“How can this be happening on top of Sri missing?” Marla wailed. Her cousin had been close enough to the finish line to be knocked down by the blast, but he was okay (except that his ears were still ringing). Thank God for that.
Sri’s parents had now moved to a B&B near campus; the owner had declared she’d keep the room open as long as they needed it. The Patils were, like everyone else, horrified by the Boston bombing. But Sussannah could tell they felt a little bit like she did: the bombing was an expression on a massive scale of how their tiny group suffered; and maybe now the whole world needed to pay attention to the fact that Sri was missing, that things in this world could actually break.
*
Environmental House had a tiny TV in the common room. On the news, the Boston police were saying they probably had photos of the bomber.
“I told you, the government is always watching us,” said April. “Even while we sleep.” Sussannah rolled her eyes—April was still ranting about the kids playing in the living room. She claimed they made a lot of noise at night.
“They said it was some kind of bomb made with a rice cooker, like the one you have, Soo-JZAH-nah,” said Brent.
“Did it have pink flowers on it?” She rolled her eyes again. “How’s a rice cooker going to kill someone?”
“That’s what the FBI says.” He click-clacked into Google. “Oh, wait, it was a pressure cooker that had a detonator. I guess that makes more sense. Remember that movie we saw, The Hurt Locker? How they activated the bombs with a cell phone?”
“Vaguely.” She imagined the police having to tackle every single person carrying a cell phone in Copley Square.
“And here are the first pictures of the suspect.” Brent swiveled his laptop screen toward her.
Sussannah leaned, squinted. Young guy, track suit, a baseball cap with its bill obscuring most of his face, a bit of dark hair peeking out. “He looks like a generic marathoner, or someone in the lacrosse frat.”
The phone rang. April was closest, so she got up.
“No. He’s not here. DON’T YOU KNOW HE’S BEEN MISSING FOR ALMOST A MONTH?”
“Wow,” said Sussannah. “Sri’s TA again? He hasn’t seen one of those Missing signs?”
The phone rang again. April swiped it up.
“NO. SRI HAS NOT BEEN SEEN FOR OVER A MONTH. HE IS NOT HERE. NOT HERE!”
Again.
“NO, HE IS NOT HERE. NO, THERE IS NO ONE TO TALK TO YOU ABOUT IT . . . OH YEAH? THEN GO TALK TO THE FEDS.”
“What the—?” said Brent.
The phone rang and rang. Like it was broken, stuck on ring. Like it would never stop ringing unless they took it outside and killed it. Sussannah ran upstairs and grabbed the other extension. “Hello,” she said, her voice overlaying April’s. “WHAT NOW? WHO ARE YOU?”
“This is the Associated Press calling. Is this the residence of Sri Patil?”
“Yes,” Sussannah said automatically. Speechless, she listened. After three minutes, April started yelling again—Sussannah could hear her through both the receiver and her free ear. She hung up the phone, her face pale.
Brent’s eyes widened when he saw her. He looked sick. “Did they find Sri?”
She shook her head. How to choke this out?
“What?” said Brent. “Then what?”
“They think he’s involved in the Boston bombing.”
“What?” Brent’s mouth popped open.
“Because he disappeared, because . . . They’re saying he probably went underground and was plotting all this time, that his whole coming to Brown was just a cover and that—” Sussannah couldn’t think. The media was hinting Sri was Muslim. She was pretty sure he wasn’t. But what if he was? Should that matter?
April was hauling the phone over to Brent, handing him the receiver. “This one’s for you.” Brent’s mouth was still open in shock. When he took the phone, he gargled out, “Hello?” Glancing through the window, Sussannah saw the first news van slide into the parking spot in front of the house, its conical satellite tipped to the air like they would be transmitting to some far-off solar system. She shut the curtain, which April had made out of recycled rice bags.
“Yes . . . um . . . yes, well . . . Um, sure, okay . . . Where? Should I— Oh, okay. Yes, I will.” Brent looked like he might cry.
Now the police wanted to question them.
*
They questioned Sri’s family first. Sussannah learned this on TV. Sri’s parents looked like normal American parents. His dad, partial to golf shirts. His mother, pretty with long black hair and wearing a burnt-orange sari. But if she didn’t know them as Sri’s parents, Sussannah wondered if she’d think, Of course his mommy thinks he’s not a terrorist! In these situations, it was standard journalistic practice to find a neighbor to say, “Gee, he was a quiet guy, but I never would have thought that he would . . .”