Tunnel Vision (21 page)

FIFTY-ONE

The day after Betty’s discharge from the hospital was hell. Ophelia took the day off of painting, and Andrea even took a personal day from her job. The moms crowded her like they never had before, too much for her to do even as much as e-mail Nickel or text her friends to let them know what had happened. Not that Betty had much doubt about their knowledge of what had taken place. It would have been impossible to think the story hadn’t raged through the high school like a midsummer wildfire.

People are going to know about it, and you’re going to have to accept that.

Betty had rolled the words over and over in her head, but by the time she was actually driving to school two days after the attack, the advice no longer seemed relevant.

She knew people were going to talk, and she knew she was going to hate it. Not that stories like hers didn’t turn out a lot worse on a pretty frequent basis. She’d have known that even if Andrea hadn’t drilled it into her head. It was hard to feel lucky, though, knowing that her name was going to be in everyone’s mouth. Her head didn’t look that bad, but she did have a wicked black eye, along with a few scrapes from landing on the pavement.

Betty let these thoughts tumble through her mind like clothes in the spin cycle as she drove to school, but it wasn’t until she was pulling into the lot that she had the revelation that this was exactly the sort of abuse Mandy had gone through. It had all turned out worse for June’s aunt, of course, but had it started with just a random act of cruelty? The conclusions Betty had settled on at the prison now seemed childish. Duke had cared for Mandy, but what did that have to do with anything? After all, Jake had cared for
her
, and he could have easily killed her if she’d fallen on her head wrong. Or if Nickel hadn’t been there.

Betty parked and walked into the school. She could see a gaggle of freshman girls talking behind their hands, but she paid them no mind. Even if they hadn’t been freshmen, Betty had bigger fish to fry, but that would have to wait until fourth period. Right now all she had to do was survive and not make a spectacle of herself.

The halls didn’t become quiet as Betty walked into the school, but there was a lull in the cacophony typically present by the junior lockers. Betty tried to ignore the drop in noise and was comfortable enough to lock eyes with anyone who stared at her too intently. In every case but one, the owner of the too-curious eyes pulled her gaze away. The last one was June.

“Oh my God,” said June as she grabbed Betty’s arm and dragged her through the packed hallway.

Somehow her friend’s interest had lessened their peers’ interest in the high school spectacle, and Betty felt so thankful for June grabbing her that she wanted to burst into tears. Instead of crying, she said, “Thanks for coming to get me. They’re like a bunch of piranha that smell blood.”

“Nothing new about that,” said June. “C’mon, I’ll walk you to first period and you can fill me in on what exactly happened.”

“Oh God,” said Betty, “I’m not sure I want to tell you or anyone else. But anyway, I can’t tell you jack until fourth period.”

“I knew it,” said June, her grin more appropriate for a shark than a best friend. “I totally guessed it. I wish I had some money riding on him.”

“What do you mean?”

“I’ve been thinking about who could have given Jake Norton a run for his money,” June explained, “and there was only one name that came to mind. How bad was it?”

“Well, my head still hurts,” said Betty, “but it hasn’t been long enough for—”

“I don’t mean that,” June interrupted. “I mean the ass whipping Nickel put on Jake. How bad are we talking? Like, I get that it was hospital bad, but—”

“Oh my God,” said Betty after recovering enough from what June was saying in front of all of these people to speak. “You need to shut up immediately. We can’t talk about him, and we can never talk about him like this.”

“But—”

“Fourth period. Not another word about this until fourth period.”

June nodded, and then mimed zipping her lips, fastening them with a key, and pitching the imaginary key over her shoulder.

Betty smiled at the purse-lipped June, and the two of them burst into laughter as the bell rang to signal the beginning of first period.

“I’ve been waiting all day,” said June, “so spill.”

They were sitting at their usual place at the back of the library. Two of the library’s recently-updated-but-still-outdated desktop computers were fired up to various pages littered with information on the Duke case, but neither of them was looking at the computers.

“I don’t suppose I have a choice in the matter?”

“Oh, hell no,” said June. “I want to hear about the knight in shining armor, so make with the goods.”

Betty shook her head, unsure whether she wanted to laugh or cry. She’d gotten a concussion, Jake had been badly beaten, and Nickel could’ve gotten into some really serious trouble. And, weirdly, the idea of Nickel getting in trouble was even scarier than any injury she herself could have incurred without his timely interruption.

“I met Nickel in the park to talk about going to the house where Mandy died,” she said. “We were walking back up from the bench, and then I saw Jake in the parking lot. He was waiting by my car, pacing back and forth, and when he saw Nickel and me he raced over to us. I tried to get between them, mostly so I could talk some sense into Jake, but before I could even really say anything, Jake punched me in the side of the head.”

“What a piece of shit,” said June. “Seriously.”

“Pretty much,” said Betty, “but what happened next was crazy. Nickel basically ruined Jake. He was kicking his legs and dancing around him, and then he kicked him right in the balls and Jake fell over and started screaming. I was almost to my car, and when I looked back, I turned to see Nickel kick Jake in the mouth really hard.” Betty swallowed thickly. “It was pretty gross.”

“So are the cops looking for Nickel?”

Betty shook her head. “No. I told them I didn’t know who helped me, and Andrea pressured the cop to let it go. It blew away the detective I talked to the other day. Jake had been telling him a story about how we had been hanging out and got mugged. I think Jake thought I would be too messed up to remember anything.”

“That’s horrible,” said June, and the look on her face made it clear she meant it.

“Yeah, pretty much. The only positive thing to take away from it is that because the moms both had to take a day off to see me at the hospital, and then another one to stay with me at home, they’re going to be superbusy at work. I promised them I was done with adventures, but all I’ve been able to think about since Jake hit me is the house where Mandy died, and about Duke.”

“What about Duke?”

“You know how we both came away from the prison thinking he was innocent? I think I might have changed my mind. Just because Duke loved Mandy doesn’t mean he didn’t hurt her. In fact, that could just provide even more evidence it
was
him. There probably isn’t much left of Duke and Mandy in that house, but I still want to look inside. Are you still game?”

“Yes, all the way.”

“Good,” said Betty with a smile, the grin causing a ripple of pain to flow through her face.
Even now I can’t be happy because of Jake.
In that moment Betty hated him more than any person she’d ever met, but she still felt sympathy for him. Jake had let his temper destroy his foreseeable future, and even though she had been hurt, Jake was going to be the one to feel the real pain. The physical wounds would heal quickly, but if he happened to be charged as an adult, the rest of his life was going to wear an asterisk next to it. Betty frowned, making the pain flare up again, and then said, “June, did you ever talk to your dad?”

“No. Maybe tonight.”

“But probably not, right?”

“Yeah, probably not,” said June. “Besides, my dad is going to be useless compared to what could be in the house. He might not know anything at all about what happened, or like most things with my dad, he’ll have some awful theory or tell us about how Mandy deserved it, and that he still thinks so.”

The bell rang, making both of them jump, and as they gathered their things and signed out of the library desktop computers, Betty shouldered her bag and said, “I’ll e-mail Nickel after school. If he’s up for it and I can get out of the house, I want to go to that house tonight. Are you in?”

FIFTY-TWO

Betty had been prepared to e-mail Nickel and ask if he wanted to go on exactly the sort of adventure she had assured her mothers that she was over, but there was a pair of messages from him waiting for her in her inbox. The first one said simply, “Let me know if you still want to go to the house. Hope you’re feeling better. N.” Betty responded, “Yes!” and asked him if she could meet him at the gas station by his house.

The second of the two, a few hours older, said, “Think this is him?” followed by a masked hyperlink that said, “Hmmmm.” Betty clicked the link, which led to the Facebook page of someone named Anne Lattrell. There were numerous pictures of this Anne and what appeared to be members of her family, as well as a man—presumably her husband—with whom she was shown going to amusement parks and posing for cheesy portraits. This man—balding, at least semi-well-off, happy—looked nothing like the image conjured up in Betty’s mind of how an aged Jason Lattrell would look.

Betty wasn’t quite sure why this profile was on Nickel’s radar, and then she got to the bottom end of the photo gallery and saw pictures of a tired-looking, skinnier, hairier, long-ago version of Anne’s husband, a maybe-Jason posing in front of a brick wall with a group of other punk rock kids. Duke and Mandy were nowhere to be seen, but the manner of dress was correct for the time period. Betty wondered if current-day Jason even knew the picture was on here. He looked like hell. The picture was surrounded by shots of Anne with braces, Anne wearing a figure-skating dress, and Anne with her parents in a graduation robe, but the picture of the maybe-Jason was posed in front of a very familiar address: 4527. Betty knew without a doubt the house had to be on Lincoln, and if Duke was telling the truth, had probably been taken around the time Mandy was killed.

It’s not a smoking gun or a confession, or even proof of a man in a green jacket, but it’s something.

Betty flipped back to her e-mail and saw that Nickel had responded to her, saying simply, “Gas station, as soon as possible.” Betty snapped her computer closed, left the room, and bounced down the steps. She walked to the closed basement door, funk rock again pouring through the seams, and called to Ophelia, saying, “I’m going to June’s house, to study, OK?”

“All right,” said Ophelia. “Call me if anything changes or if your head hurts too much to drive.”

“OK, thanks,” shouted Betty, the lump of guilt in her throat almost too much to swallow. Lying had been bad enough before Jake had attacked her, but now that she’d made her other promise, everything about their research was just a further extension of the same lie.

It’s too late to worry about that.
This is more important than a lie and more important than school.

Betty dialed June as she drove, but was forced to leave a message when there was no answer. Leaving her phone on her knee so she wouldn’t miss anything—every parent’s worst fear: a teenager far more in tune with the phone than the road—Betty and her car made it unscathed to a waiting Nickel at the gas station. Nickel got in just as the phone began to ring, and Betty waved at Nickel as she answered it.

“Hey,” said June. “What’s up?”

“I’m driving to that house with Nickel. Are you in?”

“I wish. I have to go to my dad’s again. Some insurance forms he needs to sign so Mom can fax them in, and then he’s going to work on my car. I might try to talk to him about Mandy, but honestly, I don’t think I’ll actually do it. It seems bad enough before I’m in front of him, but it’s impossible once I’m actually there.”

“Sorry,” said Betty. “Well, hopefully I can get a hold of you later and we can fill each other in.”

“Yeah, well, much later, maybe. I’m going to be stuck there for a few hours at least. Today is over already, as far as I can tell.”

“That sucks,” said Betty.

“Totes,” said June. “But I have to get over there. He can keep me waiting for hours at a time, but if I’m ten minutes late with him, I’m dead meat. I’ll let you know how it goes.”

When they’d said good-bye, Betty turned to Nickel. “Well, looks like it’s just the two of us.”

“Fine by me,” he said, then cracked a thin smile. “Unless you have any other angry admirers that have set off after you for revenge. If so, I’d really like to know ahead of time.”

“Yeah, sorry about that,” said Betty, but instead of blushing, she was smiling. “He was a pretty good guy for a long time, and now, well, you saw what happened.”

“He must have cared about you a lot,” said Nickel. “People can be funny when they’re hurt like that, or scared for a loved one. That’s why moms can lift cars off of toddlers and why defense attorneys use terms like
crime of passion
.”

“Yeah,” said Betty, “he loved me so much he punched me in the head.”

“It’s not as strange as it sounds. I bet if you asked most people who killed a loved one, they’d be confused, remorseful, and possibly even in denial when they were confronted with what they’d done.”

“People are crazy,” said Betty. “Jake was telling the cops all about how someone mugged us and beat him up when he was trying to protect me. I thought he’d just lied through his teeth, but hell, maybe he really believed it. That actually makes some sense.” Betty paused and then said, “Well, as much sense as getting beaten up by your ex-boyfriend can.”

“So what did you tell the police about me?” Nickel asked as Betty turned out of the gas station, and Betty smiled.

“Do you really think I would tell them anything?”

“I don’t know,” he said with a shrug. “I mean, I know what my threshold is for lying during something like that, but I don’t know yours.”

“Well, I didn’t say anything,” said Betty. “I told the cops I made a friend at the park, Jake just came out of nowhere and attacked us, and that was the last thing I remember.”

“Did you give them a description? It’s OK if you did, I just need to know if I need a haircut and some new clothes.”

“No, I couldn’t do that,” she said. “My mom let the cop know that everything was OK, and that was the end of it.”

“You’re just lucky they believed you,” said Nickel. “Me in that same situation, I’d be completely fucked.”

“You’d be OK,” said Betty. “It’s not like it would be your fault you got hurt, and eventually your dad would have made everything all right with the cops, no matter what they decided to believe.”

After a beat of silence, Nickel asked, “Do you think Jake’s parents are making everything OK for him?”

“No,” Betty allowed. There was a flinty look in Nickel’s eyes, not a cruel one, but something cold and impermeable. Not for the first time, it occurred to Betty that she really never was going to know all there was to know about this boy, and perhaps no one on earth really did. “I’m sorry,” she said. “I wasn’t trying to presume anything.”

“I know,” said Nickel. “It’s just hard for me to think in shades of gray. Everything in my life is either peachy or a complete disaster, and it’s a razor’s edge that separates them. I could tell you stories that you’d never believe, but there’s no point. I’d just look like a fool.”

“No, you wouldn’t. I’d never want you to feel like that on my account, especially not if you promised me you were telling the truth.”

Betty was inching her right hand closer to Nickel’s on the console when Nickel said, “Hold up,” and she jerked her hand away as if it had been scalded.

Nickel was just looking at her with a grin. “We’re here.”

Betty smiled at him and then parked the car.