“You’re decorating for Christmas,” she said.
Andie was used to Jane sounding tired and remote, but now her voice had an accusatory edge. “It’s just a bow,” Andie said.
“You’re going to have a happy Christmas. What do you think it’s going to be like for us?”
Andie froze, unsure how to answer. She could point out that her Christmas wasn’t going to be a cup of egg nog, either, and she’d had to scrape together fortitude to leave her house tonight. She could take this opportunity at last to tell Jane that she was sorry. But Jane seemed too angry for an honest conversation.
“I’m not sure how happy my Christmas is going to be,” Andie admitted. “You can bet I’ll be thinking of Christopher.” I think of him dozens of times every day.
Jane wound an end of her paisley scarf around her hand as a nurse might wind tape around injured fingers. Her glower pressed down her eyebrows. “I’ve been saving up things I want to say to you,” she began. “For one, you’re a liar. Christopher would never have hurt you or anyone. For another, Tom Wolski covered for you. From the start, he and his team were biased against my son. It wasn’t fair you got off so easily.”
Jane’s heated words scorched Andie’s cheeks. Feeling ambushed, she backed up to put more space between herself and Jane and left the partly tied red ribbon hanging in the wind. She started to speak, then strained to corral the right words to defend herself. Finally, she said, “Maybe you don’t realize there’s factual evidence. Christopher’s fingerprints and DNA were on the knife he had in his hand when he stabbed my dog and intended to stab me.”
“I don’t know how you got his DNA and prints on that knife, but you planted it.” Jane’s lips were taut.
“I didn’t. Honestly.” Don’t get defensive. Don’t argue with her. Andie marshaled her training for dealing with explosive people and offered empathy. “You have every reason to grieve. I’m sure you’re upset.”
“I’m outraged.” Emotion twisted Jane’s face. “You never should have been found innocent. What you did was a crime. Even if half of what you claimed was true—and I don’t believe any of it—you should have handled my son better. You didn’t have to shoot him.”
Andie felt the wind knocked out of her. Christopher’s mother had just put into words the very thing that had threatened to overtake her since that night—her own personal black hole. “Doubt” had become too weak a word for such a devouring thing. Its gravity pulled her closer to certainty that she’d been wrong to shoot. She said, “I had to protect myself.” But the words sounded flimsy.
“If you were protecting yourself from anything, it was from being found out. You didn’t tell Tom Wolski your whole sordid story.” In the rain Jane’s mascara ran down her cheeks.
“There was nothing sordid!” Andie insisted.
“You should be in prison.Your crime is going to catch up with you. You’ll have to live with yourself. Someday you’ll be sorry for murdering an innocent boy.”
“Jane—” Andie wanted to reason with her.
“You don’t have kids. You could never understand.” Jane stormed back to her car and climbed in. Just before she slammed the door, she shouted, “I hate you!” As she stomped on the accelerator, the squeal of her tires reverberated through the woods. She roared down Valley Road as if she wished she could run down Andie.
Andie forgot the ribbon and walked unsteadily back to her car. When she climbed into it, Justice’s bow looked too merry. Tonight there were no bells to jingle. There was no joy to the world.
She could never go to the party now. She drove back down her driveway. When she and Justice got into the house, the phone was ringing.
“Where are you?” Stephanie asked.
The buzz of conversation in the background told Andie that the party was in full swing. “I’m home.”
“Duh. I just called your home phone number,” Stephanie said. “Why aren’t you here?”
“Jane Vanderwaal just stopped me on the street.”
“Bad news.”
“Beyond bad,” Andie said.
“Don’t tell me you’ll let her keep you from coming tonight.”
Forget Christmas. Forget everything. “I don’t feel like being with people.”
“Everyone’s asking about you,” Stephanie said. “We’re about to open the white elephant gifts. I brought a Life cereal box full of lemons. Get it? A cop’s life is a lemon.”
No kidding. “I’m not up for socializing.”
“Can I help? Want me to stop by later?”
“Thanks, but no need. I’m okay. I just have a headache.” Every throb at Andie’s temples reminded her that she’d killed Christopher.
* * *
For nearly three hours, Andie sat at her kitchen table and stared out the window at the winter night’s darkness and rain. Justice draped himself over her toes. By ten o’clock, her growling stomach convinced her to make popcorn, the easiest dinner. Justice would sell himself into slavery for popcorn—the more butter, the better.
She got ajar of corn from the pantry and poured kernels into heated oil. When Justice recognized their telltale clatter and sniffed ecstasy in the making, he got to his feet and waited by the stove. His pleading eyes informed her, I am a good dog. Please, do not forget me.
Usually, Andie shared the popcorn with Justice—a bite for him and a bite for her. It was a bonding time of simultaneous crunching, interrupted only by an occasional swallow of water for her and a lettuce-leaf palate cleanser for him. But tonight she poured half the popcorn all at once into his bowl and forgot about the lettuce. As he dove in, she returned to the table alone and resumed her brooding.
Like every kid on earth, Christopher must have loved popcorn. He probably had grabbed lusty handfuls of it and stuffed it into his mouth. Suddenly the obvious but arresting thought occurred to her that he’d never again eat it or any of a teen’s other basic food groups: ice cream, candy bars, cookies, hamburgers, and pizza. Christopher would never graduate from high school or college. He’d never marry or have kids.
When Andie pictured the life he might have had, she saw him at age forty, smiling over a Thanksgiving turkey at his beautiful Norman Rockwell family, a lovely wife and three towheaded children. In his house there would be no quarrels, and everyone would be successful and fulfilled. He would look back at stabbing Justice, shake his head, and wonder how he ever could have done such a thing. And after a long and contented life, he would die peacefully in his sleep.
Andie’s Norman Rockwell image of Christopher faded when she looked out her window and there he was again, a gawky teen, peering at her from the shadows. To her, he was a shadow who would follow her forever no matter how bright her sun. The biggest fact about Andie was always going to be that she had killed him.
CHAPTER 36
ANDREA
Andie wound her muffler tightly around her neck, zipped her down jacket to her chin, and wrapped her arms around herself. She’d forgotten how cold the beach could get on New Year’s Eve when the San Julian Rotary Club set off fireworks from a barge in the harbor. Half the island’s residents were gathered here to watch, but their collective body heat didn’t warm the night. As hips and elbows bumped, the wind picked up and breaths emerged into a collective cloud.
“I’m worried about Justice,” Andie told Meghan.
“He’ll be fine,” she said. “Your house is miles from here. The noise won’t bother him.”
“He has such sensitive ears. He hides during thunderstorms.”
“Don’t forget he toughed it out through the Vanderwaals’ July Fourth fireworks.” Meghan’s hand covered her mouth. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to mention them.”
“They’re a fact of my life. I can’t pretend they don’t exist.” Especially since Jane had confronted Andie and she’d spiraled into a funk. She’d refused Christmas dinner invitations and hunkered down at home with Justice. Meghan had pestered her relentlessly until she’d agreed to come tonight.
As antici
pation rippled through the crowd, murmurs swelled to excited conversations. Dads held kids on their shoulders for a better view of what was about to start. Finally at nine o’clock, when the Times Square ball was dropped at midnight Eastern Standard Time, three chrysanthemum fireworks shot into the sky and burst into red petals of fire and a communal gasp rose from the crowd. As the petals spilled into the water, a row of comets fanned out above the barge and exploded in flashes of silver. Pearls spewed fountains of red, orange, green, and gold, and peonies flared into expanding spheres of purple stars.
The harbor filled with smoke, and the smell of gunpowder wafted through the air. At each blast of fireworks, Andie flinched, then cringed. As every muscle in her body tensed, she dug her nails into her palms. The explosions kept coming one after another, too quickly for her to recover equilibrium, and she felt like she might jump out of her skin.
As her knees wobbled and she began to sweat, what looked like another chrysanthemum burst into gold sparks and boomed so loud that percussive noise struck Andie’s face. The lanky college kid next to her shouted, “Wow! A Thunder Flash!” Andie scarcely heard because she was shaking and fighting to breathe.
Her face looked like she’d encountered a ghost, but what she’d encountered was Christopher. His arm raised over his head, his knife blade glinting in her flashlight beam, he ran at her. Panicked, she fired off round after round. Bam! Bam! Bam! The bullets’ gunpowder smell made her nauseous. Her knees buckled under her, and she sagged to the ground.
“Andie, are you okay?” Meghan bent down and steadied Andie’s shoulders so she wouldn’t topple over. “What’s wrong? Tell me what’s wrong.”
A girandole spun into the air, shooting off sparks, its shrill whistles assaulting her ears. A skyrocket left a trail of fire. Silver beehives flew through the sky, their sparks shooting off in all directions like bullets that had lost their minds. Andie buried her head in her arms as if she were warding off blows.
“Andie, can you get up? Let’s go.” Meghan grabbed her elbow.
The lanky kid on the other side of Andie bent down and took her other arm. Together, he and Meghan tugged her to her feet, and the crowd around them pulled away to make room for them to pass. Andie did not remember being led two blocks to Meghan’s Jeep. She only knew that she was terrified.
When Andie regained her ability of rational thought, she realized she was huddled against the passenger door of Meghan’s Jeep. Meghan was patting her knee, squeezing her hand.
“Don’t worry. Everything will be all right,” Meghan was repeating.
“This keeps happening.” Andie’s mouth felt as dry as cotton.
“What keeps happening?”
“I think they’re flashbacks.” Andie was too scrambled to remember how Dr. Capoletti had described them, or to explain how she’d chalked up past ones to bad memories, like anyone could have. She could not deny that tonight’s had been the real thing. And admitting she’d had a real flashback was almost as disconcerting as going through it, because she now had to acknowledge to herself that she’d crossed the line to the post-traumatic stress that Dr. Capoletti had warned her about. The prospect was frightening.
Meghan nodded as if she understood what flashbacks were. She said again, “Don’t worry. You’ll be fine.”
But the anxious worry on Meghan’s face seemed to say the opposite.
* * *
At home Andie found a shredded Bake Away magazine just inside the front door and a guilty-looking Justice in the kitchen. After her own loss of control, she could hardly be mad at him. He may have gotten frantic at all the noise and wanted to get outside to run for his life. Or, as sensitive dogs were known to do, he could have picked up Andie’s panic from a distance and been desperate to find her.
Andie thought the latter seemed more likely when she found his teddy, Bandit, on her pillow. Normally, Bandit slept on Justice’s side of the bed near the foot.
When she got into bed, Justice curled up near the crook behind her knees and rested his chin on her calf. But breathing in sync with him did not calm her as it usually did. She lay there blinking in the dark till dawn.
CHAPTER 37
TOM
Kimberly Thatcher, Christopher’s girlfriend, stared at her hands, balled in her lap. Once in a while, she raised her head and cast a shy glance in Tom’s direction, but no one could call her an extrovert. She looked like she subsisted on celery and oxygen. In the braid down her back not a hair was out of place, and her jeans’ crease was perfectly pressed. If grooming were the criterion for judging Miss Teen America, she’d win, hands down.
Tom shifted in the plaid club chair across from Kimberly’s in her family’s den. Through Kevin Egelbrit, he’d been able to ferret out her name. Since she’d known Christopher perhaps better than any of his peers, she could be a mother lode of insight. So much was riding on this talk. Tom couldn’t fail here.
He smiled kindly. “Have you ever talked with a sheriff’s deputy before?”
“No.”
“We don’t bite.” He smiled again.
“Fine.”
Obviously, he was going to have to try a little harder to connect. “I’ve got a daughter a few years younger than you are. She wants to play the flute. Your counselor told me you’ve been playing it for a long time.”
“Yes.”
“Are you in the band?”
“Yes.”
“Do you like it?”
“Yes.”
Her specialty was single syllables. How am I going to squeeze information out of this girl? Every teen Tom had talked with on this case had raised a drawbridge and dropped a portcullis to keep him back. Tom began to worry.
He glanced around the den, which was as immaculate as Kimberly herself—the wastebasket empty, no speck of dust on a windowsill, the hardwood floor polished to a gleam. Tidiness must run in the family. It might have attracted Kimberly to Christopher. They could have related, neatnik to neatnik.
Tom coughed though he didn’t really need to. He started again. “Kimberly—or does your family call you Kim?”
“Kim.” Another single syllable.
“I need your help.” Go ahead. Throw yourself at the mercy of a teenage girl. Maybe that’ll do it. “I’ve been working for two months on this case. I’ve tried to understand Christopher, but I’ve had trouble. I know you were close. I’d really appreciate it if you’d tell me about him.”
“What do you want to know?”
Six syllables! And eye contact! Now we’re getting somewhere. “What was Christopher like?”
She shrugged. “You know.”
“No, I don’t know. That’s why I’m here,” Tom pressed.
“He was okay.”
“Okay” doesn’t tell me much. “Did you go out on dates?”
“Not to movies and stuff. We were mostly good friends. We hung out after school.” Kim picked a piece of lint off her club chair’s arm and set it in an empty cloisonné bowl on a side table.
“Where did you hang out? Here? At his house?”
“At an old garage in his neighborhood.”
I have to get there pronto. “Where exactly is it?”
She shrugged again. “I don’t know the address.”
“How would I get there?”
“Driving would be good.”
Tom stopped himself from rolling his eyes. Only for the sake of information would he put up with disrespect. “Drive where?”
“To the end of a long dirt driveway off Valley Road. The garage used to be next to a house, but it’s gone.”
“So nobody minded you were there?”
“Nobody knew.” She looked toward the kitchen doorway as if to check that her mother wasn’t listening. “The garage was about to fall down. We had to be, like, careful climbing the stairs.”
“Stairs to what?”
“A room. It was a mess, but Christopher cleaned it up.”
Tom had to be careful to avoid alluding to any frisky business they might have got
ten up to. He didn’t want to put her on the defensive. “I’m assuming there was no electricity or running water.”
“Probably not in, like, the last three thousand years.”
Tom sat forward. He set his wrists on his knees. “Kim . . .” He used her name to sound extra-friendly and reel her in. “Why did Christopher want to be in a garage that was about to fall down?”
“To get away from his totally dorky parents. He wanted privacy to read books and write in his journal.”
“Where? Where is his journal?!” Don’t get excited. Play it cool.
“On his laptop.”
Please, don’t let this be a dead end. “Where’s his laptop?”
“No idea.”
Tom’s excitement withered. “We haven’t been able to find it. It’s important. You’re sure you don’t know where it is.”
“Of course, I’m sure.” Her voice conveyed a twinge of the contempt that Tom had noticed too often in teenage girls and hoped he’d never detect in Lisa.
“Kim . . .” he tried again. “Did you like Christopher?”
“At first.”
“Sounds like you stopped liking him.”
“He started, like, smothering me. I felt kind of sorry for him,” she said.
“How do you mean?”
“He tried too hard. He bought me a really fancy bracelet. My mother made me give it back.”
“He obviously liked you.” A little stroke to her ego wouldn’t hurt.
“He wanted me to try dope, but it made me sick.”
“What kind of dope?”
“Pot. It’s legal in Washington, you know.”
Yes, you little snip, as a deputy sheriff I’m aware of that. “It’s legal only for people over twenty-one, but I won’t tell on you.” Tom chuckled like they were conspiring. “Did he want you to keep trying pot? Did you fight about that?”
She shook her head. “We fought because he got totally controlling. He acted like he owned me. He didn’t like me talking to other boys at school.”
“Some girls might like that. They’d feel he really cared.”
A Healing Justice Page 17