To Catch a Killer(4)

Okay, that’s a lie. I appreciate both of those things. It’s just that that’s not all there is for me. What intrigues me most is how he moves through all those people. He almost makes it look smooth, as though he’s completely comfortable in his skin. Almost. But I’m convinced his cool-kid moves are a lie.

“Man, you are obsessed with him.”

I was so immersed in silent Journey worship I hadn’t noticed my best friend, Spam, had joined me.

“Who?” I wasn’t ready to discuss the depth of my Journey obsession with her.

Her smirk called BS. Then she ripped off a wolf whistle loud enough to set dogs barking a block away. Once she had everyone’s attention, she hollered, “Oooh, Journey. Work it.”

Her final insult was to drop down behind me when he looked up.

That was the first time he had ever looked directly at me, so I’m not sure if I only imagined the little sizzle as his eyes met mine. He smiled, though. Shook his head and kept walking.

“Screw you, Spam,” I said through clenched teeth.

“Hey, I got him to look at you,” she bragged.

It was true. Despite the fact that she was wearing rainbow suspenders and matching over-the-knee socks, she still managed to make me the attraction. Spam’s idea of fashion is an extension of her personality—sort of shock-and-awe chic.

“You don’t have to pretend with me,” she said. “I know you want to marry him and bear his freakishly tall basketball-star children.”

*

Baldwin returns with the sugar. He’s careful with the door this time, allowing it to close all the way before crossing the room and dropping into his chair. He pauses to take a sip of his coffee, then opens his notebook. “Are you okay? Can we continue?”

I give him a weak smile and set about adding the sugars to my coffee.

“So, it was dark. You had just stumbled across this horrific scene with your teacher. You had to be extremely upset,” he says.

The pleasant images from this morning dissipate.

Baldwin’s chair groans as he settles in further. “Then you see someone running away. And you recognized him as a classmate.”

“Journey Michaels.”

“What?” Baldwin asks.

“That’s his name. Journey Michaels.” I press my fingers into my eye sockets. Of all the people in this world, why did it have to be him?

“And you’re sure it was him?” Baldwin says.

I nod, keeping my fingertips against my eyelids as if that could block some of the horror.

“What makes you so positive?”

I reach for my coffee. “Well.” My voice trembles. I dig my thumbnail into the Styrofoam and carve a curved line resembling a stretched-out letter C. “Um. He goes to my school.” Baldwin waits, pen poised above paper. “And I see him every day.” Baldwin’s still not writing. How do I explain it? I carve another squiggle on the other side. Will it be enough to simply say that Journey is the boy every girl wants to notice her? Will it mean anything to Baldwin that I make a point not just to see him every day but also to actually study him?

Baldwin waits as I stare at the shape I’ve carved into the cup. It’s not a heart, exactly. The lines are too far apart and not even close to symmetrical. Maybe it’s my heart, weak and dysfunctional.

“Um, okay. It’s hard to explain. It’s like he has this way of moving forward with one shoulder sort of tilted in.” I demonstrate, twisting in my seat and leaning my right shoulder forward.

At first Baldwin looks as though he understands but then the folds between his eyebrows deepen. “You’re saying you knew it was him because he tilts his shoulder?”

“Most people just walk. But not Journey. He always looks like he’s pushing a giant, invisible boulder uphill with his shoulder.”

Baldwin shakes his head but proceeds to write down my description. “Tilted shoulder, pushing boulder.”

For the first time in a long time I need someone to get it … to get me.

I lean across the table, hands cupping the air in front of me. “It’s just, every day I watch this guy move through the world, and even though he’s all cool and everybody loves him, he looks exactly like how I feel. Life’s a huge strain, but everyone everywhere tries to hide it. Not him, though. He plows forward, jamming that invisible boulder out of his way. It’s like he’s saying: Force it. Make it happen.”

Baldwin’s face lights up. “Ah. You’re saying he has a chip on his shoulder?”

It’s actually the exact opposite of that, but as I open my mouth to refute him, a squawk comes from his radio.

“Sorry, I have to take this. I’ll be right back.” He pulls the brick-shaped device off of his belt and heads for the door. “On my way.”

The door stutters shut behind him and I’m once again wrapped in the disapproving silence of the room, only now I’m steeped in thoughts of Journey Michaels and the things I saw versus the things I didn’t see.





3

The hardest thing to teach new crime-scene techs is not to cover the body. But dignity can destroy evidence.





—VICTOR FLEMMING


I go back through it again.

It was just about midnight. The moon hung low and large in the sky, like a giant Olympic gold medal. Its glow felt like praise. As predicted, I had acquired all three of my targeted DNA samples.