“The assembly…” She stopped and looked at me, her eyes going into my soul. “Your mother is gone, isn’t she? Off on some art thing?”
I nodded again, too confused by the change in conversation to figure out what would come next.
“I’m not stupid. I know she leaves you alone more than she should. It’s probably not a big deal to her; after all, you’re pretty grown up. But there are times when a girl could use her mother.” She ran a hand through her hair. “How about I stand in? If there’s anything that happens today or tomorrow and you need another perspective, treat me like your mom.”
“What’s going on?” I couldn’t take the confusion any longer. Was I being picked up as a mermaid? Were FBI agents going to swoop in during the presentation?
“Ryan is dead, Danika. I’m sorry.”
My mouth fell open in shock. I turned my head a little, trying to catch her eyes, to see what she knew.
“The police found his body on the beach early this morning. They’re going to be at the assembly asking for help. Teachers weren’t supposed to say anything, and there will be grief counselors but I didn’t want you to be blindsided by the news.”
“Thank you.” I sat back in the chair. I hadn’t expected him to be found so quickly, hadn’t expected this. Maybe I was wrong to take so much on. “How did it…do they know what happened?”
“No.” She shook her head. “Did you know Tiffany Moore?”
I shook my head. I barely remembered the girl but the image of her body was fresh in my mind.
“Do you know if Ryan and she hung out over the summer?”
“I don’t think so. I don’t remember them being together.”
“Well, Tiffany died the same way. Now Ryan…” Ms. Cohen glanced at her watch. “We need to get going. I’ll leave the classroom unlocked. If you need to leave, tell someone I sent you back to get something, okay?”
“Thank you.” She’d gone out of her way for me. She was my favorite teacher, but she’d never done anything to make me think I was her favorite student—nothing like this. “Thanks for telling me and…for everything.”
“You’re welcome. And remember, even though Ryan’s gone, you’re not as alone as you feel, Danika.” She gave me a warm smile and opened the door of the classroom.
Our auditorium served as the theater half the time. It was too soon in the school year for any set pieces to be up, but the grand piano shared the stage with a podium and two men in suits. The principal watched us all file in, his expression sour. Ashley and Sarah sat together, while Jen and Heather walked down the aisle. I expected Heather to take one of the seats next to them but instead Ashley called out to Jen. Heather stopped in the aisle, aware of the snub but not sure what to do. Ashley ignored her and called me over to a second seat next to them. Apparently Heather wasn’t going to be acknowledged. She took a seat on the aisle. I stepped around her to sit next to the group.
“Did you hear Jen got a new car?” Ashley squealed the news.
“It’s not really new,” Jen said, beaming anyway. “It’s three years old.”
“But it’s a convertible,” Sarah sang.
“That’s great!” I mustered up as much false enthusiasm as I could.
“Yeah, my parents wanted me to drive myself for a few days before they’d get me a car.” Jen offered what had to be the lamest excuse ever for ditching Ashley. But with Heather on the outs, Ashley accepted it.
“We’re going to—”
“Students, please take your seats.” The principal interrupted Ashley. Since she thought she was in charge, she glared at him. I wondered if he could feel it all the way on stage.
As we all settled back in our seats, I offered Heather a smile. With how I found her on the beach, she needed a safe place to run to. Instead, she’d been shut out.
The projector screen lowered from the center of the stage, slowly making its way down with a metallic grind. Our principal was in his mid-fifties. He didn’t bother to cover the gray hair at his temples. For a while, Sarah had a crush on him. She told us all he looked like George Clooney. From my seat in the middle of the auditorium, I didn’t see George Clooney. I just saw someone who looked upset.
“I need to talk to you about something important, something hard. I need your complete attention.” He gestured to the blank screen behind him. Above us in the tech booth, some unseen person put up a picture good enough to be a magazine cover, featuring a girl with long legs and perfect skin. I recognized her instantly, even though she’d been dead when I found her.
“Some of you may remember Tiffany Moore, from volley ball or her time in the chorus. She graduated last year and went on to Playa Linda Community College.” He paused, taking a deep breath. “Tiffany’s body was found last Monday night.”
“Old news,” Ashley yawned.
“Many of you probably heard about that from your parents or your friends. The administration and the teachers decided to let that be a private matter. But something has happened…something that we need to address.” He stopped again and the picture changed. I felt Heather grab my hand, her fingers like a steel vice. When I looked up, I saw Ryan in his football picture smiling back at me. Ryan, healthy and whole, alive like he never would be again. “Ryan Rodriguez, our star quarterback, was found dead last night.”
A gasp went out through the crowd, a sound of shock and upset. Our principal waited while it died down.
“Ryan did not die of natural causes. There’s no explanation for what happened, not yet.” He pointed behind him. “These men are detectives. They’re trying to find out what happened. I want each and every one of you to help them. We’re not going to punish anyone for anything they say. If you were skipping school when you saw something, you’re not going to get called out for it. What matters now is stopping this killer before we lose anyone else. I’m going to turn things over to the detectives.”
Hands shot up in the air, a dozen questions at least. Everyone started talking at once—everyone except Heather. She kept holding my hand, hard. Her eyes filled with tears, but she didn’t blink, didn’t move to wipe them away. She stared straight ahead and I didn’t know how to help her. Instead, I listened to the principal tell everyone to hold their questions until the end.
“I’m Detective Wilson.” The man who spoke wore a pressed suit and stylishly gelled hair. I hated him the minute I saw him. How dare he look so pretty when everyone else was so upset? “My partner, Detective Mason.”
Mason was more sober. Unlike his partner, he didn’t look like he would leave the assembly and hit a nightclub. If I had to deal with one of them, I wanted it to be him. Then again, the person who needed to talk to them was Heather. I snuck a glance at her; she looked white as a sheet. When I looked back, Ashley was staring at me.
“Don’t worry about her,” she whispered. “Take care of you.”
I nodded. Ashley didn’t know the details, didn’t know that Heather had a right to be more upset than I was.
Wilson was still talking, but I’d missed what he was saying. “We’re going to interview people who knew Tiffany and Ryan,” he continued. “We’re especially interested in anyone who saw Tiffany on Sunday night, before she died. It would’ve been the Sunday before the first day of school. Ryan went missing a week later, on Sunday afternoon. We need to know where he was that day. All his mother knows is that he went to see a friend from school.” Wilson leaned into the microphone, making his voice louder, more dramatic. “One of you was that friend. One of you knows what Ryan was doing.”
Heather dropped my hand and bolted up the aisle. Her footsteps were loud and everyone stared. Detective Mason immediately left the stage, no doubt to follow her. Wilson kept talking.
“Whatever you know, no matter how small, we need to know it. We’re going to be taking some of you out of class. We’re asking for your full cooperation. If you don’t want to talk here, if you’d rather meet us after school someplace where no one will see, we can arrange that. Two of your friends are de
ad. It’s up to you to make sure no one else joins them.”
Overly dramatic and completely accusatory, I hated his speech. I guess he thought the only way teenagers would help is if he scared the crap out of them. Jerk. The whispers I heard around me proved I wasn’t the only one who felt that way.
“Are you okay?” Ashley asked me, her concern clear.
“I think,” I stopped and took a deep breath of my own. “I think so. I’m…stunned, I guess.” I was stunned, but I’d dealt with the worst of my feelings when I found him. This all seemed like a play—not even a play, a dress rehearsal, some stupid imaginary thing that wouldn’t mean anything in the end.
“You don’t have to be strong.” Ashley hugged me. Sarah followed her lead. Alexis, ever above it all, gave me a sympathetic pat.
The principal introduced a trio of grief counselors who spoke for a few minutes. When they were done, he directed us back to class. On the walk back, I saw Ms. Cohen looking at me from the doorway. I shook my head and walked back with my friends. I didn’t need a place to run to, at least not yet.
****
“Danika DelMar?” The office worker came for me just after I sat down. Ms. Cohen had handed out a poem, To An Athlete Dying Young, and we were all supposed to read it and then discuss it. We’d really be discussing Ryan because the poem wasn’t on our required reading list. I didn’t mind getting out of the whole charade.
“Danika, would you like me to go with you?” Ms. Cohen’s offer shocked me. More surprisingly, though, I did want someone along.
When I nodded, she turned to the office worker. “Please cover my class,” she said. “Instead of discussing the poem, I’d like everyone to write their thoughts. Have them turn their work in at the end of class if I’m not back. At least five hundred words each.”
The class groaned as we walked out of the room. I expected us to head to the principal’s office. In my nightmares, that was how it happened: the principal called me down to his office and men in suits were waiting. They told me they’d discovered what I was and slapped handcuffs on me. Sometimes those nightmares took place at the pool; somehow someone pushed me in. I’d scramble to get out, but end up flailing, trapped on the pool deck with a tail while everyone watched. I shivered as we passed the gym entrance.
“You okay?” Ms. Cohen noticed my apprehension.
“Nervous. I’ve never talked to a cop before.”
“Try to remember that you don’t have to answer any questions you don’t want to. I’ll jump in if they ask anything that’s really out of bounds.” She shook her head, a little upset. “I hate to say it, but your birthday came at the worst time. Three days ago, they couldn’t have asked you anything without your mom present.”
“That would’ve been worse. Them locking me up, holding me in a cell until they found her.” My stomach flipped at the thought. How long could they hold me like that? An hour? A day?
“No one’s going to lock you up, Danika. You haven’t done anything wrong. Besides, there are a lot of people at this school who would protect you. You know that, don’t you?”
We’d reached the library door. I guessed the interviews would take place in one of the meeting rooms. I put my hand on the door handle, then hesitated. People would protect human me; but if I was true to myself, a mermaid, wouldn’t they change their minds?
“Danika DelMar?” Detective Mason appeared on the other side of the door.
“That’s me.”
“I was about to get some coffee. We’re in Meeting Room 2.”
“No coffee in the library.” The words were out of my mouth before I realized they probably didn’t apply to him. “I’m sorry, ignore me. That’s for students, right?”
Ms. Cohen grinned at me. “Nope, rules are for everyone. I’m sorry, Detective.”
“Oh well, you’ll just have to live without my witty banter. I can’t manage that without coffee.”
The school’s meeting rooms were fairly boring: a cheap wooden table, six chairs, a glass wall covered with blinds. It was easy to feel like I should dump some books in the center of the table and work on a report. Instead, I took a chair and shifted awkwardly for a few seconds.
Detective Mason flipped some pages on a legal pad, then looked up at me with a smile. “How’d you meet Ryan?”
“Ashley, of course, everything is always because of Ashley.”
Mason half laughed. Ms. Cohen looked annoyed. “Ashley Warner. Her father is Rod Warner, the rock star?” Mason asked. “Ashley seems to think she runs things around here.”
“Because she does,” I confirmed. “At the beginning of junior year, Ashley started seeing Justin. Her dad’s super strict, so she needed someone, a girl, to go to the games with her so she could see him but not get into trouble.”
“Justin is on the football team?”
“Justin Duquette; he’s on the offensive line,” Ms. Cohen supplied.
“After Homecoming, Ashley wore her dad down and she got to go on dates, but only double dates. So I had to date someone. Ryan told Justin to set us up, so we did double dates for a while.”
“For a while? Had your relationship changed recently?”
Ms. Cohen looked at me, but I didn’t mind answering this one. It stung, but as long as we weren’t talking about Ryan’s body, I didn’t mind.
“We broke up after the end-of-the-year beach party. I mean, Ryan said we were on a break, but we were done. I found out this week that Heather dated him all summer. She’s the one you want to talk to.” I hesitated, not sure if I should mention finding her. I didn’t want to throw her under a bus, but Heather didn’t have as much to lose as I did.
“I’m going to give Heather’s name to Detective Wilson. Is there anything else we should know about her?”
His eyes drilled into me. He’d caught my hesitation. I was stuck. If I didn’t say anything and gossip got around that Heather was with Ryan on Sunday, they’d want to know why I covered it up. Panicked, I decided to channel Ashley. “Supposedly she saw him Sunday. She ditched the whole week of school to spend with another guy, but on Sunday she was back to Ryan.”
Ms. Cohen raised an eyebrow at me but the detective only noted it and stepped outside.
“That didn’t sound like you, Danika,” Ms. Cohen said. “You don’t usually repeat gossip.”
I shrugged. I couldn’t explain it to her. She could never understand how much trouble I could get into; how bad it would be for me if I got locked up. Heather might be embarrassed, she might end up having to move, but if you took a mermaid away from Mother Ocean, what happened? How long would I survive? I struggled not to think about how horrible it could be.
We sat in silence for a few minutes before the detective came back. “So why’d you and Ryan break up?” He was friendly again, casual. It bothered me that he’d turned that on and off, like it wasn’t genuine. I guess it was better than being mean, but I still didn’t like it.
He waited for me to answer and I thought about it, about the real reason and why I would never say it out loud. I decided to go with a lie everyone would believe, rather than a truth no one would. “He wanted more than I wanted to give.”
“That’s a pretty grown-up answer.”
“If there’s nothing else, Detective, Danika needs to get back to my class.” Ms. Cohen was clearly pissed on my behalf. I liked it enough that I forgave her for her comment earlier.
“Just a few more questions. When’s the last time you saw Ryan?”
“Not since the summer.” I decided to keep things short. I wanted to get out of the room and away from all this prying.
“You weren’t at the party where they found Tiffany’s body?”
“No.”
“Why not?”
“I had school work to do. I’m in lots of AP classes.”
He nodded and looked down at the legal pad. “Did you know Tiffany?”
The thought ran through my mind—“Not until I found her dead body”—and I hoped no one could see it on my face. �
�Not really. I might’ve seen her in the halls.”
“Well, I guess that’s it then.” He grinned good-naturedly and told us we could head back to class. I was halfway there when I remembered that Tiffany and I had chemistry together. We hadn’t talked, hadn’t hung out, but if the detective found out it might look like I was hiding something. I cursed under my breath, hoping they didn’t find out.
Gossip focused on the detectives. It was like no one wanted to talk about Ryan. Well, except one of the football players, who lost it in the hall screaming about how he’d kill whoever did it. Oddly, no one talked about that either. The teachers tried to bring it up in roundabout ways, to get us talking, but no one did.
The day dragged on. When it was finally time to go to driver’s ed, I almost cheered. Not because of Sam, not because I’d be driving, but because it meant in an hour I could be in the water, swimming away from all this.
“I looked for you at the assembly.” Sam smiled at me.
“I was with Ashley, Sarah, Jen, the usual bunch.” I felt angry—not at him, but I couldn’t keep it inside. There was too much to hold on to, too many questions without answers, too much I didn’t know.
“Isn’t there another one?”
“Heather.” Her name came out with a bitter tone, though I didn’t have that much against her. I wasn’t upset about her being with Ryan. They’d been friends forever. Their fathers even worked together. It made sense that the minute someone else had him Heather would want him. It was how she operated. But if all that was true, why was I in such a mood?
“The one who ran out of the room. She looked pretty upset.”
“She’s got a right to be. She was Ryan’s girlfriend.” I narrowed my eyes, looking at him and not the road in front of me. I needed driving practice if I was going to get that car and separate myself from Ashley, but at that moment, I needed someone to talk to more. I couldn’t risk telling anyone about finding the bodies, but I wanted, no, I needed to talk it through. Sam had opened up to me with his secret, and that made me think I could trust him with how I’d found them. Then there was Heather’s crazy internet search for sea monsters. I’d always ignored my mom when she talked about that stuff. Now I regretted it. Maybe Sam could help me with the sea folk. He was one of them. “I want to tell you something, something big.”
The Mermaid and the Murders Page 9