White Rabbit(28)
But he was there, I note in my mind. My personal knowledge and healthy fear of Hayden Covington run too deep for me to dismiss his presence at the lake house as unimportant or coincidental. Guys like Race and Fox, perpetually drunk on their own mean-spirited testosterone, love to push around anyone they’re sure they can take; a guy like Arlo, better with his fists than his words, will eventually stop whaling on you when he’s finally sure his point is made. But Hayden is different from all of them.
The day I started kindergarten, I still didn’t know enough to be automatically suspicious of anyone named Covington, so when Hayden—in the second grade, and already shining with the irresistible light of popularity—sought me out at recess, telling me how cool it was to finally get to know me, I felt warmed and exalted by the attention. On the pretense of wanting to show me “something awesome,” Hayden then led me behind a screen of bushes, punched me in the face as hard as he could, told me our father wished I was dead, and then walked serenely away. It was my first bloody nose, and the last time I ever trusted my older brother.
Peter and Isabel have made an art out of ignoring or excusing Hayden’s violence, and April, a convenient target for his lazy cruelty, has told me she avoids him as much as possible. He hurts people because he enjoys it, and if he’s also in the habit of using drugs that are known to cause violent outbursts …
I stop there, knowing I’m getting way ahead of myself. I’ve already got more suspects than I know what to do with, and not nearly enough information to keep them sorted. The blood on Race’s finger had seemed significant in the moment, but I’m no longer so sure; while he has a motive for wanting to put his alleged best friend in the morgue, that doesn’t mean his hands are stained from stabbing the guy. April said the two boys scuffled after she took her own swing at Peyton, and considering that Fox had already taken a beating from Arlo, it makes sense that Race would have some blood on him.
And then there’s Peyton; but if she has a motive for wanting Fox dead, I can’t quite see it yet; however, if she felt sufficiently guilty for cheating on her boyfriend, she might have been willing to help him frame April—and to vouch for his cover story later.
“The problem is,” I finally say out loud with a dispirited grunt, “that as far as I can tell, both Race and Peyton are in the clear. Lia said they left the party first, and they gave us the same story independently—so unless she texted them, too, and told them what to say to us—”
“She wouldn’t do that,” Sebastian interrupts sullenly.
“She did it for Arlo.” I swivel to face him, aggravated by the reflexive defense of his ex-girlfriend. “We don’t really know what went on up at that party—aside from, you know, drugs and murder; Lia could have a million reasons for making up bullshit and then warning her friends to stick to an established version of events!”
“I’m telling you, I know her. She couldn’t kill anybody, and if she knew Race or Peyton had done something to Fox, she wouldn’t be helping them with a fake alibi.”
“Well, I hate to break it to you, but your girlfriend—excuse me, ex-girlfriend—seems to have a problem with the truth!” I shoot back, my heart beating in my face. “She broke up two fistfights tonight, but she only told us about one of them. Why?”
“I kinda wondered about that, too,” April admits softly. “I was sure she’d tell you guys about me clocking Peyton. Actually, I’m surprised she didn’t.”
“Exactly,” I say, with more than a little satisfaction. “She was so worried about us persecuting poor little gun-wielding Arlo that she called ahead and told him we were on our way over, but when she made the conscious decision to edit one of tonight’s free-for-alls out of her story, it was the one that involved April, Peyton, and Fox—the one that actually ended the party—not the one between Fox and his business partner. She handed us a clear motive for Arlo but glossed over the rest of it.”
Grudgingly, Sebastian allows, “It doesn’t make sense.”
“No, it doesn’t,” I agree, suddenly tired. If Arlo really had gone back into the house and murdered Fox, and Lia knew about it and wanted to protect him, why didn’t she try harder to draw our attention away from him? Why didn’t she make it a point to implicate someone else?
I shuffle Arlo’s piece to the center of my mental game board again and frown at it. He’s mean, he’s violent, and he picked a fight with Fox not long before his grisly demise … What do I really have that testifies against him as the killer? My sort of vague impression that he was scared of something when we made our unannounced visit to his house? He’s a freaking drug dealer, for Pete’s sake—there are any number of people he might have good reason to be afraid of, and who might drop by with less-than-friendly intentions in the middle of the night.
“Fuck, maybe they all did it,” I finally exclaim in a frustrated huff. “Maybe the fight kept going after April blacked out, Fox ended up dead, and they all just panicked and decided to pin it on the most convenient scapegoat.”
“They wouldn’t do that,” April hazards, sounding entirely unsure.
“How well do you really know those guys?” I counter. “How long have you been hanging out with them? Two months? You’re the new kid, and I guarantee you they don’t care about you half as much as they care about themselves.”