own eyes. I’m sure if the police bothered dissecting his texts, they’d realize it, too. He was a well-known dealer and had a few arrests for possession, if not intent to sell. Anyone can look that up online.”

  Kyle cut across the reporter’s reply, pointing at another one. “Yes?”

  I couldn’t pick out which reporter the voice belonged to in the sea of clashing colors. “What do you say about the witness testimony that someone matching Caroline’s description was seen near Mr. Calvert’s house that afternoon?”

  “I’d say witness testimony is the least accurate evidence of all, and that Brian had a type. Blonde. Someone matching her description isn’t evidence. This witness couldn’t give an accurate timeframe of when he saw the person, or even a vehicle description.”

  Kyle snagged the microphone again, half-hunched over my chair, so close I smelled the Gain detergent on his charcoal dress shirt and could count every one of his eyelashes. He caught Gemma’s bespectacled gaze and nodded. Into the microphone he said, “We’re done here. Thank you all for coming. Again, direct any further inquiries or interview requests to Kyle Cavanaugh at Singer & Harrison.”

  “You did wonderful, sweetheart,” Gemma whispered in my ear, picking a loose thread off my cardigan as she pulled me to my feet. My grandparents had died before I had a chance to know them, so I had no bar with which to measure, but I was certain she was strong for a woman her age. “Just perfect. I’ll let someone at Breakthrough know we’re finished so your sister can try to catch it on TV. I can tell he’s proud of you, so you should be proud of you.”

  I couldn’t tell if he was proud or otherwise. He still wore his Serious Lawyer expression as he wedged the microphone back into its stand on the podium, packed his briefcase, and crooked a finger our way. Gemma slipped an arm around my shoulders, steering me down the flight of steps where Kyle waited. I fell in line between them and followed him out the conference room doors, through the hotel lobby, and into a free elevator one of Kyle’s flunkies had snagged and kept clear for us.

  Kyle stabbed the garage floor button and waited for the silver doors to inch toward each other. Once they’d firmly shut, he shook his head at our hazy reflections swimming across the steel.

  “Did you really have to throw in the squirrel bit?”

  “Let her be,” Gemma chided before I could respond. “She did great. At least that shows she’s got some personality.”

  “Who’s in charge here?” he asked, but his face wasn’t all cold lines and stoicism any longer.

  She harrumphed behind him. “He’s just sore I left the scones I baked him in the office this morning.”

  ***

  I felt the
aftershock of the press conference not long after it had concluded, browsing news websites and cringing at the still frame images of me clutching that microphone as though it were a life raft. I looked pale and clammy, barely there, white knuckles and hard cheekbones bursting through thinning skin, and the images were plastered all over TMZ, Yahoo! News, the LA Times.

  The comments sections had exploded. I didn’t know if I should read them; weren’t authors always saying they never read their reviews? Though I’d always had a hard time buying that line. How could they resist?

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  142 comments (show all comments)

  Sounds like another job well done for the police department, do they even both investigating? Seems like they’ll give anyone a badge and a gun these days

  (21 people like this)

  She’s hot

  (4 replies)

  Poor things, that family history is awful, it seems like they never even had a chance.

  How could the cops completely disregard the drug angle?!!!!11!

  Mr. Calvert sounds like a real piece of shit, looks like the fire was a public service murder

  (49 replies)

  Nice going, victim-blamers, maybe he wasn’t a great guy but he didn’t deserve to burn to death. Shame on all of you.

  I sat back in Caroline’s desk chair, rubbing my temples, an odd concoction of apprehension and satisfaction pumping through my veins, with the feeling that this story was finally going somewhere budding in a dark corner of my mind.

  ***

  “Can I have your autograph?”

  I ignored Caroline, signing my name on the visitor’s log, but I saw her funnel her hands around her mouth like a megaphone from my peripherals.

  “Kat, how do you manage to look so chic at a loony bin?”

  I pushed the log back to the receptionist, mouthing I’m sorry before turning to my sister. “Shut up. These are your clothes.”

  “Guess that answers that question.” She tossed aside the sign she’d propped against her chest. They must have given her markers or something; she’d scrawled a neon pink KATYA in lettering as jagged as a heartbeat monitor. “I still feel like I should curtsy, or something.”

  “If you curtsy, I’m going home.”

  She did anyway, pulling out nonexistent skirts, dipping her head ludicrously low. “Wow, showbiz has really gone to your head.” She raked a hand through waves of her hair, dropping onto the sofa.

  I sank beside her, crossing one leg over the other, tilting my head against the cushion. “Go ahead.” I pressed my eyes shut. “Get it all out of your system.”

  “Okay, I’m done. How nervous were you, up there? It didn’t show.”

  “More nervous than I’ve been in my life. Way worse than any high school oral presentation. I’m surprised I didn’t stutter.”

  “Well, all that practicing did you some good, then. Has anyone from the media reached out to you yet?”

  “Even if they wanted to, they wouldn’t. Kyle made sure all questions and interview requests are directed to him.”

  She waved a hand, rolling her eyes. “Since when do people always follow directions? They’re going to be contacting you personally.”

  “They have no way of doing so. It’s not like I shouted out my phone number, gave anybody directions to the condo.”

  She arched a brow. “What the hell do you think Google’s for? I wanted to make sure you’re on your guard. Stuff like this tends to drag people out of the woodwork. You know they’re going to be airing this press conference morning, noon, and night for the next few days. Your name hasn’t been attached to this mess until now, and I don’t know what’ll happen because of it. If Brian’s family will get involved, if some freak who saw you on TV thinks you’re his soulmate and starts hounding you at home, if someone decides to throw a rotten tomato at you when you’re walking down the street. Anything’s possible. I just want—need—you to be careful. I don’t want a media shitstorm sweeping you away. Kyle might be a decent attorney, but he’s not a bodyguard. He can’t be there to weather everything, he can’t move in with you and be your security blanket.” Her eyebrow arched even more severely. “Or maybe he can. Maybe that’s what he wants,” she said, the beginnings of her slyest smile playing at the corners of her lips.

  I shoved her shoulder. She didn’t even flinch.

  “I thought Brian wasn’t close to his family.” Nobody mourned him, not really. No parents had given tearful speeches or Nancy Grace interviews; no ex-girlfriends had attempted to vilify Caroline in the press, there had been no sound bites from old boyfriends of Caroline, claiming she was a she-devil in pretty packaging. The only people who seemed to care were detectives and district attorneys. Maybe Brian’s drug clients and a few hookers.

  She shrugged her hair back, eyes stern with caution, looking more like a nurse in those scrubs rather than a patient. “He wasn’t, but when a family member turns up horrifically dead, they tend to start caring, especially after hearing a bunch of not-so-nice things being said about him in a press conference they weren’t invited to. I’m not saying it’s for certain. I’m just giving you a heads-up. Lock the doors, mind your own business when you’re out. Be careful who you talk to, and what you say. You never know who’s gonna give an interview to US Weekly on our tragic life stories with a few inventive twists and lies.”

  It would make for one hell of a boring article. We didn’t have skeletons or even a family history. We’d been born to no one, or nobody worth a mention, and anyway, I’d been convinced Caroline had sprung from the womb fully grown, shouting those colorful obscenities and yapping about Kandinksky. Any distant family of ours lived a continent away, oblivious to our existence. There was nothing lurking out there in dark waters, waiting to capsize the ship. Our heritage was hazy, a colorless fog, a few tales Caroline once spun me and promptly recanted.

  FEBRUARY

  Why hadn’t I learned to follow Caroline’s gut? Mine had rarely been right, but hers was always dead on the mark. After eighteen years, you would think I’d have learned to give her proper credit. Her busy, bustling brain constantly leapt from point A to point X while mine was barely slogging through its first cup of coffee. She always woke instantly alert, slapping her alarm clock a millisecond after it chimed. At seven-thirty a.m. she’d gotten more work done than I could accomplish all day. She knew people, could read their motives instinctively like braille, would figure out their next moves in the time it took to blink.

  Maybe that was why she stopped reading tarot cards in the end. She already knew the future, couldn’t be bothered with going through the motions any longer.

  I’d brought the deck with me last time I visited. You haven’t done a spread in a while; thought you might be interested, I’d told her. She’d handed the cards back firmly and said If you want to entertain me, I’d prefer a Highlights activity book.

  So we wound up playing twenty questions instead. She got every guess right within five questions. In contrast, I casted about my mind for guesses that were always wrong, and watched her hopeful expression sag further with each incorrect attempt. I’d figured out each object in the end, but I didn’t know whether I was up to the task of solving anything, let alone Caroline.

  It didn’t take long for the slew of phone calls Caroline had predicted to stream through, despite Kyle’s request that reporters contact him first. He rolled his eyes and sighed when I told him the news, asked me to keep him appraised, and said if lawyers are vampires, reporters are surely vultures.

  I hadn’t expected him to react the way he did when I informed him Karen Stone’s people had called. Every other journalist’s name had been met with a sharp “pass,” but upon hearing that one, he fell silent for a few beats, but I heard the rustling of paper in the background from his end of the line.

  “Give me her contact information,” he finally said. “Karen Stone’s nobody to shrug off.”

  Her name didn’t ring even the faintest of
bells, but when I googled her right then, I knew immediately who she was. The woman I’d seen at the press conference, the one with Caroline’s heavy, honeyed hair. Her demeanor had confused me. While every other reporter seemed hungry, bloodthirsty, salivating for that one soundbite that might break the story wide open, she’d just stood there and listened, still as a statue but for blinks and the time she’d smiled at me. She hadn’t even asked a question, attempted to elbow her way to the front of the throng.

  “She’s pretty,” I said stupidly, clicking through images. Prettier than she’d looked at the press conference, but I’m sure she had makeup artists of the most dazzling caliber to buff her cheekbones to perfection while she was onscreen. She looked sharp as the blade of a knife until she smiled, her face softening at the edges as she shed her stainless steel exterior. She reminded me of Renoir, the paintings he created after visiting Italy. Both sharp and soft, blending impressionism with realism.

  Caroline didn’t like Renoir. She preferred her art like she preferred her coffee: dark, no sweetener, not even of the artificial variety.

  There Karen Stone was with Obama, not an ounce of nerves on her smooth face, just an expression of skepticism tinged with mild amusement. Another image of her, a split-screen with some CNN correspondent, she had a finger to her temple and a backdrop of the Los Angeles skyline behind her. A gif of her sucking in her bottom lip, one eyebrow lifting, shooting a sideways glance to someone off camera. KAREN STONE IS UNAMUSED, it had been titled. Another gif, nude lips over-enunciating the words you forgot to report her missing? A ribbon emblazoned with the same words stretched below her face, which had turned into a tight mask of disdain as she looked upon her squirming interviewee. #ShitJustGotReal, some imaginative soul had captioned it. If her face had launched a thousand gifs, she must have been fairly important. Maybe I should watch less Dr. Phil, tune into the news now and then, especially if I’d be appearing on it frequently.