Chapter 57
It took ten days for Mr. Loukas’s autopsy results to come in.
When they did, they put a swift end to the theory that the car had inadvertently fallen on him while he was changing a tire.
The word on the street was that the scrapes to his shoulders and the back of his legs, and the deep wound behind his left ear, were cause for suspicion.
That day, his death was officially deemed a homicide.
Everyone had a theory.
“He was hit in the head with something heavy,” Daphne said.
We were on our bikes on the way to school.
Daphne had started riding her bike to my place before school just so we could ride there together.
She was slightly ahead of me, her hair flapping around under her straw hat.
“Dragged to the jacked-up car, pushed underneath, and then wham.” She kicked her leg.
“Jack goes out, car comes down. Pretty clever, really.”
“Not that clever,” I said, “since the cops figured it out pretty quick.”
It wasn’t surprising that everyone was talking about it.
Mr. Loukas was a beloved teacher. He was a young man, and it was an unexpected death.
But where I’d hoped that with each day, people’s interest in his death would wane, instead each day brought with it a new piece of information—whether fact or made up—or a new theory.
I slowed down, then got off my bike, preferring to walk. I held the handlebars and pushed.
Daphne got off her bike too. “Mabel? Are you okay?”
I nodded.
“What’s wrong?”
I lowered my voice and glanced around. “I saw him the night he died.”
“You did?” Daphne also lowered her voice. “Where?”
“We met in the sporting equipment shed.”
Daphne’s eyes grew into saucers. She understood what kind of thing happened in the sporting equipment shed. “You and Mr. Loukas?”
“It had been going on for a while,” I said. “But that night, Brother Stanislaus showed up.”
Daphne gasped.
“Shhh,” I said. “It was fine. I hid and he didn’t see me. He and Mr. Loukas left. Afterward, I went to Mr. Loukas’s house. I thought we’d laugh about what had happened. But a woman was there. His fiancée!”
“I heard he had a fiancée,” Daphne said. “Snake.”
“She said he’d had other relationships with students. Can you believe it?”
Daphne shook her head, muttering all sorts of curse words as we approached the school.
It was nearly time for the bell and students hurried through the gates.
Brother Stanislaus stood out front, which he did sometimes to greet the students and remind them to pull up their socks and straighten their ties.
“I was so upset,” I said to Daphne quietly. “I punctured his tire when I left.”
“Did you puncture anything else?” she said, equally quietly. “I wouldn’t blame you one bit if you did. And I will never tell a soul, I swear.”
Every person, I thought, should have a friend like Daphne.
“The truth is,” I said, then stopped talking when we noticed two uniformed police officers approaching Brother Stanislaus.
“What do you think is going on?” I whispered to Daphne, who shrugged.
We weren’t the only ones wondering. Students lurked nearby in groups of two or three, clearly trying to catch a word to fuel the day’s gossip. Billy Harris was loitering nearby, I noticed, in one of the groups of nosy kids.
Brother Stanislaus talked to the officers for a moment or two, then glanced around, his gaze locking on Daphne and myself. A bad feeling overcame me.
“Mabel,” Brother Stanislaus said. “These policemen would like to talk to you.”
“What?” I looked at the policemen—both middle aged, thickset, stern-looking. One of them, the mustached one, was familiar-looking. I thought I recognized him from one of my parents’ dinner parties. “Why?”
“We need to take a statement from you down at the police station,” the mustached police officer said.
Daphne moved closer to me. Her eyes were wide and worried.
“Why do you need a statement from me?” I asked.
“Because we understand you visited your teacher’s house on the night of his death,” the same policeman said, unnecessarily loud.
There was an audible intake of breath from students nearby. Brother Stanislaus took my bike out of my hands.
“It won’t take long,” the other police officer said. “Car’s just over here.”
“Wait …,” I said, bewildered, “don’t I need an … adult with me?”
Brother Stanislaus paused. Clearly, he hadn’t thought to ask this. But the police seemed unconcerned.
“We have parental consent,” the policeman said. “This way, please.”
It felt like every student was watching as I was led to the car, all of them barely able to conceal their delight. Brother Stanislaus, having handed off my bike, was trying to corral students through the gates, without much success.
“Parental consent,” I repeated as they opened the back door of the police car. “Who gave you consent?”
But of course I already knew. The policeman put a hand on my head as I climbed into the vehicle.
“Your father,” the officer said, and the door slammed shut.
The police talked about football most of the way to the station, making no attempt to engage with me.
I was no stranger to loneliness; I’d thought I’d been familiar with its every variety.
But as I traveled, alone, in the back of the police car, I discovered that there was a new, particularly potent breed of loneliness. Being alone, and frightened.
I looked out the window. I thought we’d go to the local police station, but instead we went all the way into the city. The building was four stories high. We parked in the basement.
“How will I get back to school?” I asked when the policeman opened my door. “Can I call my aunt?”
The policemen were still talking about football and were only half listening. “You can make a call after you’ve given your statement,” one of them said.
We rode the elevator to the top floor. I don’t think I’d ever yearned for a person as much as I yearned for Cess in that moment. It was so powerful that when the door opened, I was sure I heard Cess’s voice.
“I’ve spoken with my lawyer, who is on his way. He has advised that you may not speak with my niece—a minor—under any circumstances without my permission. Do you understand?”
“Her father has given permission, ma’am.”
The policemen had finally stopped talking about football. I saw them exchange a look. “This way, please,” one of them said, attempting to move me down the corridor.
I dug in my heels and looked around. I wasn’t imagining it. Cess was here.
“Her father?” I heard Cess exclaim. “Her father doesn’t live with her. The only claim he has to her is biological, and frankly, given how intelligent she is, I’ve long suspected that my sister was spending time elsewhere …”
“Cess?” I called.
“Mabel?”
The policeman grabbed my shoulder and tried once again to direct me down the corridor, but I broke away and ran toward her voice. Around a corner, I saw a desk and three exasperated-looking police officers. Then I saw Cess.
“Mabel!”
There was a desk between us. Immediately Cess bent down and began to crawl under it.
“Ma’am? Ma’am, you can’t come in here … ma’am?”
Cess ignored him, crawling under the desk to get to me. On the other side, she got to her feet, and ran.
That feeling I’d had earlier, the intensely lonely one? The feeling I had then was the exact opposite. It wasn’t just the fact that she’d crawled under the desk to get to me. It was the fact that in that moment, I believed she would have done anything.
There was another thing about that moment too, and it was what she said to me when she got her arms around me. Not “are you all right?” or “what happened?” In true Cess style, she cut right to the chase and said, loud enough for everyone to hear:
“I’m going to kill your father.”
We both began to cry.