by Nina Monroe
Which is not enough, according to Dr. Carver. In a heartfelt phone conversation from her daughter’s bedside, she told us that she believes that the criminal justice system is failing Astrid: that more should be done to uncover her daughter’s shooter.
Over the coming days, our team of investigative reporters will be taking a closer look at each of the children—and families—involved in the shooting. Our first interview was conducted by Fern Spencer, who spent time talking to Reverend Avery Cotton, the Middlebrook minister. Reverend Cotton’s foster children—both from a troubled background—were present at the shooting. For more, turn to page 10.
CHAPTER
22
10 p.m.
“PLEASE TELL ME you didn’t?” Peter says, scanning the front of the Middlebrook Monitor.
He turns the front of the paper round to face her.
She looks at the article.
THE PLAYDATE SHOOTING.
It’s a good headline, she thinks. It will get attention. The strapline, underneath, reads:
Distraught mother releases pictures of child suspects on Facebook.
There’s a screenshot of a Facebook page she made shortly after her interview with Lieutenant Mesenberg: Justice for Astrid. It already has over 400 likes.
“Priscilla?” Peter asks again.
“I had to do something,” she says. “The police aren’t taking the investigation seriously.”
Peter shakes his head.
They’re sitting in the hospital café. Peter forced her to leave Astrid’s side for a few minutes to get some food. He doesn’t understand that she can’t eat. Or do anything else—sleep, work, wash, change her clothes. Just sitting here, watching her little girl fighting for life, is taking every ounce of energy she has.
Sometimes, she finds it hard even to breathe.
And he doesn’t understand how him being here is making it harder.
Harder because she likes him being with her.
Harder because it reminds her of how things used to be when they were still a family; when he still loved her.
Harder because she knows that, sooner or later, he’ll leave again.
Peter goes back to reading the article.
She notices that he’s taken his wedding ring off.
I want us still to be friends, he’d said when he announced that he was leaving her. I don’t want us to be one of those separated couples who fight—or who don’t even talk. We need to get on—for Astrid’s sake, at least. Then he’d paused and looked her in the eye and said: I’ll always love you, Cil, you know that.
She’d wanted to yell at him that she didn’t want to be his friend. She didn’t want them to just get along for the sake of their kid. She wanted them still to be married. And if he still loved her, why didn’t he want that too?
More than that, she’d wanted to yell at him that he didn’t get to come off as the calm, reasonable one when he was the one who put a bomb under their marriage and went off to California with his graduate student.
But she’d been too stunned to find the right words. And by the time she had found the words, he was gone.
“I know how raw you’re feeling about all this, but releasing photos of the kids for anyone to see—on a public Facebook page … there are other ways to do this,” Peter says.
She swallows hard. She’s not going to let him question her judgment.
“I haven’t done anything wrong, Peter. The photographs have already been published in the public domain.” It had been easy to find the pictures. A picture of Avery’s foster kids in an article on the online church newsletter, welcoming them to the community. The Bowen kids on the town website celebrating the Fourth of July last year. An old article about the building of the mosque which had a picture of the Sayeds, and a family photo Will sent in for the university website. A bit of cropping and she’d gotten decent headshots of each of the kids who were in the stable when Astrid got shot.
“Getting the press involved always makes things worse, I thought you knew that.” He closes the newspaper and pushes it away.
“Raising public interest will help put pressure on the investigation,” Priscilla says.
“I don’t think the investigation needs any more pressure. Lieutenant Mesenberg assured us that she and her team are going to get to the bottom of what happened.”
“Astrid got shot, that’s what happened. And one of those kids shot her. We need to find out who that was. And unless we take this investigation seriously, unless we draw attention to the shooting, it’s going to happen again. And again. Every day, kids in America are getting shot and no one’s doing anything about it.” Her voice is getting louder and louder, but she doesn’t care. Peter has to understand.
“I know that you’re sensitive around this subject. Because of what happened back in Boston …”
“Sensitive?”
“Come on, Cil, you lose it whenever anyone so much as mentions guns.”
When Priscilla decided she no longer wanted to be a practicing attorney, he’d stood by her. He’d understood how the case had left her so shaken that she couldn’t put herself on the front line again, not in a country where guns destroyed entire families. And now he was calling her sensitive?
“I thought we were on the same page,” she says.
“We are. I just think that we have to be reasonable. Being emotional—”
“Emotional? Our daughter’s in a coma—because she got shot—but I guess that’s nothing to get upset about?”
“That’s not what I meant.”
“It’s been over forty-eight hours and they haven’t even found the gun, Peter.”
“I know.” He holds out his palms. “But lashing out against people—and getting the press involved—isn’t going to help us. Or Astrid.”
“Help us?” Her heart contracts. “You lost your claim to us the day you left.”
She feels herself sabotaging the very thing she longs for: them being together again as a family. But she’s so angry at him for not understanding her when it’s now, more than ever, she needs his support.
He stares at her. “I’m sorry.”
For a long time, they stay there in silence, Peter standing, holding his paper coffee cup, Priscilla in her molded plastic chair.
Then she looks up at him, her neck stiff, her eyes hard. “Why are you here, Peter?”
“Excuse me?”
“If you’re not going to be supportive, why are you here?”
“I’m here for Astrid—and for you, Cil. I know it hasn’t been easy for you but I still love you. We’ve shared so much—”
“If you loved me, you would never have left.”
His shoulders drop. “Come on, Priscilla.”
“Come on, what? How do you want me to respond, exactly?”
“I think you should trust Mesenberg and her team to do their work and focus on Astrid.”
Priscilla looks at Peter, incredulous. “Wow, California really has made you go soft. We’re lawyers, Peter. Since when do we trust the police not to fuck things up?”
“I’m just saying that you’re wasting your energy on this—energy you don’t have right now.”
He reaches out to her but she pulls away.
And then she sees him: True Bowen walking down the corridor toward the café. Peter sees him too. He stands up and walks toward him, holding out a hand.
“True, good to see you.”
True looks at Peter, not sure how to respond. Eventually, he takes his hand.
When Peter still lived in Middlebrook, the two of them were friends. They were an unlikely pairing: the stay-at-home dad of three and the law professor. But it worked. They’d go fishing together in the White Mountains and True would show him how to find morels in the woods. Priscilla and Peter both knew that True went hunting—that he owned a rifle—so they’d never allowed Astrid to go over for playdates. But hunting was different, wasn’t it? True would never shoot a human being. And he hunted to feed his family. They’d both bee
n able to get their heads around that.
And then, when news got out of Peter’s affair, True had broken off the friendship. After Peter left for California, True came to see Priscilla to tell her how sorry he was—and how angry. I’d do anything to have Cedar back—even for a second, he said. And he’s just walking out on his family. It’s not right.
For a moment, it had made Priscilla feel better—that someone was on her side. But it didn’t bring Peter back.
Skye stands a few paces behind True, avoiding Priscilla’s gaze. She’s pale and there are dark shadows under her eyes. She’s carrying Wynn, his face buried in her neck. His right arm is locked in a purple cast, and there’s already writing scrawled along the plaster—long, loopy sentences alongside pictures of bears.
A little way behind Skye and Wynn, Phoenix is playing with a water cooler, pressing the tap over and over. There’s already a puddle of water on the floor.
True lets go of Peter’s hand and walks toward Priscilla. “I’m so sorry,” he starts.
Priscilla’s spine whips up. “Sorry?”
“About Astrid. You must be beside yourself with worry. We’ve been in such a state over Wynn but he’s going to be okay …” He stalls.
“Where were you, True?” she asks.
“Cil …” Peter starts.
“I’m just asking a question, Peter.” She keeps staring at True.
A deep line forms between True’s eyes. “I don’t understand.”
“Where were you when the kids were playing in the stable—with a fucking handgun?”
Everyone around them goes quiet.
Peter steps forward. “I’m sorry, True,” he says. “We’re going through a lot right now.” Then he turns to Priscilla. “Come on, Cil, let’s get back upstairs.”
“No. I want him to answer. I want him to tell us—as the father of three small children—what he was doing when a gun went off and blew a hole through my daughter’s chest.”
True’s shoulders drop. He takes a step back from her.
A week ago, they’d bumped into each other on Main Street. She’d asked him directly whether he was going to Bryar Wright’s party. He’d laughed. You still haven’t buried that old hatchet, Priscilla?
“I’m just asking where you were when my daughter got shot.” She looks over at Wynn, sleeping in Skye’s arms. “And when your four-year-old son got hurt.”
“I …” he starts. “I …”
She looks over at Phoenix, who’s managed to break off one of the plastic taps on the water cooler. “And Phoenix was in the stable, wasn’t he?”
If it wasn’t Bryar who shot Astrid, the next kid she’d put her money on was Phoenix. He was always looking for trouble. And he probably knew how to shoot a gun too.
“What are you implying, Priscilla?” True says.
“I think you know,” Priscilla says.
Skye steps forward, her face blotchy. “It was my fault. Dad put me in charge. I was meant to look out for them.”
Wynn stirs in her arms and looks up, confused, his eyelids heavy.
“It wasn’t your fault, Skye,” True says, his voice so loud and hard that Wynn opens his eyes for a second. “None of this is your fault.”
Skye strokes Wynn’s head to soothe him. “It was, Dad. You told me to watch the little ones.” She swallows hard. “If I hadn’t gone out of the stable with Cal, I could have stopped things getting out of hand.”
Priscilla lets out a laugh. “You put a thirteen-year-old child in charge? Wow, forgive me for questioning your judgment.”
“I know you’re upset, Priscilla …” True says.
Priscilla ignores him. “Well, at least your daughter has some sense of moral responsibility. That’s something for you to be proud of, I suppose.”
Slowly, True looks up at Priscilla. “Moral responsibility? What are you talking about? This was an accident, a terrible, terrible accident.”
“Is that what Wynn told the police?” Priscilla asks.
She’d watched Lieutenant Mesenberg and her partner come into the hospital early this morning. She knew that they were there to question Wynn. He might be four years old, but he saw what happened—at the very least, he’s old enough to identify who fired the gun.
“Wynn’s really shaken up,” True says. “He’s been through a lot. He needs some time to recover—physically and emotionally.”
“And some time to conveniently forget what happened,” Priscilla says. “The Bowens stick together, right?”
True shakes his head. “I don’t know what you want from us, Priscilla. I’m sorry for what’s happened. Really, I am. But this isn’t doing anyone any good—”
“Dad?”
They all turn around to look at Phoenix. He’s moved on from the water dispenser to a newspaper rack on the wall of the café.
“Not now, Phoenix,” True says.
Phoenix picks up a newspaper. “Come and look, Dad,” he says. “We’re in the paper.”
“What?” True says.
“Me and Skye and Wynn—and the other kids. They’ve blurred out our faces but they’re saying that someone’s been sharing pictures of us—”
True walks over to Phoenix, takes the paper from his hand and studies the front page. Then, slowly, he puts the newspaper back on the stand.
“Come on, Skye, Phoenix, let’s go,” True says, his voice low and steady.
Skye goes over and grabs Phoenix by the hand.
True turns round to look at Priscilla. She’s rarely seen him angry at anyone. He makes allowances for people. For their tempers and their irrationalities and their mistakes. It’s why he’s friends with the Wrights—and why he went to the party. But the way he looks at her makes her feel like she’s the one in the wrong in all this.
He turns back around and then the four of them walk away down the hall and out through the main doors of the hospital. “He was trying to be kind, Cil,” Peter says. “He must have been through a lot—with Wynn …”
“He was at the party, Peter. And he let this happen.” She swallows. “And that son of his—”
“You can’t go around blaming everyone you see for what happened to Astrid—”
“Yes. Yes, I can. And I will—I’m going to blame every single child and every single parent who was at that party until I find out who did this.”
Peter holds his hands up. “Okay, Cil, okay.”
“Okay? What does that mean?”
He stands up and puts on his jacket.
“Where are you going?”
“I think you need some space. My being here is obviously not doing you much good right now.”
He zips up his jacket.
“Fine!” Priscilla says. “Go. It’s what you’re good at, isn’t it, Peter? Walking out. In fact, why don’t you book a flight back to California. Leave me to deal with this.” Her voice chokes. She looks down into her coffee, forcing herself not to cry.
He walks up to her gently and puts his hands on her shoulders. The familiarity of the gesture overwhelms her. It’s what he’d always done when she was spiraling—pressed down lightly on her shoulder blades, as if anchoring her. It’s what he’d done on the night of the shooting that ended her career as an attorney.
“She’s going to be okay, you know that, right?”
She looks up at him through blurry eyes. “How do I know that, Peter? Tell me.”
He looks right into her eyes and says, “I know because she’s a fighter, Priscilla. Like her mom.”
They keep looking at each other and she wants to tell him to stay—that she needs him here, with her. And that she’s sorry for lashing out at him. But the words stay stuck in her throat and instead, she watches him turn away from her and walk out of the hospital doors under the heavy gray rainclouds.
CHAPTER
23
10 a.m.
AVERY DOESN’T UNDERSTAND, at first, why everyone goes quiet when she walks into the general store on Main Street. Or why everyone’s staring at her.
> And then she realizes that they must all know about Astrid getting shot—and that Cal and Abi were at the party. She wishes she could explain it to them. That she’d do anything to go back and stop Astrid and Wynn getting hurt.
As she walks to the counter, she hears a whisper from behind her.
“Shame on you.”
It takes her a moment to realize that it’s Hillary, who does the flower arranging for special occasions in church. She’s worked for the church her whole life. Prides herself on keeping the cemetery looking beautiful throughout the dry summers and the cold winters. She does the holly wreaths at Christmas and the floral arrangements on Easter Sunday. She does the weddings too. She’s the most loyal member of Avery’s church: she supported Avery from the moment she arrived in Middlebrook.
“Hillary?” Avery asks. “Is everything okay?”
Hillary shakes her head. “Those poor children.”
“I know, it’s awful.” Avery reaches out to take the old woman’s hands.
Hillary pulls her hands away. “I mean, your poor children. How could you do this to them—after everything they’ve been through?”
Avery feels a thud in her chest. “I don’t understand—”
Hillary thrusts a newspaper she’d been holding at Avery. “Well, maybe you need to read it again—those things you told that reporter.” Hillary’s voice wobbles. Her cheeks are flushed pink.
Avery looks down at the newspaper. There’s a piece on how Priscilla’s released pictures of the kids on Facebook. She’d heard people talking about it. But there’s another article too.
It comes back to her now. How, late yesterday afternoon, she’d sat on the bench under the oak tree in the church garden and that kind young woman had come to talk to her.
Her hands start to shake.
She turns to the article on page 10 and it feels like the world slips away from under her.