Harmless (12 page)

“I said I was joking.” For a minute, the room felt hot. That window didn't let in much air.

“Of course. Sorry. Is it okay if I ask you how you are?”

I stuck my finger into the tear in the cushion and pulled out a tiny bit of the cottony stuffing.

“I'm fine. Just fine.”

“Hmm. Is it okay if I say that you don't seem that way to me?”

“Is it okay if you stop asking me if everything is okay before you ask me something?”

“Fair enough.”

“And anyway, you don't really know me, so how can you say if I seem fine or not?”

“It's my job.”

Her job. It was her job to know if I was okay or not? I thought for a minute about Elinor Clements. Her father's job was to clothe the Big and Tall. Her mother's job was to take appointments for people's sick cats. Whose job was it to make sure Ellie made it safely from earth science to the library?

There was a long silence between us, during which I stared up at the stained-glass window and the many shades of light that it cast on the walls around us.

“I guess maybe you're right,” I said. “I guess I'm not really doing all that great.”

Mariah

Silas
. Silas Calhoun. Silas fill-in-the-blank Calhoun. I didn't know his middle name. I made a note to myself to ask him.

SilasSilasSilasSilas. CalhounCalhounCalhounCalhoun.

We'd been talking on the phone almost every night. Whenever I called, usually around nine, he'd answer and after about an hour or so he'd ask if I wanted to talk to Emma and I'd say it was getting late and I'd better get back to my home-work but we both knew that I wasn't really calling to talk to Emma anyway. I was calling to talk to Silas. He had a deep voice with soft edges and a laugh like he couldn't quite catch his breath.

We never talked about Bronwyn, but it was obvious that they were having trouble. If things were so great between
them then why wasn't he on the phone with her for an hour every night?

The morning of the Ellie Clements story he found me in the hallway and we sat together talking on a bench. It was the first time we ever hung out together at school except for the time we went out to the hill by the athletic fields, but nobody could see us together there. When we were on the bench in the hallway, we were together for all of Odious to see.

Silas thought we should go see Detective Stevens. He said he'd tried talking to Emma about it but she refused to discuss anything at all having to do with what happened down by the river. Silas had a theory. He thought maybe the same guy who attacked Emma had something to do with Ellie's disap-pearance.

“I don't think so, Silas. She lived on the other side of the river. That's pretty far away from here.”

“So what?”

“I don't know, this guy didn't exactly look like he drove a sports coupe.”

“What are you saying?”

“Nothing really, I just mean that this guy didn't seem like the type who gets around easily.”

“What, he had no legs? Don't you think you should have mentioned that to the police?”

“No, stupid. I mean, I don't know, he seemed like a vagrant, and I don't really know how someone like that would make his way thirty miles north and across the river.”

“Did you tell the police that he seemed like a vagrant?”

It was time to change the subject. Silas was asking too
many questions. I knew he wanted to be a lawyer. He wanted to be like one of those lawyers on
Law & Order
or one of those legal shows I never watch because they seem kind of boring. I knew this about Silas because he'd told me that was what he wanted to do. He wanted to go to Columbia Law School after he got his undergraduate degree from Columbia. “Settle down there, Clarence Darrow,” I said. “How do you know about Clarence Darrow?” “Why do you seem so surprised that I'd know about Clarence Darrow? He was one of our nation's greatest law-yers. The Scopes trial? Scottsboro? C'mon, Silas, I'm not an idiot.” What Silas was forgetting was that he'd told me on the phone that he wanted to be the next Clarence Darrow, and I had no idea who that was, so I looked him up on the Internet.

“I never said you were an idiot. You're just surprising, is all.”

Just then we saw Emma walking down the hall and Silas jumped up like we'd been caught doing something wrong. He called out to her and waved her over but she just kept on walking.

A few days later I got a call from Detective Stevens. He wanted to meet with all of us again down at the station.

Needless to say, I didn't really want to go, but it became clear that I had no choice. My mom had already talked with Emma's and Anna's parents and they had agreed on a time. Three on Saturday. Carl was coming. Mom and Carl were going to get a sitter and spend a few precious hours away from perfect little Jessica. This was a big deal.

It seemed like a good idea for us all to get together, to go over the details of our story again, but Emma wouldn't agree to meet with us. I couldn't figure out why she was being such a bitch. At first I thought Emma was so cool and that Anna was the dud, but now it was starting to seem like I had every-thing backwards. Emma was sulky. She was too wrapped up in herself. It was no wonder that Owen totally blew her off after that first night at DJ's. She was turning out to be someone no-body wanted to be around.

I met Anna in the library on the Friday afternoon before our meeting down at the station. She wasn't worried at all. Mostly she wanted to talk about Tobey Endo. I was getting a little tired of that topic and also of having to convince her that she had a chance with him. Tobey was a little weird. He was cute, for sure, but he was kind of a loner and had long hair that hung in his eyes and he was always writing and sketching in this little notebook of his. He wasn't your typical Odious jock type. Maybe Anna had a chance with him. Maybe she didn't. But it seemed like telling her I thought she had a chance was the right thing to do. That's the kind of lie I'm pretty sure makes you a decent person instead of a big fat liar.

Just as we were moving on from Tobey back to the night by the river, a girl I'd never seen before walked into the library. She had long straight red hair and she wore jeans and an Indian-print shirt. New faces jump out at you in a place like this, and so does someone not in uniform. But I would have noticed her anyway because her hair was such a deep, dark shade of red and her face was so pale. She was beautiful. She carried a stack of blue flyers and pinned one to the bulletin
board by the front desk; then she brought one over to our table.

“Hey, guys. Take Back the Night march over at the college. Next Friday night. Be there.” Her nails were painted a color that matched her hair. She wore tan suede clogs.

I looked at the flyer. It said:

This is OUR world. WE make the rules.

WE say that girls will be safe walking home from school.

WE say that girls will be safe in our schools or on our streets or sitting by the river.

WE say that girls will grow up to be women who will live without fear.

Let's TAKE BACK THE NIGHT.

Join us for a midnight march from the gates of the college, through the surrounding neighborhoods, down to the river and back.

This is OUR world. Let's reclaim it.

STOP VIOLENCE AGAINST WOMEN NOW!!!

Anna clutched the flyer and called out to the redheaded girl, “Hey! We were there! We were there!”

I said “
Shhhhh
” and Anna shrugged and shot me a look that said
Sorry, I forgot this is a library
, but that isn't really what I meant when I shushed her.

Red-hair-and-nail girl turned around and came back to our table. “You aren't Emma Calhoun, are you?”

“No. I'm Anna. This is Mariah. We were with Emma that night.”

“Hey. Wow. Heavy.” She sat down. “I'm Crystal, I'm cochair of the Feminist Union and I take classes with Professor Calhoun. Pamela Calhoun, not Raymond. He's a pig. Anyway, we're having this march on Friday. We had one last month too, but we didn't veer any farther than about two blocks off campus. This time we want to march not only for the women on our campus, but also for the victims in the larger community. We're going to cut a wider swath. It'll be a long one. Bring your marching shoes.”

Anna was beaming. “We'd love to go.”

“Hey, that'd be great. It'll be really powerful having you along. I'm hoping that we can get some folks from Kapachuck to come down for this too, but I'm not having much luck. It's a long drive for a midnight march. And anyway, they're still too wrapped up in searching for Ellie Clements, like there's any chance she's still alive.”

“Who knows,” said Anna. “The police thought maybe she ran away.”

“Yeah, sure,” said Crystal. “Not likely.” She stood up again. “Well, I gotta go. I gotta keep spreading the word.”

“Oh man. This is a disaster,” I said. I put my head in my hands. Anna was folding the flyer neatly and slipping it into her backpack.

“You worry too much, Mariah. This is a good thing. Lots of bad stuff happens to women on college campuses and all over. And something probably did happen to Ellie Clements. It can't hurt to get our community out in the streets
demonstrating that we aren't going to let this stuff happen anymore.”

I could see that she had a point, but still, I didn't feel like taking to the streets. I felt like taking to bed until this all went away.

Anna

We filled up the waiting room
of the police station. With the three of us and three sets of parents, there weren't any more chairs. I stood reading the peeling posters on the walls about keeping kids off drugs and what to do if someone is choking and I tried to ignore how quiet a room filled with nine people could be.

Detective Stevens poked his head in and waved at every-one and then asked if Mariah and Emma and I could join him in his office. Emma's dad jumped up from his seat.

A few quick facts about Raymond Calhoun: He's kind of a jerk. He always corrects my grammar. He's full of himself. He's not that nice to Emma's mom. And also, and I never manage to put this out of my head whenever I'm around him, there's that stuff Emma told me about why they left the city.

“If you don't mind, I'd like to be there for this discussion,” he said.

Detective Stevens stepped into the waiting room, closed the door behind him and stood with his back against it. “I'm sorry. That's not possible.”

“Listen, Detective.” Raymond's face was red now. “If you don't mind my saying, I don't exactly think you're doing a bang-up job with this investigation. My daughter was lucky. She made it home that night. But I don't want to take any chances. I want this guy caught and put behind bars and, frankly, I'm not sure you're up to the task.”

Mariah's stepfather was on his feet now, standing next to Emma's father. I looked over at my dad. He was still sitting in the uncomfortable blue plastic chair. He smiled a sad smile at me.

“I'm sorry you feel that way, Mr. Calhoun.” Detective Stevens pulled at his tie.

“Dr. Calhoun.”

“Excuse me?”

“I have a doctorate in English literature.”

“Oh. Okay. Fine. Whatever. Dr. Calhoun. We don't allow parents in when we interview witnesses. It can tamper with our process. I understand that you want to protect your daugh-ters, but you have to understand that that's also what we want. That's what we do for a living. We protect people.”

This seemed to work on Raymond. He took his seat again. So did Mariah's stepdad. We followed Detective Stevens down the halls of the station, through a large room with officers typing on gigantic old computers, to a door he held open for us. “We can talk in here, my boss's office.”

He sat behind a big desk and we sat in chairs facing him and a nameplate that said DET. ROBERT CAPUTO. He picked up a pen and twirled it between his fingers.

“My boss wanted me to bring you guys in here again. He wanted me to find out whether there could be any connection between what happened to you and what happened up in Ka-pachuck. What do you guys think of that?”

Silence. Detective Stevens stared at us. He was tugging at one of his Howdy Doody ears. I hated being there. I hated the way he held that spiral notebook and the pen in his hand. I hated the way he stared at us with his wide eyes, waiting. Someone had to say something.

I was surprised to find that that person was me. “I dunno.”

“Okay. Let's start over.” He leaned back in his chair. He put his feet up on the desk but then he seemed to remember that it wasn't his desk and he quickly put his feet back on the floor. “What do we know about this man who attacked you?”

“Not much,” I said, because I had taken on the role of Anna Who Does All the Talking.

“Well, do we think maybe he was a homeless person?”

“What? Where'd you get that idea?” I asked.

He didn't answer right away. Again, he was practicing his Detective Stevens waiting method. I glanced at Emma, who had that faraway look in her eyes she seemed to be perfecting. Mariah looked like she was doing some kind of feverish calcu-lation in her head. Her eyes were darting back and forth.

“Let's see.” He looked down at his notepad. He tapped it a few times with his pen. “Silas Calhoun.” He looked at Emma. “Your brother. He told me that Mariah told him that the man appeared to be a vagrant.”

I didn't say anything. I didn't remember that part of the story.

Mariah finally spoke up. “Yeah. I guess I can't be sure but he was dirty and he smelled kind of bad and his clothes were beat-up.”

“Is this true?” The question was directed at Emma and me.

“Um, yeah, I guess Mariah's right. I can't remember so well but that sounds right to me,” I said, because what else could I say to make Detective Stevens stop looking at me?

“Emma?” he asked.

Emma shot an angry look at Mariah. “Why are you talking about this to Silas?”