Truth

Tanya Lloyd Kyi

Orca soundings

Copyright © 2003 Tanya Lloyd Kyi

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording or by any information storage and retrieval system now known or to be invented, without permission in writing from the publisher.

National Library of Canada Cataloguing in Publication Data

Kyi, Tanya Lloyd, 1973-

Truth / Tanya Lloyd Kyi.

(Orca soundings)

ISBN 1-55143-265-X

I. Title. II. Series.

PS8571.Y52T78 2003   jC813'.6   C2003-910665-9

PZ7.K98Tr 2003

First published in the United States, 2003

Library of Congress Control Number:
2003105877

Summary
: When a prominent local adult is killed at a teen house party, the whole school seems to know who is to blame, but no one will go to the police.

Orca Book Publishers gratefully acknowledges the support for its publishing programs provided by the following agencies: the Government of Canada through the Book Publishing Industry Development Program (BPIDP), the Canada Council for the Arts, and the British Columbia Arts Council.

Cover design: Christine Toller
Cover photography: Eyewire
Printed and bound in Canada

05 04 03 • 5 4 3 2 1

IN CANADA
:
Orca Book Publishers
1030 North Park Street
Victoria, BC Canada
V8T 1C6

IN THE UNITED STATES
:
Orca Book Publishers
PO Box 468
Custer, WA USA
98240-0468

To Min Trevor Kyi, with love
.
TLK

The author would like to acknowledge S.L. (aka “the boss”) and Susan Adamson for their advice and encouragement.

Tanya Lloyd Kyi lives with her husband in Vancouver, B.C.
Truth
is her first novel. She would like to write another, but her hands are sore from playing ultimate (frisbee) and learning to wheelie drop on her mountain bike. She hopes to one day be responsible enough to own a dog.

The police are at my door at 3 a.m.

I watch from the top of the stairs as Dad goes stumbling through the house, tying his checkered robe. He flicks on the porch light and squints out the window. Then he jerks his head in surprise. He moves so quickly to open the door that he stubs his toe on the wooden hedgehog in the entranceway. He greets the police officer while standing on one foot like
a giant plaid flamingo.

The officer doesn't smile. “Dr. Forester?” he asks. “I'm Officer Wells. I'd like to speak with your daughter for a moment.”

“Jen?”

“There's been an accident at the Klassen house. I'm hoping she might answer some questions.”

I'm wide awake. I'd climbed into bed when I got home, only to stare at the ceiling. I've spent the last two hours wondering if the doorbell would ring.

“What kind of accident?” Dad asks. “Jen was involved? Are you sure?”

When he's finally given time to answer, the officer sounds calm but firm. “Your daughter's not necessarily involved, sir. We're questioning everyone who was at the Klassen house this evening.”

I don't want to hear him describe the accident. Without waiting for Dad to call me, I start down the stairs. For a minute I think I'm going to throw up. Instead, I take a deep
breath and try to look sleepy and confused.

Dad motions us to the dining room table. Then he steps into the kitchen to make coffee. Despite the banging of spoons and cups, I can tell he's listening.

Officer Wells leans toward me. I feel like I've been sucked into the TV and I'm in an episode of
Law & Order
. I almost giggle. Then I almost throw up again. I tell myself to calm down. Breathe. This isn't nearly as easy as those TV criminals make it look. Those gold bars on his uniform and the baton in his belt and his coffee breath washing over me are all a bit intimidating.

“Miss Forester, we're dealing with a very serious case here. I'm sure I don't have to tell you how important it is for you to be completely honest.”

“Of course.” I'm thinking calm thoughts. Still breathing. And I have an excellent innocent look. I'm blonde, which I think helps. I open my eyes wide and look straight at Officer Wells. This strategy works wonders with my math teacher.

“You were at Ian Klassen's house party this evening?”

I nod.

“Could you tell me about it?”

“Georgia Findley and I went together. Another friend dropped us off. She had to be home before eleven, so she didn't stay. The party wasn't too exciting. We mostly sat around in the kitchen and talked all night. Jerome drove me home.”

“What time did you leave?” he asks.

“About quarter to one. Curfew,” I say, with an explanatory jerk of my head towards the kitchen. We can still hear my dad rummaging around.

“And Jerome is?”

“Jerome Baxter. My boyfriend.”

He takes notes on all of this, then asks if I know Ted Granville.

“I don't think so. Why?”

“He's tall, red hair, about forty. Did you see anyone like that at the party tonight?”

“No. What happened?”

“He was badly beaten — may not survive.”

I expected that, but I put on my most shocked expression. It's not entirely fake. “It was all kids there, I think. I was in the kitchen for most of the night, not by the door. I didn't see anyone like that come in.”

It's true, what I tell official Officer Wells, leaning towards me like we're buddies from way back. Technically, it's all true.

But there's more to it. I had run upstairs with everyone else after Candi Bherner had run down screaming. We weren't expecting much. Candi's younger than me, and I don't know her well, but she seems totally flaky. A mouse could have made her scream like that.

It wasn't a mouse. It was a redheaded man sprawled across the floor in Ian's parents' room, one arm up as if he'd rolled out of bed. His arm was twisted, and the back of his head was wet with blood.

Just breathe, I tell myself as I drum my fingernails on the dining room table. Don't think about it. If you think about it, Officer Wells is going to know. And he doesn't know
anything. He's not looking for you anyway. I make my fingers stop tapping.

It's true that Officer Wells doesn't know anything. He seems at a bit of a loss, slumping slightly now, his eyes wandering around the dining room and across to the living room.

Both rooms are spectacularly ugly. So ugly that I once entered a home makeover contest that I found in one of Georgia's mom's magazines. No luck, though. The house is still hideous. I can imagine my mom and dad decorating it together when they moved here. I can see them choosing the rust-colored shag and the wood paneling and the couch with its wagon wheel upholstery. They must have thought they were at the height of fashion. That was the seventies. I was born in the eighties; my mom left in the nineties. The wood paneling and the wagon wheels live on.

It's all too much for Officer Wells. Just as my dad finally has the coffee ready, the officer stands, shakes hands with both of us, and prepares to leave.

“I'll be in touch if I need to speak with you again.”

Ian's party was the most exciting news to sweep the school since the computer science teacher was charged with assault. He pushed his ex-wife into a table at one of our town's two bars. That was months ago.

The booming metropolis of Fairfield (population: 5,000; things to do: 0) is in a mountain valley. We're over an hour from the nearest mall and two hours from the closest town with a movie theater. About a zillion hours from anything else of interest. Sticks-ville, British Columbia. My dad grew up in Vancouver. He says he and Mom moved here because they wanted to raise their children (who turned out to be just me) in a more peaceful place. Well, it's definitely peaceful. So peaceful the whole population could knock off in their sleep and the outside world would never know.

In the summer we entertain ourselves with bush parties. That's when a few guys
throw some wood in the back of a pickup, drive out to the old gravel pits or the banks of the river and light a bonfire. Then people spread the word — usually in the 7-Eleven parking lot. We stash a bottle of vodka down the side panel of Georgia's ancient Honda (the plastic door-handle part pulls right off) and drive out in search of the party.

That's the summer. In the winter we rent movies (yawn), hang out at Willie's Chicken until it closes at eleven (double yawn), and basically try to fight off death by boredom. So when Ian mentioned that his parents were spending the first two weeks of November in Mexico, we were buzzing around him like a swarm of starving bees. Ross Reed spent a whole week telling people about the party before Ian said it was okay. Poor Ian is one of those really nice people who's easily pushed around. There wasn't much he could do.

Ross organizes most of Fairfield's parties. He knows everyone. Wherever he goes, the party goes. I think his life revolves around
weight lifting and beer. Maybe it's hereditary — everyone says Ross's mom OD'd on pills after his dad took off. Now Ross lives with his grandmother.

Rumor has it Ross and some of his friends are on 'roids. It's probably true because they spend tons of time at the gym. Nate's on the junior hockey team and says he wants to make it to the NHL. Ross doesn't play any sports — I think he just likes being big. He walks like a bodybuilder, with his arms held out from his body as if he'd like to put them down, but his muscles get in the way.

Last summer Ross picked a fight at a bush party with somebody's cousin visiting from the Okanagan. When the guy had been harassed enough, he swung hard, sending Ross's head whipping back. Ross recovered and lunged at him. Suddenly the Okanagan guy was off balance, wheeling towards the fire. Somebody pulled him out of the flames and someone else drove him to the hospital after. I heard that his parents called the cops, and they interviewed
Ross, but nothing happened. That's Ross — he gets away with everything.

The afternoon after the fire incident, a bunch of us were hanging out at Georgia's, too sluggish to want to do anything. Jerome was there (we'd just started seeing each other then), and Nate and Ross. Georgia gave Ross a wet tea bag and told him to put it on his eye, black and swollen from the fight. Ross took a black scarf off the back of Georgia's bedroom door and tied it around his head to hold the tea bag. When Georgia's mom came home from her golf game, rather than take the scarf off and reveal his black eye, Ross spent the rest of the afternoon talking like a pirate, answering all questions with “Aye, matey.” He called Jerome his parrot. So despite the poor guy from the Okanagan, who we heard had third-degree burns on his leg, it was, as always, really hard not to forgive Ross.

That's what churns through my head as I sit at the table after Officer Wells has been shown out the door. My dad sits down across from me.

“So?” he asks.

It's hard for me to lie to my dad. He raises his bushy eyebrows and looks at me like I know he must look at the patients at his doctor's office — with some wise-seeming mixture of sympathy and authority.

“Some old guy got really beat up tonight. I didn't know him and I didn't see who beat him up. Georgia and I heard about it and we left.”

“Ted Granville runs the credit union,” he tells me, proving that he was listening to the whole conversation.

“Weird,” I say. “I don't know what he was doing at the party.”

My dad nods slowly. “Stay home tomorrow. I don't want you running around town,” he says. “And get some sleep.”

Like I can sleep.

Ted Granville died. When I get to school on Monday morning, the first group of kids I see is talking about the murder. And the second group. And the third. By the time I reach my locker, I've heard: (a) everyone at the party was on acid, freaked out, and killed Ted Granville; (b) Ted Granville came over with a gun to break up the party, and three guys beat him up in self-defense; and (c) Ted
Granville went crazy, leapt off the second- floor balcony and broke his neck on the pavement of the driveway. As far as I can remember, Ian's house doesn't even have a balcony.