The Little Woods

by McCormick Templeman

  “But why give it to me?”

  “You’re right. It doesn’t really make sense, does it? You tried using Romeo and Juliet on our note?”

  I nodded. “No luck. And I can’t make sense of the rest of her papers. Can you?”

  “Not off the top of my head, no. Mostly they look like building blueprints. I don’t think we’re going to get new information out of them, but I’ll take them back to my room and have a look if you want.”

  “Thanks.” I nodded. “Don’t let anyone see them, okay?”

  “Of course not.”

  “Not even Jack.”

  She nodded and closed the binder. “What I don’t understand,” she said, “is why she would need the puzzle box to communicate with her secret boyfriend. I mean, clearly she was using it to send notes to plan a rendezvous, but why go through the effort? Why not just leave the note on his bed?”

  “I know!” I said, sitting up. “That’s what’s been driving me crazy. Why do that? It’s like she couldn’t even risk anyone thinking it was a note. It seems crazy.”

  “It does seem crazy, but it also seems like something she would do. And also, if her secret boyfriend thought this kind of thing was cool, maybe she did it to impress him.”

  The term secret boyfriend made me flinch. It reminded me too much of Jack and whatever he was hiding. What was it about boarding school that made everyone so goddamn secretive? I was just beginning to compose a self-righteous aphorism in my head about honesty when I remembered that I wasn’t exactly a saint.

  “Something is really off about this whole thing,” I said, relieved finally to have someone to talk it over with. “I mean, why would she need to hide her relationship?” I pulled at a blade of grass, something percolating in my mind. “God, it could have been an adult. It could have been a teacher.”

  “God,” Sophie gasped. “I bet you’re right. Things like that have happened before.”

  “Gross.”

  Sophie started to speak, but then she closed the notebook abruptly. I looked up to see Alex approaching. He sat down across from me on the grass. Barely acknowledging Sophie, he took my hand. She rolled her eyes and, taking the binder, got up to go.

  “I’ll see you later, Cally?” she said, and then walked off.

  “Why haven’t you come by?” Alex asked, completely oblivious. “I’ve been going through a lot lately.”

  “That was really rude,” I said, taking my hand back. “You just totally ignored Sophie.”

  “Yeah, I don’t like her.”

  “What?” I said, wincing. “How can you not like Sophie?”

  “I just don’t.” He shook his head, clearly annoyed with me. “Don’t you even care about what happened to me? I had the shock of a lifetime. Every girl in the school is coming by my room offering to comfort me, and where the hell is my own girlfriend? You’re off with your bestie gossiping about shoes.”

  “Wow,” I said, my head numb, my heart tender from the blow. “You are being a total dick. How can you talk about her like that? What, she’s not one of the cool kids, so she doesn’t even rate as a human being to you?”

  He stared off toward the dorms. “Sorry. I didn’t mean to be rude to your friend. I’ll try to be nicer. I’ve just been really upset, and, like, hurt—no, alarmed—that you haven’t even come by my room.”

  I didn’t know what to say. I was incredibly annoyed with him, but I also didn’t want to have a big fight. I had neither the time nor the stomach for drama, so I lied to get us off topic. “I’ve been dealing with some stuff back home. It’s been really intense.”

  “Oh,” he said, staring at me as if I were a total stranger. “I guess it’s cool, then.” We went up to dinner after that and ate side by side without talking.

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  WE HAD HALF-DAY CLASSES THAT Saturday. I’d just tossed my books onto my balcony and was heading to the dining hall when Freddy called to me. I turned and saw her lingering by the mailboxes, chewing on her cuticles. I nodded to her, then continued on to lunch. Freddy had really pissed me off, and I didn’t relish the prospect of dealing with her.

  She caught up with me on the stairs. “Can we talk?”

  “Depends,” I said, not bothering to keep the annoyance from my voice. I kept walking and could feel her trailing behind me.

  “I’m sorry. Hold up, okay? I can explain. I just need to talk to you.”

  “Why?” I spun around to face her. “What could you possibly have to talk to me about?”

  “I’m sorry about the other day. I wasn’t expecting you to ask me anything about the phone call. I panicked. I can get kind of defensive when I feel threatened.”

  I tried to maintain my anger, but she looked so pathetic that I found it subsiding. “Yeah, I noticed.”

  “Come on,” she said. “Let’s just go for a walk and have a chat, shall we? I think we might be able to help each other out.”

  I nodded and headed down the path that led away from campus.

  “Okay,” I said when we were far enough out not to be overheard. “What do you want?”

  “I want to know why you were asking about that phone call. Who told you about it?”

  “Look, Freddy,” I said, my hand on my hip. “I’m not telling you anything until you tell me who that phone call was from. I know you remember.”

  “God,” she snapped. “Don’t be such an idiot, Wood. There was no phone call.” I froze, overcome by an odd sense that something bad was happening. She went on. “I made it up because I needed to talk to Iris privately. I knew she was doing her work-study in the bio lab, so I walked over to talk to her, and when I saw Ms. Snow, I made up the phone call so she could leave. Okay? Satisfied? Now you know my big secret. And I need you to do me a favor. I need you to tell me who told you about it.”

  “There wasn’t a phone call? What the hell, Freddy?”

  “I needed to talk to her alone, so I lied. I didn’t think it would ever amount to anything. When the police asked me about it in October, I froze. I told the police I couldn’t remember. But that was when I thought she’d run away. I had no idea it could become important. But when you mentioned it the other day, it occurred to me that if they wanted to, the police could check the dorm phone records. They might find out that I lied.”

  “So?”

  “I don’t want to get mixed up in something. I have everything set up just the way I want it, and then you asked me about the phone call and my mind went wild imagining all these possibilities. I started thinking they knew I lied and that it had gotten out somehow and was all over school.”

  I shook my head. “It was just Alex. He was in the lab when you came in to get Iris.”

  Color rushed into her cheeks and she looked incredibly satisfied. “Just Alex?”

  I nodded, and she exhaled, then looked at me with sudden suspicion.

  “Why is this so important to you, anyway? Why do you want to know?”

  “Look,” I sighed. “You asked me to trust you once and I did. I went along with your plan even though it went against my principles, and I did it as a favor to you. And if I remember, you even said you’d owe me. Well, this is it. This is what you owe me. This is my favor. I want you to tell me why you made up that phone call.”

  She sighed and her shoulders fell.

  “Okay,” she said with some effort. “Fine. I made it up because I needed to talk to Iris because I needed some weed, and I knew she had some.”

  “What?” I was so shocked I almost laughed. “You had, like, a pot emergency?”

  “Yes,” she hissed. “I did. I need it to be normal, okay? If I don’t have it, I get completely uptight and anxious. I get incapacitated.”

  “Too bad you can’t smoke it every day.”

  “Cally, I do smoke it every day.”

  “What?”

  “I mean, I don’t smoke it, I’d get caught, but I keep a stash of lollipops. I usually just need a little bit in the morning, but that day I knew I’d need more. I had a math
competition the next day, and I get terrible performance anxiety. I needed it, and my connection fell through. I knew Iris usually had some, and if I asked nicely and actually hung out with her, she’d smoke me out for free.”

  “You used her for pot?”

  “Yes, Cally. I used her for pot. I guess that makes me a total bitch,” she said with a cold smile on her lips.

  “So that’s it? You lied because you didn’t want to get caught about smoking pot?”

  She nodded. “It wasn’t premeditated. I didn’t think they’d know about the phone call, so when they asked me, I didn’t have time to make something up. I just said I couldn’t remember. I hadn’t even planned on making up the call in the first place. I only did that because she wasn’t alone in the lab like I thought she’d be, and I needed to talk to her. So that’s it. Please don’t tell anyone.”

  I stared at her a moment, taking in the whole pathetic mess of her. “Fine,” I said, and then motioned that we should head back to campus, but she just stood there looking strangely fragile. My stomach was starting to growl.

  “Wait,” she said. “There’s more.”

  I turned around, exhausted.

  “I need to talk to someone about it, and Tanner’s been no help.”

  “Tanner?” I mused, the obvious now apparent to me. “That’s your regular connection, huh?”

  “What?”

  “Tanner. He’s who you normally get it from. Is he who gave you the stuff we smoked in the cave?”

  She shifted her oxfords in the dirt and nodded. “It was special. His sister sent it to him from Humboldt. That’s why I wanted to delay telling the police. I was trying to create some distance between us smoking up in the cave and Tanner getting the package. I thought someone might put our expedition together with the package he got, and look into him. He’s usually way more careful than that.”

  I tried to ignore my growing hunger. “Okay, so what’s up, then? What hasn’t Tanner been any help with?”

  She sighed. “I’m not saying that I think you’ll help me. I know we’re not, like, best friends, but I need to talk to someone. I need advice.”

  “Advice? From me?” With some effort I tried to keep the disbelief from my voice.

  She nodded. “That night, the night she disappeared, everyone had left for fall break except the Math Bowl kids. So Iris smoked me out in her room, and I fell asleep in Helen’s empty bed.”

  “Oh,” I said, wheels starting to spin. “Oh man. So you were the last person to see her alive, then?”

  She shook her head. “No. That’s the thing. I wasn’t. That night, after I fell asleep, I thought I heard a voice outside calling her name. I was ridiculously high and still mostly asleep, but I thought she left when she heard the voice. When I woke up in the morning, she was gone. I cleaned up our mess and skedaddled. I didn’t know something was wrong until we got to the meet. And then I figured she ran off with some guy. That’s what it seemed like.”

  “Oh my God,” I said, a cold shock running down my spine. Had Iris left willingly with her killer that night, and had Freddy been a witness?

  “I know,” she said, trying to suppress tears. “And I didn’t say anything because I didn’t want to get in trouble. I thought she ran away. I thought, if anything, I was doing her a favor by keeping quiet. But really, it’s like I just let her die. And looking back, I feel like I should have known. She was acting crazy all night. I blamed it on the pot and on her, you know, general Iris-ness. She kept worrying that someone was watching us, she kept hearing noises. She left several times to go make phone calls, but she wouldn’t say to whom. Then she told me something really upsetting, only at the time I didn’t realize it was important.”

  I nodded for her to go on, trying to suppress that familiar grieving chant of if only.

  “She told me she’d found something out that she could use against someone. She’d found something really disturbing, really bad. It sounded to me like she was talking about blackmail. I blew her off at the time, because how lame, but looking back on it all now, it’s terrifying. What if she really did find something out, and she was going to use it to blackmail someone? What if that person was watching us all night? What if that was the person she left with? What if she thought she had the upper hand with this person, but really they were planning on shutting her up before she could do anything?”

  “Oh God. Did she say when she found out whatever it was?”

  “That day,” she said, her eyes wide. “She found out that day, and she disappeared that night. If you think about it, I might know who the killer is. I can’t remember the voice, but I know I recognized it. If anyone finds out I was in that room with Iris that night, I mean, what’s to stop them from doing the same thing to me?”

  “Oh God,” I said, closing my eyes. I felt a headache coming on. “You’re right, Freddy. You need to tell the cops. You really could be in danger.”

  “I know, but I can’t. If I tell them, they’ll know about the pot, they’ll be pissed about me obstructing their investigation, and it’ll all get back to Harvard. They’ll rescind their offer, and I’ll be screwed.”

  I looked at those cold green eyes, unable to believe she could still be thinking about Harvard.

  I shook my head. “You don’t need to tell them the whole thing. Tell them you called her out of class because you wanted to spend the night so you could, I don’t know, talk about a boy or something. Tell them you lied to them because you didn’t want to get in trouble for sneaking out of your dorm that night. You’re a heavy sleeper, that’s why your head was fuzzy, and you can’t remember more details. And then you tell the rest like it really happened. You just omit the pot and apologize profusely for lying to them in October. The fact that she left of her own volition lends credence to the idea that she ran away. It’s not totally crazy that you thought that.”

  “Yeah. Yeah, I guess you’re right. I think I’ll talk to them. Thank you,” she said, reaching out as if to pat me on the shoulder, but stopping herself. “Thanks.”

  We walked up to lunch in silence.

  I ate quickly, unnerved by what Freddy had told me, and started toward the library. Her story changed things significantly, and it would require some thinking. I’d lost the phone call but gained what was possibly the biggest lead yet. It was looking very probable that Iris had known her killer and gone willingly with him. He was someone she’d known and most likely someone I knew too.

  But I never made it to the library. As soon as I left the dining hall and saw the senior lawn, it was clear that something had gone down. Groups of kids and teachers were scattered across the lawn, and everyone kept their voices eerily low. I saw Helen and Pigeon coming up the steps. Helen looked confused, and Pigeon looked deathly pale, as if she was on the verge of being sick.

  “What’s going on, you guys?” I asked.

  Helen shook her head, incredulous. “They just came and took Mr. Reilly away. Someone said they’re going to charge him.”

  “What?” I said. “No, that’s not possible.”

  “It’s true. I heard the bag that the bones were in was Mr. Reilly’s, and they found fibers on the bones that matched something from his apartment—a rug or something,” Helen said, still shaking her head as if she couldn’t believe what she was saying.

  Pigeon just nodded, for once unable to speak.

  “Reilly wasn’t even teaching here ten years ago,” I said. “And he couldn’t have been living in that apartment for sure. I mean, he would have been fifteen.”

  “No,” Helen said. “But he did go to high school an hour south of here. And apparently the grave site was pretty recent. People are saying he’s had the bones with him all this time, like carrying them with him from place to place. I guess when he killed Iris, he freaked and decided to get rid of them. It’s so disturbing.”

  I shook my head, uncertain what to say. It felt wrong. It felt all wrong to me. No matter how thinly you stretched the logic or what a creep Reilly was, I couldn’t be
lieve he had killed my sister, forensic evidence or not. But it seemed that for everyone else, this was precisely what they needed. The floodgates had opened, and however illogical the catalyst might be, relief was pouring out.

  Time seemed to move slowly after that. It seemed like no one wanted to be alone. We stood around, gathered in little groups on the front lawn. Someone said something about a vigil, but nothing ever came of it. Asta and I hugged each other.

  “It’s over now,” she whispered. “We can finally let them go.”

  It was like a morbid kind of party, everyone sort of milling about, some laughing, others crying. When I saw Sophie, she gave me half a smile.

  “I don’t buy it,” I whispered. “He didn’t have a motive or an opportunity. Maybe he could have been involved with Iris, but what about my …” I looked around to make sure no one was listening. “Ten years ago, he wasn’t even able to drive, and Helen just told me he lived an hour away. Did he take the bus up here and kill two little girls for no reason and then hide the bones for ten years? What, did he take the evidence with him to college?”

  Sophie shrugged. “I hear what you’re saying, but you don’t have all the information. You can’t know what kind of evidence the police have against him. Just try to chill for a bit.”

  “So you think he did it?”

  She thought for a moment, and then shook her head. “I don’t know, but obviously we don’t have access to whatever evidence the police have.”

  “What about the puzzle box? Do you think he sent it to me?”

  “Dude,” she said, holding up her hands. “I don’t know. Maybe he did, and maybe he didn’t. There hasn’t been a trial. What did the police say about it?”

  “They, um …,” I said, but then Freddy walked up, and I stopped myself.

  Just before dinner, I was talking to Drucy and Shane when something strange caught my eye. Across the lawn, I saw Asta standing with Noel. They were side by side like sisters, closer than I ever saw Noel and Helen. Asta’s hand was on Noel’s forearm, and then she leaned in and whispered something in her ear, and Noel went pale. Her jaw dropped, and she shook her head. She looked like she might cry. Then Asta’s eyes caught mine, and she pulled away. She patted Noel on the back and walked over to the French teacher, leaving Noel there shivering like a lone dandelion. I started moving through the crowd to her, but by the time I reached the other side of the lawn, she was gone.