Truly Devious

by Maureen Johnson

  “What happened to Hayes?” Stevie asked.

  The detective looked up at her.

  “We have to wait for the coroner’s report,” she replied.

  “No,” Stevie said, her face flushing. “Sure. Sorry.”

  She made her way to the door and had just put her hand on the sharply edged crystal knob when she had a thought.

  “There was one thing,” she said. “Janelle’s ID.”

  Detective Agiter looked up from her notebook.

  “What’s that?”

  “My friend Janelle,” Stevie said. “Someone took her ID to Minerva. When we went to yoga class on Thursday, she had it. But when she went to leave, it wasn’t in her bag. Then the next day, it was on the path in front of our building.”

  “Why do you say someone took it? Couldn’t she have lost it?”

  “It was clipped into the front pocket of her bag,” Stevie said. “I saw it myself. She tapped us into yoga and put it back in the front pocket. When we left class, it was gone. And then it just showed up Friday morning outside.”

  “What’s Janelle’s last name?”

  “Franklin,” Stevie said.

  The detective wrote this in her notebook.

  “Thanks, Stevie,” she said, dismissing her. “Why don’t you head back to your house?”

  There were two people from security in the main hall talking to police. Neither seemed to pay any attention to Stevie when she came out of the Ellingham office. Up on the landing, she saw Charles deep in conversation with Dr. Quinn and a few other faculty members. Stevie walked outside unaccompanied.

  Outside, a cloud cover had come by fast. The campus was disturbingly quiet, as everyone was largely in their houses. There were many things to worry about at the moment, many things to feel and fear. But the thing that was currently at the forefront of Stevie’s mind was fog. Why ask about the fog, of all things? Who the hell cared about the fog? There had to be a reason. She asked twice.

  Stevie combed through anything she knew about the fog machines. They were rentals. They spat out fake fog. They stank, kind of.

  There was a little echo in the back of her mind. Fog. It had come up in another context. Fog . . .

  Dry ice. She had just been around dry ice. It was in the workshop, when Janelle and Dash got into it about the poles, and Dash looked into the container with the dry ice and said that the fog machines were easier to work with.

  Stevie stopped halfway back to Minerva and pulled out her phone and Googled dry ice, paging through the various search results until she landed on one that also contained the words safety hazard.

  Dry ice is solidified carbon dioxide . . . not normally dangerous but caution should be used in handling . . . sublimates into carbon dioxide . . . must be used in ventilated spaces or else there is danger of hypercapnia, as carbon dioxide displaces oxygen, especially in low-lying structures such as basements, due to its weight. This can lead to unconsciousness and death, which can be rapid. . . .

  Stevie swallowed hard.

  The dry ice was in the workshop. Janelle’s pass was taken. Janelle’s pass opened the workshop.

  She was supposed to go home. She’d already broken enough rules.

  She should go back to Minerva.

  So why was she turning away from Minerva and heading back toward the workshop area? Her pass wouldn’t let her in. What did she even think she would find? Her every instinct pressed her on, though.

  “I’ll check the records,” she heard Larry say.

  He and Detective Agiter were coming up behind her. Stevie had just enough time to duck behind a golf cart.

  “You have times in and out?” the detective asked.

  “Yeah, the system records both. Hang on.” Larry put his phone to his ear. “Jerry? I need you to pull up a record for me. The name is Janelle Franklin. I need to know the tags on her pass on Thursday evening.”

  Stevie trailed behind them at a distance as they walked to the workshop. There was a pause as Larry got his own access card out and opened the door. Once they were inside, Stevie would lose track of this conversation, and losing track of this conversation seemed like a terrible idea.

  That dreamlike feeling took over her again, and she found herself creeping low toward the door, catching it before it closed. She held it open with her finger to give them a chance to move farther into the room. She pushed it open a bit more and found that they were already on the other side of the room, looking at the blue dry-ice bin.

  Was she doing this? She was doing this.

  She pushed the door open farther and crept inside, moving behind a standing rack of yard implements.

  “Jesus,” she heard Larry say, “this thing was full. How the hell . . . yeah, Jerry. Okay. Here we go. Into the art barn at sixteen fifty. Then nothing until one twelve the next morning. Taps in here to the workshop. Yeah.”

  He tucked the phone away.

  “So according to Stephanie Bell,” the detective said, “Janelle Franklin’s ID goes missing during a yoga class.”

  “I’ll check that against her schedule, but they have yoga classes in the art barn. That checks out to me. So someone takes the pass . . .”

  “And uses it to come in here at one in the morning. We’ll need to take it and print it. This adding up to you? He comes in here, takes . . .”

  This was when Stevie’s phone started ringing.

  Larry and the detective looked over at the same time.

  There was no point in trying to stay concealed. Stevie stood up.

  “Hey,” she said.

  She took a moment and glanced at the phone.

  The screen read: PARENTS.

  19

  IT WAS A SLIGHTLY LESS KINDLY LARRY WHO ESCORTED STEVIE AWAY from the workshop.

  “I know,” she said, “I’m . . .”

  “Listen, Stevie,” he said. “You’re a smart kid, and I like you. Let me just be clear. You need to do exactly what I say.”

  “I know. I just . . .”

  “No. You know. Say you know.”

  “I know,” Stevie said. “But Janelle . . .”

  “So now you’re going to stay here,” he said. “In the security office. And you’re not going to talk to anyone until I say so. Okay?”

  Her phone started ringing again.

  “Who is that?” he said.

  She held it up. Again, it said: PARENTS. He indicated that she should answer and stared at her as she did so.

  “Stevie!” Both her parents were on the line and it was impossible to tell who said her name first.

  “The school just called us,” her mom said. “We’re coming to get you.”

  Stevie dragged a hand over her face.

  “I’m fine,” Stevie said.

  “Stevie, someone died.”

  “Yeah, I know,” Stevie said.

  “So we’re coming up and you’re coming home,” her dad said.

  “Look,” Stevie said, staring at the ground in panic. “It’s horrible, but . . . it could have happened anywhere.”

  “No one died at your old school.”

  “That’s not true,” Stevie said. “There was a car accident in—”

  “Look,” her mom said. “Your dad and I are taking the day off and we’re coming to get you. It’s only been a few days. We can get you reregistered.”

  This shouldn’t have been the moment Stevie started crying. She didn’t want this to be the thing that did it. Hayes should have done it. But, as Larry explained earlier, things didn’t happen the way you wanted. She brushed a tear away with the back of her hand and tried to keep the tremble out of her voice.

  “Look,” she said, “it was . . . Can we just talk about it when you’re here?”

  There was a grudging agreement on this. Stevie managed to get off the phone. Larry’s expression had softened a bit from jagged rock to slightly less sharp and pointy rock.

  There was a noise overhead, like the noise from the night before. Larry and Stevie looked up at the same time and saw
a red and white helicopter.

  “Press,” he said. “It’s out. They’ll be at the gates.”

  He exhaled loudly and started walking fast.

  “Come on,” he said. “I’ve got to get you back to Minerva and then handle this.”

  “I lost my mind for a minute,” she said. “I was scared for Janelle. But I won’t. I promise I’ll go right back and I won’t stop on Go or collect two hundred dollars or anything. I’m sorry. You can do what you need to. You can trust me.”

  Larry regarded her for a moment.

  “All right,” he said. “But if I find out otherwise, you’re burnt with me. And I can check.”

  She turned to walk off, to prove her word, but Larry called her back.

  “Take care of yourself, Stevie,” he said. “Go be with your friends. Even if you didn’t like the guy, this is no time to be alone.”

  “Who said I didn’t like the guy?” Stevie asked.

  “Twenty years with the state police. I was a detective. You get a knack for these things.”

  “You were a detective?” Stevie said. “Seriously?”

  “Fifteen years on homicide.”

  “Why did you stop?” Stevie asked.

  “Because I opened too many doors and saw too many terrible things,” he said quietly. “And some of those things never leave you. Every police detective has something they carry with them, something they see when they’re trying to go to sleep at night. Twenty years is plenty. I know you are interested in being a detective, but don’t play at being one, do you understand? No sneaking around behind the police.”

  “I know,” she said.

  “We understand each other?”

  “Yeah,” Stevie said. “I think we do.”

  Stevie returned to Minerva feeling numb. Her parents would definitely be a problem, and going home was a real possibility, if Ellingham didn’t kick her out first. She looked at her building in a new light as she approached the big blue door. Maybe she was never meant to be here very long. Mistakes got made all the time. Fate had plans. . . .

  No.

  Stevie was not one of those people who thought fate decided for her. Fate was making choices. Fate was at least trying. The school hadn’t kicked her out yet, and her parents hadn’t taken her home yet. And something was going on. If Hayes had taken the pass, if Hayes had taken the dry ice . . . what the hell was he doing with it down in the tunnel?

  She entered the common room still thinking about this. No one seemed to have moved from where she’d left them. Someone had built a fire in the fireplace, so the room was hot. The fire gave it a completely new character—the woodiness, the intimacy of it. It sounded like glass as it crackled.

  “You okay?” Janelle asked. Nate turned as well.

  “Yeah,” Stevie said, pulling off her hoodie.

  She looked around for where to sit. Ellie and David were still on the sofa, but there was space between them now. Ellie had a black notebook in her lap and was drawing. David had his computer, but again, he looked right at her.

  Stevie caught his eye and looked away quickly. She sat at the table.

  “Did they tell you what happened?” Nate said.

  Stevie just shook her head.

  “So are we going to be allowed out?” Nate asked.

  “I guess so,” Stevie said. “Soon. My parents called me. I guess the school let them know? So your parents will know soon. Everyone is going to know.”

  “Yeah,” David said. His voice caused Stevie to start. She saw Janelle take this in, and look from Stevie to David curiously. “The word is out. So we’re going to be knee deep in counselors soon.”

  He would not stop looking at her. And not just looking. It was a penetrating, unwavering look.

  “I better call my parents first,” Janelle said, grabbing her phone. “Can we do that? Do you think we can?”

  Stevie shrugged.

  “I’ll wait,” Janelle said, setting her phone down. “I’ll ask Pix when she’s out of the shower.”

  “Après les déluge,” Ellie said, out of nowhere. “Les parents.”

  No one knew what to say to that.

  “So we wait,” Nate said.

  “We wait,” David said.

  Stevie became very conscious of where David was in the room. Yes, it was just kissing last night, but it was a lot of kissing. It was a lot of rolling. What did you say to someone you’d rolled all over?

  Ellie stood up suddenly and stomped off to her room. Then there were four, sitting in awkward silence until the knock at the door. It was Larry, with a uniformed officer.

  “Janelle,” Larry said. “Can you get your pass and come with us for a moment?”

  Janelle’s eyes went wide, but she got up instantly and went to her room for the pass, then stepped out the door.

  “Why do they want Janelle’s pass?” David asked Stevie.

  “Because someone took it on Thursday,” she said, watching the door.

  “So?”

  Stevie said no more. David got up and sat next to her at the table.

  “You have no idea?” he said.

  “I can’t say anything,” she replied.

  “So you have some idea.”

  Nate observed this silently. Pix came downstairs.

  “Was someone just at the door?” she asked.

  “The police just took Janelle and her pass outside,” David said. “For no reason Stevie can say.”

  “I’m not being a dick,” Stevie said. “I just can’t.”

  Pix hurried to the door and stepped outside.

  The atmosphere in the room continued to thicken. Stevie looked at David’s hand on the table. He had long fingers. Those fingers had run over her hair last night, and other places. His hands were strong, much stronger than they looked. She gave him a sideways glance. His eyebrows were thick and very expressive. They rose when he was playful, arched when he was being a jerk, and now were flat. He was watchful.

  She had a strange desire to sit in his lap. To pull his face closer to hers. To kiss him again, right here, by the fire and in front of Nate and the moose head.

  Where had that thought come from? It just shot through her brain like a rabbit across a road.

  David pushed his chair back and went down the hall to Ellie’s room, leaving Nate and Stevie.

  “So,” Nate said.

  “Yeah,” Stevie replied.

  “Are you really okay?”

  She nodded.

  “Because you seem freaked out. It’s okay to be freaked out. I was freaked out last night, and today I’m not as freaked out. So it’s your turn, if you want.”

  “I always wanted to be around for a death,” Stevie said. “You know I’m into this stuff. And now I am around death. I feel bad for saying I wanted that, but I’m . . .”

  She shook her head.

  “You’re interested,” he said. “I saw how you looked when Larry came and said the police wanted to talk to you.”

  “Is that bad?”

  “No,” he said. “This just happened. We were here when it happened.”

  He dug his nail into the grain of the wood.

  “Thanks,” she said.

  “For what?”

  “I just think you get me,” she said.

  “I do,” he said, shrugging. “We have a limited emotional vocabulary. We’re indoor kids.”

  The door opened again, and Janelle returned and sat next to Stevie, leaning her head into Stevie’s shoulder.

  “They’re taking my pass,” she said. “And they’re going to go up to Hayes’s room to look around. I don’t know why they want my pass. I didn’t do anything.”

  Stevie put her hand on her friend’s head. It was an unfamiliar feeling, this warm head on her shoulder. Janelle just trusting her and leaning on her. Nate reaching out.

  And David, the person she’d just been closest to, being meaningfully silent.

  20

  HOUSE ARREST ENDED AT THREE.

  It seemed only natural that th
e vigil would take place in the yurt. There was no announcement, nothing formal. People just started going, taking up positions on the dusty floor cushions and the busted old sofas and futons. The atmosphere was confused, with an electric quality—everyone was talking, but quietly, all at once, in a low, constant sound. People brought food. There were bags of chips and candy and all varieties of snack circling the room.

  Stevie walked over with Janelle and Nate. Vi was waiting for them to arrive by the door of the yurt, and threw her arms around Janelle’s neck. They looked like a couple.

  As soon as she walked in, Stevie realized she was the subject of a lot of attention. People turned to look at her in the way they looked at Hayes shortly before. People knew. She had been The One Who Was There.

  Maris and Dash held court in a special area off to the back, on the largest sofa, with a small group sitting on cushions in front of them. Maris was all in black—tights, a formfitting sweater with a gold belt. She looked like she was dressed as Catwoman. Dash was in his oversized shirt again and was huddled, his knees pulled up near his chest. Maris was crying a slow, steady dribble. As Stevie came in, she looked up and put up her arms.

  “Stevie!” she said. “Nate!”

  Stevie walked over to them. When she was near enough, Maris clasped her hand.

  Stevie looked at her captive hand. She couldn’t tell if this was a real gesture, or a dramatic one, or a real dramatic gesture. She felt very tired and very awake at the same time, and a strange guilt followed her like a smell.

  “Did you talk to the police again today?” Dash said. “We both did.”

  “Yeah,” Stevie said.

  “Did they tell you anything?”

  “They kept asking about the fog machines,” Stevie said.

  “Yeah,” Maris said. “Us too. And where we were. And what time we came home the night we were in the tunnel.”

  “What time did you leave him?” Stevie shrugged as if she asked out of an unspoken necessity. “I mean, he must have come home on time.”

  “Right before eleven,” Maris said. “He went home. I went home.”

  Dash seemed genuinely thunderstruck.

  “I’m sorry,” Stevie said. “Did you guys do stuff together last year? Did you work on The End of It All?”