The Christopher Killer (10 page)

“My oldest brother’s a doctor so I moved in with him and helped take care of the kids. His wife’s a doc, too. I just don’t like to put ‘nanny’ on my résumé.”

They had reached the summit and were now beginning their descent, winding down the mountain on a road so narrow it looked like a sliver of ribbon tossed on the mountainside. Below her, the cliff fell away into a sheer valley. Pines struggled to grow against gravity, stretching thin arms to the sun in worship while deep crevices, filled with granite rock, tumbled into the abyss like marbled water, more perfect than an artist’s painting.

“There’s an artist who lives in New York that goes by the name Hannah,” she said, and then remembered the maiden name. “Hannah Peterson. She paints abstract flowers or something. Have you heard of her?”

He was silent now. A flush crept up his cheeks, spreading to his temples, and she knew then she’d scored a hit. When it came down to it, it wasn’t really that difficult. There was only one subject she’d ever seen her father get angry about, and that was her mother, the person who’d disappeared into the art world of New York, the one who never called. It was that knowledge that had made the connection in her mind. She should have guessed it from the beginning. Once, she’d been on a Web site called “Six Degrees of Separation” and their ad said that any two people in the world can be connected in six steps, but she hadn’t believed it. Now she did.

“So you know my mother.” It was a statement instead of a question. “That’s why my father hates you. You told my dad and he freaked out.”

“I thought you said your mother was dead.”

“She’s dead to me,” she said, feeling as cold as her words.

Justin tightened his jaw so hard his muscle twitched. “Man, you are smart.”

“So they say. Why did you ask me about Hannah when you already knew the answers?”

“I just wanted to know what you really thought about her—what you’d say.”

“How did you guys meet?”

He paused, then answered, “At a party at my brother’s—he and my sister-in-law love to host big soirées with artists, musicians, writers. Anyone artsy. She was there and we started to talk. Hannah’s a beautiful woman, Cameryn—she looks a lot like you. The two of us really hit it off. We spent some time together. She’s pretty amazing.”

Cameryn stared at him as his words ricocheted through her mind. “Oh my God.” She could barely get out the words. “Oh my God! Were you
dating
my mother? Because if you were dating Hannah, we are done! I mean it, Justin!” She sliced her hand through the air. “
Done!
”

“No—it was nothing like that,” he stammered. “We were—
are
—just friends.”

“You moved all the way out to Silverton to deliver a message for a
friend
? You’ve got to be kidding me!”

“Cameryn, listen to me—you’ve got it all wrong! I got this job in Silverton before I knew
anything
. Then I told Hannah where I was going and she freaked. That’s when she told me about you—not before! I swear. You’ve got to believe me. Believe her—she
really
cares about you.”

“Well I don’t care about her.”

His foot hit the brake, so hard that Cameryn felt herself pitch into the shoulder harness. Jerking the wheel, he pulled into an overlook, and the car, still running, shuddered. “Don’t say that!”

For a moment she sat there, stunned. Was he
defending
Hannah? “You don’t know what she did to me. She just
left.
And this is none of your business, Justin.
None of your business!
”

“Calm down. I think you need some air. Let’s just get out of the car….”

“No! I don’t want to even think about Hannah today. You do realize your timing
sucks
!”

Suddenly, his voice was full of apology. “You’re right, you’re right,” he said. “You’re dealing with Rachel and it’s way too much. I’m sorry. This isn’t the way it was supposed to happen. I was going to bring you her letter and explain. She wanted me to
explain
.”

“Explain what?” The hurt inside threatened to burst its dam, but Cameryn managed to say, “Explain why she abandoned me?”

He lifted his chin, and when he did the tiny sliver of scar shone in the light. “I think you should give her a chance. Don’t judge her before you hear her story.”

And then Cameryn did want out of the car because it felt as though she could no longer breathe. Jumping out, her feet crunched in gravel until she stopped at the edge of the overlook. She hugged herself hard. The mountainside beneath her had been cut away, as sheer as a wall, and she felt the cool October breeze wrap around her like a shroud. Justin came up behind her but stood apart, unsure, it seemed, of what to do. Finally he spoke.

“You have to understand, Hannah had it all planned out. I was supposed to give you a present from her first. After you opened it, I was supposed to give you a letter. That’s how it was supposed to go down.”

Cameryn refused to look at him. In the distance she could see the mountain open up and the roads of Silverton stretch across the valley like a necklace. From her vantage point she could see the tiny houses dotting the grid of Silverton’s unpaved streets. Solid, simple, and safe. She longed to be there, back at home, where her life made sense.

“So, what now?” he asked softly.

“I don’t know. I don’t know what to think anymore.”

Although she hadn’t meant it to, her answer seemed to encourage him. Justin took a step closer and she could see his shoes, scuffed and covered with dust, and the hem of his jeans breaking over knotted laces.

“The gift and the letter are back at my place,” he said. “I’ll give them to you as soon as we get to town. The point is your mother is ready to reconnect with you again. She wants to be in your life.”

“
She
wants it? So now I’m supposed to pretend that it’s all okay because
she’s
ready? That’s not how it works. Five years ago, maybe, but not today.”

“Cameryn, don’t—”

She faced him now, feeling her eyes going wide as she looked into his face. “Why didn’t Hannah just mail the letter?”

“She thought you wouldn’t get it—”

“Why didn’t she call?”

“She said she tried—”

“Why didn’t she come here
herself
?”

“Because she thought you’d reject her just like you’re doing now.”

“She rejected me first.” And then the dam broke and she was crying, sobbing angrily, humiliated that she couldn’t stop herself and more embarrassed when Justin tried to comfort her. She felt his hand lifting the hair from her face, but she jerked away, sobbing, “Don’t! Just leave me alone. Please.”

He pulled away, disappearing somewhere behind her, the car, maybe, or the woods. She didn’t know and didn’t care. Moving even closer to the outlook’s edge, she stood and wept, and as she did time itself seemed to absorb into her misery.
Where is all this coming from, anyway?
she asked herself fiercely. It wasn’t as if she hadn’t known about Hannah. But before today everything had been kept neatly under wraps, and it had been better that way. Here, in the wild, there was no hiding from the reality of murder or resurrection. Life insisted on happening.

With her palms, Cameryn rubbed beneath her eyes, hard, gulping cool air. Justin had returned to the car and she could see him, looking down the road instead of at her. And then finally she joined him. Two cars roared past the outlook before he looked at her. “Where to?” he asked.

“Home.”

The blinker clicked and soon they were back on the Million Dollar Highway. They drove the rest of the way in silence, past the visitors’ center with its Victorian scrolled woodwork hanging from the rooftop like wooden eyelet, past the old-fashioned stores and the jelly bean-colored houses. When he pulled up to her house, she opened her car door before they had rolled to a complete stop. She was about to leave but, thinking better of it, she leaned back in to apologize. “I’m sorry, Justin,” she said in a husky voice. “It’s not you, it’s Hannah. I’m sorry if I killed the messenger.”

His green-blue eyes pierced through her. “Your mother still loves you,” he said.

“I gotta go.” Then, running as fast as she could, she opened the front door and disappeared into her grandmother’s house.

THE SIDEWALK LEADING TO SCHOOL
was cracked beneath Cameryn’s feet, uneven rectangles of cement with gaps sprouting a few hardy weeds. It felt good to walk, to stretch her muscles and move her body, to feel she could at least physically go forward even if she was frozen mentally. Nothing had been settled in the past twenty-four hours. Not the issue of her mother (her father had stayed overnight in Durango, so she’d been unable to talk to him) and certainly not Rachel’s death, the tragedy of which had triggered a media frenzy. Silverton was filling up with newspeople from as far away as California. Dr. Jewel himself was on the way. Trucks and vans had already rumbled into town, their tops bristling electronic spikes, their microphone cords coiling along Greene Street, snakelike. The Grand’s restaurant was bustling, so much so that last night her boss had called her in to work.

“I’m sorry, I just can’t,” she’d told him, and he hadn’t pressed. Then Lyric had called with the news that some Silverton residents, some of whom had never talked to Rachel in life, had suddenly become her best friends in death. “Everyone’s lining up to be interviewed. The only one not running a freak show is Jewel—he’s going to be here tomorrow! Did you hear he’s staying at the Grand? Don’t worry, he’s going to find Rachel’s killer. He was on the news, and he said this time the energy’s really strong. Jewel will get whoever did this—wait and see.”

Later that evening, Cameryn’s Mammaw had come into her bedroom. Cameryn had been lying there, her pillow tight over her face so she could block out everything, until she’d felt the bedsprings sag under a new weight, felt strong fingers kneading her backbone, heard her grandmother’s voice.

“You haven’t said a word to me since you’ve been back and you’ve not eaten a thing. Was it seeing poor Rachel?”

Cameryn had nodded beneath her pillow. She wanted to be little again, before people left or died, when she believed mountains were made of candy. Surrounded by her own things and near her own grandmother, she pulled the pillow from her face. Mammaw, tied into a red gingham apron, smiled at her, her forehead knotted in concern.

“What’s on your heart, girl? Tell me.”

“I don’t know if I can,” she’d whispered.

“Try.”

“It’s…Hannah.” She’d teared up but then forced them back. “What would happen if
I
had been the one who died? Could you…could you even find her? Do you even know where she is?”

Looking at her carefully, her mammaw had asked, “I don’t suppose this sudden interest in your mother has anything to do with that new deputy, does it? Oh, don’t look so surprised, girl. Patrick told me about his run-in with Deputy Crowley. I understand the boy’s got a message from your mother that’s he’s dying to give you. Well, I don’t like it but there’s nothing for it. I’ve always told Patrick that secrets, especially family secrets, never stay buried forever.” Her grandmother’s fingers had spread across thick knees. “I know you’ll be wanting answers, but I’m not the one to give them. You’ll have to wait and talk to your father.”

“Why wait?”

“Because,” she’d said, “it’s his story to tell.”

Then, just this morning, when she hadn’t been able to stomach her breakfast, Mammaw had tried again. She’d held her cup of coffee, handle side out, her blue veins winding on the backs of her hands like rivers on a map. “You’ve got to eat, girl. Starving yourself won’t help. You’ve got to keep your mind alert.”

“I’m not hungry.”

She’d pointed at her with her cup. “It’s been a hard time for you. But you must remember you’re Irish, and we Irish know how to deal with life’s blows. You’ve got to get back in the game, girl, just jump right back in the game,” to which Cameryn had replied, “What if I don’t want to play?”

As she made her way now along the sidewalk, a crack appeared, and Cameryn, remembering the old nursery rhyme,
Step on a crack and you break your mother’s back
, planted her right foot squarely on it with as much force as she could. Nothing mattered. Cracks on sidewalks were just cracks. People died. Children were abandoned and mothers returned from limbo. Saint Christopher himself was just a calling card for a killer. When she’d prayed all those years for her mother to come back, it hadn’t worked, and now that Cameryn didn’t want her, Hannah materialized. There was no sense in any of it.

The early morning air was winter cool, so as Cameryn trudged toward Lyric’s house she pinched the collar of her jacket tight in her hand. Up ahead she was surprised to see an old blue truck in her friend’s driveway. A telltale plume of smoke rose from the driver’s-side window. She registered the dark shape inside, slouching behind the wheel. Adam. Lyric was already outside, standing by the truck. She waved her over.

“You’re late!” Lyric cried. “We’ve been waiting. Adam’s taking us to school today, okay? But come here quick, I want you to help me pick out my earrings.”

Cameryn understood the subtext—they often did this when they wanted to have a conversation within a conversation. “Sure,” she replied. She gave Adam a tacit nod and said, “Okay, Lyric, what are the choices?”

“Hoops or beads,” she said. She was dressed in a flowered tiered skirt Cameryn guessed was a retread from the sixties, and instead of a coat she wore an oversized green poncho. Fawn-colored clogs encased her feet. Today Cameryn was dressed as usual, in jeans and a plain top. Her only jewelry was her Navajo flute-player earrings and a turquoise ring on her middle finger. She could feel Adam watching her, so she leaned close to Lyric and hissed, “What’s Adam doing here?”

“I don’t exactly know,” she whispered back. “He called late last night—he’s just absolutely devastated by Rachel’s murder. He was really into her, you know? There’s a lot of stuff going down in his life right now and I think he wants to talk about it. I mean—he was practically crying and then he asked if he could take me—us—to school so how could I say no?” She held out two pairs of earrings and said, “Which ones do you think go best?”

“Hoops.” Cameryn pointed to circles the size of a bracelet. Then, under her breath, she said, “But I wanted to talk to you. I didn’t even tell you what Justin said about my—”

“I know, I know, I want to hear, but we’ll have to catch up later. We better go—he’s looking at us and I don’t want him to know we’re talking about him.” She dropped the beaded earrings into her backpack and slung it over her shoulder. There was nothing Cameryn could do but follow. Lyric huffed inside the cab and Cameryn squeezed into the remaining space, her right arm wedged against the door handle as she shut it. It was dirty inside, with a layer of dust on the dashboard and empty cans on the floor. Smears of dried paint were there, too, as though the interior had been finger-painted by a child.

“Is this your truck?” she asked Adam.

“My dad’s. He’s out of town.” He flicked the cigarette out the window, then rolled it up. There were telltale smudges beneath his eyes. He looked as though he hadn’t slept in days.

“What’s going on, Adam?” Lyric asked.

Backing out of the driveway, he said, “There’s bad stuff coming down. Really bad stuff. I don’t know what to do.”

“What are you talking about? You can tell us. Can’t he, Cammie?”

Cameryn nodded halfheartedly.

Adam hesitated. “I don’t know, man. There’s no one I can go to but then I thought, maybe you.”

“We’re here,” Lyric assured him. “Both of us.”

He managed to say, very quietly, “It’s my boss. He doesn’t understand.” Adam was driving beneath a scaffolding of branches, and the light that came through mottled his face. When he looked over he wore an expression that Cameryn had never seen before on him. He was afraid. Of what she didn’t know, but the fear was real. The skull on the leather cord rolled against his chest as he drove and she began to get the uneasy feeling that she and Lyric shouldn’t be there. But her friend seemed unfazed. Placing her hand on his forearm, Lyric asked, “So it has to do with your boss? What’s up?”

“Yeah, okay, so as you know I like”—he swallowed—“
liked
Rachel.”

Lyric nodded. “All of us did.”

“I know, I know. But for me it was different. She was nice to me. She was real. So—my dad has this camera and I—the thing is, Mr. Melendez asked me to work on the year-book staff and so I said okay. I took some pictures of Rachel. I mean, it doesn’t hurt anybody to take their picture. It’s just some pictures, right?”

“What are you saying?” Cameryn asked, not at all gently. “Did you take them without her knowing?”

He blanched. It took a moment for him to nod. “It wasn’t bad or anything. It was just for the yearbook.”

“This doesn’t make any sense,” Cameryn argued. “Rachel graduated last year.”

Adam stopped at an intersection. “She came back to school one day, a couple of weeks ago, and ate lunch with a group of girls. So I took one of her laughing in the cafeteria with the others—I don’t know their names. That’s it, I swear. I’m an artist. I was using them to make a present but then she started giving me the brush-off. She wasn’t really into me. I accepted that.”

“So you put up some pictures of Rachel,” Cameryn said. “I’m not tracking this. What does this have to do with your boss?”

“I have this darkroom in the basement of the souvenir shop. When I turn off my blue light there’s, like, no light down there at all, so it’s been perfect. Old man Andrews said I could use it. But I guess he went down there and last night when he found those photos hanging on the wall he lost it. He told me I was fired and he was going to report me to the sheriff.”

“You had her pictures up? What, like in a shrine?” Cameryn cried.

Adam gunned the engine and pulled on to Greene. “
No!
It’s not anything like that! I’m an artist. I was going to paint her portrait.”

“Cammie!” Lyric said, shooting her a warning look. “Taking pictures isn’t that big of a deal.” She turned to Adam. “I think you’re worried over nothing.”

“Except it’s
me
we’re talking about.” He hit the steering wheel with his hand. “Don’t you think I know what people say? They call me a freak. Maybe I am, but I never hurt anybody. I’d
never
do that.”

He drove past the school and pulled into the back lot, as far away from the other cars as he could get. Cameryn noticed that as he turned off the engine he was breathing hard. The bravado he’d worn like armor had shattered, exposing an Adam she’d never seen before, and somewhere inside she knew that he hadn’t done anything to Rachel or anyone else. He was just a skinny kid hiding behind black clothes and a silver skull.

“Cameryn, would you please tell Adam that Rachel was the victim of the Christopher Killer and those victims were from places all over, like—like Virginia and I don’t remember where-all. That means it
can’t
be you, Adam. How could you have killed around the country like that? Am I right?”

Adam looked unconvinced.

Cameryn looked at her watch—five minutes until the first bell. She wanted to leave but it was obvious Lyric wanted to stay in the truck.

“You’re giving in to the negative energy,” Lyric said.

When Cameryn finally managed to catch Lyric’s eyes, she pointed to her watch and mouthed, “I gotta go.”

“You go on,” she mouthed back.

Out loud she said, “I’ll see you guys later.”

Adam’s head hung down, but he lifted it and looked at Cameryn gratefully. “Thanks. You’re all right.”

“See ya.” She didn’t return his sentiment. She wasn’t at all sure she liked the thought of Adam creeping into their lives. And she wasn’t completely sure she believed everything he said. Still, she didn’t believe he was a killer. He was just weird.

She made her way to the front of the building. Ahead, she could tell the kids were abuzz with the story of Rachel because they swarmed the school steps, as though they were bees in a hive. Their heads were close together, their eyes darting. Usually, she slid into school unnoticed, but not today. The bees were waiting.

“Oh, look, there she is—hey, Cameryn!” Jessica, a waiflike girl from her class, waved to her. “Cameryn, you were at the autopsy, right? Was it gross?”

Cameryn didn’t answer. Silverton students were like kids in schools everywhere, only smaller in number. Everyone had found their niche since grade school and stayed there like fossils cemented in their own rigid layers. Cameryn, though, had always felt she could float through the striations, belonging to no particular order. The kids swarming her now, though, were the elite, and that was the one stratum she’d never felt entirely comfortable in. Neither, she knew, had Rachel.

“Sorry, guys,” Cameryn told them, “I’ve got to run—I’m going to be late for biology.”

Jessica thrust out a bony hip. “We were all her friends, Cameryn. You should tell us what happened. Everybody here knew Rachel. We all really care.”

In a way it was true. The whole school had only a few hundred kids divided among grades kindergarten through twelve, all housed in the same building. They all knew one another, which meant in a way they were a tight, if dysfunctional, family. Out of the sixty or so kids that made up the high school, seven were the kind who never talked to Cameryn unless they wanted something. Six of them were on the steps today, surrounding her now in a vibrating formation, eager to get some tidbit about the murder. She felt them close in around her, pulsating with curiosity.

“Come on, Cameryn, you were at the autopsy. Who do you think did it?”

“Like she’d know—the Christopher Killer could be anyone!”

“That’s right—he might be from Silverton—”

“Or still be
in
Silverton!”

“Who says it’s a man? It could be a woman. Ever heard of the lady who drowned her kids?”

“Don’t be stupid,” Jessica said. “Just ignore them, Cammie.” Then Jessica put her hand on Cameryn’s backpack and pushed her forward. The other kids parted obediently as the two of them made their way up the steps.

“I’m going to grief counseling after first period. I haven’t been able to think of anything else—remember, Rachel and I shared a locker.”