Killing Britney (5 page)

nine

Instead
of holding Ricky’s memorial in the auditorium of La Follette High School, which was what had been done for Sabrina Reynolds and Danny Boyle, Mr. Bucholtz, the principal, let the whole school out on Wednesday to attend his funeral in St. Matthew’s Church.

St. Matthew’s was a cavernous building made of yellow sandstone and designed with lots of ornate arches and an elaborately carved wooden pulpit. Large, brightly colored tapestries illustrating the fruits of the spirit hung on the walls, interspersed with stained glass windows, each one dedicated to a different apostle.

Ricky’s casket was displayed on the dais. It was closed—the force of the impact and the unfortunate way he’d been dragged down the street by the truck had left his body a bloody pulp. His hockey jersey was draped over one end of the casket, and his helmet had been placed over the spot above his head. With this visual clue, Britney could imagine his body inside, cut and bruised and broken. On either side of the casket, two beautiful bouquets of white lilies had been set up.

Britney and her father sat in the front row with Donna Piekowski, Ricky’s mother, and his grandparents. His father, Jeff, wasn’t there. He and Donna had been high school sweethearts, and she’d gotten pregnant in her junior year. Instead of finishing, she’d dropped out of school and they’d gotten married. When Ricky was four, though, his father had run off to Arizona, leaving his mother to raise him alone. Living with single parents was one of the first things he and Britney had connected over.

Like all Ricky’s friends, Britney called his mother Donna. She was only thirty-three years old, but with her streaky blond feathered hair and heavily applied eyeliner, she looked older. She had crow’s-feet around her eyes, and her loose off-white blouse and black knee-length skirt hung awkwardly from her body. Even though she was sitting down, she kept fidgeting with the heels of her black stilettos.

Britney felt sorry for Donna. Every time Father Steiger mentioned Ricky’s name, Donna sighed loudly and her bald hawkish father shot her a scornful look. She squirmed under his gaze like a child. To make up for this and let her know that she wasn’t as alone as she thought she was, Britney held her hand throughout the ceremony.

Watching the mascara streak down Donna’s face helped Britney remember the pact she’d made with herself. This morning, as she’d put on her conservative black flower-print dress, Britney had looked at herself in the mirror and said out loud, “Don’t be afraid to cry. Today you should be strong and remember the good times, but if ever there was a time and place for tears, this is it…. This is what funerals are for.” She hadn’t cried so far, though; she felt too numb. And she’d already handed almost all the tissues from the travel pack she’dStinger brought along over to Ricky’s mom.

After Father Steiger’s opening eulogy, there were a variety of speeches.

Mr. Luddy, the hockey coach, went first, describing in short, terse sentences what it felt like the first time he saw Ricky skate, back when he was in sixth grade. “Here was this half-pint of a kid, and who woulda known, he actually had the stuff. Boy, did he ever. He could stop on a dime and his face had this toughness, like he’d mutilate anyone who got in his way. Right then and there, I said to Paul Taube, that kid’s going to be unbelievable. I don’t care if he’s only twelve. He’s gonna start for the JV crew.”

Mr. Luddy’s face gradually turned a bright red and as his speech went on, it seemed to Britney that he wasn’t so much mourning Ricky’s death as he was mourning the death of his team’s chances of winning state again this season.

Next it was Troy’s turn. He told a variety of anecdotes. The time his car broke down fifty miles out in the country in the middle of a snowstorm and Ricky drove out to give him a jump. The summer night he’d locked himself out of his house while his parents were out of town and Ricky had helped him break in through the basement window.

This made a certain portion of the crowd chuckle—the hockey players and their wives—and Britney wondered what crazy night he was talking about. It was before her time, that was for sure. She felt jealous, covetous of this exclusive memory.

“And,” Troy went on, “Mrs. Robideau, you were right. Ricky did slip me the answers to that trig test last year.” Britney’s friends laughed again, and again she felt excluded. “I guess to sum up my feelings about Ricky, he was just, you know, a really great guy. He was always there for me.”

For a moment, Troy stared out over the heads of the congregation. His heavy brow knotted in what looked to Britney like confusion. Then he ran his thick hand through his longish blond hair—he’d moussed it back into a slick helmet for the funeral—and said, “Thanks.” After another moment of confused staring, he burst into tears and shouted, “And whoever did this, I don’t care if it was an accident. I don’t even care how sorry you feel! We’re going to find you and …”

Before leaving the podium, he ragefully shook his massive fists in front of him and a shrieking war cry rose from deep in his throat.

Britney was next. From her perch behind the raised wooden podium, she could see how large the crowd truly was. Every pew was jam-packed with people. The La Follette Raccoons, sitting together as a group, took up three whole rows. At the very front swayed The Untouchables, Troy, Digger, and Jeremy, their heads bowed, their arms loosely draped over each other’s shoulders. Behind them sat Erin, Cindy, Daphney, and Jodi; they’d all worn identical red T-shirts with the number 43 stenciled on them, Ricky’s number. Farther back, a huge slice of the school population had seen fit to pay their respects as well. The crowd was so large that individual faces blurred together, but she recognized a smattering of teachers: Ms. Ahern, Mrs. Rindy, Mr. Bucholtz. There were even people standing up and down the side aisle and a great mass of humanity squished into the back.

Somewhere out there was Adam. He’d been on his own to find a seat because as Britney had explained to her father this morning, “It would be so inappropriate for him to sit up front with the family. He didn’t even like Ricky!”

Melissa was out there somewhere as well. Britney couldn’t find her, though. She wished she’d asked where Melissa was going to sit. Speaking like this in front of all these people would be much easier if she could look at Melissa while she did it.

Britney had spent all last night writing her speech. She’d done five drafts, getting only so far each time before she became frustrated and scribbled darkly over what she’d written. Finally she’d found what she wanted to say. Unfolding the hand-scrawled speech on the podium in front of her, she looked it over for a long moment.

The church was so silent. Everyone waiting to listen to her.

“Ricky Piekowski,” she began, “was my boyfriend. I loved him.”

Her voice cracked when she said the word love, but she didn’t waver. She didn’t slow down to collect herself. She had to show the people gathered in the church, she had to show Donna, that she could be strong.

“And he loved me.”

She’d reread what she’d written so many times that she knew it by heart. Looking out at all the people whose lives Ricky touched, she went on from memory.

“We only started dating last June, but in the eight months I was lucky to share with him, I got to know him better than I have ever known any other human being. I knew what made him laugh—
The Simpsons
—and what made him frown—the Packers losing to the Vikings. Sometimes when I looked at him, I could tell from the expression on his face exactly what he was thinking—and he always seemed to know what I was thinking too. But we still hadn’t discovered everything. There was so much more that we had to learn. We’d barely begun to explore all the things we meant to each other, all the little things that made us who we were.

“And now …?” Her lips clenched into a grimace of tightly controlled pain and sadness. “… We never will. I—” Tears began to well in her eyes, but they didn’t fall yet. She paused to collect herself.

“I’m sorry,” she said. She felt the hot tears slowly begin to drip down her cheeks and wished she hadn’t given all her tissues away. “Does someone have a tissue I could have?”

The people in the front row, her father and Donna and Ricky’s grandparents and, on the other side of the aisle, The Untouchables glanced at one another and shifted uncomfortably in their seats. For a moment, she thought no one was going to help her. One of the tears had reached the flare of her nostril. It tickled. She admonished herself, Don’t wipe it away. Don’t use the back of your arm, and waited for some kindness to come her way.

Finally Ricky’s grandfather rose from his seat. He had the wide-legged, arthritic gait of an ex-football player. From his lapel pocket, he pulled a monogrammed handkerchief and passed it across the podium to her.

She dabbed at her cheeks with a dainty hand, being careful not to smudge the makeup. Then, bravely returning to her speech, she said, “The night Ricky … The night this horrible tragedy took place, Ricky and I had been out celebrating the Raccoons’ win over the Prairie Dogs. He’d been so happy. He was a true team player. He didn’t want the glory all for himself. He wanted to do what was best for his teammates. He wanted everyone to win. That’s what was most important to him. To be part of the group.”

Glancing up, she noticed that Digger, Jeremy, and Troy’s arms had tightened around one another’s shoulders. Their foreheads were pressed hard together, and from the quiver in their bodies, Britney suspected that they were silently sobbing.

“But there was something else about him that night. There was something in the way he smiled at me. He seemed almost bashful. And if you know Ricky, you know he was never bashful.”

Mournful, knowing chuckles rose from the crowd.

“Well, here’s why.”

She reached into the hidden hip pocket of her dress and pulled out a small shimmering object.

“That night, before he dropped me off at home, he gave me this.”

She held up the object, a ring, small, unassuming but a ring nonetheless, made of silver and, mounted on it, a diamond.

“He asked me to marry him, to share my life with him. I hadn’t said yes yet. I wanted to spend the weekend thinking about it, but …” Looking up toward the stone rafters of the church ceiling, Britney said quietly, in a whisper just loud enough for the mike to pick it up, “Yes, Ricky. Yes. I do want to marry you. It’s too late now, but my answer would have been yes.”

Then she bowed her head and wiped her eyes with the handkerchief Ricky’s grandfather had given her.

The air in the church was tense. Everyone was silent, gazing up at her, and she could feel how profoundly deep their sympathy ran. Britney wasn’t sure if she should say thank you or what. Her speech was over, but the love that was pressing toward her from the crowd was so great that she didn’t want to leave the spotlight.

Donna was supposed to speak next. Britney wasn’t looking forward to it. She could already imagine how her speech would go. She’d be surprised if the woman got more than a few words out before she broke down in hysterics. She’d bellow, “Ricky … Ricky,” maybe say, “My beautiful boy,” or, “My only son,” or, “Oh God, how could you take him away from me?” Whatever she did, the whole congregation would feel twitchy and be afraid to look at her. No matter how much comfort they threw her way, it wouldn’t possibly be enough.

With slow grace and dignity, Britney walked back toward her empty place in the front row pew. The respectful silence emanating toward her filled her with such joy that she almost felt like running up and hugging each and every person there.

Just as she was about to take her seat again, she heard an odd noise coming from the back of the room. A popping sound. A sound of air caught between two palms. Someone was clapping—not the kind of clapping that showed appreciation; sarcastic, ironic clapping, the kind that said, “I’m laughing at you.” The gall! And this clapping was gradually getting louder. And faster, like horse hooves picking up speed. Other people were joining in now. They didn’t seem to understand that this was a sick joke. They were clapping in earnest, in appreciation. They were clapping because they liked her. She wished they’d stop, though; the thunder of their applause drowned out the instigator, making it impossible for her to pinpoint where the sound had come from.

She plopped down in her seat and covered her face with her hands. She was no longer crying. She didn’t even feel sad anymore. She was enraged. Who could possibly show such disrespect for the dead? she wondered. Who could possibly be so out to get her? No. No. She tried to calm herself down with deep-breathing exercises. The more she told herself not to be paranoid, the more paranoid she became.

ten

That
night, at the buffet held in Ricky’s honor in the VFW hall, the other hockey wives congregated around the head table, where Britney sat with Ricky’s family, and ogled her ring.

“It’s beautiful!” said Daphney.

They all wanted to know, “Where’d he get it?”

Erin, who could always be counted on to say something just this side of inappropriate, asked, “How’d he
afford
it? He and his mother weren’t well-off or anything.”

Cindy shushed her and changed the subject. “You two were such a perfect couple,” she said.

“Just think what their babies would have looked like,” said Daphney, a faraway look sliding over her face.

“Yeah,” added Erin, “and just think how much fun Cindy would have had babysitting for them.”

Cindy blushed and sighed as if a phantom baby were right there in front of them.

Through all of this, Britney didn’t say much. She was still too torn up by her sadness. It made Britney smile to listen to them, though. The sight of them delighting in acting like themselves reminded Britney that the world hadn’t completely changed.

Daphney asked, “How’d he do it? I want to hear every detail.”

“Well.” Britney tried to think back. Time had been moving so slowly since Ricky died that Friday seemed like a lifetime ago. “After we left Troy’s party, Ricky drove me to …” She searched her mind. “Menominee Park. I didn’t want to go. I was tired. I feel bad about it now, but I kept arguing with him about why he wouldn’t just take me straight home—”

Erin cut her off. “Get to the good part!” she said. “How did he propose?”

“He made me get out of the car and he led me to a little slope where the snow hadn’t been trampled yet. It was so cold, I can’t tell you! He made me stand there while he pressed letters into the snow with his body, and it wasn’t until he was, like, halfway done that I realized what he was doing.”

The other girls sighed and cooed.

“He was spelling it out in the snow!” said Cindy. “That’s so romantic.”

Britney smiled briefly, but her smile faded as Ricky’s face rushed up from her memory.

Though they wanted to, the girls couldn’t dwell long over this story; it was time to join the serving line and they had to return to their tables.

The mood was sad, but it was nice not to have to be sad all alone.

When her mother died, Britney had felt completely isolated. She hadn’t even been able to talk to her dad about it because he’d responded by trying to disappear in his work, hiding at the office sometimes until midnight, and, when he could no longer escape, coming home, sitting with his scotch and a look on his face that said, “Please don’t come near me; I’ll break if you do.”

Now, though, she was surrounded, smothered by love. The VFW hall was packed. Thirty large round tables covered in white paper tablecloths. On the center of each table was a bouquet of festive azaleas. Britney couldn’t stop imagining that this was what the place would have been like on her wedding night—except on her wedding night, there would have been better music than the soft classical strings piping out of the speakers today. There would have been chinking of glasses and demands, every five minutes, that she and Ricky kiss. They would have held each other tight and danced slowly. And then they would have done the chicken dance and laughed.

The dinner was potluck, a lot of hot dishes and casseroles, and the only thing that came close to Atkins worthy was one plate of finger sandwiches someone had brought. Britney stocked up on these, pulling them apart so she could roll the ham and turkey inside into little balls, which she then popped into her mouth like they were bonbons. By the time she was done eating, she had built a six-layer-deep wall of bread triangles.

Throughout the meal, it seemed like everyone there found a moment to come over and give condolences. She hardly knew most of these people. They were Ricky’s acquaintances, accumulated throughout his seventeen years. It was nice, if a little bit weird, to have stranger after stranger come up and shake her hand, pat her tenderly on the shoulder, and say how sorry they felt for her. “You’re the fiancée,” they’d typically say. “It’s such a tragedy.” “I know it’s not much of a help, but I’m going to miss him too.” She imagined that most of these people must have known Ricky a lot better than she did—they’d known him for years, while she’d only had a few months with him. Still, she was gracious. She smiled demurely and looked the strangers dead in the eye—this seemed to be what they most wanted—while they stretched for a heartfelt connection.

Accepting so much kindness was exhausting. The only relief came when Melissa stopped by. She’d cleaned herself up for the occasion, pulling her curly hair into nice braids, and she’d even put on some mascara and lipstick. Britney had never seen her look so elegant. “How are you holding up?” she asked. The nice thing was that Britney didn’t have to answer this question. Melissa knew her so well that a mere shrug explained everything: the shock and confusion, the exhaustion, the numbness, the weirdness of being showered with love from people she’d never met before. Without another word, Melissa positioned herself behind Britney’s chair and began kneading the knotted muscles in her shoulders.

Britney’s father had demanded that Adam be seated with the family. Up to now, he’d been surprisingly well—behaved—Britney figured this was due to the warning her father had given him in the car on their way over—but as soon as Melissa came over, he perked up. In a really obvious way, he started glancing at the two girls. Every five seconds, his eyes would dart back to them and linger in what Britney thought was a leering stare. The only thing that stopped Britney from telling him off was that to do so would mean she had to speak to him. She didn’t want to give him any excuse to make a scene.

“Better?” asked Melissa.

“Yeah,” said Britney. Squeezing Melissa’s hand, she pulled her friend close so she could whisper in her ear. “Listen, I want to say this now because it seems like the right moment and moments like this don’t come around too often. You’re the only one. The only one in the whole wide world who knows what I’m really like. Whatever happens, I want you to know that.”

“Shush,” said Melissa. “You don’t have to say that. I’m just doing what anyone would do. You know, there’s this place in Africa where the society works in this way so that the women are the leaders, and they share all of one another’s burdens. When any one member of the community is in pain, the rest of the women rally around her and pick up her slack until she’s recovered. I’ve seen you through worse. I’m not going anywhere.”

“See, that’s what I mean.” Britney squeezed Melissa’s hand one more time and then let it go before she could start to cry.

As soon as Melissa had left, Adam leaned over and said, “Listen, I’m sorry I gave you such a hard time the other night at dinner. I’ve been thinking about it, and I feel … bad. Can we call a truce?”

Britney wasn’t sure what to make of this. Knowing Adam, she suspected it might be a trap. She screwed up her face. “I’ll think about it,” she said.

“Hey, I’ll take what I can get,” he said.

She could feel someone standing on the other side of her, and with relief, she turned her back to Adam.

The person waiting to talk to her turned out to be a police officer, a leggy, glamorous-looking woman in her mid-twenties. The familiar blue-black uniform looked better on her than Britney remembered it looking on other female cops. It didn’t bulk up in the butt like they usually did. The severity of the uniform accentuated her long blond curls. When she squatted on one knee to chat, Britney noticed that her nose was covered in faint freckles, and she was chewing bubble gum.

“I’m Tara Russell,” said the woman, “the detective who’s looking into Ricky’s case. I wanted to take a sec to introduce myself. Listen, can I pull you away for a minute?”

“Um, sure,” Britney said.

“Mind if we step outside? I’m dying for a cigarette.”

As they walked toward the large double doors at the other end of the room, Detective Russell blew bubbles. Her gum was sour apple green.

Britney was surprised that the detective was so cavalier about smoking on the job. “Are you allowed to do that?” she asked.

The detective frowned. “Why wouldn’t I be? We’re going outside, aren’t we?”

With the windchill, the temperature outside was hitting thirty below, so the two of them stood in the small foyer between the parking lot and the hall. The only thing between them and the elements were some plate glass windows, but these were enough to keep them from shivering.

“You want one?” asked the detective as she pulled a pack of Camel Lights from her purse.

“I’m okay,” said Britney.

“If you want one, it’s not a problem. It’s not like I’m going to tell on you or anything.”

“I don’t smoke,” said Britney. She was nervous, afraid that whatever the detective had to say was going to be more bad news. Why else would they have had to leave the room to talk?

“Well, first, let me see the ring!” Detective Russell’s voice, as she said this, swung gleefully.

Tilting her hand back and forth to catch the light and make it twinkle in the diamond, Britney said, “It’s only half a carat, but it’s got a white gold band. Regular gold is so tacky.”

“It’s beautiful! Is it inscribed?”

“No.” Britney’s face fell. She wondered if the fact that the ring wasn’t inscribed cheapened it in some way.

“It’s a real tragedy the way this happened, isn’t it?”

Looking the detective in the eye, Britney saw compassion, but she also saw something else: her eyes had a sharp clarity to them.

“Uh-huh.”

“Back when I was in college, I dated a UW football star. He never gave me a ring like that. You should cherish it.”

Britney nodded.

Abruptly changing the subject, the detective said, “I know this is an awkward time, but I need to go over some things with you. Right now we’re treating this as an accident, so I’m just covering my bases, but—”

Something burst inside Britney. It felt like her veins had turned into waterfalls, the blood rushing, tumbling down toward her stomach. “Have you talked to Digger?” She spoke quickly, the words leaping over each other in a race to the finish.

“Who’s Digger?”

“Ricky’s hockey buddy. Doug Dietz.”

“Well, no. Should I have?”

“I don’t know,” Britney said. “Probably not. He’s been telling people that someone threatened Ricky a few days before he got—passed away. But Digger’s the kind of guy who makes things up, you know?”

“Hmm.” The detective nodded gravely. “That’s interesting.” She pulled a thick notepad from her belt and wrote something in it. “I’ll tell you what we
have
done. We’ve performed some forensics on the tire tracks into and out of the gas station, and we’ve ruled out the possibility that whoever was driving that truck lost control on the ice. There was too much salt on the road. And there wasn’t any fishtailing. If he’d lost control, we would have seen signs that he’d tried to brake. But we still haven’t ruled out a drunk driver. I mean, he would have had to have been blitzed out of his mind, but in a college town like this, that’s not at all inconceivable.”

“Do you have any idea who was driving the truck?”

Detective Russell shrugged. She looked around for an ashtray, and not finding one, she stubbed her cigarette out on the sole of her shiny black shoe. “We’re running some tests on the paint that scraped off onto Ricky’s car,” she said, “but I wouldn’t hold my breath if I were you. There’s not a lot to go on. I mean, a red pickup? Come on, who
doesn’t
own one of them?”

“Well … What about the Prairie Dogs? They could have done it, right? They were really pissed about what happened at the game. I mean, Digger—”

“I’ve looked into them already. Most of the team was on the bus headed back to Sun Prairie. The only one who wasn’t, Todd Smaltz, and his girlfriend were at the hospital all night.”

Britney stiffened. “Then you don’t know anything, do you?” She felt like jumping up and down, like pounding her fists against the detective’s chest and screaming, “What are you good for if you can’t even solve a simple hit and run?” But she didn’t. She bounced from foot to foot to help control her adrenaline.

Detective Russell was popping more gum into her mouth. “I’m working on it,” she said. “You want to go back inside?” As she said this, the detective adjusted her hair in her reflection in the glass. She touched up her makeup. She seemed totally unaffected by the state she’d put Britney in.

Back inside, just before parting company with Britney, the detective took her by the shoulders and looked her straight in the eyes. “Listen, I want you to know I’m here for you whenever you need me. Here’s my private number.” She handed Britney a business card. “It doesn’t even have to be related to the case. Anything you need, just give me a call. You remind me of what I was like when I was your age.”

Britney tried to smile. “Thanks,” she said.

“Promise me you’ll use it?” the detective said.

“Yeah, okay, I guess,” said Britney. “But I hope I don’t have to.”