“Because it’s the truth.”
“So you must be pissed off at them.”
I recited what I’d learned to say in my parole hearings. “I’ve learned from my past mistakes and just want to become a productive member of society.”
He gave me a look that made it clear he knew I was really telling him to fuck off. I came close to saying it out loud, rolled the words around on my tongue, savored them. Then I thought of Captain and swallowed them whole.
“I’ve thought about your case, what happened that night,” he said. “Ryan, he was bad news, but up until you hooked up with him you were a pretty good kid. I’d hate to think of the same thing happening again.”
“It won’t.”
“Just in case you have seen your old friend, you should probably know that when he was inside, he got himself quite the reputation as a fighter with a violent temper, beat up some guards, spent a lot of time in segregation.”
I was surprised, remembering how Ryan had always tried to walk away from fights unless he was pushed to the limit, and wondered just how bad things had been for him in prison. It filled me with rage, thinking of him in segregation, knowing what it was like for me, neither of us deserving it. I kept my mouth shut.
“I’ve been talking to a few people you two used to pal around with,” Hicks said. “One of the guys said Ryan used to talk about Nicole, how sexy and hot she was.” He shook his head. “Apparently he used to have a fantasy about getting the two of you together for some action.” I knew he was just trying to get a rise out of me, but his lies were hard to listen to. Jesus, my sister was dead.
He leaned even closer, his leg brushing mine, his body language intimate, like we were close friends. I stared at the wall, refusing to look at him.
“That night, you say you were passed out the whole time, but how do you know your boy Ryan stayed passed out? How do you know he didn’t wake up and decide to try his luck with Nicole? He had some scratches on his arms.”
I flashed briefly to the image of Ryan’s wrist over his face when we woke up that night, the bloody scratches. Was that what he was talking about?
“He got those from the bushes. He wouldn’t touch my sister.”
But Hicks wasn’t done. “Are you sure? Did you know he took Nicole into a bedroom at a party that summer? They didn’t come out for an hour.”
My head jerked back. I tried to recover quickly, but Hicks had picked up on my surprise.
“You didn’t know.”
“Because it’s bullshit.”
“There are witnesses.”
I laughed. “Right, probably the same ones who lied at our trial.”
He was shaking his head. “A few people saw them go off. Nicole was extremely drunk by all counts, who knows what happened?”
I stared at him, thinking back to that summer. What party? Was it when I was working at the restaurant? Was Hicks just making this up?
He continued, “See, Ryan was just starting to get in trouble, stealing gas, talking you into breaking into your neighbors’ place. His dad, he was a real bad character. I know he used to rough Ryan up, and Ryan had a lot of anger in him. Stuff like that, it comes out eventually. We have a dead girl seventeen years ago, now we have another one. So I ask myself, what do these two girls have in common? Ryan Walker. Maybe you protected him back then, but now? I don’t think you want to go back to prison. So if you know something else, something about your boy, you might want to start talking now.”
I kept my voice calm and controlled, but my blood was pumping hard in my ears, threatening to drown out common sense, making me want to slam his head into the table.
“I don’t know anything about Ryan now, but I do know he’s not stupid enough to kill a witness and make it look exactly the same as Nicole’s murder. Cathy was a crackhead. Wouldn’t it make more sense to get her to OD? We were problem kids, no doubt about it, but you can’t say we were stupid, and we never hurt anyone who didn’t mess with us first.”
“That’s my point, Toni.”
I could have kicked myself for saying so much, but I couldn’t stop now.
“And my point is that we aren’t killers. You guys fucked up back then. The killer is still out there and someone wants to make sure we look guilty as shit again, to get us out of the way. So while you’re messing around with us and your bullshit questions, that person is laughing at how fucking stupid the cops are.”
His face flushed red. He sat back up, finally giving me some space.
“I’m trying to help you out here, Toni. Give you a chance to come clean. There’s already the theft hanging over you, now this. It doesn’t look good.”
“I didn’t do the theft—and I didn’t do this. You aren’t trying to help me. You know that by even talking to me you’ve probably just fucked up my parole.”