The Bachelorette Party, page 5
I don’t answer.
“Yeah, me neither,” he says, the words resigned now instead of angry. “I was seventeen, and I thought it looked cool. That’s it.” He lets out a long sigh. “I just thought it looked cool.”
I consider the tattoo on my ankle, etched one drunken night with my friends. It has no deep meaning. But my tattoo connects friends in a sunburst of energy and light. His connects him to evil, and more directly, to a crime.
It’s not the same. He shakes his head in dejection. “I understand, the tattoo looks bad. But that’s it. That’s all they have. Nothing else. No DNA or anything. Not even one hair.” He looks up at me. “Think about it. If I stabbed her like that, over and over and over.” He balls a hand into a fist, smacking it into his other open hand. The 666 tattoo blurs in the movement. “Again and again and again and again,” he says, each slap echoing in the room. The guard throws him a look, and he stops, unclenching his hand. “I would have been cut. There’s no way I would have gotten by without a scrape. It’s practically hand-to-hand combat. Blood is slippery, right? I would have cut myself at some point,” he argues. “They’d find my blood on her. They’d find my sweat on her. They’d find something.” His volume elevates with each claim.
The smacking sound rings in my ears.
For a man claiming innocence, he seems to have an intimate knowledge of the experience of the crime, down to the slickness of the blood on the knife.
“The tattoo guy said I shouldn’t do it,” he says, with a grimace. “That I’d be marking myself, inviting the devil in. ‘Hell is hot,’ he said, ‘and you’ll get burned.’ I thought it was some voodoo shit. But he was right.”
He looks straight into the computer camera. “Hell is hot. And I got burned.”
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
NOW
I run into the family room to see the fire, the flue sucking up the smoke.
The room remains silent, other than the grandfather clock ticking monstrously loud. It takes me a second to realize what is wrong with the silence. I should hear something, mumbling or soft snores. Shuffling in sleeping bags. Sounds of life. But I don’t.
I take another step in and reach along the wall to find the light socket. As I flip the switch, light flickers over the scene.
And my breath goes out.
Blood stains the sheepskin rug in calligraphy loops. My friends’ puffy sleeping bags appear sloughed off, like molted skins, while mine lies pristine and flat. I kneel down on the rug on my sodden, freezing knees. Blood polka-dots the pillow, like some decorative tribal design. Shaking Melody’s sleeping bag, I can smell her rose perfume.
“Lainey,” I call out. “Melody.” My voice trembles with fear and cold. The memory of that old Crimeline episode worms into my head. The man driving across town and bludgeoning his in-laws, and waking up covered in blood, his memory blank.
Did I do this? Please God, no. Say I didn’t do this.
“Melody?” I whisper. “Lainey?”
No one answers my call. But then, a creak sounds from the basement.
I hold my breath, straining to hear another sound. I stand there waiting out long seconds, but silence remains. Maybe the killer is down there. Or maybe Lainey and Melody are lying down there, hurt and bleeding. I pull closer and put my ear against the cold wooden door.
Silence.
I don’t want to go down there. Every fiber of my body screams at me not to go down there. But I can’t abandon my friends, especially if I’m responsible. They could be bleeding out, waiting for me to save them.
Quietly, I open the door.
My eyes blink in shock. A grisly trail of blood leads down the stairs.
So they’ve been down there, or still are. A flash of me chasing them into the basement plays over my eyes. I blink again. No, that’s impossible. I’m just imagining things.
Following the trail like a bloodhound, I tiptoe down each stair. With each step, the room darkens, the light above fading away. My breath comes in spurts. I cringe at every moan from the warped wooden steps. My hand grips the rough railing, my ear tilted down to catch any sound. But I hear only my own breathing and my own heartbeat swishing in my ears. “Lainey,” I whisper. “Melody.”
Finally, I land on the cement floor. The cold room smells of dust and starchy mildew. I venture into the room taking small, light steps, allowing my eyes to adjust to the total darkness. Every few steps, I pause to listen.
But I hear nothing. Cavernous silence.
Blindly, I keep walking until I come to a block window. A swath of moonlight cuts across the floor, revealing a pool of dark water, or maybe oil. As I take another step, a light web brushes against my cheek, making me jump back. Reaching to brush it off, my finger grazes a loop, and I realize it’s a string, not a spider web. I loop my finger through the hangman’s noose of the drawstring and pull. One click, and the room is doused with gray light.
The puddle lights up, and I step back in horror. Bright red. Not water or oil.
Blood.
Footprints surround the dark puddle. Bits of Crimeline true crime shows float through my mind, the ominous voice-over: The luminol revealed a size eleven men’s boot, the same size as her husband’s foot. But these are not man-sized. Three sets of footprints surround the pool of blood, one small and wide, one long and lean, and one that looks smudged and smeared.
Without thinking, I am searching for bigger shoes, for Chris’s huge basketball sneaker prints, for the star in the middle of the rundown Chuck Taylors he always wears. I don’t see any. But I do notice another amorphous, furry print, smudged and spindly. With a sense of dread, I put my foot over it. The print made by a fuzzy sock.
Mine.
So I must have been down here. And it strikes me what I don’t see. Scattered footprints, but no shoe prints. So if someone else was down here, I don’t see his mark. The faint memory whispers through my mind, like an audio track playing, clomping down the stairs, crying, shrieking.
Then I see it.
On the floor lies a long knife with bloody prints all over the handle. Is it the kitchen knife? I picture it in the drawer, when I was looking for matches. I knew where that knife was, no one else did.
Suddenly, I feel the knife in my hand, gripping the handle, swinging. The memory feels dream-like, inserted maybe. One frame on a flickering reel. My arm rising and falling, the oak handle solid and warm in my hand.
Was I fighting someone? Please, God. I must have been fighting someone, whoever attacked us. I must have been fighting him.
I peer in closer to look but don’t pick it up. I’m not that stupid. If I did this, my prints will be on there anyway. If not, I do not want to mess up a crime scene or implicate myself.
Then I notice something next to the knife. A little pink puffy blob, like a slug. I move closer to examine it, but my head dizzies. Because I recognize the puffy thing. It’s the scrunchie from Lainey’s ponytail, with a clump of her bloodied, flaxen hair. My knees tremble uncontrollably.
“Lainey!” I scream, as loud as I can, my voice breaking. “Melody!”
Still screaming, I race up the stairs. But no one hears me.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
PODCAST: DID HE OR DIDN’T HE DO IT
Trayvon: Yeah, yeah, yeah. He had the tattoo. But we still have the misidentification problems. Maybe she didn’t even see a 666 tattoo. Maybe she just imagined it.
Shardai: (Groans.) That is such a stretch, Tray.
Trayvon: She had met him at a party, right? So maybe she knew him and was just thinking of him subconsciously when she got attacked.
Shardai: Also a stretch. But okay … let’s go with your theory for a moment. Let’s say Leigh Jones misidentified him and his tattoo because he’s White or she’s in shock or whatever … then how do you account for the other witness?
Trayvon: (Pause.) What other witness?
Shardai: The one who saw him around the lodge a few days before Nicole White’s murder.
Trayvon: Who? (Pause.) Oh, the farmer’s wife?
Shardai: The farmer’s wife? Did you really just say that?
Trayvon: (Laughs.)
Shardai: What … did she cut off his head with a carving knife?
Trayvon: Okay, okay. (Laughing.)
Shardai: Yeah, Tray. I think we can safely assume the farmer’s wife might have an actual identity in her own right. Esther Thompson is her name. The farmer’s wife, even though her husband’s been dead for some time now. But, yes, he was alive back then. And she saw Eric Myers loitering … I’ll repeat that … loitering around Hobbes Lodge earlier that day. She said, and I quote, “It looked like he was casing it.”
Trayvon: She did. She did say that. But … they also mentioned that she had cataracts. So …
Shardai: Oh, please Tray. Don’t even.
Trayvon: I’m just saying …
Shardai: And Esther Thompson is White, so it’s not a cross-race issue. And we can’t claim she’s in shock or anything. So … now that’s two witnesses that place Eric Myers at the scene. How you gonna explain that one away, Tray?
I take off my heavy headphones, my ears stinging.
I already tried calling Leigh Jones twice now, obtaining her number too easily off WhatsApp. I left messages announcing myself as a Crimeline reporter, which often triggers an immediate call back, but not in this case. And I don’t want to cross the fine line between investigation and harassment.
But Shardai gave me another lead.
She’s right. It wasn’t just Leigh Jones who identified him.
I decide to reach out to the farmer’s wife herself, Esther Thompson. I search social media sites for her, but nothing comes up. She’s in her eighties, so I figured she might at least be on Facebook to show off her grandkids or decry Democrats or whatever. She’s not. But searching Whitepages on the computer, I get a hit on Esther right away. Jotting the number on a Post-it note, I pick up the receiver on my bulky office phone and make the call.
After four rings, Esther Thompson answers.
“Hello?” She sounds short of breath, as if she ran to pick the phone up.
“Hi,” I say, shifting in my chair and playing with my lanyard. “My name is Alex Conley. I’m a reporter at Crimeline and wondered if I could ask you a couple questions about an old case.” Crimeline usually pops up on the caller ID, so people trust my identification.
“What old case?” Esther asks, a wobble in her voice.
“Yes. It’s about the murder of a young woman named Nicole White, which took place about ten years ago. I understand you were involved in the naming the—”
Click.
The dial tone floods into my ear. I glance at the screen on the office phone to make sure the call wasn’t dropped. But it looks like the obvious occurred, she hung up on me.
Undeterred, I call her back.
“Hi,” I say, as soon as she picks up. “I’m sorry. I think we got disconnected and—”
“No, we did not get disconnected,” she says. “I hung up on you. Because you’re a despicable person.”
The accusation floors me. “I’m sorry … did I say something that—”
“Goodbye,” she says.
“Wait, wait,” I call out, then duck my head down as a few interns look my way. “I’m sorry. I really don’t mean to upset you. I’m just reviewing some of the facts and—”
“I’m hanging up now,” she announces.
“Wait,” I say again, in desperation. “Do … do you have Noah’s number at least? Can I speak with him?”
A long pause comes over the phone then. When she speaks again, venom pulses through her words. “Don’t you dare drag my son back into all that. He’s finally put his life back together and you’re trying to pull him down again?”
“I’m … I’m sorry,” I stutter, taken aback. “I really didn’t mean to—”
“Don’t call back here,” she hisses, and hangs up again.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
NOW
With trembling hands, I search through the family room for a phone, any of our phones. If we have a signal, I can call 911 even without their passwords. But first I need to find a phone.
I shake out the sleeping bags, sticky and heavy with blood, the room smelling like an abattoir. I comb through the soaked sheepskin rug, then rifle through my book bag, though I know I didn’t leave my phone in there. I dump out Lainey’s bag, Melody’s bag.
No phones.
Then I remember an old, faded yellow landline in the kitchen, attached to one of the cabinets. Running into the room, I pick the receiver up, the mouthpiece sticky and smelly, but no dial tone emerges. I stab at the buttons, flicking the receiver button up and down. It’s useless. The phone isn’t working.
Pacing around the kitchen, I reason with myself. Okay, so I can’t call 911. But what if he comes back? If I stay here, I’ll be dead.
But who? Who is he? Who could have done this?
Chris?
He did threaten Lainey once. He violated the restraining order multiple times. Somehow, I still don’t see it. I fully believe he could shoot me. But I don’t think Chris would have hurt my friends.
Who else?
The answer comes from in my head. You. You could have done this.
A montage passes before me. Jay’s horrified face. Serious-faced police. Miranda rights. Handcuffs. Funerals. My mom hugging me before I’m taken away. My father’s disappointed expression.
“No!” I yell. The word reverberates in the silence. I couldn’t have done this. Yes, I’ve grabbed scissors. Yes, I’ve crept from the family room up to the bedroom without remembering it. But this is something else altogether. I couldn’t have stabbed my friends like that and never woken up. If I had done it, they would have woken me up, not run away.
It couldn’t have been me. It must have been someone else.
But I feel a flash of it again, the thick knife handle in my palm.
The tactile memory makes me think of something. I walk over to the drawer that held the kitchen knife. My heart rate elevates, and I take a quick breath and jerk it open.
Empty.
“No, no, no,” I say, in a panic. I slap my forehead to wake myself up. But I can’t wake myself up. Because I’m awake, just living in a nightmare. “You couldn’t have done this,” I murmur, like an incantation. “You couldn’t have done this.”
What if the White Widow pushed me over the edge?
A tree branch slaps against the window, making me jump. Calm down, I tell myself. This isn’t helping. Think. Think.
But I can’t think. My brain feels empty as a husk.
I walk over to the fire, which has held up remarkably well. It seems impossible that this could be the same fire we slept by just hours ago. How many hours? I glance around for my phone to see, then remember. No phone. The ticking sound again sounds out, amplified in the silent room. The meaning of this ticking remains somehow cleaved from its source until it lands into my addled brain.
The grandfather clock.
I charge into the front room and turn on the light. The serene scene remains bizarrely unchanged, our coats hung up on the rack along with the Bougie Bachelorette crown, hats and mittens strewn haphazardly on the floor.
The brass pendulum reflects a warped image of the hung coats.
Ten after one.
It’s only one AM? How is that even possible?
But then the fact of this heartens me. If someone took my friends, the sooner I can find them, the better. Every hour lost decreases the chance they will be found. Alive, at least.
“I need to find them,” I say to myself.
I know I sound like a lunatic, but I don’t care. I need my own voice to steady me right now. I take a deep, fortifying breath. “You didn’t do this. There’s no way you did this. So, get ready, and go look for them.” I nod to myself. “Okay. We have a plan.”
With that, I run to the kitchen to wash off my hands, then I peel off my pajamas and damp fuzzy socks, laying them on the hearth to warm them.
My toes feel numb and stinging, the skin purply blue. The beginning of frostbite? What if I get frostbite? “You can’t worry about that right now,” I answer myself. I throw on dry clothes from last night. I hadn’t bothered to pack extra for the ride home. I put on fresh socks with a sense of relief. “Okay,” I say, “now how do I get out of here?”
Lainey’s car.
If I can just find her keys. I embark on another search around the room. I check everywhere. The kitchen, under the rug, in every pocket of their bags. Between the cushions on the couch, every spot on the hearth, behind the radiator. I even check the bedroom, though we haven’t stepped foot in there. I double-check, triple-check. No keys.
A thought flips into my head. I could hotwire the car.
Except for the minor fact that I don’t know how to hotwire a fucking car. Then I think maybe I can Google it and remember for the hundredth time, I don’t have a phone. “Then you will have to walk,” I say, reprimanding myself. A log falls and smoke puffs into the air, as if the fire is breathing. “Okay, so what do you need to go out there?”
This is a hunting lodge, after all, which means there might be useful items. I check all the places that I remember from my matches search, like some twisted game of memory. First off, I grab the matches themselves from the hearth, then go back to the drawer with the compass and pick that up too. The glass face is cracked, but the spinner appears to be working at least. The patina of the metal leaves a soft residue on my fingers. Trying to channel Melody’s inner Girl Scout, I search through all the other drawers and find a few useful items, a Swiss Army knife, some twine, rubber bands. I dump them in my backpack along with my toothbrush and toothpaste, though clean teeth seems the least of my worries.
“Food,” I say. I probably won’t need it, but I’ve seen enough survivor shows to know that if I get lost in the cold somehow, I might. In the kitchen, I scoop up the few cans of soup and toss them into the bag. Another drawer reveals a rusted can opener. Then I fill up my “True Crimes Junkie” water bottle from the tap, ignoring the in-your-face irony of the faded logo. Patting down my backpack, I feel something hard and rectangular in a side pocket, and remember then the Hershey bar in there. I got it from a vending machine at work last week and completely forgot about it. The item seems so innocent, so simple, an artefact from my before-life.
