Authors: Alafair Burke
M
orhart was at Linwood High School for the second day in a row, feeling nearly like a regular when Coach DeCicco threw him a wave as Morhart passed the oblong window of his classroom door. A dimpled smile and a flash of his badge to the secretary posted outside the principal’s office earned him directions to the Algebra II class on Ashleigh Reynolds’s schedule. Only five minutes until classes changed, so he waited in the hallway for the bell.
Ashleigh sprung from the classroom clustered together with two other girls, the three of them chattering too furiously over each other to possibly be listening. One of them caught his eye and gave him a look he was uncomfortable receiving from a teenage girl.
“I need to have a word with Ashleigh, girls, if you don’t mind.”
They were still eyeballing him from their lockers like he was the head of the football team extending an invitation to prom, but he could tell from Ashleigh’s dark expression that she already knew who he was.
“My father told you I don’t know anything about that Becca girl.”
That Becca girl.
Like Ashleigh couldn’t use her name. As if Becca weren’t human.
“I know what your father said, Ashleigh, but you’re a big girl. I wanted to hear what you had to say for yourself.” Morhart knew he’d be hearing later from an angry Mr. Reynolds, but the law didn’t allow a parent to invoke a child’s right to silence on her behalf. Ashleigh would have to do that on her own.
But she didn’t, just as Morhart had predicted.
“What do you want to know? It’s not like she’s my friend or anything.”
“No. But she’s Dan’s friend. Or at least she was.”
She hugged her books closer to her chest. “I don’t know much about that. We took a break. He was just trying to make me jealous.”
“Based on the comment you posted on Facebook, I’d say it worked.”
Her gaze moved in the direction of her girlfriends. He wanted to smack the relishing smirk off her face but instead took a step to his left to block the line of sight.
“Look. Maybe I was a little harsh. But I knew me and Dan would get back together. The last thing I need is for people thinking we’re somehow the same.”
“And what’s so wrong with being the same as Becca Stevenson?”
She shook her head as if he’d asked how to boil water. “She’s, I don’t know— She stares at Dan all the time but then kind of acts like she’s better than everyone, like too good to go to games or parties. She’s just
weird
. And then out of nowhere she’s posting pictures of her little road trip with Dan on Facebook, like we’re going to accept her all of the sudden.”
“You called her a
slut
for posting a picture on a Web site?”
“That wasn’t the picture I was talking about.”
He could tell she regretted the words the instant they left her mouth.
“What picture?”
He watched her gaze move once again, but this time to a chubby girl peering out from behind her locker door.
“What picture are you referring to, Ashleigh?”
“Why don’t you go ask Becca? Oh, yeah, that’s right. She’s a head case who ran away to get the whole school’s attention. My father told you not to talk to me, Detective. I better go to class now.”
The bell rang as a classroom door closed behind Ashleigh, but the girl tucked behind her locker door remained.
“How you doing, Sophie?”
Sophie Ferrin was by all accounts Becca’s best friend. Morhart had already interviewed her for more than an hour when he’d first caught Becca’s case.
“You were talking to Ashleigh Reynolds.”
“I’m aware of that. I saw you watching us. You knew about this Dan Hunter situation?”
She nodded.
“Why didn’t you say something?”
“About Dan and Ashleigh? There’s nothing to say. They were pretty awful to her, but Becca was totally over it.”
“What do you mean by awful?”
“At first it was just Ashleigh and her stupid friends. They heard about Dan and Becca hanging out and started saying she was a slut and that Dan was only hooking up with her because she was willing to do all kinds of freaky stuff Ashleigh would never do.”
“Was that true?”
She shrugged. “I assume not.”
“But you don’t know?”
“Becca was pretty into Dan. I gave her hell about it. I feel so horrible now.” She sniffed back a sob.
“You said at first it was Ashleigh and her friends spreading rumors. Then what happened?”
“I’m not sure on all the details. I thought Dan actually liked Becca, but Ashleigh was just relentless. I think she wore him down, and the only way he could make things right with her was to bring down Becca. He arranged to meet Becca down at Hudson Park, you know, it’s where we hang out.” Morhart nodded. As a cop, he’d broken up more than a few fights and drinking parties at the park over the years. “When Becca met him there, he was with Ashleigh and all their friends. He said something like, ‘You haven’t figured this out yet? This whole thing with you and me has been a joke
.
’”
He wanted to believe that kids hadn’t been so cruel when he was the one meeting his friends at Hudson Park, but maybe that was how he preferred to remember the past. “Why didn’t you tell any of this to me or Mrs. Stevenson?”
“Honestly? Because around here, what Becca went through wasn’t even that bad. Last year, Luke Green pretended to ask some nobody girl to homecoming. She was waiting on her porch in her new dress and up-do when that whole clique cruised by in their limo jeering at her. Supposedly one of them beaned her from the sunroof with a half-eaten Big Mac. They’re assholes, and they’re brutal, but they’re pretty much a way of life at Linwood.”
“Ashleigh called Becca a slut after she posted a photograph taken in the city on Facebook. When I asked her about it today, she said that wasn’t the picture she was talking about. Do you know anything about that?”
“Jesus, I knew this was going to get out.”
“This is not a time for keeping secrets, Sophie. Becca’s mom believes in you. She nearly fell to her knees in her living room begging me to search my hardest for her girl. And she swore up and down that she knew something untoward has happened to her daughter, because she’s relying on your word. She says she knows you in your heart and that you would not hold back on her. Not now. Not under these circumstances.”
Her eyes scanned the empty hallways for potential eavesdroppers. “Dan had a nude picture of Becca. One of Ashleigh’s stupid friends borrowed his phone and saw it. She forwarded it to Ashleigh, and that’s when they really started to pile on. Not that many people know about the picture. Becca was worried they’d forward it all over the school, but Ashleigh must have her reasons for holding on to it. Knowing her, she was going to torment Becca down the road with it. So, Joann said that? That she knew me in my heart and that I wouldn’t keep anything from her?”
He nodded. “Said something about you being almost like a second daughter. Why didn’t you tell her, Sophie?”
“Because when Becca comes home, I don’t want her to be in trouble, either with Joann or around here.”
“I notice you say
when
Becca comes home.”
“It’s just a feeling I have.”
“Which is?”
“I don’t know whether to be scared for Becca or pissed off at her. One minute my mind is racing through all the horrible things that might have happened to her, and the next, I remember how adamant she was about walking home that night. I remember how secretive she’d been with me lately. At first I assumed it was because she knew I thought Dan Hunter was a total tool, but then even after they broke up and everything went down with Ashleigh and her friends, she still had all these mystery plans. She’d get all evasive about it. Said she liked having something that was ‘just hers
.
’ That’s what she called it. I guess that need for her to have something special is what led her to send that stupid picture to Dan. So, yeah, I’ve kind of wondered if her insistence on walking home that night might have been for a reason. Not to mention, no one’s saying a bad word about her at Linwood now. Sort of an added bonus.”
“Would she really put you through this? And her mother?”
“I don’t know. I really hope not, but then that would mean something bad has happened. And so, yeah, I convince myself there’s a side of Becca that might crave this kind of attention. I feel awful saying that about my best friend. Please tell me you won’t stop looking for her. You told me not to hold back, so please don’t punish Becca and Joann for it. Even if this is Becca acting out, she needs to be found. For her own good.”
He nodded. “I already promised her mother.”
Sophie was spinning her padlock closed when he turned back for a final question.
“You said Becca
sent
that picture to Dan? He didn’t take it with his phone?”
“No. Becca took it with her phone and sent it to him.”
“Her mom told me Becca doesn’t have a cell phone.”
“Sure she does. She got it a couple of months ago. I’ve called her, like, a thousand times, but it goes straight to voice mail. You mean Joann didn’t know?”
A
lice was in her bed, thinking about friendship.
People go through life accumulating and occasionally discarding relationships, casually using the word
friend
to describe the human beings who flutter in and out of their daily worlds. But not everyone who can be counted on as good company at a new restaurant or an afternoon matinee or even a late-night visit to the emergency room can truly be called a friend. Only a true friend would have done for Alice what Lily Harper and Jeff Wilkerson had done for her today.
From the second they had heard about Drew, they had dropped everything. Lily, who had the Gorilla watching her every move at the office. Jeff, who was struggling to keep his practice afloat since he’d left that miserable firm only to learn that the economy had tanked months before the public realized. Despite their own responsibilities, the two of them had been there the instant she’d needed them and had not once taken a break, not for a phone call or an e-mail or even to rest. They had taken care of her the way only true friends could.
She had finally left Jeff’s apartment when she found herself nodding off on the couch. She had been tempted to accept his invitation to stay overnight, but had foreseen what would have developed. The shoulder rubs. The smell of his broken-in robe as she’d stepped inside it from the steaming shower. His gestures had been in friendship, but she knew herself well enough to interpret her own responses to them. Whatever journey their relationship was on, today was not the time for a major shift in direction. When Alice insisted on going back to her own place, Lily had proven her dedication once again by insisting she sleep on the sofa.
The
ting-ting
of the doorbell halted her thoughts. She was about to call out to Lily when she heard the release of the safety chain, followed by friendly murmurs. She assumed her self-appointed bodyguard had ordered a late dinner until she heard the voices getting louder.
“She’s had a bad fucking day, made all the worse by the fact that her own brother wasn’t there when she needed him. She must have called you fifteen times.”
And here Alice had thought she’d been discreet, feeling guilty about sneaking off for phone calls while Lily and Jeff had placed their own lives on hold for her.
“All I can say is you haven’t changed a bit. Take that however you’d like.” Her brother’s voice was simultaneously cutting and dismissive.
Alice stepped from bed and cracked open the door. “I’m still up, Lily. It’s okay. Sorry if he woke you.”
“No, I was up.” No complaints. No passive aggression. Just Lily, trying to stick up for her.
Ben didn’t bother moving the clothes from the only chair in the bedroom before plopping down. “Jesus Christ, that girl is and always has been such a royal cunt. There’s a screw loose with that chick.”
“Unh-unh. Not here, Ben. Not today.”
“Sorry, I just can’t believe you guys are friends. Irony of ironies, you know? She was the biggest sycophant in high school. She thought she was hot shit in podunk Mount Kisco. Treated me and my friends like scum until she realized who we were, then couldn’t get enough of us. You would have fucking hated her.”
Alice now wished that she and Lily had never figured out the few degrees of separation in their past lives. After her mother died, Lily had been raised by her father in Mount Kisco, just south of Bedford, where Alice’s family had a home. Alice and Ben had gone to school in the city, but had friends who were from local families. As best as Lily and Alice had been able to reconstruct, Lily was a year behind Ben. They were never close friends, but ran in the same weekend circles. She’d even been to their house for a couple of his parties, but had never met his little sister.
“You know what’s funny, Ben? It’s funny that you didn’t mention all that months ago when you found out we were friends. Maybe you suddenly remembered just now when she totally called you out?”
The words were harsh, but were delivered teasingly. Alice couldn’t help it. Ben could frustrate her, anger her, even break her, and somehow she always had a little smile for him, even when she was doing her best to bust on him.
“Whatever, fine. I was out of line.”
“Seriously? The c-word? Under my roof? About my
friend
?”
“I said I was sorry.”
“So you got my messages.” She crawled into the bed and bunched a pillow on her lap.
“Yeah. I’m sorry. I should have called you about the arrest. It never dawned on me it would make the news.”
“And you got the other messages? About the gallery?”
“Yeah. How’s that going? I’m really sorry I missed the opening.”
She shook her head. He had listened to the first message, maybe even the second, when she’d been calling about his arrest. But he’d obviously deleted the rest of them.
Ben, I’ve got a man’s blood on my hands. Where are you?
Beep.
Jesus, Ben, you can’t even call me back when there’s been a murder at my job?
Beep.
I’m sorry Ben, but I could really use some family right now. And you know with Mom and Dad ...
Beep.
“So was it true? Were you arrested?”
“You called like it was some big Medellín Cartel bust or something. There was a complaint about the sidewalk noise outside of Little Branch. Some douchebag I didn’t even know mouthed off to one of the cops, so we all got frisked. I had some dope in my pocket. It’s no big deal. The lawyer says I’ll pay a fine and that’ll be that.”
“I thought your program required you to be completely clean. In the past, you’ve said the pot makes you more likely to slip into other drugs.”
“Can you give me a break? Please? I’ve been clean five years, and the Humphrey family still sees me as the junkie loser son. It was just a little pot. I promise.”
She looked into his eyes, wanting so much to believe him. Wanting to wash her brain of its desire to check his pulse. Inspect his forearms. Search his apartment for pipes, needles, and bloody Kleenexes. She’d have to search for all of it, because for a decade and a half of his life, Ben Humphrey had been a human garbage can, willing to dump anything and everything into his body.
“You believe me, right?”
She was about to, before he’d asked that question.
“So what’s up with your dear, sweet, totally-not-a-cunt friend out there with sheets on the sofa. She get dumped or something?”
“Um, no, Ben. She’s here because something really bad happened today.” She told him about finding Drew at the gallery. She watched his eyes move unconsciously to the pocket that must have held his cell phone, the one she’d called so many times.
“Sorry you went through that alone.”
“I wasn’t alone. But, yeah, I did want my family.”
“You didn’t call Mom and Dad?”
“Did you call them when you were arrested? I notice you mentioned ‘the lawyer.’ If Dad was involved, you would’ve said Art.”
Arthur Cronin, in addition to being one of her parents’ best friends, was also the go-to attorney for all remotely law-related Humphrey family problems.
“No Mom or Dad. No Art. I guess your independent ways are contagious.”
“I thought you said I was being too rough on Dad.”
“You mean to tell me you haven’t thought about all those women he was with? I mean, barely women at that. Jennifer Roberson, or whatever her name is? She was nineteen when she auditioned for
Smashed
. I’ve done the math. She was only a year older than you were at the time. I mean, our father had a casting couch—literally, a casting couch—in his office. And the penchant for photography? Not to mention the fact that all those women look vaguely like our mother. Frank certainly has a type.”
“Stop it, Ben. I really am going to hurl.”
“You don’t even know the half of it.”
“What is that supposed to mean?”
“Nothing. Just blowing off steam. Our dad’s a goddamn player, and our mom’s too dazed to give a rat’s ass. Let’s just say we’re both avoiding their shit for the time being.”
She and Ben had always been so different. More than twenty years after she had walked away from a promising start as a child actor, Ben was still trying to find a place for himself in the family industry, first as a screenwriter, a few times as a producer for small-time indies (with their father’s money, of course), and now, more realistically, as a sound engineer recording special audio effects. She’d always been a quiet student. He was a rowdy party guy. She saw herself as a connected part of the larger world. He preferred to shrink from it. While he had the olive skin and exaggerated features of their father, Alice—with her red hair, clear, pale skin, and what her mother called a nose and lips for plastic surgeons to study—bore little resemblance to the man.
That they had found this commonality against their parents, in this tiny, disheveled bedroom, made her sad.
“So do the police have any idea who shot your boss?”
She laughed. She couldn’t help it. The lack of sleep from the night before. The hunger and the stress of the day. The weight of her brother’s problems, and her parents’ flaws, and the completely unrecognizable state of her life. The entire fucked-upness of everything.
“Is that funny?” he said, joining her in the laughter.
“Who shot my boss? No, it’s not funny at all. And they have no idea what’s going on. Neither do I. I don’t even know how to contact the artist or the gallery owner or anything. ITH Corporation. What the hell is that, anyway? So I guess I just walk away.”
“What corporation?”
“Something called ITH. I assume it’s the owner’s investment company for these projects Drew was helping him with, but I have no idea how to contact him.”
“ITH? Just those three letters?”
“Yeah. Why? Does that mean something to you?”
“No. Just seems like a random name, is all.”
“You’re acting weird, Ben.”
“Okay, I know you’ve had a seriously shitty day, but you need to chill out right now. Jesus, I regret even asking about it.”
“You promise? If you know something about that company, you have to tell me.” She knew her brother. He wasn’t behaving like himself. Was he holding something back from her? Maybe this was another sign that he was using again. Or maybe he was right, and she was being hypersensitive after the trauma of the day.
“I promise, all right? I don’t know anything.”
“Well, neither do I. I tried Googling that company name as soon as I got a paycheck. No luck.”
“Just let it lie. Try to forget you were ever involved.”
“Funny. That’s what Lily said, too.”
“Well, your dear, sweet friend is right.”
“Are you still going to meetings, Ben?”
“Seriously, Alice?”
“I thought you went at least once a week.”
“Not for a while now. Don’t look at me like that. Would you want to sit around in some fluorescent-lit church basement drinking bad coffee with a bunch of addicts? Not exactly an uplifting scene.”
“What about Down?” Downing Brown had been the cinematographer on some horrible indie film Ben produced back when he was still aspiring to be Frank Humphrey Jr. Everyone simply called him Down. When the other producers kicked Ben off his own project after one too many drug-fueled rants at the director, Down had introduced Ben to Narcotics Anonymous. As far as Alice knew, he was still Ben’s sponsor.
“He’d like me to be at meetings more, but, yeah, we’re still down. So to speak. He’s sort of my own personal meeting host.”
“You’ll tell me if you need something, right? You know I’m here for you.”
“Always. You shouldn’t be worrying about me after what you’ve been through. You gonna be all right tonight?” He looked at his watch.
“Yeah. Thanks for coming by.”
As she watched Lily replace the safety chain behind her brother and reclaim her spot on the sheeted sofa, Alice thought again about friendship. Friends were supposed to be there for movies and restaurants and maybe even hospital visits. It was family who were supposed to help you scrub dried blood from beneath your fingernails and then sleep on your sofa just in case you woke up in the middle of the night remembering how it got there.
Not only had Lily been there for her, she was also right. Alice had told herself earlier in the day—when she was staring up at that police officer, trying to recall everything she’d ever known about Drew Campbell—that his murder wasn’t about her. It was awful. Horrific. Unimaginable, really. But it wasn’t about her. To see it as such was vanity. And since his death wasn’t about her, it wasn’t up to her to figure out why Highline Gallery was closed and Drew Campbell dead. The protesters. An art heist. A business riff. The police would eventually figure it out, and nothing she could do would hasten that process or bring Drew back to life.
She’d woken up that morning determined that her involvement in the drama around the gallery be resolved. Now it was, albeit in an awful, horrific, unimaginable way. Now she was resolved to listen to Lily.
You’re no longer involved,
she’d said.
Consider yourself lucky you don’t know more about Drew Campbell and the Highline Gallery.
But despite that moment of resolve, Alice would not remain uninvolved. The following day, the detectives from the gallery would arrive unannounced at her apartment asking all of their same questions once again.