I figured Dane for a person who put great stock in the power of alpha males. And indeed he nodded, eyes intensely focused.
How funny, to think of you as alpha anything.
I said, “But they’re not about to investigate some guy just because I got a vibe. Plus, how easy would it be for them to say I’d misidentified the voices? And who would believe me about the phone thing to begin with? It would damage my credibility.”
Dane said, “It’s called a bridge tap. If a pair of stripped wires touch in the crossbox, the signals get mixed.”
“I—oh. Huh.”
He said, “I believe you.”
“Well, good. I’m glad. I was starting to think I was crazy.”
“Why are you telling me this?” he said. “Why me?”
“I figured you were the one person who could do something. You’re not Granby, you’re not the courts, you’re not a witness, you’re not the police. You’re allowed to tell the truth.” Yes, I laid it on that thick. I felt like a bit player in the hero origin story of Dane Rubra’s life. “Please don’t give those particular details. Please don’t bring me into it. But I know you can do something.”
He nodded solemnly, fingers working the edge of his hat. He was itching, I could tell, to run after his iPad. He asked if we could chat again and I said we shouldn’t, I’d already said too much.
A thousand pounds left my shoulders. I imagined those weights taking flight from the balcony to find you, to settle around your neck.
Were you on some pleasant trajectory before I interfered?
Did I expedite your karma?
I will not apologize.
13
The Calvin Inn had an elaborate breakfast setup, one I’d avoided the day before. You chose a table on the glassed-in sunporch, or the extra sunporch off the first one, and circled your selections on the day’s menu, one thing from each of seven categories. I asked for just oatmeal and a latte, but Geoff got brioche French toast, bacon, yogurt, fruit salad, poached eggs, a croissant, and a coffee, brought to the table in absolute random order. I’d have wondered how he could ingest so much if he weren’t constantly moving every muscle of his body. I’d forgotten that about him. Or maybe, rather, it had seemed normal on a teenage boy and was more idiosyncratic on a grown man.
Geoff was the one to face the rest of the room from our corner, leaning back in a chair that might tip at any moment. I was glad to face only him, not to deal with the entrances and exits of the stage play behind me.
He said, “Ninety-four was the last good year for pop culture. Like, think of the music: We had the Cranberries, we had Bush, we had Veruca Salt and Smashing Pumpkins. The next year, what do you get? Dave Matthews takes over. Oasis and the Gin Blossoms. Straight downhill. Even the class after us, remember how shiny they all were? They were so peppy. I look back and—they were the first millennials, right?”
“I just remember not liking them,” I said. “They seemed—yeah, too happy or something.”
“They had this baseline optimism.” And then he said, “Oh, wow, that’s Beth Docherty.”
I started to turn, stopped, reached for a jam packet so I’d have something else to do. I could forgive her for being mean, for willingly dating Dorian Culler, for probably sending me that weird note on Facebook asking who I thought I was. The things I couldn’t forgive, the reasons my ribs had just tightened like a corset, were （a） she’d been the first to suggest Omar to the police; and （b） she’d been the one who’d dubbed me the Masturbator, and decided this was worth repeating for a year. Those are on a vastly different scale, I’m aware. I’d have endured a thousand hurtful nicknames to buy Omar one hour of freedom. I’m just saying I couldn’t forgive her for either. I whispered: “Wait, is she testifying today?”
Geoff waggled his eyebrows. “She already did. Yesterday morning. Do I suddenly know more than you?”
“I’m not that clued in, believe it or not.”
I could tell where she was in the room by where Geoff’s eyes followed. He said, “She’d never recognize me. I could mess with her so bad.”
“Please do. If she went yesterday, why is she still here?” I could answer my own question, though: possibility of recall, a return flight she’d scheduled cautiously late, the promise of the world’s worst high school reunion, a chance to spend one more night away from home and kids and work. But I knew she wasn’t here eagerly. Unlike Sakina, Beth had not volunteered for this. Getting called out for underage drinking twenty-seven years after the fact, being asked why she hadn’t told the police about her backstage flask, getting grilled by the defense over why she’d named Omar—none of that would have been pleasant even without the media circus. Beth was one of the only Granby students to testify at the original trial—and who knew what being here now was bringing up? If I were her, I’d be long gone.
Geoff said, “I heard her husband is the guy who started that—what’s the tech thing with the beaver logo? No, not a beaver, an otter?”
“So how did she do?”
“You haven’t even listened to your own podcast? Last night’s episode was about her and then all about how they tried to crucify you up there with Britt. Which was such desperate bullshit.”
I said, “I suspect I’m here as a decoy now. If I stay in town, the state will keep focusing on me, but then, surprise, I never get up there.”
Geoff said, “Okay, she sat down way over by the orange juice station. So, yeah, it was mostly about the flask. She doesn’t remember Thalia drinking, she only admitted to passing the flask around. And then they basically took her back through what she’d told the police in ’95.”
“Oh. Wait, no, I didn’t want you to answer that. I can’t—”
“Shush shush shush, you’re not listening to a podcast, you’re not talking to another witness. You’re just eating oatmeal. Look at you sitting there, eating the hell out of that oatmeal.”
I shoved a spoonful in my mouth.
“She didn’t come off well. The defense, like—honestly, they made her look pretty racist, or at least classist. Her whole thing was ‘everyone knew’ about Omar, and they go, So you’re saying you put a lot of stock in rumors.”
I said, “They’re broadcasting the actual testimony?” The last I’d talked to Alder, he hadn’t been sure if he’d be allowed to, or if he could even pick up the sound well enough.
“The juicy parts,” Geoff said. “You ever sat through one of these things? It’s ninety-nine percent tedium.”
I said, “Okay. I’m taking one more bite of oatmeal. Just tell me if anything completely shocking came up. Like, anything you think I don’t already know.”
“Doubtful. Oh, they were asking if she’d ever been in the equipment shed, if she knew other kids who’d been in there. Because you know the state, in their opening, they argued the location change didn’t matter since Omar would’ve had a key to the shed. Did that door even have a lock? She’s, uh—shit.” He looked down at his plate, suddenly interested in the syrup-soaked dregs.