It is a truth universally acknowledged that Homo sapiens flourished because he, better than all other creatures on the planet, was uniquely hardwired to adapt. This ability to easily adjust to one’s environment meant that we could learn to walk upright, create tools, and eventually even get used to the metal detector at the door in high school every morning.
But there was a downside to evolution too. The confidence I felt in the tomb was gone by morning. When I woke, I lay in bed contemplating the evidence stacked against us, and how bleak our chances were of finding Erin’s killer.
“Justice is not only blind, it can be deaf and dumb,” Sara said as we ate lunch outside in the courtyard, despite the bleak November sky that added to the general atmosphere of hopelessness. “The best homicide prosecutors are the ones who make the mental effort to put themselves in the minds and bodies of the murderers. Therefore, if you’re going to abandon my advice and investigate Stone Bone instead of Matt, then the questions you need to ask are not only how Alex drugged and killed Erin, but why.”
“Because she was pregnant,” I said, biting into my apple with a definitive crunch.
“So? What does Alex care? When you’ve got nothing, you’ve got nothing left to lose. For all we know, a baby could have brought purpose to his otherwise nihilistic, coffee-brewing existence.”
I thought of this, swinging my legs and watching the TNs cross the grass to their next classes. Kate and Cheyenne were acting as if nothing had changed, laughing and texting as they walked. Allie, however, was like a silent shadow three paces behind.
“She knows something,” I said.
Sara watched her for a bit. “What?”
“That’s what we have to find out.”
Sara tossed her empty bottle into the recycling bin, wiped her mouth, and brought out her math notebook, flipping to a fresh page and handing it to me. “Ready?” she asked, as a damp breeze blew back her long, white-blond hair.
During the drive to school this morning, Sara and I had agreed that any investigation we conducted needed to be cloaked in utmost secrecy. We could not risk creating a digital trail with texts or emails. Not even phone calls. Every note had to be on paper. And that paper would eventually be burned since, as every mortician knew, ashes tell no tales.
“We have to start from ground zero,” I said. “We need to go to the crime scene and interview witnesses.”
“Like Erin’s neighbors.” Sara wrote that down. “They’ve already been interviewed. Cops were in and out of Pinewoods for two straight days. People started to complain.”
“Too bad. We have to find the next-door neighbors with the dog who saw Erin fighting with Alex.”
“Allegedly,” Sara said. “That’s the Krezkys. Mrs. Krezky is super nosy. Figures she peeped in Erin’s window. I sold Thin Mints to that woman for three years, and she would sit me at the kitchen table and grill me about the teachers at Potsdam Elementary.”
“What are the chances that the Krezkys’ll be at the wake tonight?”
“Pretty good. But let me talk to her. Not you. It’s a more efficacious approach.”
I looked up, slightly offended. “Why?”
“You know how some people treat those with physical disabilities like they’re retarded?”
“No.” Despite her obsession with Investigation Discovery, Sara was second in our class—right behind Erin. Smart was her middle name.
“Well, they do, and Mrs. Krezky falls into that category. I’d take her cold, hard cookie cash and make perfect change, and she’d speak really slowly and pat me on the head.”
“You’re kidding, right?”
“Am I laughing? Anyway, this is one case where I can see her stupidity working to our advantage. So let me do the questioning tonight while you’re busy refilling the coffee or whatever it is morticians’ kids do at wakes.”
“Empty garbage,” I said, writing S next to Krezkys. “In the meantime, what are you doing eighth period?”
“Cramming for the physics test during my free period. Why?”
“Because I was thinking maybe we should be doing our studying at the café.”
As far as coffee shops went, the Pots & Cups—a name that was supposed to be some sort of play on the word Potsdam—fell short on the necessary inspirational atmosphere found at, say, any given Starbucks.
The concrete floor that was supposed to be hip ended up costing the establishment untold dollars in broken ceramic cups. The cappuccino maker was forever getting clogged and exploding onto the brown walls. And the jazz was just plain annoying.
At 2:00 p.m., not much seemed to be happening. Sara and I strolled in and noted with disappointment that Alex Bone did not appear to be on duty. There was only one person working, a girl, and she had her back to us.
“Excuse me,” Sara said after we’d waited a good five minutes for her to finish whatever she was doing.
“Just a minute,” the girl said, smearing her fingers on her apron as she came to the cash register.
I did a double take. “Tam?” I barely recognized her from last spring when she graduated. She must have gotten fifty pounds lighter since Jackson held up her soda and made fun of her for washing down a Magic Bar with a Diet Coke.
Tam smiled wide. “Hey, Lily and Sara. What are you guys doing here? I thought you were still in school.”
“We are,” Sara said. “Just skipping eighth period.”
“Ah, yes, the pleasures of senior year,” she said, her dark eyes flashing. “Wait till second semester. You’ll never go to class. So, what do you guys want? You should definitely try the pumpkin hot chocolate. Sounds gross, but . . .” She licked her lips. “To die for.”
I checked to see if Alex was around. “Actually, we came here looking for someone. Alex Bone.”
Tam’s face fell. “Oh, him. Really? What for?”
Sara leaned over the counter. “It has to do with Erin Donohue.”
“Isn’t that awful?” Tam asked. “That’s all anyone here’s been able to talk about since the cops said it was a murder. You should have been here for the morning rush. There were people crying.”
“Including Alex?” I asked.
Tam bent back and looked out the window toward the patio. “You see him out there?”
She pointed to a set of tables under the awning that faced the alley. Sure enough, there sat Alex Bone holding a lit cigarette between his fingers as he scribbled something in a journal. Now that he was up close, I was shocked at how old he seemed, with long, stringy black hair pulled into a ponytail and a soul patch under his lower lip.
“Is he supposed to be working?” Sara asked.
“He’s on break, though he claims he’s too depressed to deal with the public, so the manager has him cleaning equipment,” Tam said. “But all he’s done since Erin died is sit and write and smoke and drink coffee while the rest of us pick up his slack. I want to kill him myself.”
Sara read my mind. “Can we get two pumpkin hot chocolates?”
“Sure, I’ll bring them out to you,” Tam said.
At the glass door to the patio, Sara stopped me. “Look, I don’t think we should mention the pregnancy unless Stone Bone brings it up.”
That struck me as odd, since that was one of our main reasons for talking to Alex. “Why?”
“Because it’s not cool to spread personal information that you got from a confidential death certificate. I’m surprised you’re not more worried about the legal ramifications, Lil. You could get in serious trouble.”
Sara was right. She usually was whenever it came to legal stuff. “I guess finding a murderer is more important than obeying the law.”
She pushed open the door, clearly dismayed by my lack of respect for bureaucratic protocol.
The temperature must have dropped ten degrees while we were in the café. The long sleeves of my knit dress felt flimsy in a breeze that was almost wintry in its sharpness. Sara found a small wrought iron table in the corner and rubbed her good hand over her bad arm, though she had on a warm baby-blue cashmere turtleneck.
“Feels like it’s going to snow,” she said loudly, to attract Alex’s attention. “Wish I had your coat.”
Alex did not look up from his writing or offer his coat, which was draped artistically over his shoulders. We brushed dead leaves off our chairs and positioned ourselves so that I had a good view of him while appearing to watch the foot traffic parading on the cross street. He scribbled madly, occasionally crossing out words with violent strokes, pausing now and then to sip his coffee or puff on his cigarette.
“Cough, cough!” Sara made a big production of faking an asthma attack. “Can you believe people still smoke in this day and age?” She waved her hand back and forth. “Cancer much?”
Alex calmly placed his pen on the notebook and rotated in his chair. “It’s a free country. If you don’t like it, may I suggest you find somewhere else to sit?” He trailed his fingers toward the door. “Perhaps inside, from whence my kind has been banished.”
Tam appeared with our pumpkin hot chocolates and, sensing the tension, cautioned Alex with a scolding glare. “Now, now, Al,” she said, placing our cups on the table. “Let’s play nice with Sara and Lily.”
He must not have seen me before because as soon as Tam said my name, he got all excited, as if we were long, lost friends. “Lily Graves? Hey, how are you?”
“Um, hi, Alex.” I smiled as Sara stifled a laugh with a gulp of hot chocolate.
His eyes were so red, they almost glowed. “You know, when I was at that pit called Potsdam High, you were the only one I thought might be able to understand my interests, seeing as how you too were mocked and ridiculed for yearning to be among the dead.”
I shifted uncomfortably in my chair. “I don’t know if I yearned to be among the dead, exactly. Since I live in a funeral home, the dead pretty much come with the territory.”
Sara put down her cup. “You love the dead!” She cut her eyes to Alex, a cue to play along.
“Oh, the dead. Yes, I suppose that’s why I’m having such a hard time dealing with Erin Donohue’s murder, because I know—as do you, I’m sure, Alex—how death is so . . . permanent.”
“What a segue.” Sara kicked me under the table so hard I nearly yelped.
Alex stubbed out his cigarette. “It’s especially hard for me, because not many people are aware of this, but Erin and I were very close.”
“Really?” Sara said, resting her cheeks on two fingers. “How close?”
I kicked her back. She blinked, but otherwise acted as if she were hanging on his every word.
“So close that . . .” He shook out a cigarette from his pack and lit it with a pink Bic. Then he exhaled and went on. “. . . I think I know who killed her.”
“You do?” I said. “Wow.”
Alex played with the silver lip ring at the corner of his mouth, debating, I supposed, whether to divulge this nugget of info. “I must explain my relationship with Erin.” He took another drag. “She used to come into the café every morning in her prissy clothes with not a hair out of place and ask for a chai soy latte, no sugar. Just another Potsdam homecoming queen wannabe, right?”
I said, “Sara and I call them the Tragically Normals.”
He extended his cigarette. “Tragically Normal. I like that. Anyway, one day she came in clutching a volume of Emily Dickinson, and when I handed her the usual chai soy latte, no sugar, I said, ‘Oh. I could not stop for Death, so Death kindly stopped for me.’”
I dared not look at Sara for fear of cracking up.
“That started a conversation about poetry, and the next thing I knew, we were out here at this very table . . .” He gestured casually to where he’d been sitting. “. . . talking about poetry and books as if we’d just learned how to really breathe.”
Sara raised a questioning eyebrow. “Even with all that smoking?”
Alex clasped his hands to his chest. “You have no idea how refreshing it was to meet a true fellow intellectual. There was just one obstacle. While I had managed to free myself from most institutions, Erin was still very much confined.”
“What do you mean by ‘institutions’?” I asked. “Like prison?”
Sara was going to kick me for that, too, but I blocked her with my foot.
“Actually, I have done some time behind bars,” Alex said with a bow. “However, I’m referring to the other institutions that drain our creativity—school, church, family.”
“I hear that!” Sara said, raising her hand. “School, church, family. Welcome to my prisons.”
“See?” Alex said. “For Erin, too. There was so much pressure on that girl to compensate for other people’s failings by being the best at everything.” He ticked off on his long, spidery fingers: “The best at academics. At athletics. At volunteering. Along with being the best daughter, girlfriend, and, though this is an oxymoron in my opinion, she was even the perfect virgin.”
Alex may have been a skeeve, but he was raising interesting points. I’d honestly never stopped to consider the pressure Erin had been under or how she dealt with all those expectations of perfection.
“So how did you help?” Sara asked.
“I gave her permission to break her bonds. I told her she didn’t have to be her parents’ puppet, that rules were meant to be broken early and often.” Then he leaned close and whispered, “And I got her a little weed.”
The dude wasn’t called Stone Bone for nothing.
Sara leaned back, hiding her bad arm under her good one. “How did Erin take it?”
“Like a fish to water.”
The door opened again, and this time Tam was more than curious about Alex. She was downright pissed. “You were supposed to be back on duty ten minutes ago. You’re not the only one who needs a break, you know.”
Alex ground his cigarette under the heel of his boot and got up from his chair, swinging the duster like a matador with a cape. “Been nice chatting with you ladies,” he said, closing his notebook. “Next time you stop in, the coffee’s on me.”
Tam untied her green apron and handed it to him. “Here. It’s the only clean one left.”
“Wait,” I said, just remembering. “You never told us who you think killed Erin.”
He pulled his head through the loop of the apron. “Think about it. Who was on her case? Who was mad that she was experimenting with freedom? Who found her body?” He shrugged. “Obviously, it was her parents.”
“Whoa,” Sara said, when he’d gone. “Talk about intense.”
Tam took his seat and elbowed his cup aside. “Alex isn’t that intense, just stoned twenty-four-seven. He’s like one of those guys from the antidrug commercials. Lots of big talk and no action. Look. He’s supposed to bus the tables and he leaves his own cup.”
She was about to pick it up when I practically leaped from my chair and threw myself onto the table. “Do you mind?” I said. “I’ll pay you for the cup, but I’d like to take it with me.”
Tam made a face. “Why?”
“It’s complicated, but I have my reasons.”
After we gave Tam a tenner for the cup, I slipped a napkin under the handle and dumped the contents in a planter, putting the cup securely in my bag. Sara and I left the patio and went back to her car without detouring through the café.
“So,” Sara said, as we drove off. “Do you think Alex is the baby daddy?”
“Absolutely not,” I said. “Any guy who notices if a girl’s clothes are prissy or if she has a hair out of place isn’t interested in the opposite sex.”
“Then they were just friends like he said.”
“Or something else.” I checked my bag to make sure the cup was in one piece. “At any rate, we’ll find out soon just how close they really were.”