Ecstasy (34 page)

“Look, Dorrie,” I said, “I totally respect your loyalty. But Axel isn’t around to get nailed for it anymore. Don’t you think
he’d want people to know how clever he was?”

It was a pretty lame attempt, I know. Funny thing is… it worked. “You…you think?”

“Definitely.”

She bit her lip, took a long drag of the cigarette, and shrugged. “It was pretty simple, really.”

“Oh, yeah?”

“They just sort of dumped the stuff.”

“What do you mean, dumped it?”

“He said they got a ton of that Jell-O shit from somebody in a kitchen up at Benson, and somebody else in one of the materials
science labs gave them this biodegradable plasticky stuff that dissolves in water after a while. So they did up all these
pouches of the powder, and they made some of ’em thicker so they’d take longer to open. At night they rowed out to the buoy
that marks where the intake pipe is, and they just tossed ’em down there and like,
whoosh,
a lot of it got sucked up.”

“That’s it?”

“Yeah, I guess.”

“So if that’s what Axel was going to tell me, why would he be inside the Deep Lake building?”

Another shrug. “How do I know? Why did Axel do anything?”

“How seriously were you dating him?”

She started walking again. “Who says we were dating?”

“I got the impression that was what you wanted.”

“We got together a couple times. That’s all.”

“Got together?”

“Axel…he wasn’t really the dating kind.”

“Were you supposed to, um, get together with him the night he died?”

“What makes you ask that?”

“Well…I heard he had a box of condoms on him.” She froze, looking so wounded I could practically see the outline of my knee
in her gut. “Some people seemed to think he was hoping to, er…”

“To get laid.”

“Right, but…I’ve been thinking about it, and I wondered if maybe he had a date later.”
At least, I damn well hope so.

“I wouldn’t know anything about that.”

“You don’t know who he was seeing?”

She started sniffling again. “No.”

“Look, Dorrie, I know it’s probably none of my business, but I’m really not sure Axel Robinette is worth crying over. He obviously
wasn’t very nice to you. And, I mean, come on—he may even have been the one who sold the drugs that killed your friends.”

She went from morose to irate in a heartbeat.

“No way. You don’t know anything. There’s no way he would’ve done that. Axel was… He was just really special, okay? He was
gonna be, like, a big star someday. He was gonna go out to L.A. and get a record deal and everything. So just shut up about
Axel, okay? Just
shut up.”

“I’m sorry.”

“You
should
be.”

She pulled another cigarette out of the pack, her hands shaking as she lit up. We kept walking, in not-so-companionable silence.

“Dorrie,” I said finally, “why do you think someone would want to kill them?”

She didn’t answer.

“I’ve been thinking about this a long time,” I went on, “and I’m pretty sure Tom and Shaun and Billy didn’t just die randomly.
I think somebody killed them on purpose, and I think maybe you know why.”

She stopped short. “Are you crazy?”

“Probably. But all the same, that’s what I think.”

“Yeah, well, think whatever you want.”

“Was there somebody in school, maybe somebody they did something to, either accidentally or on purpose? I mean, kids don’t
always think before they do things. Maybe someone just flew off the—”

“
Stop
it. Just
stop
it, okay?”

“And what about Alan? There were four tabs of that acid out there, Dorrie.
Four.
What are the odds that the last one wasn’t intended for him?” I grabbed her by the shoulder to get her to stop walking and
face me. “So why didn’t he take it? Was it really meant for someone else? Was Alan in on it all along?”

That’s when she slapped me across the face.

Honestly, it was like something out of a bloody soap opera. She just hauled off and smacked me. And although it didn’t actually
hurt that much, it made a hell of a noise, echoing through the woods like a rifle shot. She stood there for a minute like
she couldn’t quite believe what she’d done, then turned around and sprinted down the path back toward the school.

Apparently, Dorrie Benson had spent some time on the J.V. track team; at any rate, it was obvious there was no way I could
catch up to her. So I walked back to JHS and, to no great surprise, found that there was only one red Beetle left in the parking
lot.

I checked my face in the rearview mirror as I drove back to the paper, tracking the development of the red welt that was rising
on my cheek. This exercise in vanity must have made me blow through a stop sign or something, because the next thing I knew
there was a G.P.D. squad car flashing its lights and hooting its siren at me. I pulled over, hoping that whoever it was behind
the wheel was familiar with the banana bread I regularly send to the station house with Cody.

No luck; the cop looked vaguely familiar—okay, they all did—but he didn’t seem particularly friendly. “Alexandra Bernier?”

“Um, yeah. …What’s the problem, Officer?”

“Would you step out of the car, please?”

“Are you serious?”

“Just step out the car, ma’am. Do it slowly, and keep your hands where I can see them.”

“Is this some kind of joke? Because if Cody put you up to this, I’m going to—”

“Ma’am, just do as you’re told and step out of the car.”

The guy sounded like a parody of a drill sergeant. If he was putting me on, he was doing a hell of a job of it.

I followed his orders—not that I had much choice. When I got out of the car, I noticed another police cruiser had parked across
the street.

“Listen,” I said, “can you please just tell me what’s going on?”

“Ma’am, are there any illegal drugs in your vehicle?”

“What?”

“Are there any illegal drugs in your vehicle?”

“Of course not.”

“Would you consent to a search of your vehicle?”

“Is this for real?” No response. “Fine, go ahead. Look wherever you want. For chrissake, there’s nothing in there.”

Now, at this point in the story, I have to pause to apologize to my mother. The woman is a defense lawyer—and a damn good
one. And as such, she is deeply ashamed that her offspring would be so stupid as to toss out her constitutional rights like
a goddamn gum wrapper.

But give me a break; I knew there was nothing incriminating in my car, right? I knew for sure I was innocent, which means
I also knew I had nothing to worry about.

This sentiment proved to be highly inaccurate.

The second I gave him the go-ahead the first cop went rooting around in my car; the other two kept an eye on me like I might
make a break for it. The guy looked in the glove compartment, inside the trunk, and under the seats. Meanwhile, I stood there
anticipating the delicious moment when they’d have to apologize for acting like fascist morons.

Then he pulled out a bag of white powder the size of a regulation softball.

I really, really hoped it was Sweet’n Low.

“What the hell is that?” I said. “Hey, that’s not
mine.”

The cop eyed the Ziploc bag, and though I expected him to taste it or something, he just nodded at one of his buddies. The
next thing I knew, somebody was grabbing my arms behind my back.

“Hey, wait a minute,” I said. “You don’t actually think that stuff is mine, do you? Somebody must’ve put it there. Hold on
just a—”

“You’re under arrest for possession of cocaine. You have the right to remain silent. If you give up that right…”

“Look, this is obviously some horrible mistake. Would somebody please just call Detective Cody and—”

“…anything you say can and will be used against you in a court of law. You have the right to an attorney and to have that
attorney present during questioning. If you desire an attorney and cannot afford one—”

“Oh, for chrissake, I know the Miranda. Now will you please just call and tell him somebody planted a bunch of drugs in his
girlfriend’s car?”

That got his attention. “You’re Detective Cody’s—”

“Yeah. Now will you take these goddamn handcuffs off me?”

“I can’t.” The look on his face was, at least, vaguely regretful. “Why the hell not?”

“You may be Detective Cody’s girlfriend,” he said, “but right now, you’re still going to jail.”

•   •   •

I
HAVE ALWAYS BEEN
a rabid fan of TV cop shows, from old reruns of
Barney Miller
to the various incarnations of the sacred
Law & Order
franchise.

And it’s a good thing too, because the next couple of hours made me feel like I’d just been drop-kicked into one of them.

First I got put into the back of a squad car, head-ducking thing and all. Then I spent the whole ride to the station house—roughly
five blocks—protesting that I’d been set up.

I got photographed. I got fingerprinted. I even got to make my one bloody phone call, by which time I’d smartened up enough
to swallow my pride and call my mom.

For the record, my mother isn’t admitted to the bar in New York State. Lucky for me, though, somebody she clerked with after
law school is a big defense attorney in Manhattan—a lady who makes a fortune getting rich people off the hook. Normally, of
course, a piddling drug case wouldn’t have crossed her radar, unless it involved the dopehead kid of one of her clients. But
she and my mom used to be pretty tight; one call got me the fee-free services of a $400-an-hour lawyer.

You’re probably wondering where Cody was at a time like this. So was I.

The answer, and a damned inconvenient one too, was that he was at some stupid closed-door meeting with the F.B.I.

He finally showed up about two hours later, just as I was deciding that I’d officially gone insane from boredom. The lady
officer who’d relieved me of my purse and jewelry unlocked the cell door and he came inside—officially, the most welcome sight
I’d ever seen,
ever.

For some reason, though, I was also furious with him.

“Son of a bitch, Cody, where the hell have you been? I’ve been rotting in here for—”

He wrapped his arms around me, so the rest of my tirade was stifled by his shoulder. He held me like that for a good long
while, and when he finally let me go, I was no longer in the mood to yell at him.

“Baby,” he said, “I’m so sorry.”

“What the hell is going on? Nobody will tell me anything.”

“Apparently, somebody phoned in an anonymous tip that there was a big drug shipment coming into town today. They gave the
plate and model of the car and it was …yours.”

“I don’t believe this.”

“Obviously, with everything that’s been going on, the department’s pretty on edge when it comes to narcotics. And the chief
and I were meeting with—”

“I heard. So what the hell’s going to happen to me?”

“They’re going to arraign you.”

“What?”

“That’s the only way they can set bail so I can get you out of here. I promise, we’ll get this thing straightened out as fast
as we can, but right now we ought to get you a lawyer.”

“I’ve got one.” I told him the details. “But seriously, Cody, what in the hell is going on? How did those drugs get in my
car?”

“I was just going to ask you the same thing.”

“Jesus,” I gasped at him, “don’t tell me you think I—”

“Are you crazy? Of course I don’t think that. What I meant was, how do
you
think they got in there?”

“Well, obviously, somebody must’ve planted them on me and then called the cops.”

“Right,” he said, “but how? And when? And most importantly… why?”

“I’ve been thinking about that, believe me—there’s not a hell of a lot else to do in here.” I motioned around the goddamn
dog kennel I was cooped up in, its only furniture a metal bench welded to the floor. “And obviously, it’s got to have something
to do with Melting Rock.”

“You think somebody did this to get you off the story?”

“Don’t you?”

“Yeah, I do.”

“So where does that leave me?”

“Baby, I…I’m really sorry. I wish I could just make this go away.”

“Me too.”

“It just doesn’t work that way. For now, we’ve got to go through the system. And unfortunately…I’m thinking that if anything,
they’re going to be harder on you because of me.”

“What? Why?”

“The chief has to avoid the appearance of impropriety. Especially with the F.B.I. swarming around…he can’t have anybody accusing
him of playing favorites.”

“Great.”

“But I swear, baby. When this is all over, your record will be clean.”

“Record?
Oh, my God—”

“It’s going to be okay, I promise. I pulled some strings, and they’re going to get you arraigned in an hour or so. The bail’s
probably going to be around twenty, so—”

“I don’t have that much cash on me,” I said. “And anyway, they took my purse, so—”

“Baby, I meant …twenty thousand.”

“Dollars?”
He nodded. “Are you out of your mind?”

“Alex, I’m not sure you realize…Do you know how much coke they found on you?”

“I told you, nobody would tell me anything.”

“It was a little over a kilogram.”

“Is that a lot?”

“The street value is over a hundred grand.”

My chin practically hit the concrete floor.

“And somebody put that in my car? What are they, nuts?”

“Even so, they did it. And do you know what that means?”

“That I’m absolutely and completely screwed?”

“It means that to whoever did this,” he said, “getting you off the story was worth a hundred thousand bucks.”

A
s everybody learns in civics class, a person is innocent until proven guilty. According to the criminal justice system, at
least.

At the
Gabriel Monitor,
however, things work a little differently. Like the denizens of some banana republic, we don’t have much in the way of constitutional
rights.