The Telling (39 page)

With Diane's and Ben's real names—Sophie and Henry Wheaton—Sweeny says she'll be able to find his name and picture. Her officers and a forensic team are combing through the wreckage of the scorched cabin, searching for any indication of where he might be headed. He won't be able to dodge the police on our tiny island
once his photo circulates. Sweeny is in the process of closing departing boat and vehicle traffic. She's casting a net over Gant.

Carolynn, Josh, and I settle into the certainty that the police will handle all. They have the pieces of the puzzle. They know it wasn't a carjacking that ratcheted out of control. Ben was meant to die all along.
He
made Maggie draw Ben out of the house that night. He poisoned Maggie when she wasn't willing to keep his secret any longer. He took the beaks off birds and murdered Becca's dogs. He meant to terrorize us because that's what he does; he torments children. He might have been peering through the cracks of our curtains, looking for his opportunity to hurt me, and Dad's erratic work schedule, or that I always set the alarm and lock the doors, fouled him up. Becca was an easier target. She never remembered to lock her front door; if she had an alarm, I've never seen her use it. We stumbled onto him destroying the evidence of his stay in Gant when we went looking for the photo album. The police are on their way to Calm Coast to protect Diane; officers have been dispatched to Rusty's, Duncan's, and Willa's houses; Dad is under police protection and a highway patrol cruiser was sent to tail us the whole way home.

If Willa had been with us during our drive home, she would have pointed out that Ben's grandfather recovering from a stroke and going on a killing spree in Gant is as fantastic as our stories. Not Josh and Carolynn. Josh steered us home, his mood gradually brightening, even in grief, because everything was set to work out as it always did. Becca's killer would pay; justice would be served; senior year would begin with new backpacks and memorial assemblies, where kids who barely knew Becca and Ford could cry over them.

I try not to let myself wonder why
He
hadn't gone for my father or me right after Ben. His motive was to hurt Diane, so weren't we the obvious victims? Was it really that impossible to reach us? Our house isn't a fortress. I'd been outside alone in the small hours of the morning. I try not to focus on the holes that appear the more I consider it; I try not to think that Willa would be pointing out all the fissures threatening to break our theory apart.

Not Carolynn. Carolynn is her mother's daughter, and she knows that people leap from terraces. Carolynn is half-blinded by grief over Becca, and all the walls she'd built to prop herself up while we tracked the killer down crumbled in the car ride home as she gave in to sadness. She balled up in the backseat and sobbed, loud shoulder-shaking cries.

Oh, the elaborate explanations I dreamed up over that three-hour drive. I built glass castles in the air, and they all came crashing to the ground as the police and my father sat me down when I arrived home.

I channel Willa's voice in my head as they tell me, in no uncertain terms, that Ben's grandfather, Jeremiah Wheaton III, died in Switzerland five months ago. He never left the clinic or his Swiss doctor's care. Sweeny confirmed his death with Interpol. Dad's already been on the phone, trying to reach a sedated Diane at Calm Coast.

The Willa in my head says:
You can't be that surprised. Even if he recovered after the stroke, he was a little old man. How would an old man drag Ben from a car or across the highway? How does an old man chase Maggie through the woods? How would he have had the strength to string Becca up from the swing set or to overpower Ford?

Willa's voice keeps on listing all the improbabilities from the
space between my ears as I look on at Sweeny's thin and troubled face. Ward stands close at her back. He brushes her elbow, and she smiles faintly.

She draws a deep breath. “Fitzgerald Moore is being charged with all four murders.” Her usual thoughtfulness is switched off. “We suspect that he's been off antipsychotics for several years and out of the care of a doctor. We found the knife he used on the birds and dogs with his belongings. A psychologist is working with Fitzgerald and his public defender to ascertain his competency and ability to answer our questions.”

“The stories that match up with the murders,” Josh says. “How did he know them?”

“There's a witness, a man who owns Island Deli,” Sweeny says. “A number of officers remembered seeing Ben there with Fitzgerald on numerous occasions. When asked about it, the deli's owner told my officers that Ben was in the habit of buying Fitzgerald lunch. The witness saw them eating outside on the picnic tables. He thought they were a strange pair and listened in to their conversation. Ben was telling him a story. One that he said was . . .”

“Full of guts and smut,” Ward interjects with a flick of a judgmental eyebrow.

“Yes, thank you, Detective,” Sweeny says, mildly reproachful. “Those were his words, not ours. What is significant is this: We now have a credible account that Fitzgerald Moore was told at least one of Ben's stories.”

“And where there's smoke, there's fire,” Ward declares.

“
Usually
,” Sweeny inserts as Ward barrels on loudly.

“This big oaf knew the stories, and in his clinically unwell state,
he murdered four people. Who knows? Maybe he thought it wasn't real? Maybe he had a break with reality or thought he was acting the stories out?”

“None of that really matters at this juncture,” Sweeny cuts in. “Fitzgerald Moore is in police custody and there he will remain until he stands trial or is remanded to an institution.”

“He was in police custody this morning. What's your explanation for the fire in the preserve?” Dad asks.

“Our fire inspector and officers had a look around,” Sweeny says. “There's nothing to suggest that it wasn't a hiker or squatter using the cabin for a place to escape the cold. The fire spread from the fireplace—an accident, it would seem. No accelerant used, and it burned itself out once the structure was demolished.”

“But Maggie's note,” I say. Dad puts his arm around me and draws me to his side. “The cabin is where we found the photo album.”

Sweeny sighs and moves so she's poised on my other side. “It's possible Maggie was using the cabin before her death. We don't understand Ms. Lewis's involvement with Fitzgerald Moore. Not yet. We will, though.” There's no conviction in her words.

Willa's voice in my head is louder than those outside it after that point. A mentally ill man who knew the stories and lives in Gant is a much more reasonable suspect than an old man, who is reportedly dead. Soon Josh hugs me good-bye, murmurs that he'll call me, and leads Carolynn, who has completely shut down, from the house. The police disperse too. Dad speaks heatedly over the phone with the folks at Calm Coast for the second time, and they promise to have Diane call once she emerges from the haze of tranquilizer they injected her with while I was there.

I'm in a haze of my own the next two days. I am here in the living room, tucked under a mohair throw, staring at the fog rolling in to blanket the harbor. I am not here.

I am the Lana who nerve and mischief failed. I am June. I am barbecue on the air and blood in my mouth and my flip-flops sticking to the asphalt as the police snapped photos of my arms, torso, and face.

I am disappointed because this end to our story would not have satisfied Ben. Ben's villains were evil to their core; they weren't mentally ill and off their meds. Knowing Ben, he would feel compassion for Fitzgerald. Anger, sure, but in Ben's heart he would have blamed the world that failed Fitzgerald more than the man himself. That leaves me frustrated. I never played the hero.

I hear the rumblings when Dad is on the phone with Josh's moms or the police are in Dad's office with him. I hear the lawyer's advice when newspapers start hounding us. There are those who think Ben was at least a tiny bit to blame.
What was a boy like Ben McBrook doing befriending a man like Fitzgerald Moore?
The gist is this: If he'd never bothered to be kind, Ben would be alive, the others also. No good deed goes unpunished. I bet that's what Mom would say if she were here. She liked that adage, even though it wasn't one of her originals.

I can only stomach talking to Willa about it. She sits on the opposite end of the couch two mornings after we learned that Ben's grandfather is dead.

“I failed,” I whisper. Dad is working on the terrace. Diane is coming home tomorrow. We're expecting the worst when we drive to pick her up from Calm Coast. But we'll be happy to have her. Our family will be as whole as it can be.

“How do you mean?” Willa asks.

“I was supposed to hunt Ben's killer down. All of it, Swisher Spring, hiking back into the preserve, going to see Diane—I was just on the trail of a ghost. I dragged the others along. Sweeny and Ward found Skitzy-Fitzy. I didn't get any revenge or even justice for Ben.”

“They're the police. That's their job,” Willa says. “We're seventeen and about to start our last year of high school.” She picks at the seam of her jeans. “Ben would understand. He would be grateful that you fought for him.” She plucks my hand from my lap and laces her fingers in mine. “He would want you to move on.” She raises our joined hands and emphasizes her next words. “Ada-freaking-Lovelace, Lana, Ben would want you to
live
, to go out with Josh, to make it to the homecoming dance, to get into the college of your dreams, all of it. Ben wanted that for you.” Her hair is wavy and frenzied, framing her face like a lion's mane, and her eyes glow. “It's time to fight for yourself.”

The ambiguous noise I plan to make catches in my throat when I hear those words, spoken in her fierce whisper. I'm less and less sure of what Ben would have wanted and who he was.

We wanted secrets. He had plenty—they were just from me.

We wanted shared history. He had more history than I knew. Our make-believe, adventures, and stories—the very things that had grown to be a part of me, like an organ that was vital to my survival—turned out to belong to someone else.

Every story is recast in the sickly yellow of a bruise that refuses to heal. As Ben fades, Willa does not. Willa is steady and determined as always. Willa wants me to fight, and I realize how much I want to. My knuckles are going weak in anticipation. That daring,
hungry little voice is here, whispering,
Live, go on, dare to be happy
.

“Listen, the end-of-the-summer bonfire is tonight,” Willa says.

I touch my chest and say in mock horror, “Who are you and what have you done with my best friend?”

She throws her hands up. “I know, I know, I am the last person in the universe you would expect to hear this from, but—and I swear to you that my brain hasn't been hijacked by an alien life-form that craves Jell-O shots and testosterone-fueled drinking games—I think we should go. The others—Duncan, Rusty, Josh, and Carolynn—are all going, and everyone thinks it would be good for you to get out.”

“You've been talking to them?”

She shrugs. “Someone had to, since you've gone incommunicado and won't answer Josh's or Carolynn's calls. They want us to be together tonight, a united front at the bonfire. No one's thrilled about going, but school starts in
three days
.” She waves three fingers in my face. “It's either tonight or we show up for first period on Monday and it's baptism by fire.”

It's difficult to deny Willa's argument. I can't put off facing the outside world much longer. I can't go back to making myself a tiny ball so that there is less of me to ache for Ben, for Becca, even for Maggie and Ford. And I don't want to.

This is why, eight hours later, I'm pulling jeans on when Josh calls, and for the first time in days, I answer.

“Hi.”

“Hey.” A pause, then, “This is Josh Parker . . . blond hair, blue eyes,
really ridiculously good-looking and funny
. We shared a kiss once—twice.”

I laugh.

“I was just double-checking that you remember me, since we haven't talked in so long.”

“Yeah, sorry about that.”

“Don't apologize. Just actually show up tonight, okay?”

“I will. I'm leaving soon to pick up Willa.”

“Yeah? Good. You better be there, because I'm going to hold my breath.”

“I promise. I'll see you soon. And Josh?”

“Yes, Lana?”

“Thank you.”

“For?”

“Being you.”

A happy laugh. “I couldn't stop even if I wanted to,” he says.

Dad's in the media room. I peek through the door at an old family movie playing on the projection screen. The four of us are at a ski cabin. Ben and I are hunched over a Scrabble board, with Diane laughing between sips from a ceramic mug. She comes up with whipped cream on her nose, and the camera shakes as Dad chuckles. It's possible Dad's watched videos like this since Ben, and I was just too wrapped up in my own grief to notice his. I toe through the door and hug his neck from behind. He smells like cologne that reminds me of being a little kid bundled up beside him when we'd go to watch downtown lit up in December.

He squeezes my arms back, and I see tears in the lines at the corners of his eyes. He clears his throat of emotion. “You headed to go get Willa?”

“Yeah,” I say. “I'd like to watch these with you sometime.”

He half turns, and I see a hopeful smile. “I'd like that too.”

I go to twist the front doorknob as it occurs to me that if this is really a new start, not
before
or even
after
, then I need to do something before I leave. I flip the floodlights on for the terrace and scrunch my neck deeper into my sweater's collar.