I Swear (23 page)

Something about this memory and the sound of the anger in Patrick’s voice made me feel like I was falling. I steadied myself on the doorframe as Daddy eyed Patrick wearily.

“These are not bad kids,” Daddy said. “You remember high school. It all seems very important, and let’s face it: Kids are kids. They include some and exclude others. That’s just evolution. You gather your pack and you survive because of safety in numbers. Leslie Gatlin had her pack just as sure as Macie and Katherine did.”

“Leslie had no pack, Daysun.”

Daddy was quiet for a moment, then said, “Okay, Patrick. So let’s say for a second that you’re right. Let’s say that the evidence here points to wrongful death. What does Kellan Dirkson say that he’s gonna charge Macie Merrick with?”

“That’s just it,” sighed Patrick. “Macie Merrick can’t be charged with civil liability in this case. She’s the only one who didn’t actually do anything that can be proven. You should’ve seen her in that deposition. She was perfect. An ice queen with a warm smile. That girl is the best liar I’ve ever seen.”

“She perjured herself?” Daddy’s voice was sharp.

“She didn’t have to. She got everybody else to do her dirty work. The one email I’m sure she sent was forged from Jacob Walker’s account—on his laptop. There’s no way to prove that she wrote it, and she knows it. So does her dad.”

Patrick was quiet for a moment. “Daysun, this civil case is over. We won, and Dirkson knows it. There’s a single instance in Massachusetts where criminal charges were brought in a suicide case, and that’s been tied up in paperwork for months. There’s just not enough legal precedent to bring a criminal case here.”

“So what are you so worked up about?” Daddy asked. “You won.”

“Then why does it feel like I lost?” Patrick asked quietly.

“The purpose of the law is handin’ out justice, Patrick, not warm, fuzzy feelings.”

Patrick stood up and put his hands in the pockets of his flat-front chinos and looked at the toes of his spit-shined penny loafers. “So how does Leslie Gatlin get her justice?” he asked quietly.

My daddy has made a career of having an answer every time somebody asks him a question. As long as I can remember, folks have been asking Daddy for advice—not just about the law but about everything. Aunt Liza used to say that when God was handin’ out smarts, Daddy was first in line and came back for seconds.

For the first time in the seventeen years I had known him,
my daddy answered a question with a deafening silence: There would be no justice for Leslie Gatlin.

Patrick got the quiet answer loud and clear, and turned toward the door without looking up from his shoes. I slipped back onto the couch and opened my chemistry book. When he walked into the foyer, Patrick paused and looked up at me. I held his gaze for a moment, then he shook his head and walked out the door.

I sat in the silence for a moment, then I closed my chem book again and silently walked into Daddy’s office. He was sitting at his desk looking at a picture in a silver frame that he’d always kept next to his computer in every office he’d ever had.

It was a picture Aunt Liza snapped of me wearin’ Mama’s high heels when I was three years old.

He didn’t look up. He just sat and stared at the picture. When he spoke, he didn’t move his eyes away from the frame.

“I wonder what it’s like?” he said softly.

“What?” I asked.

“Knowin’ that the little girl you loved for all those years was downstairs, dead in the garage while you were sleepin’.” There were tears running down his cheeks—something else I had never witnessed in my entire life.

“Patrick’s right,” I said softly, my eyes flooding over like a bathtub with the water running. “It was our fault, Daddy.” I sank onto the leather chair opposite his desk and buried my face in my hands. “Can you ever forgive me?” I sobbed.

Then I felt his arms around me, in a wordless grip so tight that I cried even harder—his second silent answer of the day.

When I had cried myself dry against his shoulder, Daddy reached into his back pocket and handed me a crisp linen handkerchief.

“Katherine,” he said. “I have recused myself from this case because you are my daughter, but it appears that this case is now over.” He stood up and walked to his desk. He sat back in his chair and swiveled sideways to look out the window at the gathering clouds in the afternoon sky. The light was beautiful and his skin glowed the same deep brown as his desk. There was a glint in his eyes when he asked me, “Have you watched all the depositions?”

“I’ve seen them all,” I said. “Except Macie’s.”

“From what I understand, that swim team captain—what’s his name? Dating the Braddock girl?”

“Josh Phillips?” I asked.

“Does he really have that video of Marty Merrick?”

“Yes, sir,” I said.

Daddy pressed the tips of his fingers together, then tapped them against each other while he stared out the window. “Kathy, I’m going to ask you something, and I want the God’s honest truth from you, young lady.”

He swung around in his chair and faced me dead-on. I nodded.

“If the DA were to file criminal charges against Macie
Merrick, would Jillian and Beth testify against her? On the stand? Under oath?”

“Yes, sir,” I said. “But, Daddy—won’t you just run into the same problem with not being able to pin anything on Macie? The evidence is circumstantial, isn’t it? It’s our word against hers. How are you going to prove anything?”

“Oh, I’m not gonna be proving anything, sweetheart.” He was dialing his phone. “Yes, hello. This is Daysun Fraisure calling. Is District Attorney Braddock available?” He covered the mouthpiece with his hand.

“You’re sure about Jillian and Beth?” he whispered.

I raised my right hand. “I swear.”

31. BETH

Sitting across the table from District Attorney Graham Braddock, it was hard not to feel like I was in trouble. I kept making lists of all the reasons I shouldn’t be afraid:

1. Katherine’s dad was going to do all the talking.

2. Jillian and Katherine were here with me.

3. Macie didn’t know what we were doing. Yet.

When we got back to school and slid into third period, Macie didn’t bat an eye. She wasn’t really speaking to any of us anymore anyway. Krista was a different story. She kept turning around and staring, making faces, narrowing her eyes, passing notes to Macie, laughing. It was almost comical.

She kept at it all day, but it was easier to ignore her than I had expected it would be because I had Katherine and Jillian
to walk to classes and eat with. We didn’t say much. We were just there for one another.

I couldn’t help but think that maybe if we’d all just been there for one another sooner, Leslie would still be alive.

And that was a thought I couldn’t get out of my head. It kept getting louder throughout the afternoon, until it was all I could hear. By the time I got to practice, the volume was turned up to eleven, and as I was opening the first handspring of my third tumbling pass into a full layout, I knew I was going to land out of bounds.

Again.

I’d been running this floor routine the entire practice. The momentum of a tumbling pass that you’ve done about a thousand times in the past three months is a very specific thing. Nailing a double back layout with a twist is something I’d never done in a competition before, and this week I hadn’t even done it in practice. I nailed the landing and stepped back, and before my heel had even landed a full foot past the bounding line, I could see Coach Stevens’s clipboard flying into the bleachers.

“That’s it!” His voice echoed across the gym. “Circle up!”

I felt like I had bricks tied to my ankles as I trudged across the gym to the huddle. I felt like I had as I’d climbed the stairs to the DA’s office this morning. It’s one thing to give a deposition. It’s another thing to sit in a room with a criminal prosecutor and a lawyer and hear the strategy for filing criminal charges against Macie Merrick.

As the other girls on the team ran in to Coach Stevens, he stood there, hands on his hips, silently shaking his head. He didn’t need to yell. He knew I knew. I jumped a couple of times on the spring floor, trying to shake it off. Then I slowly walked over to where he stood in the semicircle, dismissing the other girls.

“One week, team. I need your bodies here, but more importantly, I need your
brains in the game.
If your head isn’t here, you might as well keep your tricks in your trunk. It’s not enough to just do a routine—even a clean routine. I need your concentration and your focus. If you think Woodinville is going to show up to this meet and just hand over their four-year championship streak, you’ve got another thought coming.”

He looked down at the mat he was standing on, then back up with a smile. “When you guys bring your brains, you’re unbeatable. See you tomorrow.”

I didn’t even turn around to head to the locker room. I knew better. I knew he’d want a word with me. I closed my eyes and took a deep breath. I knew it was coming.

But it didn’t.

When I didn’t hear Coach lay into me about the floor routine, I looked up and saw him climbing out of the bleachers where he’d retrieved his clipboard. Then he turned and started walking toward his office.

“Coach?” I asked. My voice seemed tiny in the empty gym.

He stopped but didn’t turn around. “Yeah, Beth?”

“Do I need to . . . Should I . . .” What was I asking?

He turned around and crossed his arms over his chest and looked at me. “Should you what?” His voice was tired.

“I don’t know . . . I just . . .” It felt like I should be talking to him about something. I wasn’t sure it was gymnastics. “What should I do?” I asked.

“About what?” he asked.

I had no answer. I didn’t know where to start. I wasn’t sure what to do about anything. The doubt and lies and exhaustion of the past month came crashing onto me all at once. I felt like I was pinned to the floor by the silence. The air between us was thick with everything I couldn’t say. After a moment Coach shook his head.

“Go home, Beth. Or wherever it is that you go when you’re not here. Go there, and if you have a moment, think about what you’ve been doing here in practice all week. Think about how close you are, and then think about why you’re about to fumble the best floor routine you’ve ever put together at the meet next week.”

My eyes stung as he turned around and headed back toward his office.

“I’m sorry,” I whispered, wiping at my cheeks. I couldn’t believe he heard me, but he stopped in his tracks and turned around to face me. He stared at me for what seemed like an eternity, and then nodded slowly, his lips pursed together.

“Me too, Beth,” he said. “Me too.”

•  •  •

I left school and drove without thinking where I was going. I wound up parking across the street from Leslie’s house and staring at the garage door. I wondered what it must have been like for her that night. I wondered what it must be like for her family now.

As I sat there staring at her house, the garage door opened, and Mrs. Gatlin followed Mr. Gatlin into the front yard. She was holding a glass of white wine. He was holding a mallet and a For Sale sign, which he drove into the ground by the mailbox.

Before I realized what was happening, I had opened my car door and was walking across the street toward them in a daze.

“Beth?” Mrs. Gatlin stared at me with wide, glassy eyes.

The three of us stood there in silence, staring at one another.

“What are you doing here?” Mr. Gatlin asked.

“I don’t know, exactly,” I said. “I guess, I just wanted to say I’m sorry.”

Mr. Gatlin turned back toward the house and silently walked up the stairs to the front door. My cheeks burned at his silent dismissal.
What am I doing here?
I turned to leave.

“Beth?” Mrs. Gatlin’s voice stopped me, and I turned around.

“Yes?” I asked.

“I . . . I just wanted to let you know how much I appreciate what you girls did this morning, going in to meet with Mr. Braddock. I know it wasn’t easy.”

I sighed and nodded at her.

“Where are you moving this time?” I asked, nodding at the sign in the yard.

“We’re headed to Florida.”

“Florida?” I asked.

“Yes,” she said softly. “Time to go somewhere warm. I’ve had enough of this rain.”

“But . . . what about the criminal case?” I asked. “You’ll be back to testify, right?”

“Oh—” She paused and looked back at me. “We’ve decided not to pursue it,” she said, and leaned against the For Sale sign as if she hoped it would hold her up.

“What?” I couldn’t believe I had heard her. “But we just met with the DA this morning—”

“Mr. Gatlin has a project going on here,” she said. “It’s a big development and it has been delayed in permitting and environmental studies with the state for over three years. If we don’t get the permits approved now, the investors will pull out.”

I didn’t understand. Something was wrong here. “But . . . what does that have to do with . . .”

“Leslie?” she asked. When I was silent, she smiled at me like I was a little girl who just didn’t understand.

“Mr. Merrick came over this morning while you girls were meeting with the DA,” she explained. “He told Glen that if we refused to participate in the case, the DA wouldn’t be able to proceed, and that if we agreed not take this any further, he’d have our permits approved this afternoon.”

Anger swelled into my chest and burst out in a torrent of tears and words that I couldn’t control.

“But why wouldn’t you want this to go to court?” I gasped.

She looked around at the yard, as if she just couldn’t bear to see any more tears. She sighed deeply, like she was letting something go.

“Putting Macie Merrick on trial won’t make anything better.”

“Maybe not,” I said. “But letting her get away with this makes everything worse.”

32. JAKE

They were already digging foundations by the time I had the guts to go see the place. Yesterday Beth had called me in hysterics from the curb in front of the Gatlins’ place. Today, Glen Gatlin was pacing back and forth monitoring his new development: seventeen thousand square feet of multipurpose retail stores and condominiums, with live/work loft spaces and two big-box stores.