Chapter 12

LAW & ORDER lied to me.

They make it seem like when you’re the person who stumbles on a dead body, the detectives bring you space blankets and hot cocoa and tell a nonspeaking extra in a police uniform to give you a ride home.

It’s more like being tossed around like a football. The first officer on the scene radios down to his partner and basically shoves us out of the room. His partner intercepts and has us sit on the curb outside like we’re the suspects but doesn’t ask us anything. Just talks on his own radio, keeping us firmly in sight.

When he finally decides to acknowledge our presence, it’s to accuse us of petty larceny.

“Turn out your pockets, please,” Cop #2 says to me, then holds out a hand toward Lily. “And I’ll take your purse.”

“I’m sorry, you think we’re thieves?” Lily asks as she hands it over.

“You’d be pretty bad thieves to have left money in his wallet, but . . .” He shrugs. “Due diligence.”

Lily tenses up when he pulls out her investigation notebook, but he doesn’t even flip through it, just tosses it back in her bag.

I turn out the pockets of my jeans, and he seems supremely disappointed there’s nothing but lint and a balled-up gum wrapper.

“I don’t suppose you can ID him,” he says to us.

“The dead guy?” I guess.

“Have you seen him before? Know his name?”

“We found him like that,” I say. “Never seen him before.”

“We’ve never even been here before,” Lily scrambles to add. “Ever. I told the other officer, we were just taking a walk, and then—”

But he’s already on his radio.

“Hey,” he says into it. “No, they don’t know him. Didn’t take anything off him either.” He pauses. “Yeah, exactly, just dumb kids.”

Lily looks relieved to hear him say that, but I’m not. What a dick.

“You thought we’d taken his cards.”

He doesn’t even look at me. “Hm?”

“He had a wallet. I saw the outline in his pocket, and also, you said he did. But you don’t know his name.”

That makes him look up, irritated. “Neither do you.”

“That means you didn’t find any credit cards in his wallet. You didn’t find anything in his wallet with his name on it. Not a driver’s license, not a business card, nothing. And if I were a cop, that would make me think someone didn’t want him to be identified. But what do I know? I’m just a dumb kid.”

Cop #2 picks up his radio, turning his body away from us.

“Ellicot to Central,” he says. “What’s the ETA for our backup at the brewery?” He waits a moment as the dispatcher talks. “No, not dangerous. Just . . .” He throws a glance in my direction. “Extremely annoying.”

“This is the worst time to be showing off,” Lily hisses at me.

“I’m not.” I mean, I am a little bit, but that’s not my primary objective. “I’m trying to help.”

“How about help yourself,” she says. “Help me. Stop talking.”

Eventually, another squad car arrives, and the two backup cops go inside the brewery. Cop #2 unlocks his own squad car and opens the door to the back seat.

“Okay, you two,” he says. “Go on in the back.”

“Did you want to ask us where we live, first?” I say to him. “Or is it more fun to guess?”

Lily kicks at my leg.

“Don’t,” she whispers.

“This was a fucked-up night,” I say at a regular volume. “I’m tired and cold and want to go home.”

“Officer,” Lily says, “maybe I could call my mom? To come get us?”

“You can tell her to meet you at the station.”

Lily looks a little sick, but she climbs in the back. I don’t follow her.

“Are you going to get in,” he asks me, “or am I going to put you in?”

I get in.

The second we walk through the station-house door, they separate me and Lily. At first, I think it’s because they want to question us separately, to see if our stories match. But it quickly becomes clear that they’re a lot less concerned I’m a suspect and a lot more concerned with letting my parents know I was trespassing on private property after city curfew.

The desk cop I’m assigned to has a badge that reads “McBride,” but with the impressive mustache he’s got, I internally rename him Officer McBeardFace. I think there was a cop with a mustache the last time I ended up here, but I can’t remember if it was him. All the adults kind of blended together. When he sits me in a chair next to his desk, I do the quickest scan I possibly can. Just to know who I’m dealing with.

Coffee mug from Bear Mountain—skis in the winter, so athletic and at least a little disposable income.

Framed medal—actually, framed medals, plural: one has a sneaker with wings, another a mountain, another with the number 26.2.

He sees my eyes moving around but picks the wrong reason why.

“You’re not going to try and run, right?”

I look back up at him. “Do you only do marathons, or short distances, too?”

“Uh.” He blinks. “I also do halves.”

Better not risk it. “Then no.”

Just then, one of the frosted-glass doors to my left bursts open, and three people emerge from the office: a cop, a woman in regular clothes, and a man who is so red-faced and jolly looking that if you replaced the badly fitting suit and the even worse comb-over, you could cast him as Santa Claus.

All the adults blended together . . . except for him.

The woman—blond, skirt suit, glasses—trails behind him, clutching a stack of folders to her chest.

“Sir,” she says, reaching out for his arm, but trips a little on her heels. “The mayor has called twice; we really need to—”

But Police Chief Thompson doesn’t even look like he hears her.

“What a bombshell, huh?” he’s saying to the cop next to him—God, how many could this bullshit city possibly have—who nods in agreement. “Just wait until fuckin’ Willets hears about this one. He’s going to go on public access and say I put the needle in the guy’s arm myself.”

Willets—Fred Willets. Araceli said he and the chief can’t stand each other, and it looks like she was right.

“It would be good to get in front of it,” the blond woman says. “Don’t give him time to build a narrative—”

“That Patrick Bateman–looking prick couldn’t pull a narrative out of his ass.”

The cop who came in with the chief spots Officer McBeardFace and breaks away for a second, waving him over. McBeardFace indicates me with a tilt of his head. His friend gestures again, insistently.

“Don’t move,” Officer McBeardFace orders me. I hold up my hands as if to say, Fine.

Whatever they want to talk about must not be something I’m supposed to hear. Which means I’ve definitely got to hear it.

I pick at a loose thread in my jeans, trying to seem as though I’m totally uninterested in the conversation happening just a couple of feet from me. I can’t look up, which means I can catch only about half the words. But I fill in my best guesses as they go.

“Did—hear—?” Did you hear about the dead guy. Something like that. What else could be so important?

“—?”

“Vin—son.” The name. Probably a last name. Starting with V and ending in -son.

Then, loud enough for me to hear, Officer McBeardFace says: “No shit.” He’s surprised. It’s somebody he knows—or knows of.

I look slowly at them, banking on the fact that they’re wrapped up enough in their conversation not to notice me listening. Which turns out to be correct.

“I thought it was a John Doe,” Officer McBeardFace says.

His friend shakes his head. “Crawford ID’d him when he got there as backup. He’s picked him up before.”

“Crawford doesn’t do OC.”

“Not for that. Intoxication, possession.” Just then, he glances over at me. I look away quickly. But not quickly enough. “I’ll catch you up later.”

The main door bangs open, and a cop comes stalking in the door, but if it weren’t for the uniform you would have thought he’d just broken out of jail himself, the way his eyes keep darting around and his Adam’s apple jumps in his throat.

Even with a shirt on, I recognize him: Officer O’Hara.

“Hank!” the chief says, holding out his arms like he’s going to go for a hug. “Did you hear? You missed all the action.”

“Yeah,” Officer O’Hara says. “I, uh, heard.”

“The mayor is on your office line,” the blond woman interrupts. “For the third time.”

“Oh, God,” the chief groans.

“No,” she deadpans. “Just the mayor.”

The chief blinks. Laughs. Claps her on the shoulder so hard it shakes her glasses. Then he waddles off down the hallway. Before the woman turns to follow him, she shoots O’Hara a cold stare, and he looks away quick, like he’s embarrassed. I think about all those shirtless selfies.

“Are they together?”

Officer McBeardface looks up. “Who?”

“Officer O’Hara and the lady with the glasses and heels.”

He looks over just in time to see her disappear into the frosted-glass office with the police chief. “Phoebe? Jesus, no, they can’t stand each other.”

Yep. Stood her up on a date, for sure.

“I thought Ellicot brought you in.”

“Who?” I ask before remembering the name Cop #2 used over his radio. Ellicot. “Yeah, he did.”

“Then how do you know O’Hara?”

That was stupid. Think, I order myself. Think faster. “He came to my school to do an assembly on the dangers of, uh, weed and pills and . . .” I can’t think of a third thing. “Tranquilizers.”

“God,” Officer McBeardface says, “no wonder he’s so miserable lately.” He pauses. “No offense to your classmates.”

“None taken.”

“Okay.” He picks up the phone. “Let’s call your parents.”