The Girl in the Park (12 page)

“Yes.”

He waits for a moment. “And?”

“It was …” I didn’t come here to talk about the coffin. How Wendy looked. Because if I talk about those things, I will start crying.

“It was sad. I’ve never been to one before.”

“I’m so sorry that was your first one,” Mr. Farrell says. “I can’t imagine.”

“Yeah.” I smile. “I hope they get better—if that makes any sense.”

He thinks for a long moment, then says softly, “I think they’ll feel less unfair.”

Unfair—it’s the right word. I feel teary, look down. After a moment, I hear him say, “Take your time.”

“No.” I have this together, I do. “Actually, I have this other thing I wanted to talk about.” His brows come together: nervous. He doesn’t want to be a sponge for teenage blah blah.

“It’s about Wendy,” I assure him. “It’s just hard to say.”

“Nothing about this is easy.” There’s a little laugh at the end that breaks the spell.

Folding my arms, I sit back. “I’ve been thinking about who did this.”

He waits.

“And—warning, this is going to sound insane.…”

He smiles. I smile back. Try to think how to start.

There is no start. Just say it.

“I think someone from school might have killed Wendy.”

Mr. Farrell just stares at me. He takes a deep breath in. Breathing out, he says, “Okay.”

He is shocked. A little afraid. “It’s something you feel or—?”

“Sort of.” Coughing slightly, I say, “I don’t know how much you knew about Wendy.…”

“I knew her from my class, of course. Outside of that …” He shakes his head.

“Well …” I want to tell the truth but not meanly. “Wendy would get obsessed with certain guys.”

It’s too weird, talking about guys with Mr. Farrell, so I blurt out, “I mean, I don’t know if you know about the whole Facebook thing, how Wendy was always talking about this guy.…”

He’s utterly confused now. Trying to start over, I say, “Wendy really liked this boy and she wanted to …”

“She wanted his attention,” says Mr. Farrell politely.

“Yes,”
I say gratefully. “And she told everybody she was going to get it at this party.”

“The party she went to on the night she died.”

I nod again.

“And did she get it?”

“I think she did,” I say quietly. “I think he left the party and met her.”

Mr. Farrell coughs a little, sits up. Now his arms are folded. Is he taking me seriously? Or is he about to kick me out?
Look, Rain, you can’t come in here with these wild accusations
.

He says abruptly, “Let’s be clear. I don’t know much about students’ lives outside class, but I do hear things. We’re talking about Nico Phelps, right?”

It’s a relief to have the name spoken and have nothing explode. “Yes.”

“Have you talked to Detective Vasquez?”

“No.”

“You need to.”

His voice is firm. This is all moving too fast from my head to reality. “And say what? ‘Uh, Officer, I think Nico Phelps killed Wendy Geller’? ‘Gee, why?’ ‘ ’Cause he left the party around the same time she did.’ ” I lift my hands as if to show Mr. Farrell how hopeless it is.

“Is that the only reason you suspect him?” asks Mr. Farrell.

“No.” I so want to tell Mr. Farrell about the E pin. But Stella Walcott said the police wanted to keep it a secret. I cannot be responsible for screwing up the investigation into Wendy’s death.

Mr. Farrell shoves his chair back. “I’m serious, Rain. This is not something for me to hear. It’s for the police.”

Panicked, I shake my head. “But I don’t know anything for sure.”

“Tell them what you do know.”

What I do know. I try to sort the tangled threads that make up my feeling that Nico is guilty. Wendy telling Jenny,
Leave, split, I’m cool
. The ugly finger in my mouth, Karina’s fear. But it’s all just feeling. No facts—unless I can prove that Nico had an E pin. Maybe Sasha gave him one of hers, but I need to know that before I say anything. Well, anything more. Plus, I have to make sure all the other kids still have theirs. That their pins aren’t sitting in an evidence locker.

Taylor’s isn’t, I think. One of Sasha’s isn’t.

Mr. Farrell settles back into his chair. “Rain, I know some of the kids are very upset that the police want to interview them. Sasha Meloni has refused to speak with them. Is it that you’re scared?”

I nod.

“Of what?” he asks. “That people will be angry? That absurd ‘no snitching’ rule?”

The rule for some kids isn’t no snitching, I want to tell Mr. Farrell. It’s no talking. No being.

“Are you frightened of Nico?” he asks gently.

This is closer, and I nod. “Maybe it’s just me. I know a lot of kids like him …”

Mr. Farrell threads his fingers together, focuses on the tight knot of his hands. “If I say something, Rain, do I have your promise you won’t repeat it? I’m about to be very unprofessional.”

“I promise,” I whisper.

“Nico worries me. He has since he arrived at Alcott. There’s an anger in him I find disturbing. He’s a young man very much at odds with his surroundings, yet he’s desperate to belong.”

I nod.

Mr. Farrell says, “I don’t wish to speak ill of him. But for many reasons, he doesn’t belong at Alcott. He knows it, and it makes him feel inferior. Which makes him angry. I know he’s had … incidents before this one.”

Stealing from Daisy Loring. Throwing a drink in Kirsty Pennington’s face. I want to tell Mr. Farrell about what Nico did to me, but I don’t want to ask for pity.

He’s waiting for me to say I’ll do it, I realize. Go to the police, tell them what I suspect. But I can’t. The thought of going to them, saying I know this! Put this person in jail! makes me sick.

He sighs; I hate the sound. It’s disappointment.
Rain needs to participate more in class.…

“Is there something that would be the proof you need, something you could find out?”

The E pin. “I think so.”

“If you get it, that bit of proof you need—promise me you’ll go to the police?”

I hesitate. “The cops would have talked to him, right? She made her thing for Nico pretty clear. She even put it on her Facebook page.”

“Yes. They’ve talked to him. I gather they didn’t get much.” He sighs. “And there are a lot of kids who might be willing to lie for him. Or stay silent to protect him.”

I can’t argue with that. Even if Sasha did give him one of her pins, who would tell the police? Obviously not Sasha, if she won’t even talk to them.

“This is probably all in my head,” I say, half hoping he’ll agree with me. “I just feel like there has to be something I can do for Wendy.”

“Of course.”

“So, I’m deciding”—I let sarcasm into my voice—“that I’ve found her killer.”

“Or, you’re dealing with a very angry young man who reacts to any threat with violence. And if that’s what you’re doing, I don’t want you to be doing it alone.”

He reaches for a notebook, then picks up a pen. He scribbles something, hands it to me.

“My phone number,” he says. “If you’re worried, nervous, think you’ve learned something—call. Okay?”

“Okay.” I take the piece of paper, fold it carefully, and put it in my bag.

“Whatever you need.” I look in his eyes and it’s true. Whatever I need, this man will give me.

And as I look and keep looking, it becomes clear that what I might need is not so safe or easy; he sees that, but he’s not looking away. For a brief moment, I’m not a kid and he’s not a teacher.

Then Mr. Farrell stands up. The talk is over. I have to thank him, I think, as I agree to be led to the door. You have to say thank you when someone says they want to protect you.

“Just … talk to me,” says Mr. Farrell. “Okay, Rain?”

He slides his hand down my arm.

Then he ducks his head, steps back awkwardly, and shuts the door.

It’s nothing, I think. There’s nothing wrong with it.

Yes, there is, I think breathlessly as I hurry down the hallway. Mr. Farrell touched me. He touched me, when he didn’t want to, but he had to. And now he feels bad, and he wishes he hadn’t done it. That’s why he stepped back so fast, why he closed the door. Because he felt guilty.

But also thrilled.

Because that’s how I feel and I know. I know he feels the same way. There are things I know, things I feel. And this is one of them. I dared to speak. And look what happened. For once, I am totally rewarded. Which may be a weird way to think about it, but that’s how it feels.

Down the hall is Ms. Englander’s classroom. She teaches World Civilization. Her walls are covered with images from the Bible, Greek mythology, and fairy tales. Passing by, I see Eve at the tree, Pandora, Bluebeard’s wife. All those women in stories opening boxes they’re not supposed to, peeking through doors to see what they shouldn’t, eating forbidden fruit. They do it because they want to know what’s really going on. They want to feel alive.

Why are they always told no?

But I have to be fair about this. Not jump to conclusions. First thing to do: account for all the other E pins. The kids who have graduated are off my list. I’ve seen one of Sasha’s, I’ve seen Taylor’s. Of the kids still at Alcott, that leaves Peter Dorkey and Lorelei Haneke.

I have chorus that morning. So, as it happens, does Peter. He sings bass. I’ve already told my mom she’ll probably run into him at Lincoln Center one day. He’s that good.

And a really good person. Always helps the new guys feel okay about singing in chorus by bellowing, “We are the MEN, MEN, MEN! of the Alcott Cho-rus!” in Gilbert and Sullivan style. I can’t imagine what grudge he would have against Wendy. But still, I have to check.

As we warm up, I check his hands, spread under his music folder. No rings. Some people put the pin on a chain, wear it
around their neck. Peter’s wearing a sweater today, but I don’t see a jewelry bulge under the wool.

How else do people wear their pins? I wonder as we sing. Then I remember seeing Taylor’s on her bag strap.

As we gather our stuff at the end of class, I check out Peter’s backpack. No decoration anywhere.

Peter sees me looking. Smiles. “New sack. You like?”

Shy and embarrassed to be caught, I give a thumbs-up.

And then wonder: When did he switch bags? Why did he switch bags?

Wendy’s murder is doing strange things to my head.

Ran into N at the beach. Was wearing my briefest bikini and looking bodacious. Yeah, I think he noticed!

I am reading Wendy’s Facebook posts from the summer. If I do go to the police, they’ll want to know that Wendy’s connection to Nico was more than gossip. And I want to get a sense of what happened between them.

I read:

Here I am, stuck in Amagansett, working in my cousin’s restaurant for the summer. How many words for boring are there? Call, text, whatever! Save me!

A few days later:
Check out my new pics from Momo’s, a halfway-decent dive where they don’t check ID
.

I look at the pictures. Wendy in skirt and bikini top, her arms around some guy at a bar. Not Nico. But in July, I find what I’m looking for.

Ran into a most interesting person at Momo’s the other night. Alcott peeps, do the initials NP ring a bell?

According to school scuttlebutt, Nico and Sasha met in the
Hamptons in August. But apparently, in July, he was happy enough with Wendy in Amagansett.

Another insane night at Momo’s with N. He’s most impressed that I can keep up with him. We discussed the girlfriend sitch. He’s dating some snob bitch in the city and has his eye on another one out here. Hilarious
.

Ridiculous fun last night. Amazed I’m not in jail! Check out my pics
.

I do. Wendy and Nico at a party on the beach at night. Everyone’s sitting around a campfire. There’s only one picture of the two of them. They’re next to each other, but not actually touching. Wendy’s holding a marshmallow over the flame, Nico’s in his swim trunks holding a beer. She looks pretty, her hair dark in the firelight. They’re both laughing.

But things take a bad turn at the end of the month when Nico’s girlfriend—Isabel something—comes for a visit.

Saw N with snob bitch gf. Totally acted like he didn’t know me. MEN SUCK. PARTICULARLY MARRIED MEN
.

Called N on the other night. Got the old What do you want from me line. Why are men never surprising?

No N at Momo’s. Man, I’m sick of this scene
.

I sit back. So there it is: proof that Wendy and Nico connected at least over the summer. The police will see that, won’t they? They’ll figure it out.

Maybe, I think. Maybe not.

I feel restless, like I should do something, but I’m not ready to do the one thing I need to. I need to know more. Understand more. Getting my coat, I leave the house and take the subway downtown.

Wendy died in the Sixty-Seventh Street Playground, just off Fifth Avenue. According to the newspaper, her body was found in a circle of greenery planted to give shade and attract butterflies.
She didn’t get too far into the park, just far enough for someone to grab her and kill her without being seen.

That morning, a jogger taking a rest on a bench noticed a leather bag lying on the ground. Then the body, half pushed under the bushes—as if whoever did it had tried to hide what he’d done, but had run out of time. She saw the back of Wendy’s head, but the face was turned away. She saw her shirt and her bra pushed up around her neck. Her arm just lying there in the wet leaves.

It took a moment, the jogger said, to understand that she was looking at a dead girl.

In warm weather, this playground is crazy with kids zooming down the big slide, hopping in the sprinklers or digging quietly in the sand. But on a late afternoon in near winter, it’s empty. It rained earlier in the day and the paths are still slick and damp. It’s already growing dark. Soon the park lamps will glow to life. But now, the whole world feels gray.

I stare at the spot where Wendy’s life ended, trying to feel how it happened. Yellow tape. That’s the first thing that tells you, Stay away. It stretches from tree to bush, wrapped around their branches a million times, piss-colored lines crisscrossing this way and that. It looks messy, as if someone didn’t care. I hate it, want to rip it all down.