About That Night (19 page)

“So it is your button?”

“Yeah.”

Silence.

“You want to tell me what it was doing next to where they found Derek?”

“What difference does it make? I can't prove it. And the cops have made up their minds already. We don't have a lot of money, Jordie. I'll probably have to go with a legal-aid lawyer, and that's not good. I just hope it doesn't go to trial until after my mother…” His voice trails off. He's looking down again, not at her.

She doesn't know what to say. Should she ask about his mother? Or should she stick to the main event—the question of the button?

“How did the button get there, Ronan?”

Nothing.

“Part of their theory is that you killed him because you were jealous of him—you know, on account of me.”

“They've got that right,” he mumbles.

“What? What did you say?” She prays to God it isn't what she thinks.

“I am—was—jealous. I admit it.”

“But you—”

“Made a big mistake when I broke up with you? I sure did. But I didn't kill Derek. I would never do anything like that.”

Never? She wants to ask about the assault convictions he has.

“Jordie, there's something I never told you.” He shakes his head. “There's a lot of stuff I never told you.”

She waits.

“I got into some trouble before my mom and I moved here. The cops are making a big deal out of it. They're acting like I have this huge temper and I take it out on people. But it's not like that. That isn't what happened.”

She's holding her breath.

“My mom is really sick. She has been for a while. But this time, she's not going to make it. She knows it and I know it.” She detects a quaver in his voice. He clears his throat noisily, as if to chase it away. “My dad—he decided he couldn't handle it. I love it. My mom has cancer, she's going to die, and
he
can't handle it. So yeah, I guess you could say I assaulted him. I even guess you could say I wanted to kill him, the miserable prick. He pressed charges. And then there was this kid at my old school—we never got along, and when he heard what my dad did…well, when he opened his mouth about that, I couldn't help it. So yeah, I did that stuff. But that's not me, not really. And now they're going to send me to prison and my mom is going to be all alone. Jesus, Jordie, this is going to kill her.”

» » »

Ronan shifts his gaze away from the computer screen and down to the keyboard of his laptop. He fights to regain control of his emotions. He feels as if that's all he's been doing for the past few days, pretty much ever since he went over to Jordie's house and saw that Maugham was there. And then to find out he was staying there—

“Ronan?” Even her voice fills him with longing. “Ronan, look at me.”

He looks. Her face is deadly serious. There are little lines shooting straight up from the bridge of her nose. Her lips are pressed together tightly. He can't tell what she's thinking. He's never been able to tell. When his mother told him that Jordie had been at the house, he felt as if his heart had stopped in his chest. Jordie? At the house? What did she want?

“She wants you to call her,” his mother had said. But boy, he had to think about that.
Why
did she want to talk to him? Was she angry with him? Did she hate him? Did she think he killed Maugham? She saw the police take him away in handcuffs.

Now he finds out that she lied to the police—for him. She didn't tell them the real reason he went to her house. But the way she's looking at him now, he simply can't fathom why she lied.

“Ronan, I know Derek went home that night to get the bracelet. But the police didn't find it on him.”

“The police know about the bracelet?” He can't stop himself from asking. Nor can he stop the hammering of his heart in his chest.

She shakes her head. “No one knows about it—except you and I.
I
know Derek went home. I also know what the police found on him—there wasn't any bracelet. And it's not in his room. I know because I looked.”

She's staring hard at him. It reminds him of how the cops look at him, that unwavering, unflinching latching of their eyes on his, trying to fake him out, trying to make him believe they already know everything there is to know about him because what's in his head is leaking out through his eyes.

“Ronan, your mother was wearing it when I went to talk to her.”

He doesn't know what to say.

“You have to tell me what happened, Ronan. You have to tell me because it's scaring me to think about it.”

How can he speak? He can barely breathe. If she's put together the pieces she has, and if she's come to believe he really did it, that he really killed Maugham, then there's no way she's going to keep everything to herself forever. She's not that kind of person. She would never protect someone she knows to be a murderer.

“Ronan, you have to talk to me. You have to tell me. Derek went home to get that bracelet, but he never came back. They found one of your buttons right beside his body. Your mother is wearing the bracelet. She told me when you gave it to her.”

He feels like a drowning man, swirling around and around, unable to draw a single breath, unable to do anything but thrash about helplessly.

“Did you follow Derek from my house?”

“Follow him? No. No.”

Jordie nods, but the gesture is so slight, he almost misses it. “Because you couldn't have known he was going to go home that night,” she says. “I didn't even know.” Her eyes never waver from his. “But you saw him. You talked to him, didn't you?”

The word comes out before he can stop it. “Yes.”

“Tell me.”

“I ran into him on the trail behind his house.”

He watches as her shoulders slump. She's like a balloon with a leak. She deflates in slow motion.

“What were you doing there?”

“I didn't kill him, Jordie.” He can't let her believe for even a second that he did.

“Then how did your button end up where it did?”

She's a hound after a fox; she's not going to let up. He can log off his computer. He can refuse to talk to her. But that will just make it worse—and nothing, he knows, will make it better.

“We had an argument,” he says finally.

“Argument? And?” When he can't think what to say next, she adds, “Did your button jump off your jacket? Is that what happened?”

Jesus, such a beautiful girl, and such cutting sarcasm, like a butcher knife slicing into his heart.

“It got physical,” he admits. If she tells the police that, he's screwed for sure.

“How physical?”

“I didn't want to talk to him at all, Jordie. I didn't even see him until it was too late. It was snowing, you remember? And it was blowing. I was walking with my head down, and all of a sudden, there he was in front of me. He was pissed off right away.”

“Why? Why was he pissed off?”

Ronan feels heat in his cheeks. He's sure he looks like a kid caught red-handed stealing cake from the kitchen—or like a killer standing over the body with a smoking gun.

“I guess he didn't expect to see me there, and when he did, he was naturally suspicious.”

“Naturally?”

“Because there's not much up there except his house,” Ronan says, which, he knows, raises the question, So what were you doing there? Sure enough:

“So what were you doing there, Ronan?”

If he tells her, how does he know she won't go and tell the cops? But if he doesn't tell her, well, how does he know she won't tell the cops the parts that so far she hasn't told them?

“Ronan?”

He looks into the screen, into her eyes, and he starts to talk. He talks slowly, watching her the whole time. He sees worry in her eyes. He sees surprise. He sees shock. And then more worry. Deep worry. So deep that it scares him.

“Did anyone see you, Ronan?” she asks when he's finally said all there is to say.

“There was no one down there, Jordie. I told you that. Just him.”

“What about before that?”

“Before?”

“Before you ran into Derek. Did anyone see you?”

He thinks about that night. He walked from his house to Jordie's house through streets that were completely deserted. It was cold and snowing. It was after Christmas, when everyone was partied out and stuffed full of turkey and cranberry sauce, shortbread and chocolate, eggnog, spiked and plain—all the treats that make an appearance once a year. Everyone was inside, warm and dozing if they were adults, playing with toys if they were little kids, hanging out with friends or relatives if they were older. He remembers perfectly how it felt—like walking through a ghost town or, even, like being a ghost walking unseen through a town filled with pleased and satisfied citizens. He had felt so alone as he made that walk. His hand had actually trembled as he reached out to ring her doorbell. And then later, when he walked away, it was more of the same, more being alone in a town full of people, none of whom meant anything to him…well, except for the person he was leaving. The person who was tucked up in her house with that jerk Maugham, and it was his own fault because he'd been idiot enough to let her go—hell, to push her away. You are the author of your own misfortune, Ronan, no doubt about that. He doesn't plan to tell her, but the truth is that he felt sorry for himself as he disappeared again into the gathering snow.

“Jesus, Ronan.”

She's annoyed now, the way she was at the end, before he told her maybe it was better for them not to be together anymore.

“Why do you always have to do this? Why do you make me do all the work?” she says.

“Sorry.” It's the first time he's said that to her, and she knows it. Her eyes widen. She looks slightly stunned, as if he were speaking to her now in Latin or ancient Greek. “I just—” he begins. Just what? Just answer the question.
Did anyone see you, Ronan?
“No, I don't think so.”

“You don't
think
so?”

“No.”

“Are you sure? Did you think maybe you saw someone but you're not sure—is that it? If you saw someone, then maybe that person saw you.”

“What difference does it make?” He's up to his neck in it, and everything he's just told Jordie makes it worse for him. “If someone saw me before or after I ran into Derek, but they didn't see Derek after I left, when, I swear, he was still alive, what difference does it make?”

“You're in big trouble, Ronan. The cops think you killed him.”

The cops think.

He catches his breath. To ask or not to ask, that is the question.

“What about you? What do you think?” It's what he's wanted to know all along. It's the only thing he's wanted to know.

“If you want to convince the cops, Ronan, you have to think. You have to have a solid story.”

What is she saying—that she believes him? That she wants to believe him but it's up to him to convince her? That she doesn't care whether he did it or not but that if he wants to stay free, he'd better find a way to convince the cops?

“I didn't see anyone,” he says. But is that right?

“What?” she says. She's leaning into the computer, searching his face. “There's something. I can see it in your eyes. What is it?”

He's shaking his head even as he starts to tell her. “It was a domestic.”

“A domestic? You mean a housekeeper or a nanny, like that?”

“A domestic dispute. But they were too wrapped up in themselves to notice me. I'd stake my life on it.”

“You
are
staking your life on it, Ronan.” She's got those two lines over the bridge of her nose again. “Tell me about it anyway. Where were you? What did you see?”

“Trust me, Jordie, when people are in the middle of something like that—”

“Humor me, Ronan.”

He begins to talk again.

» » »

An hour later, Jordie is staring at a blank computer screen and wondering. Ronan is telling the truth about some things—she's sure of it. Either that or he's a complete idiot because, really, how hard will it be to check on what he's told her? Also, he has absolutely no guarantee that some of what he's said will even help him. But he's put it out there, and that part is checkable too. The question is, so what? What does it all mean? Do the things that are checkable prove anything? Do they even come close to proving that the cops are wrong about Ronan?

She thinks about this all night. When you come right down to it, what has she found out? What use is it? What can she do with it? What
should
she do with it?

Twenty-One

J
ordie is antsy the whole of the next day. She can't remember the last time she's had so much trouble concentrating. All she can think about is what Ronan has told her and what kept her awake all night.

The morning passes. She meets up with some girlfriends for lunch but finds herself uninterested in what they're saying—one is planning a trip to the city to spend the Christmas money she got from her grandparents, one met a guy while visiting relatives three hundred miles away and is now fretting about the difficulties of long-distance relationships, and a third bemoans the fact that she has neither money nor a boyfriend and then starts apologizing to Jordie as soon as she voices the thought: “I'm not being insensitive, honest.”

Jordie rewraps her tuna sandwich and stands up. “It's okay,” she tells the girl. She walks away without another word. Behind her, one of her friends says to the girl, “See what you've done? Jesus, Derek
died!
”

In the schoolyard, Jordie takes out her phone and makes a call. She gets the same answer she got earlier in the morning, which is to say no answer at all. When the bell rings, she heads to English class. Ms. Phillips has just started Act 1, Scene 1 of
Hamlet
when an announcement comes over the
PA
system. Jordie is called to the office.