and a short top that revealed a flawless abdomen with navel pierce.
The room smelled like burning raspberries.
“Is Juliana all right?”
“She’s still missing.”
“Really?”
Stephanie sat up straighter, surprised.
“We’re hoping she’s all right.”
“Me, too. Definitely.”
But Stephanie’s hands were laid along her thighs so the elbows stuck out and the thumbs pointed down. In the Comprehensive Coding System for Emotional Recognition, should we be taping this interview and running it through a computer, we would call it a backward sign, like nodding yes when saying no. It meant there was some emotional leakage in that heartfelt answer.
“You guys are friends?”
“We chill.” She glanced at the boy.
“We don’t know her all that well,” he added.
Andrew was leaning against the wall, arms folded. He had made himself very still.
I sat down on the desk chair in front of a computer where instant messages were popping up like pimples. r u down for cj’s?when?you are all a bunch of fucking gangsta homosexuals!
“You know this person?” reading the screen name. “
“Not a clue.”
Stephanie jumped up and pumped the keyboard, fast, to get back to her screensaver, which turned out to be a blue mushroom. Thinking better of that, she shut the thing off completely.
There were a lava lamp and enormous plastic daisies and all sorts of furry accessories that shouldn’t have been furry, such as an orange furry phone. We let the music thump along until the tension in the room built nicely, and then I reached over and cut the sound with the touch of a button.
“So what do you want to talk to us about?” Stephanie asked.
Now they were both sitting apprehensively on the edge of the bed.
“Juliana was supposed to meet you the day she disappeared. What can you tell us about that?”
“We were going to do homework. We had a science experiment. We had to make a car out of paper.”
Andrew, as if we hadn’t heard this already from Mr. Meyer-Murphy: “How in hell do you make a car out of paper?”
“It’s stupid,” Stephanie replied. “The teacher gives you the answer.”
“What about Juliana?”
“She just never showed up.”
“Where were you supposed to meet?”
“At the bus stop.”
“What did you do when she didn’t arrive?”
“Called her cell. Got a recording, so I figured, whatever.”
“You called her from where?”
“A pay phone.”
“You sure?”
“Uh-huh.”
“You could show us which one?”
“If I could remember.”
Her cheeks were hot. She knew I would check it out.
Ethan was fidgeting with a silver chain that went from his belt loop to his wallet. He began flipping the wallet open and shut.
“What’s this?” asked Andrew, holding up a small black cone.
“Incense.”
“What’s wrong with incense?” demanded the boy.
“Watch out,” I told him, “or you’ll grow up to be a lawyer.”
“My dad already is a lawyer.”
Andrew nodded sagely and took his time replacing the incense on the little china plate. The boy’s eyes followed.
“What do you think happened to Juliana?” Stephanie was anxiously hooking the hair behind her ears with both hands now.
“We’re working on some theories. Tell me what it’s like at Laurel West.”
She shrugged. “A lot of people think it’s cold, but it’s really a good school. The teachers really care.”
“A lot of homework?”
They nodded in unison.
“Lots of pressure?”
“If you’re motivated, you’ll make it there.”
“And you’re motivated?”
“I want to get into a good college.”
“What about Juliana? Was she motivated?”
Ethan, carelessly: “She tried too hard.”
“Like how?”
“With the other kids.” He was suddenly uneasy. “I don’t know.”
“She’d invite you for a sleepover,” Stephanie jumped in, “and if you couldn’t come, she’d like keep on asking. Incessantly.”
“She could be a pest?”
“She didn’t mean to be. She was just—”
Andrew: “Out of it.”
“Kind of, socially … I don’t know. I don’t want to say
I was becoming more and more impressed by the way Stephanie reached out.
“We were on swim team together. She tried to be friends with the wrong people, and it just didn’t work.”
“She was playing the violin?” said Ethan. “And the bridge just flew off.”
They chuckled.
“Once, she couldn’t even get the case open. I felt sorry for her.”
Stephanie was holding something in her hands, a contraption made of lined paper and fasteners and rubber bands.
It is not unusual for people to give themselves away unconsciously. Once I interviewed a suspect who was wearing a white gold chain he had taken from a drug dealer he had just stabbed to death.
“What is that?” said Andrew. “Is that the car? Can I see?”
“Sure. It had to really work.”
Andrew twisted a paper clip, which torqued the rubber band up tight. He put the thing down, and it scurried across the red maple floor like a beetle.
“Cool.”
He had to retrieve it from under my chair.
“And what does that say right there? Looks like ‘Stephanie Kent and Juliana Meyer-Murphy’ and — what else? Help me out, I don’t have my glasses.”
He handed the car back to Stephanie.
And forced her to read the date she had written on the wheel, a date that was two weeks before.
“Is that the day you turned the project in? Two weeks ago? So you and Juliana weren’t working on it yesterday, were you?”
“We had other homework.”
“But why did you tell us, first thing, when we walked in here, that you and Juliana were getting together to make a paper car?”
