Stones and Spark (20 page)

Only by the fourth or fifth question, I realize she's more interested in
how
I found it than where.

"The soil looked unnatural," I tell her.

"Unnatural." She glances at the detective.

"Not like the rest of the soil around it," I add.

"So you've been to this quarry a lot?"

"No."

"Then how did you know something looked . . . unnatural?"

I don't want to get Teddy in trouble. Or DeMott. So I say, "I study a lot of geology. I know a little about rocks and soil."

Mary Wade smiles again. I don't like her smile.

Detective Holmgren opens a notebook, just like the one Officer Lande wrote in when listening to Jayne and Rusty.

I tell myself that I am not paranoid.

“Raleigh,” Mary Wade Cavanaugh says, "does Drew have a boyfriend?"

"What—? No."

"How about online? Does she meet guys online?"

“No!”

"But you really wouldn't know if she was in some chat room, would you? She could've met some guy. Romantically."

"Drew's interested in one guy."

Mary Wade's eyebrows shoot up. "Name?"

"Richard P. Feynman."

"How do you spell that?" asks Detective Holmgren.

"Don't bother," I tell him. "He's dead."

They both looked stunned, so I explain who Feynman is, and that Drew is, in fact, totally infatuated with him.

Once again Mary Wade Cavanaugh is giving me that condescending smile. "You girls sure sound smart."

"Drew's smart."

"And you're humble," she says. "Do you remember what time you came back?"

“Back where?”

“Sorry.” Her smile's probably supposed to look friendly, but to me it looks more like she's trying to cover up a toothache. "Officer Lande's report said you went looking for Drew on Friday afternoon. You checked the school. Then you came back that night."

"That's right."

"And you saw Drew's bike when
you came back the second time?"

I nod.

"So what time did you come back?"

"Exactly?"

She smiles. "As close as possible."

"I left my house around eleven thirty, I think," I tell her, skipping right over the sneaking out part.

"On foot?" she asks.

"I ran."

"How far is it from your house to St. Catherine's?"

"Two miles."

Holmgren asks, "How long does it take you to run that?"

"I was tired, it was late. So probably fifteen minutes."

"Fast," he mutters.

Mary Wade smiles. "And then what happened?"

"The dance was going on. You know, Homecoming. I saw her bike. And it wasn't there before. And I knew she wouldn't go to the dance."

"Because she's infatuated with a dead scientist," Mary Wade says.

I hesitate, not sure of her tone. "I asked for, uh, permission to go into the school to find her." This is not a lie--I did ask. "When I got to the Physics lab, I saw her jacket and stuff. But I couldn't find her anywhere. I came back outside, and her bike was still there. And that's when I noticed the lock wasn't right."

"Not right, how?"

"Drew always twists the cable twice, to make the sign for infinity. You know, a figure eight?”

She smiles. "I'm aware of what the sign for infinity looks like."

Right.

"But the cable only looped once through her spokes. Plus the combination's numbers weren't set at zero. Like she always does."

When I glance at Detective Holmgren, he stops writing. I get that paranoid feeling again. If life is like this for my mom, I really feel sorry for her.

“
And you're positive her bike wasn't at school when you came by in the afternoon?"

"Positive." I describe the plumbing truck.

"Did you get a license plate?"

"No."

Mary Wade says, "Funny you would miss that, being so observant and all."

"What time was that?" the detective asks. "When you saw the truck?”

“Around five-thirty.”

Mary Wade asks, "Five-thirty—exactly?"

“Five-thirty-ish.”

She smiles. The time seems really important to her. And with each question, she smiles even harder. The questions start making me doubt my own memory. Maybe it was closer to six p.m. Maybe I didn't come back around 11:30. Maybe earlier. Or later.

“If you need the exact time," I say, "you should check the time logs."

"What time logs?"

"In the limousines. Everybody rents those things for the dances, and I'm sure the drivers have to report where they are and what time. I saw a white one pull up right after I got there. A girl named MacKenna Fielding was riding inside."

They look at each other. Mary Wade stops smiling.

"Is something wrong?" I ask.

"Oh, no," Mary Wade says. "It just goes along with what we heard about you two."

I feel that cold thing icing my spine. "What did you hear?"

"Your headmaster says the two of you like doing experiments."

The cold thing sinks deeper.

"Raleigh," asks Detective Holmgren, "why do you say Drew didn't run away?"

"Because she didn't."

"She's run away before."

"Just because somebody does something once, they don't automatically do it again."

"No," says Mary Wade, slowly, "but that behavior is what we call precedent. You might not know what that—"

"I know what precedent means. For a crime. But whatever happened to innocent until proven guilty? Doesn't that rule higher than precedent?"

Detective Holmgren laughs. Mary Wade shoots him a look. He stops.

"Sorry," he says. "I just think Raleigh would make a good detective someday."

"Yes." Mary Wade smiles. "In fact, maybe she wants to be one now."

I freeze. Totally freeze.

"Wouldn't it be fun," she continues, "to see how long it took the silly adults to figure out what you two did?"

"No."

"You're keeping secrets.”

My blood betrays me, flushing into my face. I have secrets—just not the ones she thinks. And I can't tell her that. So I stand there, my face getting redder and redder.

She smiles. "Raleigh, is there something you want to tell us?"

"I don't think so."

"This whole place." She opens her arms. The latex gloves covering her hands are dotted with grains of soil. "We haven't found any more evidence. At all. But somehow you knew to look under that giant pile of soil. So maybe you could tell us: What should we do next?"

My dad's courtroom has taught me a lot of things. I could say the same for dealing with my mom. Because among the most crucial, vital, important things a person can know is when to plead the Fifth.

So I stand there, and say nothing more.

Mary Wade Cavanaugh gives me another smile.

Which really isn't a smile at all.

When the detective drops me off at school, seventeen minutes remain in fourth period. And wouldn't you know, Parsnip is waiting at the front entrance.

"Straight to class, Miss Harmon," she says.

I walk down the hall, slow as cold sap dripping down a tree. My Rossetti poetry book smells like the clove smoke from the detective's car. The musky odor wafts around me, telling me that what just happened wasn't a dream. Though it sure felt like a nightmare.

At Sandbag's classroom, I peek through the side window. He stands front and center, pontificating. I know what will happen if I open the door.

"Miss Harmon!" The voice skitters down the empty hall.

I turn to see Parsnip, glaring from the other end.

Somewhere in America, a prison is missing its warden.

When I open the door, Sandbag is mid-sentence. He stops talking and I step inside, keeping my eyes on the polished floor, walking toward my desk, praying to become the definition of unobtrusive, obsequious, any of the vocabulary words he's thrown at us.

But no.

"Well, well, well," he says. "Miss Harmon. How lovely. But please don't take your seat. Come. Stand at the front of the class."

Oh, God. Help!

"Since you've inserted yourself into the classroom to receive full attention, I presume your homework is completed. Do give us the honor, won't you? Please recite Christina Rossetti's fabled lines of lyricism?"

I know, I'm supposed to acknowledge alliteration—recite Rossetti/lines of lyricism—but my brain's first trying to recall the poem.

Nothing.

In the heavy silence that follows, Cassandra Jameson raises her suck-up hand. Sandbag lets her recites the lines.

"Extremely well delivered, Miss Jameson."

I fix my gaze on the empty chair in the back row. Drew sits there. Only now the chair looks so wiped down, so washed clean of every trace of her, it's like she never existed. Which would be fine by Sandbag. He probably hates Drew even more than Ellis and Parsnip. Suddenly I look at him. He was here Friday night. He saw her. And it was here, in this same classroom, that Drew showed him what she's made of—and he isn't. Three years ago. The Monday after she'd run away, and Sandbag, purposefully, made sure to post two new vocabulary words on the white board:
impudent
and
vainglorious
. He stood here in front of our then sixth grade English class and enunciated each syllable, all the while looking directly at the girl in the back row with the wild brown hair doodling out a math theorem on the pages of her Norton Anthology.

"Miss Levinson," he had intoned. "You—more than anyone—should memorize the definitions of impudent and vainglorious.

“Sure,” she said, not looking up. "And when you're done talking, I have a challenge word for you."

Challenge words. Sandbag's way of showing off. We brought words to stump him. He always knew the meanings.

"Oh, pray tell," he replied. "What could your challenge word possibly be, Miss Levinson?"

"Catachresis."

There followed one of the most significant silences of my life. Weighty and delicious. Like some Christmas fruitcake that could be used as doorstop. That heavy.
We waited. And waited. And I remember looking from Sandbag over to Drew. Back and forth.

The clock ticked.

"At this particular moment," Sandbag replied, finally, "I cannot recall the definition."

Drew looked up. "Catachresis."

Then she spelled it—enunciating each letter
like a champion at the national Bee. “Catachresis, the misuse or strained use of words, sometimes for rhetorical effect.”

Right then, I knew she was great.

Not good.
Great
.

And now she is not here. Not anywhere.

"Open your poetry book, Miss Harmon."

I open the pages. The scent of cloves rises and suddenly I see the quarry, the sand, Mary Wade Cavanaugh smiling at me.

"Begin at the third stanza," he says.

My throat is closing. I force out the words. “’Shall I meet other wayfarers at night? Those who have gone before.’”

"Continue."

"'Then must I knock, or call when just in sight?'" I clear my throat.

"Continue!"

"'They will not keep you standing at that door.'"

I stare at the page. My eyes sting. The words are suddenly blurry.

Do. Not. Cr—

"Look at me, Miss Harmon."

I squint, holding back the water in my eyes.

He peers over his half-glasses.

"
We
, in the royal sense of the plural pronoun, would appreciate your assenting to join our conversations at their appointed times. Your tardy arrival now means you will explain this stanza's enigmatic envoys."

"Assonance," I whisper for
enigmatic envoys
.

"Correct. I've used assonance. Now what is Miss Rossetti telling us?"

I run my eyes over the words. The words shift. Pop up. Rhymes out of context.
Night. Before. Call. Door.

"Hellooooo," he says. "Earth to Miss Harmon, come in, Miss Harmon!"

I hear their giggles.

"I think," I clear my throat. "I think Rossetti is saying if you want something done, do it yourself."

I hear laughter now. His face is filled with merriment, mockery.