The Lies I Told(33)

As the family filed out, I’d walked out behind Brit and Dad, so numb I could’ve sworn my feet didn’t touch the ground but floated a few inches above the polished wood floors. As my morning pill wore off, my thoughts zeroed in on Richards, and I snapped out of my funk. It was so much easier to be angry than sad, so I tore through the last of the numbness and allowed oxygen to fan the flames of my anger.

It took another half hour for me to get free of the funeral receiving line. I’d stayed as long as I had only because Brit held my hand as Richards prowled around the edges of the crowded room, moving between the groups, comfortable handing out his card and asking questions.

Finally, when I saw him duck out a side door, I couldn’t let him escape. He deserved to be punished for intruding on our family’s grief.

I pulled my hand from Brit’s, said something about needing a bathroom, and left the receiving line. People watched me pass, many doing a double take as if they’d seen the dead come back to life.

I pushed out the side door and jogged toward Richards, who now stood by a tree, smoking a cigarette. I moved up to him, folding my arms to protect myself against the cold and so much more.

“What’re you doing here?” I asked.

He inhaled and blew the smoke out slowly. He sniffed, regarded me through the trailing haze. “Paying respects.”

“How can you pay respect? You didn’t know her.”

The end of the cigarette glowed red as he inhaled again. “I might’ve known her better than anyone in that room right now.”

“How could you?”

As he regarded me, I sensed he weighed his words carefully. “Attending a woman’s autopsy is pretty damn intimate.”

My threaded arms tightened. I had no words to rebut his statement. I’d known my sister since before we were born. We could finish each other’s sentences, looked so much alike we could fool our friends and parents, and were privy to dark family secrets. But I’d not been there at that terrible end. None of the details that had defined Clare—the smart one, the sensitive one, and the nice one—mattered now. All anyone cared about was gathering details of her death: Had she known her killer? Was she sexually assaulted? Was she really strangled? I’d seen all these thoughts reflected back in the stares following me since Clare had died.

But I knew nothing about the crime scene or the real, intimate details of her death. Richards did, and in death he was closer to my twin than I was.

“I’ve had a week to ask around about you,” he said.

“Why would you ask about me? What do I have to do with any of this?”

“You were the instigator,” he said with certainty. “If you and Clare got into trouble, you always started it.”

That was true. “We didn’t do anything wrong.”

“Depends on who you talk to.”

I was a minor, only sixteen, but he stared at me as if I were twice that age. There was no pity, no empathy, just a keen and unsettling interest.

“You were arrested twice for drunk driving last year. Not only too young to drive but loaded. Then you were caught shoplifting. Daddy fixed both issues, and then you and Clare were caught speeding. Oddly, Clare was behind the wheel. She didn’t pass the Breathalyzer test, whereas you, in the passenger seat, did. My guess is you two swapped driver’s licenses.”

We had. It would have been my third offense, and another DWI would have meant fifty hours of community service. The judge had already stated he’d see to it that every college I applied to would know about my drunk-driving record. Clare hadn’t wanted to trade, but she was always looking out for me.

“You don’t know that,” I said.

“You’re right, I can’t prove it. But I really don’t care about that now. I’m wondering if you didn’t swap places the night Clare died. Maybe whoever killed her thought it was you.”

“How can you say that?” Anguish wrapped each word.

Richards was unmoved. “We found the clothes Clare had been wearing. They were in a pile a half mile down the road in the bushes. Like someone balled them up and tossed them out a car window before or after they dumped her body.”

Picturing my sister being treated as yesterday’s garbage hurt.

“Funny thing about the clothes, they didn’t strike me as the kind Clare would wear,” he said. “I studied a lot of pictures of her this week. Overall impression was pastels and simple jewelry. Nothing like the black torn jeans, boots, and studded leather bracelet we found.”

I didn’t speak.

The ash on the edge of his cigarette grew. “Clare was the cheerleader, all As, and soccer team, even enjoyed photography like you. She was the whole package. But I’ve learned to question surface facts. They’re only a snapshot and don’t always show the whole picture.”

“What’re you talking about?”

“Come on, Marisa. There had to be more to your sister. What was she hiding?”

“Nothing. She was the best of us.”

“Then why was she dressed like you?”

“We wore each other’s clothes all the time.”

“I never saw a picture of you in pastels, and I’ve seen plenty in the last few days.”

Again, I was silent.

“Why was she at the party dressed like you? And why were you out for a drive? Not many sixteen-year-olds I know go for long drives on I-95 instead of going to a party.”