Truly, Madly, Deadly (9 page)

“Ms. Dodd?” Principal Chappie poked his head out of his office, his voice shaking Sawyer out of her revelry. She sighed as her mind failed to grasp the image of her leaving that night.

“I’m right here,” Sawyer said, standing up slowly.

Principal Chappie stood aside and ushered Sawyer down the hall. He pushed open the door and she followed him in.

“Sawyer,” Principal Chappie said, arm extended. “This is Ms. Alum, the grief counselor.”

Sawyer swallowed hard, looking from Principal Chappie to the tiny, dark-haired grief counselor who couldn’t have been more than five years older than she was. She had heavy black lashes over wide, eager, brown eyes and a pin-tucked charcoal suit that was all at once businesslike and sexy.

“I don’t need to see a grief counselor, Principal Chappie. Sorry, Ms. Alum. They already make me see a psychologist twice a week. I’m really kind of grief-counseled out.” Sawyer hiked her backpack up her shoulder and turned to go, but was stopped when she came chest to tweed-coated chest with a mustached man, his stubby fingers clutching a black leather notebook.

“And this is Detective Biggs.”

Sawyer’s breath hitched. “Oh.”

Heat washed over her cheeks and Sawyer fought to stay cool, thinking that the detective could somehow sense her guilt, her confusion over the night, over the muddied shoe underneath her bed.

“Hello, Sawyer.”

Sawyer forced her muscles to move and felt her head bob in a semblance of a nod.

Detective Biggs offered a smile that wasn’t really a smile, his teeth a faded, nicotine yellow. “I’m sorry we have to meet again this way. Under these kind of circumstances.”

“Yeah,” Sawyer said, licking her bottom lip as her pulse started to speed. Up until Kevin’s death, she had never even seen a detective that wasn’t on television. Now, she seemed to have her own personal one.

Detective Biggs stared at her, and Sawyer felt the insane urge to bolt. She didn’t want any of this to be happening. She wanted to be normal again, to be staring at the clock in biology class, deciding which dress to wear to prom.

“Can you take a seat, please, Ms. Dodd?” Principal Chappie’s voice was kind.

Sawyer took a small step back, the detective’s eyes still on her. His face broke into what passed as a smile for detectives, Sawyer guessed. “There’s nothing to be afraid of, Sawyer.”

Sawyer didn’t like the way the detective used her name when he spoke to her, holding it in his mouth and then pressing out the syllables. Sawyer sank into a chair opposite Ms. Alum, and Detective Biggs sat down next her, pulling out the same leather notebook he’d had at Sawyer’s house. Sawyer vaguely wondered if he bought them by the case. “This is just some routine questioning, you understand.”

Sawyer looked at the ring of faces around her: Ms. Alum’s was pretty but pinched with an attempt to look both serious and sympathetic; Principal Chappie’s lips were pressed together and he kept rubbing his thumb over the face of his watch, his impatience evident; and Detective Biggs looked as though he’d just waddled out of a cop show with a few crumbs of powdered sugar at the edge of his mouth, his caterpillar eyebrows sharp Vs.

“Routine questions about what?” Sawyer wasn’t sure she’d actually asked the question. The voice that came out was subdued and strange, and though she couldn’t understand why, she felt herself flush, felt her knees weaken and the all-too-familiar salivating that came before vomiting.

“Oh God. I’m sorry but I think I’m going to be sick.”

Ms. Alum patted Sawyer’s back soothingly. “Shall I take you to the ladies’ room?”

Sawyer shook her head, and Detective Biggs pushed a Styrofoam cup of water into her hands. She took a small sip, her eyes flashing behind the cup.

“I think I’m okay,” she said finally.

Seated there in the school conference room, Sawyer worked the rim of a Styrofoam water cup with her fingernails for a full minute. No one said anything. Finally, Ms. Alum broke the silence. “Are you feeling better?”

Sawyer nodded.

“It’s perfectly normal to have visceral reactions to emotionally charged situations.”

Sawyer nodded again, letting Ms. Alum’s textbook conversation drift over her. “There’s just been a lot going on.”

“You mean because of Kevin.”

It had become the stock answer and Sawyer gave the stock response: a mute nod followed by a watery-eyed stare—a broken-hearted teenager mourning the death of her first love.

Ms. Alum reached out her hand as if she wanted to pat Sawyer’s, but she thought better of it, or remembered the litigious nature of school parents, and folded her hands in her lap. “Do you want to talk about him?”

“No.”

“Then how about Mr. Hanson?”

Sawyer swallowed heavily, feeling the need to vomit again. “Why are you asking me about him?”

“We’re asking everyone. I understand that Mr. Hanson was a popular teacher among the junior class. You had him for Spanish sixth period, is that right?”

“Yes.”

“His death must come as quite a shock and especially to you, after what happened.”

Sawyer felt her jaw tighten. “You mean because my boyfriend died? Because I’m fragile and they make me take drugs?”

Redness bloomed in Ms. Alum’s cheeks. “No, that’s not it. And antidepressants are nothing to be ashamed of, Sawyer. They’re medicine for an illness that you have. You’ll get better.”

She batted her big eyes, and Sawyer felt slightly sorry for the curt way she bit off her words.

“I’m just here in case you want to talk, to share any feelings of unfinished business or if you want to talk about how you are feeling.”

Sawyer pinched a piece of Styrofoam from her cup. “I feel fine.”

“Okay,” Ms. Alum said slowly, “then you won’t mind answering a few questions for Detective Biggs.”

“Wait, what? Why do I need to answer more questions?” Sawyer spun around in her chair to focus on Detective Biggs, trusty notebook still poised in one hand, pen in the other.

“Again, I’m sorry we have to meet again this way. I’ll try my best to make it quick and painless.”

“Are you allowed to do this?” Sawyer asked, suddenly nervous, suddenly gripping the armrests of the cheap leather chair she sat in.

“Principal Chappie got the okay from your parents.”

“From my parents? My mother is an attorney. There is no way she’d let you question me especially when I don’t know anything—anything about Mr. Hanson.” She began gathering her backpack. “I need to get back to class.”

Detective Biggs pushed the end of his pen against Sawyer’s arm. “Your mother was at home when we called.”

“No, she—Tara? You mean Tara. You talked to Tara, my stepmother. She can’t—she can’t say what I should do.” Sawyer felt her words trailing off. “She doesn’t know what I can do.”

“Your father called back and agreed. I spoke to him personally. Is there a reason you don’t want to talk to me today, Sawyer?” Detective Biggs’s deflated balloon cheeks pressed up into a weird smile. “You’re not in any trouble. We’re just trying to get a clear picture of what happened in the hours before Mr. Hanson’s death.”

Sawyer pulled her sleeves down over her hands, fisted them. “Then why are you asking me?”

“Mr. Hanson had his grade book open to your file. It looked like he was making notes. Did you talk to him about that?”

Sawyer just shook her head, staring at the sweater wrapped over her knuckles.

“Did you see Mr. Hanson after school, Sawyer?”

Sawyer felt the same prick of disgust crawl up the back of her neck. “Yeah. Just for some”—she paused, sucked in a steadying breath—“just for some homework help.”

“About what time was that?”

Sawyer shrugged. “Two, almost three o’clock, I guess.”

“And can you tell us what transpired when you saw Mr. Hanson for homework help?”

“What transpired?”

“What happened, Sawyer?”

Sawyer tucked her knees to her chest. “Nothing. He gave me my test. I got a bad grade. He told me how I could improve it.”

“And how was that?”

Sawyer bit her lip. “Um, extra credit.”

“Extra homework, worksheets, stuff like that?”

Sawyer nodded. “Uh-huh. Stuff like that.”

“And how was Mr. Hanson when you left him?”

Lecherous
, Sawyer wanted to reply,
blue-balled.
Instead, she just shrugged. “Fine, I guess.”

“No signs of respiratory distress?”

Sawyer wagged her head, bit her thumbnail. “No.”

Detective Biggs wrote something on his notepad, tapped the end of his pen against it as if considering his next question carefully. “Was he eating anything? Did he have any food on his desk that you could see? Did he offer you anything to eat?”

“No. Nothing that I could see,” Sawyer said. “And he was fine when I left.”

Biggs puckered his lips. “And you didn’t give him anything? A snack, a cookie or—”

Sawyer felt herself gape as terror seized her heart. “You think I did this?”

“No, no,” Ms. Alum broke in.

“We’re just trying to get a clear picture of—”

“Of what
transpired,
I know. But I didn’t do anything. I didn’t force-feed him peanuts or anything. Is that what you think?”

“We know that you wouldn’t do anything deliberate like that. But just so I know, how did you know it was peanuts Mr. Hanson consumed?”

Sawyer’s mouth fell open. “I—Principal Chappie told me.”

Principal Chappie’s eyes widened, pinning Sawyer. “But everyone knew it,” Sawyer backpedaled, “everyone knew that was what Mr. Hanson was allergic to. He had a no-peanut sign up in his classroom.”

“A no-peanut sign?” Detective Biggs asked.

“You know, like, Mr. Peanut with a red slash across him.” Sawyer made the sign of a circle and a slash with her hands, then felt immediately ridiculous doing so. “Everyone knew,” she finished softly.

“That’s fine, Sawyer, thanks. Now, after you met with Mr. Hanson, did you drive home right after school?”

“No. I mean, yes. I took a kid home. I dropped him off and then, yes, I went home too.”

Detective Biggs pressed his lips into a thin, hard line and read over his notes, which Sawyer guessed must have been a series of no’s and nothing else. “Okay, well, that’s all I need from you.”

Relief washed over Sawyer. “That’s it?”

“Yeah.” Detective Biggs’s grin was kind, almost fatherly. “Unless there’s something you want to admit to.” He chuckled, the buttons on his shirt vibrating.

Sawyer pushed back in her chair. “No, thanks.”

As she wound her way out of the conference room and through the administrative office, Sawyer breathed deeply, peeling her suddenly damp T-shirt from her back. Her heart rate had just slipped back to normal when she heard someone calling out to her.

“Oh, Sawyer! I was about to send a note to you.” Mrs. Cambert, school secretary, from the top of her silvery bun to the bottom of her sensible shoes, smiled up at Sawyer. She slid an enormous bushel of blooms toward Sawyer. “These came for you.”

Sawyer blinked at the velvety red roses, blooms as big as fists interspersed with sprays of eucalyptus and tiny budding baby’s breath. She felt the smile press across her face. “These are for me?”

Mrs. Cambert plucked a small white envelope from the foliage and pressed it into Sawyer’s hand. “That’s your name, isn’t it?”

Sawyer nodded at her name typed across the front. “Sure is.” Sawyer snaked one arm around the glass vase and clutched it against her hip, still smiling. “Thanks so much, Mrs. Cambert.” She stepped into the hall and rested the vase on the edge of the water fountain, sliding a finger under the envelope’s seal.

She took one look at the enclosed mint green card and sucked in a sharp whoosh of ice-tinged air.

Sawyer—

You know I’d do anything for you.

It wasn’t the message that scared Sawyer so much—it was the curled piece of plastic that slid out with the card. With fingers shaking, she unfurled the thin label.

“Arachis oil?” she mumbled to herself. “What the heck is—” Sawyer’s heart stopped when she read on:
100% Cold-Pressed Gourmet Peanut Oil.
A black circle was drawn in Sharpie around something in the bottom corner. It was flanked by a hand-drawn smiley face. Sawyer squinted. “Caution: allergen.”

The tremble that started at Sawyer’s fingertips spread through her entire body until her teeth were chattering and her bones, it seemed, clattered against each other. Her throat closed to the size of a pinhole, and she struggled to breathe, feeling the blood rush to her head in a thunderous pound that brought tears to her eyes.

Is
this
what
it’s like to suffocate?

She clamped her eyes shut and tried to focus on bringing her sensibilities back under control.

Is
this
what
it
was
like
for
Mr. Hanson?

Vaguely, she felt the vase slip from her fingers, heard the echo of glass shattering on the floor, the water pooling at her feet. The roses scattered, blood-red petals scarred with shards of glass, cut, torn, turning in on themselves.

“Ms. Dodd?” Sawyer heard from a thousand miles away. “Ms. Dodd?”

She felt the slight weight of a hand on her shoulder, felt her eyes try to focus on the figure before her. She worked to move her mouth, her body, but all she could do was ball the peanut oil label up in her fist, the telltale crinkle of the cellophane screaming for everyone to look at her, to look at the girl who could cause a man to die.

“Can we get the nurse in here?” Detective Biggs was yelling over his shoulder, his hand firm now, holding Sawyer up.

“I’m okay,” she finally forced her mouth to say. “I’m okay. I just slipped and—”

The school nurse rushed out next, a pin of a woman who doubled as a lunch lady and a part-time librarian. Her lips were pursed, her eyes slanted in that sympathetic way, the pink sweater buttoned over her shoulders flying like bat wings.

“Oh, Sawyer.” She looked at Sawyer and then at Detective Biggs. “She’s had a rough couple of weeks. Shall I call your father, hon?”

Sawyer stepped back, sliding out of Detective Biggs’s reach, her sneakers crunching on the broken glass. She licked her Sahara-dry lips and nodded. “Yes, please. I think I need to go home and lie down.”

Nurse Tucker slid a motherly arm across Sawyer’s shoulders and pressed her hand against Sawyer’s cheek. Her fingers were soft and cool, and Sawyer longed for comfort, for her own mother. “This must be too much for you. First Kevin, and now Mr. Hanson,” she clucked, tucking Sawyer’s head underneath her chin. Then, she dropped her voice into a totally audible whisper, her chin jutting toward Detective Biggs. “Her boyfriend was Kevin Anderson, you know. The one who died in the accident. It was so tragic.”

Sawyer didn’t have to look to know that the detective nodded knowingly. For the last three weeks, people had exchanged glances whenever Sawyer was around, glances that spoke volumes, glances that reminded Sawyer that she was now and forever would be attached to Kevin’s death—more so than she ever was to his life. A lump strangled what breath was left in Sawyer’s throat and she doubled over, coughing and heaving.

“Oh, honey!”

“No.” Sawyer wagged her head, using her fisted hand, peanut oil wrapper locked inside, to wipe her eyes, her nose. “Can you just let my dad know that I’ve been excused? I need to go home right now.”

“I don’t think you’re in any condition to drive, Sawyer. I’d be happy to run you home,” Detective Biggs said.

“But I have my car.”

Nurse Tucker made a dismissive motion with her hand, her mob of tiny bangles clinking as she did. “The detective is right. You shouldn’t be driving. You can lie down in my office for a while to calm down if you’d like.”

Sawyer looked from Nurse Tucker to Detective Biggs, the array of shattered glass and broken roses on the floor behind him. “I think I’d like to go home now, please.”

Detective Biggs kept silent as they left the administration building and walked out to the parking lot. Sawyer was grateful for the silence; every time the detective sucked in a breath and looked like he was about to speak to her, her skin tightened, every muscle in her body seemed to collapse in on itself and she had to look away. Biggs seemed to get the message and repeatedly just cleared his throat.

He gestured toward his car, and Sawyer stood at the passenger side door, hands hugging her elbows, until he clicked the lock.

Detective Biggs drove a big, gray, unmarked cop car that smelled like cigarettes and McDonald’s. Sawyer wrinkled her nose when she got in.

“Sorry,” Detective Biggs said, a hint of sympathy in his voice, “my partner is a smoker.”

Biggs cleared the passenger seat of a stack of coffee-stained files and crumpled fast food wrappers and Sawyer sat down, her body stiff, her hands clutching the straps of her backpack.

They pulled out of the school driveway and onto the street when the rain started to fall. Heavy droplets thunked against the hood of the car. Sawyer liked the sound, thought it was soothing. She liked the way the rain marred the windshield before the wipers took it away. If she squinted, she could pretend they were somewhere else, that she was some
one
else.

“I hate the rain,” Detective Biggs said.

“Take the Old Oak highway, please.”

“Oh, right.” The detective nodded, puckering his lips as if considering something. “So, I guess Kevin was pretty popular at school.”

Sawyer hiked her backpack onto her lap and wrapped her arms around it, her hands disappearing in the long sleeves of her sweater. “Uh-huh.”

“Done much unpacking?”

Sawyer looked at the detective, but he didn’t look at her. His eyes were focused hard out the windshield, guiding the hulking car over the slick black highway.

“Not really.” She vaguely wondered if he knew about the shoes—maybe he had a spy or a bug or something. She tightened her grip on her pack. “Not since you were there.”

“Tragic about what happened with Kevin. I really hate to see something like that.”

Sawyer nodded, replaying the rest of the conversation in her mind. It was the same one every time an adult tried to talk to her: Tragic about what happened. Such a waste. Just goes to show you that nothing in life is guaranteed; we’re all mortal.

“Kevin much of a drinker?”

Sawyer blinked. “What?”

“It was a drunk driving accident, right? Was Kevin a drinker?”

Sawyer shook her head, feeling her ponytail tag the side of her cheeks. “No, not really.” She began to wonder why none of these questions had come up the day Detective Biggs appeared at her house.

“But he was definitely drinking that night,” Biggs said matter-of-factly.

She remembered that night. It was raining then too, big quarter-sized drops that pelted her forehead, that made the fresh cut under her eye sting. She felt the pain of that cut again, remembered the way Kevin’s eyes looked when he noticed the blood. He studied the dime-sized drop that clung to his class ring. He didn’t look at the red velvet drop that bubbled under Sawyer’s eye.

Sawyer
remembered
seeing
Kevin’s face, and it was blurry, soaked. She watched him roll up on the balls of his feet, saw his fingers curl, one by one in molasses slow motion until they were fisted. Sawyer felt her body instinctively recoil, start to flinch.

A
flash
of
something
flitted
through
his
eyes
at
that
moment. It was almost—joy. Amusement. He made a fist, her body instinctively flinched, and he
liked
that. As if he enjoyed the fear he’d cultivated in her. Anger, harder than fear, roiled through her body. He always let her believe it was her fault.

Not
tonight.

Kevin’s fingers were still wrapped in that tight ball. He wouldn’t raise that fist to her, but he gritted his teeth, his eyes narrowed and spitting a kind of wicked anger she had come to recognize.

“Leave me alone, Kevin.” She heard her own voice and it rang out loud, clear, and strong through the rain that night. “I’m done with you.”

As she sat in the car she searched her memory for the waver that must have been in her voice, for the shrinking fear she knew she must have felt.
She
turned
around
and
Kevin
reached
for
her, clamping a hand on her wrist. He squeezed, digging his fingernails into her flesh. She wouldn’t wince. She wouldn’t cry out.

“Don’t you dare run away from me,” he spat.

She
shrugged
him
off
violently. “I said leave me alone.”

He
gave
her
a
hard
shove, but Sawyer kept her ground.

“Screw you, then!” he yelled to her back. “I don’t need you. I made you. No one knew who the hell you were until you started dating me, you little slut.”

Sawyer still felt the sting of those words as she clenched her jaw and hugged her backpack a little tighter, feeling the sharp edges of her books dig into her chest.

She
heard
the
plink!
and
spritz
of
a
beer
being
opened, then felt the whiz of the bottle as it soared past her left ear, leaving a spray of cold beer soaking her shoulder, dribbling down the naked skin on her throat and collar bone.

“I’m so done with you,” she said, surprised at the calm finality in her voice.

Kevin
shrugged
and
took
a
pull
on
the
beer
he
was
holding. “Then what the hell are you still doing here?”

She felt the adrenaline in her legs even now as she remembered her slow jog away from Kevin, his beer bottles, and his car.
The
rain
had
started
to
let
up, and she could hear the crinkle of leaves and twigs underfoot as she ran. She picked up speed and her hood slipped back. What remained of the drizzling, spitting rain rushed into her eyes, beer mixed with rain, and Sawyer kept running, kept going even when she heard Kevin’s tortured voice on the wind. “Sawyer!” he was yelling. “Sawyer, stop!”

“You’re way out there, aren’t you?”

“What?”

Detective Biggs jabbed a finger toward the rain-drenched windshield. “The housing development. It’s way out there, huh? I guess I didn’t realize it when we came out before.”

“We?”

“Officer Haas and me. He didn’t come in. He was handling some paperwork in the car.”

Sawyer remembered the fluorescent glow of Officer Haas’s cigarette as he lifted it to his lips when Sawyer drove up to her house.

“Oh.”

She paused, listened to her heart thrum out a metered beat. “Um.” Sawyer’s fingers started working the woven strap again on her backpack. “Detective Biggs? If someone—if something happened to someone and you—I mean, if I were to have…” Sawyer let her words trail off when the detective turned and smiled at her.

“Take a deep breath and start again.”

“I think I’m the reason why Kevin is dead.”

The words came out in a single, breathless string, and the second they were out, Sawyer desperately wished she could suck them back in. She stared straight ahead, eyes focused on the white dashes of the roadway, not daring to look at Detective Biggs.

“Were you in the car with Kevin?”

“No.”

Detective Biggs rubbed a big hand over his bald head, keeping one hand resting on the top of the steering wheel. He didn’t look at Sawyer. “Do you know where Kevin got the alcohol?”

Sawyer shook her head. “Not really. Sometimes he’d just take it from the fridge.”

“But you didn’t supply him with it.”

“No, sir. But I—I may have been the reason he was drinking.”

Detective Biggs put his other hand on the wheel, smoothly guiding the cruiser through the heavy iron gates of Blackwood Hills Estates. “Did you force him to drink the alcohol?”

“We were fighting. He was mad at me. I think that’s why he was drinking.” She licked her lips. “I’m sure that was why.”

A half smile cut across the detective’s face. “You didn’t force Kevin to get behind the wheel, Sawyer. You didn’t force him to drink and drive.” He looked at her, all amusement gone from his face. “That was his decision.”

Sawyer continued working the strap, her fingertips feeling raw from the course fabric. She wondered if she should mention the notes, mention the
other
reason she felt responsible for Kevin’s—
and
now
Mr. Hanson’s?
—death. She thought about the crumpled peanut oil wrapper stuffed in her jeans pocket, thought of the fact that regardless of what Detective Biggs said, if Sawyer hadn’t broken up with Kevin that night, he wouldn’t have been drinking, he wouldn’t have gotten behind the wheel of his car. He wouldn’t have died.

“I didn’t force anyone to do anything,” she mumbled.

***

Sawyer’s cell phone started blaring the Notre Dame fight song the second she stepped through her front door.

“Hi, Dad,” she said into the phone. “I just walked in the door.”

“The school nurse called me. How are you feeling?”

Sawyer shimmied out of her jacket, dumped her backpack on the floor. “Better now.”

Her dad was silent for a beat and Sawyer imagined him on the other end, reclined in his black leather chair, fingers steepled as he wrestled with his thoughts. Sawyer sighed.

“What is it?”

“You know, Sawyer, you only saw Dr. Johnson that one time after Kevin’s death—”

Sawyer felt a red-hot coil of anger low in her belly. “But I saw him every week of you and mom’s divorce. And every week of your trial separation.”