About That Night (15 page)

And then there's that stupid dustup he had with Maugham before the Christmas break. Jordie says someone saw that. The only person he remembers is Merriwether, and Merriwether didn't see the whole thing. Still, you never know with teachers. If the cops start asking about Maugham, if they ask if he had any trouble with anyone, if he ever fought with anyone, Merriwether might remember the two of them in the hall that day. It wasn't much, but if there is no one else for the cops to focus on, it could turn their attention to Ronan.

So he goes back to school, getting there well before the end of lunch period, and he strolls past the school office at a leisurely pace, casting a glance through the window as he passes. He sees two suits in there—cops for sure. They're talking to Principal Acheson, who is shaking his head. One of the cops raises his head and catches sight of Ronan. Ronan keeps walking.

The announcement comes over the
PA
system after lunch. The police are asking for cooperation from students and staff. They will be asking to speak to students who knew Derek Maugham with a view to finding out what exactly happened to him. If there are students who are not approached by the police but think they have information that might be useful, they are asked to leave their names at the office so that they can be contacted.

As Ronan moves from class to class that afternoon, at least a couple of kids in each one are sent to the office. They are all kids who used to hang out with Derek, either as teammates or friends. Ronan waits. His name is not called. When he walks by the office at the end of the day, he doesn't see the two cops.

» » »

Diehl and Tritt both lean back in uncomfortable wooden chairs in the vice-principal's office, where they have been all afternoon. The last of two dozen students who knew Derek Maugham has just left, and so far they have a big fat zero because, according to everything they've been told, the Maugham kid was well liked, was a star athlete, had a hot girlfriend and was never, to anyone's knowledge, in a fight of any kind.

“I forgot how long the day can be when you're trying to find something—anything—to go on,” Diehl says.

Tritt looks at his friend. “Are you sure you want to be doing this, Mike? I mean, after what you've just been through—”

“I can't think of a better way to deal with what I've just been through.”

Tritt displays a crooked smile. “Some people would call that denial.”

“And some people would say there's nothing wrong with denial under the circumstances. I appreciate your concern, Neil. But work is just what I need right now. It takes my mind off Elise. I can't believe how fast she slipped away from me. This case gives me something to do besides feel sorry for myself, and something to think about besides Elise.”

Tritt nods. “So what do you think?”

“What do I think? I think this is what it would be like to try to find out who killed Barry Manilow,” Diehl says. “I never heard of a kid so bland he didn't piss off somebody. The stranger-mugger angle is starting to look good to me.”

“Yeah, except that nothing was stolen,” Tritt says sourly. “There was close to a hundred dollars in cash in the kid's wallet.”

Diehl shakes his head. “What kind of kid even carries cash these days? I thought it was all plastic.”

“His grandma sent it to him,” Tritt says. “She sent him a hundred dollars every Christmas—cash. Through the mail. Do you believe that?”

“Maybe whoever did the kid got scared off before he could get the wallet.”

“If that were true, we'd have something by now. If someone scared off a mugger—assuming there was a mugger, and I don't think there was—then whoever scared him off would have seen something.”

“Not necessarily. It was snowing,” Diehl reminds Tritt.

“Which is one more point against a stranger-on-stranger scenario,” Tritt says. “The kid was found in the woods behind his house. It was snowing. We didn't even find him at first because he was so buried in the snow. What kind of mugger goes out in a snowstorm and follows a kid—and remember, you're right about the cash: most kids don't carry it anymore; they're all about debit cards—so what kind of freak would follow a kid into the woods in a snowstorm, supposedly to mug him, and then leave him with his wallet, his cell phone, his watch…”

“Druggie,” Diehl says.

Tritt laughs. “Now you're putting me on. You need a fix in the middle of a snowstorm, you do a smash-and-grab and hope for the best. You don't follow a kid who probably doesn't even carry cash into the woods.”

Diehl stands up and stretches. “Kind of leaves us at a dead end.”

“I think we should come back here tomorrow,” Tritt says. “Maybe get all the kids together and make a pitch for information. It's a big school. Stuff probably goes on in the halls all the time. Who knows, maybe one of the rug rats or one of the ghosts saw something.”

“Ghosts?”

“The kids who are invisible—the dweebs, the nerds, the geeks. The ones no one pays any attention to. We make a general pitch directly to the kids, you never know who might have seen something.”

Diehl is nodding. “Worth a shot,” he says. “Come on, let's get out of here.”

Tritt stands. “We can grab a beer before we head home. And tonight, when I say home, I mean
mi casa
, Mike. You're having supper with us. Ginette insists. And you know what she's like when you try to cross her.”

Diehl smiles. “She's a great cook. It would be my pleasure. Thanks.”

Seventeen

C
arly Cross glances repeatedly at Deedee Sullivan throughout the surprise assembly, which is being held in shifts so that every student in the school will hear what the two police officers have to say. The cops identify themselves as Sergeant Tritt and Lieutenant Diehl (a whisper goes around at this—Lieutenant Diehl is… was…married to Mrs. Diehl, who died over the holidays—just wandered off in the middle of a snowstorm and never came home again). They tell the students that they are trying to find out what happened to Derek Maugham, but to do that, they need help. They have already talked to a lot of kids who knew Derek, but so far they have no leads in their investigation. Now they want to ask anyone who has any information at all about Derek, even if it doesn't seem important, to please come and talk to them. All information will be confidential. No one has to worry about who says what. The cop who is doing most of the talking, Tritt, says he's sure that if the same thing that happened to Derek happened to any one of them, they would want their entire school to help the police catch whoever did it and make sure that person got punished.

“Are there any questions?” Tritt asks at last.

Carly looks sharply at Deedee, whose head has been bowed the whole time. But it isn't Deedee's hand that shoots up. It's the hand of another kid, a nerdy-looking kid Carly sort of recognizes but barely knows because he is a grade ahead of her.

“What kind of information do you mean?” the kid asks. “I mean, if we didn't know the kid, then what could we know about him?”

“I'm glad you asked that,” Tritt says. “I went to a big high school like this one. And I know a lot of stuff goes on outside the classroom—kids fooling around, getting into arguments or scrapes, maybe some kids giving other kids a hard time. Not
every
one sees that stuff. But usually
some
one does—maybe a kid is at his or her locker and he or she sees two kids arguing in an otherwise deserted hall. Or maybe two kids are going at it and you turn the corner and you see them. You see something that no one else sees. Anything like that that involves Derek Maugham is what we're looking for. It might turn out to be nothing—a lot of the things that happen in school turn out to be nothing. But we have the big picture. We haven't released everything we know. So we're the ones who are really in the best position to decide what's important and what isn't. That's why we're here talking to you now. If you heard something or saw something, even if you're not at all sure it means anything, we want to know about it. So you can either come and see us down in the office, where we'll be all day, or you can call the phone number on the flyer that you'll get when you leave the auditorium in a few minutes. It's a Crime Stoppers number. There's no call display on the other end, and no one will ask you for your name. You can stay anonymous if you want to. But please, make the call if you have something to say. We really do need your help.”

The cops leave the stage, and Ms. Syros, one of the vice-principals, steps up to the mic. She more or less repeats what Sergeant Tritt has just said and then begins to dismiss them, row by row, cautioning them to “keep it orderly, folks.”

Deedee seems in a hurry to leave. Carly grabs her by the arm and hauls her close.

“Remember what you promised my sister,” she hisses.

Deedee nods, but her eyes don't meet Carly's, which Carly takes as a bad sign.

“If you want to have any friends at all, you'll keep your promise,” Carly says.

“I said if they asked—”

“You said if they asked
you
,” Carly hisses. “They didn't ask
you.
They asked everyone. Keep your promise or you'll be sorry.”

Deedee nods meekly, and Carly stays with her all the way back to class. The thing is, Carly's not sure why she's helping Jordie. Nor does she understand why Jordie wants Deedee to keep quiet about what she saw. If she had to guess, she'd say Jordie is trying to protect Ronan. Protect him from a murder charge. But that doesn't make sense. Jordie would never protect the person who killed her boyfriend—would she? Maybe she's just afraid the cops will think Ronan was involved. But why would they—unless they had a good reason? Does Jordie think some stupid hallway grudge match between her current and her ex-boyfriends will be seen as a motive for murder? Carly supposes the cops could see it that way, but she watches
TV
just like anyone else and knows the cops need something stronger than that to get Ronan on a murder charge. So the question is: Is there something else? Does Jordie know what it is? Is she worried about Ronan because she still likes him or because she thinks maybe he did it, maybe he killed Derek?

Carly and the rest of her math class troop back into their classroom and take their seats. Mr. Delisle picks up his chalk and continues to explain the problem he put on the board before the assembly was called. Carly picks up her pencil and copies down what he writes. But Deedee doesn't. Deedee stares down at the blank page of her binder. That worries Carly.

» » »

Carly is leaving school at the end of the day. As she passes the office, she glances inside. She sees the two cops in there; like everyone else, they are getting ready to go home. One is zipping up a leather-covered binder. The other is pulling on his coat. They look tired. They also look discouraged, which probably means they didn't get very far today. Well. Too bad. Carly's sorry about Derek—who isn't? But she can't believe he was killed by someone here at school, no matter what Jordie might think.

She is pulling on her hat when someone breezes by her. He's big and he kicks up a wind, like when an eighteen-wheeler whizzes past Mom's little car on the highway. It's Mr. Merriwether. He throws open the office door and says, “I'm glad I caught you. This probably doesn't mean a thing. In fact, I've been debating all day whether to say anything or not. But just before Christmas, I saw—” The office door swings shut, cutting off the rest of his words.

» » »

Carly is breathless when she gets home. “Jordie! Jordie, are you here?”

Of course she's here. Her boots are on the tray. Her backpack is on the floor in the front hall. Carly kicks off her own boots and races upstairs. She bursts into her sister's room without knocking, startling Jordie, who is listening to music on her iPod and doing what looks like French homework. Her face changes from puzzled to concerned as she takes in Carly, who is breathing hard and still in her coat and hat. Jordie removes her earbuds.

“What's wrong? Did Deedee say something?”

“I don't know. I don't think so. But Mr. Merriwether did.” She tells Jordie what she heard and saw.

Jordie grabs her cell phone off her bedside table and punches in a number. She must get no answer, because the next thing that happens is she texts someone.

“Jordie,” Carly says. “What's going on? What are you so worried about?”

» » »

It's almost dark, and the temperature has dropped the way it has every evening for the past few weeks. Ronan is outside, snow shovel in hand, clearing the driveway, when a car pulls up and two men get out. It's the two cops who were at school that day, making their pitch for people to come forward with anything they know about Derek Maugham. Ronan keeps shoveling as they step over the ridge the snowplow left and walk up the drive toward him.

“Ronan Barthe?” one of the two asks.

Ronan nods.

The cop introduces them—Tritt and Diehl—and says they'd like to ask Ronan a few questions.

“About what?” Ronan says.

“What do you think?” Diehl asks. Ronan supposes he's playing bad cop. “About your friend Derek Maugham.”

“He wasn't my friend.” Ronan sees no point in lying about that.

“So we gather,” Diehl says. “We heard about the scrap you and he had in the hallway at school before Christmas. You want to tell us about that, Ronan?”

Ronan's mind races. He says, “What scrap?” But what he's thinking is, Did Jordie tell them? Did she rat him out to the cops?

“You know what scrap, Ronan,” Diehl says. “A witness came forward and told us all about it.”

Witness? So it's not Jordie. She wasn't there. So who is this witness? Jordie said someone saw him with Maugham that day, but other than Mr. Merriwether, who didn't see a thing—not really—Ronan doesn't remember anyone else in the hall.