8. Ben #2
Both detectives are furiously taking notes, and I wonder how what I’m telling them is going to match up with whatever story Liz might decide to spin for her own benefit. I know my story and Jayne’s will match, but Liz… she’s a wild card.
“Anyway,” I say, “that’s kind of the end of the story.
I messed up, Sadie forgave me, and I swear to God, I worked every day to be worthy of that forgiveness.
To be worthy of a girl like that. We had big plans, you know.
We were going to go to school, come back here, and merge the family businesses.
Cooper-Carrera, Incorporated. Sadie was even working on some logos for us, just something to show our dads to prove that we were serious about it. ”
“Mr. Carrera,” one of the detectives says, and I can tell by the tone of his voice that we’re kicking off a new line of questioning.
Great, because I definitely wanted to stay in here for even longer.
I feel my leg start to bounce, and I wonder if I’m allowed to ask to use the bathroom.
Just to scrub my fingernails, if nothing else. Just so I feel better. Feel clean.
“Would you describe yourself as a violent person?” he asks.
“No,” I reply, without a second’s hesitation.
“You’re a football player, aren’t you?”
“Yeah, so?”
“That can be a bit of a rough crowd sometimes, can’t it?”
“Look, we mess around, and we may get into it a little bit in the locker room or whatever, but we’re a football team, not a fucking fight club. And even if we were, I know the rules… I wouldn’t talk about it.”
The other detective laughs, and I smile in spite of myself. The more it can feel like we’re all in this together and I’m not on the other side of an interrogation, the better. For them and for me.
“Right, of course. I’m not suggesting that. I’m just asking if your aggression on the field ever made its way over into your real life.”
“If you’re asking me if I ever put a hand on Sadie, the answer is hell no.
We fought, sure; you can ask anyone, and they’ll tell you that.
But we loved each other. That was the whole reason we fought—because one of us would do something stupid, and the other one would get upset, and we would just scream it out.
I’m not proud of it, but here we are. Actually, Sadie is the one who slapped me one time.
She was so pissed off that I went to this long weekend thing at my buddy Andrew’s house, and it was supposed to be a guys thing, but it turned out there were girls there too…
” I’m drifting. Green tape. Sharpie smudge.
“Anyway, I guess that doesn’t matter now.
Like I said, ask anyone and they will tell you that I might have a temper, but I’m not a violent guy.
I never did more than throw a friendly punch in the locker room until last night.
I didn’t even know I was capable of doing what I did.
It just… it just happened. I did what I had to do. That’s the truth.”
The funny thing about the truth, though, is that it tends to change depending on what the person asking you for it really wants to hear.
That’s why Sadie believed me when I told her that Liz and I just slept together that one time, and there was nothing more to it.
She never even asked to see my text messages.
She never asked for proof, because she didn’t want it.
And Liz went along with it for the same reason, because the truth made her look too shitty, and she knew that Sadie would prefer a clean-cut, one-night mistake.
Not the conversations Liz and I were having before that night, and sure as hell not the conversations we were having after.
It didn’t mean anything to me, though, and anyone who sees the texts can see that.
Can see that maybe, in some way, it wasn’t enough for Liz to be a part of the Cooper family and have the benefits that Jayne and Sadie had.
She needed to have exactly what Sadie had, whether that was an outfit or, in my case, a boyfriend. Just to prove she could.
It freaks me out when I think about it sometimes, the kinds of things Liz is capable of.
She is not a girl who takes no for an answer.
And I have to wonder, just a little bit, if she’s got more to do with this than anyone realizes.
I would never suggest that she had anything to do with it directly—I know exactly what happened, after all—but what if she found something out about Sadie and Mason and chose to simply do… nothing?
What’s more dangerous: the person who picks up the knife or the person who stands by and watches it happen?
Without warning, the door to the interrogation room swings open with a bang. Judging by the reaction of both the detectives, they weren’t expecting anyone either.
“We have a problem,” the uniformed officer at the door says.
“What kind of problem?”
“A state kind of problem.”
“What the hell do they want with this case? It’s open-and-shut,” one detective says.
“And, more importantly, it’s our jurisdiction,” adds the other. “Nobody even so much as crossed a county line.”
“Look, it’s not my job to figure out why they sent somebody out here. I’m just here because the captain wanted me to give you both fair warning. You too, kid,” the cop suddenly addresses me, and I feel myself break out in a sweat.
What would a state police detective want with me?
The local detectives are right; there isn’t anything about this that should pique the interest of the state.
It’s not that I have a problem with that or anything; it’s just that, here in our town, I can count on my dad’s name carrying a certain amount of sway.
I can count on people seeing my side of things and wanting to believe the best of me.
Hell, we may even be able to keep the worst of this out of the news.
I’m still a minor—can they even say my name on TV?
Can they print it anywhere? I suddenly realize that my promised scholarship to Ohio State could be in serious jeopardy.
Spin it. I hear my father’s voice in my head. Whatever the story is, you spin it. You make it work. You do not fail. You are a leader.
Okay, so what would a leader do right now? He’d keep his cool, to start.
Green tape. Sharpie smudge. We are here. I am here.
“Thank you,” I say, like the cop just told me there’s a fresh pot of coffee ready for me. “Is the state detective going to need to speak with me?”
“I’m gonna go out on a limb and say yes.”
“Okay,” I say. “It’s been, uh, it’s been a long night. And morning. Is there any way I can go home for a while and come back whenever he gets here?”
“You mean ‘she.’ ”
“Oh, sorry. She.”
The cop looks at the two detectives. They’re clearly all trying to decide if I pose a flight risk.
They’re also probably trying to decide what Donovan Carrera would do to them if they held me after I asked to go.
I haven’t been charged with a crime, after all, have I?
How long can they just keep me for questioning?
God, I really just need to wash my hands.
“We can release you into the custody of a parent or guardian,” one of the detectives says finally.
“I’ll call your father to come down here and pick you up.
You cannot go anywhere except straight home; do you understand me?
And be ready to get called back in this afternoon.
I thought we’d have this whole disaster wrapped up by noon, but clearly the state feels differently. ”
“Yes, sir,” I say, feeling a wave of relief wash over me. I don’t care if I can only be home for twenty minutes. I just need to be away from here. I need to take a shower, change my clothes, hug my mom. I can only imagine what’s been going through her head since all this happened.
The detectives both disappear, and one of them comes back in a few minutes later to let me know that my dad is on his way to get me.
“You can wait outside,” he says. “If you don’t want to sit in here anymore.”
Sorry, is there a single human being who would choose to sit in here anymore?
“Thanks.”
I wonder if Jayne and Liz are still here or if they got to go home too. I wonder if they called in anybody else. Trevor, maybe? Or Justin? I remember Liz talking to Justin a lot last night. But he was nowhere near the barn, as far as I know. He doesn’t know anything.
Stepping outside feels like jumping into a cold lake.
For a minute, I can’t breathe. When they brought me in, it was still dark.
But the sun is up now, and the air has the kind of bite to it that reminds you winter is only a few short months away.
It feels good. It feels cleansing. I can separate the guy who was just in that interrogation room for four hours with the guy who’s standing outside now, waiting for his dad to pick him up.
I’m not sure how long I wait on the cold, hard metal bench outside the station before my dad pulls up in the Range Rover.
The first thing I notice is how slowly the car pulls up, like he has all the time in the world and is in no particular hurry, which seems weird for a guy whose kid killed someone last night.
That’s when I realize the answer to what I was trying to figure out earlier—whether he didn’t come here because he didn’t want to or because he couldn’t.
It was because he didn’t want to. This is enough of a family scandal; the last thing he’d want to do is show his face until it’s an absolutely necessity.
My phone pings three times in quick succession.
They gave it back to me when I was on my way out the door, so I can only assume they have whatever they need in terms of “evidence.” Not that there would be a single thing on this phone that would contradict what I told them happened last night.
After all, I was telling the truth. I’d never spoken to Mason Vreeland before last night, and I can’t even really call last night “speaking” to him.