JOSIE
“There’s a problem,” says Mrs. Snickett, taking a puff of her cigarette, as she shuts the trunk. “No knife in sight.”
She kills the flashlight, and suddenly, everything around us turns dark again.
“We need to talk,” she says, and at first, I think she means me, but then she adds, nodding at me, “You stay here, and me and Rika will have a word.”
When they come back, I’m miserable, cold, and trembling. “We should call the police,” I say.
“Not happening,” Mrs. Snickett says, cutting me off.
“We can’t. Number one, if this man was stabbed before he died, and someone has the weapon, and it has your fingerprints, there’s no chance of getting out of this without a conviction.
You have no alibi. You actually saw this man being hit by the car, and you ran.
There’s nothing, absolutely nothing, that looks even remotely good for you. ”
I don’t mind that Rika just told her everything. I need to come clean and deal with this.
“Two,” Mrs. Snickett continues in a raspy voice, then pulls another cigarette out of her pocket and lights it. Smoke mixes with the smell of booze I now recognize. She’s been drinking. But then, she’s known for drinking every day. And she sounds sober.
“Two,” she repeats, “we can’t do this to your grandmother. Karen went through a lot back then. This is history repeating itself, and I need to fix it.”
“What do you mean, history repeating itself—”
“Kiddo,” she interrupts me again and steps closer. Now I can see her face, her eyes vaguely sparkling with the reflection of the dim light at the back of her house in the distance. There’s no hostility in them. “Your grandmother and I, we go way back.”
I heard that before.
“Things happened. I messed up some of them. Now, Karen is one foot in the grave.” I gasp at the words. “What? She is, and you know it. We don’t want to make it worse. If you can keep your mouth shut and forget what happened tonight, I can fix this. I can fix this.”
She takes another drag of her cigarette, the ember burning between us, while I’m trying to think of how she can possibly fix a dead body. Resurrection?
“The one who shouldn’t be mixed up in this is Rika,” Mrs. Snickett says. “But she’s already in this mess. And she knows how to keep her mouth shut. If you can, too, then this night never happened.”
“What does that mean? How—”
“It doesn’t matter how, what, and why. What matters is—can you keep your mouth shut and forget this ever happened?”
She tilts her head toward the trunk, her stare on me almost tangible.
And here come the thoughts about my family.
My screwed-up family. I don’t know who’s doing this and why I’m the target.
But maybe it’s not me. Maybe it’s Grandma.
I can’t do this to her. I can’t go to prison.
At least not now. I could live with this, with this crime, at least until she’s gone, peacefully and not with another family member throwing her life away.
The thought of covering this up is atrocious and petrifying.
But my grandmother deserves peace. When she’s gone, if this secret is too much, I will give myself up.
“I can,” I whisper. “Yes.”
“I didn’t hear you,” Mrs. Snickett says.
“I can.”
“Can what?”
“I can keep quiet and forget that this happened,” I say, not sure what it means. “But how—”
“Give me the car keys,” she orders, stretching her hand toward me.
I pass her the keys.
“Get back in the house.” She walks up to the driver’s door and stops to give the last instructions. “Don’t talk to anyone. Don’t pick up the phones unless it’s me. Don’t do anything stupid. Keep the lights low, curtains closed. I will be back.”
“When?”
“When I’m back. Understood?”
Without another word, she gets in my car. At this point, I don’t mind that her cigarette is still lit. Maybe that smoke can exorcise the horrible things that keep happening to me. Nothing can make this disappear, but Mrs. Snickett has a reputation for being someone who could arm-wrestle a devil.
“Come on, Boots.” Rika nudges me. “We need to lie low.”
I’ve never been to Mrs. Snickett’s house, but the interior is similar to my grandma’s.
The house design, the old wallpaper, the hardwood floors.
Except there’s taxidermy on the walls, a deer, several deer racks, a giant fish.
Her kitchen smells of smoke. There’s an ashtray on the counter. A TV is playing upstairs.
“You didn’t tell me Donna Snickett is your grandmother,” I say to Rika as I take a seat at the kitchen table.
“You didn’t ask if I had any relatives in town,” Rika says dismissively, taking off her coat and hanging it on the rack, then motioning for mine.
“You could’ve mentioned it,” I say. “Knowing my family’s history.”
“For what? So that you could hate me the way your grams hated mine?”
“I-I wouldn’t.”
“Oh, stop it, Boots. This is not the time.” Her mood has changed. All humor is gone. “Do you want something to drink?”
As per rumors, Mrs. Snickett has an endless supply of Captain Morgan that will last into her afterlife. “What are you having?”
“Tea. I can make you tea, coffee, or juice.”
“Oh. No booze? I could use some.”
Rika doesn’t look at me as she puts a kettle on the stove. “What you could use is a clear head. We need to talk about this. Give me your phone.”
I pass her my phone.
“Smart watch?” she asks.
I shake my head, confused.
She then takes the phones to the other room.
“What are you doing?” I crane my neck, trying to figure out what she’s up to.
She comes back to the kitchen and sits down at the table across from me.
“Making sure no one is listening. Now, here’s the deal.
You can’t talk about this. Ever. Not with anyone.
Not with me. We don’t bring it up. We don’t ask my nana questions.
Your car is old and doesn’t have GPS. Neither does mine.
We left the bar around the time that we did.
I was tipsy, so we drove your car. I called Nana, and we drove here so I could introduce you two. ”
I nod in agreement. “Oh-kay?”
“Don’t stare at me like an owl, Boots. That’s what happened. We had tea.” She nods toward the stove. “I’ll make you some in a minute. We chatted. And then”—she looks at the clock in the kitchen, almost identical to the one Grams has in hers—“you went home, leaving me here.”
“What time?”
“Yet to be determined.”
“Where did your grandmother go?”
Rika stares at me for a long moment. “Nowhere. Which part did you not understand? We were having tea and talking.”
I got it. This is a drill. I need to remember it.
Rika makes us tea, pours two cups, sets sugar on the table, then grabs cookies from one of the cupboards, all without saying a word. Her face is grim, but she seems calm, whereas my head is about to split from all the thoughts and stress.
“Why are you doing this?” I ask, staring at the steam rising in the air from my cup.
Rika resumes her seat at the table and slumps in her chair. “Who else would do it?”
I shrug. “You barely know me.”
“Our grandmothers were best friends for decades.”
“I know that.”
“Then have faith in the women who once ran this town. Trust me, my nana knows what she’s doing.”
“They used to run bars.”
“Nana used to say that, back in the day, a church and a bar were where people brought their problems. But unlike a church, a bar had the people who put their morals aside and solved those problems.”
“That’s all cool, but I feel bad for dragging you into this.”
“You didn’t. Our families have already been simmering in this mess for decades.”
“But not you. You didn’t deserve—”
“Listen, Boots,” Rika interrupts me sharply.
She leans on the table with her elbows, her blue braids shifting forward. She’s so beautiful, and I can’t believe she’s getting involved in something horrible like this, saving my butt.
“I’ve had some…” She licks her lips, taking a moment.
“Let’s just say, I’ve been in a lot of strange situations in my life,” she says, her eyes locked with mine.
“I’ve helped others, and I’ve had my ass saved by others.
It’s the Golden Rule. The honor code. A little goes a long way.
Some people I’m grateful for went above and beyond to help me at different times in my life.
Because they could. Because they cared. If you’ve never had such people, I feel bad for you.
But maybe you’ll learn something from this.
More importantly, I don’t think you know what happened the night of the bar fire decades ago. What really happened.”
“What happened?” I echo.
“Your grandmother saved our moms from going to prison.”