Courtney #3
Except that this time, as I play it back in my mind, I remember something I’d forgotten.
As Elliott and I were leaving, Emily leaned in to him and said, her words guarded but not so under wraps that I didn’t notice, “Do you think I could talk to you tomorrow in private? I have something to ask you,” and Elliott hesitated, stiffening as if caught off guard, and then said yes.
After we left, I didn’t think to ask Elliott about it. I forgot all about it, because he and I were so laser focused on what
happened with Reese that it slipped my mind.
“What happened after your aunt and uncle left your cottage?”
“It was . . . I dunno . . . it was quiet.”
“Quiet how?”
Wyatt shrugs. “Like no one was talking.”
“Had they gone to sleep?”
“I was in my own room. The door was closed. How would I know?”
“Fair enough.” The detective thinks and rephrases his question. “Were you awake for a while after your aunt and uncle left?”
“Yeah. I guess.”
“Do you remember what time you went to sleep?”
“Not for a while. I couldn’t sleep. I tried to, but I couldn’t. My nose was all stuffy, so I went downstairs and told my mom
and she gave me medicine.”
“What kind of medicine?”
“Allergy medicine I guess.”
“Do you know what kind?”
He shrugs. “It was pink.”
“Was it Benadryl?”
“Maybe.”
Detective Evans looks up. Our eyes meet.
Benadryl. Emily gave him Benadryl, which has a sedative effect. It would have made Wyatt sleepy, which explains things, like
how he slept through the night, through everything that happened and why he didn’t wake up this morning until the police woke
him.
“Okay. Good. That’s helpful, Wyatt. Do you know what time it was when you came downstairs for the Benadryl?” Wyatt shakes his head. “That’s alright. When you came downstairs, you said your mom was there. Was she alone or was someone with her?”
“She was alone.” I picture that: Emily staying up later than the rest, cleaning the cottage from our night, and I regret that
Elliott and I went home when we did, that we didn’t stay to keep her company or help clean.
“She was sad,” Wyatt offers all on his own, his voice flat. He sits on his chair, gazing down at his hands, picking now at
a black woven bracelet on his thin wrist.
I have trouble breathing because of his words. Emily was sad. It hits a nerve, though I knew that, didn’t I? When Elliott
and I left last night, waving to Emily on the deck until we couldn’t see her anymore, I knew that she was sad.
Emily was my best friend. I’ve known Nolan my whole life, but I knew her better. She and I were friends since we were Cass’s
and Mae’s age. We met the first day of fifth grade, when I was new to the school and Emily took notice. She saw me sitting
on the playground alone and was the only one in the whole fifth grade who came over and talked to me. From that moment on,
we were inseparable. At first, Nolan was just my big brother to her, someone we both thought was annoying and gross. Until,
all of a sudden, Emily didn’t think he was either of those things anymore. I caught her staring at him in my kitchen once,
gazing at him over her Oreos and milk. She liked him.
I pretended to vomit when she confessed to me that she thought he was cute.
Are you mad? she asked.
I didn’t see the appeal, but I told her no. Of course not. I don’t think there is anything Emily could have ever done to make
me mad.
That said, I knew as well as anyone that Nolan could be a jerk, that, even as a grown adult, it was as if he sometimes had the emotional intelligence of someone who’s eighteen.
He made her sad, and though I loved him, there were times, in hindsight, that I wish I would have talked her out of marrying him.
They weren’t compatible. They had almost nothing in common, not when we were kids and not as adults.
I regret that last night I didn’t stay and talk to her, that I just left with Elliott.
“How do you know that she was sad?” Detective Evans asks. “Did she tell you?”
“She didn’t have to. She was crying.” As he says it, my hand goes to my mouth and tears fill my eyes. It breaks my heart,
thinking of Emily alone and upset after we left. She’d had that argument with Reese. All week, her and Nolan had been fighting.
Of course she was upset. I should have made more of an effort to be there for her, to comfort her. I shouldn’t have left when
I did. I should have sent Elliott home alone to check on Cass and Mae, and I should have stayed with Emily.
The detective asks, “Did she tell you why she was upset?”
Wyatt says, “She tried to hide it, to pretend she wasn’t, you know?”
“To pretend she wasn’t crying?”
“Yeah.”
“Did you ask her what was wrong?”
“They’d been going through hard times,” I offer when Wyatt shakes his head—tightening my hold on Mae, who I don’t realize
is crying until she wipes her nose with a sleeve—because I don’t want the detective to make him feel bad for not asking Emily
what was wrong. Emily is strong; she’s stoic. It would have killed her for Wyatt to see her upset, and if he had asked, she
would have told him that nothing was wrong. “My brother has been out of work. Money is tight and it’s caused tension in their
marriage.”
“Were they fighting?”
“Not around us. Not where we could see. But yes,” I say, “they were fighting.”
“Did you notice that too?” the detective asks the kids, though Mae just turns away from him, burying her face into my arm.
“You’d have to be deaf not to,” Wyatt says.
“What did they fight about?”
“What didn’t they fight about?”
“Was it just words?”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean, did they ever get physical?” Detective Evans asks, and I wince, wanting to say no, never. But he’s not asking me and I don’t know what went on behind closed doors.
“You mean like hitting each other?” Wyatt asks.
“Yeah. Like hitting each other.” I hold my breath, wondering what Wyatt is going to say, if there was something going on in
that house that I didn’t know about.
But, to my relief, Wyatt says no.
Detective Evans says, “Okay. What else can you remember about the last few days? Anything unusual? Any strange run-ins, threatening
calls or texts? Did someone have an enemy?”
For the first time, Mae speaks, pulling her body away from mine, her eyes gazing up at me, not the detective, as she says,
as if divulging a secret, “Reese met a boy,” and it sparks a memory.
It was a couple days ago. They were behind the little pool shed: Reese and some boy. I came around the corner to see her standing
there in her flimsy red strappy bikini top with a towel tied loosely around her waist, her hair and tanned skin dripping wet
as if she’d just come out of the water. She was barefoot, tossing her hair as she laughed a high-pitched laugh, her smile
a mile wide. In the moment, there was no denying she was completely smitten with this boy. I stopped and backed quietly away,
not wanting to embarrass her in front of her friend.
I nod. “You’re right, Mae, she did.” I look at the detective. “I saw them at the pool the other day. I don’t know if that means anything, if it’s relevant.”
“At this point, everything is relevant,” he says. “Do you know this boy’s name? Is he staying in one of the cottages?”
“No. He’s an employee, I think,” I say, because I saw him from time to time, in his t-shirt and low-slung jeans, doing things
like cleaning the pool, yard and maintenance work, going into and out of other people’s cottages, carrying a toolbox, fixing
things, letting himself in with some master key.
“Can you describe him?”
“Tall,” I say. “Brown hair, I think. I’m sorry. I didn’t get a good look.”
“What about you, Mae? Is there anything that stands out about this boy? Anything you can remember?” Detective Evans asks,
and I see Mae blush when he speaks directly to her, calling her by name. I look at her, at the way her hands shake on her
lap, dried tears clinging to her cheeks like the blood on her knee. I let my eyes go to the blood, realizing in that moment
that poor Mae is still in the same clothes as before, the ones with urine on them too, because she wet herself earlier. I
feel a sharp pain in my chest from guilt, because I didn’t remember, because I changed my own clothes but didn’t think how
she needed to change hers, though I don’t want to call attention to it now and embarrass her.
“Mae?” I ask, bringing my eyes back to her face, gently nudging her. “Is there anything you can tell Detective Evans about
the boy?”
She nods. “He had a snake tattoo on his arm.”
“A snake tattoo,” Detective Evans repeats, and Mae looks cautiously toward him and nods again. “Did you ever talk to him?”
She shakes her head. “Did your sister ever mention anything about him to you? His name maybe?”
Again Mae shakes her head. She says, “But I saw them together. And I heard him one night.”
“You heard him? Where?”
Mae glances at me, as if nervous to go on, her tangled hair in her eyes. “It’s okay,” I say, sweeping her hair off her face.
“You can tell him. Don’t be scared.”
Her lower lip trembles as she says, “I don’t want to get Reese in trouble. I don’t want her to be mad at me.”
“You won’t be getting her in trouble, Mae. I promise. Reese isn’t in any trouble. We’re trying to help her, that’s all. We’re
trying to find her. She won’t be mad.”
Still, Mae hesitates. Her hair falls back in her face and it takes a minute for her to say, “He was in our cottage.”
“How do you know?”
“I got up in the middle of the night to go to the bathroom. I heard him.”
Nolan and Emily must not have known. They would have been out of their minds if they knew Reese had a boy over in the middle
of the night.
“What did you hear, Mae?” Detective Evans leans in to ask. “Can you tell me?”
Mae doesn’t say at first. She’s apprehensive. She looks away from the detective, her eyes coming to mine. “It’s alright,”
I assure her, tucking her stubborn hair gently behind an ear so that it stays put this time. “You can say. Help us help Reese.”