With Malice (12 page)

“So you were confused when you said you remembered the accident.” Evan stressed the word
confused.

I nodded, a bit overly eager.

“Were you able to figure out anything from the car?” my mom asked.

“Early indications are the car was in perfect working order. No engine or brake trouble.” He shrugged. “They're not our mechanics, but we've got no reason to doubt the report.”

“I don't know what you want me to say. Maybe there was a deer on the road, and I swerved to—” My brain scrambled. “To not hit it,” I said. I didn't even know if there were deer in Italy. Maybe they had some other kind of wild animal, a boar, for example.

Evan tapped his pen on the table. “Could be. However, the witness didn't report seeing anything.” He flipped through the file and pulled out a paper, his eyes skimming over it. “The witness stated that the car was driving erratically and too quickly for the road.” He looked around the table. “This is easy for us to tackle. She's not an expert; she can't testify to speed if it comes to a trial. The comment from Dr. Ruckman might be tricky. Not everyone is going to understand this awake-not-really-awake thing.”

The blood rushed out of my head. Trial?

“The witness says the car hit the stone wall at what she describes as full speed. The car hesitated for a second—most likely the undercarriage caught—and then it went over and down the hillside.” Evan spun a photograph across the table. It showed a low cream-colored stone wall, a hole torn into the side, loose stones littering the roadway. Beyond the hole, the ground dropped away. I tried to look through the picture and see myself there, but nothing looked familiar.

“Do you recognize anything?” Evan asked.

I refused to say that I didn't remember again. Briefly, I imagined what it must have been like in the car. Teetering back and forth, weightless for a split second before plunging down. I blinked slowly and forced the image out of my head. It wasn't real.

“How did you and Simone get along?” Even asked.

I blinked at the sudden conversation change. “G-g-g—” My throat seemed to want to hold on to the words. Zap them into oblivion. “We got along really well. She's my best friend.”

He nodded. His pen still tapping on the table. I wanted to reach over and smack it down. “How long have you known each other?”

“Fourth grade.”

“Long time.”

Dr. Weeks's forehead was creased. She didn't know where he was going with this either. That made me feel better. Talking with Evan reminded me of playing chess with my dad, in the sense that he was at least five moves ahead of me at any point.

“I suppose you two had some big fights over the years,” he said with an almost chuckle.

“Not really,” I said. “I mean, sometimes, but nothing big.” Despite what everyone said, I knew there had to be a reasonable explanation for the accident. Something with the car that had been overlooked. I would never have done this on purpose. Yes, we fought sometimes, and sure she could annoy me, but never like what he was hinting at.

“What about recently?”

I sighed. “I don't remember.”

He nodded. “Oh, right, of course.” He paged through his file again. “Retrograde amnesia.” He said it lightly, like it was a joke.

My headache was coming back. A pounding drum right behind my eyes. It felt as if my eyelids must have been pulsing out from the pain. “Yes.”

“How would you respond if I told you that a few of the people on the trip said you two had been fighting?”

A prickle of unease made the hair on the back of my neck stand up. It would be easier to answer his question if I could remember anyone on the trip. I'd seen their names, but they meant nothing to me. Just a list of strangers. I'd met them back in February for an hour, but I hadn't bothered to connect with them then. I figured I'd get to know them on the trip. If I'd known it was important, I would have figured out who I could trust.

“I don't know why they would say that. Simone and I were fine. Maybe one of us had been cranky about something one day and someone made it into a big deal. I know there are a lot of reporters on this story. Some of the people on the program might have said something so they could feel important.”

Evan was staring at me like he wanted to pin me in place with his gaze. “Sounded a bit more than cranky. We have a witness who says you slapped Simone. Hard. She reports that she saw the whole thing and a red mark across Simone's face.”

He had to be lying. Or the witness was. I would never hit Simone. I had never hit anyone. I closed my eyes and tried to picture it. The meaty wet sound of a slap echoed in my head, and I felt the flesh in the palm of my hand sting.
No!
My eyes flew open. I squeezed my hands between my knees. I had to keep my imagination from running away.

“Maybe she was flirting with someone you liked? Kissed this guy you had a thing for?” Evan Stanley asked, fishing around. “This Nico fellow.”

“No,” I said, my voice firm.

“I thought you said you couldn't remember.”

“I don't,” I said, “but I know Simone. She wouldn't kiss someone I liked. I wouldn't do that to her.” I couldn't even remember if there was someone Simone was dating.

“I'm sorry, can you tell me how this is helping?” Mom interrupted. “Jill and Simone have been friends for years. If, and that's
if,
Jill and Simone had a fight, it wasn't a big deal. They're teen girls. Do you have a daughter this age?”

“No,” Evan Stanley replied.

“Well, I can tell you they have a flair for the dramatic. They have a fight and then it blows over. It doesn't mean anything. They're enemies one minute and friends forever the next.”

“Sorry, but it didn't sound like this was some simple argument. We have multiple sources saying there was something between the girls,” Evan said.

“Simone's my best friend,” I said. I wasn't sure if I was trying to convince him or myself. “Even if we had a fight over something, it never would have ended like this.” I stabbed the picture in the middle of the table with my finger. On this I was confident. Maybe we'd had a fight and I'd been crying. Maybe the car had slipped off the road—but it wasn't intentional. I knew it.

“I brought pictures,” my mom said. She reached into her Fendi bag and pulled out an envelope. “I thought they might help Jill jog her memory.”

I picked up the envelope and spilled the glossy photos out onto the table. It was surreal. I was in many of them. Posing in front of some ancient pillar, an arm wrapped around Simone. Me at the Roman Forum with my arms spread wide. There was a shot of a group of students squashed around a small table, a glass of wine in front of each of us. Pictures of thin-crust, black-blister-edged pizza and piles of pasta with a range of sauces. A few shots of various streets and old buildings, market stalls piled high with vegetables, fish, or wheels of cheese. None of it seemed connected to me. It was like a slide show of someone else's vacation. I pulled one of the pictures toward me. A guy stared out from the photo, his eyes a glacial blue-green. His lips were thick and full, like he'd had some kind of mouth enhancement.

“Nico,” I said.

The adults around the table all exchanged glances. “Honey, do you remember him?” She turned to Dr. Weeks. “That would be good, right, if she was remembering?”

“No. I don't remember him at all. I read about him online. They had pictures.” I looked down at the picture, willing myself to recall something, but my mind was blank.

Mom leaned back, disappointed.

“Is there some way we can go after this fellow? What kind of deviant is chasing after high school girls?” my dad asked.

Evan shrugged. “He's only a few years older than your daughter. The age of consent in Italy is fourteen. It goes up to sixteen if the other person is in a position of influence like a teacher, but Jill was eighteen when all of this happened. There's no cause on that end. We might be able to go after the program; it's based in the U.S. Should they have practiced greater care in choosing the mentors, that kind of thing.” Evan's hand waved in the air. He clearly saw that as a waste of time.

“What about hypnosis as a way to bring back memories?” Dad suggested.

“I think we need to be very cautious,” Dr. Weeks said. “Jill's very vulnerable at this point to false memories. She could easily hear a suggestion and incorporate it, thinking it's a real memory. Something like hypnosis would be irresponsible, given her condition. I know everyone would like an easier solution, but in my experience, there aren't any shortcuts. The best course for Jill is to continue to participate in rehabilitation. Her memories may return.”

“But they might not,” Evan said dryly.

Dr. Weeks took a calming breath. “They might not.”

“Which means we're left standing around with our bare asses in the wind, waiting for someone to take a shot at us. We respond and have no idea how that answer might get knocked out from under us,” Evan said. He leaned forward over the table so he was in my face. I could smell a hint of peppermint on his breath and, beneath that, garlic. “If you remember, you need to tell me. I know this might be scary, or maybe you don't know how things got so far out of control, but you must be one hundred percent honest with me. I can't help you if you're not. I will back you all the way—that's my job—but I need to know what we're doing. This isn't the time to play games.”

Did he actually think this was a game to me? I was angry, but instead of letting out a cutting comment or icy cool detachment, I started silently crying, the tears tracking down my face. He sighed and leaned back.

“If she says she doesn't remember, she doesn't remember,” my mom insisted.

“Now isn't the time to coddle her,” my dad said.

“It's also not a time to harass her,” Mom fired back.

“Look, I'm not trying to upset Jill, or anyone else,” Evan said. “I'm trying to impress upon everyone how serious this is. The Italian government is applying a lot of pressure for Jill to return to Italy to answer questions.”

“They can't force her to come back,” my mom said.

“Yes, they can. They can have her extradited. The U.S. government isn't going to stop them. The Italians aren't looking at this as an accident. They're looking to file murder charges.”

The word
murder
seemed to bounce around the small room, striking each of us, leaving the space smeared and foul. I wanted to crawl under the table to escape.

“The Italians want answers,” Evan continued. “If you think you're seeing a lot about this case here, you can multiply it times ten to get what's in their papers. It's got everything a story needs to have legs—two girls, one with money, one without, friendship turned dark, sex, and a chance for a bunch of Europeans to hate Americans who seem to get away with everything. The police over there have had lots of problems with charges of incompetence, so now that they've gone out on a limb, implying they think something happened, their pride isn't going to let them back down easy. They aren't going to want to admit they might have made a mistake. The Italians will drag her back if they go forward with charges, and I'm not going to be able to stop that. No lawyer can.”

“How can they make her return? She's a high school student,” my mom said. “She's a
child.
”

Evan shut the file in front of him “She's eighteen. That makes her an adult.”

I forced myself to take deep breaths. It was one thing for a bunch of blogs and reporters to imply I'd done something, but did the police actually think I was guilty? I couldn't go to jail. I was going to Yale, for crying out loud. How could anyone think I was guilty of murder? Panic was building in my stomach, like a water balloon expanding out of control. I stared at Evan, trying to figure out if he was serious or simply hoping to scare me into having some kind of memory. Maybe he wanted to paint an ugly picture so, when everything turned out fine, he'd look like a hero.

“Surely, things aren't that dire,” my mom said.

“What did I tell you?” my dad said to Evan. “Head in the sand.”

Mom looked like she wanted to peel the skin off my dad's face.

Evan raised his hands in surrender. “I'm not saying they're going to be successful in going forward with charges, but it's important to understand what we're facing. This girl is dead. There was nothing wrong with the car, and a witness says it looked purposeful. We've got kids on the trip saying the two girls weren't getting along and people who saw the disagreements come to some kind of violence, even if that was just a slap. There's some Italian Romeo who admits he was messing around with your daughter and reports that the girls had at least one screaming match about him. Now, on the positive side, you've got me.” Evan smiled. It looked to me like he bleached his teeth. They were reflective in the fluorescent light of the conference room.

“Well, I guess we can rest easy now,” my mom said dryly.

“You can at least rest a little easier. The Italian police have a very circumstantial case. What we want to do is avoid being blindsided by some piece of evidence that we didn't see coming. If there's something that's going to look bad, like this report of Jill slapping Simone, we want to get out in front of it. Then we can put the right spin on it. Keep it from looking worse than it is.”

“What else do you recommend?” my dad asked.

“We need to dig up some dirt on our own, muddy the waters a bit. Imply that Simone isn't the angel that the media is painting her to be. She slept around, she drank, she was envious of Jill and her advantages. Jill had no reason to hurt Simone—she had everything going for her. We want to imply the police screwed up the investigation, that kind of thing. It's not hard; you can count on any police department making at least a few stupid mistakes. It's not like the best and brightest always go into law enforcement. Then we add in that no one really trusts foreign cops. We distract people and come up with some alternate theories. What we want are plausible options for people to believe.”