Marisha Pessl - Special Topics in Calamity Physics

“Sure,” I said.

“Why?”

“She’s a good person.”

Jade huffed. “Not that good. I don’t know if you’re aware of it, but she killed that guy.”

“Who?”

Obviously, I knew she was talking about Smoke Harvey, but I chose to feign ignorance, volunteer only the barest words as a question, much in the reserved manner of Ranulph (pronounced “RALF”) Curry, the intemperate chief inspector of Roger Pope Lavelle’s three standoffish detective masterpieces composed in a decade-long fit of inspiration, from 1901 to 1911, works ultimately overshadowed by the sunnier tomes of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. It was a pretext artfully assumed by Curry while interviewing all eyewitnesses, bystanders, informants and suspects, and, more often than not, leading to the discovery of a certain sharp detail that ripped open the case. “Tut, tut, Horace,” says Curry in the 1017-page Conceit of a Unicorn (1901). “It is a capital error in the art of detection to insert one’s own voice into the ungoverned words of another. The more one speaks, the less one hears.”

“That Smoke person,” Jade went on. “ Dubs. Knocked him off. I’m positive.”

“How do you know?”

“I was watching when they told her about him, remember?” She paused, staring at me, her eyes snatching, then holding on to what little light there was in the room. “You weren’t around, but I saw the performance. Completely overdone. She’s really the worst actress on the planet. If she was an actress she wouldn’t even make the B movies. She’d be in the D or the E movies. I don’t even think she’s good enough for porn. Of course, she thinks that she’s going on Inside the Actor’s Studio like next friggin’ week. She went over the top, shouting like a crazy person when she saw the guy dead. For a second I thought she was screaming, ‘The dingo ate my baby.’”

She rolled off the sofa and walked toward the kitchenette behind Mirtha’s desk. She opened the small refrigerator door and, crouching down, was illuminated by a rectangle of gold light so her dress became transparent and you could see, in this X-ray, how thin she was, how her shoulders were no wider than a coat hanger.

“There’s that eggnog in here,” she said. “Want some?”

“No.”

“There’s tons. Three full containers.”

“Mirtha probably measures how much is left at the end of every day. We don’t want to get in trouble.”

Jade stood up with the pitcher, banging the door closed with her foot.

“It’s Mirtha Grazeley, who everyone knows is the Mad freakin’ Hatter. Who’ll listen to her if she croaks there’s something missing? Besides. Most people just aren’t that organized. Isn’t that what you said the other soir, ‘no method to the madness’ and such?” She opened one of the cabinets and took out two glasses. “All I’m saying is that I happen to think Hannah got rid of the man like I happen to know my mother’s the Loch Ness Monster. Or Bigfoot. I haven’t decided what monster she is but I’m positive she’s one of the big ones.”

“What was her motive, then?” I asked. (“In my opinion,” said Curry, “it is also a very useful achievement to make certain the speaker remains on course, does not skirt around what he knows, prattling on about latchkeys and boilers.”)

“Monsters don’t need a motive. They’re monsters so they just—”

“I mean Hannah.”

She looked at me, exasperated. “You don’t get it, do you? No one needs a motive in this day and age. People look for motives and such because they’re afraid of like, total chaos. But motives are out like clogs. The truth is, some people just like to execute, like some people have a thing for ski bums with moles all over like God spilled peppercorns or paralegals with full-sleeve tattoos.”

“Then why him?”

“Who?”

“Smoke Harvey,” I said. “Why him and not me, for example?”

She made a sarcastic Ha sound as she handed me the glass and sat down. “I don’t know if you’re aware of it but Hannah’s completely obsessed with you. It’s like you’re her freaking lost child. I mean, we knew about you before you even freaking showed up at this place. It was so freaking weird.”

My heart stopped. “What are you talking about?”

Jade sniffed. “Well, you met her at that shoe store, correct?”

I nodded.

“Well, like, immediately after that, or maybe even the day of, she was talking on and on about this Blue person who was so amazing and wonderful and we’d have to become friends with you or like, die. Like you were the fucking Second Coming. She still acts that way. When you’re not around she’s always, ‘Where’s Blue, anyone seen Blue?’ Blue, Blue, Blue, for Christ sake. But it’s not just you. She has all kinds of abnormal fixations. Like the animals and the furniture. All those men in Cottonwood. Sex for her’s like shaking hands. And Charles. She’s completely fucked him up and doesn’t even realize it. She thinks she’s doing all of us a big favor by being friends with us, educating us or whatever—”

I swallowed. “Something really did happen between Charles and Hannah?”

“Hel lo? Of course. I’m like, ninety percent positive. Charles won’t tell anyone a thing, not even Black, because she’s brainwashed him. But last year? Lu and I went to pick him up and we found him crying like I’d never seen a person cry in my whole life. His face was screwed up like this.” She demonstrated. “He’d had a tantrum. The whole house was destroyed. He’d thrown paintings, attacked the wallpaper — huge chunks ripped right off the walls. We found him crying in a little ball by the TV. There was a knife on the floor, too, and we were afraid he was going to try to commit suicide or something—”

“He didn’t, did he?” I asked quickly.

She shook her head. “No. But I think the reason he was freaking out was that Hannah told him they’d have to stop. Or who knows, maybe it just happened the one time. I mean, it was probably an accident. I don’t think she set out to fuck him up, but she definitely did some thing, because he’s not himself anymore. I mean, you should have seen him last year, the year before. He was amazing. This really happy person everyone loved. Now he’s always pissed off.”

She took a long drink of the eggnog. The darkness hardened her profile so her face looked like one of the colossal decorative jade masks Dad and I observed in the Olmec Room at the Garber Natural History Museum in Artesia, New Mexico. “‘The Olmec people were a singularly artistic civilization, deeply intrigued by the human face,’” Dad read grandly from the printed explanation on the wall. “‘They believed that though the voice often lies, the face itself is never deceitful.’”

“If you really think these things about Hannah,” I managed to say, “how can you spend time with her?”

“I know. It’s weird.” She scrunched her mouth to one side, thinking. “I guess she’s like crack.” She sighed, hugging her shins. “It’s a mint chocolate chip ice cream thing.”

“What does that mean?” I asked, when she didn’t immediately elaborate.

“Well.” She tilted her head. “Have you ever felt that you loved, loved mint chocolate chip? That it was always your favorite flavor over every other in the entire world? But then one day you hear Hannah going on and on about butter pecan. Butter pecan this and butter pecan that and then you find yourself ordering butter pecan all the time. And you realize you like butter pecan best. That you probably liked it all along and just hadn’t known.” She was quiet for a moment. “You never eat mint chocolate chip again.”