The Locker (15 page)

“What do you mean?”

“I wasn't going to Tyler's cabin. I went to Suellen's house to see if I could pick up on anything.”

“I figured it might be something like that,” he threw back at me.

“But I didn't sense anything. Not till we got to that spot on the road. And then it was so strong! I
know
she was there—with someone familiar that she trusted!”

“And you said it was the day she disappeared?”

“Yes, I'm sure of it.”

“And you think this person was … tied in some way … to her disappearing,” he said slowly.

“Yes. I'm sure of that, too.” I thought a moment and then looked up at him. “Don't you have any ideas? A friend of hers? Some boyfriend she had? You must have
some
sort of clue!”

“Whoa.”

He stopped abruptly. He knelt down in the middle of the road and lowered Dobkin to his lap and gazed down into Dobkin's peaceful face.

“Marlee …” he said slowly, “careful now. I don't think you realize what you're saying—”

“I know exactly what I'm saying. She wouldn't have been with this person if she'd been afraid of—hey!” I shouted as Jimmy Frank hoisted Dobkin back onto his shoulder. “Hey, what's wrong? Wait up!”

Jimmy Frank was striding away, like he didn't want me to catch up with him this time, but I ran after him anyway and pulled on his arm until he finally turned around.

“What's wrong with you?” I demanded. “Don't you want to help her?”

“And how could I help her?” He sounded impatient. “Every single theory's already been thought of! Edison and every other town within a hundred miles of here were crawling with cops for weeks and weeks! What could anyone
possibly
come up with that they didn't already think of?”

He shook me off, but I was just as stubborn.

“Come on,” I pleaded, “wait a minute!”

“You don't understand how it is here!” he threw back at me, so angry now that his voice was shaking. “People have
forgotten
about Suellen and what happened to her—they
want
to forget! As far as they're concerned, whatever happened to her can't be changed, and she's miles and miles away from here by now—otherwise she would've turned up when they went over this place with a fine-tooth comb! You start stirring things up again and making accusations, and I promise you, it'll cause problems—”

“But I don't think she's miles away at all! I think she's still around here somewhere!”

It popped out before I could stop it, and it shocked me more than it did him, but I still couldn't seem to shut up.

“That's the trouble with this town! They all want to pretend it never happened—they want to believe it was an outsider who did it! But you know what I think? I think it could have been someone right here! I think instead of being so suspicious of
outsiders,
they should start being suspicious of each
other!
”

“Christ,” he muttered. “You … you think she's still around here somewhere?
Here?
Why did you say that?” He whirled on me, his face cold and furious. He took a step forward, and I backed up.

Suddenly there was the sound of a car coming, and in the next instant one raced around the curve of the road, pinning us with its headlights.

I felt Jimmy Frank's hand on my shoulder, pulling me out of the way as a car screeched to a stop beside us.

“Hey,” Tyler said, leaning out the window of his Mustang. “Need a lift?”

I could see Noreen in the seat beside him, leaning across his shoulder, staring out at us with surprise.

“What's the matter with you two?” Tyler laughed. “You look like you've seen a ghost!”

17

I
couldn't stop thinking about what had happened.

After Tyler and Noreen picked us up, I couldn't think about anything else.

We didn't tell them much, really.

I used the story about Dobkin and me going to Tyler's cabin and having the van break down and Jimmy Frank stopping to help. Jimmy Frank told them a deer had run in front of us, and he'd had to swerve to miss it and crashed the truck into a tree.

They seemed to believe us.

It turned out they were going to Tyler's cabin themselves to take some supplies his mom wanted to use there for the summer, and they couldn't get over how lucky they'd been to find us. They asked if we minded going with them first, and of course I had to say no, I didn't mind, even though all I wanted to do was get home so I could sort everything out in my mind and try to make sense of it.

Thank goodness it didn't take long. After we finished at the cabin, Tyler dropped Jimmy Frank off at his house, then went on to town with Noreen and Dobkin and me. Dobkin fell asleep on my lap. Noreen rode in back and leaned forward between the bucket seats. Tyler entertained us the whole way by singing every song that came on the radio.

“Don't worry about your van,” he assured me as the lights of town finally came into view. “I'll call the gas station and have a tow truck come out and get it in the morning.”

“Thanks, I really appreciate it.” I gave him a half-hearted smile and felt Noreen squeeze my arm.

“You're awful quiet tonight,” she said. “Something wrong?”

And even though I'd promised myself I wouldn't talk about it anymore, I couldn't help myself.

“Just being out there on that road.” I sighed. “It was so spooky. So isolated. You feel so helpless in a situation like that.… If anything happened to you, probably no one would ever know the truth about it.”

“Stop!” Noreen shuddered. “That sounds like Suellen.”

“But I
did
think about Suellen,” I said softly. “I can't seem to stop thinking about Suellen.…”

Tyler reached over and turned the radio louder.

“Do you ever think about Suellen?” Noreen asked him, but when he only shrugged his shoulders, she glanced quickly at me. “Sometimes I think about Suellen,” she murmured.

She lowered her head, and I nodded sympathetically.

“I mean, how can anyone
not
wonder what really happened to her?” Noreen went on. “If she just left town or if she's—”

“Stop it, Noreen,” Tyler said quietly. “Just leave it alone.”

“But you know what I mean, don't you?” Her voice rose in earnest. “You wonder what her last minutes were like. Was she afraid? Was she happy? Did she know what was happening to her?”

“God, you're morbid.” Tyler made a face and squirmed in his seat. “You two are giving me the creeps.”

“Well, it is creepy,” Noreen insisted. “And I thought I'd really gotten over it. I mean, I hadn't been thinking about it at all till Marlee got stuck with Suellen's locker.”

Tyler's eyes widened in annoyance. “Will you stop it? If you keep putting ideas in her head, she'll keep imagining things.”

“I didn't imagine anything,” I said stiffly. “It happened just the way I said it did. Just because
you
didn't see it happen doesn't mean it didn't.”

“Touché,” Tyler mumbled, a hint of admiration in his voice. Noreen nodded in silent affirmation. I tried not to, but I just had to ask one more question.

“Her parents,” I said. “How can they go on, day to day, just wondering?”

“Everyone felt sorry for them.” Noreen's voice was tight as she shook her head. “They never gave up hope. They just kept believing she'd turn up, that she was …”

Her words trailed off. Tyler finished her thought.

“Safe. Alive somewhere.”

“She didn't have brothers or sisters,” Noreen mumbled. “She was the only child they had.”

For a long moment Tyler stared out the windshield. “They didn't want to move. They really believed she'd come home one day, and they wanted to be there when she did. But the construction job ended, and her dad had to find work.”

“I can't imagine,” I whispered. “I just can't imagine what that would be like.”

“Would you think of your parents at the end?” Noreen went on, talking more to herself now than to us. “Would you be wondering if they were worried about you … if they'd already given up hope? Would you be thinking about how warm and safe home is … knowing you'd never see them again—”

“Stop!”

Tyler slammed so hard on the brakes that the car skidded. If Noreen hadn't flung out her arm, poor Dobkin would have slid right onto the floor.

“You're making Suellen sound so … so … sentimental or something!” Tyler's look was incredulous. “You know that
nobody
liked her, Noreen. I mean … everyone was sorry it happened, but nobody ever really liked her.”

I stared at him in confusion. “But … I thought—”

“Well, sure, nobody would ever
wish
something like that on anyone,” Tyler said defensively. “But
nobody
liked her. She didn't have any friends. She wasn't popular. The first few weeks with all the publicity and news coverage, everyone was all sorry and stirred up about it. But then things got back to normal. And it wasn't like there was this huge void in school just 'cause Suellen wasn't there. No one paid any attention to her when she
was
there.”

I couldn't have been more surprised. I looked at Noreen to see what she had to say about it, but she was staring at the floor.

“Well”—Tyler nudged her impatiently—“am I right or not?”

It took a few minutes, but Noreen finally nodded. “I felt sorry for her,” she said, almost reluctantly. “She wasn't very pretty or—”

“Yes, she was,” Tyler spoke up. “She was very pretty, let's be honest here.”

“Well, your concept of pretty and my concept of pretty are obviously very different,” Noreen said indignantly. “And her personality was—well—”

“She didn't have a personality.”

Noreen threw Tyler an impatient glance. “She showed off in class, tried to act like she had the answers to everything all the time. And she flirted a lot with guys. Especially the ones who already had girlfriends. Most of the girls didn't like her 'cause of that.”

“Most of the guys didn't like her, either,” Tyler retorted. “She was weird.”

“Understatement, Tyler. She was absolutely, madly in love with
you.
”

Again I stared in surprise. Tyler gave Noreen a reproachful glance and shook his head.

“No, she wasn't.”

“Yes, she was, and you know it.”

“How can you say that?” Tyler threw back at her. “She was in love with
every
guy. Or at least, she thought she was.”

“
Hopelessly
in love with him.” Noreen turned to me, as if Tyler wasn't even there. “Everyone knew it, and Tyler knew it, too. He was just embarrassed 'cause everyone teased him about it.”

I looked over at Tyler, who was looking plenty embarrassed now.

“Well, it isn't like I encouraged her,” he mumbled.

“No, of course not,” Noreen said dryly. “You just looked at her with those big brown eyes, and the poor girl never had a chance.”

Tyler recoiled at that. “Don't give me all that ‘poor girl' stuff. She was the queen of manipulation.”

“And this coming from a guy who can get anything from anybody”—Noreen sighed—“especially if the anybody is a female.” She rushed on before Tyler could object again. “Okay, he's right about that,” she conceded. “Suellen
was
a manipulator. She wanted to belong, but she didn't. She would have done
anything
to be accepted.

“She made up things,” Noreen recalled, her face going grim. “She lied. And tried to come off as special and important and knowing things nobody else knew, just so people would pay attention to her. I guess she thought that meant they were accepting her.”

“All they were doing was laughing at her,” Tyler said.

“I think she knew they were laughing.” Noreen's expression was somewhere between disgust and sadness. “But negative attention was better than none at all, I guess.” She got quiet for a minute, then added, “She really had the hots for Tyler, though.”

“She did not!” Tyler protested again, his voice rising slightly. “Will you stop saying that?”

“It's the truth. And really, Tyler,” Noreen said sternly, “you could have done lots better than Suellen Downing.”

“Like it's your business. Who are you, my mother?”

“No, thank God. If I had a son like you, I'd sue the doctor for damages.”

Tyler's mouth opened, but Noreen wasn't phased.

“Look,” she rushed on, hardly stopping to take a breath, “I never told you this before 'cause you're new, and I didn't want to upset you, but some kids
do
say Suellen's ghost still haunts the school and—”

Tyler groaned. “Noreen!”