Secrets in the Attic

  "Of course, I will."

  "But you never saw any of it happen to me. You have only my word for it."

  "That's okay. I'll tell them how desperate you were, and I'll tell them about our plan. When they hear about the wig, the dress, they'll believe us. I'll show them the book of short stories to prove where we got the idea."

  "You'll admit to conspiring with me to rid me of Harry? You'll admit to never telling your parents about it? They'll be so hurt. Your father is an attorney. It might even affect his career here. Maybe he'll lose his job. Do you really want to be part of all this?"

  I didn't speak. She had injected a quart of terror into my blood, and it congealed around my heart, freezing it in my chest.

  "Well, what can we do, I do?"

  "I warned you that day. I told you that you don't want to be my best friend. I pleaded with you to stay out, but you insisted, and you vowed we would be friends forever. Bird Oath, remember?"

  "We will be friends forever," I said, but weakly. "Sure, we will," she muttered.

  We were both quiet, wallowing in our muddled thoughts. How had all this happened so fast? I gazed around the attic. Was it all just a terrible nightmare? Would I wake up and be so happy it was only a dream? Would I hurry over to her house to warn her about what could happen? Could I change the course of the events? Could I go to my mother and my father and ask them for help as I should have done? Could I have a phone conversation with Jesse and get him to help as well, even if it were only to talk to our parents for me?

  Oh, Fate, give us another chance, please, I pleaded in my secret thoughts. We'll be good. We'll do the right things. Don't let this all be true, all be happening to us.

  The attic creaked with the gust of wind coming in from the northeast, snapping at the leaves, forcing thin branches to nod in respect. The great house that had survived so many different kinds of weather seemed to groan as if it were having a bellyache because of us. Surely, it was thinking, Oh; no, not another dark and horrid story to attach to the rafters and cladding, not another notorious legend to inhabit the rooms and cling to the walls to make it harder, if not impossible, for another warm and loving family to live here. Abandoned, it would rot away and slowly disintegrate into nothing more than an empty shell to be pummeled by teenagers on some Halloween rampage, smashing out all the windows and splashing imitation blood on its outside walls and walks, until some merciful vagrant set it on fire and sent its memory up in smoke to be carried away in the same wind that visited us right now.

  "Well, what are we going to do, Karen?" I asked, struggling to control my panic.

  "I'm not sure yet." She stared a moment longer at the floor and then turned to me. "For now, I want to stay up here, hide up here."

  "Here? In the attic?"

  "Remember The Diary of Anne Frank, and how adults as well as children stayed safely in an attic to hide from the Nazis? They were there for years. If all those people were able to do it, we can do it. I can do it. I'll be dead quiet when your family is here, too. During the day, when everyone is at work and you're at school, I'll do what I have to do and move around undetected."

  "But . . ."

  "Don't you want to help me? Help us?"

  "Of course, but how can you stay up here by yourself so long and be so quiet no one will know?"

  "I can do it. I've actually got it easier than Anne Frank I can leave the attic sometimes, most of the time, thanks to both your parents working. I could go out when no one is here and get some air. You and I are practically the same size. I can wear some of your things, use some of your things. When no one is here, I'll shower and bathe in your bathroom. It will be okay. At least, until we come up with a better plan:' she said.

  "Everyone is looking for you. They'll probably make up those wanted posters with your face on them and put them in post offices."

  "I know. That's what makes this so smart," she said, holding her hands out and looking around the attic. "It's big. I have a place to sleep. I'll be fine for a while. As long as you want to help me, that is."

  "I want to help you. Of course, I want to help you."

  "So? Just now, neither you nor your mother knew. I was here until I decided to let you know, right? We can do this. You'll see. It will be a lot easier than you think, and besides, I'll be the one who's doing any sort of suffering, not you."

  "Don't you want to talk to your mother, ask her to help you?"

  Her face turned hard, her eyes as dead as marbles. "She didn't help me when I needed her the most. All she's doing right now is mourning what she lost, the life she lost, but she'll find a way to fix it without me, believe me." She looked away a moment and then turned back to me. "I always believed she drove my father to his death. I never told you the things I remembered about them, how my mother aggravated him about our not having enough money, how she belittled him and tried to get me to think less of him."

  "No, you never said anything about that," I said, now amazed and shocked at her new revelations. It was truly as if what had happened, what she had done, had stripped away any pretense. Nothing could be hidden from me any longer, no matter how terrible it was.

  "Yes, well, besides it being so painful to think about, I was ashamed of it as well. My mother is . . . what's the word . . . an exploiter. She knows how to milk everything to her own advantage. She's actually the most selfish person I know. Her favorite words are me, myself, and I.

  I hated hearing her talk about her own mother that way. It brought tears to my eyes, for I could never in a million years imagine myself talking like that about my mother.

  "You'll see," she continued. "After a while, it will be like I never existed. Oh, she'll put on a good act in the beginning. She's probably at home right now, bawling her eyes out for the police and friends, accepting sympathy like some pauper on the street filling her hands with charity. I'm sure it's already 'poor Darlene, poor, poor Darlene' First she loses a young husband to a freaky heart attack, and then she loses her new wonderful provider to the evil and viciousness of a self-centered, miserable daughter who never showed any appreciation for her wonderful gifts and loving stepfather. I could write the gossip and hand it out for the people of this village to recite," she said bitterly. "You know I could, and you know in your heart that I'm right about all of it."

  I took a deep breath. Yes, everything she was saying was surely true, I thought.

  "Look," she said reaching for my hand. "You're going to be questioned by the police. You were practically the only friend I had at school, and we spent so much time together. You better practice in front of a mirror or in front of me, so you don't give anything away or break down."

  I shook my head. Just the thought of such a thing put the tremors in me.

  "Are you sure the police will be asking me questions?"

  "Yes, Zipporah. Be real. We couldn't be closer friends, could we? All right," she said, letting go of my hand and standing. She walked about for a few moments with her hands behind her and then turned and glared down at me. "Zipporah, when was the last time you saw Karen Stoker?"

  "The last time?"

  "Don't repeat the questions. It looks like you're trying to come up with a lie. Just answer them. When was the last time?"

  "Um . . . when I was over at your house talking about the short story and . . ."

  "Oh, Zipporah. Are you crazy? Think before you speak." She walked over to a table and picked up the book of short stories. "I had the sense to bring this back to you for you to put back on the bookshelves. No one must ever know we read and used the story in here. If anything makes you an accomplice to all this, it's the book. See? Even in my most dreadful moment, I was thinking more of you."

  She tossed it into my lap.

  "Let's return to the question. When did you last see Karen Stoker?"

  I took a breath, looked down at the book and then up at her. "At her house, when I went over to do homework with her."

  "Good. And at that time or any time before, did she indicate or say anything
about wanting to hurt her stepfather? Well?"

  "No, nothing," I said quickly.

  "Nothing? Not even a wishful thought?"

  "She . . ."

  "Yes?"

  "Wished her real father was still alive. She cried a lot about him, about losing him."

  "Good. Do you have any idea why she would want to kill her stepfather?"

  "What should I say?" I asked her.

  "Just say no, Zipporah. If you tell them anything, you'll have to tell them everything. You were my friend, but you had no idea about anything that happened in my house. Leave it that way." "They won't believe me," I moaned.

  "Get them to believe you for your own benefit," she advised. "All this is just as much a shock to you as anyone. Cry a lot. That will put a quick end to it."

  "I won't have any trouble doing that:'

  "Good." She looked around and smiled. "It'll be fine. We'll do fine," she said. "I'm hungry. I'd go down with you, but your father's surely coming home soon. I'm sure your mother's called him. Be careful not to get caught gathering food to bring up, need water, too. Fill up a few quarts."

  She laughed and walked toward one of the dressers, bending over to pick up something beside it. She showed it to me. "Remember when we didn't know what this was, this chamber pot?"

  "Yes."

  "Looks like I'm going back to the nineteenth century in a hurry," she said. "Don't worry. I'll take care of all that."

  "It will be so unpleasant for you, Karen."

  "Not anywhere nearly as unpleasant as it has been in my own home. You know that."

  I rose. "Okay. I'll get the food and water."

  "And books . . . start thinking of other books for me to read. I'd like to keep my mind off things for a while," she said.

  "Right "

  "And magazines, too. Lots of magazines," she called as I walked toward the attic door.

  "Right"

  "I'll stay up all night and sleep most of the day. I'll be like a vampire."

  I nodded and hurried down the stairs and to the kitchen to get what she needed before my father did come home. She was probably right about my mother calling him and both of them worrying about me. I fumbled about because I was so nervous and I was rushing so much, but I managed to put together a platter of cold chicken, some salad and bread, and a piece of cake. I found a carton and put everything in it along with two quarts of water, using empty milk bottles.

  Hurrying up the stairs, I nearly tripped. She was waiting in the doorway and took the carton from me.

  "Great," she said looking at it all. "Perfect. This is going to be fun. You'll see."

  Fun? How could this possibly be any fun?

  We both heard what sounded like a car pulling into our driveway and the garage door going up.

  "My father!" I said, practically choking on the words.

  "Calm down. He won't know I'm here unless you do something very stupid. Go on back to your room."

  I nodded and moved quickly down the short stairway. I got into my room just as my father entered the house. He called my name and started up the stairs. I plopped onto my bed and held my breath. He knocked on my door.

  "Come in," I said.

  He opened the door slowly.

  "Hey, kid-o," he said, smiling. "How are you doing?"

  "Okay," I said.

  "A real shocker," he said, shaking his head and coming farther into my room. He blew some air between his lips and sat on the bed. "I can appreciate how difficult all this is for you to process."

  I didn't say anything. I kept my eyes toward the ceiling, nervous that Karen might drop something or do something that made enough noise to attract my father's attention. I was literally holding my breath. I saw him glance at me and then look away.

  "Your mother is worried about you, and since she's a nurse as well as a mother, I thought I'd better get just as worried real quickly," he said, trying to insert some humor.

  Instead of smiling, I closed my eyes.

  "So tell me, honey, did you have any idea, any inkling, that such a thing might happen?" he asked.

  I let out my breath. I was about to take my first step into the world of deception and lies, hiding the truth from the people I loved the most in the world, betraying their trust, and risking their deep-seated disappointment and anger forever and ever. This was the crossroads I had feared approaching the moment I heard what Karen had done.

  Few of us get to know and understand the moment when our childhood ends and our adulthood begins. In childhood, all our feelings are simple and easy. Nothing is really very complicated. We want this; we can't have that. We love this person; we don't love or even like that one. We're excused from responsibilities or agree to our little chores. Our decisions are about things so trivial that later on, it makes us laugh at how much weight and importance we put on them. There is, after all, no greater dispensation, no excusing and forgiving coming from anything as much as from our youth. We are protected by the simple phrase, too young to know or appreciate the full extent of her actions.

  A fifteen-year-old girl can commit an act as terrible and as significant as what a twenty-one-yearold could do, and she will be known as a juvenile. It doesn't matter how bright she is or how sophisticated. Her age is all that matters.

  Here I go, I thought again. In my heart, I knew that someday I would regret and struggle to explain myself to the people I loved, but for now, there was nothing to do but remain a juvenile on the surface while making a major adult decision.

  "No, Daddy," I said. "I had no idea." He nodded and wore that face that my mother said made him so successful in a courtroom. Why couldn't I have inherited his ability to look so unrevealing or what my mother called "poker-faced"?

  "No wonder he wins at cards. He's good at bluffing," she said. "Half the time, I can't tell if he means what he says or not."

  "Well, honey," he said now, "because everyone knows you and Karen were close friends, the police want to talk to you as soon as they can. I got a call from the township police chief just a little while ago. They'd like to come here or have me take you to the station. Which would you prefer?"

  "The station," I said quickly. It was terrifying to think of the police in the house with Karen up in the attic.

  "Okay. I'll be right there with you the whole time. You just answer their questions truthfully, and that will be that." He glanced at his watch. "Why don't we say we'll leave here in about fifteen minutes? I've got a few calls to make to the office. Don't worry about putting on any different sort of clothing or anything. We go there, get it over with, and then how about the two of us going to Carnesi's for pizza? I'm in the mood, if you are."

  "Okay," I said. At the moment, the more time we were out of the house, the better I thought it would be for Karen. I wished there were some way I could tell her what was happening. I could take a chance and run up the stairs to the attic, but if my father heard me, he would wonder why, and I could give it all away.

  He leaned over to kiss me and then left. I heard him go downstairs. I went into the bathroom, threw cold water on my face, and ran a brush through my hair. Then I left, gazing up the stairway toward the attic door. I was tempted, but I resisted and instead went downstairs to meet him.

  "Ready?" he said, coming out of his home office. "Yes." "Don't worry about it. They just have their job to do. We'll be in and out in no time."

  It wasn't until we were in his car and backing out of the driveway that he turned and asked me if I had any idea where Karen might have gone. I know my eyes shifted, and I looked up at one of the attic windows, but luckily, he was looking at the road and didn't see.

  "She always wanted to live in a big city," I said, which was true. "She wished she would grow older faster so she could leave and be on her own."

  "Really? Well, unless she has some money, she's going to find that living in a city is much more difficult than she thinks. They'll know if she boarded one of the buses heading to New York. There aren't too many people traveling back and forth
yet. Do you think that's what she did?"

  "That's what she would have liked to do," I said. That wasn't a lie.

  He nodded. "Wherever she is, she's got to be a very frightened young lady."

  She didn't seem as frightened as he thought. Was that only an act?

  "What would make her do such a terrible, terrible thing? I never realized she had that sort of desperation, anger, in her. You never did either, huh?" he asked.

  "She didn't like having him as her father. She never called him her father. She's very sad about her real father dying so young. She's always been angry about that, and she never liked that her mother married Harry Pearson." It was all true.

  "Understandable," my father said. He smiled at me and shook his head. "Only, that's no reason to take such a violent action against Harry Pearson.-No, my guess is there was something else going on there, something so well hidden not even you, her best friend, knew it. I'm sure it will all come out in the end. It always does. Keeping truth down isn't easy. It has a way of showing up sometime or another." He laughed. "It's like trying to keep a beach ball underwater. Somehow, it slips around your hands and pops up."

  We drove to the township police station. Just the sight of it made me tremble. I hoped I didn't look as shaky as I felt when I got out of the car. Before we reached the front door, my father seized my wrist and gently turned me to him

  "You want to help Karen, don't you, Zipporah?" "Yes," I said.

  "Then tell the truth in there, Zipporah. You can't help her any better than by doing that," he said. "You understand? Don't hold anything back, no matter what. In the end, it's only worse for everyone. Okay?"

  His inscrutable grayish blue eyes fixed themselves on me. I swallowed back the lumps that had come into my throat and nodded.

  Then we walked in.

  8 Interrogation

  I could always tell from the way other people looked at my father and addressed him that he commanded great respect. Just in the relatively short time we had lived in this community, he had been in the newspapers often enough. A feature piece had been done on him after his last court victory, because it involved a lawsuit against the county over some environmental issues. He had taken the case and charged only expenses, because he believed in the importance of protecting the environment. There was already some talk about asking him to run for a political office, but he loved what he did too much to do anything else.