All Good People Here(31)

“I understand,” Margot said, accepting a slice of pie. “Especially now, in light of what was written on your barn.”

“Hm.” Billy nodded thoughtfully as he placed the mugs onto the table in front of them, then settled into the chair across from her.

Margot took a sip of her coffee. “I know you said you don’t know anything about it, but do you have any guesses about who would write something like that?”

Billy let out a breath. “To be honest, Margot, I just assumed it was done by some high school kids. In fact, the police told me earlier today that they believed it was just a stupid prank.”

“Really?” She knew from Pete that this had been the police’s theory, but she hadn’t realized they’d made their official verdict yet.

Billy hitched a shoulder. “My friends and I used to do the same dumb stuff.” His eyes glazed as he got lost in some memory, but then after a moment, they hardened. “Well, we never did anything as mean as what they wrote on the barn, but like I said, I’m not very liked in this town. Not anymore.”

Margot knew it was true, but she’d also been watching earlier, as Billy had slid into the church pew at the start of the service. He’d caught a few of his fellow congregants eyeing him and had nodded by way of greeting, terse but polite, and Margot had been surprised to see the gesture reciprocated. He may not be well liked, but he wasn’t the pariah Krissy had been.

“Can we talk about what your life was like back then?” she asked. “Before January died?”

“What do you want to know?”

Margot shrugged as if she hadn’t prepared and thought through every question she had. “What was your family like? I knew them all too, of course, but not as well as you. Obviously. And, well, I was six.” It was far from the most pressing thing she wanted to ask, but she was trying to loosen him up, get him comfortable and talking. She took a bite of the pie and then, as if it were an afterthought, said, “Oh, you don’t mind if I record this, do you?”

Billy raised his eyebrows in surprise, but then shook his head. “No. No problem.”

“Thanks.” Margot pulled out her phone to begin recording, then said, “Why don’t you start with January?”

At that, Billy’s face lit up. “Well, January, she was…She was a firecracker, you know? Always bright and happy. Whenever I’d walk in the door, she’d bound over to me and wrap her little arms around my legs.” His eyes filled with tears suddenly and he cleared his throat, brushing them away roughly with the back of his hand. “She was sort of the glue that held us together. Without her, the rest of us—we were a little lost. Because, she was always so kind, you know?”

Margot smiled. She did know. Most of her memories of the girl from across the street were blurred flashes, mere snapshots of time, but the clearest one she had was of January’s kindness.

Margot could still see the image of it, trees and dappled light—on her school’s playground maybe, or in someone’s backyard. In the memory, she was sitting, her knees tucked beneath her chin, her back pressed against a tree. She’d been scared for some long-forgotten reason, and suddenly, January was by her side, pressing something into Margot’s palm. When she looked down, she saw that it was a quarter-size piece of ripped fabric. It was light blue, a snowflake printed in the center.

“When I’m scared,” January said, “I squeeze this and it makes me brave.”

So Margot tried, but it didn’t work, and January told her she hadn’t done it right; she needed to do it again, harder this time. Margot squeezed again, her nails digging into flesh, the fabric snowflake crumpling between her fingers, and that time, she felt it. That time, it made her brave.

It wasn’t much longer after that, weeks or days, when January died and Margot had learned from that older kid at recess that her friend had been murdered. That night in bed, she’d grabbed the little snowflake from her bedside table and squeezed so hard her nails had drawn blood.

Now, Margot rubbed a thumb over her palm, the tiny scars like braille. “Did you notice any change in January?” she asked. “In the days or weeks leading up to her death?”

“Like what?”

“Like…her behavior, her moods, habits, likes, dislikes. Anything.”

His expression didn’t change as he thought about it. Then, after a long moment, he dragged a hand down his face. “I’m sorry. It was such a long time ago. If January did change at all before, I don’t remember. In my memory, she was always bubbly. Always smiling.”

“What about Jace?” Margot said. “What was he like back then?”

“Jace was…” Billy’s eyes darted to hers then away again. “Quiet. Shy.”

Margot studied him. She too remembered Jace as solemn and watchful, but there had been another side to the boy across the street, and she wondered how much Billy knew about it and how much he’d say.

Margot’s most distinct memory of Jace, so unlike that of January, had happened one day during fifth-grade recess. She had been reading in her favorite spot, curled into the Y of a big oak tree, tucked away on the lowest point of their playground. It was a quiet little place where no one usually went, but that day, as she was reading, she heard the sound of a twig snapping, and when she looked up from her book, she saw Jace. After January’s death four years earlier, Margot had stopped going over to their house, and whatever relationship she’d once had with him had disappeared. His eyes cast downward, he didn’t seem to see her up in the tree and she didn’t call out to him, didn’t announce her presence at all. Instead, she watched as he walked beneath the branch she was in and crouched down to put something on the ground. When he stood up again, she saw that it was a small dead bird, a sparrow maybe or a wren. She watched, holding her breath, as Jace pressed the toe of his shoe onto the bird’s breast. He pushed slowly harder and harder until finally, Margot saw its head swell and its black eye bulge.