by Tessa Wegert
After I’d worked for so long to keep my interactions with Swanton surface-level, this trip was quickly turning into a deep dive. Given what had happened to my uncle, I guess I shouldn’t have expected anything less. I’d already visited my cousin after years of not seeing her. A chat with my ex–best friend couldn’t hurt.
Be right over, I typed, and Suze replied with an emoji of a candy-apple-red lipstick kiss.
Suze hadn’t bothered to give me an address because she knew I didn’t need one. Merchants Row was an unassuming strip mall in the center of town, and above the door of the very last retail space, where the line of beige buildings came to an end, a white banner emblazoned with a silhouetted dancer flapped in the wind. I hurried in, desperate to warm up and certain the studio would deliver. Inside, the air was so humid the window to the street dripped with condensation. The coatroom was packed with women whose exultant faces shone with sweat, and they gabbed and laughed as they pulled on their heavy jackets and winter boots. In no time I spotted Suze emerging from the brightly lit studio.
She was the same age as most of the women heading outside—my age, that is—and had their same post-workout glow, yet there was no mistaking the girl I used to know. Half Japanese with a ready smile, coal-black eyes, and cappuccino-colored freckles on her glossy cheeks, she’d always been striking, especially in a strappy tank and snug jeans. The ends of her hair used to reach her lower back where, if senior year rumors were true, she’d gotten a butterfly tramp stamp. That hair was chin-length now, pushed back with a headband, and though her clothes were of the workout variety, I caught myself feeling self-conscious in my sweater and ratty jeans.
Suze noticed me hovering and bounced on her feet. “Shana,” she gasped, pulling me into a hug. “Wow. It’s really you.”
“It’s great to see you.” The warmth coming off her body was intense. When she let me go, I wriggled out of my coat.
“Sorry. Hot as balls in here; these ladies work up a sweat.” Her smile was wide in a way that felt wholesome, like Crissy’s before she grew up.
“This place new?” I didn’t remember seeing it. I could have missed it on my trips through town, though. I’d been looking for a serial killer, not a fitness class.
“Coming up on three years, if you can believe it. I sure can’t. It’s been going well, actually. Better than I hoped.”
“You own it?”
She gave a modest single-shouldered shrug. “I always dreamed of doing this, figured I might as well put all that community college to good use. And you know I’ve always loved to dance. I actually think doing this was fate. I met Robbie when I started setting it up. He works for the Chamber of Commerce now—one day he was giving me some marketing advice, and a few months later he was down on one knee. How could I resist those baby blues?”
“Robbie, right,” I said. Robbie Copely was in my brother’s grade, and he and Crissy dated briefly in high school. Robbie’s eyes, solid blue and framed by the dark, curly eyelashes of a beauty pageant contestant, were what made him stand out from the hoi polloi. “Sounds like you’ve got your dream job. That’s great,” I said, genuinely delighted. It was strange, standing next to Suze again. We’d been like sisters once, her clothes and the cloying scent of her drug store body wash as recognizable to me as my own. Through the edgy haircut I could see traces of the girl who had been my confidant. Had we not fallen out, I suspected we’d still be close. “Look, I’m sorry I didn’t stay in touch,” I said, and found that I meant it.
“Me too. I thought about calling, obviously, but I was pretty pissed at you for a while.”
“You were pissed at me?” I couldn’t help it: When I looked at her, I still saw Suze straddling one of the Boisselle twins and patting the empty space between her and the other brother. She’d spent an entire summer crawling through my bedroom window at two in the morning and threatening to jump to her death if I didn’t accompany her to a party.
“Of course I was,” she said with a slight frown. “You ditched me when I needed you most. I was a hot mess in high school. Middle school, too, actually. The drinking and drugs were a real problem for a while. Instead of sticking by me while I worked that shit out, you totally deserted me. I honestly couldn’t believe it when you stopped returning my calls. You were always the sensible one, Shana. If you think I made bad choices when you were around, you should have seen me after you cut me off. And it’s not like you were perfect. You had your faults.”
I was speechless. What had I expected from Suze? Certainly not a lecture. But her dance studio, and her giddy customers, proved she was right. The behavior that drove me away was just a phase. Everyone had them. How could I have been so myopic? Instead of looking for ways to pull my friend out of her bad-girl stage, I’d put my own well-being first and written her off as a lost cause. All these years I’d been vilifying Suzuka Weppler in my mind, convinced she was to blame for my own far tamer indiscretions. She wasn’t a heathen. I was never under her yoke, and yet I’d pushed her away. I’d seen myself as morally superior. In retrospect, it was disgraceful.
“I’m sorry,” I stammered. “I didn’t—”
“Hey.” She put a hand on my arm. “It’s okay. Seriously! We were kids. We didn’t know what we were doing—if we did, I’d have been more particular about who I kissed. I can’t tell you how awkward it is to run into all those boys in town now. The paunches on some of them, my gawd.”
I laughed, and she joined in, our voices trilling in unison. For the first time in as long as I could remember, I was truly happy to be home.
“Listen, my next class isn’t until three. Have you had lunch? I could eat a Clydesdale.”
Before I knew it, Suze’s arm was hooked through mine and we were girls again, the best of friends.
* * *
* * *
There weren’t many places to eat in Swanton, and Suze didn’t want to waste precious catch-up time driving into St. Albans, so we settled on the pizza place five blocks east. Music was playing, a nineties indie anthem I’d liked as a kid, back when my life was simple, and the menu was a mixed bag of limp iceberg salads and deep-fried everything else. I ordered two slices of Hawaiian, Suze got a veggie calzone as big as a loaf of bread, and as we dug into our lunch, we dove into the past.
It was immediately clear to me that my friend’s memories and my own didn’t always converge. In fact, my recollection of events was often woefully skewed. Parties I remembered as ragers Suze recalled as totally lame. When she talked about Ben Bradley and Cody Brown, boys from our class we apparently thought were smoking hot, it was like I was hearing their names for the first time.
In some cases, my impression of our history appeared to be just plain wrong. I was sure Suze and I had almost gotten arrested for underage drinking in the park near the plaza that now housed her studio. My cousin Abe was there, too, that night, and thanks to his quick thinking he’d pulled us into the bushes moments before a police car drove by. Suze didn’t perceive things this way at all. In her version of events, it wasn’t a cop who showed up but one of her neighbors, the dad of a kid in our class. According to Suze, he feigned regret that we hadn’t saved a bottle for him, and told us half-heartedly not to get into too much trouble.
Memory, I realized as we spoke, is a tenuous thing—the truth a filament thin as a spider’s web—but I didn’t like how much I’d forgotten. As she crunched her crust, Suze tried to put my mind at ease.
“I happen to specialize in storing useless information about ancient social events,” she said. “We had a lot going on back then, and you had to make room in that brain of yours for more important things. None of that stuff is important anyway. It makes me tired just thinking about it—although that could just be the hormones.” She patted her stomach. “I’m dancing for two.”
“You’re pregnant? Congratulations!”
Suze laughed, and the sound had the same warming effect on me as catch
ing a whiff of my mom’s butter pecan cookies after years of missing out. “Thanks. It happened a little quicker than planned, just like last time, but Erynn’s super pumped about being a big sister. I’m due in late May.”
“You lucked out. No huge belly in the summer heat.”
Suze laughed, but I held my breath. Everything I knew about pregnancy I’d learned from my sister-in-law, but my niece was thirteen now. If Suze wanted to talk morning sickness and swollen feet, I’d have nothing to contribute, and inevitably the conversation would loop around to me. I could try to hide my failed engagement, but I wasn’t confident I could evade her questions without inviting suspicion. With every passing minute I spent in Swanton, the less I felt like an investigator skilled at manipulating suspects and the more I felt like the insecure teenager I used to be with Suze.
She didn’t ask about my personal life. The sense of relief I felt didn’t last long. “Your scar,” she said. “It looks good. Better, I mean. If I didn’t know it was there, I would hardly have noticed.”
I smiled and felt the mutilated, too-tight skin on my jaw hitch. “Time heals all wounds, right?”
“That was messed up. What he did to you.”
Her gaze jumped all over the restaurant as she spoke. Suze was never one to shy away from sensitive subjects, so her discomposure startled me. By the time I got home from the hospital, stitches and bandages in place, I’d decided to shut her out for good. She hadn’t been around to bring me stacks of Seventeen while I recovered at home, or to fill me in on the latest school gossip. But that was my choice, not hers.
I picked at a syrupy wedge of pineapple pizza and knit my brows. Pizza rigor mortis had set in, my cheese was congealed, and anyway, I’d lost my appetite. I set down the slice and wiped my hands.
“That kid always creeped me out,” she said, staring down at her own plate. “It was the way he looked at you. He threatened me once, did I tell you?”
“No,” I said quickly. “How? When?”
“Freshman year. I didn’t even know who he was, but one day he came up to me and said it wasn’t a good idea for you and me to be friends. He told me you had an overprotective brother who had a tendency to get violent.”
“Doug?” My startled laugh sounded like a seal bark, embarrassingly loud. “That’s ridiculous.”
“I know that now, but I was super freaked out for a while. When I met Doug and he was totally sweet, I figured it was just a stupid rumor to keep us apart. Now I think he did it to hurt you.”
All I could do was nod, because I knew she was probably right.
As soon as she took her last bite, I bused our table and reached for my coat. When Suze bent over for her purse, her shirt slid up her back and I caught sight of a colorful tattoo. The rumors were true. At the door, we paused.
“How are your folks doing?” she asked as we hugged again. This time I noticed the firm, shallow bump under her shirt.
“As well as you’d expect, considering the whole town is talking about my family. Any theories?”
“You’re the detective.” A microscopic wrinkle appeared between her eyes. “Isn’t that why you’re here?”
“What, to investigate?” Again I laughed. “Hell no. I just came to support my parents.” I zipped up my coat, and we stepped into the wind. “According to local law enforcement, it’s been almost twenty years since Brett died. We just didn’t know about it until now. The case is stone-cold. I’m lucky I’m not the one responsible for warming it up.”
“It’s so crazy. I didn’t know him well, obviously, but he was really nice to me.” She lowered her eyes for a moment. “He was like an extra in my life, hanging out in the background. Remember that family picnic you invited me to? Brett showing up half in the bag? Felicia was livid.”
Gobs of spilled potato salad embedded in the grass. Spittle on Felicia’s chin. “There were a lot of days like that,” I said. That event had been one of the tame ones. Brett made an appearance in the police blotter on more than one occasion for motor vehicle crashes, disturbing the peace, you name it.
“Poor Wally was so embarrassed, he kept apologizing when he drove me home,” Suze said. “But the truth was that afternoon, before Felicia lost it, Brett spent ages listening to me complain about having a teacher for a father. My dad and I were in a bad place then—he was always harping on me to be an angel at school and make a good impression on his coworkers—and Brett was really understanding.” With a shudder, she said, “You think whoever killed him is still around?”
“They could be, but I don’t think you need to worry. The police are all over it.”
“Think they’ll find him, though? After all this time?”
I thought of Crissy, spitting mad in her trailer. My parents choosing to do their errands in a different town. “For everyone’s sake, I damn well hope so.”
NINE
Training to become an investigator is just like studying for anything else: facts and procedures are drilled into your head with such force that you’re not likely to ever forget them. Eventually, putting them into practice becomes a matter of instinct. I suppose that’s why, when I parted ways with Suze, I found myself puzzling over Brett’s death.
No word of a lie, I wanted nothing to do with his case. I had no reason to believe the local authorities weren’t perfectly capable of solving it. What I did have was a personal stake in seeing Brett’s killer apprehended. Everything about his death made me uneasy. One thing I learned during my training is that about forty percent of homicide victims are killed by someone they know, and twelve percent of those are killed by family. With a crime like the one committed against my uncle, the involvement of a stranger was unlikely. Intimates are who we look at first. And most of the people close to Brett were members of my own family.
I didn’t plan it, but instead of making the drive back to my parents’ house, I found myself doubling back to First Street. Before I knew it, I was in front of my old school.
My gaze traveled over the large, low structure that housed both the middle and high school as I pulled adjacent to its windowed double doors. Had it always looked this much like a detention center? It certainly felt like one. I’d been about to start my senior year when I was injured. There were never any graduation photos of me in my parents’ house. Even with some time to heal, the scar on my cheek was as pink and glossy as raw chicken when I donned my cap and gown.
By the time I pulled into a parking spot and put the SUV in park, I could think of nothing but Bram. Where was he now? All day long I’d felt a prickling sensation along my spine and the same cold trickle of disquiet I’d experienced at the bistro with McIntyre. Was he close? Could he be hiding among the dozens of staff and student cars around me, sneering at the institution he’d left behind? Spying on me?
And the bigger question: Could he have something to do with Brett’s death?
I checked the car’s mirrors and swiveled in my seat, probing my blind spot, but while the parking lot was jammed with vehicles and it was coming up on lunchtime, there was nobody around. I felt a little lighter. Being back at the school made my head spin with images from my time with Suze before we grew apart. We’d had fun together, we really had. I shouldn’t have waited so long to reach out. It was becoming increasingly difficult to justify the decades-long cold shoulder she’d gotten from me.
I arrived home early that afternoon and found my parents had returned from their escapade du jour. The cheerful cooking sounds in the kitchen were accompanied by the mewl of sax-heavy smooth jazz. While she cooked, my mother swung her hips in an exaggerated fashion. After our movie night, Dad had bragged about mastering the lotus pose faster than her, an achievement that drove my stiff-hipped, yoga-obsessed mother mad. Her current swagger was a blatant F-you aimed at her limber husband, who was now rolling out pie dough at the kitchen table, but she delivered it with love.
“You’re back!” she said when she
spotted me. It was nice to see her smiling again. “And just in time to help me chop some mirepoix. I’m making chicken pot pie.”
It was all I could do not to drool. She sashayed to the fridge, popped open a beer for me, and clinked her own against it with a conspiratorial grin.
“So I saw Crissy,” I said.
Mom’s face clouded. “How did she seem?”
“Honestly? Unsympathetic.”
My parents locked eyes. They’d been together so long they shared thoughts like winter colds, trading them back and forth unconsciously. “Well,” said Dad from the table, “they have a lot of history.”
“I get why she’d be resentful,” I said. “Brett left them. He wasn’t very present on the best of days. But she just found out her dad was murdered. I kind of expected to see more grief.”
As she minced carrots with uniform knife cuts, Mom said, “Crissy was old enough to have his number, that’s all. I don’t like to speak ill of the dead, but . . . well, the man made his bed. That’s all I’ll say about it.”
Dad gave a nod. “I confess that when Brett left, I bid good riddance to both the man and his shortcomings. I suppose Crissy did the same. It wasn’t just his parenting that was an issue, darling. You were young, probably too young to remember much. Brett hardly earned enough to support his wife and family, but more than that, he skimmed off the top of their shared bank account to feed a gambling habit and keep himself in Natty Light.” Dad took a swig of his own beer and floured the dough. “After he and Felicia split—they never divorced, mind you, didn’t have the savings for that—your aunt expected him to help support the kids. Brett gave her money when he could, but his contribution was minimal. Felicia’s job as a shop clerk didn’t earn her enough to manage on her own, and her health was an ever-present problem.”
“She had trouble sleeping,” added Mom. “She didn’t always make it to work. And when she needed money, there was none, thanks to Brett. Those were painful years for your aunt. I often got calls from her in the middle of the night. She’d drop the kids here because she knew they’d be safe. It was the only way she could squeeze in a few hours of rest.”