Fatality

  Rose went into the formal living room, lemonade sticky on her hand, and managed to provide two good arguments, although not the real one. “The diary is mine and it’s private. I’d like it back, please.”

  She was shaking with horror. Her parents did not see this. They thought she was being rude and difficult. The cop’s eyes, however, grew bright and interested and he looked thoughtfully down at the diary Rose Lymond did not want him reading.

  “Rose,” said her father, “you were a little girl when you scribbled in it, but this is not a little girl situation. They are reopening a murder case. You might have seen something you’ve forgotten. There might be a reference to it in your journal and they need that.”

  The policeman went out to his car, tossing Rose’s diary in to make it irrevocably his.

  “You can’t let them have it,” Rose said, frantic and trapped.

  “Rose,” said her mother, “there’s probably some silly embarrassing seventh-grade gossip in those entries, but the point—”

  “The point is it’s my diary!”

  Her parents were not used to Rose arguing with them. They were affronted. “Rose, wait in the study,” said her mother stiffly, “while we settle this. I am not impressed with your childish behavior.”

  Her mother. Accusing Rose of childish behavior.

  As Rose left the living room, the policeman returned, and it was then Rose realized that the diary was not irrevocably in the possession of the police. She could repossess it.

  And she had.

  Now Rose became aware that her head was between her knees. She was sitting on a little white table looking down at the long, soiled laces of her oldest sneakers. The policewoman was saying, “Take a deep breath, Rose. Don’t faint on us. We’re going to give you a ride home. We’ll talk when we get there.”

  She saw the shining shoes of police feet, bits of trash, sparkles of glass from a broken taillight. She took the deep breath. They were right. She must not faint. She had to be in control of what happened next.

  Craig Gretzak escorted her, as if she were his date, or a convict, to his car.

  Rose Lymond, age fifteen, honor student, field hockey star, soprano, camp counselor, and baby-sitter was placed in the back of a police car to look out windows that did not roll down, above doors that did not have handles.

  Chapter Three

  THE OFFICER HAD JUST put his car into gear when a woman lurched out of the laundromat “She stuck this in my car!” said the woman, waving Rose’s diary. The woman was scandalized, as if Rose had spray-painted obscenities on her old Lincoln. “She opened my door!” shouted the woman. “I knew she was up to no good.”

  Megan Moran took the diary and thanked the angry woman for her vigilance and concern. It took a few minutes to coax her to go back in and do another load of laundry. Then Megan Moran leaned her elbows on the passenger side front window of Craig Gretzak’s car, open for the fresh flowery breeze of May. She leafed through the diary, every now and then glancing at Rose through the dividing grille. “So this isn’t the kind of diary with the little slots for each day, Rose. Or even one page for each day. This is a journal where you decide if the day is worth two sentences or two pages and you date the entries yourself.” The policewoman flipped through it slowly, reading phrases here and there. “Something written here is worth a criminal charge?” Go ahead, Megan Moran, thought Rose. Scour the pages that are left. None of what is left matters.

  Although of course it all mattered.

  How shocking seventh grade had been, after the sweet friendships of sixth. Seventh graders traveled in packs: cruel, exclusionary, and circling, like jackals. They closed for the kill on losers caught alone. She remembered writing about the very fat kid nobody would sit near, the rest of the class preferring to laugh out loud and point. In sixth grade Rose would have made the effort to be his friend. In seventh, she could not bring herself to overrule the majority. She had written about the cafeteria and the risk of sitting alone; how essential to line up lunch company before approaching the meal. She had written more about the parties to which she had not been invited than the parties she had attended.

  She had written about a boy on whom she had a crush so deep it embarrassed her. Even then, she used a single initial instead of his name. About spending the night at Chrissie’s house, and being upset by Jill, who was also there, and jealous of Halsey, who at all times was more trendy, more knowledgeable, and more interesting than the rest of them.

  It’s okay, she said to herself. All they have now is a little girl’s diary and all they can read are a little girl’s thoughts.

  “‘Dear Diary,’” read Megan Moran in a pleasant voice, “‘today, June 28, is my twelfth birthday, and you are my present from Grandfather and Nannie Lymond.’ Are those your father’s parents, Rose?”

  Actually they were her father’s grandparents. Grandfather had since died, at the age of eighty-four, but Nannie, now eighty-six, was still bounding around. She had just given up tennis last year.

  Rose wondered what Nannie was going to have to say about the car theft. Perhaps nobody would tell her. And what about her grandparents, whom she still called Popsy and Mopsy? Dad would have to tell them because on Sunday, Popsy and Mopsy would bring Nannie along for dinner after church. Nannie had been a member of the same Bible class for sixty-one years. What would Nannie think of Rose? What would everybody say, gathered around the table with their suddenly juvenile delinquent granddaughter? Or would they say nothing?

  Rose felt she could say nothing just fine.

  “You made entries all the way up to November, Rose. And here I am, closing in on November 8, the murder date, and you’ve ripped out ten or twelve pages.” Megan Moran squinted, counting the shreds that were left in the binding. “You flush them down the toilet?”

  Rose said nothing.

  “And then no more entries. After the ripped-out pages, the rest of the diary is blank. So you didn’t write in the diary again after you witnessed the murder, huh, Rose?”

  Rose closed her eyes for a while, the way she did at the movies during rough parts. Nannie adored action movies and when Rose spent the night, Nannie always chose a movie with high bloodshed levels so she and Rose could scream together.

  I handled this so stupidly, she thought. I should have acted like the twelve-year-old who wrote “Dear Diary.” Bitten my lip and giggled and blushed. I should have said, “I wasn’t nice to other seventh graders and I don’t want you to see my mean little thoughts.” I should have said, “Really and truly, I’m just embarrassed about this silly old diary.” They would have believed me. I would have gotten away with it. But no, I had to make a scene.

  “So, Rose,” said Craig Gretzak, “you never wrote in the diary again after the murder? You know what, Rose? I think we’ll go down to the station after all.”

  He drove at a leisurely pace that required every other driver on Frontage Road to brake. Rose slumped in the back. It was the posture of defeat. No, she thought. I’m going to win. I have to win. I have secrets to keep.

  She sat bolt upright, took in the scenery, and planned her silence.

  At the police department, they did not take Rose into any jail-style rooms. The room they picked was quite pleasant, sun streaming through windows and bars to make a nice diamond pattern on the floor.

  They waited for her parents and a lawyer to arrive. The lawyer would probably be Kate Bering, who lived down the road, and who had been setting out pink-and-white begonias in her garden when Rose had come home from school. While her kids were little, Kate had all but abandoned her practice and did only quick, basic stuff a few hours a week. She’d be delighted to be brought into something unusual, and what’s more, she’d hardly even yell at Rose. Kate liked gumption in a woman.

  The officers chatted. “Rose, honey, if the diary is so bad,” said one man, “why did you still have it?”

  This was an excellent question, and one to which she had no answer, so Rose said, “Please don’t call me ‘hon
ey.’”

  “I apologize, Rose. I won’t say it again.”

  “Rose, we have to charge you with stealing a vehicle,” said Megan Moran, “and driving without a license. But you’re a juvenile, the circumstances are unusual, and you probably won’t get a severe punishment. If you’ll help us with this, Rose, we’ll help you with the judge when you talk to him.”

  Rose planned to be silent with the judge as well.

  Into the room came the two policemen from whose squad car she had taken the diary and in whose squad car she had left home.

  Stealing, it was called. She decided not to look at them.

  “Rose,” said Megan Moran, “you do know that a woman died. I want you to think about her, instead of yourself. She was thirty-nine. She didn’t die of old age. She didn’t die of natural causes. She died in fear and pain. You are allowing the murderer to get away with it.”

  “I am not!” said Rose fiercely. “You don’t understand! You—” She caught herself.

  The police were softly waiting, like bunnies in the garden, but they would turn into foxes if she kept talking.

  I cannot justify myself! I’m giving little pieces of myself away. Silence is the only weapon I have. In other words, Rose, she said to herself, shut up.

  “Rose, we understand that you want to protect people. But if those people are murderers, it’s wrong of you. An innocent woman is dead. We know you can tell us what happened.”

  Rose held herself very still. They would get no body language from her. No verbal language, either.

  “Would you like a Coke, Rose? We don’t want you getting woozy again.”

  Fainting might be good after all. With any luck she could tip over, hit her head, and be hospitalized. That would spare her dealing with her parents and a judge. Nurses were bound to be kinder.

  She wondered how she was going to deal with her mother and father. They had had their hands full on several occasions with Tabor, but Rose as a rule came through for them. In part, she was naturally easier than her brother and in part, she enjoyed being the nice one, but also she wasn’t attracted to the edgy activities that drew Tabor.

  She missed her brother suddenly and painfully. His departure for college had left a great hole in the family and they had not entirely gotten over it. Dutiful Rose was not a substitute for star-material Tabor.

  “You’ve gone pretty far just to hide a few lines scribbled in a kid’s diary,” said Megan Moran. “I’m beginning to wonder, Rose, if you yourself had something to do with the murder.”

  Rose was so astonished she almost forgot her vow of silence and began to explain. You don’t understand. It didn’t happen that way. I wasn’t part of anything.

  But the police would say, How did it happen? What was it part of?

  Her parents walked in, and it was not Kate Bering they had brought. It was Mr. Travis, the criminal lawyer they had used that time they were here with Tabor.

  They think I need a major league lawyer, thought Rose, her heart sinking.

  Mom had been crying. Dad was red and puffy with fury, which was good, because if he’d been weepy, she would have wept with him and been weakened.

  Neither of them knew how to greet her. Do you hug and kiss a daughter you’re meeting in the police station because she stole a car?

  “Rose,” said her father, gripping both her shoulders, “you’d better have one good reason for doing this.”

  Since she did of course have one good reason, his anger only strengthened her resolve. “I’m sorry, Daddy, but that was my diary, and nobody has a right to read it, and nobody had a right to take it. Including Mom. So I took it back.”

  “And a police car with it! Are you proud of what you’ve done for some lousy paragraph in some childish old journal?”

  Rose thought this kind of conversation could probably go on for a while, and she was right. Rose returned to silence. Time passed unpleasantly.

  “Do you think this is a film set?” shouted her mother. “Cut the drama!”

  Rose remained silent.

  “Rose,” said Craig Gretzak finally.

  Everybody must be getting pretty sick of her name. One syllable, over and over. Rose, Rose, Rose.

  “Let’s review that time span,” said the policeman. “Anjelica Lofft invited you to spend the weekend at her father’s retreat.”

  Rose had never imagined herself being friends with Anjelica. Even in seventh grade, Rose was academic, a trait that separated her from Anjelica’s crowd. The invitation had been astonishing and wonderful. Rose was filled with excitement and pride that Anjelica had chosen her, instead of interesting and worthy girls like Chrissie or Jill or Halsey, who were quick to pooh-pooh the coming weekend. They pointed out that Anjelica used up friends quickly; that perhaps it would be more truthful to say Anjelica had no friends, merely acquaintances she adopted and discarded in the course of a week or a month. In a dark seventh-grade corner of her heart, Rose thoroughly enjoyed their jealousy.

  “You were thrilled, Rose,” said Megan Moran. “Anyone would be. The Loffts are a big deal. You told all your friends about it. Mr. Lofft and Anjelica planned to pick you up late Friday afternoon and drive to their lake house.”

  The Loffts owned the whole lake and the mountain behind it. They owned every one of the cars in their sixteen-car garage. The girls were only twelve, but Mr. Lofft had promised they could drive any of the cars as long as they stayed in the compound. Maybe go up in his private plane. Preview a movie that had not yet hit the theaters. Ride horses from his stable.

  “That Friday,” said the policeman, “when you left school, you walked two blocks to the Y for swim class.”

  It startled Rose that he knew about swim class.

  Actually, she had skipped swimming that Friday because Aunt Sheila had been visiting. Rose’s family lived on the East Coast, and Aunt Sheila on the West, so they did not see a lot of each other. Aunt Sheila and Mom were on the phone a lot and e-mailed almost every day, but years could go by without a real visit. Rose used to wonder how Aunt Sheila could stand to be alone for Thanksgiving and Christmas. But Aunt Sheila did not seem to notice family holidays, either as family or as holidays. Sometimes she sent Rose and Tabor fabulous presents, and sometimes she forgot entirely.

  Aunt Sheila had been hurt that Rose had better things to do for the weekend than stay home and visit. If seventh grade taught Rose nothing else, it made clear the agony of being set aside for somebody better. She had decided to spend the hour of swim class with Aunt Sheila instead, to make up for deserting her.

  Rose walked home, thinking what to pack her clothes in. She had an adorable little suitcase of fake leather, covered with fake travel stickers of the kind used a century ago by ladies going to Cairo or Vienna. But Anjelica had probably really gone to Cairo or Vienna and her suitcases were probably real leather. She might laugh at Rose.

  In seventh grade, the very worst thing was to be laughed at.

  That left a backpack bought new for seventh grade, stunning, vivid purple, with a dozen zippered pockets and compartments. But lockers were back in style and nobody was using backpacks anymore. Rose carried it to school only once.

  Was a purple backpack a good choice? If you actually were a cool person, like Anjelica, as opposed to Rose, who hadn’t figured it out yet (and as it turned out, never did), would you think the backpack was cool? Rose dawdled on the road, recognizing that she had not the slightest desire to talk to Aunt Sheila. She wanted to be alone with her packing and her excitement.

  The voice of the policeman penetrated her mind once more. “Milton Lofft came for you about four-thirty, didn’t he, Rose?”

  Four years ago, when the police asked her about Milton Lofft, Rose hadn’t even known that was his first name. She told them she didn’t know anybody named Milton.

  “In a Lincoln Navigator, wasn’t it?” said the current policeman, just like the policeman of four years ago.

  Typical luxury SUV brute. It hadn’t even been a decent color. It was just
brown. It lumbered over the road like a bear from the forest.

  Inside, the Navigator was huge, with a custom interior. Behind the driver were two swivel seats facing a VCR that was flanked by containers of movies, books, board games with magnetic playing pieces, and handheld computer games. Mr. Lofft listened to a book on tape while Anjelica had put a movie in the VCR. There were headphones, so they didn’t have to listen to each other’s choices, but they didn’t bother. Mr. Lofft smoked cigars, a habit Rose knew only from cartoons. The smoke had a sweet, woodsy scent, as if they were camping and somebody would soon bring out the marshmallows. Anjelica had a special blanket, pillow, and stuffed bear. She tucked up and fell asleep without once chatting with Rose.

  High above traffic in the bulky Navigator, Rose had stared out the window at the darkening shadows of early autumn. Ninety miles of driving ahead of them. The voices and plots of book and movie spun through Rose, all these dialogues later to mix crazily with the first round of police questioning. And now, sitting dizzily amid the clamor and anger of parents and police, Rose could hardly tell whether the police voice speaking so sharply was the one she remembered from four years ago or a voice in the present.

  But Mr. Lofft stopped on the way to the lake to talk to somebody, didn’t he, Rose? He went through a stone gate and up a private cobblestone drive. Tell us about the house on the hill, Rose.

  The house, imitating its site, had been steeply slanted, surrounded by rock cuts, twisted trees, and a real waterfall from a real brook. “Does the house span the brook?” Rose had asked Mr. Lofft, astonished. It was the only thing she had said to him so far.

  “Yup. Glass floor in the living room looks down on the waterfall. It’s a famous house. I’ll be right back. Gotta yell at Frannie.” He slammed his car door and strode toward the house. The landscaping and shadows closed in on him.