Lockdown

by Laurie R. King

  Linda found Sergeant Mendez at the far end of B Quad, standing under the window of the girls’ restroom. “There you are!”

  Olivia looked alarmed and fumbled at her shirt pocket for the cellphone. “Sorry, did I miss a text?”

  “No, it’s fine, I needed a breath of air anyway. I sent you a text with the Bee Cuomo thing. The hashtag.”

  Olivia thumbed open the text function.

  Hi Olivia, that hashtag is #speakforbee

  “Okay, thanks, I’ll look into it.” She searched for the VOLUME button on the side of the phone.

  “I also wanted to ask: you said Bee Cuomo’s father has a history of drunk-and-disorderly. If he thinks Nick Clarkson is behind this…whatever it is, do you think I ought to warn Nick’s mother?”

  “We should warn her that the kid’s going to get into trouble if he doesn’t lay off.”

  “I mean from—”

  “I know what you mean. But like I said, we’ve been digging hard for four months, since she went missing. Cuomo’s lawyer is talking harassment, and we’ve found nothing. No history of family violence on his sheet, just social stupidity.”

  “Okay, thanks. Everything fine out here?”

  “Sure.” But the police sergeant then continued in a voice loud enough to be heard in the next quad, much less inside the girls’ room. “Everything’s fine so long as I don’t catch any girls using their phones in the toilets.”

  After a moment of dead silence, hushed giggles rose up again and a handful of girls came scurrying out, looking any place but at Sergeant Mendez.

  Linda laughed, and told Olivia to have fun.

  8:56

  Mina

  Mina and Sofia stood at the middle of A Quad, comparing their schedules. Mina held hers out so her friend could see.

  “I have University Professor, Sports Medicine, and Psychology. I wanted Sergeant Mendez in fourth period but my mom said no.”

  “You have Sports Medicine for fifth? I thought you picked Software Development?”

  “Yeah, I don’t know how that got changed.” Mina had changed it herself. And she hadn’t told Sofia because…well, Sofia didn’t have to know everything. “That’s okay, we both have the history professor in fourth period. What’s your sixth period?”

  Sofia frowned at her page. “Organic Farming.”

  “Organic farming? How random! Can you imagine what your mother would say if you wanted to be a farmer?”

  “‘Mija, you’re goin’ to college so you don’ have dirt in your nails!’” Sofia’s mom didn’t have an accent that strong, but Mina laughed anyway. Sofia was finally starting to lose that haunted look she’d got after Gloria’s murder, but her sense of humor had been slow to return.

  “She’d be happy with software developing, that’s for sure. That’s Brendan’s father, isn’t it?”

  “Yeah. You think Brendan’ll be there?” Sofia shot Mina a glance.

  “Probably not.” Definitely not, unless the list outside the office was wrong. Mina had thought about signing up for Brendan’s sixth-period assignment, too, but decided that was a little obvious.

  The two girls became aware of someone standing close behind them, and turned as one: Chaco Cabrera, holding up his own Career Day schedule.

  He gave Sofia a glance that was oh-so-cool. “Hey, you in software developing for fifth? Me too.”

  The two girls looked down at him—literally, in the case of Sofia. She was the one who finally replied. “Um, good?”

  You’d have thought she slapped him, the way the seventh-grader went dark and shoved past them, stalking away with hunched shoulders.

  Sofia watched him go, looking puzzled. “Has he said one word to you all year?”

  “No. I figured he hated us. Because of his cousin and all.”

  “Maybe not so much. He is kind of cute, isn’t he?”

  “Sofe, you’re a foot taller than him!”

  “Yeah, well, my mom doesn’t wear heels around my dad, either. And it’s not like Brendan Atcheson’s going to look at me.”

  “I don’t know why not—you’re the only person in school he doesn’t have to bend down to see.”

  “Oh, like he’d notice me if you were within a mile.”

  “I wish.” Could that possibly be true?

  “Anyway, boys grow later than girls. Just wait till high school, Chaco Cabrera will be fighting them off with a stick.”

  Mina looked sideways at her friend. “Unless you claim him first.” She gave Sofia a quick hug, and they separated for second period.

  9:00

  The bell rang. Teachers took roll, looked at their notes, and set out to explain the second of the school-wide assignments: the reality that loomed over the dream of first period. Interested in being a cop? Consider salaries, divorce rates, and dangers. Artist? How much does an artist earn, where do they live, what is the cost of rent, food, insurance? Game designer, physical therapist, dental hygienist? Training, student loans, jobs…

  Cold, hard reality.

  9:01

  Chaco

  Chaco opened his notebook and looked at what he’d written about Dream Jobs during period one. His outstretched hand came down on the page, fingers digging in like claws as the cheap paper began to pull, then abruptly tore free. Slowly, he crumpled his words into a tight wad. Math teacher? Yeah, right.

  Dreams were shit.

  He shouldn’t even talk to those two putas, not if he was being loyal to Taco. Instead of dissing them—spitting on them, even—there he went, all big-eyed like some pinche kitten. You going to the same session as me?

  Fuck, he was stupid. Girls were stupid. Just ’cause his birthday was three weeks after the cutoff so he was still in seventh grade and they were in eighth didn’t give them the right to treat him like dog shit on their shoes.

  Dreams were shit. Reality was one cousin on trial and another who liked to cut things with knives. Reality was stuck-up bitch girls and a janitor out to twist your arm into doing what he wanted.

  Taco was right—and Angel, too. Reality was hitting back, at a school that showed you what you couldn’t never have.

  9:02

  Linda

  Linda was going through her speech for a last time when Mrs. Hopkins knocked and stuck her head inside. “Mr. Atcheson on line one.”

  The neatly permed gray head promptly withdrew before Linda could react. The school secretary was no fool.

  Linda sighed, then hit the 1 button.

  Thomas Atcheson, already irritated at having to wait for thirty seconds, listened to Linda’s first two sentences, cut her off halfway through the third, and after that permitted her nothing but brief phrases. Yes, he had heard some ridiculous and no-doubt criminal rumor about Atcheson Enterprises. In fact, he was delaying a board meeting to reply to her call, which his secretary had imagined was some kind of actual emergency. No, he did not intend to cancel his participation in the school’s events, although—as he had told her from the beginning—he was too busy to come for the luncheon. He would arrive immediately after, for fifth period, as arranged. Yes, he was well acquainted with how pushy reporters could be, but he assumed that the school was at least capable of keeping their guests unmolested on school grounds? Or would he require a bodyguard?

  Linda assured him that of course the school grounds were off-limits to the press, but that she could do nothing about the public road just outside, and since the investigation was about to become public knowledge—

  Again his voice overrode her, reiterating that he was not in the habit of being bullied into going back on his word. He had said he would be there and so he would, no matter his personal inconvenience.

  Before he could hang up, she slipped in her question. “It’s just, I was wondering about Brendan.”

  “What about him?”

  “As you know, Mr. Atcheson, I’ve been concerned. He seems to be going through a difficult patch—typical of his age, yes, and especially after the loss of his mother, but I imagine it will be tough
on him to see his father accused of—”

  The voice went from hot fury to biting cold. “Ms. McDonald, my son is not some fragile child to be packed in cotton. It’s time he understood how cruel the real world can be. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have a board meeting to attend to.”

  The phone went dead.

  Linda carefully laid the handset back in its cradle, and looked at the ceramic apple on her desk. “Oh, yes. That went really well.”

  9:06

  Nick: his story (3)

  CLINICAL CASE NOTES AND TRANSCRIPT: NICHOLAS CLARKSON, FEBRUARY 15.

  DRH: So, on the Monday morning after you and your friends went into the Weildman House, Bee Cuomo didn’t come to school. And she hadn’t sent you the pictures she’d taken of the Weildman house. This was late October, right?

  NICK: Halloween day. When she wasn’t at first period, I got AJ to give me his phone—he didn’t want to, ’cause if you’re caught, they’ll take them away for two weeks. But I just grabbed it and texted her. At lunchtime, I tried calling, but she didn’t pick up. I even left a message at her home number. And I went to the office to see if they knew anything, but Mrs. Hopkins said they’d left a home-call message and no one had called back yet.

  DRH: What did you do?

  NICK: What could I do? I almost went on Bee’s bus that afternoon, to see if she was home, but then I thought how stupid I’d feel, stuck clear across town so Mom or Gramps had to come get me, if when I got home I found an email waiting. But there wasn’t one. And she didn’t answer her phone all afternoon.

  When Mom came home, even though she’d had a long day, she didn’t argue, just got back in the car and drove me to Bee’s house.

  DRH: Did you tell her why you were worried?

  NICK: No, but she could see I was. Bee wasn’t there. Her father came home while Mom and I were talking about what to do, and let us in. We watched him listen to his phone messages, from the school and from his sister, who was flying in from Miami later in the week, and that was all. There were no messages in Bee’s room, no notes about going somewhere, nothing.

  Nothing but her camera. And I don’t know why, but I grabbed it and stuck it in my pocket. Nobody saw me.

  I gave Mr. Cuomo the name of some of Bee’s friends, and when we left, he was calling around to see if they knew where she was. So on the way home, I told Mom about the Weildman house.

  DRH: Everything?

  NICK: Not really. Just that we’d been in there, and were doing a project, and stuff.

  DRH: What was her reaction?

  NICK: She was pissed. And it took her a while to get through to Mr. Cuomo on the phone and tell him.

  While she was doing that, I went to my room and figured out how to download Bee’s camera into my old desktop. She must’ve wiped the memory before she came out that day, because the first picture was AJ and me in the garden. Then one of the wood box, and the living room and the library and stuff. AJ and me on the stairs. I went through fast, looking for the one of the guy from the top room. And there was this one picture, you could see the edge of the window and the garden down below. But there wasn’t any blond guy with a hat.

  DRH: How odd.

  NICK: I thought maybe she took some without me noticing, but that was the only picture looking down at the garden, and there was no one in it. No. One.

  Later on I called to ask AJ about it, but he started to cry and said he didn’t remember, that he’d tripped and fell onto that noisy bed and hadn’t seen any man in the garden.

  DRH: What happened then?

  NICK: Nothing at all! Oh, the police “looked into it.” They talked to me and AJ, and Bee’s dad. Bee’d left her house on the Monday morning like usual, but she didn’t get on the school bus. Two different people saw her riding her bike, somewhere between her house and mine—or, between her house and the Weildman place. The next morning, the cops found her bike in the garden.

  When they figured out Bee’s password and got her computer open, they found the pictures from the camera, so I didn’t have to admit I took it. And they found those things everyone’s heard about, what she wrote about her dad. I couldn’t believe they didn’t arrest him! But they said that some of the stories were science fiction and poems and things, so maybe the ones about her dad were made-up, too.

  And they went over every inch of the Weildman house—they were there for days—but they didn’t find anything but her bike. No evidence she’d gone back inside. No sign of that blond guy in old-time clothes.

  A couple weeks later, some kids broke in on a dare and lit a fire in the big fireplace to keep warm. The sirens woke me up.

  [The recording is silent for a minute.]

  DRH: Nick, perhaps you’d like to draw this session to—

  NICK: No. I need to finish. It’s just…hard.

  DRH: Bee Cuomo is a friend of yours, it’s only—

  NICK: It isn’t that. I don’t mean it’s hard to tell it because she was my friend, even though, yeah, she deserved a better one than me. But it’s also just hard to tell in a way that makes sense. I know what I saw. I know what I know. But I understand why everybody thinks I’m hallucinating or something. Delusional.

  DRH: Nick, no one thinks you’re delusional.

  NICK: Sure they do. And maybe they’re right. But whenever I start thinking I do have some screws loose and I’m imagining things, it makes me feel worse. Disloyal, like.

  DRH: Nick, for today, let’s just go on with what you remember.

  NICK: Right. Well, so, Bee was gone. Everybody was talking about it, there was a TV van parked in front of the school, all these people—“grief counselors”—giving out teddy bears like we were in elementary school or something. But when her…when Bee didn’t show up anywhere, it was like nobody knew what to do. I mean, kids run away all the time, even though she was awfully young and a good student and stuff. And when you add in a haunted house and a mysterious guy in old-time clothes, it keeps the talk going.

  But then it was Christmas vacation. Which was pretty crap, by the way. And when we came back, Bee was like…the sore place you have after a bad bruise heals, you know? The Social Studies teacher had put off the field trip to the historical museum—Mom said there was talk about canceling it, but then they decided to move it to the new year. We’d already done the writing part—not about the Weildman house, of course. AJ did a project on the horse-drawn wagons, and mine was on poisonous plants of the Central Coast.

  DRH: Really?

  NICK: Yeah. Funny, huh? For a while I wondered how I could get one into Mr. Cuomo’s dinner.

  DRH: Nick, that’s troubling to hear.

  NICK: I know, but I wouldn’t, not really. I was just…

  DRH: Angry?

  NICK: Yeah. Anyway, I almost didn’t go on the field trip. All I could think about was Bee taking AJ and me there, back in September. But I didn’t want to give people any more reason to talk. And anyway, by then I halfway thought maybe she did run away, join that commune of organic horse-drawn farmers. Plus, Mom was really worried that my grades were slipping and I need to get into the AP classes, and we were getting extra points for the trip. So I went.

  And the first part was okay. Some of the rooms were different. The kitchen had a bunch of new gadgets, a couple other rooms were open now. Uh, do you know the place?

  DRH: I’ve been there, but not in years.

  NICK: I guess it’s supposed to look like everyone just stepped outside—pans on the stove, this half-finished letter with an ink pen in its holder, baby toys on the floor. The museum ladies were wearing these old-time dresses with white aprons and those weird hats—bonnets, I guess. They talked about life in the old days, how much work it was.

  It made me a little sick thinking how Bee would’ve loved it, asking a million questions. I missed her, all the time—still do, but that day it was like a black hole eating up my mind, wondering what happened to her.

  Then the lady said something that jerked back my attention.

  “This
house you’re in was once across the field from the Weildman house, and was donated to the historical society. You can see it being moved through town in the pictures in the sitting room, along with photographs of the Weildman family.”

  It was horrible, and I thought…I felt like I was going to cry, so I turned around like I was fascinated by the kitchen tools. The teacher touched my shoulder and said I could take my time. When she took the class off to see the pigs, I went in to look at the photographs.

  Sure enough, you could see the place in the background of one picture, along with the Weildman house when the gingerbread was white and all the shingles were straight. The giant rose bush was only as tall as me, and the hedges around the garden came maybe to my waist.

  There’s a whole row of these really sharp black-and-white pictures, like Bee used to try and make. Mostly the Weildman house and farm—there was even a little shack where Mom and I lived, although it’s not the same building. You can see the town and hills in the background.

  Then came a photograph that, well, it felt like a kick in the gut.

  It showed the inside of the house, that living room with the big fireplace and the chandelier. Only you could see the crystal was sparkling and the wallpaper looked new. It was packed with furniture. And there were people.

  Two men and three women, with that stare they had to use then so the film didn’t blur, you know? On the left was an old lady with a man standing behind her. On the other side was a little sofa, the kind Grams calls a love seat, with these two ladies in high-necked dresses. The one on the right was turning her head, so her face was blurry. But next to her, perched on the arm of the love seat, was the guy we saw in the Weirdman garden. His hair was shorter, and he looked a little older, and he had on this suit and a shirt with a high collar. But it was the same guy.