Ear-Witness (4 page)

Mom and Raffi were carrying on as if having somebody killed in the apartment right under us happened every day, like it was nothing. This was for my benefit, of course, so I wouldn't get in a big flap. The big flap I was already in, which they didn't know about. Maybe.

They were both really worried too. I could tell, because the things they were saying were so totally fake. For instance, Raffi said Ray must have been killed because of some private dispute, so we didn't have anything to worry about. I wish! How did anybody know what kind of dispute it was? There could be a serial murderer on the loose for all we knew. The thing Mom kept harping on about was how Tammi wasn't killed too. No kidding! That makes the rest of us safe? I didn't believe anything either one of them said. The funny thing was, I don't think they believed what they were saying either.

Mom was sitting on the couch, drinking a little cup of strong coffee. Raffi was clearing up the dishes. I was still at the table, but I'd pushed my chair back and turned it so I could see them both. The reason I could do that is because we have one of those all-purpose rooms, with the kitchen along the back, the dining room in the middle and the living room up front, by the window. Because we're on the top floor, the ceiling slants down to meet the walls, which makes us feel sort of cozy, unless its summer, when the whole place turns into an oven.

It's a nice room, and since it's only May, it's pretty comfortable. The furniture is all old, but it's painted and slip-covered so everything is either wood or a soft buttery cream colour, to match the walls and the rug. A huge painting of me, wearing my bright red sweater, hangs over the couch. Raffi painted it, as a surprise, for Mom's birthday. I love it. It makes me look at least seventeen.

Pretending I'm not scared, if it's a lie at all, is harmless. Mom's and Raffi's lies, letting on there's nothing to be scared of, are pretty harmless too. But there was another lie on my conscience, one I had to think about. I hadn't been exactly honest with that cop when he asked if Mom had a boyfriend. Now I had to decide whether to tell Mom and Raffi what I'd said, or just keep my mouth buttoned and hope no one would find out.

The last time I took the button-up option, I'd been grounded for a month. I was only twelve then, and still thought I was smarter than my mother. Kelly and I'd been fooling around with makeup samples in a drug store when all of a sudden she turned her back to the overhead camera and slipped a shiny new lipstick into the pocket of her jeans. Revlon. Some purple colour.

She was caught, mostly because I lost my cool and started hissing at her, telling her what a stupid ninny she was and ordering her to put it back. Kelly was in big trouble. She didn't exactly blame me for it, but she was a little chilly for a while. I hadn't taken the lipstick, and I hadn't helped Kelly take it either, so my problem wasn't because of the shoplifting. It was because I pretended the whole thing didn't happen. When the cop came to the front door to talk to Mom, to let her know about the riff-raff I was hanging out with, I left by the back. That was the worst thing I could have done. I wasn't just grounded, I was grounded with housework: washing walls, and curtains, and rugs, and bedspreads; cleaning out closets and cupboards. Nobody needs to be that clean.

Pretending something didn't happen doesn't work, so I had to tell the truth about what I said to the cop. But how?

One way to confess something is to build up to it slowly. You act all quiet and depressed for a while. Then, when you've got everybody all worried you're getting some terrible disease, you cry a little, and eventually burble everything out. But you've got all this sympathy first.

Sometimes I think my mother must have taken a course about teenagers or read a book about us, because things I used to do, all my life, that worked just fine, have been bombing out like you wouldn't believe. Now she's into this dumb theory about not
rewarding negative behaviour, so if I try acting depressed, she ignores me, or says something charming like Spit
it out, Jess!

So that's what I decided to do. I'd just tell her, straight out, quick and dirty.

“I lied to the cops,” I said. “Sort of lied, anyway.”

Mom's posture changed from rag-doll to stiff-as-a-board within micro-seconds. “What?” she said. “What? Why on earth would you do that?”

“You had to be there,” I said. “This jerk cop asked if you had a boyfriend. But the way he said it sounded like he thought you were some kind of tramp, so I got mad. Then he asked if you had some guy living here. Only what he did was ask both questions at once. So when I answered the one about somebody living here, it was like I was answering both.
Just Mom and me
, I said.

“Was that woman cop there?”

“Yeah, but it was a guy who asked the questions.” I didn't mention the interrogation I got about my father because my mother's least favourite person in the whole world is Gordon March. It never seems to occur to her that if it wasn't for him, she wouldn't have me. And if it wasn't for me, she wouldn't have a big fat child-support cheque every month either.

My mother has such a hate-fix on my father that I decided to stop seeing him until she cooled off. That was three years ago. But I blame my dad too. He could have made things better. If he cared. If he wanted to see me.

Raffi stood up and stretched. “So the cops don't even know I exist?” he said. “They don't know your mom is seeing anybody?”

“You got it.”

“I'd be lying if I said I wasn't scared of them. Me and every other black guy in Toronto. I need the police sniffing around me like I need a hole in my head.”

Mom's voice was shaky. “Don't even joke about that,” she said. One of Raffi's friends, who is also black, was recently shot at by the cops for no reason at all.

Raffi hardly ever got upset, so when he did, you really noticed. “Derek is still in the hospital,” he said. “For nothing. For being in the wrong place at the wrong time.”

“He shouldn't have run, though,” Mom said. “I'm not saying what the cops did was OK, but you have to remember, if they say halt, you halt.”

Mom really likes Raffi a lot. He's been her boyfriend since I was eleven, but he doesn't live with us. He has a tiny apartment across the street. So I didn't lie, not really.

It was Saturday morning, the second day after the murder, and I was just about awake when Kelly phoned. “Where were you?” I asked. “I looked all over the school for you!”

“I messed up,” she said. “I'll tell you later. Can I come over?”

“Now? Sure. Just don't panic when you see the yellow crimescene tape. Ray Bird was murdered yesterday.”

“Jeez, Jess, that's, that's ...awful. The big guy married to that airhead with the hair?”

“Yeah. Well, Tammi is a bit of an airhead, I guess, but I feel sorry for her.” I yawned. “Are you coming right now?”

“Can I?” she whispered into the phone. “The Pain is watching TV. If I don't get out of here while she's distracted, I'm going to have her trailing after me all day.”

The Pain is Kelly's little sister. “Come now,” I said. “Please.”

Kelly weighs almost as much as I do, but she's a little taller, a natural blonde, and absolutely beautiful. We've been best friends since kindergarten. Lately though, since she's been going out with Joey, I've been feeling kind of pushed away. Once I tried to talk to her about it, but all she said was that having a boyfriend changed her life, and I couldn't understand until I had one too. Sometimes I wish she wasn't so pretty, but I guess that's mean.

After I got dressed, I watched for her from the front window. When I saw her trudging around the corner I raced downstairs and held the door open, so she wouldn't push the buzzer. “The Countess is still asleep,” I said.

When we got back upstairs, Mom was standing at the door, making a liar out of me. “I am not,” she said. “Although I might be if some dummy hadn't phoned at the crack of dawn.”

“Oh-oh,” Kelly said. “That was no dummy, that was me I waited 'till nine-fifteen...”

“Not to worry,” Mom said. “It's time I was up anyway. Have you had breakfast? Jess might make French toast if we ask her nicely.” She leaned her head on my shoulder. “Please, Jess, please.” This was exactly what I used to do to her.
Please, Mom, please
, I'd whine. It was one of those things that used to work.

“Sounds great,” Kelly said. “I'll help.”

Mom wandered back down the hall. “Save me some,” she called. “I'm going to have a shower.”

I took eggs and butter out of the fridge, and bread and maple syrup from the cupboard. Kelly leaned against the wall, watching, while I told her about the murder. After she heard the basics, she started asking questions.

“If Tammi was in the apartment when Ray was killed she must have seen the murderer, right?”

“Right,” I said. “I guess.” I cracked the eggs into a bowl, and messed them around with a fork. Then I added milk and some nutmeg.

“So why didn't he kill her too?”

“Maybe he wasn't mad at her,” I said.

“Jess! She can identify him!”

I turned the gas on under the frying pan, threw in a hunk of butter and watched it sizzle. “Yeah,” I said. “She could do one of those drawings. Pick eyes and noses and join them together.”

“How many noses does he need?” Kel asked.

“Ha ha,” I said. “Maybe she was in the back bedroom and he didn't even know she was there.”

“But wouldn't she come out when she heard all that noise?”

“I don't know. Maybe not, if she was scared.” I soaked six slices of bread in the egg mixture, and put three of them in the pan to fry.

“And why didn't she call the cops?”

“When they were fighting?” I asked.

Kelly nodded.

“Maybe she didn't expect the guy to have a knife,” I said. “Here, you can set the table.”

“What about after, when Ray's dead?” She took the knives and forks from me and stood there, holding them.

“Well, we don't know exactly when that happened.”

“Look, you're the one who said you heard somebody falling in the night...”

“Yeah,” I said. “I think he was killed then. And that's when she started bawling.” I took the cutlery from her hand, and set three places. Kelly didn't even notice.

Mom, all pink and shiny from her shower, opened the fridge door and peered inside. “I don't know what I want,” she said.

I poured three glasses of orange juice and handed her one.

“Do we know when she called the cops?” Kelly asked.

“They came just after Jess left for school,” Mom said. “Tammi said she just woke up and found him dead. Right then. In the morning.”

“Even though she cried all night?” I asked. “She's lying!”

“Maybe she was in shock,” Mom said. “Maybe she couldn't function at all.”

“And maybe,” Kelly said, “she was waiting for him to die.”

Kelly has always had an absolutely wicked imagination, but this was too much. Mom and I stared at her.

“That's a horrid thing to think about,” Mom said. “I can't believe Tammi would do that.”

“Why not?” Kelly said. “If she hated him? If she had enough of being bashed around? Maybe she just sat there and let him bleed to death.”

“You're sick, Kel,” I said. “I don't think so. Tammi isn't the smartest person I ever met, but she's not mean. And she was really upset that morning. At least I thought so.” I looked at Mom. “What do you think?”

“She was really upset,” Mom said. “But that could be for any number of reasons. Watch the toast, Jess.”

I flipped three perfect pieces onto a platter, which I put on the table. Then I carefully laid the last three in the pan.

“How else can we explain why she didn't get help until morning?” Kelly asked.

“We can't,” I said. “Let's eat.”

After breakfast we left Mom with the dishes and walked over towards the library, so I could return my book-report book and take out another. There was a tournament going on at the tennis courts beside the school, and we sat on a bench to watch. The players were all men.

“So what's happening with you?” I asked. “Where were you yesterday?”

Kelly's eyes followed the game in front of us as the ball flew from one end of the court to the other. “I did a dumb thing,” she said. “I went to that clinic, the place where you can get birth control stuff.” Then she turned towards me and made a goofy face.

I was quiet for a minute. I wasn't exactly shocked, but I wasn't exactly expecting something like that either. “So what happened?” I said.

She sighed. “I never even talked to anyone. I just sat in the waiting room for a while, and then I took off.”

“You could go back,” I said. “You want me to go with you?”