Thursday night, 11:00 P.M.
AFTER JEM’S BOMBSHELL, THE PARTY CLEARED OUT FAST. AS RANNIE EXITED the rooftop, a teacher was fanning Ms. Hollins, now revived and slumped in one of the wrought iron chairs, while Jem Marshall brought a glass of water to her. Accepting a ride from Tim Butler, Rannie arrived home to find a note from Nate Scotch-taped to the hall mirror. He was staying over at Ben’s. When she called, all he said was, “Yeah, I already heard. It sucks.”
After trying Alice and leaving a message, Rannie headed to her laptop and Googled in GHB. Did Nate know what it was? She learned that the drug was sold in powder and tablet form and, like its more popular cousin Rohypnol, whose street name was roofies, it was odorless and tasteless. An online article on date rape drugs from New York Magazine quoted a girl from an unnamed Manhattan private school: “You can black out from these raver drugs real easy, especially when you’re drinking. Some girls I know roofie themselves up at clubs or a party because the next morning they can go, ‘Whoa! I did that? With him?’ and not feel guilty.” One of the clubs kept a private ambulance outside, which was the reason another girl claimed she was unafraid of o.d.-ing on Ecstasy. “With the ambulance right there, you’re like at the hospital in no time.”
Scrolling through various sites, Rannie read that GHB had first been synthesized in the 1920s as an additive in muscle growth formulas. The Food and Drug Administration had banned it in 1990. Through a search for “steroids” and “steroid abuse,” some more info on GHB popped up. A health food store in Milwaukee had recently been closed, its owner arrested for selling GHB under the counter to kids who wanted “to look huge” but were scared of injecting themselves with something called Deca 300.
After logging off, Rannie got ready for bed, then lay there, her mind aswirl. Okay, no more “maybes.” It was murder. Did this mean another round of questions for Nate? Should she talk to a lawyer? If so, who? At some point, she must have fallen asleep because the next thing she knew her alarm jangled her awake…only it wasn’t her alarm clock.
Sirens were screaming in the street six floors below.
She went to the window. A fire? No. There were squad cars, blue rooftop lights spinning, and for an instant an insane thought crossed her mind: The police were coming to arrest Nate for Tut’s murder.
It was one-thirty. She could see a cop climbing into a dumpster on a flat bed no more than ten feet from the entrance to her building.
No answer when she buzzed the super, so Rannie threw on shoes and grabbed a coat. By the time she got outside, a cop on the sidewalk was holding back people from the dumpster.
“Another S.W.A.K. murder,” Frank, the super flatly announced, shaking his head, his mouth pursed in disgust. “Can you believe this guy?”
Rannie gasped, grabbing him by the arm. “It can’t be! The last one was just a couple of days ago!”
The cop heard Rannie. “Unfortunately, lady, this sick piece of scum isn’t following anybody’s schedule but his own.”
Rannie asked the super to go back up in the elevator with her and then made him wait until she was behind a locked door…. Mr. Tut, murdered for certain. And another S.W.A.K. killing practically at her doorstep. It was too much. She collapsed on the sofa in the den, formerly known as Alice’s bedroom. Wrapped in a blanket with her can of Mace and a baseball bat by her side, she watched reruns of sitcoms until at some point during the episode of Rhoda’s wedding she dozed off.