Kisscut

  “Only geeks use the combinations.”

  Brad blushed, but covered for it by taking things out of Jenny Weaver’s locker. “Three textbooks,” he said, handing them to Lena so she could thumb through the pages. “A notebook,” he continued. “Two pencils and a pack of gum.”

  Lena peered into the narrow cabinet, thinking that Jenny Weaver was a lot neater than she had been. There weren’t even pictures taped on to the inside. “That’s all?” she asked, even though she could see for herself.

  “That’s all,” Brad answered, going through the books Lena had already checked.

  Lena opened the notebook, which had a puppy on the cover. There were six colored tabs, one for each period, dividing the paper into sections. Almost every page was filled, but as far as she could tell there were only class notes. Jenny Weaver had not even doodled on the edges.

  “She must’ve been a good student,” Lena said.

  “She was thirteen and in the ninth grade.”

  “Is that unusual?”

  “Just means she skipped a grade,” Brad told her, stacking the books back in the locker the way they had found them. He checked the packet of gum to make sure it was just gum. “She sure was neat.”

  “Yeah,” Lena agreed, handing Brad the notebook. She waited while he thumbed through it, looking for something she might have missed.

  “She wrote real neat,” Brad said in a sad voice.

  “What’d you think of her on the retreat?”

  Brad pushed his hair out of his eyes. “She was quiet. I hate to say that I barely noticed her, but the girls pretty much kept to themselves. Mrs. Gray was supposed to be there to help out with them, but she got sick at the last minute. I didn’t want to disappoint everybody, and the deposits were nonrefundable….” He shook his head. “The boys were a handful. I had to spend most of my time looking after them.”

  “What about Jenny and Lacey?”

  “Well…” Brad’s forehead wrinkled as he thought. “They didn’t do much, is the thing. The other kids skied and had fun. Jenny and Lacey kind of kept to themselves. They had their own room and I only really saw them around supper time.”

  “How’d they act?”

  “Kind of like they had their own language. They’d look at me and giggle, you know, like girls do.” He shifted uncomfortably, and Lena could see exactly why the girls had giggled. Brad probably knew as much about teenage girls as a goat did.

  “They didn’t act strange?”

  “Stranger than giggling for no reason?”

  “Brad…,” Lena said. She stopped herself before she told him why the girls were laughing at him. Telling him they probably thought he was a dork would only make him pout, and Lena did not want to deal with that for the rest of the day.

  He stared at her openly, waiting for her to finish.

  “Just…,” Lena began, then stopped again. “Did it seem like Jenny was sick?”

  “That’s what the chief asked,” Brad said, and it seemed like he felt this was a compliment to Lena. “He asked a lot of questions about Jenny and how she looked, who she was hanging around with.”

  Lena closed the locker and indicated that they should continue walking. “So?”

  “She didn’t look sick to me,” he said. “I mean, like I told you, they kept to themselves. They didn’t seem to like the other kids. Honestly, I don’t know why they went. They’re not exactly part of that group.”

  “Meaning what?”

  He shrugged. “Popular, I guess. I mean, Lacey could’ve been. She’s real cute, like a cheerleader.” He shook his head, as if he was still trying to figure it out. “Jenny definitely wasn’t popular. I didn’t catch anyone being mean to her—I would’a done something about that—but they didn’t go out of their way to be nice to her, either.”

  “Weren’t you supposed to be chaperoning them?”

  He took this as it was meant, and immediately became defensive. “I watched them as best I could, but it was just me there, and the boys were getting into a lot more trouble than the girls.”

  Lena bit her tongue, wondering how someone as dense as Brad had gotten on the force.

  “Here we go,” Brad said, stopping in front of the library. He held the door open for Lena, something Brad’s mama had taught him to do from an early age. Working with Frank, then Jeffrey, Lena was so used to men opening doors for her that she barely noticed it anymore.

  The library was cool, yet friendly. Student projects were tacked up on the walls, and row after row of bookshelves were packed almost to overflowing. About twenty computer stations—another education initiative funded by Georgia’s lottery—sat empty, their monitors dark because the school’s electrical system was not equipped to handle the extra load. There was a second-level balcony with an open railing lining the back wall, and for just a moment Lena imagined that some kid had probably sat up in that second level, thinking about how easy it would be to open fire on his classmates.

  Brad was staring at her, an expectant look on his face. “That’s them,” he said, indicating three girls and three boys sitting by the librarian’s desk. Lena knew instantly what Brad had been talking about. These were the popular kids. There was something about the way they sat there, talking and laughing with each other. They were an attractive bunch, dressed in the latest fashions and with that casual air of entitlement that kids have who are worshipped by their peers.

  “Let’s get this over with,” Lena told him, walking purposefully toward the table. She stood there for several seconds, but none of the kids acknowledged she was there. Lena gave Brad a wary look, then cleared her throat. When that didn’t work, she rapped her knuckles on the table. The group started to quiet down, but two of the girls finished their conversation before looking up.

  Lena said, “I’m detective Adams, this is Officer Stephens.”

  Two of the girls giggled as if they knew the best secret in the world. Lena was reminded of one of the many reasons she did not like kids, especially girls this age. There was nothing more vicious than a teenage girl. Maybe it was because boys were more capable of settling an argument with their fists, but girls at this age were much more conniving and torturous than anyone wanted to believe.

  One of the giggling girls smacked her gum while the other said, “We know Brad.”

  Lena tried not to be hostile as Brad introduced the kids. “Heather, Brittany, and Shanna,” he said, pointing them out. Then, indicating the boys, who were slouching so far into their chairs their butts were nearly touching the ground, “Carson, Rory, and Cooper.” Lena wondered when parents had stopped giving their kids normal names. Probably around the time they stopped teaching them manners.

  “Okay,” Lena began, sitting opposite them. “Let’s wrap this up quickly so y’all can go back to class.”

  “Why are we here?” Brittany demanded, her tone as hostile as her posture.

  “You were on the ski retreat with Officer Stephens,” Lena told them. “Jenny Weaver was there. You know what happened to her Saturday?”

  “Yeah,” Shanna said, smacking her gum. “Y’all shot her.”

  Lena took a deep breath and let it go. As shitty as she had been at this age, Lena would never have talked to a cop like this. She said, “We’re just asking some routine questions about her, trying to figure out why she did what she did.”

  One of the boys spoke. Lena couldn’t remember his name, but it was hardly relevant as they all looked alike. “Does my father know you’re talking to me?”

  “What’s your name?” Lena asked.

  “Carson.”

  “Carson,” she repeated, returning the belligerent stare he gave her. His eyes were bloodshot, the pupils dilated.

  “What?” he said, finally breaking the stare. He crossed his arms, looking around the room as if he was bored.

  “One of your classmates is dead,” Lena reminded him. “Are you not interested in helping us find out why?”

  “The ‘why’ is because you shot her,” Carson answered,
picking up his backpack. “Can I go now?”

  “Sure,” Lena told him. “Why don’t we get Dr. Clay to take a look in your bookbag?”

  Carson smirked. “You don’t have probable cause.”

  “No,” Lena agreed. “But Dr. Clay doesn’t need it.”

  Carson knew she was right. He dropped the bag onto the floor. “What do you want to know?”

  Lena exhaled slowly. “Tell me about Jenny Weaver.”

  He waved his hand. “I didn’t know her, okay? She was on the retreat and all, but she and Lacey didn’t really socialize.”

  The other boys nodded. One of them said, “They didn’t like to party.”

  Lena assumed that by “party” he meant get high. From what little she knew about Jenny Weaver, this was not surprising.

  “She was younger than us,” Carson added. “We don’t hang around with babies.”

  Lena turned to the girls. “What about y’all?”

  Brittany started first. Her posture was as poor as the others’, and her backbone seemed pliable, molding her into the back of the chair like Silly Putty. She sounded just how Lena had imagined she would: whiny and put-upon. There was something wrong with a society that let children talk to adults this way.

  Brittany said, “Jenny was weird.”

  Lena tried to stir them up, asking, “I thought y’all were friends.”

  “We most certainly weren’t,” Shanna toned in. “I for one couldn’t stand her.”

  She said this as if she was proud of the fact.

  “That so?” Lena asked.

  Shanna’s bravura dropped down a notch when she saw Lena was taking her seriously. She was considerably less confident when she said, “We weren’t friends.”

  “None of us was really,” Heather said, and she seemed to be the logical one. She had uncrossed her arms, and Lena thought that, of the six, she was the only one who seemed to show any regret. Actually, Heather reminded Lena a little of herself at that age, on the periphery of things, more interested in sports than school gossip.

  Heather said, “Jenny was quiet most of the time. Even back in middle school.”

  “You all went to the same school?”

  They all nodded.

  Heather indicated the other girls. “All of us live near her. We rode the bus together for a while.”

  Lena asked, “But you weren’t friends?”

  “She didn’t really have a lot of friends.” Heather was quiet for a few beats, then said, “When she first moved into the neighborhood, I tried to talk to her and all, but she liked to stay home and read a lot. I invited her to hang out a couple of times, but she didn’t want to, then I just stopped trying.”

  “No one liked her,” Brittany provided. “She was a real—what do you call it?—introvert.”

  Shanna laughed, covering her mouth with her hand. “Yeah, right,” she said.

  Lena pointed out, “She was friends with Lacey Patterson.”

  The girls exchanged a look.

  “What?” Lena asked.

  They shrugged in unison. The boys were either comatose or not interested.

  Lena sighed, sitting back in her chair. “We’ll sit here all night until you tell me what I need to know.”

  They seemed to believe her, even though Lena wanted nothing more than to leave this school.

  Brittany spoke first. “Lacey was only friends with her because of Mark.”

  “Mark Patterson, Lacey’s brother?”

  “Okay,” Shanna said, holding out her hand palm up, her voice excited, as if she’d just been cracked by Lena’s tough interrogation and was now giddy to tell them all they needed to know. “She was a whore.”

  “Shanna,” Heather gawked.

  “You know it’s true,” Shanna countered. “She slept around, and not just with Mark.”

  Brad stirred in his seat, looking as uncomfortable as Lena had ever seen him, which was saying a lot.

  “Who did she sleep with?” Lena asked, looking at the boys. None of them would meet her eye.

  “I don’t know for sure, other than Mark,” Shanna said, as if she were talking with one of her girlfriends over the lunch table. “But there were all kinds of rumors that she’d blow guys—”

  “Jeesh,” Heather interrupted. “She’s dead, okay? Why do you have to say all this?”

  “Because it’s the truth!” Shanna countered, her voice high and excited.

  Heather seemed angry. “It was just rumors. Nobody knows if they were true or not.”

  Lena asked, “What were the rumors?”

  Shanna was more than happy to supply this. “She was having sex with some of the guys behind the gym after fifth period.”

  “Intercourse or blow jobs?” Lena asked, still watching the guys.

  Shanna shrugged, giving Heather a sideways glance. “I wasn’t there.”

  “Heather was?”

  “Heather doesn’t like boys,” Shanna provided.

  “Shut up!” Heather ordered, alarmed.

  Lena wondered if she looked just as shocked as Brad. It was like having their very own Jerry Springer show right here in the school library.

  “Okay,” Lena said, holding up her hands, trying to rein this in. “What proof do you have that Jenny was sleeping around?”

  The girls were silent, looking back and forth at each other.

  “Nothing, right?” Lena asked. “You can’t tell me any of the boys she was with?”

  Carson stirred in his chair, but he didn’t volunteer anything.

  “Mark,” Shanna said, shrugging. “But Mark was with, like, everybody.”

  “No kidding,” Brittany muttered, with something like regret in her tone.

  Lena sighed, rubbing the bridge of her nose. She was getting the kind of headache that would probably last for the rest of the day. “Okay, then who started the rumor?”

  They all shrugged. This seemed to be the universal teenage response to any question. Lena wondered if they would later have rotator cuff problems.

  “Pansy Davis told me,” said Shanna.

  “She told me she slept with Ron Wilson Thurday night,” Brittany countered, “And you know Ron was at Frank’s house that night.”

  “Frank said he sneaked out!” Shanna squealed.

  “Stop, stop,” Lena said, holding up her hands. It was like being nibbled to death by ducks. “None of y’all remembers where you heard the rumor?”

  “It was just a known thing,” Heather told Lena. “I mean, I don’t remember who told me, but Jenny just acted weird, okay? She would go off with boys she didn’t know. Boys, like, in twelfth grade.”

  “And you don’t know their names?”

  Heather shook her head. “They’re seniors.”

  “Not popular seniors?” Lena asked.

  “Some of them were skanky,” Brittany provided. “Not seniors I would know. Not popular, okay? Sort of like Jenny.”

  “Did she ride the bus home with them?”

  “They had cars,” Heather said. “Seniors are allowed to drive.”

  “Do you remember any of the cars?”

  Heather shook her head no, but Brittany snapped her fingers. “There’s one I remember.” She turned to Shanna. “Do you remember that cool black Thunderbird?”

  “A new one or an old one?” Lena asked.

  “The older kind that’s really big in the back,” Shanna said. “It was really loud, like something was wrong with the engine or something.”

  “Did the driver go to this school?”

  They exchanged glances again. “Maybe,” Brittany said.

  “I don’t think so,” Shanna added.

  Heather shrugged. “I don’t pay attention to cars. It doesn’t sound familiar.”

  Lena looked at the boys. “Do any of y’all recognize the car?”

  They all shrugged or shook their heads.

  Lena tried another line of questioning. “Do y’all have any idea why Jenny wanted to kill Mark?”

  The girls were silent, then B
rittany finally said, “We’ve all wanted to at least once.”

  Lena sat back, crossing her arms. She stared at the boys, guessing why they were being silent. “Okay,” she said, and they all started to stand, but she stopped them. “Carson, Cory, Roper—”

  “Rory and Cooper,” Brad corrected.

  “Right,” Lena said. “Whatever. You guys stay. The girls can leave.” She turned to Brad. “Why don’t you get their phone numbers and addresses?”

  Brad nodded. He knew she was getting rid of him, but didn’t seem to mind.

  Lena sat at the table across from the boys, silent until they started to squirm in their chairs.

  “Well?” she said.

  Carson spoke first. “Yeah, she was doing it.”

  The other boys nodded.

  “All of you slept with her?”

  They did not answer.

  “Blow jobs? Hand jobs?” Lena asked.

  “Sex,” Carson clarified.

  Lena felt her cheeks flush, but not from embarrassment. “When was this?”

  “Mark brought her over to my house one time. We were all partying.”

  “I thought you said Jenny didn’t party.”

  “No, she didn’t,” Carson said. “Not usually, but Mark told her to have something to take the edge off.” He snorted a laugh. “She did whatever Mark told her to do.”

  “So,” Lena said, trying to get all of this straight, “it was Mark, Jenny, and you three?”

  They all nodded.

  Carson said, “She got a little drunk and started coming on to us.”

  Lena pressed her lips together so she would not say anything.

  “Mark said she’d do anything we wanted.”

  One of the boys smiled. “She sure did.”

  “You all had sex with her?” Lena asked.

  Carson shrugged, smirking. “She was pretty drunk.”

  Lena looked down at the table, trying to compose herself. “So, she got drunk and you all had sex with her, Mark included?”

  “Mark just watched,” one of the boys said. “She let us do anything we wanted.” His anger sparked like a brush fire. “She was a whore, okay? Why do you even care?”

  Lena was startled by the hatred in his voice, as if it was Jenny’s fault entirely that they had done this. She asked, “What was your name?”