The Pact (10 page)

Melanie shook her head. “As opposed to you? You can handle being the mother of a suicide risk. But you can't possibly accept being the mother of a murderer.”

Gus had so many comebacks, so many indignant responses, that they blistered the back of her throat. Convinced they would burn her alive, she pushed past Melanie and out the kitchen door. She ran home gulping cold draughts of air, and tried to push from her mind the knowledge that Melanie would consider her flight a surrender.

“I FEEL STUPID,” Chris said. His knees were up to his chin in the tiny wheelchair, but it was the only way the hospital would let him off the grounds. In this dumb invalid contraption, and with a piece of paper printed with the name of the psychiatrist he would now be seeing twice a week.

“It's for liability reasons,” his mother said, as if he cared, and walked into the elevator beside the orderly who was pushing him. “Besides, you'll be out in five minutes.”

“Five minutes too long,” Chris grumbled, and his mother rested her hand on his head.

“I think,” she said, “you're already feeling better.”

His mother started chattering about what they were having for dinner, and who had called to ask about him, and did he think it was going to snow before Thanksgiving this year. He gritted his teeth, just trying to block her out. What he wanted to say was Stop trying to act like nothing happened. Because something did, and you can't make it go back to being the same.

Instead, he looked up when she touched his face, and he forced a smile.

She slipped an arm around his waist as the orderly dumped them out at the lobby. “Thank you,” she said to the man, and headed for the sliding glass doors with Chris.

Outside, the air was wonderful. It snaked into his lungs, bigger and fresher than the air in the hospital. “I'm going to get the car,” his mother said, while Chris leaned against the brick of the hospital. Past the highway he saw the gray knobs of the mountains, and he closed his eyes for a minute, memorizing them.

At the sound of his name he blinked. Detective Marrone was standing there, blocking that beautiful view. “Chris,” she repeated. “I wonder if you'd be willing to come down to the station.” He WASN'T UNDER ARREST, but his parents had been against it anyway. “I'm only going to tell her the truth,” Chris had assured them, but his mother had just about fainted anyway and his father had run off to find a lawyer who would meet them at the station. Detective Marrone had pointed out that at seventeen, Chris could call his own shots in terms of legal representation, and he had to give her credit for that. He followed her down the narrow corridor of the police station to a small conference room with a tape recorder on the table.

She read him his Miranda rights, which he recognized from his Government course, and turned on the tape recorder. “Chris,” she said, “I'd like you to tell me in as much detail as possible what happened the night of November seventh.”

Chris folded his hands on the table and cleared his throat. “Emily and I had talked at school, and we decided I'd pick her up at seven-thirty.”

“You have your own car?”

“Yeah. It was, you know, there when the cops came. A green Jeep.” Detective Marrone nodded. “Go on.”

“We had brought along something to drink-”

“Something?”

“Alcohol.”

“We?”

“I had brought it.”

“Why?”

Chris shifted. Maybe he shouldn't have been answering all these questions. As if Detective Marrone realized she was pushing too hard, she asked something else. “Did you know then that Emily wanted to kill herself?”

“Yes,” Chris said. “She had a plan worked out.”

“Tell me about this plan,” Detective Marrone pressed. “Was it a Romeo and Juliet kind of thing?”

“No,” Chris said. “It was just what Emily wanted.”

“She wanted to kill herself.”

“Yes,” Chris answered.

“And then what?”

“Then,” he said, “I was going to kill myself.”

“What time did you pick her up?”

“Seven-thirty,” Chris replied. “I already said that.”

“Right. And did Emily tell anyone else she was going to kill herself?” Chris shrugged. “I don't think so.”

“Did you?”

“No.”

The detective crossed her legs. “Why not?”

Chris stared into his lap. “Emily already knew. I didn't care if anyone else did.”

“And what did she tell you?”

He began to trace a pattern on the table with the nail of his thumb. “She kept saying she wanted to keep things exactly the way they were, and that she wished she could stop everything from changing. She got really nervous, like, talking about the future. She once told me that she could see herself now, and she could also see the kind of life she wanted to have-kids, husband, suburbs, you know-but she couldn't figure out how to get from point A to point B.”

“Is that how you felt, too?”

“Sometimes,” Chris said softly. “Especially when I thought about her dying.” He bit his bottom lip.

“Something was hurting Em,” he said. “Something that she couldn't even tell me. Every now and then when we ... when we . . .” His throat closed, and he looked away. “Could I have a minute?” The detective dispassionately shut off the recorder. When Chris nodded, red-eyed, she hit the button again. “Did you try to talk her out of it?”

“Yeah,” Chris said. “A million times.”

“That night?”

“And before.”

“Where did you go that night?”

“To the carousel. The one by the old fairground that's a kid's park now. I used to work there.”

“You chose the place?”

“Emily picked it.”

“What time did you arrive?”

“About eight,” Chris said.

“After you stopped for dinner?”

“We didn't have dinner together,” Chris said. “We ate at home.”

“What did you do next?”

Chris exhaled slowly. “I got out of the car and opened Em's door. We carried the bottle of Canadian Club over to the carousel and sat down on one of the benches.”

“Did you have sexual intercourse with Emily that night?”

Chris's eyes narrowed. “I don't think that's any of your business.”

“All of this,” Detective Marrone said, “is my business. Did you?” Chris nodded, and the detective gestured toward the tape recorder. “We did,” he said quietly.

“And this was a consensual act?”

“Yes,” Chris ground out, his jaw tight.

“You're certain?”

Chris flattened his palms on the table. “I was there,” he said.

“Did you show her the gun before or after having sex?”

“I don't remember. After, I guess.”

“But she knew you were bringing it?”

“It was her idea,” Chris said.

The detective nodded. “And was there a specific reason you took Emily to the carousel to kill herself?”

Chris frowned. “Emily wanted to go there,” he said.

“It was Emily's choice?”

“Yeah,” Chris answered. “We talked in circles about it before finally agreeing.”

“Why the carousel?”

“Emily always liked it,” Chris said. “I guess I did too.”

“So,” Anne-Marie said. “You sat down on the carousel, had a drink, watched the sun go down, had sex ...”

Chris hesitated, then reached over and shut off the tape recorder. “The sun had already gone down. It was eight o'clock,” he said quietly. “I told you that.” He looked the detective in the eye. “Don't you believe what I'm telling you?”

Anne-Marie flipped open the recorder and ejected the tape without ever glancing away from Chris.

“Should I?” she asked.

On Tuesday AFTERNOON, despite everyone's protestations, Melanie went back to work. It was a story-hour day, so the library was crowded with young mothers stuffing children into various stages of winter dress, but as Melanie walked in, they fell back in a hush, allowing her a clear path toward the staff room at the back. As she hung up her coat she wondered whether the news of Emily's death had truly traveled so fast, or whether instinct had somehow kicked in-some scent wafting from Melanie's skin or some disturbance of the electricity around her that warned other mothers: Here is a parent who couldn't keep her child safe.

“Melanie,” a voice gasped, and she turned around to find Rose, her second-in-command, standing behind her. “No one expected you to come in.”

“I've been coming in for seventeen years,” Melanie said quietly. “This is the place I felt most comfortable.”

“Well. Yes.” Rose didn't seem to know what to say. “How are you holding up, honey?” Melanie drew back. “I'm here,” she said, “aren't I?”

She walked to the front desk, settling into the head librarian's chair with some trepidation-what if this, too, had suddenly become unfamiliar? But no, it was just as it had always been, curved nearly to the conformation of her bottom, that annoying metal thing jamming up beneath her right thigh. She spread her hands on the counter and waited.

All it would take was one patron with a query, and she would be healed. She would be useful again. She smiled benignly at two young student types, who nodded and passed her on the way to the periodical room. She slipped off her pumps, rubbed her stocking feet against the cold chrome legs of the swivel chair, and put her shoes on again. She typed in query words on her computer search screen, just to practice: Salem Witch Trials. Malachite. Elizabeth Regina.

“Pardon me.”

Melanie's head snapped forward to find a woman close to her own age on the other side of the reference desk. “Yes. Can I help you?”

“God, I hope so,” the woman exhaled. “I'm trying to find as much as I can on Atalanta.” She hesitated. “The Greek runner,” she clarified. “Not the city in Georgia.” Melanie smiled. “I know.” Her fingers began flying over the keys, her body overrun with a giddiness not unlike a nicotine high. “Atalanta would be with the Greek myths. The call number is-” Melanie knew it firsthand: 292. But before she could say it the woman rolled her eyes, relieved.

“Thank God,” she said. “My daughter is doing a social studies report, and we couldn't find information in the Orford Library. Atlas? Three books. But Atalanta . . .” My daughter. Melanie looked at the list of books pulled up by her computer that were available right around the corner. She opened her mouth to give her the information, and heard instead a voice that surely could not have been her own. “Check nonfiction,” Melanie said. “Call number 641.5.”

It was the cookbook section.

The woman thanked her profusely, and set off to look in the wrong place.

Melanie felt something tussle and free inside of her, an embolism formed Friday night that-now dislodged-could slowly poison her system. She hugged her arms about herself, trying to keep close this mean-spiritedness. A man approached, asking her recommendation for a recent novel. He told her he liked Clancy, Cussler, Crichton, that he wanted to try someone new. “By all means,” Melanie told him. “The latest Robert James Waller.”

She sent college students off to the stacks of the children's room; historians to the self-help sections; videotape borrowers to the Fodor's travel guides. When one young man asked the way to the bathroom, she directed him to the closet where they stored books out of circulation. And all the while Melanie smiled, finding that doling out frustration and misery was far more gratifying than passing information had ever been.

JORDAN McAfee, THE DEFENSE ATTORNEY recommended by Gary Moor-house, sat at the Harte's kitchen table, a sullen Chris to his right, Gus just behind. He had come directly from his health club and was wearing shorts and a rumpled henley shirt; his cheeks were flushed and a trickle of perspiration ran down his temple.

James was a big believer in first impressions. Granted, it was eight o'clock at night. . . but still. The lack of a suit; the spiky wet hair; the beads of sweat-Jordan McAfee might have merely been overheated, but to James he only seemed nervous. James was unable to imagine the man as anyone's white knight, much less his own son's.

“Now,” Jordan McAfee said, “Chris already told me what he said to Detective Marrone. Because he went voluntarily, and because she did read him his rights, anything he said can be used against him. However, if it comes to this, I'll fight to have the hospital conversation made inadmissible.” He looked up at James. “I'm sure you've got questions. Why don't we start there?” How many cases, James wanted to ask, have you won? How do I know you'll save my son? But instead he swallowed his doubts. Moorhouse had said that McAfee was a legal star, Law Review at Harvard, sought after by every firm east of the Mississippi when he decided to join the New Hampshire attorney general's office instead. After ten years, he'd defected to the defense side. He was known for his charm, his quick mind, and his equally quick temper. James wondered if McAfee had any children of his own.

“What are the chances that there will be a trial?”

McAfee scratched his jaw. “Chris hasn't formerly been named as a suspect, but he's been questioned twice. Any police case of this nature is going to be treated as a homicide. And Chris's alibi notwithstanding, if the AG's office feels there's enough to run with, they'll get an indictment handed down.” He looked James in the eye. “I'd say there's a very good chance.” Gus gasped. “What happens then? He's seventeen.”

“Mom-”

“He'll be tried as an adult in the state of New Hampshire.”

“Which means?” James asked.

“If he's taken into custody, there'll be an arraignment within twenty-four hours, and we'll enter a plea and post bail, if necessary. Then a court date will be set.”

“You mean he'll be held in a jail overnight?”

“Most likely,” McAfee said.

“But that's not fair!” Gus exclaimed. “Just because the attorney general says there was a murder, we have to play by his rules? There wasn't a murder. There was a suicide. That's not something you go to jail for.”

“There are whole books full of cases, Mrs. Harte,” McAfee said, “where the prosecution takes a running leap and finds out too late that the swimming hole was empty. Chris and Emily are the only two people who can say what truly happened. Bottom line? Emily can't give her version, and the State of New Hampshire has no reason to trust your son. All they see, right now, is a dead teenage girl and a bullet fired. They don't know the history behind these kids, the relationship they had, their states of mind. The case is going to be won, frankly, on its heart. I can tell you now that the AG is going to produce an autopsy report and read into it anything he can. I can tell you he'll make a production out of the fact that Chris's fingerprints were on the gun. As for what else he thinks he's got. . . well, I'm going to have to talk to Chris at length.”