I stop, and try to hear what they’re talking about. When I can’t follow the words, I sneak over to the big split trunk and hide in my usual spot. Over on Greta’s stone throne, there is a knot of some six or seven men standing shoulder to shoulder with their backs to me. Most are uniformed, but I recognize the two who are not by the sports coats. They’re the ones who took over with the groundskeeper this morning. Some of the men are smoking. One has a pipe.
Something is on the rocks at their feet, breaking up the dull gray expanse of the stone.
As I shift my weight and try to look between the loose fabric of their slacks—
Is that a bare foot?
Through the forest of the officers’ pant legs, I recognize a single bare foot that is white and immobile. It is tilted out to the side, and from my angle, I can see that the toenails are painted bright pink, and it is a manicured pink, not something sloppy and done by hand in a dorm room. There is a single gold ring on the third toe—
I step back sharply and my boot snaps a stick.
The clutch of men pivot toward the sound I’ve made. That is when I see whose foot it is.
Margaret Stanhope is lying on the boulder faceup, her bright clothes disjointed and stained with blotches of red, her blond hair tangled, her eyes open and staring at the sky in the midst of her colorless face. There is a man on his knees next to her and he’s in the process of laying out a black bag that has a zipper that runs the length of the heavy, tarp-like plastic.
One of the policemen leaps toward me. “Hey! You’re not supposed to be back here—Jesus Christ, Bob, you were supposed to make sure none of them came down here!”
I take off at a panicked run on the path, sure as if Greta’s killer is on my heels, as opposed to the police. I run in terror, every pounding stride sending the image of that foot through my brain again and again, the toe, the toenail polish, the toe ring. The dead white skin. The flecks of dirt on the ankle.
Bushes slap at my face. I slip on some mud and recover my balance as if I am an athlete, instead of a mentally ill shut-in. Something slaps my back repeatedly between my shoulder blades, and I am convinced they’re trying to lasso me like an errant steer. Without any plan other than evading capture, I cross the river, hopping a pattern over the rocks that are big enough to be out of the water. I fly down the other bank. When the smacking on my spine continues, I realize it is just my jacket.
All the while, the policemen following me are shouting, those fifty-year-old, paunch-bellied cops keeping up with my breakneck pace for a time, until I wear them out and their voices grow dimmer. This is going to be the first, and maybe only, race I ever win, and I am grateful that, however out of shape I am, older age is no match for youth.
I press on, heading for the outermost barrier of campus, for the chain-link fence that will become, when it is in view of the lawn and the buildings, the elegant wrought-iron production that unites in an arch over the entry into Ambrose. That expensive upgrade is not wasted on the invisible scruff I find myself in now. When I come up to the links, out of breath and in the weeds, the boundary here where no one sees it is downright ugly.
I collapse against the flexible flank and become aware of an approaching train. No, it is not a train. It is the sawing sounds of the suck and push of my lungs. My legs, weakened by the demands of my escape, give out on me. I slide down the fence until the heels of my boots catch my weight and my knees protest at the compression of my lower limbs.
I put out a hand into ground cover to keep myself from falling over. Mud oozes through my fingers. I do not care.
Every time I blink, I see Greta’s face. Unblinking, unmoving. Never to blink or move again.
Pranks, I think with despair. They were only pranks. It was just water in a shampoo bottle. Bleach on clothes. A falsified memo. A setup at a dance.
An essay copied and shared among school chums.
When the harrassment had been happening, it had seemed earth-shattering. But not compared to a body bag. Not compared to all the blood on those bright clothes. Not compared to a death stare focused on the brilliant blue sky of what may well be the last warm, sunny day of the year.
“Oh, God, please don’t be dead, Greta.”
For so many reasons, this is the very last thing I’d ever think would come out of my mouth. And of course she’s dead. The girl’s makeup and hair were a fucking mess. If she were alive, she would never have let herself be seen like that.
Besides, what the hell do I think the body bag is for? If there was even a chance of life, they would have brought a stretcher and medics.
I wrap my arms around myself and moan.
And this is when it dawns on me that things are so much worse. Not only is she dead… clearly, she was murdered.
Fuck.
chapter TWENTY-NINE
The cops are waiting for me when I finally return to my dorm and go to my room. As I come up from the basement and emerge at the far end of my hall, I see one of the sport-coated ones standing in my doorway. I don’t think of running again. I’m out of energy, and unlike Strots, who has enough cash on hand for a month on the road, I only have the money I earned wiping down woodwork over Columbus Day weekend.
And it’s all in my desk.
As I walk toward the detective, he looks over at me. I expect him to rush forward and clamp cuffs on my scarred wrists like I’m a suspect. Instead, he purses his lips into a sad smile that makes me think he’s trying to disarm me with sympathy.
“Sarah Taylor?” he says when I get in range.
“Yes.” My voice is hoarse because of all the running I did to get away from the river. As well as all the tears I shed on the way back from that chain-link fence. “I’m Sarah.”
“Detective Bruno.”
First name or last name, I wonder as he puts out his palm to shake like I’m an adult or something.
“I’m sorry I ran.” I put my clammy, dirty, and soft palm against his warm, clean, hard one. He’s the one who shakes us, and I barely hang on for the up and down. “I didn’t know what else to do.”
“It’s okay, sweetheart. This is your room, right?” When I nod, he says, “Come in and let’s have a chat.”
There’s another officer inside. He’s wearing a uniform and he looks me up and down like he’s taking my height, weight, and fingerprints with his eyes. I feel utterly profiled.
“I have to go to a dorm meeting tonight,” I tell them as I glance at the clock. “It’s mandatory.”
Like the police are going to give a shit about a dorm meeting?
“That’s okay.” Detective Bruno smiles again in that professionally compassionate way, making me wonder if he and Sandra Hollis went through the same facial training. “There’s no problem with that.”
“So I’m not under arrest or anything?”
“Not at all. We just want to make sure you’re okay. What you saw… is hard enough for grown-ups to handle.”
I search his face for clues as to what is really going on behind this you’re-just-a-kid platitude. But he’s really good at hiding tells. I can extrapolate absolutely nothing from his expression or where and how he focuses his eyes.
“Listen, can we just talk a little bit about last night?” he asks me. “About where you were and what you might remember?”