Bury the Lead

by Mischa Thrace

  Those boys, with their straight hair and strong arms, were the monsters.

  “We need to take this to the police,” I say.

  “And say what? We think it’s weird her feet are clean? They ruled it a suicide. She’s already buried.”

  “It doesn’t make sense though. Her feet couldn’t be that clean if she walked through the woods and somehow killed herself without leaving any evidence.”

  “The note is evidence,” Ravi says. “And maybe she took her shoes off and an animal took them. Or they could be hidden under her dress. We didn’t see them move her.”

  I shake my head. “I know I’m right about this. Think about playing in the woods when we were little. The dirt would live in our feet for the entire summer, but hers are pristine.”

  Ravi studies the image, still zoomed in tight on her feet. He pans back out, and we scour the scene for signs of her shoes but find nothing.

  “I’m going to report it,” I say. “I’ll go alone if I have to, but I have to do it. I can’t knowingly conceal a crime. That’s a crime itself.”

  “You’re not knowingly concealing a crime. You’re concealing a theory,” Ravi says. “Listen to yourself. You’re so desperate for this to be more of a story than it is that you’re grasping at straws.”

  The accusation stings, perhaps even more than he intended, but I set it aside. “That’s not what this is,” I insist. “Look, imagine I’m right, just for a minute. Imagine she was killed. That means whoever did it got away with it. She’s buried and branded a suicide. We can’t let that stand.”

  “Ha!” He points a finger at me. “So it is about the story.” He doesn’t look jazzed about it.

  “It’s not only about the story. But okay, yes, there’s a story there. A potentially huge story. And we might be key players in unlocking it.” I close the laptop and slide off the bed. “So, are you driving me to the police station or am I walking?”

  The desk sergeant does not look amused when we say we want to see the lead detective on the Emma Morgan case.

  “There is no detective on the Emma Morgan case because there is no case,” the woman says from behind the wall of safety glass.

  “Then I want to see the officer in charge of the initial search.” I channel every molecule of my on-air voice into the request. I’m not about to be brushed off.

  The woman sighs, gives us a look that stops just shy of a glare, and says, “One minute. Take a seat.”

  Ravi drops into one of the hard plastic chairs that litter the waiting area, but I’m too wired to sit.

  “You need to be nicer,” Ravi says. “Pissing off cops is bad.”

  “I didn’t piss her off. I was merely making a request, and she was being needlessly difficult.”

  “To-may-to, to-mah-to,” he says. “I would just like to end my day without being arrested.”

  “We’re doing our civic duty. No arrest imminent.”

  The door opens, and a man in his midforties appears. “Kennedy Carter?” He steps toward me.

  I nod and extend a hand. He shakes it automatically. Most adults do. “Thank you for seeing us. Is there somewhere we can talk?”

  “Sure, this way.” He waves us back through the door he came through.

  Ravi stands reluctantly and follows us to a small, gray-walled room. The chairs are padded, and the table is adorned with a fake flower in a plastic vase, so I doubt it’s an interrogation room. Good sign.

  “I understand you’re here about Emma Morgan,” the officer says after we’re seated.

  “Yes,” I say. “I’m the founder of the Maplefield Monitor, our school’s online newspaper, and I was part of the search party that found Emma. Something occurred to me that I thought I should share regarding the nature of her death.”

  The cop leans forward and props his elbows on the table. “Go ahead.”

  I sneak a glance at Ravi, who’s starting to look a little gray himself.

  On my own, then.

  “I believe Emma Morgan was murdered.” No use beating around the bush.

  I have to hand it to him, the officer has an ironclad poker face, because he doesn’t so much as flinch. “On what grounds?”

  “The state of her feet.”

  The officer regards me like he’s trying to work out whether I’m joking. “Elaborate.”

  I run through the theory for him, not mentioning Ravi’s photo. I’m almost positive it’s not a crime to possess such a thing, but I don’t feel the need to introduce it either.

  “And why are you reporting this now?” the officer asks.

  Heat crawls up my cheeks. I know the next bit is going to make me sound unreliable, but it’s the truth. “It only just occurred to me. I had a dream about where we found her, and I realized her feet were too clean for having walked through the woods all that way.”

  The officer is quiet, but I know about interview techniques, and I’m not stupid enough to fill the silence just because it’s uncomfortable. I’ve said my piece. Now it’s his turn.

  “Excuse me a moment.” He rises from his seat, which is not the reaction I was expecting.

  When he’s gone, Ravi sits bolt upright and whispers, “We should go. This is ridiculous.”

  “Relax, it’s fine.”

  “Says the not-brown-guy in the room. All things being what they are, police stations are not high on my list of places to hang out.”

  “Greater good,” I remind him. “This is important.”

  “So is avoiding unwarranted arrest.”

  The door opens, and the officer comes in with a slim manila folder. The look on his face is bordering mighty close to pity, but that can’t be right.

  “This is Emma’s file,” he says. “I can’t let you read it, but I can tell you what it says.” He shuffles some of the pages around and skims over them. “We did a full autopsy on your friend’s body, as is procedure in any unexplained death. There’s a note about the dress—that dirt was found along the hem and in several spots inside. It’s possible that she wiped her feet with it, for reasons we’ll never know.”

  He closes the folder and places it on the table. It’s a struggle not to reach across and grab it.

  “What was the official cause of death?” I ask.

  He’s quiet long enough that I think he’s going to ignore the question, then he sighs. “The manner of death has been classified as undetermined.”

  I sit forward. “Not suicide?”

  He shakes his head. “Not not-suicide. Undetermined simply indicates a lack of sufficient evidence to deliver a completely concrete finding. In this case, the note does indicate suicide, but there were too many questions surrounding the specific cause of death to officially rule it as such or anything else.”

  “Like murder?”

  The officer meets my eyes, and he suddenly looks too soft to be a police officer. “Or accidental. I have a niece your age,” he says. “I can’t even imagine something like this happening to her or one of her friends. I know it’s hard to wrap your head around this, and I am very, very sorry for your loss, but please don’t torture yourselves by creating ghosts that aren’t there.”

  I take a slow breath and look down at my lap. Steady. I can’t fight with a police officer. That will end badly. It will end extra badly for Ravi. “You’re right,” I say when I can trust myself to be reasonable. “You’re right. I’m sorry for wasting your time. It was a stupid theory.”

  The officer smiles kindly; he isn’t taking us seriously, but he isn’t some fascist monster either. That complicates my anger in a way I don’t like.

  “I don’t know if you’re interested, but our desk sergeant can give you a list of support groups in the area. I know it’s hard, but it can be helpful to talk to people who have experienced similar losses.”

  I thank him and let him get the list of meetings for us, then walk out into the bright afternoon sun. I wait until we’re in the car and out of the parking lot before turning to Ravi, who looks more than a little relieved to see
the station in the rearview mirror.

  “Well, I don’t know about you, but I think we’re going to have to solve this one ourselves.”

  “You heard him. There’s no case to solve. If there were, they’d be solving it.”

  “I’m not wrong about this.”

  We drive in silence for a few miles, and when we reach the stop sign nearest the school, Ravi sighs and turns to me. “Okay. What’s the plan, then?”

  “Just pull in. We’ll wait for the next bell and slip in like we were there all along. Or you can drop me and go home, take the full day. I would, but I can’t strand Cassidy.”

  “No, the plan-plan. For the investigation.”

  I regard him for a minute, but he seems sincere. “You believe me?”

  “I believe in you,” he says. “That distinction is important, at least right now. But I trust your instincts, so if you think there’s something here, let’s uncover it. I mean, we did find her body; we might as well see it through.”

  I grab him in a fierce, awkward hug across the center console before I can stop myself. “I’m right. You’ll see.”

  “So? Plan?” He lets the car roll forward, and we creep toward the school.

  “Interview witnesses and people of interest,” I say without hesitation. “Same as we would for any other story.”

  “Do you have a list?”

  “I’ll start one. We need to talk to Owen, of course. Most murders are committed by the people closest to the victim. Which means we’ll also need to talk to Victoria, Lily, and Emma’s family.”

  “We can’t interrogate her family.”

  “Not interrogate. Interview. Whole different vibe.”

  “How are you going to convince them to talk to you?”

  “We’re going to say we’re doing a feature on Emma for the Monitor’s print edition—that she’ll be on the cover and the lead story. We’ll say it’s an in-depth memorial. People will want to help with that.”

  Ravi gives it some thought and nods. “It’s not the worst idea.” He parks in the first spot he sees, even though it means a longer walk to the door. According to the dashboard clock, we have ten minutes until the sixth-period bell rings.

  “I’m thinking we can use 331 for interviews. Hardly anyone new is coming for pictures right now, so we can talk to people uninterrupted but without it looking like we’re having clandestine meetings. I don’t want people getting suspicious about why we’re talking to them.”

  “Are we really going to run the story?”

  I shrug. “Not sure. Some version of it, I think. I haven’t planned out the feature stories for the print edition yet beyond what we’re doing for Monroe, but it would make sense to run an article on Emma. And if we solve her murder, that will definitely be a lead headline.”

  “Just thinking out loud here, but what if we tweak the whiteboards for Emma’s story? I mean, if we’re really running it. We could have the interviewees do signs with memories or something.”

  “I like it,” I say, but what I really like is that he’s getting on board with this. I know in my gut that I’m onto something, but chasing it down without having Ravi on my side would be terrible. “I’ll see who I can talk to today, but why don’t we plan to officially start tomorrow? I’ll come up with a list of must-talk-tos, and we can add to it based on what we find out.”

  Ravi agrees, and we get out of the car with two minutes until the bell. We slip around the back of the school, not wanting to risk the front door or a walk by the main office, and duck into the teachers’ entrance as the bell rings.

  We sneak into the building and into our last period classes so easily that I believe we’re in the clear, right up until Directed Study, when Cassidy rolls into the studio looking impossibly smug.

  “So,” she says, stopping in front of me. “Do anything fun today?”

  Ravi shoots me a worried look, but I ignore it. “Learning is always fun.”

  “Oh, please,” Cassidy says. “I know you skipped, like, everything.”

  “And what if I did?”

  “You’d be grounded, and Dad wouldn’t let you drive. Or have a phone. Or any freedom at all.” She’s only exaggerating a little.

  “Oooh, sibling blackmail.” Ravi rubs his hands together like a cartoon villain. “Let the negotiations begin.”

  I ignore him. “And you’re what, asking me to buy your silence?” I’m starting to think I liked my sister a lot better when she was younger and worshipped the ground I walked on.”

  “Let’s say we enter into a pact of mutually assured destruction,” she says. “I’ll keep your secret if you keep mine.”

  I cock my head. “And this secret would be what, exactly?”

  “You’re going to bring Bryce to the barn with us today, and you’re not gonna tell. Especially Dad.”

  “That’s your price?”

  Cassidy nods.

  “Done.”

  Cassidy’s face splits into a giddy grin and she squeals. “Yay! I already told him he could come. He’s been wanting to for a while, but I didn’t know if you’d keep it a secret, but then I saw you leave with Ravi—my homeroom faces the parking lot, you geniuses—and I knew I had my chance.” She squeals again. “I can’t wait!”

  I’m a little hurt that she didn’t automatically think I’d be down for pulling one over on the parental units. “Just make sure he’s ready to go.”

  “He’s already ready. Can I stay here for the rest of Study? I’m already done with my homework, and I want to fix my makeup, but Mrs. Thomas will never let me out of class.”

  Her enthusiasm is adorable, but I’m not about to let on. Give the monster an inch and she’ll take a mile. “You don’t need makeup to ride a horse.”

  “I do if I want to look fabulous doing it.”

  Ravi laughs. “The girl has a point.”

  “You’re a damn traitor.” To Cassidy, I say, “You can stay. Once. This is not going to be an everyday thing.”

  Cassidy salutes. “Aye, aye, Queen Skipper of all Skipdonia.” She wheels over to the whiteboard table and upends her makeup pouch.

  I turn to Ravi and roll my eyes. Planning will have to wait.

  I wish I could just pull everyone I need in for interviews without having to be tactful or patient, but Ravi reminds me that those are virtues I’d do well to practice. So instead of stalking Emma’s friends, I wait until I see Victoria and Lily at lunch to tell them about the memorial project and arrange for them to meet us in 331. Both girls are so eager to help that I’m almost embarrassed for them.

  I spend the rest of lunch searching faces and trying to deduce who knows something they aren’t telling. I’m not ready to go so far as to say someone at Maplefield killed Emma, but I’d bet money that someone from the school at least knows something.

  The one thing I see at lunch that makes me smile is Cassidy, who’s giggling and sharing a plate of fries with Bryce. Before yesterday, I couldn’t have picked the kid out of a crowd, despite that crazy strawberry blond hair, but he surprised me by being genuinely interested in what Cassidy was doing with the horses and not just trying to get her breeches off. He was polite and funny, and it’s only a matter of time before he’s suffering through awkward family dinners with us.

  I’m okay with that.

  The rest of the day crawls by, and I wonder if I should’ve tried to separate Lily and Victoria for their interviews, but ultimately decide it would draw unnecessary attention to insist on different times.

  Ravi and I do some quick rearranging of the tables in 331 so we can have a comfortable place to sit—as comfortable as a classroom can be at any rate.

  Victoria and Lily are prompt. I thank them for coming and ease them into the interview by asking for favorite memories and tales of first meetings to establish rapport. They have stories for days. I let them ramble for a bit, jotting down notes I don’t need, then ask, “Is there anything you can tell us about Emma’s last days? Anything that stuck out?”

  Victoria’s
knee starts jiggling, and she looks down, but not before I catch the sheen of tears in her brown eyes.

  Lily shakes her head. “Everything was normal. That’s why I just can’t believe this, you know? I mean, yeah, there was some drama with her and Owen, but she wasn’t, like, depressed about it. Or I didn’t think she was anyway.”

  “What was going on?”

  Lily hesitates, like she’s not sure how much of her friend’s drama she should spill.

  “It’s okay,” I say, taking a gamble. “If you don’t want to explain you don’t have to, but I’m not going to print everything you say. I’m just trying to understand what happened.”

  Lily nods. “Right. Well, Owen was being a possessive jerk. He got like that sometimes—he can have a temper—but Emma thought it was cute. She liked a little jealousy; she said it’s how she knew a boy was really interested. I don’t know… I didn’t really get it, but that’s how it was. She likes drama. Liked.”

  Victoria’s leg pumps faster at the correction, and she sniffles. Ravi hops off the table he’s perched on and fetches the box of tissues we’ve been using to erase whiteboards. Victoria takes the whole box.

  I don’t want to lose Lily, so I press on. “What was he jealous about?”

  “He thought Emma was cheating on him,” Lily says. “But she wasn’t. We would’ve known. She told us everything.”

  I somehow doubt Emma would’ve told her friends about that kind of sneaking around, but who knows? It’s not like dating politics are exactly my area of expertise. “Why did he think that, then?”

  “I don’t even know. Emma didn’t know. He was just giving her a hard time, said he knew she was cheating and that he would prove it.”

  “Did he?”

  “There was nothing to prove. She thought he was being ridiculous and said he’d get over himself. It’s not like he could do better than her anyway, you know?”

  I don’t know Owen well, but I do know what Lily means. Owen isn’t ugly, not exactly, but he’s not in the same league as Emma by a long shot. They don’t even have a lot of friends in common, or rather, Owen doesn’t have a lot of friends, period. As far as I know, his life revolved around Emma and the wrestling team. They were sort of the school’s odd couple, but I wouldn’t be surprised if that had been part of the appeal for Emma. Anything for some extra attention. She would love the attention she was getting now. I don’t bother feeling bad for thinking that because it’s true.