Thirty-Eight

Mason

Sheriff’s Office

Tuesday, April 10

3:30 p.m.

I take a deep breath and let it out slowly, wishing I could forget the worst night of my life. Kopitzke is sitting across the table from me again in the same light-blue cinder-block room as before. I hope it’s my last time in a room like this.

Kopitzke turns on his tape recorder and runs through his standard script about date and time, then he gets to the heart of it. “What happened after you and Lauren found Kadence in the warehouse three nights ago, on Saturday the seventh?” Kopitzke asks.

I take another deep, shaky breath and begin. “Kady was upset when we found her,” I say. Lauren and Jude were questioned right before me. I wish I knew what they said, but I’m not too worried about any contradictions between our stories. It is what it is.

“She was scrambling to, like, look presentable. I don’t think she was ready to be found. She was mad, like she was blaming us for finding her.”

“What did you make of that?” Kopitzke asks.

I shake my head and stare down at the table. My throat feels thick and I try to swallow. Someone has scratched Zeppelin into the wood, and I trace it with my finger. “She was acting weird, but I wasn’t really conscious of any of that at the time. I was just so happy to see her again.”

I look up at him through tears and pray I can hold it together. “I’d convinced myself she was dead. Seeing her again was like seeing a ghost. Seriously. I think I might have been in shock.”

“Let’s back up,” Kopitzke says. “What did you mean, she was scrambling to look presentable?”

Had I said that? This whole thing is so surreal. I shrug one shoulder. “I guess she’d been in disguise. Wearing this wig thing so she could look like a guy when she went out and not be recognized. To buy food or go to the library. Without her makeup.” I swallow again. “And looking like a homeless person, no one knew her.” I gouge at the Z in Zeppelin with my thumbnail.

“Anyway, Jude and Lauren…Obviously, they wanted to call you guys right away and let you know that Kadence was alive, that she’d concocted this whole hoax. But Kadence didn’t want any cops. I think she needed some time to process the fact that we found her. She was really shaken up and wasn’t ready to go home yet. So I told Jude and Lauren that they could go home and that I’d take her when she was ready.” I look up at Kopitzke quickly. “I was going to call you guys as soon as I got her home. I swear.”

“And did Williams and DeSanto go?”

I exhale. “Yeah. They left. I heard both of them drive away.”

“And they didn’t come back?”

“No, they didn’t come back. In the end, I was the only one there for Kady.” I loved her so much. I would have done anything for her. She had to know that. I swallow hard yet again, letting the weight of that statement sink in. Dang it, what’s wrong with my throat? It’s like there’s a boulder sitting in there that I can’t get down.

“I told her I’d stay with her until she was ready to go home. So that’s what we did. Waited. We didn’t talk much. She did say how sorry she was for upsetting people and for getting Lauren and Jude brought into this. She said she didn’t mean for any of that to happen.”

“At some point did she decide she was ready?”

“Yeah. About an hour later, maybe? I helped pack up her things.”

“What things?”

“She had this big garbage bag full of stuff. She had some of her show clothes stuffed in there, the flashy stuff. I don’t know why. There were blankets to stay warm at night and then the clothes she must’ve gotten at thrift stores to pretend to be the homeless guy. Lots of magazines too. I guess that’s how she’d been keeping busy during the days. She had her backpack and her purse too. Not a lot.”

Kopitzke leans forward, and I lean back in my chair. He says, “We found plastic bags from the Kwik Trip at the scene.”

I nod, feeling sick to my stomach. “She’d been buying food there. Nothing good. Snacks mainly. She had some hard candy and some granola bars. I could tell she’d already eaten a couple bananas because the peels were at the top of another bag she was using for actual trash. She offered me some of the granola bars. We ate a couple.”

I stop talking at that point. I don’t want to go any further, but Kopitzke stares at me. Waiting. After a while the silence gets too uncomfortable. I inhale and exhale slowly. “Then all of a sudden her eyes got real big and her face looked weird. It got all red and her eyes started watering. She put her hands around her throat. I was like, ‘What is it? What’s wrong?’

“I thought she was choking at first and tried to do the Heimlich maneuver but nothing came out. I remembered her allergy and searched for the EpiPen but couldn’t find it. That’s when I called 911.” My voice cracks. “By the time anyone found us though, it was too late.”

I shudder at the memory of Kady’s face. She’d been clutching her throat and gasping for air that wouldn’t come. Then the rash broke out and her face began to swell. “I never want to see anything like that again.” My voice is a choked whisper.

“Allergies are nothing to mess with,” Kopitzke says. “We couldn’t find an EpiPen in her things either.”

I shake my head. “I thought it was because I was so scared. My hands were shaking. She usually had it in her purse but it wasn’t there. She was always so careful.”

“There were no peanut ingredients listed on the granola bars she bought, but after the preliminary autopsy came back, we had them tested. The food came back clean, but there were peanut oils on the outside of the wrappers themselves. We think it was an accidental transfer. Most likely someone stocking the shelves at the convenience store.”

“Good,” I say.

“Good?”

“I’m just saying, with the way she was acting and talking, not like herself at all—I don’t think I could stand it if I thought she did it to herself on purpose.”

Kopitzke nods and stands up. I take that as my signal that we are done. Before I go, I have a thought. I scrub my hands roughly through my hair and bow my head. “Do you…do you think if I’d listened to Lauren and called you guys right away when we found her, do you think that Kady would still be alive?” All I can see is Kady’s swollen face at the end. Our last kiss, and then holding her in my arms, sobbing as her body went limp.

Kopitzke puts his hand on my shoulder. “Don’t beat yourself up too much, son. It’s a damn shame, but you couldn’t predict this. If you want, I can talk to your parents about getting you a counselor. We work with grief counselors often enough, and there are a few who are really good with young people.”

“Thanks,” I say. I swipe roughly at my eyes. “I want to go home now. Is that all right?”

“That sounds like a good idea, Mason. I’ll give your parents a call tomorrow.”

When I walk out of the sheriff’s office, I can feel a dozen pairs of sympathetic eyes follow me. I wonder how long people will look at me like this.

Outside, the midafternoon sun bounces off the white concrete sidewalk and into my eyes, temporarily blinding me. I make a visor with both my hands and search the parking lot.