Why Isn't Becky Twitchell Dead? Read online

  She blanched when she heard the amount it might take to free her son, then rallied quickly. I patted her arm sympathetically.

  “I want to see him,” she said.

  The lawyer, Frank, and the parents worked out logistics. Frank left to talk to Jeff. He came back with a puzzled expression on his face.

  He pointed to me. “He wants to see you.”

  “Why?” I asked.

  Frank shrugged.

  “He doesn’t want to see me?” Mrs. Trask asked.

  “No, ma’am, I’m sorry. He doesn’t want to see his father, either.”

  Mrs. Trask sat thoughtfully. Her puzzled look changed to one of confidence. “I’m willing to trust Mr. Mason, but I’d like to at least try and see him. Can you do that much?”

  “If we let you see him, we’ll have to let your husband in.”

  “I can control myself, you just keep that son of a bitch out of my way.”

  Sorting out who got to see whom when took some delicate negotiations, but in fifteen minutes, six of us jammed into the room.

  Jeff eyed us all suspiciously. After placing the lawyer in charge and warning the parents to observe the truce or face arrest themselves, Frank left.

  Jeff wore faded jeans torn at the knees. His hair, usually moussed to spiky straightness, leaned over in sporadic sworls. He wore a black Iron Maiden T-shirt. He sat in the room’s other chair. The lawyer and I remained near the entrance.

  As soon as the door closed, Mr. Trask began to pace the floor and berate his son.

  At first, the lawyer, a Mr. Dwyer, tried to shut Trask up. Nothing worked. Most of Trask’s accusations played on the themes of “Look what this girl did to you” or “You should have listened to me.”

  Three times, Dwyer tried to start a reasonable discussion. For one of the rare moments in my life, I almost felt sorry for a lawyer.

  Mrs. Trask eyed her husband with contempt but remained silent.

  After five minutes of listening to his dad, Jeff turned to face him. He said very quietly, “Shut the fuck up.”

  Mr. Trask bellowed in rage and launched himself at his son. Jeff leapt to his feet, sending the chair crashing against the wall. They grappled briefly. Dwyer grabbed Trask. I held on to Jeff. Mrs. Trask didn’t move. She sat with a satisfied smile on her face.

  Frank Murphy rushed in. “What the hell’s going on here?” he asked.

  After a few seconds, Jeff ceased struggling. I released my grip on him. An angrily red Trask demanded to be left alone with his son.

  “Keep that stupid shit away from me,” Jeff said. “I’d rather be in a cell than be alone with him.”

  Dwyer stood in front of Trask, forestalling another attack.

  Jeff said, “I asked to speak to Mr. Mason alone.”

  Mr. Trask erupted again. Jeff shoved his hands into his pants pockets and looked down. After his dad finished fulminating, Jeff said to the floor, “I’d like to talk with Mr. Mason. Just me and him.”

  “What about me, Jeff?” his mom asked.

  Jeff looked as stubborn but less combative than he had with his dad. “I’m sorry, Mom. A little later, but I’ve got to talk to Mr. Mason.”

  She stood up, faced me. “Be kind to my boy,” she said, and left.

  Frank got Mr. Trask and the lawyer straightened out. When only Frank, I, and the boy were left, Frank said, “Tom, this is extraordinary even for you.” He eyed me carefully.

  I remembered the time we’d stood together over the body of a seventeen-year-old honor student with a full scholarship to Harvard, a popular football player who’d committed suicide minutes before we’d arrived to stop him. I read the years of trust in Frank’s eyes. “Do what you can,” he said, and left.

  I sat on the table.

  Jeff paced the room. “I hate him,” he said. He stopped and turned to me. “Why did I have to get an asshole for a dad?” He picked up the chair, placed it next to the table, and folded himself into it. He looked up at me. “What’s going to happen to me?”

  “I don’t know.”

  His shoulders slumped. He rested his elbows on his knees, swung his hands. “I didn’t kill her,” he stated.

  I nodded and waited, let the silence build, then asked, “Why did you want to see me?”

  “You’re the only one I can talk to. I know what you did for Eric. He swore me to secrecy. He’s never told anybody else, don’t worry.”

  Over the years, some students had distorted my role in helping troubled kids. I know I have a dual reputation: one as an ex-Marine, a mini-Rambo, the other as a strict, boring English teacher. I preferred the latter to the former, and I knew which one was closer to reality. As for Eric: Outside the McDonald’s on 159th Street one July evening, the cops had searched him for a kilo of crack I’d convinced him to hand over not five minutes before. I wasn’t searched, and I kept my mouth shut. It would’ve meant a stretch in Stateville if the cops had found the drugs on the boy. I flushed the drugs down the nearest toilet while they interrogated the kid.

  I decided to start with something simple. “Tell me about you and Susan, when you met, that kind of stuff.”

  Jeff fidgeted in the chair, tapped his foot on the floor, and began cracking his knuckles. He scratched at an ugly pimple on his neck, a few inches below his ear. Finally, feet planted on the floor, hands resting on his widespread knees, he began.

  They’d attended the same grade school, but hadn’t gotten to know each other until the end of sophomore year. They dated that summer, and started going steady Christmas a year ago. “At first, it was great. She didn’t make me nervous. I liked being around her. She listened to my stories.”

  “What happened after ‘at first’?”

  “I guess I have to tell you because it’s all connected with last night.” He sighed, then continued. After a while, she’d changed, especially when she was with her friends. They’d laugh and make fun of him, tease him mercilessly. When they’d get alone, she’d keep teasing and then begin to nag and pick at him. He’d get pissed off, but she wouldn’t stop. They’d end up screaming at each other. Then one time, she’d slapped him, and he’d hit her back.

  He stopped the story. His eyes roved around the room worriedly, then came back to rest on mine. “Do I have to tell all this stuff?”

  “Your choice. If you think I can help you without it, or if it’s too embarrassing, fine. You decide. I suspect the police or your lawyer will need to hear all of it eventually.”

  He gulped and then went on. The first time they’d hit each other, they’d said they were sorry and had made up that night. He couldn’t look at me as he told the next part. “At the end of our dates, we usually made out for a while. We did that night, but it was as if the hitting each other made a difference. That night we went …” He stopped.

  I waited a beat, then finished for him. “All the way for the first time.”

  He nodded and resumed. “The next weekend, I wanted to do more than make out. You know. Do it again. She said no. We had a fight. Worse than before. She tried to slap me, but I grabbed her arm. She laughed at me. She made me so goddamn mad. We wrestled. I hit her a couple more times. She cried a lot. So did I.” His face turned red. He scratched at the zit again.

  “Stop picking at that,” I said.

  He looked at his hand guiltily. “Sorry,” he mumbled, then continued. “We made up and went all the way again. After a while, it got so I wanted to hit her. I knew it was wrong, but something would come over me. I wanted us to fight so I could get mad, and I knew we’d do it.”

  “Did you ever discuss the fights with her calmly? Not on a date? When there was a chance you wouldn’t fight?”

  “I tried. She said she didn’t want to talk about it, threatened to break up with me. I still wanted to go out with her. I knew what we did, the hitting and stuff, wasn’t right. I wanted to stop. Then on our next date, we’d go through it all again.”

  “Did either of you drink or do drugs on your dates?”

  “We didn’t
do this stuff because we were drunk or high. We wanted to. The most we ever had was a few beers, maybe a couple hits of dope if somebody else had some.”

  “What happened yesterday?”

  He drew a deep breath. “Yesterday started out okay. We went to Paul Conlan’s house to watch football and party.”

  Paul Conlan lived the life of a cliché—star athlete in three sports, wealthy parents, handsome, popular.

  “Paul’s my best friend. Seven of us showed up. I wanted to talk to her. I wanted to stop the fights even if it meant no sex. Even if it meant breaking up. I couldn’t take the fighting anymore.”

  He stood up and began to pace around the room. His untied tennis shoes flopped on his feet. He said, “I told her I wanted to leave early. She asked what for. I couldn’t tell her in front of her friends. She and her buddies started teasing me. Even the guys joined in. I saw the whole thing starting all over.” He leaned against the wall and thumped his fists against his thighs. “I memorized what I was going to say. But all the teasing and hassling pissed me off. When we got in the car to drive to my house, I hated her. I told her it was over between us.”

  “What’d she say?”

  “I think she must have figured that was the excuse for that night’s fight. I tried to stay calm. I told her I was serious. That the fights were over. I even pulled to the side of the road and tried to explain. She laughed at me, hit me, slapped me. I tried to stop her.”

  He walked over to me, head down, his hands out, pleading for understanding. “I hit her. Harder than ever before. She was unconscious. I got real scared.” He sat down and told the rest. He drove to a gas station to get some water. She came around but wouldn’t talk to him. Susan then spent fifteen minutes in the women’s room. When she came out, she ignored him and began walking away. He followed her and offered to drive her home or to a friend’s. She pushed him away, then swore at him and started swinging. He claimed he didn’t touch her or even lift a hand against her. He knew he couldn’t hit her. He said that by then he was crying, begging her to stop, to listen. Finally, she told him he was an asshole jock, and aimed a last kick. He tried to dodge, but she got him in the nuts. While he bent over, she laughed at him, slapped him with her purse, and took off running. He didn’t see her again.

  After he finished, he slumped down in the chair. I asked a few questions on details.

  He drove around until one in the morning. He had no witnesses for this. He sneaked into the house, avoiding his mom, who’d fallen asleep on the couch. At home, Paul Conlan had left a message for him to call no matter when he got in. He’d called Conlan, who had a private phone in his bedroom. Paul told him they’d found Susan dead. One of the kids at the party had seen the police cars at Susan’s house and called Conlan. Paul told Jeff the police were hunting for him. Jeff guessed he’d be suspected, figured he’d better not hang around the house. He thought he’d try to hide at a friend’s.

  I told him about seeing the kids in the police station earlier. He snorted contemptuously. “They wouldn’t help last night when I needed them.” He continued the story. He couldn’t stay at home, he was sure the police would be there. He didn’t want the hassle he knew he’d get from his mom. He drove around most of the night. He tried a couple friends. No one, including Conlan, would let him in. He watched for his mom to leave for work, then he entered the house. He didn’t answer the phone or the door, but his mom went home at noon and found him. She got mad when he wouldn’t talk to her, then later the police arrived.

  I asked him about Susan’s blood in his car.

  “In the fight, she got a bloody nose. They found my blood, too.” He rolled his sleeve up and showed me the gouges on his wrist and arm. “The police don’t believe I didn’t do it.”

  He claimed to know nothing about Susan’s activities after she’d left him. I tried various questions from different angles, but he stuck to his story. Finally, I asked whether there was anything else he could tell me.

  He hesitated. “One odd thing last night. After I called Paul, before I left the house, Becky Twitchell phoned. She almost woke up my mom. Becky told me to keep my mouth shut about the kids at the party. She warned me not to tell. You can’t be too careful with Becky. Bad things happen to people who cross her.”

  If they ever held auditions again for the Wicked Witch of the West, Becky would win. If a teacher strangled Becky in front of the entire student body at high noon, as long as there was one teacher on the jury, they’d never vote to convict. If there was a school rule she hadn’t broken, I didn’t know about it. Her mom is president of the school board. This explains a great deal.

  The teachers hate Mrs. Twitchell almost as much as they hate Becky. As a freshman, Becky had complained to her mom about one first-year math teacher. Becky had made the class a total hell, and her mom had made so much trouble with the administration that the teacher had simply quit—and she had the makings of a good teacher. Rumor had it that if you got hold of Mr. Twitchell, you might see some chagrin in his daughter for a day or two. I’d never seen evidence of this.

  The kid mouths off, talks back, hums, whistles, mumbles under her breath, or a combination of the above, in all classes. A large portion of the faculty believes Becky’s behind every evil perpetrated in the school, from break-ins to broken windows. If kids were rebellious, it was Becky’s fault for encouraging them. If there was cigarette smoke in the girls’ john, they were sure it was Becky. If anti-teacher hate graffiti appeared painted on the school walls, Becky got blamed. The rare times Becky’d been caught, Mom had stepped in. Becky would return to school the next day with a shit-eating grin. Whatever political pressure occurred, Becky never served a minute of suspension or detention. She always won. She frightened many of the teachers. The only one of us who’d defied her this year found his tires slashed in the parking lot that afternoon.

  I’d hated her last year as a junior. I’d felt her watching me in class, her mind whirling and calculating. I know, I know. As a teacher, you’re supposed to care and be impartial. Every teacher I remember as a kid had favorites. Every teacher I knew on the faculty at Grover Cleveland High School had favorites. Face it, some kids are assholes. Some are great to know. Most teachers try to be fair. I’ve never changed a grade no matter how intensely I liked or disliked a kid.

  “How do you get along with Becky?” I asked.

  “She’s Paul’s girlfriend. What’s to get along with? I try to stay out of her way. All the guys do. She’s vicious.”

  Almost casually, I asked, “Did you know Susan was pregnant?”

  His openmouthed surprise clicked in my mind as genuine. “She couldn’t be,” he said. “We always, I mean, I used, you know, protection.” He told me the story of how after they’d dated awhile, Mrs. Warren had made Susan go to a family-planning clinic. She wouldn’t talk to Susan about sex or being pregnant, but she made her go. Somehow, her mom had figured out about them. The clinic made Susan take Jeff along for a visit. After this explanation, tears rimmed his eyes, but he didn’t cry. He said, “I thought she loved me.”

  I told him about condoms not being 100 percent sure, but he remained adamant. It wasn’t him.

  I switched to asking him how he got along with his mom and dad. Mom was a shrug and an “Okay, I guess.” Much as I liked Mrs. Trask, I imagine she could be a bitch to live with. Mr. Trask was a sneer and an “I hate the bastard.” He saw his dad very rarely. Last summer had been an experiment because he’d had a fight with his mom. Annoying as life with his mom had been, the months with his dad were worse.

  I got the names of the other kids at the party. I’d want to talk to them the next day. We talked for a while longer, but he could give no indication of who might have wanted to hurt Susan, where she might have gone, or who she might have been with. His last plea was for me to please help him, and a powerful reiteration of his innocence.

  I told him it looked bleak but that I would do everything I could for him.

  When I returned to the front desk, Mr
. Trask and the group of kids had left.

  I talked with Frank briefly. The last thing he said was, “If you believe Jeff is innocent, then obviously somebody else did it. A good place to start is with the other kids at the party. My cop instincts tell me something is up with them. I’ve never met such a closed-mouth group. I wanted to find out some basic information about the party. I couldn’t get more than one or two words out of them. You’re good at getting teenagers to open up to you. I’d appreciate it if you’d talk to them. See if you can find anything out.

  I told him I’d give it a try.

  Mrs. Trask drove me home. I assured her that I’d help Jeff. When she stopped to let me out, she reached over and gave me an awkward hug. I told her I would talk to her the next day.

  I strolled between icy patches to the mailbox at the edge of the road. I could see Scott’s car up the driveway fifty feet, next to the house.

  Moonlight reflected off the windows of a car parked a hundred yards past my place. Cold night for kids to be out necking, I thought. The car’s lights flicked on. I pulled open the mailbox: bills and junk mail. The car moved forward. Our arrival probably scared them off. Kids like to use the unlighted roads around my place for trysting. As long as they don’t leave beer cans, used condoms, and other signs of teenage activity, I don’t care. Usually, they drive past my place to the dimmer shadows of the cul de sac formed by the intersection with Interstate 80, a mile farther down my road.

  The car shot forward. I eased a little farther off the pavement toward the mailbox. The car lights came straight at me and didn’t slow down. I turned to dive for the ditch at the side of the road. My feet caught on an icy patch; I slipped, fell, scrambled to move. The oncoming lights blinded me for an instant. On hands and knees, I lurched toward the ditch. I couldn’t get a grip because of the ice.

  2

  Horn blaring, engine roaring, the car flew by me. I’m still not sure how it missed. I got up, brushed myself off, and swore at the goddamn teenagers. The red taillights bobbed in the distance. I saw the car turn onto 183rd Street and race toward LaGrange Road. By the time I got in the house, found Scott’s keys, and gave chase, it would have been too late.