Blood on My Hands (2 page)

And here I am, maybe a quarter of a mile away, quivering in the dark with no idea of what to do.

About a year ago, Katherine Remington-Day, the most popular girl in the grade, started to be nice to me, inviting me to sit at her table at lunch and do things with her and her friends after school. The Remingtons were the town’s earliest residents. Katherine’s ancestors had first come to Soundview in the early 1800s. In the town hall was a row of portraits of the mayors going back to the 1820s, and close to half a dozen had the last name Remington.

Katherine was a dynamo, maybe three inches taller than me, with a light brown pageboy haircut and mad-crazy amounts
of energy. No one else was on more committees or involved in more school activities, even though she did avoid any position that required an election. When she made it clear that she wanted to be friends, I figured I was just a charity case to her. Sometimes, in a dark moment, I even wondered if she was using me to prove just how powerful and popular she was. Powerful enough that she could have the loser Callie Carson as a friend and still be the center of the social swirl.

But the reason didn’t matter. I was desperate for distraction, for friends in school, for a little fun. My family had been irreparably fractured. I’d quit the cross-country team just when it looked like we had a chance to win the statewide championship. My boyfriend, Slade, was working long hours, sometimes on jobs out of town, and my best friend, Jeanie, had moved back to England. And out of nowhere, there was Katherine, offering me a lifeline. I had to believe that anyone in my situation would have leaped to take it.

Chapter
3

Sunday 12:08
A.M.

THE SIRENS HAVE stopped. By now Katherine’s body has been photographed, and the murder weapon slid carefully into a small plastic bag to be examined at the police lab. The EMTs will transport the body to the morgue for autopsy. The detectives will leave, knowing that early in the morning they will return to inspect the scene of the crime in the daylight, and then interview the witnesses.

No, wait, something else will happen first. In fact, it could be happening right now. The doorbell at my house will ring. My mother, in bed, will open her eyes and groggily fumble for the light. Dulled and foggy-headed from sleeping pills and merlot, she’ll be uncertain whether the doorbell really rang or she only dreamt it. But the bell will ring again and now alarm will begin to creep into the outer edges of her thoughts as she wonders who has awakened her at this hour. She will pull on her robe, but before she goes to see who is at the door, she will check on Dad to make sure he’s still breathing, and she
will peek into my bedroom to see if I’m home.

And when she sees that my bed is empty, her alarm will leap closer to panic.

A police officer, or perhaps a detective, will be at the door. At the sight of him, Mom will struggle to retain some semblance of calm. He will want to know if I’m home, and when she says no, he will want to know if she’s heard from me tonight. Filled with foreboding, she will shake her head and ask,
Why, what’s happened?
I don’t know if the officer or detective will tell her about Katherine. But I do know that he will say that the police are looking for me and that my mother should be in touch with them as soon as she sees or hears from me.

Mom will ask why again. Now that I think of it, the police officer will probably tell her: there’s been a murder.

Katherine was a snob and proud of it. She was judgmental and sometimes mean and cruel. She believed in good grammar and manners and was quick to correct your mistakes. Even though she herself was sort of plain, she was contemptuous of slovenly dress. Some people disliked her and some were afraid of her, but most agreed that she was a force in our school.

At first when she took me under her wing, it was a huge relief. Suddenly I’d gone from the bleakest, lowest point ever to having something to look forward to every day. Sitting at lunch, listening to Katherine and the others gab, knowing I’d be invited to go to movies, the mall, and slumber parties. It almost seemed like a miracle.

The other thing is you can tell yourself you’re a charity case
without really believing it. And then the day comes when you forget. And you think you really do belong. Because you want to so badly.

“Go slap David Sloan in the face,” Katherine told Mia Flom one day at lunch. Mia was one of the girls Katherine allowed to sit at the table, but at the far end. She was blonde and slightly chubby, and depending on how and when you saw her, sometimes she looked pretty and sometimes she didn’t. She was a reporter for the school newspaper and had a flair for writing. As far as I could tell, she was a nice girl who most people liked. She easily could have had a group of friends who accepted and enjoyed her, but instead, she seemed absolutely determined to break into Katherine’s group.

“Why?” Mia asked, clearly startled.

“Because I said so,” replied Katherine, delivering the line dramatically and with inflection, as if she were an actress. Of course, she wasn’t an actress. She would never put herself in a position where she could be judged or criticized.

The other girls had stopped talking. Within Katherine’s crowd there seemed to be two subgroups—those who were close to Katherine and those who wished they were closer. I’m not speaking of proximity alone. First came Dakota Jenkins, the daughter of Congresswoman Cynthia Jenkins. Katherine whispered to and seemed to confide in her more than anyone else. That is, if they weren’t fighting, which they did a lot. Next came Zelda McDowell, whose family was said to be the richest in town, and Jodie Peters, who you sometimes saw in ads on TV. And then came the rest, down at the other end of the table, three or four
girls who, like Mia, were always trying to get Katherine’s attention and approval.

“What are you waiting for?” Katherine asked.

Mia’s eyes darted toward a group of boys standing nearby, talking and shooting occasional glances in our direction as if they knew, or hoped, that we were aware of them. David Sloan was the tallest, and probably most handsome, of the group. The previous Friday he had been Katherine’s date to a Sadie Hawkins dance, and there’d been rumors that they’d vanished together into a bedroom during a party on the following night.

Mia got up stiffly and started in David’s direction. Halfway there she shot an uncertain glance back at Katherine, who flicked her wrist as if shooing her forward.

The boys quieted as Mia approached, taking timid steps, as if she were making her way across a pond covered by thinning ice. Finally she stopped in front of David, who, with dipping eyebrows and one side of his mouth turned up, looked both skeptical and amused. The boys around them were silent. Mia reached up and “slapped” David’s face. It was barely more than a tap. Then, her face much redder than his, she scurried back toward us.

David looked in our direction, his eyes not on Mia but on Katherine. He shoved his fists in his pockets, nodded slightly, and smirked, as if he understood precisely why she had sent a minion to deliver the faux blow. Katherine nodded back, then turned to the table just as Mia sat down, still red-faced and breathing hard.

“You call that a slap?” Katherine said, then ignored Mia for the rest of lunch.

*  *  *

“How does she do it? I mean, manage to instill so much fear?”

“By being judgmental and having a wicked tongue. It’s a lethal combination.”

“Only if people care.”

“Some do; some don’t.”

“I’d so like to put her in her place.”

“Ha! See?”

“See what?”

“You wouldn’t say that if you didn’t care.”

Chapter
4

Sunday 12:15
A.M.

THE POLICE OFFICER will leave. My mother will shut the door and press her back against it to keep her from collapsing to the floor. She will be devastated—in the first moments of being ravaged by emotional turmoil. But of all the possible emotions, the one she will not feel is shock. At this point, there’s nothing left that can surprise her.

In the playhouse the air is musty and smells like dry wood. I can’t help thinking of the children who have played in here. Little girls serving pretend meals to dolls seated around the table. Boys kneeling at the windows, firing toy guns at imaginary attackers. But here in the dark now, there is nothing pretend or imaginary. It’s all horribly real.

My cell phone vibrates. With trembling fingers I pull it out of my pocket. It’s Mom.

“Are the police there?” I ask.

“They just left.” Her voice is high and anxious. “A murder? My God, Cal, what’s going on?”

My heart heaves and my eyes become watery. As frightened as I am, I feel even worse for her. After everything she’s been through. Sebastian and Dad. And now this? It’s as if her family is slowly being destroyed before her eyes.

Tears spill out and roll down my cheeks. “I didn’t do it,” I manage to croak. “I only found her after she’d been stabbed.”

“Where are you?”

“I’m …” I hesitate, knowing how she’ll react. “Hiding.”

“What?
Why?” Predictably, her voice rises even higher. “Go to the police. Tell them you didn’t kill her.”

I can’t bring myself to explain about my picking up the knife and the photos they took. Or about the troubles between Katherine and me that I never told Mom about. “They won’t believe me.” I sniff miserably, feeling another wave of emotion rising inside me. “I can’t explain now. Just … check under the umbrella.”

“What?”

“You’ll figure it out. I have to go. Don’t call back.”

I snap the phone shut.

Almost instantly it rings again.

It’s my mother, of course.

But instead of answering, I burst into sobs.

My brother, Sebastian, is four years older than me. As far back as I can remember, Dad wanted him to be a professional athlete. While some sons obediently tried to live up to their fathers’ wishes, Sebastian stubbornly refused. It got so bad they even went to a psychologist, who said that the best thing
Dad could do was back off and let Sebastian be.

But Dad could no more back off than Sebastian could be obedient. They were polar forces, feeding off each other’s determination. From the start there was violence. As Sebastian grew older, spankings by hand gave way to spankings by paddle, which gave way to slaps, punches, then all-out fistfights. Mom and I were stunned into silence by the poisonous brutality between them. People at school noticed Sebastian’s bruises. Social services got involved. A few times the police were called. Neighbors gossiped. Rumors spread. People around town began to avoid us. Mom sank inward and became depressed and withdrawn.

I ran.

Chapter
5

Sunday 12:25
A.M.

I TAKE DEEP breaths, dry my eyes, and try to think about what I have to do next. The phone vibrates. It’s my mother again. But she can’t help. Most of the time she’s so overwhelmed she can barely take care of Dad.

There’s only one other person I’m certain will believe me. But the last time we spoke, I broke his heart. I could blame Katherine for that. But she didn’t make that phone call; I did.

“I think we should make some that look like boobs,” Katherine said one afternoon last February when we were at Dakota’s house making cookies for the Spirit Day bake sale. Dakota, then the student council vice president, was planning to run for president in senior year.

The rest of us giggled. Katherine, who came off as so proper, could always make us laugh when she said something outrageous.

“Well, I mean, the idea is to sell a lot of cookies, right?” Katherine said.

“The boys would love it,” I said.

“Some of the girls, too,” said Jodie, who was mixing dough with Dakota in the big white KitchenAid mixer.

“I’m sure Mr. Carter would be thrilled,” said Dakota.

“Mean old man,” Katherine muttered.

“No way,” Dakota said. “He gave Seth Phillips and I a—”

“Seth Phillips and
me
,” Katherine quickly corrected her.

Dakota rolled her eyes. “He gave Seth Phillips and me permission to skip gym when we needed to work on PACE.”

PACE was the performing arts program at our school.

“And he made a special arrangement so that Slade could get out of school early and help his dad,” I added.

“Ah, Slade.” Katherine looked at her watch. “Gee, Callie, it’s been almost fifteen minutes since you brought him up. By the way, has he heard from Harvard or Yale?”

It was hard to know sometimes whether she was being serious or just kidding around. She knew he wasn’t going to college. At the counter, Dakota and Jodie were silent. I could feel the mood shift from one of gaiety and laughter to something else. This, too, happened often.

“He’s going into the National Guard,” I said. “And when he gets back from training, he’ll work in his dad’s business.”

“Construction?” Katherine said with a disapproving wrinkle of her nose. This wasn’t the first time she’d been critical of Slade, and I really didn’t like it. It felt like she was putting me in the position of having to decide between them. At first, when she’d invited me into her crowd, it had all been fun and laughs. I’d come to relish times like this, when I was included here in
Dakota’s kitchen with Katherine’s closest friends, knowing that Mia and the other far-end-of-the-table girls would have died to be in my place. But along with that growing familiarity came a feeling of vulnerability: I had become an unprotected target should Katherine decide to hurl her pointed opinions in my direction.

I looked down at the cookie sheet and busied myself pressing green sugar letters into the dough, spelling out “Go Tigers,” “Win,” and “Tiger Pride!” Not only did Slade work with his father in construction but they’d also helped renovate that very kitchen.

I remembered Slade telling me that it was the biggest kitchen he’d ever seen. It seemed like it had acres of dark green marble countertops, punctuated by dual sinks, brushed-steel appliances, and a large iron ring suspended from the ceiling with a dozen pots and pans hanging from it. Slade had said it had been one of those jobs for which money wasn’t an issue. The Jenkinses had wanted everything to be perfect.