Todd Strasser - Blood on my hands

I know I’m not supposed to say anything, but I can’t help it. I stare him right in those watery hazel eyes and ask, “Have you ever been accused of something you didn’t do?”

He blinks as if this isn’t what he expected me to say. “Yes.”

“Then you know how it feels.”

He gazes at me for a long time with an expression that at first seems astonished and then turns thoughtful. “You had nothing to do with Katherine Remington-Day’s murder?”

“Nothing whatsoever.”

“There was no plan? You weren’t in it with someone else? You never discussed it with anyone?”

“Discussed what? I have no idea what you’re even talking about. It’s like there’s something else going on here that no one will tell me about. What is it?”

“Did Mia Flom ever tell you she was going to get Katherine?”

Was that why she came out of the police station with her father and that woman lawyer?

“She might have said something like that,” I answer. “But… it never sounded like-”

“Did she ever mention physical threats?”

“I… I don’t remember.”

The police chief drums his fingers against the table. “Did you go to Jerry Fairman’s house a few nights ago?”

I’m so eager to prove my innocence that I almost say I did, but then I catch myself. I don’t know what Jerry has to do with any of this, but he did me a big favor. He did my brother a much, much bigger favor. Whatever he had to do with the trap at the train station, I have to believe he was forced into it. I don’t want to get him into trouble. I stare down at the table mutely.

Chief Jenkins studies me a moment longer and then nods as if he’s made up his mind about something. “I’ve been in this profession a long time, Callie. I like to think that I’ve gotten pretty good at separating the liars from those who are telling the truth.” Then he picks up his hat, places his hands on the table, and heaves himself up. “That’s all I have to say.”

Friday 10:34 P.M.

ANOTHER NIGHT IN juvie to think about what people said and what they might have meant. A plan? In it with someone else? What was Chief Jenkins talking about? What could Jerry have to do with this? And how could the knife have come from Katherine’s house?

For the hundredth time I go over it in my head, replaying everything that’s happened. No, that’s not quite true. There’s one memory I always avoid unless someone, like Gail or Chief Jenkins, makes me think about it-that horrible scene of finding Katherine dead.

But tonight I force myself to go back over it. Her body on the ground. The others coming. Their dark silhouettes. Dakota saying, “You killed her!” The flash of the camera… the blur of faces.

But wait. The faces aren’t really a blur. They’re kids I know. Kids from school…

… except the tall one with blond hair-

And suddenly I know why Griffen Clemment looked familiar. He was there that night, in that crowd.

Griffen, who said he hadn’t spoken to Katherine or Dakota since the previous spring.

Did he play a role in Katherine’s death?

I go over it in my head again and again, but I can’t make sense of it.

And I fall asleep knowing that there’s still so much I don’t know.

But something is different when I wake in the morning. I don’t know why or how, but during the night, I’ve made peace with the idea of pleading self-defense. Maybe because I’ve realized how much I don’t know. But what I do know is that Mom and Chief Jenkins want me to do it.

And what if Slade also wanted me to do it? Would I? For him?

Yes, I think maybe in that case I would.

Later a matron appears outside my cell. I’m once again filled with hope that Slade has come to see me. But she says, “Take everything you want, because you’re not coming back.”

What? I stare at her, confused.

“You’re out,” she says. “Free to go.”

I don’t understand, but I’m not about to argue. The matron escorts me down the hall and through the reinforced doors. Gail is sitting in the waiting room, wearing a gray raincoat. She rises and smiles and, seeing the confusion on my face, explains: “The seventy-two hours is up. They haven’t decided to press charges, so you can go.”

“Ser… iously?” I’m so filled with surprise and disbelief that I can hardly get the word out of my mouth.

“Well, sort of,” Gail says as we start to walk toward the exit. “As a condition of your release, I had to make two promises. But I don’t think you’ll be bothered by either of them.”

It’s raining. As we walk to the parking lot, she opens an umbrella. “You have to wear an ankle monitor. So they know where you are in case they want to talk to you again.”

“Or arrest me?”

“I suppose it can’t be ruled out.”

“What’s the other promise?”

“Under no circumstances are you to leave the county.”

“What difference does it make if I’m wearing an ankle monitor? Won’t they know where I am anyway?”

Gail bugs her eyes at me. “Why are you giving me grief? You’re out, okay? Free! All you have to do is wear the stupid thing and not leave the county. When’s the last time you left the county, anyway?”

She’s right. For the first time in what feels like forever, I have a smile on my face.

We stop at the police station and they place the monitor just above my right ankle. It’s a black box, slightly smaller than a pack of cigarettes, on a black strap. The officer who puts it on warns me that even though I could cut it off with scissors, as soon as I did, I’d break the circuit and send an alarm to the tracking unit.

Then Gail drops me off at my house. Stepping through the front door feels strange, as if I’ve been gone for months, not days. It’s dim and cool inside. Mom’s become fanatical about keeping the lights off and the heat down while she tries to get by on Dad’s disability payments.

“Mom?” I call from the front hall.

“Callie?” Coming from the kitchen, her voice is filled with surprise. A moment later she appears in the hallway in her old red plaid robe and envelops me in her arms. “Thank God!”

She’s so happy that I’m home that she hardly seems to hear when I explain what’s happened and why they let me go. All she cares about is that I’m free. As soon as I can get away from her, I go to a phone and call Slade, but I get his voice mail. He’s probably at the town center, finishing the job. I’d text him from Mom’s phone, but she doesn’t have texting set up. I could wait for him to call me back, but I’m too excited, too brimming with yearning to see him. I beg Mom to let me borrow the car. Just to go into town. Please? She finally says yes and I drive to the town center.

Slade’s pickup isn’t in the parking lot, but maybe he parked somewhere else or rode with his dad that morning. I go through the back door of the center and follow the sounds of hammers and saws up to the second floor. In the hallway a painter lugging a large white bucket stops and stares at me like he’s seeing a ghost.

“Do you know where the Lamonts are?” I ask.

He points down the hall and I go in that direction, looking through doorways into empty rooms until I come to one and see Mr. Lamont’s back. With quick, deft movements, he’s using a trowel of mud to fill the seams and screw holes along a new wall. I watch for a moment, then say, “Hi.”

Mr. Lamont stops and turns. A day or two’s worth of gray stubble coats his jaw, and his broad stomach hangs over his belt. This is a man who always has a smile on his face for me. But there’s no smile today. “Hello, Callie.”