“So she’s at home, making dinner or whatever, and Barker shows up to kill her,” I said. “She runs out of the house and down at least four streets, past a bunch of people who could have helped her, and into the woods. You’re right – it doesn’t make sense.”
“But she definitely went home. He didn’t kill her coming out of Bickerby.”
“Maybe it was too dark to see anything so she just ran down the road she knew,” I suggested. “She walked here every day, she knew the way by heart. Maybe she couldn’t find a way to a neighbor’s in the dark.”
But even as I said it I knew that it didn’t make sense. It must have been easier to fumble her way over to the next house than it was to sprint for miles to get to the school.
“So that’s the thing,” Jack said. “I just can’t figure it out. Why would she turn and run all the way back? It was past midnight – there was no one in their office, no one would have been walking back to their car or towards their house; all of us were asleep. The campus police are never any use – she knew that – and the real police station is right on the way to the woods …”
“So maybe ... maybe he grabbed her and brought her to the woods. Maybe he thought it would be harder to find the body.”
“But if he didn’t want anyone to find it, he could have thrown her in the ocean like the rest of the girls. This was a statement. It’s almost like – almost like he was warning anyone else who thought to get involved.”
“Like who?” I said. “You don’t think one of the other teachers knew, too, do you?”
He shrugged.
“I don’t know. That’s what worries me ... But she didn’t have any friends, and she wasn’t really close to anyone here, so ...”
“So it doesn’t make sense.”
It felt as though we were back to where we had started. I rubbed my eyes as I willed myself to think. There had to be something else that we were missing – some point in the story that had been left out. I thought of Turandot’s uncompleted ending and shook my head. I wasn’t sure I could stand to have another unfinished mystery occupying my thoughts.
“Nim?”
I looked up to find Jack staring at me. From so close, I could see the indent from where his nose had been broken several times and the various white scars running along his face.
“I appreciate this, you know,” he said. “Everything you’ve done.”
I smiled back at him rather than respond; my voice was lost within me.
“You know, when this is all over, I’ll make it up to you,” he said. He patted Dictionary on the side as she closed her eyes sleepily. “We’ll do something completely uneventful and boring, like go to an opera or something.”
The snow falling outside had created a huge barrier on the window pane. It divided the window into a box of half white, half black. I imagined Jack’s reaction to Turandot and distantly wondered if he would think up a better ending than the one I had.
“No,” I said, “when this is all over, we’re going to France.”
Ch. 14
“Mr. Lund, could have a word with you?”
Albertson’s voice alerted me to the end of class when the bell did not. Though I had done my best to clear away any remaining thoughts about Miss Mercier’s file, I could not keep my thoughts off of my own file, and found myself repeatedly going over what the unspeakable illness was that everyone feared my mother had passed on to me.
“How are you, Enim?” Albertson said when I approached his desk.
“Fine.”
“How’s your translation coming along?”
“Good. It’s good.”
“Is it?” Albertson peered at me as though trying to disintegrate my lie. I smiled slightly to ward off his suspicions. “Well, I’m glad to hear that. I was worried that perhaps you needed more time.”
“No, it’s going well.”
“Good, good. Though, if you needed an extension …”
He left the question hanging. I could almost see it dangling in front of me. Given that I was well behind with the assignment, an extension would have helped me greatly, but I didn’t want to admit that I had once again barely started the translation.
“No? Well, all right then, Enim. I won’t keep you any longer. But if you do ever need anything, all you need to do is ask.”
He smiled kindly at me through his old, wrinkled face; I imagined how it would turn to a frown when I failed to turn in the assignment in a few weeks’ time.
I was halfway to the door when a separate thought struck me and I turned back to his desk.
“Actually, Mr. Albertson, I did have a question.”
“Of course. Yes – what is it?”
My voice caught in my throat as I opened my mouth. Brushing my hair from my eyes, I cleared my throat.
“I … well, it’s – it’s about Miss Mercier.”
Whatever Albertson had been expecting, it was certainly not that. He was so taken aback that he had to grasp the desk to keep from toppling over as his knees went weak. Fumbling with the desk chair, he lowered himself into it shakily.
“I – all right,” he said as he composed himself. His hands remained clutching the edge of the desk; his knuckles were white against the wood.
“I was just wondering … well, I guess I just … I wanted to know if … if you knew anything about what happened to her.”
I put my hands in my pockets so that he couldn’t tell that they were shaking. It had been ridiculous to ask him, and yet I was desperate to put an end to the pursuit of what had happened to her.
“I’m not sure what you mean, Enim. It was ... it was just a senseless crime. A tragedy.”
“Right. Of course,” I said. “It’s just ... it’s just I wonder what she did to make someone kill her.”
The words came out in an accusation that I hadn’t intended. Albertson’s expression darkened.
“I mean –” I said hastily. “Only, she was out so late ...”
“Émilie did nothing wrong. Teachers don’t have a curfew: she was allowed to be out as late as she liked. It was the student who was in the wrong.”
“A student?”
I looked at him cautiously as his expression hardened, knowing that I should have ended the conversation minutes before, but his tone was so certain that I couldn’t let it go.
He sighed as he realized what he had said.
“I didn’t mean to worry you, Enim, but ... the police are quite sure that it was a student who ... who killed Émilie.”
“But ... if they’re so sure, why haven’t they arrested someone?”
Albertson lowered his eyes to the desk and ran his hands over the unpolished wood.
“They will, don’t worry. It’s just a bit problematic. They found a keychain belonging to a Bickerby student near the – the body.” A strange noise came from his throat. “They only recovered half the set, though, before the snow covered the area, so ...”
“What?”
“But there’s no need to worry, Enim. We’re sure that this was a one-time occurrence. Miss Mercier was ... she was very special to her students. Her death was undoubtedly the result of an infatuation that turned ... wrong.”
My voice was stuck in my throat, but I managed a hasty nod of appreciation before leaving the room.
Wandering from the building, I ran my hand through my hair as I considered how the keys tied into what Jack and I knew. Barker must have planted them to ensure that the blame fell on someone else. And yet, as I thought it over, it struck me that what I had seen of Barker didn’t match up with such an elaborate and well-orchestrated plan.
My shoes caught a patch of ice and my feet flew out from under me. Smacking the ground, my shoulder was thrown back into spasm and my head throbbed against the ground. A clattering of voices somewhere behind me laughed and, as soon as I stood back up, a shove to the back pushed me back down.
“What the –?”
I landed face-first into the snow. As I moved to get up, someone’s foot stepped
on my back to pin me down. I turned my head to spit out a mouthful of snow and saw Julian standing above me with crossed arms. The side of his face was an ugly assortment of colors, and his lip was split and swollen. There were a few more students beside him, including the huge lacrosse player from the residence building, indicating that it was Kyle Trask who was holding me down.
“How are you this morning, Lund?” Trask said, pressing his foot down harder. My ribs rammed against the ground and my lungs compressed with the weight. Trask chuckled in amusement. “Good? Feeling all right?”
I choked against the snow and tried to swat at his leg with one of my arms, but it did little good. A few of the others laughed.
“Taking after Hadler, are you, Lund? Think you can jump us whenever you please?”
Trask wiggled his foot to drive me further into the snow, obscuring my vision in white.
“Let me tell you something, Lund: the only reason Hadler gets away with all the stuff he does is because he’s got a good back-fist and knows how to turn into a punch. But you?” He stepped off of me and I shakily raised myself up from the snow. “You’ve got to learn a lesson.”
Before I could splutter out an apology, Trask kicked the back of my head to slam it through the snow and my nose broke against the pavement. Blood ran into my mouth and down my throat, and as I raised my hands to my face, it pooled between my fingers. I quickly tried to hold my head up to stop the flow, but Trask grabbed my shoulder and held me down. My hands shook against the ice and snow.
“Chris, hand me your math book,” Trask demanded, holding his hand out for it. “Or whichever’s the heaviest.”
As he reached for it, I tried to scramble away but was immediately stopped by a foot on my arm. Trask adjusted the textbook in his hands as he calculated how to maneuver it. Grasping it by the bottom corners, he gave me a jeering smile before lifting it up.
I automatically raised my arms to block the impact despite knowing that it was heavy enough to crack my skull. Yet before it could collide with any part of me, the sound of it whooshing towards me stopped abruptly and a familiar voice came through the crisp air.
“You little fuck.”
I lowered my arms in time to see Jack wrestling the book from Trask’s grip. Ripping it away, he swung it back at Trask and cracked it against his jaw. The other boy went flatly down to the ground. As Julian rushed to his roommate’s side, the lacrosse player took a few steps back.
“Get up, Trask, I’m going to show you how to break a nose properly,” Jack said angrily. “Get out of the way, Wynne. Your boyfriend’s fine.”
“Yeah? Yours isn’t looking so good,” Julian said angrily, nodding in my direction. “And you should stay out of it, Jack. This had nothing to do with you.”
“Well, like you said, he is my boyfriend and all – I have to defend his honor.”
Trask got to his feet. Rubbing his jaw slowly for a moment, he stepped forward so that he was directly in front of Jack. He was much taller and broader, but it was knowing what he was capable of that made him so menacing.
“You think this is funny, Hadler? That’s fine. But Lund’s not as good at watching his back as you are – he can expect more than a broken nose next time.”
He eyed me threateningly and I didn’t doubt his claim for a moment. Jack said nothing.
Trask, Julian, and the others dispersed across the campus. I clutched at my face and staggered to my feet, shoes still slipping on the icy ground, and tried to stop the flow of blood with the sleeve of my jacket. It ran down my face and melted the snow. Jack handed me his scarf to use instead.
“Come on, let’s go to the nurse,” he said.
I shook my head.
“Come on, Nim, I’ve had enough broken noses to know when you need to see a nurse.”
“No – they’ll call Karl,” I said through a mouthful of blood.
“Yeah, probably. But consider the alternative: you could end up looking like me.”
Taking me by the arm, he pulled me across the campus to the Health Center. Though I did my best to hide my face, more than a few students and teachers caught sight of it as we went.
Despite claiming that I had fallen, the nurse who saw to me immediately dismissed the lie and asked me how hard I had been hit. I only shrugged in response. Once the bleeding had been stopped and the swelling went down, she was able to see that the break wasn’t so severe that the nose had to be repositioned, but it did require a horrible-looking white bandage that was taped over it to prevent it from further injury.
“Did you do this, Mr. Hadler?” she asked, turning to Jack.
Jack rolled his eyes. He knew the staff at the Health Center quite well; I had taken him there on numerous occasions to have his own injuries taken care of.
“I wouldn’t punch someone and then bring them in to get treated,” he said indignantly, but the nurse only scowled in response.
When she left the room, I gingerly touched the bandage on my nose and leaned my head back against the wall.
“Karl’s going to kill me.”
“Nah. Just send him a picture of your face. There’s no way he could get upset: you look pathetic.”
“Thanks.”
“No problem.”
Filling his pockets with the contents of the candy jar, he wished me well and continued on to his next class.
I sat in the Health Center for the remainder of the afternoon and pretended to sleep to avoid going to dinner. When I returned to the dorm room that night, I locked the door in case Trask was hoping to get me back sooner rather than later. Barely a minute after I had collapsed on the mattress, though, Sanders unlocked the door and entered.
“Lund? Phone call.”
He eyed my face repulsively as I sat up and moved past him to the door. My head lurched forward and my vision was tunneled as I walked down the hallway, and it took me an eternity to get down the stairs to the front desk. Josh Brody openly stared at me as I picked up the phone.
“Hello?”
Karl sighed exasperatedly.
“Enim, I really can’t believe this.”
“I know.”
“I just came up there to get you out of trouble for fighting – and already you’ve been at it again? Was it the same student? What is it with you and this boy?”
I leaned my head against the glass cubicle as it pounded more forcefully.
“No, it ...”
“What’s going on with you, Enim? Are you trying to get kicked out of school?”
“No.”
“What is this? Just another way to torture me for being here instead of your father? Because acting out won’t make him come back.”
“I know.”
“Do you have anything to say for yourself?”
There was a pause in which I considered telling him the truth about what had happened with Julian and Trask, but the words wouldn’t come.
“I need more shoes.”
“What?”
“I ... I need more shoes. Mine all got ruined in the snow.”
He was silent for so long that I thought he might have abandoned the phone in frustration, but then he said, “Which ones?”
“The boat shoes.”
“Nine and a half?”
“Yes.”
“All right.”
Though he made no sound, I knew that he was shaking his head.
“I’ll have them sent by the end of the week.”
“Thank you.”
“Goodbye, Enim.”
When the dial tone sounded, I replaced the phone and returned to the dorm room. Jack had returned and was coaxing Dictionary out from beneath the dresser to feed her a miserable-looking dinner. I gave her a look of sympathy before dropping down on my bed.
“Karl?” he asked, seeing the look on my face. “Did he threaten to come and get you?”
“No, he just wanted to lecture me.”
“I have to give him credit: he has kept you from being expelled.”
“Only because he’
d hate to have me home.”
“True.”
As I leaned my head in my hand, careful to avoid touching my nose, Jack sat back on the floor and looked up at me.
“It’ll only hurt for a day or two, tops. And it was worth it – look what you found in Barker’s.”
“I guess.”
“Come on, Nim – forget Wynne.”
“It’s not so easy when he lives right down the hall from us.”
“Wynne won’t do anything: he’s about as tough as a crayfish. And Trask is just pumped up with testosterone. Wait until rowing season starts up again – he’ll get out all that aggression in training.”
Though I wouldn’t say as much to Jack, I was far more concerned with what Julian was planning than I was about Trask breaking any more of my bones: I had heard enough of the stories that he had dug up about other students and passed along to be apprehensive. I shrugged and picked up my bag to start my assignments.
“How do you have homework?” Jack asked. “You missed all of your classes.”
“Not Physics and Latin.”
“Too bad Trask couldn’t have done you the favor of jumping you after breakfast. We might’ve been able to do something interesting tonight.”
“Yeah ...” I paused midway through opening my book. “Actually, I did find out something interesting in Latin.”
“I doubt that.”
“No – it has to do with Miss Mercier. I asked Albertson about her after class today.”
Jack sat up a bit straighter.
“What?” he said. “What if he says something and it gets back to Barker?”
“I don’t think he will; he was pretty averse to talking about it.” When he continued to look alarmed, I quickly went on. “Anyway, he said that the police think a student did it.”
“Right, but that’s nothing new. I mean, we initially thought a student did it, too.”
“No, but they have proof – or they think they do. Albertson said they found a pair of keys near her body.”
“Think Barker planted them?”
“Sounds like it. Only the room key was missing, so they can’t identify who they belong to.”
None Shall Sleep (Damnatio Memoriae Book 1) Page 25