I’m not sure what to do. I search in my mind for the right tone, the right words. And then I think of a role model. The person we look up to more than anyone, the person who spells it out for us, the person who asks the right questions in the right way.
Oprah.
“Tell me more about Hank,” I say. “He seems to be a key for you.”
She gives a sad smile. “A key to a different past. A past I should have had. I met him at a dance at the Beewick Club. I drove up to Beewick that weekend with some friends. There was a dance on Bastille Day. We were all dressed like French revolutionaries and royalty. It was silly, but we had fun. Hank just kept coming over to ask me to dance until my escort wanted to take him outside. I didn’t care. I left with Hank. He drove me all the way home that night—all the way back to Seattle. A month later, he asked me to marry him. I didn’t have one single doubt. And then…”
“And then?” Diego asks.
“There was that business with the missing young man.”
“Billy Applegate.”
“Was that his name? I don’t remember. It was all so ridiculous—of course Hank didn’t have anything to do with it. But some horrible woman accused him.”
Diego and I exchange a look. That was Shay.
“His name got in the papers. And then apparently, there were some other things about his company, what they were doing on Beewick…”
“Polluting it,” Diego says.
“Well, that’s what they said. Hank didn’t have anything to do with that, either—he was just a vice president.” Betsy pushes at her hair, managing to brush it out of her eyes without ruffling it. “But with my parents, you just don’t get your name in the papers. Once when you’re married, once when you die, but that’s it. My dad played golf with the chairman of the board of Monvor, and the chairman hinted that maybe Hank would lose his job. The chairman said he was careless—but Hank was the most careful man! He had enemies at that company. But my parents didn’t understand. They never liked Hank anyway, and they were totally against the engagement, so they started pressuring me.”
Betsy looks at the fire again. “It was so hard for me. I didn’t know what to do. I was young, only twenty-one. Hank was more than ten years older than I was… I was just a kid. I couldn’t go against my parents. And Hank lived full-time on Beewick then. Nobody lived on Beewick. It’s not like it is now. So my parents…they just thought, here’s our daughter, marrying this guy, maybe he’s a criminal, maybe he’ll get fired, and he’s taking her to this island in the middle of Puget Sound. So I broke it off.”
Wow. Was this story for real?
Her hands twist in her lap. “Hank was so upset. He said I had to believe in him. That he was taking care of everything, that there was no way in the world they would fire him. But I didn’t listen. I thought maybe my parents were right. Maybe my first love wasn’t my real love.” She looks up at us, tears swimming in her green eyes. “But it was. It was!”
“And he never got over you,” I say.
“That’s what he said. He wanted to leave his wife and start over, start living the life he said he was meant to live. And now he can’t. And neither can I.” Betsy ends on a sob. A couple passing by looks over, but Diego’s stare tells them to butt out.
She lifts her head from her hands. Mascara has smudged underneath her eyes. “Can you tell me how he is?” she whispers. “You can feel him still, can’t you? Can you tell him I’m sorry for what I did?”
“Sorry?” I repeat. My heartbeat quickens. What will Betsy reveal?
“I should have told him that last day I would go with him. We drove up together and he showed me that house and said he was buying it for me. He laid out his whole life, his whole plan on how we would live, where we would travel… And I could see it. But I didn’t tell him yes. I told him I needed more time. But I would have gone with him! Can you tell him that?”
“I’m not in touch with Hank,” I say. “But I feel he knew that you loved him.”
Diego nudges me with his foot. He knows I’m giving her a line. But it’s not just that I want more information. I want to make her feel better.
“Betsy, did you know Nathaniel Millard?” I ask. I know time is running out. In another minute, Betsy will come to herself and realize she’s unburdening herself of memories to two strangers. She’ll feel uncomfortable, and she’ll split.
She looks blank and shakes her head.
“Shay Kenzie?”
“No idea.”
“They spent the summer on Beewick twenty years ago, along with Billy Applegate.”
“I only went to Beewick one time back then,” she says. “The night I met Hank. Hank always came to Seattle to see me. He drove in every weekend, and it wasn’t as fast a trip then, either. He was so devoted. And I never, never truly appreciated it. And now I’ve lost him!”
Now Diego rolls his eyes when Betsy isn’t looking. I agree with him—there’s sincerity in what Betsy is saying, but also just a little too much drama.
She looks at Diego. “Would you mind? Can I…talk to her alone?”
“Of course.” Diego rises and drifts off. He pretends to study a case full of medals and trophies against one wall.
“Can you tell me anything else?” she asks me. “Anything I should know about me?”
Huh? Betsy is looking at me hungrily. I have to come up with something. “Keep up with the yoga,” I say.
She nods, as though this is precious information. “And what about my husband? Should I leave him?”
What a question. How would I know?
I wonder what a psychic would say.
“You must move through your grief for Hank,” I improvise. “Grief distorts your intention. Only when you move on can you see your path.”
She nods again. “Thank you. Thank you.”
She wipes at her eyes carefully, then gathers up her things and walks down the hall. I wander over to Diego.
“That was a bust,” I say. “Hank was planning on leaving his wife, though. Joe should know that.”
“He should know this, too,” Diego says. He points to the wall. Betsy Wheeler has won the gold medal in her age class in every swim meet since the year 2000.
The significance clicks in.
“She could have swum to shore easily,” I say.
FIFTEEN
Usually, Shay and Joe try to see each other three or four times a week, and Joe eats dinner at our house on Fridays. So I’m surprised when Shay suggests pizza night on Friday. She always likes to cook for Joe. She looks exhausted, and I suddenly realize that Joe hasn’t exactly been burning up the phone lines, either.
“Joe’s not coming?” I ask.
Shay has her back to me. She’s getting out the phone book, even though pizza delivery is on speed dial. That’s how addled she is.
“No, he’s working,” she says. I can’t see her face, but I can see by her shoulders that she’s sad. Or angry. Or both.
I wish I could see into my aunt’s head. Normally, I don’t have to. Shay is just out there. She tells you what’s on her mind. I never get flashes about her, and I think it’s not only because we’re close, but because she’s so clear, so direct. There is no secret engine driving her, the way it is with the others I can pick up things from.
Or so I thought. I never thought she could keep a secret from me, either.
Does everyone have a secret engine? I know what mine is—grief. The loss of my mother fuels me. What I want more than anything is for that grief to stop driving the bus.
What about Betsy Dunwoody? She’s made a secret engine out of her confusion. She seems like an unlikely murder suspect, but I have to wonder if someone capable of that much ego and sadness could funnel it into rage. Could she have pushed Hank off that boat?
Shay seems unreachable right now, and that’s weird. She’s the one who keeps this house running, who keeps us together at the dinner table, who lights the fires, who cooks the meals, who looks up the weather every morning so she can tell u
s to wear our gloves. Even though she knows it drives Diego crazy to be told what to do like a kid.
Is it just the thing with Joe that’s making her so withdrawn? Or is she worried about something else?
I know lots of things about Joe Fusilli, and one of the things I know is that every morning he goes to this bakery near his house and buys his mother a carrot muffin. She has Alzheimer’s, and she lives with him. She has a caregiver who comes in during the day, and Joe’s sister comes over on the nights Joe is out. It’s hard on the family, but Joe is going to do it as long as he can, because that’s the kind of guy he is.
Anyway, I don’t know if Joe’s mother remembers from one day to the next if she even likes carrot muffins, but he knows she does, and it makes her happy, so he buys a muffin and coffee for himself every morning at the BlueBay Diner. Which happens to be on my way to school.
I see his car parked in the lot, so I park my bike and walk in. Joe is sipping his coffee at the end of the counter, and an egg-white omelette sits in front of him. He’s not really eating it. He looks as bummed as Shay.
“That’s not much of a breakfast,” I say, sliding onto the stool next to him. “Where’s the toast?”
“I’m on a diet. Can I buy you something and watch you eat it? A muffin? Toast with butter? Chocolate cake?”
“No, thanks. I just stopped by when I saw your car. We haven’t seen you.”
“Yeah.” Joe looks down into his coffee cup. “This case has me pretty busy.”
“Did you and Shay have a fight?”
He puts the mug down on the counter. “No. Not really. But until this case is over, I have to watch out how things look.”
“Because Shay is a suspect.”
“Not to me, Gracie,” Joe says. “Shay doesn’t seem to get that.” Sometimes his dark eyes seem to hold all the misery in the world. This is one of those times. “Of course I know that Shay couldn’t have done anything like that—she doesn’t have a homicidal bone in her body. But she does have motive, and she doesn’t have an alibi for that evening. She was out at the wetlands site, alone.”
“Oh. But she’s probably really mad at you for asking her for an alibi.”
“Let’s say,” Joe says, sipping his coffee, “it was not the most pleasant conversation.”
“Well, I have something that might help you,” I say. “A clue.”
He raises his eyebrows at me. “This better involve a hunch, and nothing else. No more poking around.”
“I found Betsy.”
“You found Betsy.”
“Betsy Dunwoody Wheeler. She was engaged to Hank Hobbs twenty years ago, and they were having an affair when he died. Well, she says they weren’t, but I don’t think she’d tell a couple of kids the truth, do you?”
“A couple of kids?”
Oops. I was supposed to leave Diego out of it. “Diego took me to see her.” Joe’s stare tells me to go on. “In Bellevue. We talked to her at the country club. And she’s a champion swimmer, Joe! She could have whacked Hank with an oar or something, pushed him off the boat, waited for him to go down, and then swam back to shore, no problem.”
Is that steam rising from the coffee, or is it coming out of Joe’s ears?
“Gracie, I told you not to get involved.”
“But what I did was, I—”
“I told you to stay out of this. It could be dangerous.”
“I just thought if I talked to her, I could pick up something you couldn’t.”
Double oops. Definitely the wrong thing to say.
“I’m a trained investigator, Gracie.”
“Right. And you are supreme. But I thought maybe I’d get a flash or two from her, and I did. Nothing about the murder. Just some other stuff that made her open up. She admitted that she’d been out to Beewick with him, Joe! And she had a double-shot latte—”
Joe groans and puts his head in his hands. “Stop.” He pushes his coffee mug away and picks up the bag with the muffin in it. He stands up. “I will investigate Betsy Dunwoody Wheeler, and you will stay home and never—ever—do this again. I’m going to talk to Shay about this, Gracie. I mean it. Come on, I’ll walk you out.”
We walk out together. Joe is still fuming. I know he’s mostly concerned about me getting myself into trouble again. What he doesn’t realize is that I’m already in trouble. I’m already involved. Shay is a suspect. My father is a suspect. I can’t just sit there and do nothing.
I have to know.
Joe pauses by my bike. “You going to school?”
I nod. Obviously, I’m going to school. Joe is leading up to something.
“Do me a favor. Don’t start investigating Mason Patterson. Keep your distance, okay?”
“Why?”
“Just do it.”
“But why?”
Joe sighs. He knows I’m not going to give up.
“We tested that capsule I found at the dock. It’s andro.”
“Andro?”
“Androstenedione. It’s a steroid precursor popular among bodybuilders and athletes. We searched Mason’s house last night and the identical brand was found in his room.”
“So he was there. At Hank Hobbs’s house.”
“Could be. Could be he’s involved somehow.”
“Do you think he killed Hobbs?” I ask breathlessly.
“I don’t know who killed Hobbs, and I don’t discuss my cases with anyone,” Joe says sternly. “The only reason I’m telling you this, Gracie, is that you might hear it at school today, and I don’t want you asking Mason any questions. I want your nose out of it, do you hear me?”
“I’m out of it,” I say. “I promise.” And I mean it. Mostly because I don’t want to cross Joe. But also because the last thing I want to do is tangle with Mason.
I’m hanging up my jacket in my locker when I see Marigold heading toward me. Sometimes she makes an effort to seek me out, but I think it’s just to get points from Diego. Our conversations never really go anywhere, and I can tell she’s relieved when she trills her “‘bye now!”
But this morning is different.
This morning, Marigold finally gets real.
She is followed by her best friends, Ashley Hull and Kelly Farnsworth, and I suddenly get a sinking feeling. With teenage girls, the presence of a posse usually signals an ambush.
Marigold closes my locker door with a bang. “You’ve got a lot of nerve, Gracie Kenzie,” she says.
I don’t say anything, because I know there is no stopping her. Behind her, Kelly and Ashley glare at me.
“Stay away from my family,” Marigold hisses. “I know you got Detective Fusilli to search our house. It was humiliating!”
“First of all, I had nothing to do with it,” I say. “Second, didn’t the police find something?”
Marigold’s face flushes. “Mason is innocent! He doesn’t take steroids! That was left there by somebody else. And now the police think he might have killed that guy!”
“Marigold, I have nothing to do with this,” I say. “I don’t know why you think I do.”
“I know that your aunt dates Detective Fusilli. And I know you’re a psychic weirdo,” Marigold says. There are tears in her eyes. She’s not just being mean. She’s scared.
Scared of what?
That her brother will get arrested for something he didn’t do? Or that he’s guilty?
“You told the police that he was guilty,” Marigold goes on.
“And Mason is totally innocent,” Ashley Hull says. “He’s the greatest guy, and now everyone will think he killed somebody.”
I know that Ashley has a wicked crush on Mason. She seems particularly overheated.
“It is so irresponsible of you,” Kelly says.
Kids are gathering around us. I want to open my locker and crawl back inside. I know that nothing I say to Marigold and her friends will make any difference. But I’m also angry at them for jumping to conclusions. For attacking me. I can feel my anger rush up from my feet to my head, and I fe
el words crowding my throat, things I shouldn’t say.
“My mother won’t come out of her room,” Marigold says. “We had to hire a lawyer and everything, thanks to you. And I know why you did it, too. Diego told me.”
My stomach drops to the floor, and I feel sick. “What did Diego tell you?”
“That your long-lost father is in town. That he suddenly shows up, and Hank Hobbs is dead. You don’t want your dad to be a murderer, so you point the finger at my brother!”
Everything balls up inside me. Fear and anger and, most of all, loneliness. I have never felt so alone.
Except for one person. One person I never expected to think was on my side.
My dad.
Hearing someone else attack him does something to me. I feel blind rage, something black and ancient roars up from inside me.
“Marigold, I know it’s hard for you to concentrate, especially in school,” I say. “But make an effort. Get those brain cells to cooperate. I didn’t say anything to Joe about Mason. If he’s in trouble, it has nothing to do with me.”
Marigold takes a breath. I see all the angry words bottled up in her, too, and now they come rushing out. “You don’t have to insult me,” she says. “I know you never liked me. I know you’re jealous of me.”
“Jealous of you?”
“Don’t even try to deny it. And not only are you a weird freak, you’re a liar, too. Weren’t you at Hank Hobbs’s house with Detective Fusilli? Andy saw you go by the other day.”
“But what does that have to do with—”
Marigold’s eyes glitter with tears. “Just leave us alone,” she says. “Leave all of us alone. Go back where you came from, I don’t care. Just get lost.”
Crying, she stumbles away. With last looks of death at me, her girlfriends follow.
Now I realize that the hallway is silent. No one is slamming a locker door. No one is chanting a rap song. No one is hooting with laughter at something someone else said.
They are all looking at me.
One of them is Andy Hassam. He stares at me from his open locker. The stare is anything but friendly.
It is instantly clear to me that my less-than-stellar social standing at Beewick High has now bottomed out. I am less than zero. I am finished.