“Which was?”
“He wanted to do her,” Annicka said. “It was like he made up his mind as soon as he heard about you. He was interested, you know. It made her something different. And you know what? Parker can be really charming when he wants to be. Believe me, I know.”
Dooley had to think about that for a moment.
“He wanted to be with her because of me?”
“It was a kick, you know? You’re supposedly this dangerous guy with a major rep, and he does your girl. Yeah, that was Parker.”
Son of a bitch.
“What do you think happened?” Dooley said. “After they went upstairs together, I mean?”
“What do I think? Or what do I know?” she said.
Dooley was confused. “Is there a difference? Because the last time I talked to you, you said they were holding hands when they went upstairs together. You said she looked upset the next day and that was because Parker was ignoring her.”
“I know what I said.” She pulled another cigarette from the pack in her bag. “My mother died last year. She was sick for a long time. She went through chemo three times.” Her lower lip trembled just a little. Then she jutted out her chin and plunged on. “She used to be a teacher. She was very big on school. She always told me that I could do anything I wanted to. My parents did okay—my dad’s an engineer and my mom taught up until she got too sick. But they’re not like Parker’s parents. Or Rachel’s. Or Monique’s. They gave up stuff to pay my tuition. My mom would have been crushed if I’d got expelled.”
She looked down at the ground and fiddled with the cigarette in her hand. Then she looked up at Dooley again.
“I used to hang out with those girls—Rachel and Monique and Ellie. I thought it was a big deal. I’d go with them to their houses and I’d think, one day I want to live in a place like this and have a swimming pool and a closet jammed full of clothes, just like they do. I wanted everything they had. I wanted to be just like them. I wanted to go to all the same parties and meet all the same guys, rich guys, you know. That’s how I met Parker. I was as bowled over by him as everyone else. I thought he was sweet and cool and witty. I thought anyone who got put down by him deserved to get put down. I laughed at all the dumb names he gave people behind their backs, like Silks and Casper—”
Casper? He had mentioned that name to Dooley.
“Who’s Casper?”
“Nevin.”
“Why Casper?”
“It’s some kind of joke. You know, Casper, the friendly ghost, a ghost who doesn’t scare anyone. Or a guy who’s invisible.”
Dooley didn’t get it.
“I said it was dumb. Anyway, I liked Parker, but I didn’t want to sleep with him. I—I’m not into that.
Dooley took in the piercings, the dyed black hair, the all-black Goth clothes. He couldn’t believe that she had looked like that when she’d been hanging around with Rachel and Monique.
“He forced me.” She looked Dooley straight in the eyes as if daring him to contradict her. “He took me hiking, just the two of us. I was so flattered—Parker Albright wanted to spend some alone time with me. Except we never got out of the car. He drove me up north of the city, pulled off onto this deserted country road, pinned me down and, basically, ripped my clothes off. You should have seen the look on his face. He really got off on it. He said if I did what he wanted, he’d wear a condom. Otherwise ...” Jesus. “He meant it, too. He said if I struggled and made him hurt me, I’d be sorry.” The bitterness in her voice was fresh and raw. “If I made him hurt me. What an asshole.”
Everything went black at the periphery of Dooley’s vision. He remembered what Beth had said: He scared me.
“He was fucked up,” Annicka said. “And he was strong. He scared the shit out of me. I told myself it was no big deal. If I did what he said, it would be over in, like, two minutes and I could get out of there, I could go home. But it wasn’t over in two minutes. He just kept going and going. I thought maybe he’d taken Viagra or something. He was like the Energizer fucking bunny.”
Dooley thought of him threatening Beth. Scaring her. And then being on her like that, for a long time, with her praying, like Annicka had, that it would just end. He wanted to kill Parker Albright all over again.
“When it was over, he told me to keep my mouth shut. He said if I made any trouble for him, he would make worse trouble for me. He said he’d tell—” She broke off abruptly. “He had a million ways to get to people. He knew stuff. A lot of stuff. He could have got me expelled from school if he wanted to.” Her eyes shifted down to the ground again. What do you know? Tough little Annicka had a lot of secrets. “I—I did something I shouldn’t have. I got involved with someone for a while and I kinda let things slide. So I paid someone to write a couple of papers for me. Parker knew about it. He knew who’d done it. He must have something on that person, too, because he said he had all the proof he needed to expose me. And at my school, they nail you for cheating, that’s it, you’re out. By then my mom was ... she was really sick. There was no way I was going to break her heart over some stupid move I’d made with an asshole like Parker Albright.”
“So Beth ...”
“Don’t get me wrong. A lot of girls went with Parker willingly. They’d do anything for him.” She paused. “But if Beth says she was forced, then I believe her.”
“So why didn’t you say so to the cops?” What he meant was, now that her mother was dead.
Her eyes remained focused on the ground for a few moments. Then she drew in a deep breath and looked up, defiance in her eyes.
“If I tell you—”
“It’ll stay between you and me,” Dooley said. “I won’t breathe a word to anyone without your say-so.”
She studied him for a long moment.
“Rachel and Monique gave Beth a hard time in the cafeteria one time,” she said. “Monique knew a lot about you, and she didn’t hold back. Everyone was listening.”
Well, it wasn’t the first time something like that had happened.
“Beth just sat there. She didn’t look embarrassed or anything like that. She sat there and listened and when Monique had finished, she said that you were the purest person she ever met.”
“Purest?” What did that mean?
“That’s what she said. I thought she was out of her mind. I thought, how could someone who’d done what you’d done be pure? But you know what? I kind of get it now. You’re a pretty straight-ahead guy.” Dooley wondered what his uncle would say about that. “Monique and Rachel and the rest of them, when they tell you they’ll keep something to themselves, you don’t believe it. Not after the first time they say it, anyway.”
Dooley wasn’t sure he was following.
“Parker told me what to say to everyone. He said that if it came to it, it’s what I should tell the cops, too.” She shook her head. “I don’t think he believed it would come to that, though. I mean, Beth was thrilled when Ellie got her switched to Parker’s team. Then she was around Parker all week, being nice to him and all, mostly because she was grateful to him. But people could read a lot more into that, you know?”
He did. He’d read more into it.
“He said if I didn’t ...” She drew herself up tall, proud. “He said he would out me.”
It took Dooley a few beats to understand.
“I keep telling myself I don’t care,” she said. “I tell myself I shouldn’t care. The people who matter, the ones who care about me, they know. But my dad ...”
Oh.
“I don’t think he’s spoken more than two words to me since my mom died. He has this look in his eyes, like it takes everything he’s got to get out of bed in the morning and drag himself to the office. And I know the only reason he’s doing it is that he thinks it’s what my mother would have wanted. He wants me to get through school. He wants me to graduate and go to university. He wants me to be just like my mother, only I’m not. But how am I going to tell him that? Everything with him is about h
er. How am I supposed to let Parker screw it all up by telling my dad that I’m nothing at all like what he thinks?”
“You could talk to him,” Dooley said. “You could tell him.”
She gave a little laugh filled with anger and bitterness.
“You don’t know my dad. Besides, there’s someone else involved and sh—that person doesn’t want anyone to know. It’s no one’s business.”
Dooley supposed that was true.
“It just seemed easier, you know? I mean, I got through it. I felt pretty bad when I heard Beth was in the hospital. And then I heard what happened to Parker ... I kind of wished I’d done it myself.”
So did Dooley.
“You can tell the cops now, Annicka. You have to tell them.”
She shook her head.
“If you don’t, I will.”
“I’ll deny it.”
“Parker’s dead.”
“But my dad isn’t. I boxed myself in. I admit it. Suppose I tell him what Parker did to me? Suppose I tell him that I lied to the police because of it? What if Parker told someone else about me? Or what if someone else who knows decides to get even with me? Then what? What’s my dad going to think of me then? Besides, if I tell the cops, it’ll only make things worse for Beth. They’re going to want to get her for first degree because, believe me, when a guy does that to you, sometimes all you can think about is different ways you’d like to see him die.”
“You think that’s what Beth did?”
“She said she killed him, didn’t she? She has way more guts than I do. The guy totally deserved it. But she’s a good person. She killed him and then she couldn’t live with herself. That’s why she ended up in the hospital, isn’t it? She’s a decent person that something indecent happened to. She did what I wanted to do, even though she knew it was wrong, and then she decided to punish herself for it.”
Dooley stared at her. She looked like a freak, but there was a lot going on under the blackness, the tattoos, and the piercings.
“You were at Parker’s party the night he died. How come?”
“I was invited.”
“By Parker?” The guy must have been even more fucked up than Annicka had described.
“By someone else.” There was something in her voice that made Dooley look at her again. He thought back to the party. He’d seen Annicka. He’d seen the warm greeting Parker’s sister had given her. He decided to let it lie.
“Did you see Beth there that night?”
She shook her head.
“Someone I talked to said she saw Parker leave the party with some champagne and a girl with long dark hair.” Just like Beth’s.
“That must have been Pam,” Annicka said.
“Pam?”
“She’s new at our school. She’s drop-dead gorgeous. Parker couldn’t keep his eyes off her. Deecee—Parker’s sister—said that Parker really liked her. And you know what? I think he really did. But her parents wouldn’t let her go out with him. They’re from India, really traditional. Her real name is Parmjit, but she calls herself Pam, you know, to fit in. Her parents don’t want her dating a white boy; they don’t care how loaded his parents are. They don’t want her dating at all. She had to sneak out of the house and tell her parents all kinds of lies to see Parker. Even then, she was always nervous the whole time she was with him.”
“Did you see her at the party?”
“No. But if she’d come, Parker would have snuck her in. She has this brother whose main job seems to be to keep tabs on her when her parents can’t.”
Dooley remembered a guy he’d seen on the street that night, a guy with dark hair and brown skin who seemed to be looking for something—or someone. The brother, maybe, trying to locate his MIA sister.
“Do you know how I can get hold of this Pam?”
“Honestly, I don’t. She wasn’t allowed to go on that school trip. She’s not allowed to go to parties or anything like that. Her parents send her brother to pick her up after school every day and take her home. And any guy who calls her house and asks for her gets the third degree before being told she can’t come to the phone.”
“So how did she and Parker even meet?”
“I heard it was at the food bank, during the Easter food drive.”
“How did Parker get in touch with her?”
“When they saw each other, they always arranged their next get-together. Pam’s parents check her cell phone to see who she’s been talking to or texting.”
“You have her cell number?”
Annicka shook her head.
“Do you know who does?”
“Sorry.”
There had to be a way. There just had to be.
“Do you know where she lives?”
Another shake of the head.
“What about the guy who showed up, Brad?”
“What about him?”
“He seemed pretty pissed off with Parker.”
“He was. He was going with a girl who dumped him for Parker. Then Parker dumped her.”
“You think he could have done it?”
“Killed Parker, you mean?”
Dooley nodded.
“I heard the cops talked to him. I heard they talked to Ashley, too.”
“Ashley?”
“Yet another one of Parker’s fuckees. She was at the party, too. She was like a freak, the way she just stood there and stared at him.”
“She’s a skinny girl?”
“You saw her?”
“Yeah.” He wondered how much they had hated Parker. He wondered about their alibis, too.
FIFTEEN
Cassie had Parmjit’s home phone number, but not her cell. She told Dooley the same thing Annicka had.
“There’s no way you’re going to get through to her. Her parents are really strict. That’s why they sent her to a girls’ school. Her brother—”
“I know,” Dooley said. “But they have to let her out some-time.” Didn’t they?
“I’ve seen her at the mall a couple of times, but she’s usually with her mother or her brother.”
“What about hanging out with girlfriends?”
“Her girlfriends are all her cousins. She doesn’t socialize outside of school with anyone except her family.”
And Parker. She’d found a way to socialize with Parker.
“So you’re telling me there’s no way I can get her alone long enough to talk to her?”
“Talk to her about what?”
He hesitated.
“I don’t even know you,” Cassie said, annoyed. “But I’ve been helping you out. And you don’t want to tell me what’s going on?”
“It’s about Beth—and what happened to Parker. I think Pam might know something.”
There was a long silence on the other end of the line.
“She trains with me.”
“She does?”
“She hates being cooped up all the time. She’s really independent. She told me she was excited when her parents told her they were going to move here. She thought her life was going to change. But so far it hasn’t. Her father is super-strict. He has traditional ideas about women. So does her brother. Either he or Pam’s dad take her everywhere. It drives her crazy. She said it took her forever to convince her parents to let her try out for gymnastics. She used to do it back home. And she’s good. Amazingly graceful. You should see her. She really puts herself into it. That’s one of the reasons we get along. She doesn’t fool around. She wants to succeed. I think she thinks maybe it could be her ticket out.”
“That’s how you got your scholarship, huh? Gymnastics.” Dooley said.
There was another long pause.
“It’s a good school. It’ll get me into a good university. Maybe some people care how I get there, but I don’t. Once I’m out of there, those people are out of my life.” She didn’t seem at all embarrassed. She was matter-of-fact, and that reminded him of Beth.
“Where do you train?”
“At the ath
letic center. Her brother is always there watching her. But she has to hit the change room before and after practice, and there are usually a lot of people around, so ...”
He was getting the picture.
“When’s your next training session?”
“Day after tomorrow. Five PM.”
Dooley’s uncle got home a little after Dooley, which is to say, he was late. He had a couple of bags from the grocery store with him. Inside were a barbecued chicken, a side of potatoes, and another side of salad. Take-out food. His uncle never brought home take-out food.
He set out everything, and they sat down to eat. Only when Dooley got up to clear away the plates did his uncle finally speak.
He said, “You can see her tomorrow after school.”
See her?
“Beth?”
His uncle nodded.
“You spoke to her mother?”
Another nod.
“She didn’t give me an argument. She just said yes,” his uncle said. “She didn’t apologize for the other night, though.”
Dooley wouldn’t have expected her to.
“She didn’t sound surprised, either. It was as if she’d been waiting for the call.” Dooley’s uncle looked directly at him for the first time since he’d walked through the door. “Randall might have talked to her, Ryan. He might have told her that if you wanted to talk to Beth, she should go along with it.”
Dooley was alarmed but tried not to show it.
“Do you think they’re going to listen in on what I say to her?”
His uncle didn’t ask him why he would worry about that. He just said, “No. They can’t. But they could ask you about it afterwards. Or her.”
Dooley decided not to worry about that.
Dooley was surprised by the wave of emotion that struck him when he walked through the main door of the juvenile detention facility with his uncle. He had spent time in the same place. It had been his home for longer than he liked to remember. It was hard to imagine Beth in there.
He and his uncle had to sign in. His uncle took a seat in the reception area. Dooley was directed to the room where his uncle used to show up once a week. He sat down and waited. A few minutes later, someone opened a different door and Beth appeared. She was so thin, so pale. But she smiled when she saw him, and his heart felt as if it were shattering in his chest and each jagged shard was embedding itself into his flesh, ripping him, tearing him, filling him with screaming pain.
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