In the Pines

by Laura Lascarso

  Mom fast-forwarded the footage through the dismissal bell when several students and faculty left, including Ms. Sparrow and Dare. She resumed it right around 5:35 p.m. “This is where it gets interesting,” she said.

  Daniela came out first, holding a pair of metal scissors—she must have gotten them from the art room. She stabbed the front tire on the passenger side of Mason’s truck. The footage showed her heading toward the tailgate, but because of the bad angle, we couldn’t be certain of what happened on the back end or the driver’s side. After completing the task, Daniela climbed into her car and left. The direction she turned out of the parking lot was toward the interstate, not Hawthorne Road.

  “Why was there only one flat tire?” I asked Mom. “It looks like she slashed all of them.”

  “There were marks on all four tires, but only one was fully punctured, the first one she slashed. She didn’t use enough force on the others. Perhaps her arm grew tired or she lacked the physical strength to finish the job.”

  “Or her desire for vengeance was waning.”

  Mom gave me a look that was part skepticism, part pride. “Just watch the video, Shakespeare.”

  The next person to come out to the parking lot was Peter Orr, already wearing a sauna suit that resembled puffy black trash bags. He stuffed a duffel bag into the back seat of his car and then jogged past Mason’s truck on his way to the track. Coach Gundry came soon after, squinted in the direction of the setting sun as if trying to determine the time, glanced at his watch to confirm it, and then got into his car and drove away.

  “When I talked to him, he acted like he didn’t know what time it was when he left,” I told my mom. “Coach keeps track of time. Always.”

  While it was suspicious, it wasn’t proof of any wrongdoing, and I understood the difference. I thought about telling Mom that Coach Gundry was also the one to encourage Mason to use steroids, according to Peter Orr, but that would invite more questions, which might lead to me having to admit we’d gone to Café Risqué. I’d check on Coach’s alibi before going down that road.

  Finally Mason appeared. I recognized his jaunty, carefree walk. Despite just arguing with Daniela, he looked pretty optimistic. It was his birthday, after all. He was heading to an illicit rendezvous with Ms. Sparrow and then meeting up with Dare to eat waffles at his favorite breakfast dive. He looked happy and completely unaware that someone with malicious intent was about to take everything from him. It was hard to believe this footage was taken only a little more than a week ago. It felt like a lifetime already. Mason could have been or done anything. What a shame.

  I couldn’t see Mason get into his truck, but I did see him toss his duffel bag and letterman jacket into the passenger seat, which meant he was alone in the cab. He started up his engine with no problem and headed out of the parking lot. As he drove past the camera, I spotted the shovel in the bed of the truck, along with several other yard tools, a couple of five-gallon buckets, and a full black trash bag.

  “What was in the bag?” I asked Mom.

  “I don’t know. It wasn’t there when we pulled Mason’s truck out of the lake.”

  “Must have been a slow leak,” I commented, for him not to realize he had a flat tire until he was two miles away from school. If he’d realized sooner, he might still be alive.

  Mom fast-forwarded to about 9:00 p.m. when Peter finally came into frame, sweating profusely with a washed-out, waxy complexion. He’d been running the track for more than two hours. He must have been drop-dead exhausted as he leaned heavily against the driver’s-side door of his Impala. His sauna suit was gone, and he was back down to wearing only his practice singlet. He fumbled with the door and collapsed inside. His was the last car to leave the lot.

  “That’s all there is,” Mom said.

  “That’s it?” I sat back and crossed my arms, frustrated that the video didn’t tell me anything I didn’t already know. “I expected someone to get in the truck with him,” I said. “Or follow him out.” Peter’s car was there the whole time, which meant he was running the track, just like he said.

  “I’ve reviewed this footage at least a dozen times, and other than Daniela slashing Mason’s tires, nothing seems amiss,” she said.

  A deep frustration settled over me. I’d bargained my only bit of evidence for this?

  “Maybe Daniela followed him, waited until his tire went flat, lured him into the woods and… you know,” I posited.

  She tilted her head thoughtfully. “It’s possible. Without the body it’s difficult to determine the exact cause of death, but we think Mason must have been laid out on a flat surface for the perpetrator to achieve that kind of complete amputation, which means someone had to drag the body to the lake or bury it, both of which take a bit of strength. Mason weighed quite a lot.”

  “He weighed 195 pounds.” I knew because Coach Gundry had weighed him that same day in the wrestling room. “The killer could have dismembered the body first.”

  She nodded. “If that were the case, it would have been messy. There would be blood everywhere. And the killer still would have had to seduce him into a compliant state or medicate him heavily.”

  Which meant any one of them could have been the killer. And Dare….

  Dare was a mystery.

  “Have you gotten back the toxicology report?”

  “Not yet.”

  “You have any other leads?” I asked.

  “The lab results came back from those pills you gave me. Anabolic steroids. And we got a tip from the line saying they’d seen Mason buying pills from a man at Café Risqué. We questioned him today. He has an alibi with video footage to prove it. He may be a drug dealer, but he didn’t kill Mason.”

  Just as I suspected. I figured it was safe to tell her what I knew, so long as it was couched as common knowledge. “I heard a rumor at school that Coach Gundry encourages steroid use among his wrestlers.”

  “Who told you that?” she asked, making a note of it on her phone.

  “Peter Orr.”

  She nodded. “I’ll be sure to follow up on that.”

  “Does this mean we’re working together now?” I asked hopefully.

  “No, this means you give me the name of the teacher who was having an affair with Mason. And you keep your nose out of this nasty business.”

  I’d give her the name, but I wasn’t agreeing to anything else.

  “The teacher’s name is Eliza Sparrow. She teaches biology and AP Environmental Science. She’s also the sponsor of the Environmental Service Program. Mason was taking her class and planted trees the weekend prior for extra credit. The shovel and gloves were probably hers. She says there’s video footage of her driveway showing she never left Friday night. And here’s the number to the phone they were communicating on.”

  I wrote down the number Ms. Sparrow had listed in her phone under MC. Hopefully Mom could pull the phone records and find something useful.

  “Didn’t you take that class your sophomore year?”

  “Yeah, and I got an A too.” I waggled my eyebrows suggestively, and she shook her head.

  “I can take it from here, Charlie,” she said.

  “Of course you can,” I said to appease her.

  But until Mason’s killer was found, I was not giving up.

  I SPENT my weekend like most teens in the midst of a homicide investigation: I made a murder board. At the center of the web was Mason Chalmers and surrounding him were his closest friends and lovers. I put an X by those whose alibis checked out: Peter Orr, Joey Pikramenos, Clayton Benson. Presumably Ms. Sparrow and Coach Gundry’s alibis would check out as well, which left me with only Daniela and Dare. Both of them had argued with Mason just hours before his death. Both of them claimed to be driving alone between 7:00 and 9:00 p.m., but neither could prove it.

  I certainly didn’t like what my murder board was telling me.

  I also created a narrative of what I believed happened on the night Mason was murdered, along with the stories of ever
yone involved. And the newest question: did his killer know he’d be stranded on the side of 2082, and if so, how?

  When I wasn’t scrapbooking Mason’s murder, I caught up on homework and wrote a paper for AP Government about the role of open primaries in moderating the policies of candidates campaigning for office. Boots wasn’t too interested in my work, academic or otherwise, but he did appreciate the extra attention and the snacks I provided during breaks.

  I texted with Dare throughout the weekend too. He still had family in town because of the funeral and was, as he termed it, performing his familial duties. We didn’t discuss the investigation, but I did send him encouraging texts where I could.

  On Monday morning Tameka met me in the misfit parking lot before I’d even gotten out of my car. She must have been waiting there for me.

  “Have you heard?” she asked impatiently as we walked together toward the main building.

  “No, what?”

  “Ms. Sparrow’s been arrested.”

  My mom must have followed up on the info I gave her. “Do you know why?”

  “No, but I heard it has something to do with Mason Chalmers. Do you think she killed him?” Tameka’s eyes were wide, and she looked a little frightened. I didn’t think Ms. Sparrow was Mason’s killer, but I hadn’t ruled it out. “I mean, why else would they arrest her?” Tameka continued. “Unless….” Her eyes narrowed shrewdly. “They were knocking boots! Were they, Charlie?”

  Tameka was on my team. I had to trust her with this information, even if it meant spreading gossip. A scandal like this one was simply too juicy. “I think they were. Did you find out anything about the fight last year?” She’d told me over the weekend she was going to ask Daniela about it.

  “I tried, but Daniela wouldn’t talk. She said Mason had sworn her to secrecy and I had to ask Dare about it.”

  Another dead end. This line of questioning was like a snake eating its own tail.

  “Did you find anything online?”

  “Nothing but a whole lot of white people problems.” She rolled her eyes. “Trifling.”

  “Too bad we can’t get into Mason’s accounts.”

  “Dare probably has the passwords,” she said.

  “Yeah, maybe.” It also meant Dare could erase anything potentially incriminating from Mason’s social media.

  “Speak of the devil.” Tameka glanced past me. I turned to find Dare approaching, looking slightly more rested but certainly not well. This would be his first day back at school since finding out his brother had been murdered.

  “He looks like he could kill someone,” she muttered with a whole lot of side-eye.

  “Tameka,” I said reproachfully.

  “Sorry to trash-talk your boy, but he looks… ill.”

  “He’s just lost his brother,” I reminded her. But even on a good day, Dare did have a slightly miscreant look to him. Not all good, not all bad. It was what made him such a good Phantom. Dare was complex, and I liked that about him. Perhaps I had a thing for bad boys.

  “Yeah, well. I’ll leave the suspecting up to you. Catch ya later, Dick.” She gave me a quick pat and nodded curtly at Dare as she passed by him, like she didn’t want to get too close. Dare responded in kind.

  “Hey, Charlie,” Dare said with a weak smile. We hadn’t seen each other since Friday. Two days felt like two weeks.

  “Hey, Dare. You hear about Ms. Sparrow?”

  He glanced away and seemed to be studying the brick side of the auditorium. I sensed there was something he didn’t want to tell me. “What is it?”

  “I told my parents. I couldn’t let her get away with it.”

  I told my mom, too, but it was to make sure she had all the evidence. That was twice now Dare had turned in the people who’d preyed on Mason. He had every right to, of course. I only wondered if Dare’s goal was justice or revenge. What would he do when he found out Coach Gundry’s role in all this?

  “Do you know what the charge is?” I asked.

  “No, but I don’t think we should give up on the investigation.”

  “I agree. I actually need to make a call to Gainesville High today and see if Coach Gundry’s alibi checks out.”

  “We should do it in person,” Dare said. “Let’s drive over during lunch.” The warning bell rang, which meant I wouldn’t have time to go to my locker before class. I’d just have to borrow a book from a classmate.

  “Meet me back here,” I told Dare and jogged off to the IB building.

  I didn’t want to admit it, but this case was definitely beginning to wear on my GPA.

  WE ARRIVED at Gainesville High during their lunch hour. Rather than go to the front office and check in, Dare thought we’d have better luck pretending we were GHS students and circulating among the student body. After asking around, we discovered their wrestling coach was also a math teacher. We headed for his classroom.

  We introduced ourselves to Coach Dimmit as reporters from Eastview High doing a write-up about our wrestling team’s countywide competition. Coach Dimmit was happy to give the highlights from their last meet along with some stats of his starting wrestlers. He directed us to their website for the spelling of the wrestlers’ names. Then we launched into the real reason we were there.

  “Coach Gundry often checks out our competition’s meets ahead of tournaments,” I said. “Was he here last Friday when GHS faced off against Columbia?”

  Coach Dimmit had to think about that for a moment. “Well, I do sometimes see him when Eastview isn’t wrestling, but I don’t recall him at that meet. Usually he’ll at least come up and say hello.”

  “Are you sure about that?” Dare asked, leaning in. “Because we have him on record saying he was there.”

  “Well, if he says he was, then I suppose it’s true, but I myself didn’t see him,” Coach Dimmit said with a matter-of-fact nod.

  We asked a couple more inconsequential questions and then bid him goodbye. Back in the car, we compared notes. “We could drive up to Lake City and see if the Columbia coach saw him,” I suggested.

  Dare shook his head. “I don’t think we need to. Coach Gundry was lying.”

  “Yeah, there’s something else you should know.” He glanced over at me expectantly. “Peter Orr said the steroids were Coach’s idea.”

  Dare slammed his fist against his steering wheel. I winced on behalf of the Jag. Dare apologized for his outburst.

  “It’s okay,” I said. “I know it’s hard to hear, but it does give Coach Gundry a motive, if Mason threatened to tell.”

  “Everyone in this town is a goddamn liar,” Dare seethed.

  I nodded sympathetically. I had more or less the same assessment, which included Dare, because whatever it was he wasn’t telling me was almost as bad as a lie. I didn’t tell him that, though. I knew how to read the room.

  Dare drove us back to Eastview. We got back in the middle of fifth period and hung out in the hallways outside the wrestling room to wait for the change in classes. Dare intended to pry the truth out of Coach Gundry, and I wasn’t about to let him do it alone.

  While we were waiting, I got a strange text from my mom: Don’t be alarmed. We’re headed to Eastview High to make an arrest.

  I showed it to Dare. It couldn’t be Ms. Sparrow because she’d already been arrested over the weekend. Eastview teachers were dropping like flies. A minute later we saw a half dozen police cars pull up in the athletics parking lot, and a bunch of uniformed officers filed out, my mom among them. I expected her to head to the front office, but instead they stalked to the building where we were waiting.

  “What’s going on?” I asked her as officers lined up in formation outside the wrestling room. They made us back away and stand on the other side of the atrium. Their guns weren’t drawn, but their hands rested on their grips.

  “When does the period end?” Mom asked me.

  “In about two minutes.”

  “Why aren’t you in class?” She shook her head. “Never mind.”

  Mo
m spoke to her team of officers. “Stand down until then. We don’t know how he’s going to react, and we don’t want any students harmed. We need to get in there and do a sweep before he can destroy any evidence.”

  “Mom?”

  She crossed the hall and pulled me aside. “We found the phone.” She nodded toward Gundry’s room. “We think it’s in that classroom.”

  I told her what we’d recently discovered from our trip to Gainesville High.

  “What were you doing checking up on his alibi?” she said testily, aiming some of her ire at Dare, who couldn’t hear her terse words but cringed nonetheless. “I thought we had an agreement.”

  “The good news is, it looks like you’ve got your man, right?” I said to distract her from my own transgressions.

  “Yes,” she said with a look of concern.

  “What is it?”

  “Nothing. You and Dare get going. I don’t want you around for this.”

  I nodded but still we lingered, not wanting to miss the arrest. The bell rang, and students filed out of Coach Gundry’s classroom. The police officers all smiled and nodded at the students walking by, who then immediately got on their phones to spread the news that cops were on campus and standing outside the wrestling room. Ten seconds later, I received a text from Tameka: I heard the cops are here. What’s going on?

  I replied back with: Don’t tell anyone, but they think Mason’s second phone is in Coach Gundry’s classroom.

  She replied with several openmouthed emojis.

  Meanwhile, Dare stood frozen right beside me. His whole body appeared stiff with rage as my mom and Hartsfield led Coach Gundry out of his classroom with his head bowed. Hartsfield was reciting him his Miranda rights.

  “Your mom thinks he did it?” Dare asked.

  “They think Mason’s phone is in that classroom. The second one.”

  Dare’s eyes tracked Coach’s retreating form with menace. “I’ve always hated Coach Gundry for putting so much pressure on Mason to make weight, but now….” He crushed his fist into his open palm. “God, I could kill him myself.”