The Cheerleaders(59)
The statement is from Mrs. Diane Cullen. Address 54 Norwood Drive. I balk at the date on the page: April 19. Six months before the murders. The box labeled Incident contains two words: neighbor complaint.
The typed version of Diane Cullen’s statement is only one paragraph:
On the evening of April 18, I came home around 8:30 p.m. to find my back gate open. Several of my flowers had been trampled, as if someone had climbed over the fence to enter the backyard. Nothing was stolen from my house but I believe the intruder was Mr. Jack Canning, who lives at 61 Norwood Drive. Several others on my street have reported strange incidents, and we believe Mr. Canning to be behind them. In fact, his neighbors had to install a privacy fence due to Mr. Canning watching their daughter sunbathing by their pool.
I read the statement three times. The Berrys had a privacy fence around their backyard. The new owners tore it down when they redesigned the yard; I’d forgotten that detail while Ethan was telling Ginny and me what he saw from the woods that night.
But Ethan McCready couldn’t have seen anything from the woods; he wouldn’t have been able to see over the fence and into the backyard unless he was ten feet tall.
An uneasy feeling slithers into my stomach. Ethan’s story about what he saw is bullshit, and the police would have known it. That’s why they never processed his statement—not because of some conspiracy to keep Ethan quiet, but because he’s a liar.
I inhale, trying to control my simmering anger. We stole those files because of what Ethan told us. Ginny didn’t trust Ethan, and I didn’t listen to her, and thanks to my impulsiveness, she’s pissed off at me.
I have to find a way to apologize. For suggesting she’s a liar, for what I implied about her dad, for almost getting us arrested for stealing evidence—all of it. I’ll find a way to make it right.
After I have a few words with Ethan McCready.
* * *
—
Ethan is working a double shift Sunday and can’t meet me until Monday night. I insist on Monday morning before school.
Sunday night I tell Rachel that I have to get to school earlier in the morning for extra help in chem, and I tell my mother that Rachel and I have to go to school early for extra help. When Mom heads into the shower around 6:15 that morning, I sneak into the garage and hop on my bike.
Osprey Lake is a mile from my house, and another half mile from the high school. Every morning there are joggers and dog walkers taking the path around the lake. A public place in broad daylight.
I got Ethan to agree to meet me by texting him that I found something weird in my sister’s things, and I wanted to show it to him. I knew he would bite; Ethan McCready was obsessed with my sister. As much as it turns my stomach, dangling Jen in front of him is my best chance at getting the truth out of him.
I walk my bike to an empty bench below a sugar maple tree. The sky is shell pink over the lake. I barely slept, but my body is awake and thrumming. I grab the thermos of coffee out of my bike basket and wedge it between my knees as I dig my phone out of my backpack.
It’s 6:35. I’m five minutes late, and Ethan still isn’t here. The knot in my gut tightens.
Someone sits at the opposite end of the bench and I look up to see Ethan lower the hood of his sweatshirt. He tugs his headphones out of his ears and rubs his eyes, which are dark-rimmed and pink.
For a moment, neither of us says anything. Then he yawns. Says, “Where’s your friend?”
“She’s not too happy with me at the moment.”
“Bummer.” Ethan stretches. I hear the joints in his neck crack. “She didn’t seem enamored of me either. What did she call me? A crackpot conspiracy theorist?”
“Do you blame her?” I feel my pulse ticking. “You lied to our faces.”
Ethan blinks at me. “About what my friends saw the night of the crash?”
“Not that,” I say. “When you told us what you saw in the Berrys’ backyard, I forgot about their fence. They put up a really tall one, because of Jack Canning.”
Ethan doesn’t say anything. Adrenaline racks my body, shortening my breath, making my fingers tremble. I hate how he’s played me and how he’s mysteriously lost the ability to speak now that I’ve confronted him. I’m not leaving here until I find out why he lied to me.
A maple leaf, scarlet and veiny, falls onto Ethan’s knee. He brushes it away. His jaw is set, his face expressionless. A woman wrangling two large black Labs on leashes trots past us. The dogs stop to pee at the tree a couple of yards away from us. I resist the urge to scream at Ethan. “You didn’t see anyone on Susan’s back deck. You couldn’t have seen them from the woods because no one could see anything over that fence.”
When Ethan finally speaks, his voice is monotone. “I wasn’t in the woods at all. I was leaving your house.”
I swallow a bark of a laugh. “You were at my house.”
“Jen snuck me in,” Ethan says. “I left through her bedroom window. The one over your garage. I was on the roof when I saw what was going on in Susan’s backyard.”
“You were in Jen’s room,” I say slowly.
There isn’t a trace of embarrassment on Ethan’s face, but he starts bouncing his knee like he’s nervous. “It wasn’t like that. She was really sick. I just hung out with her until she fell asleep. I didn’t want to wake her up to sneak me back out, so I went through the window. Messed up my leg on the drop from the garage roof.”