The Noah Confessions (13 page)

“Yes, I would,” I said.

He didn't like that. He ignored it.

“This is the last we're going to say of the matter. Now get her out of here. I have to go take care of your mother.”

He left me alone.

I sat in the kitchen for what seemed like a long time. I heard the pops and clicks of the oven cooling down. I heard my father walking around upstairs. I heard their mumbled voices in the bedroom. I finally found the muscles in my legs and I walked back into the living room. Cat was sitting there, staring at a wall, chewing on her shirtsleeve.

She looked at me and gave me a sad smile and she stood.

“They'll come around,” I promised without any evidence.

We stood face to face.

She kissed me on the cheek and walked out and didn't close the door behind her.

So much for my plan.

• 8 •

High school went on the way it always had except that Cat wouldn't look at me.

Our track team made it to the semifinals and the tennis team made it that far, too, so as late as May, we were all meeting in the parking lot, waiting for our rides. I knew all the reasons Cat couldn't look at me and I didn't know what to do. Sometimes I hovered near her while she sat on her books and wrote in a notebook. I wondered if she was writing me another letter. But a couple of times when I got close enough to look over her shoulder, I saw that she was just doing math equations. I felt as if the whole business between us had been a strange dream.

It was the beginning of June, when school was so close to being over we all felt cranky and excited and ready to say anything that I approached her. She didn't look at me as I talked. She was twirling her racket in her hands and staring at the motion.

Our conversation went like this:

“Hi, Cat. Did you win today?”

“Yeah, I took my match. Straight sets.”

“Congratulations. Did the team win?”

“Tie.”

“Bummer.”

The next day I asked her if she was ready for exams. She said she was worried about geometry. I said I was worried about English.

The next day I asked if she had cut her hair. It looked different. She said she had trimmed the ends, that was all.

And it went that way for a while, these formal conversations, her never looking at me, and me thrashing around for questions.

But this one day, when I felt courageous, about twelve days from school letting out, I sat down next to her and said, “Cat, we have to talk.”

“We have been talking.”

“No, not really.”

She stared at the ground and shook her head.

“Don't,” she said.

“I'm not giving up.”

“You should.”

“Look, I believe you. The fact that my parents couldn't believe you doesn't mean it's over.”

“It's over, John.”

“Only if you say so.”

Finally she looked at me. “I'm saying so.”

“You're making a mistake.”

She didn't say anything. She picked up a strand of hair and started inspecting the ends. I wanted to grab her.

“How can you do this?” I nearly yelled at her. She looked up at me calmly.

“Do what?”

“Act like it's all okay…it's all normal.”

“For me it is normal.”

“Not for me.”

“You'll have to learn to live with it.”

“I get it that you've worked out a whole system. But I'm not there yet. This is driving me crazy.”

“Get used to it.”

“I can't.”

“Play along.”

“I won't live like that.”

Now I was yelling and now she was looking at me, and so were some kids standing nearby, but I ignored them. There were tears in her eyes. I had gotten a reaction. I had broken through the mask.

She said, “Your family…Jackie's family…they're the only reason I told in the first place. For her. To make it okay for her. Because I knew her and I wanted to help and I…”

She stopped talking and put her face in her hands.

I hated to see her cry. I didn't know what to do. I knew enough not to touch her, though.

“I think we should go to the cops.”

She laughed. She said, “My dad is the cops.”

“He is?”

“The town council oversees the cops. They all know him. They play golf. They go to our church. Don't make me explain how this all works.”

“I know how it works. But there has to be one honest guy in Union Grade.”

She actually smiled at me, brushing away tears. “I think it might be you.”

I was so happy to see her smile I could barely form a thought. But I knew I had to keep her on track.

Cat said, “Like those ridiculous five minutes when your parents thought I was pregnant. Remember what your dad said? These things can be handled.”

“Yeah, I remember. But…”

“That's how everybody sees everything in this town. It can be handled. My father is a first-class handler. And he's not even in the inner sanctum. He's just acquainted with it. It goes deep. That's all I'm saying. And I don't even know why I'm saying this much.”

She stood up then and I had to stop her. It felt like my last chance because I knew it would get harder and harder to talk to her about this or anything.

“Just go with me. I'll do the talking. I'm an outsider so they'll have to listen to me.”

“You're not an outsider. Your dad's rich.”

“We're from up North.”

“He's a doctor. You're in.”

“All we can do is try, Cat. If we tell the cops and nothing happens, then we can know that nothing was supposed to happen.”

“Nothing was supposed to happen? Body down the well and moving on?”

I stood and touched her arm and she let me. I said, “Her parents are gone. They moved away. They might have adjusted to a new life somewhere. My mother has lost it and she just wants to believe Jackie's alive somewhere. If nothing happens it might mean that the damage is done and everybody's better off. I don't think so and neither do you. We have to try. We don't have anything to lose.”

“If my father finds out, I have something to lose.”

“What's he gonna do, ground you?”

“Kill me, John. Just like he promised a long time ago.”

“It was a threat. To a child.”

She thought about it. I could see her remembering. And then updating, seeing herself as she was now, almost an adult.

I said, “If we don't try, it's going to follow us for the rest of our lives. I believe that.”

She looked at me just as her father's car drove up.

“Tomorrow afternoon. We'll meet here,” I said.

“I have a game,” she answered.

“I do, too.”

She nodded. The games didn't matter.

And my last act of defiance, or reassurance, was to kiss her on the cheek right there in front of God and her father, and her mouth dropped open and I knew I would take care of her forever if she'd let me.

• 9 •

There was only one police station for the entire town of Union Grade, Virginia, and we sat in the waiting chairs for a long time. Finally a uniformed police officer came out to greet us. We stood up and shook his hand. His name was Billy Campbell. He was all of twenty-eight. He wanted us to call him Officer Campbell. And he wanted us to know he was very busy and asked if it would take long. I said it might. He stared at me, sizing me up, because the real question was whether or not it was serious and my eyes told him it was.

Then he looked at Cat and said, “How're your folks doing, Cat? I saw your dad on the golf course Saturday.”

“They're fine.”

“Haven't seen you on the course in a while.”

“I have tennis.”

“I guess that takes up time. You on the tennis team, too? Sorry, I forgot your name.”

“I never said it,” I told him. We were following him to his desk. Cops were watching us and I could feel Cat shrinking into her clothes.

“John Russo,” I told him, “and I run track.”

“Russo, that's Italian?”

“American. By way of Italy, I guess.”

“Your dad's the dentist.”

“Yep.”

We got to Officer Campbell's desk and it was only a few feet away from a few other officers' desks, and I saw Cat looking around. Then she looked at me and her eyes were pleading. I could see her losing her nerve.

I said, “Officer Campbell, we might need some privacy for this.”

“Privacy?” he laughed. “This is Union Grade. We don't have any privacy.”

Cat shook her head at me.

I said, “Isn't there another room?”

He looked at me and said, “There's the interrogation room, but that's for interrogations.”

“You can ask us questions, then.”

I was trying to be funny so he'd like us. He looked at his watch and finally said all right and he shouted to the other cops, “Boys, I got the interrogation room for the next five or so. Try not to arrest anybody.”

They laughed.

The interrogation room was just a room with a table and some folding chairs and a window, but not even a two-way mirror like they had on TV even back then. Cat and I sat down and I started talking while Officer Campbell was still pouring himself some coffee.

I told him the whole story without stopping and Cat chewed on her sweater sleeve and Officer Campbell looked from me to her and forgot to drink his coffee.

When I was finished he just pushed the cup aside and put his hands in prayer position and touched his bottom lip and stared just above my head. It seemed to take forever. I was holding Cat's hand under the table and it was cold and dry.

Finally, Officer Campbell looked at her but spoke to me.

“That's quite a story, Mr. Russo.”

“It's her story. But she wanted me to tell it.”

“The question is whether or not it's true. Cat?”

“Why would I make it up?” she said.

“I don't know. Your dad grounded you for something. Or he won't let you go out with Mr. Russo. Or he won't buy you a new car.”

“I love my father,” she said.

“Really. You love him. According to this, then, you love a murdering maniac.”

“He's not a maniac. He's a criminal. And he's my father.”

“You love him so much you want him to get arrested and go to prison?”

“I want to do the right thing.”

“I see.”

“Because of her.”

“Who's that?”

She looked at him as if he were crazy or evil or stupid.

“Jackie,” she said in a whisper.

He nodded.

Cat stood and said, “Never mind, I knew he wouldn't believe us.”

“I didn't say that. Sit down, Cat.”

She sat down.

“I've known your dad since I was little; my father and him are friends, so you can imagine how hard it is to hear.”

“Not as hard as it was to see.”

He sat back in his chair.

“I only brought up these other possibilities because I have to. I can't just take a teenager's word for something. Hell, everybody in town would get arrested.”

“You don't have to take my word. Go look down the well.”

“Go look down the well. You know how many abandoned wells there are in those woods? You know what it takes to look down one? Cameras won't reach that far. We'd have to send a man. With the unstable sides and all, I'd be risking someone's life. Look down a well, she says.”

Cat bowed her head, as if she were ashamed. I wanted to hit him.

She didn't cry, though. Cat was too proud for that.

“Here's what I'm going to do,” Officer Campbell said. “I'm going to get a notepad and pen and you're going to write all this down and sign it. After that I'll give it to my supervisor and he'll make a decision about how to proceed. Does that sound okay?”

She nodded.

“Do you want something to drink while I'm at it? Coke? Water?”

She shook her head. He didn't ask me if I wanted anything.

He excused himself and left the room. Cat and I didn't look at each other or say anything. I just held her hand and she let me. It didn't take him long to come back with the pen and paper and he brought her a Coke anyway. Then he said, “I'm going to give you some privacy while you're doing this. Just write it down like you told me. In detail. Much as you can remember. Then come find me out in the bull pen. Okay?”

She nodded.

“Mr. Russo, it'd be better if you waited outside. We got magazines out there.”

I looked at Cat and she nodded that it was okay, so I went with him.

I was looking at a back issue of
Field & Stream,
trying to stay interested because I didn't care about fields or streams, when I heard a commotion at the front of the station and I looked up to see Cat's father.

I'd never really seen him but I knew it was him.

She looked like him. That was a scary moment. She had his eyes. He wasn't smiling, but if he had been, it would have been her smile, too.

He was wearing a suit and he was talking in a loud voice to the desk officer, and Officer Campbell was hurrying over to him. He gestured for him to keep his voice down. It all came together in that moment and I got up and hurried to the room where Cat was and Officer Campbell saw me and yelled for me to stop right there. I thought I could get shot but I didn't care.

I flung the door open and said to Cat, “He's here. Let's go.”

She knew who I meant and her face went pale and she said, “Go where?”

“Out the window.”

“And then where?”

“We'll figure that out later. Stop arguing.”

She stood up very slowly and said, “John, there's nowhere to go.”

And I said, “Cat, I'll take care of you, trust me.”

She gave me this really sad smile with her lips pressed together and she still wasn't crying and the door burst open and there was her father and it was all over.