A Line in the Dark

by Malinda Lo

  KG: Was he concerned about not having seen Ryan?

  MA: Not really.

  KG: Do you think it’s unusual that Ryan’s boyfriend hadn’t said good-bye to her before leaving for Christmas vacation?

  MA: I—I didn’t really think about it. Sometimes Ryan—I mean, it definitely never occurred to me that she might have been murdered. I just thought other people had talked to her, and probably Noah thought the same thing, and when you get on a plane you can’t use your phone, so I don’t know.

  DC: When did it become obvious that nobody knew where Ryan was?

  MA: By that night we knew. I talked to everyone by then, and they all told me they hadn’t driven Ryan anywhere. It’s weird because she didn’t have a car so somebody had to have taken her away from Marblehead.

  DC: It sounds like you have some theories?

  MA: Well, somebody’s lying? Or someone else came and picked her up.

  DC: I want to go back to this fight that Jess and Ryan had. I know you said you weren’t there, but what do you think about the idea that Ryan was seeing someone other than Noah?

  MA: [inaudible]

  DC: What was that?

  MA: She wouldn’t cheat on Noah. She’s not like that.

  DC: You’re sure?

  MA: She’s my best friend! Was my best friend. I would know.

  DC: Okay. Is there anything else you’d like to tell us? About Ryan, or about the last time you saw her?

  MA: You should talk to Emily. She hates Ryan. And ask Jess about that cheating thing and how she’d know.

  DC: Noted. Anything else?

  MA: No.

  DC: Then that concludes this interview. Thank you.

  [End of recording]

  JESSICA WONG REACHES FOR THE DOOR TO RICE HALL, but someone on the inside pulls it open first. Kim Watson, the arts program director, is on the other side.

  “Jess!” Kim seems confused for a moment. “We don’t have the program today. Are you here to talk to admissions?” Rice Hall houses the admissions department as well as the conference room that the police are using.

  “No, I’m here to talk to the police.”

  “Oh.” Kim’s eyes flicker to the man behind Jess, and she steps back to let the two of them enter the building. Hovering in the vestibule, she says, “I didn’t know you knew Ryan.”

  “I was at the party the night she disappeared,” Jess replies, not meeting her eyes.

  “I’m so sorry to hear that,” Kim says.

  “I didn’t really know her. I’m sorry for—for all of you at Brooke, though.”

  “Thank you,” Kim says, then looks at the man with Jess. “You must be Jess’s father.” She holds out her hand, and he steps forward to shake it. “I’m Kim Watson, director of the Pearson Brooke Arts Program. Your daughter is very talented.”

  “That’s—that’s good. I’m Peter Wong.”

  “Great to meet you,” she says. “Jess, I picked something up for you over the holidays. A flyer for an event I think you’d be interested in. Why don’t you come to my office so I can give it to you before I forget? And, Mr. Wong, that way you can see some of Jess’s work and what she’s been up to here.”

  “He doesn’t need—”

  Mr. Wong cuts Jess off. “We have to go into the interview.”

  “They’re running a bit late,” Kim says. “I came in for an interview myself. I was Ryan’s house advisor, and they told me I’d have to come back later. Why don’t we go in and check how long the delay will be?”

  “I don’t know,” Jess says reluctantly. “They said we should be here at one.”

  “You’ll have plenty of time,” Kim insists. She opens the interior door and briskly leads the way down the hall to the admissions desk, where the staff have been keeping track of the police interviews. Mr. Wong joins Kim at the desk while Jess hangs a few steps back. Kim asks the admissions clerk to call when the police are ready for Jess. While Mr. Wong gives them his cell phone number, Jess pulls Kim aside.

  “I don’t think this is a good idea,” Jess whispers.

  “Why not?” Kim asks.

  “He—my parents aren’t interested in my comics.” Jess shakes her head slightly. She looks uncomfortable. “He’s not going to get it.”

  Kim says in a low voice, “If you really don’t want to show him, we don’t have to. But I think he’ll be very impressed. Why don’t we just show him the final color panels from last semester? Nothing in progress.”

  “Jessica?” Mr. Wong says, hovering behind Kim. “Miss—”

  Kim gives Jess a questioning look. Jess glances behind Kim at her father, who seems puzzled. “Okay, fine,” Jess relents.

  Kim turns to Mr. Wong with a smile. “Kim,” she says. “Please call me Kim. Let’s go. We’ll have you back in plenty of time.”

  Kim ushers them out of Rice Hall and into the arts center next door. She takes them directly to her office on the ground floor, which Jess has never seen. One wall of the room is entirely covered with eight-by-ten oil paintings of mushrooms in every color from dirt brown to neon green, a kaleidoscope of Alice in Wonderland hallucinations. Mr. Wong eyes the mushrooms skeptically as Kim searches through a stack of papers on top of her desk for the flyer she wants to give Jess.

  “Here it is,” she says, and hands it over.

  It’s an ad for an event at MIT featuring the author and artist of the Yellow Empress comics.

  “Do you know this series?” Kim asks.

  “No,” Jess says.

  “I think you’d really like them,” Kim says, and turns to look through the bookshelf behind her. “The art is right up your alley, and the storytelling is a great twist on origin stories.”

  She hands Jess issue one of Yellow Empress, which depicts an Asian woman dressed in an elaborate yellow silk gown and a multitiered headdress, heavy with glittering jewels. She’s also carrying a bloody knife, crimson streaks running down the handle and over her fingers.

  “You can borrow that,” Kim says. “And you should go to the event. It’s free.”

  Mr. Wong, who is standing behind Jess reading the card, says, “It’s at MIT? Jessica’s brother is at MIT.”

  Kim beams at him. “That’s wonderful. Maybe Jess can go with her brother.”

  “She should focus on her schoolwork first,” Mr. Wong says.

  Small square photos of Yellow Empress’s author and artist, Chen Ning and Erin Mei Tan, are inset on the back of the card. Jess tucks the card inside the comic. She takes care not to crush the issue’s soft paper cover.

  “Of course,” Kim says to Mr. Wong. “Has Jess shown you what she’s been working on during the arts program?”

  “No,” Mr. Wong answers.

  “Well, let’s go upstairs to Studio B and take a look,” Kim says.

  Mr. Wong glances at his watch. “We should go back.”

  “Five minutes, Mr. Wong. And it’s all right if you’re a few minutes late. You won’t get detention.” Kim gives him a winking smile. When he doesn’t respond, she adds hurriedly, “Besides, I know you’ll enjoy seeing them.”

  Kim shows them out of her office and up the stairs to Studio B. Someone has left a papier-mâché elephant on the table, half painted in hot pink and yellow, its trunk arcing up in an exaggerated curve. They go to the cubbies where Jess stored her materials, and Kim gives Jess an encouraging smile when she hesitates. She glances back at her father. Mr. Wong looks at the pink-and-yellow elephant with exactly the same expression he had when he saw Kim’s collection of mushroom paintings.

  “Let’s lay them out here,” Kim says, taking the portfolio out of the cubby.

  “Wait, I—”

  But Kim has already opened it on the nearest worktable, and is pulling out the three color printouts.

  “It’s just the beginning,” Jess tells her father. “Ther
e’s a whole story after this. This just sets it up.”

  The first two pages are a spread of several panels that begin with a wide establishing shot of the Blackwood Hall School campus, which Jess drew like a map. Each of the subsequent panels zooms in, first at medium range on a brick building—the dorm the girls live in—and then on the entrance hall inside, where someone is carrying a suitcase up the main stairs. A stained-glass window above the landing depicts a girl standing proudly on a hill, the wind blowing her hair back. The panels on the right-hand side show the same girl—Kestrel—first opening the door to her dorm room; then standing just inside the dorm room meeting her roommate, Laney; and finally, a close-up on Kestrel’s face, lit up with anticipation. The third page depicts Laney and Kestrel’s first meeting in four equally sized panels. Laney is shy at first, but Kestrel is outgoing and enthusiastic, and soon they are lying on their stomachs on the rug, looking at a laptop together.

  “I think the story that Jess is putting together is so fascinating,” Kim says. “It’s an origin story—like the beginning of Superman, you know? But it’s so much more than that. And she has a wonderful style. The characters are so lively. I love the way she fuses manga-inspired art with American webcomics. Like Clamp meets Lumberjanes.”

  Mr. Wong studies the printouts with his hands folded in front of him. “They remind me of your grandfather,” he says to his daughter.

  Jess looks puzzled. “What do you mean?”

  “My father—he was a painter.”

  “He was? I didn’t know that.”

  Mr. Wong shakes his head. “You knew, but you forgot. When you were very little, he came from China to help take care of you and Justin. Your mother and I had to work, so he lived with us in Boston for a year.”

  “Oh, right.”

  “He would draw pictures for you,” Mr. Wong says. He looks at his daughter with a combination of pride and sadness. “Adventure stories. You were very young, but you liked them.”

  Jess lowers her gaze to her comics. The color printer rendered the images with a shiny gloss. They seem to glow beneath the lights.

  “That’s wonderful,” Kim says. “Do you have any of those pictures anymore?”

  Mr. Wong frowns, reaches down to touch the edge of one of the printouts, straightening it on the table. “I don’t know. Maybe, in the basement.” He glances at his watch again. “We should go back. Thank you for showing me, Miss—Kim.” He turns to head for the door, and adds, “I like your pictures, Jessica.”

  TRANSCRIPT OF INTERVIEW OF ANGELA REDMOND

  Present:

  DC: Detective Lieutenant Donna Cardoni, Massachusetts State Police

  KG: Lieutenant Kyle Griffin, Massachusetts State Police

  AR: Angela Redmond, witness

  JR: Jim Redmond, parent to Angela Redmond

  Det. Lt. Donna Cardoni (DC): Today is Thursday, January 5, and we are at Pearson Brooke Academy, in Rice Hall. The time is 12:37 p.m. I am Detective Lieutenant Donna Cardoni of the Massachusetts State Police, assigned to the Essex County District Attorney’s Office. Also present is my partner.

  Lt. Kyle Griffin (KG): Lieutenant Kyle Griffin, Massachusetts State Police.

  DC: We are interviewing Angela Redmond, and because Angela is a minor we also have her father, Jim Redmond, present. Mr. Redmond, can you please state your name for the recording?

  Jim Redmond (JR): Jim Redmond.

  DC: Can you spell that, please?

  JR: J-I-M R-E-D-M-O-N-D.

  DC: Thank you. Angela, could you do the same?

  Angela Redmond (AR): Angela Redmond. But you can call me Angie. Oh, A-N-G-E-L-A R-E-D-M-O-N-D.

  DC: Thank you, Angie. You understand that this interview is entirely voluntary, and you’re free to leave at any time? Since this interview is being recorded, please be sure to state your answer out loud rather than nodding your head.

  AR: Yes, okay.

  DC: We’ve asked you to come in today because we understand you were at a party on December sixteenth, the night that Ryan disappeared. We’d like you to tell us about your experiences at the party that night. I want you to tell us in your own words everything that happened that night, from start to finish. Just try to remember how you were feeling—whether you were excited or nervous, you know? And no detail is too small. Even tiny details can help. Don’t worry about trying to determine whether something is important or not. That’s our job. Your job is just to tell the whole story as completely as you can. All right?

  AR: Okay.

  DC: Great. You can start whenever you’re ready.

  AR: Okay, um, the night of the party, I was—I was a little nervous. I didn’t really know Margot’s friends, and I wanted to make a good impression. I, um, I spent a lot of time trying to figure out what to wear. Are you sure you want to hear this?

  DC: Absolutely. No detail is too small.

  AR: Well, I texted Jess to help me pick a dress. Jess is my best friend. She liked the black one better, so I put that on and got ready. Jess came over to my house around seven because I was driving us both to the party. I told my parents we were going to see The Wizard of Oz with some of our friends, so they didn’t know we were going to Margot’s. I shouldn’t have done that, I know. I’m sorry, Dad.

  JR: I know, hon.

  AR: Anyway, Jess came over and I drove to Marblehead. When we got to the party, Margot introduced us to her friends. I don’t remember all their names, but they seemed nice, especially Ayesha. Her parents’ house is really nice, like something you see on TV. I remember there was a lot of white—white sofas, carpets, but it didn’t look like a hospital. It looked—expensive. The whole house looked expensive. I felt a little weird because Margot’s friends were all dressed up like they were going someplace fancy, and I was—I mean, I was wearing a dress but I wasn’t nearly as dressed up as they were, and Jess wasn’t dressed up either. It was like they got all dressed up for some special event but I didn’t understand the dress code.

  KG: It must be a pretty different culture over at Pearson Brooke. Hard for a girl from West Bedford to figure out.

  AR: Well, they were all nice to me. After we got there, Margot and I hung out in the living room with her friends for a while. Later, we—Margot and I—um, we hung out in her room for a while, upstairs. When we went back downstairs, most people were still in the living room, but I went out on the deck for a little bit. The house has this big deck that overlooks a private beach. It was dark, so you couldn’t see much, but I just wanted to get some air. I was—Margot and I had a fight. I wanted to get outside, cool off. But Margot followed me, and we ended up fighting outside too. It was so cold. I remember it was really windy, and it had started to snow a little. I didn’t have my coat on and I kept trying to go back in but Margot was trying to convince me to—to come out to my parents. Margot’s been pushing me to do it since last fall. She thought I was ashamed of it or something, but I wasn’t. I’m not ashamed of it.

  JR: You could’ve told us, hon.

  AR: You, yeah. Not Mom.

  DC: Angie, what happened after you argued with Margot?

  AR: I—I went back inside, and I saw Jess in the kitchen with Ryan. They were arguing. I could see that it was bad. Jess looked really upset. So I decided it was time to leave. I got Jess and we started to leave, but then Margot apologized, so we stayed a little while longer. Not that long, because I had to get home by one a.m. We probably left around midnight, and I remember it was snowing then, and I was a little worried about the roads, but it wasn’t that bad. Jess was supposed to stay overnight at my house, but she—we kind of argued on the drive back, so she ended up walking home from my house. I got home a little before one. My parents heard me come in. I said hi to them and then went to bed. That’s the end.

  DC: Thank you. I’m going to ask some follow-up questions to clarify a few things. You said that you were nervous going to the party
because you hadn’t met Margot’s friends before. But what about Ryan?

  AR: Oh. Yeah, I met Ryan before, but only a few times, like in the park once or when Margot and I stopped by her dorm once. I didn’t really know her.

  DC: In the park. You mean Ellicott Park?

  AR: Yeah.

  DC: When was that?

  AR: It was back in September. One night we met up with some friends—Jess and I—and Margot brought Ryan.

  DC: Can you tell us more about this? Do you and your friends meet in the park often?

  AR: Um, we sometimes hang out in the park in the summer. At night. We—we talk and stuff. That’s all, Dad, I swear.

  JR: You think I didn’t hang out in the woods when I was your age, hon? It’s okay.

  DC: Angie, you were saying—about when you first met Ryan?

  AR: Yeah, I had just met Margot at the Creamery, and we’d been messaging each other, and I said I was going to be at the park that night. Since Brooke is so close, she said she might come too. That was the first time I realized she—she liked me.

  DC: Did you ever meet up in the park again?

  AR: No.

  DC: When was the next time you saw Ryan?

  AR: Probably a few weeks later? Once Margot had to go back to her dorm to get her phone because she forgot it, and I went with her and Ryan was around. She seemed nice. We didn’t really talk much because Margot and I were supposed to go to a movie.

  DC: Did you talk to Ryan much at the party in December?

  AR: Only in a group with other people. And then, like I said, I was—I went upstairs with Margot, so I missed a lot of the party.

  DC: You said that when you came back inside after being out on the deck, you saw Ryan arguing with Jess. Let’s go over that again. What did you see when you came inside?

  AR: I—I saw them at the kitchen island facing each other. They both looked pretty angry.

  DC: Do you think they’d been drinking?

  AR: I . . . yeah.

  DC: Had you been drinking?

  AR: No! I had to drive home. I’m not stupid. My dad can tell you—I was sober when I got home. But Jess—I think she drank way too much. I think it was really hard for her to be there.