The Pact Read online

  Anne-Marie pursed her lips. "His alibi is that it was a double suicide that got botched up before he had his turn."

  "Well, that tells us he's smart enough to think on his feet. Nice explanation; he just forgot what the forensic evidence would show."

  "What do you think about a charge of sexual assault?"

  Barrie flipped through the detective's notes. "I doubt it. Number one, she's pregnant, so they've had sex before. And if they've been having sex for a while, it'll be hard to make a rape charge stick. We can still use the evidence as signs of a struggle." She glanced up. "I need you to question him again."

  "Ten to one, he'll have a lawyer."

  "See what you can get," Barrie urged. "If he won't talk, try family and neighbors. I don't want to run off half cocked. We need to know if he realized the girl was pregnant. We need background on the relationship between the kids--is there a pattern of abuse between them? And we need to find out whether or not Emily Gold was suicidal."

  Anne-Marie, who had been scribbling in her own notepad, looked up. "While I'm working my butt off, what are you going to do?"

  Barrie grinned. "Take this to a grand jury."

  THE INSTANT MELANIE opened the door, Gus thrust her hand through it, holding the can of pitted black olives. "I didn't have a branch," she said, as Melanie tried to slam it shut again. Determined, Gus wedged her shoulder through the narrow space, then the rest of herself, so that she was standing opposite from Melanie in the kitchen. "Please," she said quietly. "I know you're hurting. So am I. And it's killing me that we can't hurt together."

  Melanie's arms were crossed so tightly that Gus thought she looked in danger of squeezing herself in two. "I have nothing to say to you," she stiffly replied.

  "Mel, my God, I'm sorry," Gus said, her eyes shining with tears. "I'm sorry that this happened, I'm sorry that you feel this way, I'm sorry that I don't know the right thing to say or do."

  "The right thing," Melanie said, "is to leave."

  "Mel," Gus said, reaching out for her.

  Melanie actually shuddered. "Don't touch me," she said, her voice vibrating.

  Gus recoiled, shocked. "I ... I'm sorry. I'll come back tomorrow."

  "I don't want you to come back tomorrow. I don't want you ever to come back." Melanie took a deep breath. "Your son," she said, crisply biting off each word, "killed my daughter."

  Gus felt something small and hot spark beneath her ribs, fanning itself, spreading. "Chris told you, and the police, that they were going to commit suicide. Now, granted, I didn't know they were ... well, you know. But if Chris says it, I believe it."

  "You would," Melanie said.

  Gus narrowed her eyes. "Listen," she said. "It isn't like Chris walked out of this fine and dandy. He had seventy stitches, and he spent three days in a psychiatric ward. He told the police what happened when he was still in shock. What reason could he possibly have had to lie?"

  Melanie laughed outright. "Do you hear yourself, Gus? What reason could he have to lie?"

  "You just don't want to believe your daughter could have been suicidal without your knowing it," Gus shot back. "Not when you two had the perfect relationship."

  Melanie shook her head. "As opposed to you? You can handle being the mother of a suicide risk. But you can't possibly accept being the mother of a murderer."

  Gus had so many comebacks, so many indignant responses, that they blistered the back of her throat. Convinced they would burn her alive, she pushed past Melanie and out the kitchen door. She ran home gulping cold draughts of air, and tried to push from her mind the knowledge that Melanie would consider her flight a surrender.

  "I FEEL STUPID," Chris said. His knees were up to his chin in the tiny wheelchair, but it was the only way the hospital would let him off the grounds. In this dumb invalid contraption, and with a piece of paper printed with the name of the psychiatrist he would now be seeing twice a week.

  "It's for liability reasons," his mother said, as if he cared, and walked into the elevator beside the orderly who was pushing him. "Besides, you'll be out in five minutes."

  "Five minutes too long," Chris grumbled, and his mother rested her hand on his head.

  "I think," she said, "you're already feeling better."

  His mother started chattering about what they were having for dinner, and who had called to ask about him, and did he think it was going to snow before Thanksgiving this year. He gritted his teeth, just trying to block her out. What he wanted to say was Stop trying to act like nothing happened. Because something did, and you can't make it go back to being the same.

  Instead, he looked up when she touched his face, and he forced a smile.

  She slipped an arm around his waist as the orderly dumped them out at the lobby. "Thank you," she said to the man, and headed for the sliding glass doors with Chris.

  Outside, the air was wonderful. It snaked into his lungs, bigger and fresher than the air in the hospital. "I'm going to get the car," his mother said, while Chris leaned against the brick of the hospital. Past the highway he saw the gray knobs of the mountains, and he closed his eyes for a minute, memorizing them.

  At the sound of his name he blinked. Detective Marrone was standing there, blocking that beautiful view. "Chris," she repeated. "I wonder if you'd be willing to come down to the station."

  HE WASN'T UNDER ARREST, but his parents had been against it anyway. "I'm only going to tell her the truth," Chris had assured them, but his mother had just about fainted anyway and his father had run off to find a lawyer who would meet them at the station. Detective Marrone had pointed out that at seventeen, Chris could call his own shots in terms of legal representation, and he had to give her credit for that. He followed her down the narrow corridor of the police station to a small conference room with a tape recorder on the table.

  She read him his Miranda rights, which he recognized from his Government course, and turned on the tape recorder. "Chris," she said, "I'd like you to tell me in as much detail as possible what happened the night of November seventh."

  Chris folded his hands on the table and cleared his throat. "Emily and I had talked at school, and we decided I'd pick her up at seven-thirty."

  "You have your own car?"

  "Yeah. It was, you know, there when the cops came. A green Jeep."

  Detective Marrone nodded. "Go on."

  "We had brought along something to drink--"

  "Something?"

  "Alcohol."

  "We?"

  "I had brought it."

  "Why?"

  Chris shifted. Maybe he shouldn't have been answering all these questions. As if Detective Marrone realized she was pushing too hard, she asked something else. "Did you know then that Emily wanted to kill herself?"

  "Yes," Chris said. "She had a plan worked out."

  "Tell me about this plan," Detective Marrone pressed. "Was it a Romeo and Juliet kind of thing?"

  "No," Chris said. "It was just what Emily wanted."

  "She wanted to kill herself."

  "Yes," Chris answered.

  "And then what?"

  "Then," he said, "I was going to kill myself."

  "What time did you pick her up?"

  "Seven-thirty," Chris replied. "I already said that."

  "Right. And did Emily tell anyone else she was going to kill herself?"

  Chris shrugged. "I don't think so."

  "Did you?"

  "No."

  The detective crossed her legs. "Why not?"

  Chris stared into his lap. "Emily already knew. I didn't care if anyone else did."

  "And what did she tell you?"

  He began to trace a pattern on the table with the nail of his thumb. "She kept saying she wanted to keep things exactly the way they were, and that she wished she could stop everything from changing. She got really nervous, like, talking about the future. She once told me that she could see herself now, and she could also see the kind of life she wanted to have--kids, husband, suburbs, you know--but she coul