Blood on My Hands

CHAPTER 22

Monday 5:30 P.M.

IT’S DINNERTIME AND I’m in a convenience store with a craving for Ben & Jerry’s Chocolate Fudge Brownie ice cream. The place is nearly empty, but the bright lights are unnerving. There’s no place to hide in here. Cameras are mounted on the walls, and up in the corner is one of those big convex mirrors so the man behind the counter can watch. I feel like some kind of nocturnal creature that’s been thrust suddenly into the sunlight.
I glance at the counter, where the clerk is watching a small TV. I’m starving and can’t wait to eat, but also afraid to go up to the checkout, where yet another stranger will have an opportunity to look at my face. But I can’t dawdle, as that will also attract his attention. I pick out a frosty container and head for the front.
As I get close to the cash register, I become aware of the sound of the television. A female voice reporting: “In a news conference today, Soundview Police Chief Samuel Jenkins said the police still want to speak to Callie Carson in connection with the murder two nights ago of seventeen-year-old Katherine Remington-Day. While declining to say whether Ms. Carson is a suspect in the case, the police chief warned local citizens not to help her hide.”
The scene shifts to a podium with several microphones, where Chief Jenkins stands. He’s a heavyset man, almost bald on top except for some long thick strands of black hair combed straight back and held in place with gel. “We believe that Ms. Carson is still in the area. She needs food and a place to stay, so it stands to reason that someone may be sheltering her. If that’s true, people need to be aware that they may be charged with rendering criminal assistance if Ms. Carson is implicated in this crime.”
The scene shifts back to the TV studio and the blonde anchorwoman. In one corner of the screen is a big grainy gray blowup of my face from the yearbook. “Ms. Carson is about five feet tall and weighs around a hundred pounds. If you think you’ve seen her, the police have provided a phone number—”
Seeing that photo, and hearing again that I’m wanted, gives me a physical jolt. Even though hardly a second passes when I don’t worry about who might be looking at me, that photo on TV kicks it all up a notch.
I’m so fixated on the TV that I don’t realize that the man at the cash register has stopped watching. He’s looking at me curiously, as if it’s just struck him that I’m roughly the same height and weight as this person the police are looking for. I freeze, caught between opposing impulses to drop the ice cream and run and to pay as fast as I can and then run. Both are bad ideas. Instead, I place the container on the counter, begin searching in my pockets for money, and say, “Isn’t that weird? I mean, five feet tall and a hundred pounds? That’s the same as me. Well, I hope they find her, you know?”
The man blinks, then nods, takes my money, and makes change. “You want a bag for that?”
“Yeah, sure, and maybe a couple of napkins and a plastic spoon?”
“You got it.”
A moment later I’m out on the sidewalk, walking away quickly but hopefully not so fast that it’s noticeable. Down the block is a small park, where I settle onto a bench set close to some trees and start spooning delicious ice cream into my mouth and wondering which is more unbelievable—that I said what I said to the man behind the counter or that it seemed to work.
I have to admit that I’m pretty pleased with myself, although it does make me wonder where this talent for subterfuge comes from. When did I learn to be so devious?
Just then a police car shoots past.
When he wasn’t fighting with Sebastian, Dad tended to be quiet. He worked long hours and when he came home at night, he always had a couple of drinks and watched TV. On the weekends he worked around the house or watched sports. Mom and I got to be pretty good at tiptoeing around him.
When I first started running on the cross-country team, I asked him to come to one of my meets, but he always had excuses to explain why he couldn’t. Mom would come to watch if she could.
Once, in the car, going home, I asked her if Dad had played any sports in high school.
“Tennis,” she said.
“Seriously?” I said. I’d never heard him mention that, and I’d never seen a tennis racket or a tennis ball anywhere in our house. “So he stopped?”
“Uh-huh.”
“How come?”
“You’ll have to ask him,”
Mom said. But I never did.
The police car stops in front of the store where I bought the ice cream. As the officer gets out, the counterman I thought I so cleverly fooled comes out to the sidewalk and points in my direction.
By the time the officer gets back into the police car and makes a U-turn, I’ve scooted out of the park and am crouching down behind a Big Brothers clothing bin in the parking lot next door. But I know I can’t stay here, or anywhere around town. I’ve been spotted and I have to believe that other officers are coming. There’s a rusty chain-link fence at the back of the parking lot with a hole just large enough for me to squeeze through, onto the property that’s part of the middle school.
Moments later I’m cutting through the school parking lot, keeping low and weaving between the parked cars, feeling as if the Earth’s gravity has just doubled and is pressing heavily on me and making it more difficult to go forward. I’m weighed down by self-doubt. Where do I go? Where can I hide this time?
The sudden descent from overconfidence to no confidence leaves me scared, anxious, all alone in the parking lot, and all alone in the world. I’m dirty, smelly, and tired, and I don’t want to hide again. I don’t want to be by myself anymore. I feel so insignificant and worthless that I might just curl up in a fetal position right here between the parked cars and wait to be discovered and arrested and sent to jail forever. Maybe they’ll put me in the Fishkill Correctional Facility, the same place as Sebastian. The notorious Carsons—brother-and-sister murder-and-mayhem team.
No, I forgot. Prisons aren’t coed.
I hear shouting from the field behind the school. It sounds like an after-school soccer game. I know it’s crazy, but right now I need those voices, ordinary people around me—otherwise I’m going to implode.
Sure enough, there’s a soccer game in progress. The sidelines are filled with parents and families. The soccer field borders on a marshy area thick with tall reeds. I join the cheering crowd on the side nearest the reeds, in case I have to make a dash for freedom, and stand where I’m both part of the crowd and slightly apart from it. I just have to cling to the hope that no one is going to think that a girl on the run would be standing around watching a soccer game.
At first I’m so wrapped up in my own thoughts that I’m only vaguely aware that it’s a girls’ soccer game. But gradually I realize that they’re not only girls but girls about the same size and age of Alyssa, Slade’s little sister.
And there she is, racing around the field, her brown ponytail bouncing. I quickly glance down the sideline to see if Slade’s here. There’s no sign of him on this side of the field and I look across to the people lining the other side. Oh my God! He’s partway down the field, yelling encouragement. The pendulum of my emotions swings back toward elation, and the next thing I know, I’ve walked down the sideline until I’m directly across from him. Each time his eyes move in my direction, I raise my hand to shoulder height and softly wave.
But he’s too involved in the game to notice. It’s driving me crazy. I want to run all the way around the field and into his arms, but I might just as well start shouting to everyone that the girl the police are looking for is here.
I wave again and this time his eyes stay on me. His eyebrows dip, then shoot upward as if they’re going to rocket right off his forehead. I press my finger to my lips and feel joyous. Slade looks to the left and the right and then begins to walk down the sideline toward the goal, as if he’s coming around the field to me. He’s a little gimpy and I can tell his knee is still bothering him.
That’s when a police car shoots past the front of the school at pursuit speed, but once again with its lights and siren off. It’s headed toward the entrance to the parking lot. Then tires screech to my left as another police car races up the footpath that connects the school grounds to the park next door. They’re headed for the soccer field, and they’ve blocked both avenues of escape.