Killing Britney (11 page)

twenty-three

Adam
noticed as soon as he saw Melissa that she looked hollowed out, her eyes sunken and dark, like they’d seen things that had turned them prematurely old, her posture broken as though she had been dragging a boulder behind her all day. Her curly red hair was more unruly than usual, sticking up everywhere.

Her parents were sitting together at the cluttered table in the living room. They each had a stack of books in front of them, but neither was reading. It was hard to tell what they were doing, actually. They looked shell-shocked, harrowed. As though they’d been staring off into space for an eternity of hours and Adam’s ringing of the doorbell had blasted them back from their dark reverie; they seemed confused about where they were.

Melissa barely stopped to acknowledge them. She nodded his way and said, “This is Adam, Britney’s friend.” Then she ushered him upstairs so quickly that he had time to do nothing but grimace and wave.

Locking the door behind them, she kicked a path through the clothes piled in the middle of the floor and shoved the open notebooks and loose-leaf papers to the side of the bed, making room for the two of them to sit side by side.

Then she started sobbing.

Cupping her hands loosely, tenderly between his palms, Adam said nothing. He watched her, waiting.

Death seemed unreal to him. He’d never known anybody who’d died—well, he’d known Britney’s mom, but he hadn’t been here for that. He’d heard about it from his parents one day when he got home from school. It had made him sad, but he hadn’t seen Jan Johnson for years and it had just been news from the world outside his reality at the time. When he’d arrived here in Madison, her absence had seemed strange for a few weeks, but it hadn’t been shocking. It hadn’t turned his world upside down.

When Ricky died, Adam had felt bad for Britney, even though he didn’t know how to show it, and remembering the way his jokey behavior had upset her, he tried now with Melissa to be more appropriately somber.

Before leaving work at Amoeba, he’d bought her a CD with his employee discount,
It’s a Wonderful Life
by Sparklehorse. It had come out a while ago, but it was still one of his favorites—not many people had heard of the band, and they were haunting and mournful and very, very cool. The perfect thing to remind her that she wasn’t alone in her sadness.

“Do you have a CD player?” he asked.

She nodded and pointed to the Discman balanced precariously on the windowsill.

They listened reverently to the dirge-like songs on it.

After a couple of songs, she said, “It’s good.” A brief smile broke across her face, but it quickly dissolved.

When she’d called him at work to tell him about her brother, she’d said she had something else important she needed to talk to him about. Her voice had been clipped, strained with the effort to hold her emotions in.

“What is it?” he’d asked.

“I can’t tell you now.”

“Why not?”

“It’s … you know … my parents are here.” There was a shuffling noise on the other end of the line, and then Melissa whispered into the phone, “I found something. While I was cleaning out Karl’s apartment. It’s … I’m really freaked out.”

The dread and not knowing had rattled him for the rest of the evening. He couldn’t imagine what she might have found. A journal full of murderous confessions? A message written in blood on the wall? Child pornography? Every idea that slid through his mind seemed far-fetched. And none of them explained why she had to keep everything secret.

The whole walk over, he’d prepared himself to listen, told himself not to judge the things she might say to him, to be prepared for anything. That’s what he’d thought Melissa wanted from him.

Now, beneath the dim shaded lamp on the bedside table of her messy bedroom, he asked her, “How are you feeling? Is there anything … What can I do?”

The tears came pouring out of her, as though she’d been saving them all up for this moment.

She buried her head in his shoulder, and he held her, rubbing her back lightly with his fingertips.

After she’d calmed down, she looked up at him. Her face was pink. Her freckles were darker, angry splotches of red screaming from her nose.

With the back of his finger, he wiped the tears from her cheeks. They were surprisingly cold. He wanted to give her a tissue to wipe her nose with, but he couldn’t find one in her cluttered room.

After a while, when she could finally get out some halting words, she said, “I’m so scared. Who would want to do this? Karl was a messed-up guy, but he wasn’t a
bad
guy. He was just … Whoever is doing this, it seems like it doesn’t matter who you are; they don’t care.”

Her shoulders shook as she sobbed, and Adam tried his best to hold her steady.

She looked him dead in the eye.

“Do you know anything about guns?” she said.

Hearing this question, he startled and recoiled slightly from her. He wondered what she knew about his last few months in New Hampshire and how she could have learned it. “A little,” he said. “Why? Does this have to do with the thing you couldn’t tell me?”

Nodding, she slid from the bed and dug into the darkness of her closet, pulling out a shotgun.

Adam’s eyebrows rose. He was disturbed, but he was also relieved; this had nothing to do with him. “Where’d you get that?”

“It was in Karl’s apartment.”

From the way she waved the gun around, she obviously didn’t have any experience with firearms.

“Whoa! Whoa!” Adam said, as calmly as he could. “Watch where you point that thing! Here, let me see it.”

Examining the gun, he recognized the make and model. It was a Winchester Super X2 Greenhead.

“Do you know where he got it?”

Melissa shook her head.

He pointed out a small dot of Wite-Out on the hilt. “You see that? That’s the way Mr. Johnson marks his hunting rifles.”

“How do you know that?”

“He showed them to me a month or so ago. He’s got two of them.” A flash of disturbance flew briefly across her face, and hoping to reassure her that he and Mr. Johnson had a legitimate reason to be playing with the guns, he said, “Back in New Hampshire, I was a big hunter. See, look at my coat. It’s a duck-hunting jacket.”

She nodded gravely. She was nervously tapping her knuckles against her lips.

“Does he know you found this?” asked Adam.

“No.” She started rummaging around in the closet again, looking for something. “There’s this other thing too,” she said. “Let me just find it.”

“Does Detective Russell know?”

“No.”

“Well, you should definitely tell her. But I don’t know, maybe you should hold off on telling Mr. Johnson.”

“Why?”

She looked suspicious suddenly, and he scrambled to explain. “I mean, can you imagine how much more upset Britney would be if she found out about this? She’s already a nervous wreck.”

Melissa stopped her search through the closet suddenly. For a second, she played with the rim of her glasses, like she was calculating something in her head. Then her face broke and scrunched in on itself and she started sobbing again.

Adam reached out to touch her shoulder, and she wrapped her arms around him, clutching him tightly. Her head was buried in his collarbone. He could feel her tears soaking through his T-shirt.

“It’s okay,” he said. “It’s okay, it’s okay, it’s okay. I’ve got you.”

Then he felt something else, something unmistakable. She’d kissed his neck.

He squeezed her more tightly, ran his fingers through her hair, and somehow, he was suddenly kissing her back and she had her hands under his T-shirt and he had his hands under her sweatshirt and they weren’t sitting up anymore—they were lying down, and Melissa’s skin was so soft and her hands so tender and when she said his name—“Adam”—he realized she wasn’t crying anymore.

twenty-four

The
party that weekend was crazy insane. Saturday night at Troy’s place and the music was shaking the walls. His mother’s
Wind in the Willows
collector plates rattled on their nails—two had already fallen loose, and there were shards of ceramic everywhere, which nobody bothered to clean up. Troy didn’t care, so why should anyone else?

The Raccoons had won again, trouncing their crosstown rivals, the Eisenhower Generals.

Britney had been distracted throughout the game. All she could think about was the murders. She felt, everywhere she went, that people were staring at her and whispering about her, that she was being evaluated for weakness and someone, she didn’t know who—Bobby? Someone else?—was waiting for her to let down her guard, at which point they’d attack.

In preparation for the celebration, Erin had spent all afternoon making Jell-O shots in the school colors, red and gold. She’d made six pans’ worth, almost a hundred shots, but they were a huge hit and even this copious amount had only lasted half an hour. The red ones turned your tongue crimson and the yellow ones turned your tongue brown.

“Come on, Britney,” Erin said. “If there’s anyone who needs a drink right now, it’s you.”

Britney wasn’t so sure. “Do you have any idea how upset I am?” she asked.

“We’re all upset. That’s why we’re escaping into alcohol.” Erin winked at Britney.

Against her better judgment, Britney consented to a Jell-O shot. “I want a red one,” she said. It was the first time she’d had alcohol since her mother died, but given what she’d been through over the past couple of weeks, she felt, maybe Erin was right, maybe she deserved to let go a little bit.

She didn’t feel the effects right away, but later, when she found herself on Jeremy’s shoulders, her legs braced under his massive biceps, trying to topple Daphney off Digger’s shoulders, it hit her that she was in an altered state. She felt bold. She felt free. She was laughing and shrieking and the voice in her head telling her to dread everything and everyone, to be vigilant because danger was always around the next corner, had stopped.

She grappled with Daphney, the two of them pushing and pulling and straining for leverage and trying to avoid knocking their heads on the overhead light. Daphney had played this game many times before. Britney saw that she knew all the moves: how to twist her arm so it remained lower than Britney’s, where to turn and when to dodge so that Britney lost her equilibrium. But for Britney, it was another first—one of the many things she would never have been willing to do if she had remained sober.

She didn’t last long up in the air, but when she fell, she jumped right up and was ready to go again.

It was fun. Everybody formed a circle around the fighters and cheered.

By her third match, Britney finally got the hang of it. She toppled Cindy, but then she lost to Jodi and the crowd started to find other things to do, so they all retired and sat gossiping on the couch.

“Hey, doesn’t that guy who died this week’s sister go to La Follette?” asked Daphney.

“I think she does,” Jodi said.

“Melissa,” Britney said. “She’s a friend of mine.” Then, embarrassed, she modified this. “I mean, we hung out sometimes. Things like that. I still drive her to school every once in a while. She’s okay.”

“So, did you know this guy who died?”

“Uh-huh.”

“God,” said Cindy. “It’s spooky. First Ricky, now your friend’s brother. How can you handle it?”

The girls were all waiting for her answer. “I don’t know,” she said. “I really don’t know.”

“Well, I know one way,” said Erin, coming to her rescue. “Drown your sorrows!” She held up her can of Bud Light and rattled it teasingly.

Britney felt a little woozy. When the other girls headed toward the kitchen to see what their boyfriends were up to, she told them to go without her. “I just want to sit here for a while,” she said.

She scanned the party, sizing up all the usual suspects: the Hummus guys, the preppies, Art Richter, that drug dealer, wondering, Is it him? Or is it him? What about him? Is one of the people in this room with me the one I need to watch out for? None of them appeared to be paying any special attention to her, but how could she be sure?

The music seemed too loud, and it sounded distorted. When the school president, Travis Lawson, leaned in to pat her on the shoulder and say, “How you holding up?” he came in and out of focus, making her head spin. She wished that she hadn’t had that Jell-O shot.

She heard a lot of shouting coming from the kitchen. She concentrated, trying to pick the sound apart and figure out what was going on. It was chaotic: dull thuds and cackles, and she thought she heard Cindy shrieking.

Running in to see what was going on, she found the hockey players and their wives in a circle around the island counter, hunched over and chanting, “Do it. Do it. Do it.”

Britney screamed, “What happened? Did you get him?”

There was sudden silence. They all turned toward her like she was crazy.

Then Troy started laughing. They all started laughing.

“Relax, Britney,” said Erin. “We’re doing body shots.”

Jeremy leered at her. “You want to do one?” he asked.

Now she could see what was going on. Cindy was laid on the kitchen counter, her halter top pulled up to expose her stomach. Digger had a shot glass full of dark liqueur in his hand and he was precariously trying to balance it on Cindy’s belly button. Britney watched as Erin, her hands clasped behind her back, bent over Cindy and clenched the shot glass between her lips, flinging her head back and downing the liquid in one quick swallow.

“See?” she said as she pounded the empty glass down on the counter. “It’s fun. You should try it.”

“What? Did you think someone was trying to kill me?” asked Cindy, and everyone laughed again.

Britney felt so dizzy.

“I don’t feel so good,” she said.

Then she collapsed onto the floor.

twenty-five

At
about the same time that Britney was swallowing her Jell-O shot, Melissa sat at Fresh Grounds with Bobby Plumley, killing time until Adam got off work. She hovered over her hot chocolate like it was a campfire. He was drinking a triple-shot latte, which she thought was a crazy thing to do at nine-thirty at night—then again, this was Bobby Plumley; she’d seen him do a lot weirder things than this.

She was telling him about the discovery she’d made at Karl’s apartment. She hadn’t discussed it with anyone all week. The truth was that she trusted Bobby, and with his hacker skills and his sharp mind, she figured he could help her figure the whole thing out.

“The letters aren’t even the most disturbing thing,” she whispered, leaning across the table so no one could hear but him.

“Well, tell me, then,” he said. “Or do you want me to guess?”

He was in one of his moods, snapping at everything she said and generally being unpleasant. He’d chosen a particularly obnoxious T-shirt to wear today: I’m Running Out of Places to Hide the Bodies, it read.

Throughout the week, Melissa had been shaking uncontrollably at random times—while taking her vocab quiz in Ms. Straub’s class, while waiting in line for the chin-up bar in gym. It was as if whenever she thought she had finally put Karl out of her mind and escaped thinking about those spooky letters from Britney’s mother, her body rebelled against her and forced her morbid fears back into her brain.

“Okay, so inside the shoe box, under the letters, there was … this thing.” She cast Bobby a long, meaningful look.

“Jesus, Melissa, either tell me or don’t tell me, but stop toying with me, all right?”

“A photograph,” she said. “There was a photo of Britney.”

“So?”

“She was naked in it.”

Bobby smirked and stared at her, like he was still waiting for her to get to the point.

“I’m serious, Bobby, it’s really disturbing.”

“Why are you telling me all this?” he asked. He seemed pissed. He got this way whenever Britney’s name came up in conjunction with another guy.

“Oh, grow up, Bobby. This is important. Don’t you think it’s weird?” Melissa reminded herself to stay calm, to regulate her voice so that she didn’t draw attention to their conversation. “Britney’s mother’s writing letters to my brother—after she’s supposedly already dead—and Britney is sending him nude photos of herself.”

“Yeah, I guess it’s a little weird.”

“So, what do you think it means?”

“How should I know?”

She shot him a knowing look. He knew as well as she did how stormy Britney’s relationship with her mom had been.

“I mean,” he said, “it’s obvious. Either her mom’s still alive somehow, or Britney was having an affair with your brother.” He squirmed uncomfortably.

“Or both,” said Melissa with a grimace.

“Have you told her father?”

“Adam told me I shouldn’t. There’s another thing. I found a gun in Karl’s room too, and Adam says he thinks it belonged to Mr. Johnson.”

His right eyebrow rose until she couldn’t see it anymore behind his shaggy hair. “You told Adam about all this? Why? When? You’ve been hanging out with him?”

Crossing her arms, she stared Bobby down.

He tipped his head like he was putting all the pieces together. His eyes slowly narrowed into tiny slits. “Don’t tell me—”

“Yeah.” She couldn’t help smiling. Since that first kiss on Monday night, she’d seen Adam every single day. Not just at school. Everywhere. Every chance they got, they found each other. It was amazing. The only bright spot in her life at the moment.

“Figures,” said Bobby.

He stared into his coffee cup for a while and then downed his drink in a single shot. Before he became obsessed with Britney, Bobby had had a crush on Melissa. They’d even kissed one summer night a year and a half ago out at the Sanctuary, but though she liked and respected him, she hadn’t been able to muster the interest necessary to date him. There just weren’t any sparks. They’d managed to move on from that awkward kiss and stay friends, but she knew Bobby still thought about it sometimes.

After a while he asked, “Can I see the gun?”

“I gave it to Detective Russell.”

“Why’d you do that?”

“Why wouldn’t I do that?”

Bobby sulked for a while, and then he said, “If I were you, I wouldn’t trust Adam as far as I could throw him.”

“You sound jealous, Bobby.”

Bobby shrugged. “What does Britney say about him?”

“Nothing. She told me he got in a whole bunch of trouble when he was living in New Hampshire, but she didn’t say she hated him or anything.”

“What kind of trouble?” Bobby asked. He was suddenly interested in the conversation, hunched forward and eager to hear what Melissa had to say.

“I don’t know.”

“You don’t know?”

“I just said, I don’t know.”

“You hooked up with the guy; don’t you think you should learn a little about him?”

Sometimes being with Bobby was so exasperating.

“You know, Bobby, if you dislike him so much, why are you here? Why are you waiting around for him with me?”

“Because I don’t have anything better to do. And now that I know he got in ‘trouble’”—he put quotation marks around the word with his fingers—“in New Hampshire, I want to keep my eye on him.”

“Well, don’t do me any favors.”

“I’m not planning on doing you any favors,” he said.

“What’s that supposed to mean?” She could feel her blood rising in her chest. Fighting with Bobby Plumley. She felt bad enough about her brother’s death, and now she had to put up with this. What a way to spend a Saturday night!

Bobby motioned with his head toward the door.

“Speak of the devil,” he said. And then almost as an afterthought, “Hey, I was just messing with you, okay?”

“Sure, Bobby, whatever.”

The plan was to go to a concert at the Tick Tick Boom club. Some local band that none of them had ever heard of before. Black Breasted Robin. Amoeba had been helping sell tickets for the event, and Adam had heard from the guys at the record store that the band was good. He’d procured three free tickets that afternoon—one of the perks of the job—and they’d all been looking forward to checking out the show.

Now, though, Melissa was dreading it. The only reason she didn’t back out was that she was afraid of the dark places her head might go if she sat home alone with herself too long.

The three of them piled into Bobby’s red pickup.

It was going to be a long, long night.