Die A Little Part 15

"I want all your information and any names you can remember of anyone you ever saw her with. Don't forget your phone number and address."

I stare at the paper for a second. Then, I take the pen and begin writing.

"So." He leans back, stretching his arms a bit as I write. "How do you think she ended up in water?" I look up with a start.

"Water?"

"So you don't know everything, Miss Morgan?"

I feel my hand shake around the pen.

"I don't know anything. What water?"

"You tell me. Your friend drowned."

My head is throbbing when Detective Cudahy hands me the gla.s.s of warmish water. I can't keep my lies straight. I slide my hat off my head and into the palm of my hand. It is moist where my forehead has strained against it.

'You're telling me she didn't die from being ... from being shot." Unconsciously, I touch my hand to my own face.

"The shot was postmortem."

"So it was all an accident? She just drowned?"

"I don't think so. Accidental drowning victims don't usually end up with their faces blown off."

"Why was she shot then?"

He tilts his head. "Could be to try and prevent identification of the body. Or he's just in a violent rage. It's hard to tell just yet. She wasn't in the water that long. Just long enough to fill her lungs and sink her like a stone."

I twitch, involuntarily. "But the papers ..."

"She was found in the Hills, but we kept the water stuff out of the press. It may help down the line."

"So she drowned and then someone shot her and then just ... just dumped her there?"

"Far as we can tell."

"Drowned in the ocean?"

"Salt water."

"What would Lois have been doing in the ocean?"

"Thought maybe you could tell me. Her boyfriend have a boat?"

"I don't... know," I say, trying to process it all. Trying not to think of Lois, face in dark water, floating. "Maybe you'll ask around for us." He looks at me hard in the eyes.

"In your circles, you might be able to find out things we can't."

At this, I almost want to laugh.

"I'll try. I will," I reply, not knowing what I mean by it.

You have to ask it: Who would cry for Lois Slattery, with all her slurry glamour, her torn and fast-fading beauty-beauty mostly because you could see it vanis.h.i.+ng before your eyes? Her loss meant nothing and she would not be missed, not even by me. I wouldn't miss her-not in a way as true as she deserved.

But there was something that lingered, her whole life a dark stain, spreading. A pulsing energy racked tight and always threatening to burst through its borders, its hems, its ragged, straining edges. She would have been happy to know how ripely powerful she would become in death. She had been waiting for it.

The next day ... the next day, very early, I am walking from the office to my cla.s.sroom. I'm thinking of how many days it's been since I've seen Mike Standish, how many calls of his I've left unreturned. He is filled with the promise of distraction. But now is not a time for distraction.

I'm walking through the still-empty hallways when I feel her. I feel her even before I see her, hear her. She's leaning against the door of my cla.s.sroom, humming and patting her nose with a powder puff from the ivory compact in her hand.

"So our carpool days are over," she says evenly, looking only in the mirror.

"I have a lot of new responsibilities," I say, walking closer.

"I understand," she says, snapping the compact shut and looking at me.

I try so hard to read her, to read the look in her eyes. I try so hard I feel I'll bore through.

But she just smiles impersonally, superbly, like a showroom model, a beauty queen.

"Well, let's not forget, Lora."

"Forget what?"

"About us. Sisters," she says. "About how we're sisters."

Alice pulls open my cla.s.sroom door for me. A draft whistles through from within.

"Who could forget?" I say, hard. "Who could forget that?"

She only smiles in return, and in her smile I can see nothing, not a stray flicker of fear or anger or anything at all. But what I now know is this: There's a reason she's wearing this blankness, this mechanical look stripped of her heat, energy, her intermittent chaos. There's a reason she's wearing this face. And I'm the reason.

Ellie Marbury, fifteen years old with gum in the corner of her mouth, wearing a sloppy joe sweater the vague color of store-bought pound cake, is whispering feverishly to Celeste Dutton as I try to keep the attention of twenty girls on a warm Friday afternoon.

When I confront both girls after cla.s.s, Ellie, with all the petulance of a teenager unaware she is already at the height of her rather wan beauty and it will all be downhill from here, a.s.serts, "Mrs. King sure was acting funny today."

"Oh?" I say, emptily.

Ellie's eyes grow wide. "Y-e-a-h," she says, stretching the word out and spitting her gum into the trash can I hold before her.

"She kept running over to the window and running all around the room."

"It was like she had ants in her pants or something." Celeste, always acting younger than her age, giggles.

"And then she told everyone that one day we'd understand how hard it is to be a woman," Ellie adds, half snickering and half eyes popping. Both girls seem torn between laughter and discomfort.

"She said wait until they come sniffing around you," Celeste burbles. "And Ellie said who, and Mrs. King said be glad you still have to ask."

"And she meant men," Ellie nods. "I knew. We all did. I just wanted to see if she would say it."

And then I realize, abruptly, that Ellie, for all her bravado, all her eye-rolling teenage sarcasm, is about to cry. Despite the bubble gum pink smirk on her face, I can see tears are itching to pop from the corners of her powder blue eyes.

I know I should put my hand under her chin and rea.s.sure her somehow. But I don't.

"And then ... and then ..." Ellie's face is just seconds, mere seconds from bursting. "She said that once they find the dark holes be-be-bebetween our legs, no matter how good it is, everything turns to s-s-ss-s.h.i.+t. Excuse me, Miss King, but that is what she said."

Celeste's eyes grow wide with pleasure at her friend's daring, but I know better. I put my hand sharply on Ellie's shoulder and direct her out of the room.

She's just made it into the hallway, the cla.s.sroom door has just slammed shut behind us, when gla.s.sy tears tear open her once-smug face. Somehow Ellie has understood something about what she has seen, about what Alice has shown her. Why she understands, I don't want to know.

"It's okay, Ellie," I say, leaning against the lockers. "You're not in trouble."

"Thanks, Miss King," she says, tears jetting unabated. "I know I'm not." She rubs the long sleeve of her sweater over her face. "Don't tell, okay?" Then she pulls her old face together, tight and contemptuous. "Don't tell."

And I won't. It would be one too many private dramas, after all.

It is late, after nine, after a long student a.s.sembly, and my head is still ringing from the sounds of throngs of teenage girls straining gracelessly to mimic Kay Starr.

I make my way quickly through the noiseless lot, where only a handful of cars remain.

As I near my car, a dark sedan lights up suddenly and veers over toward me. I scramble for my keys, guessing it is only a colleague wanting to share a commiserating good night but not wanting to take any chances.

As I slide into my front seat, the car pulls up beside me.

"So ... this is where you work. I wouldn't have guessed girls who moved in your circles taught school." I turn my head, recognizing the familiar voice.

"h.e.l.lo, Detective," I murmur.

Cudahy faces me with a grim-eyed stare. "Get in," he orders, reaching across and opening his pa.s.senger side door.

I do as he says, trying not to meet his eyes.

"Isn't this out of your jurisdiction?" I bluff.

"Yes," he says.

"Oh."

"I had you pegged for a liar, but not that kind of liar," Cudahy says.

I feel my face burn and wonder what he knows, other than that I am obviously not the kind of girl who is a regular at places like the Red Room Lounge.

"You don't understand."

"Sure I do, Miss Morgan. You figure, What's the harm? What's a dumb cop going to know? I'll have a little fun with him. Get my kicks."

"No. No. I wanted to help, but I had these ... responsibilities."

"Who to?"

"No, you've got me really wrong here. Horribly wrong."

"You just protecting yourself or someone else too?"

"I've got nothing to do with it," I say, still not looking at him directly. "I know Lois through someone else. Lois is a friend of someone ... close to me. Lois was a friend of someone close to me."

"Don't you think it's about time you started spilling it? Honest, I'm three seconds away from booking you. You've hampered a police investigation, lied to authorities-"

"Please. I do know Lois. I told you: I know she used narcotics. I know she was selling herself." I pause, deciding whether I should hazard a guess about Joe Avalon's role. "And I know that she had a ... someone who arranged things."

"And who'd that be?"

I can't think fast enough. All I can think of is my face, blazing with shame. "Don't you already know? I can't be the only person you've found who knew that."

He looks at me long and hard, rubbing his chin and glaring. "I don't know what you're doing to me here. I don't know- Look, I'm a real sap not to just bring you in. I'm doing you a big favor, but only if you can give me something."

"He lives in Bunker Hill. You must know who he is. He takes care of everything for RKO, maybe others."

I feel the weight of the gaze from the corners of my eyes.

"I don't know ..." A horrible pressure on my chest.

He reaches into his glove compartment and pulls out a folder, tossing it over to me. I open it with shaking fingers.

It is a photo of a man I've never seen before, with a lanky mustache and yellow eyes.

"I don't know who this is," I say, relieved. I start to hand it back to him when the photo slips and another appears behind it.

There he is.

Droopy eyes, bushy black brows and lashes. I turn the photo over and see, in small type, "Joseph Nathanson alias Johnny Davalos alias Joe Avalon 06/25/12."

"Okay," Cudahy say. "Okay, then. Lucky guess."

I look up at him. "I don't know anything specific. I just figured ..."

"So who's this person who introduced you to Lois Slattery? Davalos?"

"No, no."

I feel my throat go dry. A voice, some voice, rises up from inside. "You won't involve me at all?"