This Is How It Ends (6 page)

“You okay?” I asked Matty. “You shouldn't drive if—”

“I'm fine,” he said. “Ninety-eight percent sober.” He held up a hand. “Scout's honor.”

“Well, then . . .” I shrugged. “Mazel tov.”

“Dude,” Tannis said fuzzily. “You know I suck at Spanish.”

Trip dropped me off sometime after midnight, Sarah asleep on his lap in the front seat and Nat already deposited at home. My mom was at work, and I crashed hard, feeling the full exhaustion of the Dash and the high of being with Sarah and everything else.

I woke up to the shrill ring of my phone, the red numbers of my clock blurry but definitely not double digits.

I checked the caller ID, then picked up hesitantly. I couldn't imagine why Tannis would call me at all, much less before six on a Sunday.

“Riley,” she said breathlessly. “Natalie's dad is dead.”

CHAPTER 7

I STOOD IN MY ROOM
stupidly, trying to figure out what to do. Trip was on his way.

“Shot.” Tannis's words echoed in my head. “And, Ri?” she'd said. “Nat found him.”

“Oh my God.” But she'd already hung up.

I couldn't remember the last time there'd been a murder in Buford. The girl who'd died last year had been a big deal because before that it had been just the usual stuff—heart attacks, old age. My dad's shooting four years ago had made all the papers, and a TV station had even showed up. Maybe they'd thought that was a murder, instead of what it had turned out to be—a hunter shot by a stray bullet, bleeding out in the woods. I'd been thirteen, and now I remembered only fragments: my mom crying; people bringing food; dishes and dishes of it piling up, uneaten. Staying in the McGintys' old-people-smelling house, wondering when my mom would be back, worrying that she wouldn't be. And after, the absence of my dad, a gaping and permanent hole of never. He'd never take me hunting again or teach me to drive, see me graduate, get married, have kids. There was an icy feeling in my gut, thinking of him and of Nat and her dad. And what she'd seen that night at the cave.

Trip's honking out front startled me. I zipped up my backpack and went out to meet him, careful—for once—to lock the house door.

They were all there—Trip, Tannis, and Sarah—their faces pale and serious. Sarah had been crying.

“What happened?” I asked.

“He was shot in the head and chest,” Trip said bluntly.

“Who . . .” I couldn't even finish the sentence.

“I don't think they have any idea yet, Riley,” Sarah said. Her voice was shaky. “And Nat—”

She stopped, trying to catch her breath. My brain called up the inside of Nat's trailer, painted it in the splattered blood from the physics closet. “Jesus,” I whispered.

We rode silently, Trip's headlights swinging across the bramble as he turned onto Ohoyo Road. Everything looked gray in the early morning light, a sheen of silver dew coating the bushes and grass. I kept hoping we'd round the final bend to find the trailer quiet, all of it a case of mistaken address or identity.

It wasn't, of course. Every police car in Buford was there—all six of them—lights flashing, colors and shadows bouncing off the woods. I got out of the car slowly, eyeing the yellow tape already strung around the yard. A handful of gawkers had gathered—a fat lady in a housedress, an old guy, three men I recognized from the restaurant.

Trip was already talking to the old guy when I reached them. William Johnson. He lived up the road a mile past Nat's house.

“. . . heard the sirens an hour or so ago. After 'bout the third one, figured I better come see what was goin' on.” William Johnson shook his head. “They already had the girl out by the time I got here. Saw her sitting in the back of a cruiser. She was still there when they brought out the body. I'da thought they'd take her away before that, but I guess seein' the black bag prolly wasn't any worse than seein' what she did inside.”

“Do they know what happened?” Trip asked.

“If they do, they didn't tell William Johnson.”

“Where's Natalie?” Sarah asked.

Mr. Johnson looked her over. “I reckon they didn't tell that to me neither, sweetheart,” he said. “Maybe you'll have better luck with them police types.”

We turned toward the house, watching silently as shadows moved inside. John Peters's dad had to be in there somewhere. Maybe he could tell us more. But it was Bob Willets and Lincoln Andrews who came out first and stopped to talk by the door. Then Lincoln went back inside and Bob headed down the yard, toward the police van parked just outside the tape. I moved to that part of the cordoned-off area.

“Hey, Bob,” I called. He was a regular at the restaurant, friendly with everyone there.

He glanced up, his face grim. “Riley Larkin,” he said tiredly. Some guys probably were excited by the idea of “real” police work, but Bob wouldn't be one of them. He had a little girl and a pretty wife and seemed content to shoot the shit with the townies and write the occasional parking ticket. “What are you doing here?”

“Natalie Cleary's a friend of mine,” I said. “Is she okay?”

He pursed his lips. “She's not hurt, if that's what you mean.”

“What happened?”

He shook his head. “I can't tell you anything, Riley,” he said. “You've seen enough cop shows to know that.”

I nodded. “Can you at least tell me where Nat is? Or how to get ahold of her?” To our left, the tight knot of Trip, Sarah, and Tannis were all staring numbly at the house.

Officer Willets followed my gaze. “They took her down to the station,” he said finally. “She's going to be there for a while, I'd guess. And frankly, she's not really in a state to chat, even with her friends. I'd go home and get some sleep.” He gave me a once-over. “You look like you could use it.”

He started to walk away, but I called after him. “Where was she? When it happened?”

He paused, and I saw his jaw tighten. He shook his head, and I thought he wasn't going to answer, but he did. A single word. “Inside.” He sighed heavily. “Go home, Riley. Hug your mom. Say some prayers for that poor girl.”

***

The four of us stood out in the cold for more than an hour. The sun rose gradually, light bouncing off the white trailer, but there wasn't much else to see or learn. Nat was gone. The police came in and out. Mr. Peters waved to us, his face tight and unsmiling, but aside from what Bob had told me, no one was talking.

I told the others what he'd said. That was why we stayed, hoping to get even the smallest clue what it meant. “If she was inside, she must know who did it,” Tannis said. “Right?”

“You'd think so,” Trip answered simply. We stood, watched, waited.

Eventually we gave up, piling back into Trip's car. It wasn't until we were driving slowly down the hill that Tannis brought it up. “You don't think . . .” She paused. I knew what she was getting at but wasn't about to be the one to say it.

“What?” Trip glanced at her in the rearview.

Tannis shifted uncomfortably. “Well, you know how the other day when she had the bruise . . . and, I mean, this is what she saw, right? In those binoculars.”

“Oh! Shit,” Trip said. It hadn't occurred to him before.

“What are you saying, Tannis?” Sarah asked. Her voice was low and controlled. I could tell she'd already considered it, just like I had.

“I don't know,” Tannis backpedaled. “Just that . . . you know, what Riley said at lunch that day—about, like, our hidden desires . . .”

“You think
she
did it?” Trip's eyes in the rearview were wide in disbelief.

“Nat would never, in a million years—” Sarah started, but Trip didn't even let her finish.

“No way, Tannis,” he interrupted. “Nat's been putting up with his shit for years, and she was fine when we dropped her off last night—”

“But who knows what happened after?” Tannis argued. “You saw the way he was acting at the mountain, Trip. How was he later? When you guys got him home?”

“I don't know,” he said. “Wasted? Unstable? Fine one minute and pissed off the next.”

“And if he was in the same mood when Natalie got home from the party . . . ,” Sarah said slowly.

“Or was whacked-out on some drug . . . ,” I added.

None of us said anything else, letting it hang there. The idea that Natalie might have shot her own dad was suddenly fairly easy to imagine. Trip turned down Main Street. The town was just starting to wake up. A few tourists walked quickly from the coffee shop, steaming cups in hand. We let the radio play, watched sun light the metal ski lifts strung across the mountain face. We'd run there yesterday. The start of the season, almost anything seeming possible. Except this.

I turned to Tannis, thinking about the after-party. “What happened to you last night?” I asked.

“What do you mean?”

“Matty?” I said, raising my eyebrows.

“God,” she muttered, rubbing her forehead. “Don't remind me.”

It was just after eight when Trip dropped me at work. I'd texted George that I'd be late, explaining why. He'd already heard, of course, and I knew by the end of the day, it'd be all over town.

CHAPTER 8

THE FIRST REPORTER WAS ALREADY
at the restaurant when I arrived. A skinny guy in jeans and a button-down. He'd come from Burlington the day before to cover the Dash—I guess it was a slow news week—but suddenly found himself with the scoop on a much juicier story.

Not that any of us were answering his questions.

“You're not gonna tell him anything, right?” Moose asked, his eyes darting to the restaurant floor, the entrance, then me.

“What would I tell that half the town doesn't already know?” I asked.

“Yeah, yeah, exactly,” he said, bobbing his head. “Just . . . you know . . . nothing about that one time we went up there with Wynn, right? I mean, I didn't even know Mr. Cleary. I was just doing a favor. It—”

“Moose. Calm down,” I interrupted, taking a step back. “You're freaking out. Talk like that, and they'll think you did it.” I raised an eyebrow. “You didn't, did you?”

I was joking, but Moose didn't think it was funny. “Jesus Christ,” he exploded, “that's exactly what I don't need!”

He stalked away, and I stared after him. I'd never heard him yell before. Maybe I shouldn't have said anything. Nat had found her dad dead, and there'd been a murder in our little town. People were
going
to be freaking—it wasn't something to joke about. I kept my head down the rest of the morning, busing and cleaning and trying to ignore pretty much everyone and everything.

“You must go to school with Natalie Cleary.”

The guy behind me at table ten was sipping a Coke and wearing a flannel shirt that looked fresh from a package, still creased down the front. There was a pen and notebook open on the table, the page clean and white. Reporter number two. I wondered how many others would follow.

“No comment,” I told him, loading the last of table nine's plates into the bus pan and heading for the back.

Bob Willets and Lincoln Andrews walked in just after one p.m. “Too busy to make it this mornin', I reckon,” Patti said. They looked less rumpled but more exhausted than when I'd seen them behind the yellow crime scene tape six hours earlier. “There's some outta towners at yer table.” She gestured to a pair of city people. “But I can seatcha by the fountain.”

I was busing table three and watching them from the corner of my eye. Patti was pulling menus from the rack when Bob said, “Actually, Patti, we're here to ask some questions. About the Clearys.”

She froze. I did too.

“We'll need to have a few minutes with a couple of people here,” Bob continued.

“I best get George out here, then,” she told them.

Lincoln nodded. “Yep, we were figuring to talk to him first. Where's his office?”

They followed Patti back to see the manager. Moose was fidgeting beside me as soon as they disappeared.

“You think they're gonna talk to all of us?”

“I don't know.” I surveyed Moose, who looked ready to jitterbug right out of his uniform, tap-tap-tapping his fingers on the seat back. “Dude,” I said. “Calm down.”

“Yeah.” He nodded, a little manic. “Sure, sure.”

“Just be straight with them, Moose.”

He hesitated. “You know I can't,” he said softly.

“Look,” I said. “So you did things up there that”—I looked around at the empty booths nearby before continuing—“weren't exactly legal. So what? When was the last time you went up?”

“I dunno. A couple months ago.” He flicked his eyes toward the ceiling. It was a classic tell. Trip had taught me that back in third grade, after his mom had caught us taking quarters from her purse.

“Look them in the eyes,” he'd said sternly when his mom had finished scolding us. “And don't fidget. That's how they know.” I'd never gotten good at it.

“Moose,” I cautioned now. “Don't lie to them. You'll just get in bigger trouble.”

“I'm not lying.”

“Even I can tell you are,” I told him. “You think the police aren't going to figure it out? This is what they
do
.”

He looked down, then nodded. “Yeah, you're right. I saw him yesterday, though. Last night.” He looked at me hopelessly. “What if they think . . .”

“Moose,” I looked at him carefully, not even sure I wanted to ask the next question. “Did you do it?” I whispered.

“God, no!”

“Do you have anything . . . any drugs on you?”

He shook his head.

“Then be honest,” I said. “What do you have to lose?”

“You don't get it, Riley,” he said, shaking his head angrily. “I'm already on probation. For last year?”

I frowned, but then it came back to me. The girl who'd OD'd. Moose had been involved in that somehow. He'd been out of work a bunch of days after it had happened. It'd been right after first snow, and I'd gotten stuck picking up dead mice almost every time I'd come to work, since he hadn't been around to take turns.

“I could go to jail if they nail me for anything,” he said. “Basically, I'm fucked.”

I thought it sounded like he kind of was. “Well, Jesus, Moose, why'd you go up there?”

He looked at me hard, then shook his head. “Forget it,” he said. “You wouldn't understand.”

George pushed through the swinging doors, and stopped when he saw us. “Riley,” he said. “The police want to talk to you.”

I felt a flutter of nerves at how that sounded. And I hadn't done anything wrong. I couldn't imagine what Moose was feeling.

“I know this must be hard for you, Riley,” Bob started gently once he'd closed the office door behind us. “You bein' friends with Natalie Cleary and all.”

“I didn't really know her dad,” I said.

“No?”

“No.”

“You never met him?”

“Not really.”

Lincoln, who'd been writing notes, looked up. “Either you did or you didn't. Which is it?”

“Well, I saw him at the mountain yesterday,” I hedged. “Just like everyone else.”

Bob nodded, like he'd expected that. “How did Natalie seem to you before that?”

“I didn't see her before,” I said. “She was already with the ski team when I got there.”

“What about in the days before?” Bob asked.

“She seemed fine.”

“Really?” he pressed. “Not worried about anything? Acting strange? Upset?”

I thought about the bruise on her face. “She was upset on Monday morning at school, but she was fine later on that day. Fine all week.”

But Lincoln leaned in. “Upset about what?”

“I—” I paused. “I don't know, actually.”

Lincoln frowned. “Well, how do you know she was upset? Tell me exactly what happened.”

He was watching me closely, and my brain was churning through how she'd looked, hair hiding her face. Her reaction when I mentioned the night at the cave. “She was just really quiet in homeroom,” I said. “When I tried to talk to her, she wouldn't look at me, and then I saw she had a cut on her face. And a bruise.”

Lincoln's eyebrows lifted. “Did she say where she got it?”

“She said she tripped and banged into a wall.”

He studied me for a minute. “You didn't believe her.”

I shrugged uncomfortably.

He exchanged a look with Bob. “Did she often get hurt like that?”

“Sometimes,” I said.

“More than you might expect?” he pressed. “More than other people?”

I shrugged again, unsure of the right answer.

Lincoln exhaled, hard. “Could you help us out a little, Riley?” he said, clearly frustrated. “We're trying to get a sense of the Clearys' home life, and I feel like you're not being very cooperative.” He ran a hand through thinning hair. “Is there more?”

“I'm sure there is,” I said, frustrated myself. “I'd imagine her home life was pretty shitty. Yeah, Nat had cuts or bruises or scrapes more than you'd expect. She said it was from skiing or just her being clumsy.” I took a breath. “If you're asking if her dad hit her, I have no idea. I don't know if she was upset at him last week or if something else was going on or if she had, you know, girl problems or what. She's private. I try to respect that.”

“Even though it meant she might have been abused right under your nose?”

I glared at Lincoln, feeling my ears burn. “If she was abused,” I said evenly, “it was under all of our noses. Don't tell me you didn't know her dad was a user and a dealer.”

His face darkened, and I knew I'd crossed a line I probably shouldn't have. “You saw drugs at her house?”

“No,” I said flatly. I knew they were there that night Moose dragged me up to the trailer, but I didn't actually
see
any. “I've never been inside Nat's house.”

“Never?”

I shook my head. “We'd go up to get her sometimes—me and my friends—but we always waited in the car for her to come out.”

“So you'd never met her dad? Never talked to him?”

I hesitated, knowing I should lie. “Just at the door of her house.”

“When you were there to pick her up?”

“No,” I said. “A year or so ago.”

“What were you doing there?”

My hands felt damp. This wasn't going the way I wanted. “I was with a friend.”

“And you went there because . . .” Lincoln drew it out, waiting like a cat who's spotted a mouse. He knew exactly where this was heading.

“My ride needed to stop by.”

“For what?”

“What does it matter?” I said. “It has nothing to do with what happened last night.”

“How do you know?” Lincoln said, leaning close enough that I could smell the sourness of his morning coffee. “
I
don't know what happened, and I'm investigating the case. So how could you?” He took a deep breath and, his voice calm but dead serious, asked, “What were you there for, Riley?”

“Look,” I said, “I don't really know. I never went in, didn't hear what they talked about or see what they did. All I know is we drove up there, I waited, we left.”

Lincoln looked ready to tear into me, but Bob interjected, “You said you met her dad.”

I nodded. “Yeah. It was late. I had to get home, so I knocked on the door. Nat's dad answered.”

“And?” Bob asked. “What was your impression?”

“I don't know. Same as it was yesterday, I guess. That he was . . .” I paused. “Kind of a mess.”

Lincoln snorted.

Bob ignored him, asking, “Did you see Natalie there?”

“No. We weren't really friends back then,” I said.

“Did you ever tell her about that night? Stopping up there with your ‘friend'? Meeting her dad?”

I shook my head.

“Why?”

“She'd be embarrassed,” I said. “Natalie doesn't talk about her dad or anything. I didn't want to make her feel bad.”

No one said anything for a few beats, but I could feel the air in the room soften. Until Lincoln jumped in with the next question, “Did she know he kept a gun in the house?”

“I don't know.”

“Does she know how to shoot?”

I saw where this was leading. “You think she did it?”

Bob shot a look at Lincoln, who asked, “Do
you
, Riley?”

“No!” I said. “No way.” I felt guilty. Like they'd somehow overheard our conversation in the car and gotten the idea our friend could shoot her father point-blank in the head.

“Why?”

“Why?” I echoed, thinking of Nat who always remembered birthdays and never let kids sit alone in the cafeteria. “It . . . it's just . . . not something Natalie would do.”

“Why?” Lincoln pursued.

“She's not like that. Not violent,” I said. “I've never even seen her argue with someone, much less, you know, try to hurt them.”

“Sometimes people just snap,” Lincoln said.

“Maybe. But Nat's so protective of her dad. She's never said a bad word about him. And won't let anyone else, either,” I said. “She doesn't have other family that I know of.”

“What happened to her mom?” Lincoln asked.

“She never talks about that, either.”

“But you have some idea.”

“No. I really don't. I mean, I guess she just left. A bunch of years ago.” The rumor that she'd up and split was pretty common knowledge. “But I don't really know.”

Bob was nodding, but Lincoln was looking back at his notebook. “Does she have a boyfriend?”

“Nat's mom? I have no idea.”

Lincoln frowned, like I should have been able to read into his poorly phrased question. “No. Natalie.”

“Oh,” I said. “No.” Though John Peters seemed to be auditioning for the role last night. I wonder what he was thinking this morning. Would he believe Nat could kill her dad?

“Anyone on the ski team she's especially close with?”

“Not that I know of.”

“How about at school?”

“Nat's friends with lots of people. Pretty much everyone likes her.”

Lincoln scribbled some things down while Bob took over the questions, switching angles.

“Who do you think might have done something like this, Riley?”

“Me? Who do I think?”

He nodded.

“I have no idea.”

“Can you think of anyone who hated Nat's dad?”

“Well, sure.” I frowned at them. “Bill Winston, for one. Not that I think he did it or anything,” I hurried to add as Lincoln kept scribbling.

“Do you think he's a more likely suspect, or Natalie?” Lincoln asked, glancing up.

“So this is a multiple-choice test?”

Lincoln scowled. “We're just trying to get some clarity here.”

“I think I'd have to go with ‘neither.'”

“Uh-huh,” Bob said. “Who else?”