Blood on My Hands

CHAPTER 26

Monday 6:57 P.M.

JERRY FAIRMAN WAS Sebastian’s best friend, and as strange and mercurial as Sebastian is, Jerry is stranger still, a reclusive techno-whiz freak geek who rarely leaves his parents’ house. I know I’m taking a chance by going to see him, but at this point anything I do means taking a chance. Besides, Jerry isn’t the sort of person who deals well with authority, and conspiracy theories are like catnip to him. I remember at Sebastian’s nineteenth birthday party, Jerry cornered me and went on and on about how this country never actually sent men to the moon, and how the moon landings were faked on a Hollywood movie set to give the Russians the impression of America’s great superiority in space.
Of course, he also believes that UFOs exist and that the air force knows all about them. But the most disturbing thing he ever told me was about something called the New World Order, which he said was headquartered in a secret city under the Denver International Airport and run by the wealthiest and most powerful men in the world, who controlled everything and had ordered the destruction of the World Trade Center towers on 9/11 to drive up the price of oil.
Now that’s extreme.
I don’t know what to expect as I tiptoe through the dark around the back of the Fairman house. The basement light is on. I bend down and tap my knuckles gently against the glass, hoping it will be just loud enough for Jerry to hear and not alert the rest of the household. A few moments later a shadow appears on the floor and then I see Jerry’s pale face as he peers up, squinting and frowning, with no trace of recognition.
Afraid of being overheard, I lean closer to the glass. “It’s Callie,” I say in a low voice. The frown on Jerry’s face deepens. It’s hard to imagine that there is anyone in Soundview who is so detached from the outside world that he doesn’t know about Katherine’s murder. But if such a person could exist, it would be Jerry.
“Callie,” I repeat, a little more loudly. “Sebastian’s sister.” I slide the fake hoop off my lower lip. On the other side of the window, Jerry squints, blinks with astonishment, then motions to the semi-subterranean door beside the window. I go down three mold-darkened concrete steps to the screen door. It’s locked. Jerry opens the inside door and gives me a perplexed look through the screen.
“Did you hear about Katherine?” I ask.
He nods.
“I was set up. Someone wanted to make it look like I killed her. I came here because I need your help to prove I’m innocent. The person who set me up is hoping everyone will think I’m just like my brother.”
I’ve made it sound like a conspiracy, and Jerry nods in complicity. I reach down to the latch on the screen door and jiggle it to show him it’s locked. Jerry’s eyes travel down and then back up. His forehead furrows. “You want to come in?”
“I need help, Jerry. There’s no one else I can go to.”
It’s easy to picture the gears grinding in Jerry’s head. He could be hesitating for any number of reasons. “What do you want from me?” he asks.
“I’m having a problem with texting and cell phones. I thought maybe you could help.”
There’s nothing he likes more than fixing techy problems. To him it’s a form of recreation. Relief floods through me as he reaches down and unlocks the latch, then gestures me in and points at the floor, where shoes and boots are lined in an orderly row. I take off my wet shoes and socks … but now he looks at my bare feet and makes a face.
“I had to go through a marsh,” I explain.
Someone else might go get me a pair of dry socks, but Jerry doesn’t think that way. Instead, he pulls a bottle of Purell out of his pocket and gestures for me to cup my hands so he can squeeze some onto my palms. He waits while I rub the gel into my hands; then he nods down at my bare feet.
Yes, he’s serious, and I’m not in a position to argue. So I do what he wants and then follow him into his room.
It’s a shrine to OCD. Everything is in its place—books, in neat alphabetical order, computers, screens, printers, hard drives, phone-docking station, fax machine, tools. In two corners of the room, air purifiers hum and emit an antiseptic scent. The basement feels like a cross between a hospital operating room and a nuclear command post, and at its center is a high-backed black leather office chair and a desk with four computer screens stacked two and two. On two of the screens are cyber representations of green oval card tables with gambler avatars. On the third screen is a street scene from Second Life with voluptuous female avatars in skintight clothes and muscular young male avatars with cyber testosterone coursing through their veins. On the fourth is an episode of South Park.
Jerry watches me uncomfortably while I gaze around. It’s clear that the source of his discomfort isn’t that I’m a suspect in Katherine’s murder but that I’m standing in his private inner sanctum, where so few have been allowed over the years.
“Okay if I sit?” I ask.
He tilts his head uncertainly, then pulls an empty blue plastic milk crate from a corner and flips it over. I sit down and he slides into the leather office chair and quickly studies the screens of the poker games. With rapid movements he adjusts his mouse and flicks his keyboard.
“So if you didn’t do it, who did?” His bluntness catches me by surprise. Social graces were never his strong suit. Still, it’s a logical question. I don’t want to tell him what I suspect, so I just say I’m not sure but I’m following some leads. He looks askance at me, and I continue. “I know that must make you wonder if I’m lying. I’d probably be more believable if I said I had no idea, but I do have an idea. I just don’t want to say right now.”
His gaze stays on me, making me feel uncomfortable. Finally he glances at the screens, makes some more adjustments. “So you said you had some kind of problem?”
“About six months ago someone sent anonymous text messages to someone I know. He erased them from his phone. Is there any way to track down those messages and find out what they said?”
Without taking his eyes from his screens, Jerry shakes his head. “They’re gone. Phone companies can’t store content. It’s not only a privacy issue but a logistical nightmare.”
He moves the mouse, still playing two poker games at once. The games may exist in the ethereal world of cyberspace, but the money involved is cold hard cash. When that public defender wanted my brother to cop an attempted manslaughter plea and do eighteen to twenty-five years, Jerry paid for the lawyer who got the sentence down to eight to fifteen. The money came from online gambling.
“That’s all you wanted to know?” he asks, and I can’t help getting the feeling that he’s a little disappointed that I didn’t bring a more exciting techno challenge for him to solve. But there’s another one.
“When I turn on my phone and make a call, the police show up. I assume they’re tracing my calls.”
“Yeah, they trace the pings through the phone company and know what tower you’re near. And if your phone has GPS, they pretty much know exactly where you are.”
“How do I know if my phone has GPS?”
Jerry tugs a couple of Purell wipes out of a container, lays them flat on his palm, then extends his hand to me. I place my phone on the wipes and watch while he swipes the outside of it, then carefully opens it and wipes the inside. At no point does he touch the phone with his bare fingertips. Once the phone is completely germ free, he quickly inspects it and shakes his head. “Not this piece of junk.”
It may be a piece of junk, but I suspect that it’s good news that there’s no GPS. “So if I use it, the police just know the area I’m in, but not exactly where I am?”
“Right. Unless you’re moving. Then they can track you from tower to tower and triangulate.” He pauses and stares down at the phone. “I can make this untraceable if you want.”
“Really?” I didn’t expect that. “How?”
“Easy.” He pries off the back and removes a small green-and-white card, which he slides into something that looks like an overgrown memory stick. He pauses momentarily to review his positions in the poker games, then plugs the thing into a USB port. In a flash the Second Life scene is replaced by computer gobbledygook. It looks a little like the green symbols from The Matrix, only they’re not flowing; they’re long multicolor lines on a white background. Jerry begins typing and working the mouse, causing numbers and values to change in the long equations.
A few seconds later he replaces the card in my phone, tosses it back to me, and once again levels his gaze in my direction. There’s something in his eyes that makes me feel uncomfortable. I wish I knew what he was thinking.
“I heard you quit the cross-country team,” he says.
It’s a strange thing to bring up at this moment, but then, that’s Jerry. “Between school and work and going up to Fishkill to see Sebastian once a week, I just couldn’t do it.”
He nods. “So you … want to take a shower? Get cleaned up?”
I feel dirty and gritty and would love to take a shower, but there’s something about taking off my clothes in this house, with Jerry around, even with the bathroom door locked, that makes me uneasy.
“You need a place to stay? Want to stay here tonight?” he adds.
I do need a place to stay, but again, I feel uncomfortable. I don’t know what he’s thinking. He may be an antisocial recluse, but he’s still a male. “I better not.”
He continues to stare. “You still with that Slade guy?”
How does he know about Slade and me? And how should I answer? “Kind of.”
“Kind of?” he repeats with a smile. For a moment I worry that he might take that as some sort of invitation, but then he turns back to the computer screens and resumes playing poker, and I feel relieved.
It’s a strange moment. I stare at the back of Jerry’s chair. All I can see are the bottoms of his calves and his shoes. I came here for help and information, but now what? I know that somewhere the phone company has a record of those anonymous texts being sent, even if they don’t know what each text said. I know I have a phone I can use. But night has come and it’s dark outside. Where can I go? The big leather chair squeaks as Jerry turns to face me. He has a curious but wary look. Is he wondering why I’m still here?
“Jerry, I … I really appreciate you helping me.”
He intertwines his fingers as if in prayer and sucks in his lower lip pensively. “I heard the police are warning people that they can get in trouble for sheltering you.”
I nod and stare at the floor. Is he implying that since he’s taken a big risk for me, I should do something for him? Some alarm in my head is telling me it’s time to go. It’s hard to get up and leave this warm, dry basement, but I’m just not comfortable.
I head for the door. He follows, watching as I stuff the wet socks into my hoodie and pull the damp shoes over my bare feet. “Thanks, Jerry.”
“Hey, stay in touch, okay?” he says. “And if you need anything …”
“Right, thanks.” I reach for the screen door and let myself out into the night. Behind me, Jerry cleans the doorknob with a wipe.
In the cool night air, I have to decide what to do next. A harvest moon has started to rise, big and orange-red, and as I pause to look at it, I catch some movement out of the corner of my eye. It’s come through the window of the basement, where Jerry has taken his seat again. His cell phone is pressed to his ear, and his expression implies that he’s speaking urgently. I wish I knew to whom, and what he is saying.
I glance at the moon again and now I notice something else: near the back of the yard is a tree lit by moonlight, and in the branches is a square dark silhouette—a tree house. Stepping closer, I see planks of wood hammered crookedly into the trunk for steps. The tree house is a wooden box with a doorway and some rectangular cutouts for windows. I wonder if this is something Jerry’s father built long ago in an unsuccessful attempt to get his son to go outside.
It’s as good a place as any to spend the night.
A moment later, sitting in the tree house, I try Slade’s number but get his recording. I don’t want to leave a message. Even if the police can no longer trace my phone, they might be able to identify my voice and charge Slade with helping me.
Fatigue drifts in like a thick fog. I would like to stay awake and try to figure out what my next move should be, but instead, I lie down on the floor and close my eyes.
By August, Katherine was no longer nagging me to break up with Slade. I assumed she now liked me enough not to make it a condition of our friendship. I was being included in everything the IC did and, except for work, having the best summer of my life. And while I missed Slade, I also felt strangely liberated—free to do whatever I chose on my days and nights off, not having to feel responsible for propping him up when he sank into one of his moods.
Then, all of a sudden, it got quiet. I sent Katherine a text and got no reply. I sent an e-mail: same thing. I assumed she was on vacation.
One afternoon Mia came into the Baskin-Robbins. “So I hear you’re all going to Zelda’s beach house for the weekend,” she said while I scooped out a double mint Oreo cone for her.
I managed to catch myself before blurting out that I didn’t know what she was talking about. Mia studied me. “You don’t want to talk about it because you don’t want to make me feel bad, right? But it’s okay. Maybe I don’t care anymore.”
“Really?” I asked as I handed her the cone. It was hard to imagine her changing so dramatically.
Mia leaned closer to the ice-cream case and lowered her voice. “Well, maybe I do, but I’m not going to act like I do anymore. I think if you act like you don’t care, like Zelda and Jodie, Katherine respects you more.”
I knew that worked for Zelda and Jodie, but I wasn’t so sure it would work for Mia.
“Besides,” she went on with a smile, “guess what? I’ve discovered there’s actually life outside Soundview High.”
I grinned. But as soon as she left, I called Jodie and asked if Katherine was away.
“No,” she answered.
An awkward silence followed. I was suddenly filled with uncertainty. Finally I said, “I’ve e-mailed and texted and she hasn’t answered.”
“Oh, yeah,” Jodie said. “Well … you know.”
“Sorry?” I didn’t know what she was talking about.
“She wanted you to do something and you didn’t do it.”
Even then it took a moment for me to realize what Jodie was talking about. I was stunned. All I could say was “Why is it so important to her?”
“You’re asking me?” Jodie laughed. “Who knows? For all I know, maybe she wants you for herself.”