Just back from the police station. I still can’t believe it. I can’t believe any of it. And the cops—they give me the creeps.
This is what happened.
“I need to get everything clear in my mind, Tegan,” Detective Zorbas said. He’s an old man, in his mid-forties, stocky, with a good-sized paunch on him that makes you think it must be true what they say about cops. They really must have a special weakness for donuts. “I’d like you to tell me one more time what you saw.”
One more time. One more time. It was always one more time. What was wrong with him? Why didn’t he listen the first time?
“I already told you everything I know.” If Kelly had been there, she would have given me that disapproving look of hers and accused me of using that tone of voice, the one she says makes her want to slap me because I sound like I have a pickle up my butt. But Detective Zorbas just nodded.
“I know,” he said—as in, I know that’s what you said, but…Why didn’t he man up and tell me exactly what he was thinking: But I don’t believe you.
But he didn’t say that. Instead he said, “I know this is difficult, Tegan.” He kept using my name, the way car salesmen do when they’re working hard to build some kind of connection so they can sell people cars with accessories and extras they don’t really want or aren’t really interested in. “But you want us to catch whoever did this, don’t you?”
See what I mean? Why would he ask that unless he thought I was holding out on him? Unless he thought I was hiding something or protecting someone? Unless he thought I wasn’t being straight with him?
“Try to relax,” he said.
Right. Like that was ever going to happen.
“Just take a deep breath and start from the beginning. Tell me everything you can remember, even if it doesn’t seem important. Okay?”
I looked at my mother, who was sitting beside me and holding my hand. She stared back at me, her eyes more serious than I had ever seen them, like she was trying to tell me something: Do the right thing. Say the right thing.
There was no window in the cramped little interview room we were in. There was no air either. I had changed into some clothes my mother had brought from home, and I’d washed off as best I could after they let me. But even though it wasn’t there anymore, I could still feel the blood that had splattered against my face, warm when it first hit me and then, later, cold, sticky, congealing. I felt other stuff too, stuff I’d reached up and touched, first wondering what it was and then screaming—or maybe just screaming louder—when I realized where it had come from.
Tell me one more time.
“Clark and Martin and I went to Thomas’s place around nine,” I said, as if I were reading out loud lines I’d had to write over and over on the blackboard as some kind of punishment. I wasn’t telling Zorbas anything that he didn’t already know or anything that I hadn’t said a couple of times already—to the cops who arrived on the scene first, to Zorbas and his partner at the scene, to Zorbas and some other detective after they brought me to the police station to wait for my mother. “There were maybe ten other people there—you have all their names, you can check with them. Everybody was having a good time. And, yes, there was some drinking.” That was one of the first things they had asked me about, only they hadn’t really asked. It was more like they accused me, and I was so rattled, I blurted out the truth. I did it because— I would never admit this to anyone—I was afraid I was going to get into trouble for it, like it even mattered. “But Clark didn’t drink anything except soda because he was driving,” I said. Clark liked to party, but not when he was going to drive, not after what happened to his brother Scott, who hadn’t been so smart and who was in a wheelchair now for the rest of his life.
“What about Martin?”
I looked him in the eye. “I think he had a couple of beers,” I said. I’d said it at least three times already. “Everyone was mellow. Nobody got into a fight. Nobody argued. We were just playing computer games and listening to music—you know, celebrating the end of midterms.”
Thomas had texted us all the first day of midterm exams: Mark your calendars. Thomas believed in working hard—he was going to get a scholarship to an Ivy League college if it killed him. But he also believed in rewarding all that work.
“We stayed until a little after midnight. The party was still going on, but Martin had practice the next day.” Martin was the star of the school basketball team. He was so good that the coach kept after him about getting an athletic scholarship, but Martin wasn’t interested. He said he wouldn’t have time for competitive athletics after high school. He was going for pre-med. Martin wanted to be a doctor—but not some rich, fat specialist who lived the high life. No way. Martin wanted to practice in Africa, in countries where there were never enough doctors, never enough drugs, never enough hospitals; places where there wasn’t enough peace either, where people were existing, not really living, in refugee camps.
Just thinking about him made me want to cry. Tears started to trickle down my cheeks. I didn’t have the energy to wipe them away.
“You okay, Tegan?” Zorbas said. “You want me to get you some more water? A Coke?”
Like that would change anything. I just wanted to get this over with, go home and take a hot shower— maybe a couple of hot showers.
“Clark’s car, his suv”—brand new, a Christmas present from his parents—“was parked about a block from Thomas’s condo,” I said. “The three of us walked to it together. I don’t remember seeing anyone on the street, but that doesn’t mean there wasn’t anyone.” I was walking between Clark and Martin. Martin was smiling and talking about a concert that was coming up. Besides basketball and medicine, he was big-time into music. I was waiting for him to ask me to go to the concert with him when he tripped on something. I grabbed him to stop him from falling, and he slipped an arm around my waist. He didn’t let go even after he had regained his footing. I was sure now that Clark had just been teasing me earlier. He’d acted all weird, whispering in my ear whenever he caught me looking at Martin. Forbidden fruit, he’d said. Forbidden fruit. But would he tell me what that meant? No way. He’d just flash me a sly smile and say, You’ll find out soon enough. Well, in case he hadn’t noticed, Martin and I had been pretty tight all night—as tight as his arm was around my waist at that moment— and Martin hadn’t acted like forbidden fruit. Instead, by the way he looked at me, I knew he wanted to ask me something, and I was pretty sure I knew what it was. I’d been waiting forever.
“Afraid you’re going to slip and fall again?” I’d said, laughing, enjoying every second of physical contact with him.
“Okay, sure,” he said with a goofy smile. “I guess that’s as good an excuse as any to hold a drop-dead gorgeous babe.”
I laughed, pretending he was just kidding around, but inside I felt warm and happy. I wished we’d never get to Clark’s car because then maybe Martin’s arm would be around my waist forever.
But I didn’t tell Zorbas that. It was too personal and had nothing to do with anything that had happened.
“We got to the car. Clark got in behind the wheel. Martin opened the back door for me.” I’d been hoping he’d get in with me and sit beside me and hold me all the way home. But he didn’t. He got in the passenger seat up front, and Clark leaned over and whispered something to him. Martin shoved him away. He looked angry. I wanted to ask him what was going on, but I didn’t think he’d tell me, not with Clark sitting there. So I kept my mouth shut. “Then Martin got in the front passenger seat. I still didn’t see anyone else around.”
I said that because the cops kept asking me: Are you sure, Tegan? Are you sure you didn’t see anyone? I kept telling them the same thing: “I didn’t see anyone. I was looking at Martin. He was digging through the cds Clark kept in the car, trying to find something to play on the way home.” I remembered his impish grin as he teased Clark for his terrible taste in music. Then Clark turned and gave him a look I couldn’t decipher. Martin’s cheeks turned pink. He glanced from Clark to me. Clark nodded at him, and Martin sighed. He turned to say something to me. But before he got a word out, his eyes shifted from me to, I think, the driver’s-side window. BOOM!
BOOM!
BOOM!
“All of a sudden I heard a bang, and I saw Martin slump forward.”
“Martin,” Detective Zorbas said, as if he was hearing it for the first time. He frowned, just like he did every time I said it. “What about Clark? What was he doing?”
“I don’t know. There was another bang right after that. Then another.”
Something had stung my cheek. It turned out to be a shard of glass.
Something splattered all over my face and my hair and the front of my coat. It turned out to be blood and brains and tiny pieces of bone.
Someone screamed. It turned out to be me.
“But it was Martin who slumped over after the first shot?”
“Yes.”
“You’re sure of that?”
“Yes.”
“Did you see who did it?”
God, was he ever going to actually listen to me?
“No,” I said. “He must have taken off right after he fired the shots.”
“He,” Detective Zorbas said. “You keep saying that. You said ‘he’ to the first officers on the scene. You said ‘he’ to me at the scene. If you didn’t see anything, how do you know it was a he?”
“I—” I shook my head. It was a good question. “It just felt like a he. I mean, that’s usually how it turns out, right? When someone gets shot, it’s almost always a guy who did it. Right?”
“Are you sure that’s what it is? Are you sure you didn’t see something—a hand, maybe—that made you think it was a male? Or maybe you peeked out the window while he was running away. Maybe you got an idea if he was tall or short, thin or stout. Maybe you saw if he was wearing a jacket or a coat, shoes or boots. Maybe you saw which direction he ran, if he was headed for a car or if he ducked down an alley. Anything you can tell us will help, Tegan.”
“I didn’t see him.” Jeez, I’d said it again: he. It just kept coming out. “I mean, I didn’t see anything. I didn’t see anyone.”