He didn’t seem to know about the fallout for the podcast, and I didn’t need to lay that on him just now, nor did I want to speak it aloud.
He said, “Aren’t these the same people who believe in rehabilitation? Honestly, if I’d shot someone in a robbery fifteen years ago, they’d be fighting for everyone to forgive me. They’d say I learned from my mistakes.”
“That—Jerome. Come on.”
“Who’s that singer from Boston, no one even remembers he tried to kill someone.”
“I’m glad you didn’t shoot anyone. You wouldn’t trade this life for that.”
“But being bad at relationships, that’s worse than murder. I don’t get it. I want to stay home and never talk to people ever again.”
“Why don’t you cook with the kids? That always helps.”
He said, “You’re okay in all this, right? You’ll be okay?”
Silvie was back, crying. She said, “Mommy, Leo stepped on my tail. He won’t apologize, and my tail hurts and my mane hurts.”
45
Monday morning, an inch of fresh snow had settled on every tree branch, every railing. On the ground, it covered the old, hardened patches so your boot drifted down through soft new clouds only to hit solid ice.
I hadn’t seen snow like this since I’d left. Not in New York, where the piles turned grainy and black within hours. Not in my time in London. Obviously not in LA.
I imagined that if New Hampshire suddenly thawed, I’d find my own lost things in the melt. I’d find the calculator I lost junior year and had to use all my babysitting money to replace. I’d find the glass bead bracelet Carlotta gave me for Christmas, the one that fell off my wrist on North Bridge. I’d find, in twenty-three-year permafrost, some small, perfect object Thalia had dropped, something hugely important. Her diary, a pen with important fingerprints, a handkerchief embroidered with the initials of her killer. I’d find Yahav, I’d find my podcast, I’d find the unshattered, adult self I was just a week ago.
I crossed campus breathing the cold in deep. The sun emerged, only to glare down hard, bounce back up, blind me from beneath.
(Across the state right then, thirty-six hours after his surgery, Omar was finally getting up to walk the hospital halls—flanked by both nurses and guards. This was possible only when they’d had a chance to clear the halls of all other patients and hospital staff, which meant his walks wouldn’t be nearly frequent enough. And he’d be returned far too soon to the prison infirmary, since it was deemed too expensive for the state to keep staffing his hospital room for the full week he ought to have stayed. Still: He was healing. He was moving. He would, by sheer luck, make it through this particular injury. When he finished his stroll and returned to his room, they handcuffed his right wrist and left ankle back to the bed frame.)
In Quincy, the kids were already in their seats, stewing in tense silence. Foolishly, I thought maybe it was about me; maybe they’d gotten word that I was sexist and racist, an enabler of predators. Maybe they wanted out of the course. Maybe they wanted me off campus.
Britt said, “Can I talk to you in the hallway a minute?” But it was time to start class, and in any case she kept talking. “I’m thinking I could switch to the murder of Barbara Crocker.”
“We’re more than halfway through,” I said. “Your second episode could pivot to that, but—”
“No,” she said. “I want to scrap what I already did.”
Jamila sighed loudly. She said, “Britt, just get over yourself and finish what you started. It’s like you’re trying to punish me for my criticism.”
“I am not!” Britt shrieked. She seemed close to sobbing.
Alder said, “Hey. Hey. Okay.” He patted his thighs. “Hold up. Hear me out. I’ve been wrestling with my own project because honestly I don’t even know what it is anymore.” I wasn’t going to disagree. “What if—”
“I don’t want to trade with you,” Britt said. “I just want to stop.”
“No! What if we did yours together? I’m not gonna take over, but you know I’m obsessed with this case now.”
Jamila rolled her eyes, as if rescuing white girls from awkwardness was something Alder did all the time.
Alder said, “Would that work, Ms. Kane?”
“I think it would be fine.” Especially if it meant no one would cry right now. “And maybe you two can owe me a couple extra episodes, just to be fair.”
Britt looked hugely relieved, and Alder looked thrilled. Jamila whispered something to Alyssa, and Alyssa smirked into her notebook.
“Because honestly,” Alder said, “I’ve stayed up basically every night googling it.”
I said, “Britt? You’re okay with this?”
Britt glanced at Jamila, who wasn’t about to give her validation. “Yeah, I—that would be a lot better. Just having more—more points of view. And four episodes is no problem.”
“I think we’re in good shape then.”
Lola said, “So tell her the development!”
“Oh.” Britt managed a small smile. “I heard back from Thalia’s sister.”
I hadn’t known she’d contacted Vanessa. I tried to calculate how old she must be now.
“The parents didn’t write back, but she did. She seemed pissed, like not interested in talking. But she sent me this list of what she has, all the medical reports, and she has the on-campus interview transcripts from both the State Police and the private detectives. Which is huge, because that’s not on the Free Omar site. But she didn’t offer to share it. I think she might’ve thought we were doing, like, a more official thing.”
“She has all that?” Alder said. “What—okay, can I talk to her? I’ll Uber to wherever she is. Literally right now.”
Britt shrugged. “She sounded super not into that. I’ll show you what she wrote, at least.”
I said, “Would you mind showing me as well?” I wanted to see every document Vanessa had, and immediately. My sore throat and earache were gone. I felt awake for the first time in days. The interview transcripts were something I could spend hours in, weeks in. It occurred to me that my own words would be in there. I said, “I won’t interfere, but I knew Vanessa. I might—I could at least drop her a note and say you’re my students. I don’t know that she’d remember me, but it couldn’t hurt.”
I told them then about the flask, my theory of the timing. It seemed to cheer Britt up entirely; here was something to start her second episode. Lola said, “You can ask my uncle! If there was booze backstage, he was most definitely involved.”
46
Britt and Alder asked for more classmates of mine they could talk to, and I had to think hard who’d be open to it. I hit upon Geoff Richler, who’d barely known Thalia but who had, after all, been the one to develop Jimmy Scalzitti’s mattress party photos, and that was something. Besides, Geoff was funny and smart and would make a good podcast guest. He was living in New York, and occasionally over the years we’d made noise about having a drink when I was in town but had never gotten our act together. He would text me every time he listened to my podcast, things like I’m at the part where she’s hooked on amphetamines. Run for your life, Judy! I got back at him once by watching his TED Talk online and texting him constantly. (You’re turning to the left! You just cleared your throat! Oooh, the online marketplace as an unlikely spur for local growth!)
I texted him a heads-up about the students, and he sent back a GIF of a monkey eating popcorn.
My film class was meeting in the evening for a change, so after lunch I borrowed Anne’s snowshoes and Fran and I hit the fresh snowfall on the Nordic trail; Geoff was a topic of conversation. “The last girlfriend,” Fran said, “was ridiculously hot.” She had seen them both at our twentieth reunion, which I’d missed.
I said, “Like—I look at him objectively now, and I guess he’s attractive and successful. But this is our little Geoff.”