No Such Person (17 page)

Miranda believes that Mrs. Warren meant to love domestic life; she meant to homeschool her children, take up quilting and make her own jam. But in fact, Mrs. Warren hates all this stuff.

Surely if the Warrens were drug runners, they would be rich, and they would hire somebody else to fold the laundry.

Mr. Warren thanks Miranda for bringing the boys home, because now they are going to hike in the nature preserve. It isn't Miranda's impression that the Warrens like nature any more than they like housekeeping. She is touched that they love the boys enough to risk tick bites for them.

Or they're making a drug drop out in the woods.

Miranda heads home, with Barrel and without the boys. She doesn't know whether to laugh or cry at the way she suspects everybody in the entire neighborhood. She remembers at last that she meant to check everybody else's Facebook page too.

Silly.

The neighbors are just living their lives, making sandwiches, playing video games, watching the river, brushing their teeth. They're not drug traffickers. And if they are drug traffickers, there won't be a statement on their bios.

Her mother's ring tone sounds. Miranda gets her cell phone out of her pocket. She's calmer with that rectangle in her hand. She feels purposeful, as if just holding a cell phone is a solution. “Hi, Mom.”

“We've seen her.”

“Is she okay?” This is a stupid question. Miranda doesn't know why she asks it.

Lander can't possibly be okay.

“No. She looks awful. Sort of grimy and wasted.”

“Oh, Mom! Did you get to hug?”

“No. No, she's—behind—well—they're sort of separate rooms. We weren't really in the same room. Glass. Little shelves, sort of.”

Her brilliant, articulate mother cannot describe a partition. Her daughter is on the other side of a barrier. The criminal side.

“And what did she say?”

“She said she loves us.”

Lander does not deny the charges.

Miranda stops walking. Leans on a tree trunk. It's an oak, and the striated bark is rough against her skin.

“We met again with the lawyer. The arraignment is scheduled for tomorrow afternoon. Monday. It'll be on Monday. Tomorrow.”

“What happens at an arraignment?”

“Well, it turns out that the police arrest a person, but the prosecuting attorney brings the charges, and that is done in front of a judge. The person is formally advised of the charges against them and told what their constitutional rights are. It's a very short event. The person doesn't say anything except ‘not guilty.' ”

The person.

Miranda weeps for her parents. “Is that when they set bail?” she asks. “Can we afford bail on the money we're getting from Grandma?”

Her mother is openly crying now. “There might not be bail. They don't usually have bail for homicide charges. She has to stay there, in that jail, behind those bars. Without us.”

The arraignment will be in a courtroom. There will be no partitions. Miranda is definitely going to this. She will sit directly behind Lander. She has seen this in many TV shows.

Maybe it was an accident, she thinks. Lander and Jason accidentally killed Derry, but they didn't know it was Derry, and Jason ran off and she stayed. Except that Lander wouldn't just stand there if somebody was hurt. She'd love to stanch a bleeding wound. She'd love to rip her T-shirt into bandages while calling 911.

“Your father and I are driving back to West Hartford to get us all good clothes for the arraignment.”

How desperate her mother must be, pretending that how the family is dressed will favorably impress a judge in a homicide case.

“We'll stop by and get you, honey,” says her mother.

Since the quickest route to West Hartford is on the other side of the river, picking up Miranda is an hour out of the way. “No. I'm fine here. I've been playing with Henry and Hayden and Barrel.” As if she, too, is a seven-year-old on a happy summer day. As if she is not involved in Lander's nightmare. “I love you,” she says helplessly.

And she does love them. The shocking fact of their disregard for the future, specifically Miranda's future, is easy to table. At least, for now.

She and Barrel stumble home. Coming down the driveway, seeing the cherry-red siding of the little cottage, the green shutters that sag, the torn screened door, she thinks, If Lander never comes home, we might as well sell the cottage. We'll
want
to sell it. It will be nothing but the place where everything went wrong.

The lawyer discusses the arraignment.

How Lander will face a judge on Monday afternoon.

How her parents are bringing clothing so that she will look her best.

How she will be transported.

How she is to address the judge. “Your Honor,” not “sir” or “ma'am.”

How she is to say absolutely nothing except “not guilty” when the time comes.

The lawyer's face swims in and out of view.

Lander whispers to this woman her parents have chosen, “But I don't know what happened. I was there, but I don't know.
What if I am guilty?
”

This is the question she screams silently at God.
Am I a killer? Don't let me be a killer. Don't let Derry be dead because of me!

Do I really think God will go back in time and change my actions? Change the results? she asks herself. Or am I facing real consequences for the first time in twenty-two years, and I want God to be responsible instead of me?

The lawyer, like the police, has no patience with Lander's self-indulgent whining. She leans into Lander's face. “Your response is
‘Not guilty.'
Do you grasp this?”

With her free hand, Lander reaches for a tissue from the box on the table.

“Lander!” snaps the lawyer. “Toughen up. It's not going to get easier. Tears don't soften judges.”

She is not expecting to soften anybody. The pitiful truth is that she, Lander, is soft.

She has always seen herself as a woman of courage. A woman who marches through any difficulty, shrugs off any burden. A woman who could practice medicine in the midst of some distant civil war, saving lives while bombs drop. Instead, she is a weakling who needs her own tissue box just to cope with the loss of her cell phone.

Seeing her parents earlier in the day was an ordeal.

Her father looked terrible. He was nicely dressed, which is always the case. He loves clothing. He has more clothing than any of them. He loves shirts with collars and heavy starch. He loves ties and bow ties, vests and bright socks. He loves shoes. But the body inside this fine clothing was hunched and awkward. He tried to smile, but it didn't work. His face twitched.

Her mother looked worse. Her clothing was all ajumble, as if she couldn't find the buttons, couldn't fasten the necklace, couldn't pull the brush through her hair. Her mother was confounded by the barrier between them and several times put her hands against the thick, soiled glass, as if hoping it was a mirage.

They didn't know how to question her.

They said, “We love you, sweetheart,” which is what people say when there is no point in addressing the situation.

She loves them back. She loves them so much she cannot believe she has ever ignored them, disobeyed them or shrugged them off.

She could not comfort them. There was no solid truth to set down in front of them, a daughter's lovely gift of innocence. “I love you, too,” she told them. “Thank you for coming. Give Rimmie a hug. Tell her she was right about everything.”

“Right about everything?” echoed her father.

“Rimmie knew all along that Jason was bad company,” she explained, aware that a court verdict might be that she, Lander, was the bad company.

She was relieved when they left. Being in a cell was better than facing her terrified parents.

STILL SUNDAY AFTERNOON

The cottage is exhaustingly hot. Miranda can't stand being shut in. She opens every window, exposes every screen, unlocks every door. Not one shiver of breeze enters. But at least she doesn't feel like a trapped animal.

Lander
is
a trapped animal.

Miranda feels like having ice cream, but after two days of eating nothing, perhaps she should have a little something prior to dessert. In the kitchen she spots Mrs. Crowder's casserole. It's been sitting out since yesterday, in the hottest room in the cottage, facing the hottest sun. She lifts the lid. It stinks. It's totally gone bad.

Now on top of everything else she has to get rid of eight or ten helpings of something Mrs. Crowder slaved over.

The cottage doesn't have a garbage disposal.

She can't feed it to Barrel.

They don't even have garbage pickup. It's easier to lug a plastic bag back to West Hartford than to haul big trash cans up to the road, where they are out of sight, and the Allerdons forget them, and wind blows them into the middle of the road.

Her mother phones again. “I need your advice. What clothes should I choose? I don't know what to wear. I don't know what she should wear. I don't know what you should wear.”

“What did Lander say to get for her?”

“She just shook her head.”

“Meaning she doesn't care?” Caring is the hallmark of Lander's existence. She cares about grades, achievement, schools, success and all the accessories needed to display them.

“Oh, honey, I think she's in shock. She's hardly saying a word.”

They're all in shock. But at least Miranda is at the cottage, not in a cage.

Lander seldom wears a dress or a skirt. So although those would be formal, and perhaps formal is good in front of a judge, Lander's best outfits are suits. “How about that pale-gray silk suit?” says Miranda. “The pants are solid and the jacket has tiny white dots and the cut is businesslike. And she could wear her white silk tee. Maybe a scarf. Not too much color in the scarf maybe. And those black strappy sandals? Because in heels she's five eleven. Maybe she'd look threatening? We want her to look, you know, sweet and girlish.”

“I'm standing in front of her closet now. Yes, I see the suit. Good choice. And maybe the scarf that's white with turquoise streaks? She likes turquoise.” Her mother's voice is brighter. Way easier to think about color than arraignments.

“Okay, then,” says Miranda. “You've got the clothes. Bring her shampoo and conditioner and makeup. I think they let a person get ready. Now let's decide what you're going to wear. How about that navy dress with the silver chain belt? The one that's so flattering because of the way the skirt hangs. It would be perfect for you.”

This may be the most ridiculous statement Miranda has ever made. On Monday, nothing is going to be perfect for her mother.

But they settle the clothing issue.

“I'll iron everything,” says her mother, eager for a chore at which she can succeed. “I'll have it all on hangers.” As if wrinkles matter. “We'll set off in about an hour, so we'll be at the cottage by nine. Lock the doors, honey. And the windows. I know you'll be hot and it will be awful. But…”

It's too late to lock up. There's no point in locking up. You can't lock out bad things. Look at Lander. She fell among bad people and fell into bad things and locks had nothing to do with it.

Miranda imagines the locks that now surround her sister.

Her mother presents another plan. “Maybe Daddy and I should just come and get you and we'll drive back here and sleep in the air conditioning. Yes. That's better. We need to be fresh and rested for tomorrow. We'll see you soon.”

Normally Miranda never wants to be in West Hartford if she can be in the cottage, but it is so hot and she feels so awful. Is it hunger or despair? The prospect of her parents' arrival and an air-conditioned house ought to cheer her up, but it doesn't. Maybe she's past cheering up.

With a dish towel, Miranda wipes sweat off her face, considers again what to eat and again is confronted with Mrs. Crowder's rotting casserole.

The Crowders have an excellent position for drug dealing. Their house is virtually invisible, the way they've let the trees grow. A car can just slink up their driveway and disappear. Of course the same thing is true of Miranda's cottage. And the Warrens'.

I'll check out the Crowders on Facebook next, she decides.

It's energizing to have a plan, even a dumb one. She carries the heavy dish through the screened porch, down the steps, onto the grass and over to the cliff stairs. She unbolts the gate and carefully descends. If she spills now, she will also have to clean up the dock. Kneeling on the dock, she sets the lid down and lowers the casserole into the water, swishing it around. It'll be fine for fish, who don't seem to mind rotten anything.

She has a sudden insight into the delivery of all this food.

The reason their neighbors bring casseroles and gifts when her parents are not home is not that they dread speaking to her parents. The neighbors are sparing her parents. Giving the food to Miranda says
We're here for you
but does not force her parents to come face to face with pity.

Miranda loves her whole neighborhood all over again. She is free of suspicion. It is light and airy to feel this good.

She runs back up the cliff stairs. Everyone should have a skill and one of Miranda's skills is that she never grabs the handrail rope.

In the kitchen, she fills the empty casserole with soap and hot water and scrubs the pot and lid with a wire sponge. She heads out the front door to return them to Mrs. Crowder. She won't exactly lie about the fate of the food, but she won't tell the truth either. She'll say,
It was so kind! My parents are so glad you thought of us. How was your last trip?  Was it Australia?  Where are you going next?

And then the dish will be off her hands, along with the guilt of feeding its contents to the fish.

She walks up the driveway to the little country road. To her right is the doctors' house, and farther down, she can see Geoffrey's house, and then Jack's.

She hasn't checked their Facebook pages either, but she doesn't care anymore. Parents who make cinnamon cookies, send fruit baskets and bake casseroles are not dealers. Boys who save you from TV crews, help you with online searches or put away the clean dishes for you are not  enemies.

She crosses the street.

From their tree house, Henry and Hayden shriek, “Where are you going?  Wait up! We want to come!”

Really, there are times when Miranda can't stand it. In West Hartford, she could circle the block ten times and nobody would notice. At the cottage she can't burp without witnesses.

But it is reassuring. Nobody here is doing anything clandestine or illegal. Henry and Hayden would know.

The boys race headlong, stumbling in their desperation to catch up. It doesn't seem to Miranda there has been enough time for the Warrens to trek down nature trails and already be home. Perhaps that is just Mr. Warren's excuse to get the murderer's sister away from his sons. Perhaps Mr. Warren is actually designing websites to transport illicit drugs all over the country.

Or perhaps I should get some sleep, Miranda thinks. At least have a sandwich.

The heat presses down again.

The light, airy relief of loving her neighbors is extinguished.

While she is amusing herself with fantasies, Lander is in jail. The arraignment is tomorrow. And what has Miranda accomplished? Zip.

She is too tired to deliver the silly casserole. Maybe she will just slip up to the side door, set it down and leave. But that is rude. That works only if she has a thank-you note to tuck into the dish.

The boys dance on their side of the street, begging her to come back and get them. They are not allowed to cross by themselves.

“No!” she yells. “Stay home!”

The Crowder driveway doubles in an S to diminish the steepness of the site. She drags herself up. The heat from the black asphalt is crazy. Her shoes may melt. The three-car carport is full, which is good. Everybody is here. It's been ages since she's seen Mrs. Crowder, proof that cars can come and go and, even here, nobody sees a thing.

The front door is many sweaty paces away. Miranda cuts through the carport to the side door. It is a glass storm door, with a panel that can be raised or lowered, so there's a screen if you want a breeze, or glass if you want air conditioning. It is currently open for a breeze, which is insane. The Crowders have central air. Anybody with air conditioning should be using it.

The doorbell is a small round button set in a small silver rectangle. Miranda balances the casserole against her left hip and raises her right hand to press the doorbell with her index finger.

What lies on the other side of the door is unlike anything she has ever seen. She cannot at first decide what it is. Indecision lasts a millisecond, and then she is throwing the casserole aside and racing down the drive. The heavy dish crashes against one of the parked cars.

She doesn't care about noise or damage. She has to get away from it. She has to get home.

The driveway tips down like a ski jump. She is afraid of tripping; afraid of falling. She tries to keep her balance and still run faster than she has ever run in her life. She gets her cell phone out. Do her fingers really know everything by memory? Can she hit 911 without looking, without slowing down?

Behind her a door bangs. The bang is too loud to be the flimsy side door. But no one could get out that door now anyway. Somebody is coming out the front door. Feet whack the pavement behind her.

Miranda screams.

The scream is unplanned. Unwanted. And she can't stop. Screams rip out of her chest, so violently they seem to tear her throat.

This is panic, she thinks. Did Lander panic? Did she shoot Derry Romaine by accident and then she panicked?

Miranda nears the street. She glances left and right. Traffic would be good; she'd love traffic; but there isn't any. What comes between her and the safety of home is a pair of happy yelling little boys.

“What are we doing? What's the game?” yells Henry, jumping up and down. “Why are you screaming?”

“Go home!” She brushes at them as if they are fallen leaves and she can rake them away. “Run home! Get out of here!”

They don't move. Home is boring. Miranda is exciting. They want to scream and run down hills, too.

The pounding feet behind her catch up.

She whirls in terror.

But it is only Stu.

“Oh, Stu!” she gasps. “Oh, Stu, did you see it? Oh, thank goodness you're here. And you're safe! Thank goodness you're safe!”

Her trembling fingers fail to find 911. Stu takes the phone out of her hand. “I'll do it,” he says. He turns to Henry and Hayden. “You boys run on home now. It's suppertime.”

How can he be so calm? A dead body lies on his kitchen floor. Blood has spattered every appliance.

Stu does not call 911. He drops her phone into his own jeans pocket. Miranda stares at the pocket; at the thick denim and the double row of stitching.
Stu is not calling the police.

“We ate a long time ago,” says Henry, not leaving.

In Stu's other hand, held close to his thigh, where the little boys cannot see it, is a knife. It is not a kitchen knife. Its peculiar blade is sharp on both sides. She is not sure what such a knife is meant for.

The blade is bloody.

She remembers the expert.
Drug dealing is a young man's game.
And here stands the only young man in the neighborhood. A man the same age as Jason Draft and Derry Romaine. A man who came three times to Miranda's house to ask how Lander is doing. A man excited by the possibility of Lander's suffering.

Stu's eyes are wide with shock. He is shaking.

Well, of course he is. There is a dead body in his house and Stu is probably holding the knife that sliced the body to pieces.