I nod at her, forcing a polite smile.
“I’m Detective Mendez. This is Detective Jackson. Can we talk to you for a bit?”
Like I could possibly say no. I turn to Beth, and she’s just standing there, looking all awkward.
“See you later?” I say. I’m not really sure what one says in these situations.
“Uh-huh. Bye,” she says, hurrying away.
Questions hurl themselves through my mind as the detectives lead me to one side of the garden, away from the crowd. Is this a formal questioning? What is a formal questioning? Should I have a lawyer present? But I don’t have a lawyer. Could I borrow one from somebody? Would that make me look even guiltier?
“I know this is probably really scary, but if you answer all our questions, this will be done before you know it,” she says.
But why are they even asking any questions? Danny said Detective Jackson was happy to dismiss the case as an accident.
We go to the farthest corner of the church garden, under the shade of a tree, and Detective Mendez takes out a writing pad. An actual writing pad like you see cops scribbling notes in on TV when they talk to a suspect.
“So, Lia. You were taking Mr. Werner’s class?” she says, giving me an encouraging smile.
I almost deny it as a knee-jerk reaction then realize that would be futile. They’d have access to class records. I nod.
“Notice anything out of the ordinary the day before he died?”
“What day was that?” I squeak out. My limbs have turned to water and I’m this close to crumpling to the floor.
“We think he died sometime on Friday afternoon. Did you have a class with him that day?”
“No. Last class we had was Thursday.”
“And nothing struck you as odd on Thursday? Anything at all, like maybe he was late to class, or maybe he was a bit moody…”
“Well, uh, Sophie—” I have to clear my throat, as my voice is threatening to break. “I um, I found Sophie’s body in Mr. Werner’s office on Thursday night.”
Detective Jackson gives this sort of gruff snort, shifting his weight from one foot to the other. He reminds me of a horse shaking its head and snorting. I don’t know what the snort means. He doesn’t look happy. Does that mean he thinks I’m guilty? Detective Mendez doesn’t give any indication of having heard the snort. She continues staring at me hard. I feel naked under her gaze.
“Yes, we’ve reviewed the report from that night,” she says. “It’s very strange, isn’t it, having two members of the school pass away within such a short time?”
I jerk my head down and back up. “Yeah. I mean. Yeah.” God, I am barely coherent.
“Do you have any ideas why Sophie Tanaka was in James Werner’s office that night?”
“No. Well, I heard that she’d been having problems with him? I don’t know,” I babble.
“What sort of problems?”
What sort of problems? My mind whizzes ahead. Should I tell them about Mr. Werner selling grades? But what would that do? Would it make them even more suspicious? I decide to play dumb. “I don’t know. I’m just the new kid. By the time I got here, Sophie had already been expelled.”
“Right,” Detective Mendez says.
Detective Jackson shifts his weight from one foot to the other, looking at his watch pointedly. “I think we’re done—”
“Do you know an app called”—she pauses to refer to her notes—“Draycott Dirt?” Detective Jackson gives her a sour look.
This is a segue I was not expecting. Is it a good tangent or a bad one? Either way, it’s good we’re moving on from Mr. Werner. Yes? Yes.
“Yeah, I know about it, sure,” I say with a shrug.
“What can you tell us about Draycott Dirt?”
“Uh. It’s an app…where kids post stuff? Sort of like Twitter.”
Detective Mendez gives me this look, like I’m a dog that’s refusing to play ball. Which is true, I am refusing, but only because the ball is a spiky iron ball at the end of a chain.
“You’ve left out a pretty important detail, Lia,” Detective Mendez says. “Like the fact the app is rife with bullying.”
“Is it?” I say, weakly. Obviously, it is. Anyone with half a brain would take one look at it and go, “Wow, this app has a ton of bullying.”
“Do you post often?”
“No.” Finally, a question I can answer with absolute honesty.
“How come?” Mendez says. “There must be lots of ‘dirt’ you’d love to spill about some people here. I mean, some of the kids I’ve talked to…man.”
Sorry, Detective, not gonna fall for it. “Nope, not really. I mostly keep to myself. When I’m not doing my homework, I’m on the track, so I don’t have much time to talk bad about anyone.”
“Sure, sure. I get you. So. Nothing to say. Right. Not even about Mandy Kim?”
What has Mandy told them?! My mind screams. I force a laugh. “Mandy. Heh, I’m not surprised. She’s been trash-talking me ever since I took her place on varsity. She lies a lot, so I tend to just ignore whatever she has to say.” With superhuman effort, I manage to keep myself from asking, “What did she say about me, huh? Huh? HUH?”
“That’s interesting, because according to Mandy and a couple other girls…let’s see, ah, Arjuna Singh and Elle Brown, you’ve been harassing them ever since you got here. They said they even filed a report against you. Sounds pretty serious, Lia.”
I actually feel the skin on my face tighten into a frozen mask. Mandy goddamn Kim and her gremlins. Of course. There it is, the real trap.
“I have never said or done anything to them. Those reports—they were more of a prank than anything.” Did that come out convincing?
“Pretty crazy prank to play, don’t you think?”
I shrug again.
She nods but doesn’t look at all convinced.
“What does this have to do with Mr. Werner’s accident?”
She smiles grimly. “Yeah, thing is, we’re not so sure it was an accident. Coupled with Sophie dying on campus, things are looking mighty strange. And we’ve got a witness who said she saw Mr. Werner out with someone the day he went missing.”
It’s like the world’s just crumbled under my feet. Not an accident. Danny was wrong. And a witness. Someone who saw Mr. Werner with me—oh.
The passerby. The woman, pushing a stroller, who had side-eyed us when we were arguing on the street.
“Just one last question, Lia.” I barely hear her. She taps on her phone and shows me a picture. “Have you seen these before?”
Time. Stops.
Because right there, on her phone, bright as anything, is a picture of tattered red-and-black shoelaces, knotted into a neat ribbon. I can see the frayed edges and the familiar spots where they’d gotten stained.
My lucky laces.
How. HOW? How. The. Hell?
This is what hell feels like. This is it. The laces must have fallen out of my bag in the—oh god, where? In Mr. Werner’s car? Later? In the woods? Where in the woods?
I feel myself shaking my head. “No. I don’t recognize them.”