Karin Slaughter - Like A Charm

'OK,' he said, 'forget it.'

'I've already forgotten,' I informed Lamar, walking away.

'We could play Star Trek.' Lamar got up and came after me. 'Or war. You could be Spock.'

I turned round. 'I don't feel like playing Star Trek.'

'Do you want to watch TV?' he said. 'You could come to my house.'

I punched him. He rubbed the patch of skin I had punched and kept walking beside me. 'We could build up the civilization and smash it down again.'

'I don't think so.'

'We could-'

'You never know when to shut up, Lamar,' I said, 'do you?'

We walked back across the pedestrian overpass, crossed the turnpike, me angry for no real reason and Lamar with his head down, and continued that way until we came to our houses.

Then, right before I walked into my yard, I punched him in the arm so hard he fell on the ground.

I was in the driveway, listening to music on an old transistor radio I had found in my dad's closet, when two police cars drove up next door, one black and white, the other a plain sedan. The policemen got out, went to Lamar's house, and knocked. Lamar's mom answered. She wore a beige pant suit. I turned the radio off and went to stand by the fence to hear what was happening. I remember her saying, 'What?' I remember Lamar's sister, Estelle, coming to the door. She'd had her hair done. I turned round from the fence and saw my mother standing at the door of our house. She had a package of Kraft macaroni and cheese in her hands. I heard one of the policemen ask for Lamar. Then the two policemen in suits went inside and the other two waited for a while on the front lawn.

One of them turned his face towards the sun.

A couple of minutes later I saw Lamar come out. His mother was right behind him. They went to the police car and one of the officers opened the door to the back seat. They got in, and the plainclothes policemen got in the front. They started the car up again and drove away, leaving me standing in the yard holding the transistor radio, Estelle in the door of Lamar's house, and my mother behind me. When I turned to look at my mother's face I saw something in it, some delicate movement along the jaw.

'I want you to tell me what happened.' She sat me down at the kitchen table.

'What happened to what?'

'What did Lamar do?'

'Lamar didn't do anything.'

'Why did the police come for him?'

I remember this: I was crying. I didn't know why. I felt like an idiot. Thirteen years old, and I was crying.

'If you know something,' my mother said. 'If you know anything, you have to tell me…' Her voice was shaking. She was thin and tall, with short curly hair. It occurred to me for the first time just then that she was a person.

A local girl – it was Tiffany Engleton, I found out later – had discovered the body of a boy in the vacant lot behind the Safeway supermarket on the turnpike. The police suspected that a fight between two neighbourhood boys had gone too far, and for the time being they were calling it an accident.

It was Benjamin, I realized. Benjamin was dead.

Lamar had actually killed Benjamin, just like he said he would. I went to my room and sat on the edge of the bed with my hands in front of me. I wondered what I should do. What are you supposed to do when someone kills someone? I felt like I should pray or visit his grave or do something solemn.

Then, right around seven thirty there was a knock at the door. 'Mom,' I heard Jean say, 'it's the police.'

My mother went into the living room, and I walked in behind her.

They were the same two plainclothes detectives I had seen earlier.

'Good evening, ma'am,' the older one said. 'I'm Detective Alta, and this is Assistant Detective Claridge. We were wondering if we could have a few words with your son.'

The older detective had short grey hair and a polyester blue blazer. The younger one, I'll never forget, had hair that was completely white.

'Of course,' she said. 'Please. Come in.'

My father reclined in his vinyl easy chair in front of the television. He turned the volume down with the remote control.

The police detectives nodded to him and sat down on the couch.

'Can I get you some coffee?' my mother asked in her idiotic June Cleever voice. 'A soda perhaps?'

'Thank you for offering,' the older detective said. 'But we're just fine.'

I stood in front of the coffee table.

'And how are you?' the detective asked.

'Me?'

'Yes.'

I looked at my Adidas. 'Fine.'

'The boy who lives next door,' he said. 'Are you friends with him?'

'Lamar?'

'Yes, Lamar Duncan.'

I had breathed out, I think, but for some reason I couldn't breathe in.

The detective said, 'Is he a friend of yours?'

I looked at my mother.

'They're friends,' she said. 'Lamar gave him an ant farm.'

'An ant farm?'

'For his birthday.'

'Is Lamar a nice boy?' the detective asked me.

'He's nice,' I managed to say.

'Does he… does he pick on other kids sometimes?' The detective came forward off the couch, almost crouching on the floor.

I couldn't think of a response. My face was on fire. I kept thinking of Benjamin. I kept imagining him naked on a stretcher in a hospital somewhere. The freckled skin, the long black hair.

'Tell the truth,' my mother said.

'We pick on him.'

'What's that?' the detective asked quietly.

'We pick on Lamar. Benjamin does mostly.'

'I see.' The detective put a hand over his mouth and his eyes closed for a moment. He cleared his throat, then slapped his legs. 'All right then.' He smiled a thin smile.

'One day Lamar said he would kill Benjamin,' I blurted.

'Lamar said that?'

'Yes, sir.' I never said sir. I don't even know where I got it.

There was snot coming out of my nose. I wiped it away.

'What is Benjamin's last name?'

'Herman,' I said.

'Why don't you go to your room now?' my father said. It was the first thing my father had said to me in weeks.

I turned to look at him. I knew from one look that I was going to get it later.

I hadn't bothered to open the ant farm yet, and in my room I ran my hands over the box, tracing the words with my fingers. ANT FARM! The fun, scientific way to learn about the insect kingdom! I kept picturing Benjamin without his Judas Priest T-shirt on for once, lying naked on a steel examining table like the victims in an episode of Columbo. I opened the ant farm box and started flipping through the booklet that came with it. There were line drawings that showed all the different types of ants in the colony. There was the queen, the worker ants, or drones, the nursing ants that took care of the larvae.

My parents restricted me to my room that whole next day, only allowing me to come downstairs for a baloney sandwich at lunch and, later, a TV dinner. The entire neighbourhood was talking about Lamar, I could feel it. On the one hand I was dying to get out there, to find out exactly what had happened. On the other, I was absorbed by Lamar's ant farm booklet. There was an ad on the back for other kits from the same company; there was a chemistry set, a microscope, a junior electrician's set… the fun, scientific learning series. I kept staring at it, thinking of all the things there were to know, and of how I didn't know a fucking thing.

The following morning I saw Lamar through my bedroom window. He had his legs folded under him and was sitting near the chain-link fence that separated our yards and was tearing blades of grass into smaller and smaller pieces and then throwing them up in the air while making soft, slo-mo exploding noises. I snuck downstairs and slipped through the kitchen door.

'Hey,' I whispered.

He didn't turn around.

'Lamar,' I said a little louder.