Time Will Tell

by Barry Lyga

  “Right. Your uncle. Antoine Louis Laird.” Indira didn’t even look at her phone to refresh her memory. “Since he disappeared in eighty-six, it made sense that he might be involved in whatever happened. Maybe even instigated it. So I did some digging, and guess what? Customs has no record of an Antoine Laird crossing the Mexican border in 1986 or 1987.”

  Her blood freezing enough to cause her skin to crackle, Elayah could not speak. Of course not. Of course there was no record. Because he wasn’t Antoine to begin with and he’d never gone to Mexico because her dad had killed him.

  “So what?” Liam had her back. Pushing for more. “He might have used a fake name. Or crossed illegally.”

  Indira shrugged. “Sure. I guess so. But isn’t it weird that a kid from the middle of nowhere—apologies—with no access to anything like Google back then would know how to fake a passport? Or cross the border without help?”

  “He could have figured it out,” Liam said.

  Indira sighed. She’d lived up to her end of the bargain. “That picture?”

  Collecting herself, Elayah flashed her the image on her phone. “That’s all you get for now. Maybe you can track down some more info for me and then you can have the pic.” She paused for a dramatic beat. “And I’ll also tell you about the note we found with the knife.”

  Indira’s entire face seemed to widen in absolute shock and jubilation at this news. She actually made a little squealing noise as she drummed the table lightly with her fists.

  “Okay. Okay, great. Deal.”

  “One more thing,” Elayah told her. “You might want to dig up whatever you can on a woman named Lisa De Nardo. Maiden name McKenzie.”

  Indira arched an eyebrow. She said nothing as she tapped the name into her Notes app.

  Elayah managed to hold it together until Indira cleared the door of Burger Joint, but then she buried her face in her folded arms on the table. “Oh man,” she whispered. “It’s true, isn’t it? Antoine never went to Mexico because Antoine is my dad and he killed Marcus so he could be with my mom and the only reason I exist is because—”

  “Hey.” Liam put a hand on her shoulder and stroked, gently. At any other time, the shock and pleasure of his touch would have made her flinch, but in this moment, the news about Antoine still ringing in her ears, she barely felt him at all.

  LIAM

  They agreed to meet up with Jorja and Marcie at Jorja’s house to debrief. Liam parked in his driveway, which abutted Jorja’s property. He cut the engine and then died immediately when El put her hand on his.

  He hadn’t expected it. He thought she was still angry at him.

  “Hang on,” she said.

  I love you, too, he almost said aloud.

  “You think I was stupid, telling her that stuff about the knife, don’t you?”

  So the hand touch wasn’t a confession of true love after all. And truly, he thought it wasn’t the smartest move to tell Indira about the knife, but he was more concerned with the fact that the reporter seemed to have a mole in the sheriff’s department… a phrase he never thought he’d construct without a concomitant image of an actual, physical little burrowing mammal tunneling its way under the building where his dad worked. But these were weird, mysterious times.

  “You did what you had to do,” he told her, and tried not to let his grief show when she took her hand away. “I’m gonna skip this”—he gestured next door, indicating Marse and Jorja and the discussion they were to have, recapping the meeting—“and see what I can figure out at home, okay? It’s getting late. Dad’ll be tired. Maybe I can get him to say something he wouldn’t normally say.”

  El pursed her lips and tilted her head, examining him from a new angle. He hoped it was a flattering one.

  “Yeah, sure,” she said, and patted his hand, killing him all over again.

  ELAYAH

  Jorja’s dad gave her a big hug when she walked in. The first time she’d met him, as a kid, he’d done the same, and it had sort of creeped her out; she generally didn’t like people who were handsy. But Jorja’s dad was a hugger. He hugged the mail carrier, for God’s sake, when the guy came to drop off catalogs and bills and junk mail. He did complicated handshakes with the kid ringing him up at the register in the grocery store. He hugged his clients when he got them acquitted and especially when he didn’t.

  And he hugged Elayah upon seeing her for the first time since the attack, then whispered, “I’m glad you’re okay. We’ve all been worried sick.”

  The hug bothered her anew, as though she’d never gotten used to it in the first place. Did you know? Are you covering it up?

  “Thanks,” she said, breaking the clinch, avoiding his gaze. “Where’s Jorja?”

  “I think she’s in the back room with Marcie. You know the way.”

  She’d spent a lot of time in Jorja’s house. She felt no compunctions whatsoever about grabbing a cookie off a tray in the kitchen on her way through the house to the back room.

  As she rounded the corner, she almost choked on a chunk of chocolate. Marcie and Jorja stood in the center of the back room, arms around each other, kissing.

  Elayah froze. They weren’t just kissing—they were kissing. Jorja’s hands were exploring every inch of Marcie’s ass, and Marcie was pressing herself tight against her. The distance between them was atomic, if that. This wasn’t the first time they’d done this. Or if it was, they were moving a lot faster than Elayah would have.

  “Wow,” she said out loud before she could stop herself.

  The two of them froze mid-tongue-swapping. One eye from each of them rotated in her direction, and then they burst apart from each other.

  “I mean, wow, this cookie is sooooo good,” Elayah said unconvincingly.

  “Hi!” Marcie said brightly, completely unaware that her lipstick was smeared over half her cheek. “Glad you’re here! Right, Jorja? Jorja?” Without looking in her direction, she flailed a hand, smacking Jorja’s arm.

  “Um, oh, hi…,” Jorja mumbled, embarrassed, wiping the residue of Marcie’s lipstick from her mouth.

  Oh. My.

  1986: MARCUS

  Marcus woke in the middle of the night from a dream of fire.

  He often dreamed of fire. Sometimes it was just a campfire, and he sat there, watching its flicker and its crackle, the sparks fitful and brief.

  Other times, he held a torch, stood in a shifting bubble of glow. Was there something in the murky dark, something hunting him? Or was he the predator, seeking, prowling? It depended on the dream.

  Still other times, like tonight, the fire was everywhere. All consuming. All around him. Everything within sight had gone aflame. Above the roar of the fire, he heard a voice like his own, and because it was a dream, he’d forgotten he had a twin until it was too late, until the voice cried out with a final, choked-off burst of agony and recrimination and he remembered—how could he have forgotten?—that he was a twin, that there was another half of him in the world, another half of him out in the blaze, set alight like birthday cake candles, unable to extinguish by blow or by wish, and he called out to Antoine, his breath plucked from him by heat, his voice reduced to a hacking whisper as he jerked awake in bed, one arm flailing out to slap against the headboard.

  The thap! of his hand on the cheap pressboard echoed for a moment in the stillness of the room. His own breathing settled into its natural rhythm, then hitched in his chest as he held it, straining his ears.

  The room’s silence roared at him, lashed at him. It was too quiet.

  Anytime he awoke in the middle of the night, he sought out the soft, subtle, and familiar hiss-rasp of ’Toine’s sleep breath. His twin slept flameless sleeps, never rousing during the night. Antoine’s presence had been a security blanket since the womb, and Marcus liked to imagine the feeling was mutual, as so many of their feelings were.

  But now, in the quiet of his held breath, he heard nothing. Blood hummed and pulsed in his ears. Through the door and down the hall, the refrigerator c
ranked to life and started running.

  Marcus let out his breath and swung his legs out of bed. Once, there’d been a gap between his bed and his brother’s. Now, the gap had become a precipice, a stretch of emptiness all the way to the wall. Antoine’s bed was now ensconced in the little room over the stand-alone one-car garage that held not a car, but rather boxes of junk, the scattered remains of old toys, and bags of trash to be set out for collection on Tuesday.

  A fear he knew to be irrational—a lingering remnant of Antoine’s fire-cloaked dream scream—swarmed his heart like a cold vapor. He stood and went to the door, peering down through the dark hallway. Through the window there, he could see the edge of the garage and the window above.

  “’Toine?” he whispered, foolishly expecting a response.

  Marcus wondered if this, too, was a dream, if he’d dreamed that he awoke from the fire dream, if expectation of Antoine’s presence was simply a continuation of the first dream’s tragedy.

  He pulled on his robe and crept down the hall to the back door, then padded across the scraggly grass of the backyard to the garage. He needed his brother. Antoine had given no reason for his decision to move out of their room, had spoken little, as was his habit now. Antoine’s silence be damned—on the track, Marcus needed the slap of the baton in his brother’s hand, and on a night like this, he needed the comfort of his brother’s presence. This was the deal with twins. They had to be there for each other. It wasn’t optional.

  The stairs creaked horribly on the way up. The handrail was wobbly.

  He didn’t bother knocking. Antoine would be asleep. Marcus just wanted to see his brother. Like always.

  He opened the door. His eyes had already adjusted to the darkness on his way over from the house.

  Antoine wasn’t there.

  THE PRESENT: LIAM

  Liam let himself into the house. They’d met with Indira at around dinnertime, and now it was getting dark. He had homework to do and could not conjure an instrument small enough to measure his desire to do so.

  Pop’s car was gone; he would be at the restaurant. Dad’s was in the driveway, though.

  And Dad himself was passed out on the sofa in the living room. He’d been pulling double shifts for days now, compensating for the deputies tasked with handling visiting press and such. He had no overtime budget to speak of, and since the sheriff was not eligible for overtime pay, he had the joy of working extra hours to keep the books balanced without sacrificing safety. Nowadays, he didn’t get home until past midnight most nights.

  Yay for being the boss! It all made Liam’s plan to live a life of as little responsibility as possible very appealing.

  He stared down at his sleeping father. Now what was he going to do? He’d planned to pump Dad for any progress on the case, counting on annoying him into letting something slip. Sometimes that worked.

  But now, watching him sleep, a wave of pity crashed against the shore of resolve, breaking it like packed sand. Let the poor guy sleep.

  That was when he noticed the laptop. It was almost but not entirely closed, resting on the coffee table an arm’s stretch away from Dad’s slumbering form.

  Was that light gathered in the crook of the not-shut computer? Was it still on?

  He nudged the lid open a little more and stooped to look at the screen. It was still on. And it showed Dad’s desktop.

  His father was absolutely fastidious about password protection and locking his computer, but he must have dropped off thinking he’d shut the lid all the way. And the automatic sleep timer hadn’t kicked in yet.

  You’re not going to do this, Liam. Even you aren’t that stupid.

  He skated his fingertips across the trackpad. That would keep it awake for a few more minutes.

  Worrying at the corner of his mouth, he decided the hell with it. The laptop glowed up at him as he spun it to face himself. His dad’s email was already open, and there was a nice, juicy one about halfway down. It was from the Maryland State Police crime lab. Liam licked his lips and skimmed Dad’s sleeping form for a moment. Then he quietly double-clicked the email.

  Dear Sheriff Blah Blah… Attached please find… requested report… summary… human blood…

  Human blood.

  Liam’s throat clicked audibly as he swallowed.

  Handwriting analysis… separate email…

  Rocking back on his heels, Liam pressed his thumb and forefinger to the bridge of his nose. Human blood.

  On a hunch, he checked the date of the email and his temper flared. It was from days ago. Before he’d cajoled Dad into talking about the blood on the knife. Dad had known it was human blood, but he’d told Liam the results were inconclusive. Probably deer blood.

  Even angry, Liam was smart enough not to do anything stupid like forward the email to himself, but he quickly took pictures of the screen with his phone, then shut the laptop and headed to his room to think.

  ELAYAH

  Marcie had another shift at Boogie Woogie, so they congregated there.

  “So why is your dad lying?” Jorja asked with all the penetrative glare and intensity of a TV district attorney.

  “He might just be holding his cards close to his chest,” Marcie suggested. She’d returned from wrangling a five-year-old who had stuffed the princess castle full with every plastic food toy from the fake grocery store. It had taken a good ten minutes to unclog the castle. “He’s still figuring it out, and he doesn’t want to talk about it.”

  “He also probably doesn’t entirely trust me,” Liam admitted. “He still thinks I was involved in leaking the story to the Loco that started this whole thing.”

  “But look, at least we know something now.” Marcie held up her phone, where she’d synced the data from her iPad. She’d been keeping a running list of clues, suspects, and other evidence as they uncovered them. Elayah couldn’t bear to read it. It was all bad news. Her dad was a killer, a fratricide. And there was a good chance everyone else’s parents were covering it up.

  “What do we actually know? A list of facts isn’t knowledge if nothing comes of it.” Jorja’s voice was gentler than usual, even in reproof. Elayah noticed it—did Liam?

  After she’d caught Marcie and Jorja making out (the session was, she decided, too hot and heavy and involved way too much hand movement to be mere kissing), there had been some fumbling and stammering all around before Jorja suddenly—read: conveniently—remembered that she had to take out the trash. Tucked away in the back room, Elayah and Marcie had circled each other warily at first, two prizefighters assessing each other for weak spots, for vulnerabilities.

  And then Elayah gave up and said, “Girl! What the hell!”

  Marcie blushed.

  “I don’t get it. Are you…” It seemed ridiculous to have to ask her best friend about her sexuality. They’d spent so much time talking about boys.… Marcie had always agreed—enthusiastically!—when Elayah waxed rhapsodic about Liam’s pulchritude. Elayah had never detected even a hint of anything but Straight Girl from Marcie, not in all the years they’d been friends. Was her gaydar really that bad?

  Marcie shook her head fiercely. “Gay? Bi? I don’t know. I think I’m…” She drifted off for a while, her expression shifting from contemplative to dreamy. “I think I’m just Jorja-sexual.”

  “You and Jorja. When did that start?”

  Marcie’s blush deepened. “While you were in the hospital. She came over to my place and we were talking, and the next thing you know, I was all over her.”

  “All over Jorja.” It still didn’t compute.

  “I think I was just like… my best friend is in the hospital because some lunatic slashed her throat, and holy crap the world’s a mess, and I just suddenly needed to taste her tongue like my life depended on it, and I just did it.” She said it all in one breath, her chest now heaving as she caught up. The blush had become the flush of memory. “I’ve always kind of… I thought it was just a girl crush for a while. But it never went away. Because she’s j
ust so Jorja, you know? Just unapologetically Jorja and the rest of the world can go to hell, and I… I don’t know. I guess I’m into that. And she’s into me. Which works out well.”

  “Wow.” Elayah couldn’t think of anything else to say.

  And now here they were, standing around Boogie Woogie, where Marcie once again ran off to pry a kid away from the fire extinguisher. Three of them knew a secret.

  All four of them wanted to know another secret entirely.

  “Okay, so we can’t say one hundred percent it’s murder,” Marcie challenged on her return, dragging Elayah’s thoughts back to the moment, “but we know there’s human blood on the knife now. So there was at least a struggle.”

  “Do they know whose blood it is?” Elayah asked.

  “It’s not like there’s a database of blood out there,” Liam said.

  Jorja perked up. “Actually—”

  “Don’t get started,” Liam told her. “I know this one. There’s ViCAP and CODIS, but they’re not comprehensive. The blood on the knife doesn’t belong to anyone in the system.”

  “Which it wouldn’t, if the guy died in 1986.” Jorja managed to sound triumphant in this pronouncement. As though summarizing for an imaginary, spellbound jury.

  Elayah quirked her lips. “It doesn’t matter. We know who the victim is.”

  “We don’t know for certain.” Marcie this time, defiant and protective. Elayah appreciated it, but Marcie’s optimism was beginning to feel forced and unrealistic. “Maybe they fought and Antoine ran off.”

  Elayah shook her head sadly. “I know you’re trying to spare me thinking about this stuff, but there’s no record of him entering Mexico.”

  “You really gonna trust decades-old government records?” Liam scoffed.

  “We need more information before we know anything at all for sure,” Jorja said, gamely picking up on Marcie’s glass-is-half-full vibe.

  “We know about the handwriting,” Marcie said, matching the enthusiasm of her girlfriend? Friend with benefits? “We could also do something with blood type, right? According to the report from the state police, the blood on the knife was AB. We can narrow it from there just by asking our parents for their blood types.”