Truth (4 page)

“Yeah. He wears them every day.”

“Not anymore. He's wearing disgusting runners. I asked what happened to the boots and he said they ripped.”

I nod, but then something clicks in my head.

“Hey, Georgia,” I say as the bell rings and we file towards homeroom, “when did they rip?”

“Don't know,” she shrugs. “Not long ago.”

“Does leather rip?” I wonder out loud, but the morning announcements start, and Georgia doesn't hear me.

I try to corner Jerome at his locker before lunch. He grimaces when he sees me.

“What, no kiss?” I ask.

“Sorry, Jen. I've gotta go.”

“We need to talk.”

“Sure. We'll set up some time on the weekend.”

“We need to talk today.”

“Okay. I'll be home after school. Call me then, okay?”

I nod, and he ducks out like someone who narrowly escaped prison.

Dad's not usually home from work until after five. I let myself in the house and rummage in the fridge for some leftover pasta. Then I wait half an hour to give Jerome time to get home. As I wait, I get more and more angry. Prick. Who
is he to brush me off like some clingy bimbo? It's not like I usually follow him around the hallways. Not like I practice Georgia's sick-puppy-following-Nate act. He's my boyfriend. When I need to talk to him, he's supposed to talk. Not pencil me in.

I call at exactly four o'clock. By that time, I'm so mad I have to clench my teeth to talk. Stay calm, I tell myself. Calm and cold. Ice queen.

“Hello. Is Jerome there, please?”

“Jen, it's me.”

“Oh, I'm sorry. I must not recognize your voice anymore.”

“Don't be ridiculous.”

“I hardly think I'm being ridiculous. You refuse to talk to me at school. I haven't seen you all week. And then you break our date for tonight.”

Silence.

“If you want to break up, you just have to say so.”

“I don't want to break up,” he says.

“Well, I might,” I say, clenching my teeth
even harder so I won't cry. I'm definitely not going to cry.

“Jen, I'm sorry. This really has nothing to do with you. It's just that Ross is in some hot water and he doesn't want us talking to a lot of people.”

“I'm a lot of people?”

More silence.

“You think I have a big mouth. That I'm going to tell everyone everything.”

“No, I don't think that.”

“You shouldn't. Because I haven't told people things. And there are things I could tell. I know about the boots, Jerome.”

“What?”

“I know that two people were involved in the beating. I know that one of them had boots with unusual tread patterns. I know that Ross got rid of his boots after the party.”

“Who else knows?”

“No one. But they'll figure it out soon, especially with you guys walking around like the secret service.”

“Let me ask you something,” he says.
“Say you and your dad are driving downtown late at night and you start arguing with him. It's dark, it's raining and he's distracted. He runs a red light. Wham! You hit another car, some Joe Blow driving home from the late shift. Killed instantly. When the police come, do you tell them what really happened, or do you tell them Joe Blow's the one that ran the red light?”

“I've heard this one before. And I'd tell them what really happened,” I say.

“Joe's already dead. You're not going to change that by sending your dad to prison. It was an accident. Plus, you're partly at fault.”

“How?”

“You started the argument. You distracted him.”

“My dad wouldn't want me to lie about what happened.”

“What if he did? What if he asked you to?”

“He wouldn't.”

There's silence for a while. Finally Jerome says he should go

“One more thing,” I say.

“Yeah?”

“Ted Granville was beaten by two people. If Ross was one of them, that leaves Nate … or you.”

He doesn't say anything for a long minute. Then: “Look, I've already had a really shitty day.”

“Jerome, I think you can consider us broken up.” With that, I hang up the phone.

My dad comes home a while later to find me bawling. You'd think they would train doctors to deal with crying people, but apparently not.

“Are you hurt?” he asks.

“No.” Sniff.

“Okay,” he says, and he pats me awkwardly on the shoulder a couple of times.

“Jerome and I broke up,” I tell him.

“I'm sorry to hear that,” he says, but I can tell he's not. Not entirely sorry, anyway. I stomp upstairs and slam my bedroom door. I only feel slightly better, so I open it and slam
it again. Then I go to bed and don't get up until noon on Saturday.

Anchor
: Good afternoon, and welcome to this week's edition of
Fair Game
. Our lead story this week is the continuing police investigation into the murder of local banker Ted Granville.

Switch location to street in front of Ian's house
.

Me
: Fairfield police continue to interview students and community members, searching
for leads in the murder of local banker Ted Granville. I'm here with Officer Tran.

Tran
: Granville died of head injuries at the home of Jane and George Klassen on the evening of Friday, November 15. The Klassens were out of town at the time of the murder. The home was in the care of their son Ian, a grade twelve student at Fairfield Secondary.

Me
: Will police continue to dedicate their full attention to the case?

Tran
: We are giving this incident the highest priority and are dedicating all necessary resources to the investigation.

Me
: What message would you offer to the students of Fairfield Secondary?

Tran
: More than one person was involved in this crime and we believe others may have witnessed it. Students with any information should report it immediately to the police. The department has also established an anonymous tip line and posted details throughout the school.

Me
: Police are unable to name suspects
at this time, but say they are investigating the movements of several persons of interest.

Anchor
: The community continues to react with shock and outrage. Here's what Fairfield Secondary students and teachers had to say about the incident:

Switch to various hallway location shots
.

Katy Gill
: It's totally shocking. I always thought stuff like this just happened on TV or in big cities, not in towns like this.

Brent White
: This could almost erase Fairfield's reputation as most boring town on earth.

Mr. Finn, Vice-Principal
: I can only hope that our students will consider the severity of this event and offer their full cooperation to the authorities.

Jessie Scribes
: Bad deal for that Granville dude, man.

I finished my police interview on the weekend and collected the student comments after the planning meeting on Monday. The piece
is going to run with some of Scott's best video of the Klassen house. He took it from really low, so the house is silhouetted against some dark clouds. It looks really spooky — definitely like a murder site.

Ms. Chan is pleased with my piece. She should be. I spent a long time on it. I had nothing else to do all weekend except mope. Georgia was saintly enough to come over and keep me company on Saturday night. She arrived with more news — Jerome, Nate, Ross and Ian have all been questioned three times by the police. The latest interrogations were on Friday afternoon.

“I guess that's what Jerome meant when he said he'd had a really shitty day,” I told her.

Georgia had rented three girl movies, and we sniffed our way through two of them. In between scenes she tried to comfort me.

“Whatever he's done, I'm sure he'll regret it tomorrow. He'll probably call and apologize, and everything will be back to normal.”

“I don't think so.” I shook my head. “It's a bit more complicated than that.”

Georgia didn't say anything, and I could tell she was waiting for me to explain. I knew I should tell her about how Jerome had been avoiding me, about his “what if?” car accident questions, about the boot print and the evidence of two attackers. I opened my mouth to explain, but it all suddenly seemed too complicated. And the gist of it was that my boyfriend — ex-boyfriend — could be a murderer. That sounded so ridiculous that I couldn't say it.

Georgia waited expectantly while all these thoughts shot through my head like a laser light show. I was too tired to make any sense of them.

“I can't explain it all right now.”

Her shoulders stiffened, and she looked away.

“I'm sorry,” I started, but she interrupted me.

“No. No need to talk until you're ready. I'm sorry I pried.”

I could tell she was hurt. She gathered up her stuff and left soon after.

I'm dreading bumping into Jerome in school, but I only see him once all day. He's leaning against his locker and joking with a group of guys. He looks like everything's normal, which makes me want to punch him. Instead I duck back around the corner and go to class the other way. Then I wish I had talked to him.

I'm thinking about trying to catch up with him after school. (I know. This is not the relationship tactic
Cosmo
would recommend.) Unfortunately, or fortunately, Mr. Arthur catches me on the way out of his classroom. He wants me to join his Wednesday afternoon study group for extra math help. “Christmas exams will sneak up on you,” he says.

It's only November. And thinking to the end of the week stresses me out at the moment — I can't handle thinking about the end of term.

I tell Mr. Arthur I'll consider it. By the time I escape him, the hallways are clearing and Jerome's gone.

Waiting outside for me is my dad. He's sitting in his hideously embarrassing green Volvo station wagon (which he says has cachet, whatever that's supposed to mean) and he's scanning the lawn for me. He's dressed for work, in creased black pants and a golf shirt. At the office he adds a lab coat and stethoscope.

“Dad, what are you doing here?”

“I had a couple of cancellations. Came to pick you up,” he says, like it's the most normal thing in the world.

“Last time you picked me up from school I was eight and it was so cold outside that kids were getting frostbite waiting for the bus.”

He just grunts. “Want to come for a drive or not?”

This is what happens when you're the only child of a single parent. Any other father who found himself with an afternoon off
would probably call his wife. But not my dad. He hardly ever has a girlfriend even. And he's a pretty good catch — a doctor, wonderful daughter (of course), a big house. The shag carpet's a downside, but I'm sure a girlfriend could change that.

We get out of town pretty fast. There are only four traffic lights in all of Fairfield, so it's not like there's a big afternoon traffic jam. Soon we're winding up Bow Creek Road. There's no snow on the ground, but the trees are bare and the branches look crisp, like they've stiffened in the cold.

“Dad, where are you taking me?”

“Patience. You'll see soon.”

He used to do this when I was a little kid. He'd pick up take-out fried chicken and pop and drive up one of the old logging roads around town until he found a picnic spot. But we haven't done that in years, and it's going to be dark in a couple of hours.

He pulls off the road near a driveway with a gate across it. “Come on,” he says.

“Dad — no trespassing!”

“Since when are you such a goody two-shoes? Where's your investigative drive?” he teases, jumping the gate.

“No one has said goody two-shoes since
Leave it to Beaver
went off the air in the seventies,” I grumble as I follow him. The driveway ends at a gravel turnaround, but Dad continues down a rough trail. I can hear a river through the trees. “Almost there,” he says.

I crunch along behind him, complaining about wood ticks. Two minutes later we emerge from the trees — at the top of a cliff. My dad has his arm out to slow me down.

“Go to the edge on your stomach,” he says.

We both drop and wiggle forward to where we can see into the canyon. There's a huge waterfall below. To the right, where the walls of the canyon gradually narrow, the water is calm and glassy. Then it roars over the cliff, and it never recovers. It's all whirlpools and rapids at the base.

“This was your mom's favorite spot before
she moved back to the city,” Dad tells me, sliding back from the edge.

“It's incredible.”

“She said it was a good place to escape her problems.”

I can understand that. Even when I move back from the edge and lie in the tiny clearing, I can still see the spray of water rising. When I close my eyes, the roar makes me dizzy, as if the cliff might give way any minute.

I can understand why my mom had things to escape. This town, for example, where everyone knows everything about you. She grew up in the city. I guess the life of a small-town doctor's wife was more claustrophobic than she expected.

She's never said that. When I see her — usually in the summer or at Christmas — she just avoids talking about Fairfield.

“I saw Officer McBride yesterday,” Dad says.

“Really?” That's enough to make me open my eyes and sit up.

“Just for coffee. But he mentioned the Granville murder.”

“Really?” That's all I seem to be able to say.

“They don't seem to be making much headway. Trouble finding information, he says.”