Twin shocks of white run parallel until they converge at the base of the animal’s skull. Libby runs a gloved finger over the ends of the pearlish hairs as though tempting a flame. The skunk’s hide is flattened and stuck to a board with minutien pins to keep the limbs from curling up. The only tools she needs are set to the side: a scalpel, a pair of bone-cutting shears, and an evisceration spoon—great for removing eyes and soft tissue.
She’s pleased with her progress so far. When she found the animal on the side of the road its fur was bloody and matted. Now that she’s brushed it, it looks as though it could have been someone’s pet.
Taxidermy class is held in the woodshop room, with large square tables and concrete floors. It’s taught by Black Harbor’s lone taxidermist, Mr. Deschane, who teaches at Monroe as an adjunct. Rumor has it that he works here for the extra money so he can pay prostitutes. More than once, she has wondered what degree of truth there is to that. If there’s one thing she’s actually learned at school, it’s that rumors are like fingerprints: everyone has their own special set, and like it or not, they are part of our identity. Libby’s gaze drifts from her work to Deschane sitting behind the actual shop teacher’s desk. He drags his forearm under his nose as though to catch a drip. When he turns her way, she diverts her attention to Gabe Krause, her table partner who works with his face half-buried in his T-shirt. Others do the same or similar with neck gaiters pulled up to their eyeballs. The smell is still so thick she can taste it, a medley of piss and vinegar.
Yesterday, she punctured her skunk’s scent gland—because the universe felt her peers could use another reason to ridicule her. Mr. Deschane set out bowls of vinegar in an attempt to knock out the potent ammoniacal reek, but it seems to have just added another layer of complexity to the stench which, if it were a candle, Libby imagines would have a name like Roadkill Rendezvous or Scent Gland Soirée.
Across from her, Gabe taxidermies his family’s late house cat. The pink collar with a jingle bell rests on the table, waiting to be fastened around the animal’s neck once he’s stuffed the hide with cotton and sewn it all up.
Libby looks around, noting the progress of the other students. They’re in the middle of a small mammals unit. Zachary Davis’s squirrel looks like it went through the lawnmower, limbs broken and pointing every which way. Kayden Thompson is sewing two rabbit heads together on one body; it actually looks quite good, Libby thinks, if you’re into macabre art. She could see the finished piece in a gallery or in an exhibit where they keep things in jars and insects pinned to foam core.
In a class of twelve, Libby is—shocker—the only girl. Which is fine by her. While still merciless, boys are less cruel and quick to wit than the girls. The boys entertain themselves with Neanderthalian imitations and call her Neck Roll; they tease her for reading graphic novels about Vikings and Valkyries. But girls are far more cunning. Their insults are like termites that burrow under her skin and into her brain, turning her against herself.
Cedar dust peppers the surfaces of the tables and sticks to everything—her hands, her hair, her clothes. Thankfully, this is her penultimate class of the day. She only has to stink for forty-two minutes of world history, then she can air out on the walking trail. No. She has to take the road home, on the other side of the school, she remembers. The trail is still taped off and off-limits until investigators have what they need—including intel from students.
Classes are in session, which means almost everyone the police need to talk to is corralled in one place. They can just go from classroom to classroom and pluck people at will. Her heart skips at the thought of being summoned for an interview, and she can’t shake the feeling of being a cow trapped in a holding pen, waiting to be slaughtered.
Ask me what I know, she dares. Ask me what I saw.
“Hey, Neck Roll, fork over some cotton, would ya?” Gabe holds his arm out expectantly across the table.
The nickname hardly fazes her anymore and yet, her proud smile at her handiwork vanishes as quickly as it had come. Like following an evolutionary chart, Libby can trace its transmogrification, not that its origin is all that wholesome to begin with. Last year, when she brought a dead squirrel to Deschane’s taxidermy class, her peers started calling her Necro, short for necrophilia. Eventually, they realized they could kill two birds with one stone, and jeer at her weight as well. So, Neck Roll she is.
She tells herself she doesn’t care, and yet more often than she’s comfortable admitting, she has caught her reflection in the mirror and brought her hands up to her neck, palpating and attempting to smooth the skin.
Kids are cruel. And creative.
It’s probably why she’s so drawn to dead things. Unlike the living, the dead don’t poke fun at her. Or judge her. Or tell her where she needs to go to school and what she needs to do with her life. With graduation encroaching, her parents have become obsessed with HGTV and living vicariously through couples on the hunt for their “affordable” beach home on some destination island: Aruba, Hawai’i, St. Thomas. As soon as they can both retire and her ailing grandparents have passed, Libby knows they will move in a heartbeat.
But they’re waiting for her to chart the course. They want her to follow in either of her older brothers’ footsteps: graduate at the top of her class, then go off to Harvard and become a lawyer like Sterling or a neurosurgeon like Jackson after eight years at Johns Hopkins and another five in residency. They will come along, telling all their friends they’re supporting their daughter, when really, she’s just the vehicle for them to live out their dream of leaving Black Harbor behind forever.
She shoves the bag toward Gabe. Suddenly there’s the sound of heels clicking on the shop floor and Libby isn’t the only female in the room anymore. The woman is beautiful, Black, and her silver badge clipped to her belt denotes she is with the BHPD Investigations Bureau. Her name is Investigator Amanda Riley, she tells Mr. Deschane, and, “Is Libby Lucas available?”
Using the process of elimination, Investigator Riley makes eye contact with Libby, locks in. Libby slumps in her chair, willing herself to become invisible. Her heart pounds and her throat goes dry. She coughs and chalks it up to the cedar dust. Her arms cross over her torso, wrapping her up like she’s a danger in a straitjacket, and she feels her hands fill with soft, fleshy rolls. Her size makes hiding a challenge. She is pinned to her stool as surely as her skunk is pinned to its board.
She knew her turn was coming.
“Libby.” Mr. Deschane’s gruff voice severs the awkward silence.
Libby snaps to.
Mr. Deschane raises a brow, then gives her a half smile that he probably means to be reassuring. As if she’s scared.
Or rather, as if she should have a reason to be scared.
“Should I—” She gestures to her deflated skunk.
“I’ll take care of it,” he offers. “Just go.”
Libby grabs her tablet and her history book, a ten-pound slab of dictionary-thin paper that could stop a bullet.
“Smell ya later!” Gabe calls after her. A chorus of laughter follows her exit.
“You know, I remember high school boys having BO,” says Investigator Riley, “but I don’t remember it being that bad when I was in school.”
Libby almost cracks a smile. “It’s me,” she admits. When Riley gives her a puzzled look, she adds: “I punctured my skunk’s scent gland the other day.”
“The other day?” Riley reels back in surprise. “And it’s still that … pungent?”
Libby nods.
They pass the turnoff for the English hallway. It’s a straight shot through the cafeteria, which is coming up on their right. There are only two places they could be going: the auditorium or the music room. She hears the cacophony of horns, denoting that band class is obviously in session, and knows they’re going to the auditorium.
“So taxidermy class, huh?” Investigator Riley is making small talk. Libby has watched enough crime shows to know this is what they refer to in the business as “building rapport.”
She plays along. “It’s an elective.”
Riley grimaces, revealing a glimpse of teeth that are bright white. “And you don’t mind … touching dead things?”
“I love dead things,” Libby says faster than her filter. She wishes she could stuff the words back in like stuffing cotton into a hide. “I mean … taxidermy … it’s fascinating.”
“Why?”
She pauses to think before she speaks this time. “Because it’s a little like magic, I guess. You get to take something that’s dead and bloody and make it look alive again.”
Investigator Riley looks skeptical, but seems to approve. “All right, maybe you could show me a thing or two sometime. Lord knows I could use a little magic now and again.”
Halfway down the hall now, Investigator Riley pulls open a door that’s flush against the eggshell wall, almost invisible. The door swings outward, inviting them into a mouth of darkness. A short staircase leads them backstage, where a strong overhead light washes out everything beneath it, including the man seated on the worn velvet couch.
Axel Winthorp stands to greet her. Despite his signature widow’s peak and strong, square jaw, Libby almost doesn’t recognize the man who lives just twenty feet from her. It’s weird seeing him in professional clothes, a silver badge clipped to his belt. He looks official and authoritative—a stern older brother, perhaps, to the affable neighbor she has known practically her whole life.
Sympathy settles in the pit of her stomach, raises the hair on her arms as she shakes his hand as though they are strangers meeting for the first time. Here is a man who’s come over for barbecues and birthday parties, shoveled their driveway while they were out of town, and even driven her to school on more than one occasion when it was raining buckets—his words. She’d sat in the back of his truck, then, beside Chloe on the bench seat, their knees softly knocking together with every bump in the road. She remembers the way she felt on those rare occasions: like a normal high school girl catching a ride with her friend.
If she and Chloe had ever been friends, that is.
“It’s good to see you, Libby. Not under the circumstances, of course. Please.” The furniture is arranged in a makeshift living room—two armchairs, a couch, and a coffee table upon which Libby sets her things. Axel gestures for her to take the olive-green armchair opposite Investigator Riley.
She does, her eyes never leaving him. This is it, a niggling voice whispers in her brain. He’s going to tell you they found your fingerprints on Chloe’s bedroom window. You’re fudged.
Axel lowers himself back down to the couch, leans forward with his hands lightly clasped in front of his knees. She watches his nostrils flare. He wrinkles his nose. “You’re not smoking weed, I hope.”
“Skunk,” Riley explains for her. “She punctured its scent gland in taxidermy class.”
“Ah.” Axel gives a knowing nod in a say no more manner. “I once skewered my squirrel’s stomach. That was a mess.”
“You took taxidermy, too?” Investigator Riley looks like she might throw up.
Axel shrugs. “Of course. It’s an elective.”
Libby feels a lightness swim through her. Calming her blood, easing her bones. She can do this. She has talked to Axel a million times before. Well, maybe not a million. But maybe close to a hundred in her lifetime. So, why should today be any different?
“That old guy still teaching it? Debush or Deschane…?”
“His son,” says Libby. “Dale.”
“I think they’re all named Dale.”
“You people up here. Bunch of hillbillies.” Riley rolls her eyes.
“Up here,” Axel repeats, then talks out of the side of his mouth to Libby. “You’ll have to excuse her lack of culture. Investigator Riley is from Chicago.”
Libby smiles because she knows he is being ironic, although at the same time, she knows this is a tactic. He is likening her to him, the two people in the room born and raised in Black Harbor. So Axel is playing Good Cop today.
Bad Cop is all bark and no bite. She simply provides a foil for Good Cop, so Libby will naturally be endeared to Axel and want to answer his questions. She also knows that Good Cop is the one you need to watch out for. Not because he bites, but because he has a nose that can smell a lie a mile away. She watches him closely, her gaze trained on his mouth, watching as his lips open and stretch to form words, like a paper fortune teller. She feels her own mouth moving, as though this is a waltz. He’s leading.
“Thanks for meeting with us today, Libby,” starts Axel. “We were hoping we could ask you a few questions about Madison Caldwell.”
She almost exhales with relief—he didn’t mention the windowsill!—until she remembers the things she saw and did that night, the impulse that took over her. “Okay.” It takes everything in her to stop those two syllables from rattling.
“As you, no doubt, have heard, Madison Caldwell was killed in the area of Belgrave Circle last night between the hours of 6 and 7 p.m.”
Libby nods to show she’s following along.
“Had you seen her at all yesterday?”
“Um … just in Spanish. And I think at lunch.” With an annual enrollment of approximately four hundred students, Monroe Academy was not a terribly large school. Still, besides sharing one class period together, she and Madison rarely crossed paths. They didn’t run with the same crowd. Madison chummed with Reeves, Sari, and until recently Chloe; Libby chummed with no one. Not at school, anyway.
“When’s Spanish?” asks Axel.
“Third period. Between 10:15 and 11?”
“Did you notice anything off about her, perhaps? Was she quiet or sad or anything?”
“Umm…” Should she tell them she’s cultivated a habit of never really looking directly at her peers? All anyone needs is the tiniest reason to make fun of her, and meeting someone’s eye is reason enough for them to jeer and slip into some brutish imitation of her. Especially Madison. Convinced that Madison would read her face like a book, she avoided that girl’s gaze like she was Medusa. Because if she didn’t, Madison would discover her secret, and she couldn’t do that to Chloe.
She promised she’d never tell.
“No.” Libby shrugs. “She seemed normal, I guess.”
“Describe normal,” prompts Investigator Riley.
Libby explains that Madison was socializing before class started, and when the bell rang, she leisurely strolled to her seat in the right-hand corner of the room. She was as attentive as she usually is, which wasn’t very, and occupied her time sketching in her notebook. “I didn’t see what she was drawing,” she adds, when she notes a shared look between Axel and Investigator Riley.
“It seems like Madison was a pretty popular girl,” says Axel, to which Libby agrees. Then, he asks, “Did she have any enemies?”
The question reminds her of the time Jack Zellner lobbed a walnut at her head. She had seen it coming almost in slow motion, and yet, she couldn’t get her shit together to dodge it before it clocked her in the temple. She wobbled on one foot for a few seconds, flailing her arms but catching only air, and fell hard on her butt. Instead of helping her up, several kids walked by, squealing and pointing at a crack in the sidewalk they swore hadn’t been there before.
Axel’s query knocks her off-kilter. Not quite as hard as the walnut, but off-kilter all the same. She doesn’t flail this time; instead, she locks eyes with him and muses at the storm of reluctance that brews behind his irises. He knows the answer, but he doesn’t want to hear it, she realizes.
It’s the same storm she noticed in Chloe’s eyes Thursday night. The musical had just ended and Chloe was taking pictures with her castmates. Still wearing her red lace dress and clutching a bouquet of black roses, she dared a look in Libby’s direction and Libby knew, without even having to verify, that Rowan and Axel had left.
She made a fist and rubbed it in a circular motion across her chest. I’m sorry. A dimple dented Chloe’s cheek as she offered the slightest smile in return.
That was the last time Libby ever laid eyes on Chloe Winthorp.
“You’re quiet, Libby,” states Axel. “What are you thinking about?” His voice is softer now. Encouraging but not pushing. He’s good at playing Good Cop. “Was there anyone who didn’t like Madison Caldwell? Who might have wanted to hurt her?” He leans forward so that his forearms rest atop his thighs. His knuckles are chapped. She homes in on them; they’re striated with thin cracked little rivers of red that remind her of the gully where Madison Caldwell’s body was found, all these little avenues cut into the silt, converging toward the lake.
She swallows and holds her mouth half-open for a moment. Breathes. Bites her lip. “No one really liked Madison Caldwell.”
The detectives both sit up a little straighter as though this statement has breathed some new life into them. “What about her friends?” asks Investigator Riley. “Sari Simons or Chloe Winthorp? Or her boyfriend, Reeves Singh?”
Funnily enough—well, not funny—is that the three people she just mentioned are all people who are not at school today. Sari was no surprise. Her best friend was murdered last night. She probably spent the day sobbing under her covers and scrolling through memories on her phone. As for Reeves, Libby had left for school by the time police brought him home—if they ever did, that is—and Chloe remains a mystery.
“Libby?” Investigator Riley’s voice prods. “You said no one liked Madison, but she had friends, didn’t she?”
Libby shrugs. Her face feels as though she’s just face-planted into a sizzling frying pan. She promised she wouldn’t tell, and yet, her heart is pounding in her throat like it was Thursday night when she—
“You know, like, Regina George from Mean Girls?” The question is a projectile word vomit. She should stop talking, but there seems to be a short circuit between her brain and her body, like when she got clocked with the walnut.
When Investigator Riley and Axel both nod, she adds: “She was kinda like that. People just pretended to like her. Now that she’s dead, everyone will act like she was their best friend when really, secretly … they’re glad she’s dead.”
“Are you glad she’s dead, Libby?”
The bell rings to announce the end of seventh period. Libby drags her backpack across the floor and picks it up.
“Stay,” commands Investigator Riley.
“You’re fine,” says Axel. “Not feeling one hundred percent sadness over someone’s death is okay, by the way. Especially if that person had been tormenting you. I’m sure it can even feel a bit like a relief.” He pauses for a beat, and then: “Had Madison been causing problems for you or someone you know? Maybe not just for students, but maybe a teacher?”
Libby stares past his shoulder as she shakes her head. She has already said too much. She promised she wouldn’t tell. And Libby keeps her promises.
Axel leans forward again. He’s close enough she can smell his cologne, see the beads of sweat glistening at his hairline. Her stomach churns. “We have reason to believe that the same person who killed Madison Caldwell also took Chloe. If you have any idea who that person is, you have an obligation to tell us.”
Libby looks from one investigator to the other. Then, she feels her lips stretch and the air hit her teeth, and the skin by her eyes crinkles as she closes her fist over her locket and reminds herself that some things should be kept inside.