by Abby Wilder
"She wasn't supposed to be there," I blurted out quickly. "I mean, I found her. She was drunk. I thought Cara took her home."
"Such a pity," Mum said, shaking her head. "I can't imagine what it would feel like to lose a child. It would break me. Be safe, my boys."
As soon as we were inside the car, Judah spoke. "It was her, wasn't it?"
"No," I said. "It was a sheep. I saw a sheep." I hoped if I said it enough it would become true.
"We hit her. We killed her."
"No, we didn't!" I yelled. Then I shook my head, clearing it of the image of the hand stretching towards me that I thought I had banished. Lana's hand. "I told you it was a sheep."
"So it was just a coincidence that the same night you hit something, Lana was killed by a hit and run driver? We need to go to the police."
"No," I said, ignoring the panic that was threatening in my gut.
"No? You killed Cara's little sister!"
It surprised me how calm I was. Lana was dead, I knew that, but I couldn't do anything to fix it. It was too late. No amount of confession would bring her back. There was no point in two lives being ruined. "You don't know that."
"Well, let's just say that you didn't hit her, that it was a sheep, like you said, if we go to the police and give our statement, then at least we would have done everything we could. And if it was a sheep, like you said, the evidence will point to that. You will be cleared."
I wrapped my fingers around the steering wheel and looked over at Judah briefly. "You know they'll never believe me. Besides, I've checked the car and there's no damage. If we had hit Lana there would be damage. It was a sheep."
"Lana wasn't a big girl, probably weighed less than a sheep. And what about DNA?"
I kept my eyes glued to the road. He knew we didn't hit a sheep, and he knew I knew it too. "This isn't a crime show, Judah. If you're really worried, clean it. You always keep that car freakishly clean. Did you hear from Cara yesterday?"
He nodded. "Seven missed calls."
"Why didn't you answer?"
Judah just glared at me, then said. "If I don't say anything I'm just as guilty as you."
"You can't."
"How can I not?"
"It was your car, Judah. You've already been charged with driving while intoxicated. Who do you think they'll assume the driver was?"
"You wouldn't," he said, looking at me warily. Then he added, "What about the headlights? What if someone saw?"
I had already gone over it in my mind. I had pulled apart every fact that could catch me. "They were too far away to see anything." I pulled into the school carpark. The police were already there and their cars lined the front entrance to the school.
"Are you sure about that?" Judah asked.
Chapter Thirty Two
Judah - the previous year
School turned into a shrine overnight. Although Lana had never been popular, her death brought with it a certain revered infamy. If you walked down the corridor the day before with a photo of Lana, not many students would have been able to name her. She wasn't pretty. She wasn't rich or popular. She didn't excel at sports, or music, or drama, or in the classroom, but overnight she became immortal. Girls that ridiculed her previously for her dated clothing, now huddled in groups, wiping forced tears from their cheeks. A photo of Lana was stuck to her locker and flowers lay scattered on the floor. Her eyes haunted me. They watched as I walked down the hall and whispered words of truth that stung my ears.
The display sickened me. These people had never taken any notice of Lana during her life. Why were they pretending now?
I couldn't even wrap my head around the fact that she was dead. It wouldn't sink in. I needed to see Cara, maybe then sadness would hit. All I felt walking around school was guilt. But Ruben was my brother. I could never tell. Despite everything, I would never betray him. I never had. I never would.
I shoved my books into my locker and walked into class. Mr Watson was scrawling on the white board, dressed in his usual corduroy pants and knitted vest, the subject of many caricatures etched into the boys' bathroom walls. About an hour into class there was a knock on the door. "Mr Mitchell, the police want to speak to you," Mr Watson announced, peering over his glasses. "They're waiting in the principal's office."
"About Lana?" I asked.
Mr Watson pushed his glasses up on his nose and shrugged. "One can only assume." He must have noted the colour fade from my cheeks because he added, "I know you were close to the family. I'm sure anything you have to say will help them find the coward who did this."
I swallowed nervously. The eyes of the classroom followed me as I left.
The policewoman smiled when I entered. She must have been brought in from out of town, as there was only one policeman stationed at Puruwai, Sergeant Dane Dickson, and he was standing beside her, trying to look professional and official, something he failed to achieve. In a small town like ours, the policeman knew everyone. He was the person who never told Ruben off for driving people around even though he was still on his restricted license. He was the man who filled his days hopping from one café to the next, talking to the locals and cashing in on his status as the sole policeman of Puruwai by drinking free cups of coffee and munching his favourite chocolate doughnut holes stuffed with cream cheese filling. Every café stocked them. They even labelled them 'Dickson-holes'. I didn't know whether the double meaning had never occurred to them, or whether that was part of the attraction. He was also the policeman who arrested me the night I lost my license.
"Judah Mitchell?" The policewoman held out her hand and I shook it, hoping she didn't notice it was sweaty and clammy. "Inspector Anderson," she said. "Please, take a seat." She smoothed the back of her skirt and sat down. "This is just a friendly chat. We're speaking to all the students who attended the fireworks display."
"There were no fireworks," I said. "It rained."
She frowned, looked over at Sergeant Dickson, and then shook it off. "If you wish to have a parent or guardian present, please feel free to say so." She cleared her throat and looked at me expectantly. "No?"
I wiped my hands down my jeans. "No, I'm fine, thank you. A little shaken up, but fine."
Inspector Anderson smiled softly. "That's understandable. Your parents have given their consent for us to talk to you, but please know that the school counsellor is available should our discussion bring up any feelings or thoughts you find difficult to process." She shuffled the notes of paper and looked at me with bright eyes. "Shall we start?"
I shifted in my seat. "Go ahead."
She pulled a yellow lined pad, scrawled with lettering I couldn't make out, towards her. "You're a twin?"
"Yes."
"And your brother is Ruben Mitchell?"
"Yes."
"He says that you are close with Lana's sister, Cara."
"You've spoken to him?"
She looked up from her notes and blinked once. A mole in her eyebrow moved up and down with her expressions and I stared at it, trying to keep my own face void of emotion. "Yes. So, Cara?"
"We're both close with Cara. What did he tell you?"
She smiled softly again. It was the sort of smile used to placate young children, the sort of smile that did nothing but annoy me and leave me feeling even more unsettled. "I'm interested in what you have to say," she said, tucking a blonde strand of hair behind her ear, exposing another mole that stuck out on the edge of her hairline. "Run me through the night. Start with when you arrived at the lake and finish with when you arrived home."
"We arrived around ten o'clock."
"How?" she asked, without looking up from scribbling notes on the pad.
"Excuse me?"
"How did you arrive? Did you drive? Did you walk? Ride a donkey?" Anderson flicked the pencil between her fingers impatiently.
"We drove."
"We?"
"Ruben and I arrived together. In my car."
"You were driving." She didn't say it as a question. It was a
statement.
"No," I corrected. "I lost my license a few months back. Ruben drove." I cast a sideways glance at Sergeant Dickson, who smiled awkwardly.
She scribbled something. I tried to make it out but her handwriting looked nothing like letters, just scrawl. "You arrived?" she pressed me.
"Yes. We arrived. I stayed with the car. I wasn't in the mood for socialising."
Her questions followed my answers quickly. As soon as the words were out of my mouth, she fired another question.
"So why did you go?"
"Excuse me?" It was like my mind delayed the processing of her questions. She spoke them, I heard the words, but my mind couldn't compute.
She stopped scribbling on the pad and put the pen down. "Why did you go, if you weren't in the mood for socialising?"
"Cara." There was no point lying. "Cara wanted me to."
"And do you always do what Cara wants?
"No," I said quickly, but it was a lie.
Anderson picked up her pencil again and tapped the tip against the pad, leaving stabbing grey lines. "So, you went because Cara Armistead wanted you to go?"
"Yes." I was getting more nervous as the questions continued. We hadn't even reached the part I was worried about and already the sweat was beading on my forehead.
"Would you like a drink of water?" she asked.
"No, thank you." But at the mention of water, the saliva in my throat thickened and I suddenly felt thirsty.
"And what happened while you were at this party? Did you see Lana?"
"Yes."
The Inspector put her pencil back down and pushed the pad away. "Judah," she said, sitting back in her chair. "You aren't on trial here. We're just trying to see if anyone noticed anything, trace Lana's steps before her death."
"Could I have that drink of water now?"
"Of course."
She sent Sergeant Dickson to fetch the glass of water. I downed it quickly but it did little to quench my thirst.
"Continue," she ordered.
I studied the mole in her eyebrow again, letting my voice relax and trying to appear calm. "I saw Lana. Ruben found her. She was drunk. I thought Cara took her home." I fired the statements at her just like she did the questions at me.
"You thought?"
"Well, yes." I swallowed the thick ball of guilt lodged in my throat, wishing I had more water. "When Cara found out Lana had been drinking, she told her to go home. Lana took off and Cara followed her. I assumed she took her home."
"Despite the fact that she didn't have any mode of transport, you assumed she took her sister home?"
I nodded.
"You knew that Cara didn't have any vehicle at the lake?"
"It never occurred to me to wonder." It sounded silly when she put it like that. I didn't see either Cara or Lana after they took off. I assumed they had both gone home. I just never thought about how they had got there. But I didn't say any of that to Anderson. I kept my answers short.
"I must say, Judah, you are nowhere near as chatty as your brother."
I grunted and looked at the floor.
"That was the last time you saw either of them that night?"
"Yes."
"And how did you get home?"
"I started walking but Ruben picked me up. We drove home after that."
"Ruben drove?"
"Yes."
"Are you sure?"
I looked her in the eye. "I'm certain."
"Did you notice anything on the way? A suspicious vehicle? Something on the side of the road? Anything out of the ordinary?"
"It was raining too hard to see much of anything."
The interview didn't last for long after that. She asked all the same questions again, just worded them differently. I kept my answers the same. No, I didn't see Lana after she left the lake. No, I wasn't driving. No, I didn't see anything suspicious."
I was just about to walk out the door when she called me back. "Judah?"
I turned and waited expectantly, my heart pounding.
"There were witnesses who saw your brother give you the keys to your car."
The room shrunk, suddenly seeming crowded and small. "I needed my jacket."
"To walk home?" she asked.
"To walk home," I agreed. "It was raining."
"So it was," she said and smiled that smile again, the one that made my skin crawl and made me want to lunge across the desk and reach for her pale throat.
Ruben was waiting outside the office. His eyes flitted inside the doorway and he smiled and waved to the Inspector before the door fell shut. I stormed past.
"How'd it go?" he asked, falling into step beside me. His eyes roamed over the other students. He smiled at some, waved to others and acted as though everything was normal. I wasn't sure how someone who had just killed another person was supposed to act, but I would have thought that some remorse would colour their movements. Ruben acted as though nothing was different.
"I don't feel like talking right now."
Ruben grabbed my arm and pulled me to a stop. "I've got a plan." His voice was low.
"A plan? I've got one too. How about you walk back in there and tell the truth."
"You know I can't do that."
I jerked away but he pulled me back. The only reason I stayed was the attention it would have brought if I had pulled away again. "Think about it," Ruben said desperately. "Even if someone saw something, which they didn't, but even if they did, if we both claim each other was the driver, they will never be able to prove which one was driving."
"Are you serious? We've just told contradictory stories. If they weren't suspicious before, they will be now."
Ruben froze.
"You hadn't thought of that, had you?"
"Are you going to say something? Are you going to turn me in?" he asked.
I laughed coldly. "No, Ruben. That thought may have entered your mind, but I would never do that."
The rest of the school day was a nightmare. Everywhere I turned there was a reminder of what had happened. A teacher crying at the front of the class. A boy sticking a photo of Lana onto the wall. Someone walking by with a bunch of flowers to place on the growing pile at the foot of her locker. I put my head down and trudged through the day as if it were a dream, or rather, a nightmare. At assembly, they handed out candles and we stood in the auditorium for a minute in silence to honour her memory. Ruben stood with his eyes closed and I wondered what was going through his mind.
After the bell rang, I ignored Ruben waiting for me in the carpark, ducked through the rugby field, and ran all the way to Cara's house. I arrived out of breath and sweating. There were strange cars up the driveway, and a woman I'd never met before answered the door, her eyes damp and puffy. I felt stupid, as though I was intruding somewhere I didn't belong.
"Is Cara home?" I asked, panting heavily.
The lady smiled sadly and stood to the side, letting me in. "Of course, I think she's in her bedroom."
I remembered seeing a photo of her and wondered if it was Cara's boarding school benefactor, her aunt.
The wallpaper in Cara's house was stripped from the walls. Her mum had wanted to redecorate and I walked in one day to find Cara, her mother and Lana shredding the old paper off the walls with peals of laughter, but that was three years ago. Furniture was sparse, and what little there was, was littered with solemn-faced strangers. Mr Armistead came across the room and wrapped his arm around my shoulder. I swallowed the guilt of his embrace.
"I'm so pleased you came," he said. "She hasn't come out of her room since we told her." He looked as though he hadn't slept in days. The skin around his eyes sagged and his clothes were crumpled and dirty.
I patted him awkwardly on the back. "I'm so sorry for your loss." I was thankful for the rote reply. It gave me something to say when the words I wanted to use couldn't be said.
Cara's dad clung to me. His body shook as tears overwhelmed him. I looked over his shoulder and caught the eye of Cara's mother sitting
in a chair in the corner of the room. The sun shone through the window behind her and turned her hair golden and her skin translucent. She looked at me blankly, eyes dry, as though she didn't know who I was. Mr Armistead sucked in a breath of air and extracted himself. "She needs you." He nodded down the hall to Cara's bedroom.
Even though I had walked down the hallway of the Armisteads' house a thousand times, it had never seemed this long. It took an eternity to reach her door. I stood and stared. Last year Cara had etched 'piss off' into the wood. It screamed at me. I didn't know what I would find on the other side of the door and I tried to pluck up the courage to knock, but my hand froze in the air.
"Just come in," Cara's muffled voice said.
The door swung open silently just as Cara sat on her bed and pulled her knees to her chest, eyes wide and dry. "I can't cry." She looked over at me defiantly, as though she were challenging me to scold her. "My sister is dead and I can't fucking cry."
I walked over and sat on the edge of the bed. Cara crawled over the space between us and rested her head on my lap. I pushed away the strands of hair that clung to her face. She had no idea of the truth. How could she?
"What's wrong with me?" she asked. "Why can't I cry?"
I knew she didn't expect an answer. She just needed to vent, let everything out to someone who wouldn't judge her, wouldn't try to fix her or change her, or try to make things better. Someone to just let her be.
"Do you know what my last words to her were?" she asked hoarsely.
Even though she wasn't looking at me, my only response was to shake my head.
"Neither do I. I've been trying to remember, but for the life of me, I don't know what I said. It would have been something horrible, like, 'fuck you'. I didn't even offer to walk home with her. Can you believe that? I made my sister, my little sister who was drunk, walk home in the rain because I was too concerned about missing out. I'm a horrible sister." She got up from the bed and started pacing the floor. "What kind of a person am I, Judah? Who would do that to their little sister?"
"It's not your fault," I said, hoping to reassure her.
"Not my fault? I know it's not my fault! It's that coward of an asshole who hit her, that's whose fault it is. She wasn't even dead after he hit her. Did you know that?"