A woman missing a front tooth presses her face against the bars and grins at Lander. She has the wildest eyes and the most chaotic hair Lander has ever seen. “You liked the blood, Lander? You liked doing it?” the woman screeches.
Lander is terrified.
When the corridor takes a sharp right turn and the holding cell is out of sight, Lander says to the policewoman, “Thank you for protecting me from those women. Thank you for keeping me in a different”—she can’t say the word “cell”—“place.”
“Those women are charged with shoplifting and prostitution, Lander,” says the cop. “You’re charged with murder. You’re in a separate cell to protect them.”
SATURDAY MORNING
At six a.m., on the theory that a jail is always open, and so it will not be rude to call early, Miranda’s parents phone. When may they see their daughter?
They are told to call again in the afternoon.
The day stretches hideously ahead. They decide to drive back to West Hartford. They have to find a lawyer.
Her parents assume that Miranda will come too. They should be a unit. Three is stronger than two. But she has a sense of needing to hold down the fort; a sense that the cottage is going to be their strength and somebody must stay.
“I’ll be fine here,” says Miranda.
Her parents stare at her. They are not able to think anything through. Her mother looks gaunt and yellow. Her father looks thick and gray.
She hugs them. “You concentrate on what you have to do.”
Her dazed parents nod. By six-thirty, they are driving away and Miranda is alone. It’s no different from many days at the cottage, when her father commutes to work and her mother heads out for errands or volunteer hours. Miranda’s fifteen, after all.
But a sister in jail changes everything. A murder downriver changes everything.
The cottage does not feel like a fort. It feels empty. She feels as if she has always lived alone here; will always be alone here.
Miranda doesn’t usually get out of her pajamas for hours on a Saturday morning, but now the shortie pajamas make her feel vulnerable. She slips into tight jeans and a loose shirt. The taut denim and long sleeves feel better.
She goes out on the porch and her beloved river looks evil. Dark and gray and hiding things. A color Lander generally refers to as “oil spill.” Miranda goes back in and curls up on the big sofa, protecting her back with fat pillows.
She holds Lander’s iPad in her lap. One look at that mug shot of Lander staring in tearful panic at the camera, and Miranda too is in a state of tearful panic.
But mainly, Miranda’s state is exhaustion. She has not slept. The intensity of her fear for Lander and the decision to use Facebook to find a killer have sapped her. She falls asleep. The heat of the new day crawls through the open windows and the screened doors. The ceiling fan slowly turns above her face.
The clouds disappear and the sun boils.
The sound of a closing door penetrates her sleep, but not enough to wake her, since coming and going through the porch is a constant.
There are other sounds. Water running. The door again.
She sleeps, thick and deep, and then snaps awake, sleep broken like ice with a hammer.
She’s the only one home. Who is closing doors and running water?
She leaps up. Darts from room to room. She is alone.
She races to the porch and sees no one.
She goes outside, letting the screened door bang, and stands at the top of the cliff stairs.
Nobody is there.
But the big dark carry bag for Stu’s inflatable kayak is on the dock, and a towel she recognizes as Geoffrey’s.
One of them came in to use the bathroom or get water from the kitchen sink.
Miranda is used to the comings and goings of neighbors. Now she is shivering, as with fever.
Anybody could plant something in Lander’s room.
She stares up and down the river, trying to spot Stu or Geoffrey. Who are they, anyway? Who is anybody, when the sister you think you know gets caught up in a murder and has a missing boyfriend who never existed to start with?
She pours herself a cup of coffee from her father’s carafe, adds a lot of sugar and so much milk that she has to reheat it in the microwave. It’s just the way Barrel likes his coffee and she is suddenly desperate for company, even doggy company. Maybe especially doggy company.
She considers her plan, which depends on other people telling her where and who Jason really is. She taps the local TV station icon on Lander’s screen. In the state of Connecticut, the most interesting thing going on is the arrest of Lander Allerdon for murder. Lander is the first banner, the first article, the first photograph. They have no video so far, but they do have a bright-eyed reporter standing in front of a building, claiming that Lander is behind these bars. The reporter refers to Lander as a “woman from West Hartford,” which sounds like some strange adult rather than Miranda’s older sister.
They have found a more recent picture of Lander than her posed high school graduation photo. Lander is receiving a certificate of merit in chemistry at her college. She is gorgeous, smiling with pride. The mug shot is even more shocking next to that. How did that beautiful academic star turn into a ruined, scared, drugged-out killer?
Henry and Hayden charge up the porch stairs and fling open the wooden screened door, which bangs against the siding. “Hi, Miranda!” they scream.
The Warren family does not get cable television. On their computers, they watch DVDs suitable for small children. They never look at the news. Mr. and Mrs. Warren feel that it will only upset them and since they can have no effect on it, why bother? They know nothing about America, the world or the economy, let alone Lander. They do not worry about their innocent children being in the house of an accused murderer.
Miranda has a cloudy thought that Lander’s situation is all about water. River, boats, docks. The nightmare starts here, on her stretch of river, below these other houses. Could these neighbors be part of it? She could check Facebook pages. Find clues. Maybe there are posts from sellers of drug paraphernalia. Or coded messages to meet in a strange place at a strange time.
As if a drug dealer would announce it for the world to read.
She is glad to have the distraction of hungry little boys. There is no mystery in Henry and Hayden. But they are born spies, up in that tree house. What should she ask? With her mind on the banging porch door and the possessions of Geoffrey and Stu littering the dock, she says casually, “Henry, how well do you know Geoffrey and Stu?”
“What do you mean?” asks Henry. “I know where they live.”
“Well, but do they—” Miranda tries to think of a way to interrogate Henry. “Do they visit your house?”
“Our house?” repeats Henry.
Miranda tries to phrase her questions better. “What do you hear from Stu’s parents in Australia?”
Henry giggles. “My parents think they are not in Australia. They think Stu buried them in the basement.”
Miranda objects. “The houses on that side of the street don’t have basements. They’re built on bedrock.”
Hayden says, “We have a basement.”
A verbal contribution from Hayden is rare. “What do you keep down there?” asks Miranda.
“The furnace,” says Hayden.
Miranda means to ask about Geoffrey next but already she is out of interrogation energy. How do the police do it—endlessly ask questions from people who don’t have intelligent answers? Of course it would help if Miranda had intelligent questions.
The boys beg for pancakes.
Miranda usually pours out one big circle, adding a tablespoon of batter on each side for ears and anything she can find for eyes: raisins, Craisins, marshmallows. It is difficult to assemble the ingredients. She stands there blinking, trying to remember how this is done.
The egg she retrieves from the refrigerator falls out of her hand and smashes on the floor.
&nb
sp; The boys are already watching cartoons. Miranda’s TV is sometimes more appealing than Miranda.
Cleaning up the egg is a huge task. She has to squat and once she is down, her heart is down too.
My sister is under arrest for murder, Miranda thinks.
She admits using the murder weapon.
Miranda’s mother texts. They have arrived at the West Hartford house. The police have also arrived, with another search warrant. The police will have their work cut out for them. It’s a very large house for a family with a whole lot of stuff.
Have the police already started on the iPad they wrongly think is Lander’s? They will be back at the cottage the minute they open Miranda’s iPad. If she is to do anything more than post Jason Firenza’s photo on Facebook, she has to do it now.
But a brain too foozled to mop up a broken egg is not ready to think up hashtags for Instagram or Tumblr. Lander loves Twitter but Miranda cannot come up with a plan for using her sister’s Twitter account.
The front door is open. It’s the first thing they do in the morning—fling open the front door to get cross-ventilation. The air is already sticky. It’s going to be another hot day. And Miranda is brain-dead.
Her mother texts again. They have spoken to the attorney who wrote their wills. He is calling around to find a criminal attorney.
Miranda is proud of her parents, finding the courage to make that dreadful call: Our daughter has been accused of murder.
Miranda does not have the courage to call Candy. She doesn’t even have the guts to read her messages. She is still hoping this isn’t real. Talking will make it real. Besides, if she and Candy thrash it all out, detail after detail, Miranda will have a friend but accomplish nothing. She must find Jason Firenza.
She watches the local station on Lander’s iPad. They are thrilled to have this exciting story in their backyard. The anchors struggle for the stern, sad expressions required of reporters covering homicides. In fact, they are exultant. One reporter cannot keep the joy out of her voice when she says, “It is known that the only fingerprints on the murder weapon are the fingerprints of the accused, Lander Allerdon.”
The only fingerprints! thinks Miranda. Oh, Lander! What happened?
Henry and Hayden watch cartoons with an openmouthed, hypnotized expression that Miranda finds slightly frightening. They are entirely inside the world of the TV show.
They are not company. They are just here.
Jack appears at the front door. The ragged screen has tears in it and the door itself doesn’t quite fit anymore. Like everything in the cottage, it needs work. It’s not a barrier for insects and not for people. And yet it stops Jack. “Hi, Miranda! Can I come in?”
His parents must be as clueless as Henry and Hayden’s or they would never let him come to the house of an accused murderer.
It seems to Miranda she lives on a street filled with clueless parents. Jack never talks about his mother and father, who are divorced and remarried and hostile; Jack is always getting out of somebody’s car and telling them not to worry and then slamming the door and chugging into the other parent’s house without looking back.
What do these four people do, other than trade Jack? Miranda has no idea. She has no idea what Mr. and Mrs. Warren do either, although supposedly it’s something to do with computers. You would think people who use computers to earn a living would check the news now and then. Read the headlines, anyway.
“Come on in,” she hollers to Jack. She is still in the kitchen, as if her feet are stuck to the floor. And perhaps they are. She hasn’t mopped up all the egg.
Since checking on the neighbors is the only course of action that occurs to her, even if it is a stupid course of action, she starts with Henry and Hayden’s parents on Facebook. Their page features artsy photographs of the boys. But unless they friend her, Miranda can see nothing more.
Nightmare.
Miranda does not want adults around. Once they’re there, they’re there, invading her space. They might even post.
Jack punches Henry and Hayden, who joyfully punch back but do not take their eyes off the cartoons. Jack comes into the kitchen and says softly, “It was probably self-defense.”
Which means Jack knows about Lander and he believes that Lander did shoot the man; he just isn’t categorizing it as murder.
Through the long terrible night, Miranda and her parents stared at each other, saying, No, no, no, no, it can’t be true, but they did not discuss the actual murder. They had no information about the actual murder. But now Miranda has knowledge from the TV reports, and somehow it’s easy to talk to Jack. “The man was shot in the back,” says Miranda. “How self-defense-y is that?”
Jack nods. “I know, but I can’t think of anything else. I mean, Lander is scary enough already. She doesn’t need a gun.”
Jack is twelve. He is an awkward boy, although not as awkward as Geoffrey, who is fifteen, and nowhere near as awkward as Stu, who is twenty-three. Maybe it’s something in the water.
She remembers the running water she heard in her dream, and her waking assumption that it was Geoffrey or Stu. But really, it could have been anybody. Somebody could have tied up at the dock, scrambled up the stairs…
This is fried brain talking. In her whole life she has never heard of trespassing by dock.
Jack says, “Have you talked to her yet? Lander? Is she—well, I know she can’t be okay, but is she—like—okay?”
The comic aspect of friending adult neighbors recedes.
Lander is not okay. She is in jail. She may never get out of jail. A man is dead. He has been murdered. He has been shot in the back.
It is only because Miranda met the police herself—heard their voices—saw their uniforms and weapons—watched their lights whirl on their cop car—that she can believe this is actually happening to her very own family.
Lander is now part of a world that belongs on television: one of those half-reality, half-reenactment crime shows. Bad photography, clumsy filming, blurry faces.
And Miranda is standing around worrying about Facebook friends? She makes the friend request to Mrs. Warren. To Jack, she says, “The murderer is that guy Jason Firenza. The one playing chicken with the barge. Which turns out not to be his name. There’s no such person. Even the police can’t find a person named Jason Firenza.”
“I know. I saw Lander’s Facebook page. You put that photo and that request on there?”
“Yes.”
“Way to go,” compliments Jack. “Let’s see if you have responses yet.”
What a failure she is as an investigator. It’s been hours since posting that accusation and she hasn’t looked yet to read the responses! Oh, Lanny, I want to help, I’m trying to help, I’m sorry I’m so stupid.
Lander’s Facebook page is filled with posts. Friends denying that Lander could ever have done such a thing. Friends offering to help. Strangers commenting on previous posts of Lander’s, which apparently include views of her body that she should never have put online. Strangers claiming evidence that Lander is the killer is piling up, and this accusation of somebody else is libel.
No one provides the real identity of Jason Firenza.
But the real identity of the dead man is now known. He is Derry Romaine.
Miranda’s horror doubles. I probably did see Jason Firenza cut back on the throttle. He probably did hope the barge would kill Derry. But his murder attempt failed. Six days later, Derry was murdered by bullet.
Could Lander have been so hypnotized by Jason that she agreed to fire the bullet? Impossible! But then how did it happen? Why did it happen?
Miranda’s cell phone peals with her mother’s ring tone. Something too big for a text message.
“Honey, I’m driving down to the shoreline so I can meet the defense lawyer,” says her mother. The speech is fast and frantic. “Daddy is staying here. He doesn’t want to leave the house while the police are searching it and anyway he’s got to raise a lot of money and we’re not sure how. The lawye
r has to have money up front. I’m absolutely panicked about the money.”
Miranda is taken aback that the conversation is about money rather than Lander.
Lander has complained more than once that their parents are far too concerned with money; it’s not good for people to think so much about money.
Lander is correct. She is in the world’s worst trouble, and all their parents can think about is money.
Miranda rarely considers money.
When the topic of wealth comes up, her father always says that they are “comfortable.” Indeed, Miranda’s life is so comfortable she can hardly imagine leaving for college; the way she lives now is the exact way she always wants to live.
“You can’t just write a check?” asks Miranda.
“We could if we had anything in our checking account.” There is a funny choking pause. Her mother is trying not to sob. “We live beyond our means, Rimmie. We always have. It’s more fun. We have no savings. We have huge debts. Mortgages, car payments, lots of credit cards. Everything depends on everything working. And now, when something is really wrong, and it’s going to be really expensive, we have nothing to fall back on. We can’t even get loans on the houses because we already have such big loans.” Miranda’s mother pauses. And then in her normal calm Mother-knows-all voice, she says, “Don’t worry about it, Rimmie. We’ll solve it.”
“I love you, Mom,” whispers Miranda, but she is staring at a terrifying invisible truth. Love does not raise money.
There will be no way to get Lander out of trouble without money.
They have no money.
Miranda is still listening to her mother on her cell phone, but she is also looking at the iPad, because when a screen is active, Miranda finds it difficult to look away.
Either Mrs. Warren really does work at a computer and checks her activity log constantly, or she has nothing to do all day except hope somebody gets in touch, because the friend acceptance has already come through.
Miranda taps the Warren page.
She has never seen a Facebook page so covered with faces: Henry’s face, Hayden’s face; their faces at birthday parties and nature walks and Disney World; their faces being painted at a fair; their faces asleep.