The Night Before(47)

Holy. Shit. Does this man know me. Already—he knows how to get inside.

“So what happened in that car?” he asks, and I am reminded about the part that comes next. The part about the dead boy.

“I never got to find out which one of us might have stopped. If he would have done what you just did. Or if I would have followed my plan. Or if I would have stopped caring about anything but getting more from him, any small piece, no matter how destructive.

“I remember the sound of footsteps outside the car. The road was gravel—the kind with small stones that kick up when you walk over them.”

“Is that why they didn’t find footprints?” he asks.

“You really do know a lot about this.” Yes, you do, Jonathan Fielding.

“It was in one of the articles. That homeless man, Lionel Casey, his lawyer made a big deal about that—the absence of any evidence that he was at the scene.”

“But then they found him in the car, didn’t they?”

Jonathan nods. “Yes, they did.”

“He was crazy, you know. And dangerous. People came forward after they heard. People who’d seen him in the woods and been scared. He chased a girl half a mile, screaming that he would send her to Hell. He used to dress up in a vampire cape.…”

“Laura—I know. I’m not saying he wasn’t there. But all of these details from the scene, they all played a role in how you were treated. Or mistreated, I should say.”

Mistreated. That was not a word I had ever thought to use about that night. It was not a word anyone had ever used to describe what had happened to me.

“I guess I’m still defensive,” I try to explain. “I still feel responsible.”

“I don’t see why you would.”

I look at my bare feet. At my naked toes. And I think about the moment I put on the shoes I later took off at his door. It wasn’t more than a few hours ago that I was in Rosie’s attic, getting ready to meet this man. What am I doing?

“Mitch was there because of me,” I say.

“No—you were there because of him.”

“You should have been a lawyer.” And then I think, Maybe he is a lawyer. It’s funny that he could be and I would never know. But then it’s not, really.

“Seriously—I don’t get how you feel responsible or guilty. He could have killed you as well.”

I wonder if it’s really possible that he is the only person who has ever said this to me. That I was mistreated in the aftermath. That I could have been a victim myself.

You can’t forgive her.… You want her to suffer.

“There was no time,” I continue with the story. “The footsteps on the gravel—we both heard them and looked up. They stopped when we did, and we both saw the same thing—a figure looking into the front seat on the driver’s side. He had his hand over his eyes like he was trying to block what little light there was that night. The keys were in the ignition. Mitch had turned on the radio. I was confused; I thought it was someone from the party or a cop, maybe, so I stayed very still. Mitch must have thought the same thing, because he didn’t move either. Then I heard the door handle click, metal on metal. He wasn’t trying to be quiet, to sneak up on us. He just saw us and we were in the way of him and this car. Mitch was lying on top of me, his feet close to the door, and Lionel Casey just grabbed him by the ankles and pulled him out.”

Silence descends upon Jonathan’s bare kitchen. I can see he’s horrified by this image, but I stay hidden behind my wall. Even as I recall the exact feeling of Mitch’s body being dragged over mine, his hands grabbing hold of anything they could find, instinct taking over. I had scratches down my face and neck, and the sides of my torso because my shirt was pulled up. They found my skin under his nails, and fabric from my jeans. One of my shoes was found on the gravel because that was the last thing his hands found as they tried, desperately, to keep from leaving the safety of the car.

“I didn’t see him—Lionel Casey. The figure looking through the window was just that, a figure. A shadow. I think he was wearing a hoodie or a jacket with a hood, because I couldn’t make out the shape of his head. But I wouldn’t swear to that. And when Mitch was dragged out of the car, I couldn’t see beyond his face. I was lying on my back, kicking against the seat to move away from the open door. I never saw beyond Mitch as he was pulled outside. And when I felt his hand release from my foot, taking my shoe with him, I kicked myself up and away to the other door, opened it, and ran outside. I ran until I was deep in the bushes that lined the road and then I crouched down, hiding and listening.”

“My God,” Jonathan says. And I can see that what really surprises him the most is that I can tell this story without flinching. Without crying. Without anything at all.

“I heard him plead. No! Stop! Please! It was breathless, like the fear had paralyzed his voice. I didn’t hear the bat hit his body. People said I did, but that’s because what I heard were breaks in his pleas, changes to them that anyone would know was from some kind of strike to his body that knocked the wind out. And then they said that I only heard three blows, and yet there were four to his body. Four swings of the bat. But I never said I heard three blows. I said I heard three breaks to his pleading.”

Jonathan stares now, wide-eyed. “The fourth blow might have come after he was already dead. Or unconscious. That’s why you only heard three breaks.”