Todd Strasser - Blood on my hands

IN THE TRUCK I nervously pick at the old duct tape that covers the split in the passenger seat and gaze at the EMS building. Slade’s still staring straight ahead. There’s one thing I have to say. It comes out in a whisper: “There was never, ever, anyone else, Slade. I need you to believe that.”

A long breath rushes out of his lips and he bends forward until his forehead touches the steering wheel. “What are you going to do?”

“I… have to figure out who the real killer is.”

“How?”

I think back to tonight’s events, beginning with the kegger. Mia had called and asked me to go with her. I didn’t want to. I was still a little mad at her for what had happened with the story we had written together for the school newspaper. And I thought I’d be really uncomfortable if I ran into Katherine. But Mia had practically insisted. “Don’t worry. Lots of people like you, Callie. And they’ll be there, too. I don’t even think Katherine is coming.”

But of course Katherine was there.

“Cal?” Slade says, bringing me back from these thoughts.

“I’m just trying to figure it out. I’m wondering if it could have been a setup. If the whole thing could have been planned to make it look like I killed her.”

“Or it just could have been some sicko passing through,” Slade says. “It was in the woods, in the middle of the night. It could have been anyone. Don’t you think that’s a lot more likely than some high-school kids planning a murder?”

“It may have been just one high-school kid.”

“Look, I know a lot of people didn’t like Katherine,” he says. “But why would anyone want to kill her? You’re talking about Soundview. There hasn’t been a murder here in ten years.”

And only one attempted murder… by my brother, I can’t help thinking bitterly.

Slade leans back into the shadows. I can’t see his face clearly, can’t tell what’s on his mind. Maybe he’s thinking I’ll never be able to figure it out. Especially if at the same time the police are looking for me. Maybe he’s regretting that he came to get me. Maybe he’s wishing he never met me in the first place.

“I’m sorry, Slade. I shouldn’t have gotten you involved, and I understand why you don’t want to help me. You’ve already done way more for me than I deserve.”

In the shadows, Slade doesn’t move or speak. I take a deep breath and reach for the door handle.

Slade says, “Wait.”

In early May, Katherine and Dakota weren’t speaking to each other again. I’m not sure anyone at the lunch table gave it much thought. We just assumed they were having another one of their mysterious arguments. They both sat in their usual places at the table, as if neither was about to give up her position, no matter what. Both chatted and gossiped with the other girls. They just didn’t talk or gossip with each other.

In fact, they didn’t even look at each other.

But the next day Dakota didn’t show up. We’d seen her in school that morning, but now it was lunch and she wasn’t in the cafeteria. And that was how everyone knew that this fight was different.

It happened during the final weeks of rehearsal for the spring PACE show. As the days passed, the situation at lunch grew stranger. How long would Dakota stay away? How long would Katherine preside over the table pretending nothing was wrong?

“What’s going on?” Mia asked me one day as we walked down the hall toward gym.

“Not a clue,” I answered.

Mia had a habit of tucking her chin into her neck like a turtle when she looked at you. “Are you sure?”

“Yes. I mean, why would I know?”

“You spend more time with them,” Mia said. “They invite you to do more things than the rest of us.”

“Not more than Zelda and Jodie.”

“Those two are in a world of their own,” Mia said with a shrug. “I just wish I knew what was going on. Are you sure you don’t know? Or are you just sworn to secrecy?”

“What?” I asked, surprised.

Even though we were in the hallway, surrounded by moving bodies and loud chatter from a dozen sources, Mia moved closer and dropped her voice. “The inner circle. Don’t pretend you don’t know. They make you swear an oath, right?”

Sunday 1:53 A.M.

“You may be my closest friend, but that doesn’t mean you know everything about me.”

“I know you better than you know yourself.”

“I hate you when you say things like that. I’ll never be like you.”

“Too late. You already are.”

“It was Mia who invited me to the kegger,” I tell Slade in the pickup. “But it was Dakota who told me Katherine was missing and that everyone was looking for her. She even told me to check behind the dugout. And it was Dakota who led everyone else to me just moments after I found Katherine’s body. And you know what the first thing she said was? ‘You killed her!’ But how could she have known that? It was too dark to really see. Katherine still could have been alive. I was the only one who’d checked her pulse. Do you know what that means, Slade? Dakota already knew that Katherine was dead. She got Mia to invite me to the kegger and told her to tell me Katherine wouldn’t be there. That’s why she told me to look near the dugout and then led everyone there. So it would look like I did it!”

“You think Dakota killed Katherine?”

“How else could she have known Katherine was dead? How could she know where to tell me to look? Why else would she wait until I’d found the body and then bring a bunch of people as witnesses? She had to have planned it, Slade.”

He’s quiet. It irks me that I don’t know what he’s thinking. There was a time when each of us always knew what the other was thinking. We’d finish each other’s sentences.

Slade looks at the clock in his phone. “I’ve got work in the morning. There’s still a ton to do before the dedication ceremony on Wednesday. Even then we won’t be finished. But at least we’ll make it look good. You know who the guest speaker is?”

There is no reason I would know, and no reason Slade would ask, unless it’s obvious. “Dakota’s mom?”

He nods and goes quiet and I wonder if he’s just had the same thought I’ve had: not only is Dakota’s mother a congresswoman, but her uncle, Samuel Jenkins, is the chief of police and will be in charge of the investigation into the murder of Katherine Remington-Day.

We get out of the truck and walk through the dark to the old EMS building. The air is chillier than before and even quieter now, as if the traffic on the thruway is sparser at this time of night. Slade accidentally steps into a pothole and staggers a few feet, then catches himself and bends over.

“You okay?” I ask.

“Yeah, it’s just the knee.” He’d torn his ACL playing football in junior high and had to have major surgery.

“I thought that didn’t happen anymore,” I said. He was supposed to do special exercises to strengthen the muscles around the knee and keep it stable.

“I started feeling a lot of pain toward the end of basic.”

“Basic?”

“Basic training.” Slade straightens up but limps. Near the building he steps off the path, takes something from under a rock, and hands it to me: a key, cold and moist from resting in its hiding place, slightly rusted along the edges. I slide it into the keyhole and turn the knob.

Inside, the air smells musty and stale, as if no one’s been there for a long time. Out of habit, I reach toward the wall for the light switch. Then I feel Slade’s hand close around my arm, and instantly understand. If people saw a light coming from this abandoned place, they’d be suspicious. He reaches into his pocket and takes out a key ring with a small penlight. He aims the light at the floor, careful to keep the tiny beam from hitting the windows.