Don't You Cry(66)

“I’ve already done that,” I say. “I went to the station. I filed a missing-persons report,” and I fill him in on my exchange with the officer at the front desk who asked for Esther’s name, her photograph. He said they’d be in touch, but still, no one has been in touch.

“Maybe it’s time to report a crime,” he says instead, though both of us know we have nothing more than an unsubstantiated hunch to report. Just a premonition. A bad feeling.

The death of Kelsey Bellamy was ruled an accident. Since then, there’s no evidence of a crime because no crime has been committed. Not yet, anyway.

For now, it’s just an irrational fear that Esther is out to get me. Esther, my good friend, my dear roommate. I tell myself, Esther would never hurt me, but even I am not so sure.

The budding lawyer in Ben knows this better than me; he knows we don’t have anything effectual for the police. Paperwork on loss and grieving, and a petition for a change of name, cash withdrawal receipts. That’s irrelevant. It’s not illegal to change your name, or to feel sad. To take money out of your own bank account. To ask to have the locks changed on your apartment door. Esther has done nothing wrong. Or has she?

“Besides,” I say then, thinking as I stare into his hazel eyes, hoping that there I might find the answers to all my many questions, “what if we’re wrong about all this? What if this is all some stupid mistake and we call the police and turn her in? What will it do to Esther if we’re wrong? She’ll go to prison,” I tell him, my voice convulsing now as I imagine Esther spending the rest of her days behind bars when maybe, just maybe, she didn’t do anything wrong. “Esther is too kind for jail,” I tell Ben, “too nice,” but then I imagine the Esther that purposefully added peanut flour to Kelsey’s meal to end her life, and not the Esther who sings hymns in the church choir. Esther can’t possibly be both of these things.

But did Esther do something wrong? I don’t know for certain. I ask the question out loud for Ben. “Did she kill her? Did Esther kill Kelsey Bellamy?”

Ben shrugs. “I don’t know for sure, but it looks to me like she did,” he says, confirming the same suspicion that now takes over my mind. Esther killed Kelsey and now she’s trying to kill me, too.

“But what if we’re wrong and we call the police with this false claim that Esther is a murderer?” I ask Ben. “We’ll ruin her life.”

Ben mulls this over.

“I went to high school with a guy,” he says after some time. “Brian Abbing. Rumor had it he broke into some pricey bridal shop one night, and made off with a few thousand bucks from the register. The back window was smashed. The place was tossed, shattered mannequins and torn dresses everywhere. There was no proof that Brian did anything, but still, people pointed fingers.”

“Why?” I ask.

“Someone saw him hanging out down the street. And he was just sort of that kid, the kind of kid who people like to pick on. He never dated, he talked with a lisp, he had no friends other than Randy Fukui, who was just as much of a hermit as Brian. They did everything wrong—they had the wrong clothes, wrong music, wrong hair. They talked about video games all day, and made friends with the old shop teacher, some Vietnam vet who talked about flamethrowers and rocket launchers all the damn time.”

“People made fun of them because they didn’t like their clothes?” I ask. I’m listening but I’m only sort of listening.

“It was high school,” Ben says, and I think, Enough said. I hated high school. Everyone hates high school except for those in the catty and shallow cliques—the lacrosse players and the girls of the pom-pom squad—who roam the halls, making others feel unworthy. I couldn’t wait to get out of high school when I was there.

“What happened,” I ask, “to Brian?” My heart suddenly goes out to Brian. I was teased for many things as a teenager, mainly my utter stupidity. It’s not a good thing being stupid when you’re also a blonde. I was called many things: banana head, buttercup, Tinker Bell. The blond jokes were endless.

“Police never could figure out who did it, not soon enough, anyway. There was no evidence, no fingerprints, and so it remained an open case. But the kids put him on trial, anyway. They pointed fingers, they called him names. Even Randy stopped talking to him. He couldn’t walk to math class without half the school calling him a crook or a klepto. By the time the police nabbed the real culprit, some six months later, Brian had already climbed to the top of some cell phone tower and jumped.”

“He killed himself?”

“He killed himself.”

“Wow,” I say. It seems kind of extreme for me, but I guess that’s the kind of thing you never get over, the name-calling and finger-pointing. Sometimes when I close my eyes at night I can still hear my entire econ class laughing because every time the teacher called on me, it was as if I’d gone mute. Earth to Quinn...

“Same thing could happen to Esther,” Ben says. “It doesn’t matter if she was exonerated from charges, if charges were even made. People would always look at her and think, Murderer, whether or not she is,” and I nod my head listlessly, knowing that’s exactly what I’m thinking, too.

Esther is a murderer.

“Once a murderer, always a murderer,” I say then as I sip from my plastic wine cup with shuddering hands, spilling tiny red droplets along the tabletop. Red like blood. “Esther would be hurt if it turned out we were wrong.”