That Night (37 page)

I did know, remembering how I’d sat in Nicole’s room after she died, staring at her things and trying to understand that she was never coming back. I kept quiet, knowing the less I said, the more Ashley babbled. And she did.

“My mom and dad are fighting all the time now. Mom’s watching me constantly. I can’t do anything. We’ve fought a lot too, about Aiden and you.”

“Me?”

“I told her I didn’t think you and Ryan killed Cathy, that it didn’t make sense. She told me to stay out of it and let the police handle it.”

“Good idea.”

“There’s something up, though. She’s spending all this time with Kim and Rachel, but she never even talked to them for years. Now she gets lots of calls. I saw her clearing her cell phone history, but she left her cell on the counter today and she had a text from Rachel saying they had to meet ASAP.”

After my little visit.

A guy came out onto the front steps, banging the door behind him. He wasn’t much taller than Ashley and had a scruffy goatee. He wasn’t wearing a shirt, just baggy jeans that showed the top part of his underwear.

“You coming back in, Ash?” He gave me an odd look, like he was trying to figure out where he’d seen me before.

“Yeah, in a minute, just talking to a friend.”

He stared at me again for a second, then went back inside.

“I’m not supposed to be talking to you,” I said. “If he says anything…”

“He won’t. I just thought you should know what’s going on with my mom, so you can be careful.”

“She’s your mother. Why are you telling me this stuff?”

She stared down at the cigarette in her hand and said, “I never thought I’d be a smoker, didn’t think I had it in me. But then one day I just started and now I like it. It makes me wonder what else is in me, like maybe I have all kinds of sides I don’t know about.”

I was still trying to process what she’d said, and what it meant, when she looked up and quickly said, “I think my mom did something bad, like
really
bad.”

We stared at each other. I thought about what I should do, if I should just be honest with Ashley. Finally I said, “She lied at my trial. I never fought with my sister that night—lots of other times but not that night. Shauna hated me.”

“So it was like how I wrote in my essay? She was a bully?”

“Your mom and her friends were brutal to me, even after they started hanging out with my sister. But something changed that summer in the weeks before she died. I’m not sure what happened between them, but something did.”

A pulse was beating hard in the pale skin of Ashley’s throat.

“Do you think … do you think my mom did it?”

“I don’t know what went down that night, but those girls know the truth. Cathy was starting to talk to people about what happened. Now she’s dead.”

“So you think my mom did something to
Cathy
?” Her voice was scared, lifting up on Cathy’s name. “Just because she’s a bully doesn’t mean she’d murder her, right? Like how you were angry at Nicole, that doesn’t mean you’d kill her.”

Her expression was almost desperate, and I wondered if the real reason she’d wanted to do the documentary was to disprove her fears that her mother might be a murderer. Would she confront her? I didn’t have any reason to protect Shauna, but I still wasn’t sure of Ashley’s motives—what if she found out somehow we’d talked to the dealer, and threw it in her mother’s face? Next thing you know, he’d go missing too. It was better if I didn’t reveal too much else.

I said, “You should talk to your mom about that.” I’d have loved to see the look on Shauna’s face if Ashley did drop that bomb. I caught a motion out of the corner of my eye, a curtain flickering in the window. Aiden was watching. I wondered if he’d figured out who I was yet, if he’d call the police.

“I’ve got to go,” I said.

As I started to walk away, Ashley called out, “I’m sorry.”

I didn’t know what she was sorry about but I didn’t turn around. Later, when I was walking on the beach, I thought about what was going to happen to Ashley when the truth came out that her mother was a murderer. I was sorry too.

*   *   *

When I got back, Ashley’s car was gone and her boyfriend’s trailer was dark. I hoped I didn’t run into her again and considered whether I should move somewhere else. But I hadn’t been working, so my money was almost gone.

Back in my cabin, I remembered how Ashley had mentioned her essay. That made me think about Darlene Haynes, who’d had a falling-out with my sister. What had that been about? Could she know something more? Stephanie still had my laptop, so I walked over to the campsite office and did a quick search on the guest computer, happy to see a listing for Darlene in town. Either she hadn’t married or was divorced, but I didn’t care—it was working in my favor.

The sun had drifted behind some clouds, so I grabbed my jeans jacket and hopped in my truck, with Darlene’s address on a piece of paper on the seat beside me. I drove slow, taking alternate routes and checking to make sure I wasn’t being followed. Finally I pulled up in front of Darlene’s house, which was on the other side of the river. The house wasn’t much to look at, just a white single-story box, but it was tidy and there were flowers blooming all over the yard.

I rapped on the door. A cat came running out of a nearby hedge, startling me, then weaved in and out of my legs, purring.

I didn’t think I’d get lucky and actually catch Darlene at home, but the door opened and I recognized her right away, though her hair was short now and bleached out. She had a couple of earrings in one ear and was dressed in some sort of uniform, like she worked at a store or a pharmacy. When she saw my face there was a pause as she tried to place me, then shock when she did.

“Are you…”

“Toni.”

“God, you look like your sister.” She was staring at me, trying to take it all in. I saw her eyes drop down to my tattoos, saw the fear as she remembered that I’d been in prison. I wished I’d grabbed my jeans jacket out of the truck.

“Can I come in? I need to ask you some stuff about Nicole.”

She looked uncomfortable. “I don’t know if that’s a good idea.”

She’d never been a witness at the trial, which I always thought was strange. If anyone would know about my relationship with my sister, it was Darlene. They’d been close for years. So why didn’t the police talk to her?

“It won’t take long,” I said. “I just need to clear some things up.” She was still staring at me. I softened my approach. “I remember you at our house all the time, how close you two were, but something happened. Nicole changed that year, before someone killed her. It wasn’t me or Ryan, but that person is still out there. You might know something, something that could change everything.”

Now she looked confused, thrown off guard, like maybe she’d never considered there was another killer.

“It was a long time ago, my memory…”

Finally, an opening. “It might not take much, just a small detail.”

She still looked torn, like she didn’t know what to believe.

“I’m not here to change your mind about me, Darlene. I just need to know what happened between you two, why she ditched you. It must’ve hurt.”

I’d hit the right nerve. Her face was angry as she said, “Nicole turned into a total bitch that year.”

Perfect. Anger was good, anger would make her want to tell me more, so she could feel justified. “So why don’t you tell me about it?”

She opened the door. “I only have a little while before work.”

“That’s fine.” The cat dodged around my legs, zipped into the house, and raced upstairs.

We sat at her kitchen table. She didn’t offer a coffee, but I didn’t need one. My nerves were on edge, keyed up from excitement. I was close. I could feel it.

“So what happened?” I said.

“She was seeing a guy, Dave. That’s when she first started changing.”

“Dave?” That had to be the guy I’d spoken to on the phone, the one she’d been sneaking out to see. “I didn’t know she had a boyfriend.”

“No one knew. He was four years older than us—already in college. We’d met him at the mall that Christmas and he’d come by school sometimes to talk to her. They hooked up at a party, then she started sneaking out to meet him.”

So I was right. “Why did you two fight?”

“She was getting secretive, like she wouldn’t tell me stuff about him anymore, and she wouldn’t wear certain outfits because he said they were trashy. He partied a lot too, always drinking with his friends. I thought he was a jerk.” She stopped and thought back. “I heard him yelling at her on the phone once.”

I remembered Nicole crying in the girls’ bathroom at school; her fear when I’d picked up the phone. Was he just a controlling asshole with a bad attitude or something more dangerous?

“Did you try to talk to her about it?”

“I told her she should dump him. We stopped hanging out after that for a couple of weeks, then she was with those girls all the time. She started wearing sexy clothes again and going to parties, so I thought she’d broken up with him.”

I thought back to that May, how she’d started sneaking out again later that month. Either she hadn’t broken up with this Dave guy, or she’d been meeting up with the girls to party, or she was seeing someone else. That summer she’d told me she was in love with a guy who worked with my father. The one who gave her the necklace. She’d said it was the boy from the party, but was that just a lie to cover up for the real person? Then I wondered if she might’ve been seeing one of the girls’ boyfriends. That would’ve pissed them off, but I didn’t think my sister had it in her. Odds were it was this guy.

“Why didn’t you say anything to the police about him after she died?”

“I did, and they said they’d look into it. But then you got arrested…”

“So you figured we did it.”

“I knew you and Ryan got in trouble a lot—and you were always doing drugs, and fighting with Nicole, and there were witnesses.…”

“I didn’t kill her, Darlene. I don’t know if this guy had anything to do with it, but I’d be surprised if the police ever talked to him.” I told her about our interrogation, how the police never considered other suspects, how the girls lied.

Darlene looked upset, considering the possibilities but still not willing to believe me completely. “Maybe Dave had an alibi or something.”

“Could be, but I’d like to have a talk with him now. Do you know if he’s still around? Or his last name?”

She was quiet for a few beats, then said, “I think it was Johnson. No, Jorgensen, something like that, but he moved away.”

It was a common enough name and it was going to be hard to find him after all these years, but still, there was a slim chance.

She said, “They weren’t friends anymore, you know.”

“Who?”

She hesitated, like she was already regretting having said it, but then she went on, in a tentative voice. “Shauna and her group, and Nicole. Those girls were pissed at her before she died. When I heard they’d testified they saw her at the lake with you, I always figured they’d gone there looking for her themselves.”

My adrenaline kicked in, everything else slowing down. “You didn’t say anything to anyone? At the trial…” I was still taking it all in.

She nodded. “They made it sound like they were best friends. I figured they were just doing that for the attention.” She shrugged, a small casual motion that enraged me. This information could have changed my life. I took a couple of breaths, gripping my hands together under the table until I’d calmed down.

“What were they upset about?” I said. “How did you hear about it?”

“Nicole called me one night crying. She said Shauna was mad at her and lying to the other girls, saying Nicole had fooled around with Rachel’s boyfriend and that she was the one who told Kim’s mom that Kim was gay.”

I remembered Cathy telling Ryan that they’d been pissed off at Nicole, remembered Kim saying Nicole had gotten her kicked out. I was finally getting close to the truth.

“Did Nicole tell you what Shauna was so angry about?”

“No, just that she’d screwed up really bad and Shauna found out.”

I thought over everything, reflecting back on the weeks leading up to the night of the murder. I remembered the white car slowing down outside the house. Maybe it had been Shauna after all. What could Nicole have done that was so bad Shauna turned the other girls on her?

Darlene also looked lost in thought as she stared at the cat, now stalking a fly on the floor. Her voice soft and haunted, she said, “She asked if we could be friends again, said she was sorry for how she had treated me. But I told her she was a bitch and I never wanted to talk to her again. Then I hung up.” Her eyes met mine. “That was the last time I ever spoke with her.”

Neither of us said anything for a minute. Then she heaved a sigh.

“I’ve got to get to work now.”

“I appreciate you talking to me today.” I stood up. “If you think of something else, anything at all, please call me.” I gave her my number, which she hastily jotted down on a piece of paper by her phone.

She walked me to the door, her arms hugging tight around her chest, like the conversation had cast a chill over her body.

Out on the front steps, she said, “Those girls, I never could understand why Nicole started hanging around with them.”

“Me neither.”

“Everyone thought Nicole was so perfect, but she was just good at pretending to be good. We got in a lot of trouble together. We used to laugh about it sometimes. How your mom was always so tough on you but didn’t know what Nicole was really up to most of the time.”

“It seems none of us knew what was really going on in her life, not in those last few months anyway.”

“It’s still scary, thinking about her murder. When you’re a teenager you don’t think stuff like that will happen, not to someone you know. Kids stopped going to the lake, or if they did, her murder was all they wanted to talk about. Everyone pretended they were friends with her, or that they knew you and Ryan. I never went out there again, never even talked about her, but I thought about her all the time. I didn’t understand how someone could hate her that much.”