The Better Sister Page 12

  Ethan crossed his arms and set his lips in a straight line. It was the same expression I’d seen when he would butt heads with Adam. For a second, I understood the absolute fury Adam displayed in those moments, the recognition that the little boy who was your everything now believed that he knew the world better than you.

  I was struggling for the words that might convince him to trust me when I registered movement in my right periphery. Nicky was out of her seat. Ethan tried retreating toward his bedroom, but she herded him like a border collie toward the living room wall and snatched the device from his back pocket. He reached for it, but her stiff arm and stern glance subdued him in a way I had never seen before.

  She read the text aloud. “‘Dude, why aren’t you calling me back? Cops were here again. I had to tell them that you broke off on Friday.’”

  Nicky paused her reading to make eye contact with me, and I knew that something worse was coming. “‘I know you didn’t hurt your dad, but you might want to dump your bob. Sorry.’”

  At that point, I didn’t need to ask Ethan for an explanation. Context was everything. I remembered the half-pound bag of pot Adam had found in Ethan’s room and how certain he was that Ethan was selling it. I was the one who wanted to believe him when he said it belonged to a friend.

  “He’s covering his own ass, Mom.” I noticed Nicky look away when he called me Mom. “I’m not a dealer, okay? The whole idea of it’s totally ludicrous.”

  I had to remind myself that Ethan was only sixteen. Teenagers today are so cynical and exposed to so much. But, in the end, they simply haven’t lived long enough to recognize the degree to which things are right and wrong. A good kid knows the difference between the two—good and bad—but still can’t be expected to judge the scale of things on either side of the line.

  I played hooky once—and only once. It was in the ninth grade, and it was an absolutely perfect day outside and my friend Maddie Lyndon wanted to smoke cigarettes on the giant tire swings at Coventry PEACE Park. She smoked her unfiltered Camels while we passed between us a single bottle of Smirnoff Ice that she had pilfered from the overflow refrigerator in her garage. When I saw Coach Simon behind the wheel of a Ford pickup heading our direction, I nearly waved on instinct. But Maddie, the more experienced ditcher, grabbed me and we both dove to the ground to avoid detection. Peeking up at the last minute, we saw him lean over to plant a long, nasty kiss on our classmate, Leah Weller. I never told anyone, because, in my mind, I knew a teacher kissing a fifteen-year-old was wrong, and I knew cutting class to drink and smoke was bad. But as crazy as it would seem years later, I didn’t really understand that one was bad enough to warrant exposing the other. Instead, it felt like a draw, like we had all done something forbidden that day.

  I would have told Ethan that entire story so he might understand, but we didn’t have the luxury of time. “I don’t care about the pot,” I said.

  “So wait, the ‘bob’ we’re talking about is pot and not something worse?” Nicky asked.

  He shrugged. “It’s just what Kevin calls it. He plays Bob Marley when he gets stoned, so he’s all like, bob or whatever.”

  “What does Kevin mean by ‘you broke off on Friday’?” I asked.

  “He’s trying to make it sound like I’m the one selling—”

  “Ethan, stop it. I’m not your father. I’m not going to be mad at you, or disappointed. You need to tell me where you were Friday night. I told the police you were with Kevin, because that’s where I believed you were. Is he saying something different now?”

  Ethan scrubbed his scalp so frantically with his fingers, I was afraid he’d draw blood. “We didn’t go to the movie. It was sold out.”

  “Okay,” I said, trying to remain calm. “They asked me where you were, and I said you saw that movie based on what you told me, but that’s only from my perspective. Did you tell the detective you saw the movie?” I was already spearheading a strategy to explain the discrepancy. Change of plans. Confusion of tense. A misunderstanding.

  “No, of course not, because we didn’t go. But I guess Kevin said we did. He told me yesterday when we went by his house to pick up my backpack. He made it sound like the cop steered him to it. Like, ‘we just need to confirm you both went to the movie.’ He assumed that’s what I told them, so he repeated it, because what really mattered is we were together.”

  I wanted to build a time machine and crawl back into it. Nicky was right. I never should have let Guidry speak to Ethan without me. “But you weren’t together? You broke off?”

  For the first time, I felt as if Ethan were looking to Nicky for help. “Eyes on me, Ethan. I asked you a question.” If he thought I was grilling him, there was no way he could handle Guidry and Bowen.

  “We were apart for like, an hour. At most.”

  “Jesus, Ethan. Why didn’t you tell the police that? I don’t even know what to do with you right now.”

  “When Dad found that pot last summer? It really wasn’t mine. I was telling the truth about holding it. It was for Kevin while he worked his shift at K-Mart. He totally freaked when you dumped it down the sink. I mean, I paid him back for the cost, but he had plans to sell that to all the city kids through the summer. And Kevin’s like my magnet to everyone I know on Long Island. He was dropping by a couple of houses Friday to do some deals. And I was like, no way can I go, because I knew Dad would kill—” His eyes began to water, but then he shook his head and regained his composure. “You saw how pissed he’s been lately, especially at me. I wasn’t about to get caught in the middle of some drug deal. So Kevin dropped me off at Main Beach and I just hung out until he was done. That’s all.”

  I pressed my eyes shut and rubbed them. I wanted to scream at Ethan to wake up, but I knew from experience he would only shut down. Ethan was at his best when you allowed him to make his own choices.

  When I’d first noticed his stoic response to his father’s death, I told myself it was because the news had been delivered by a total stranger. Since then, I had attributed his detachment to his tendency—shared with his mother—to find humor in every situation. But for the life of me, I could not understand why he would have withheld information from a police officer during his father’s homicide investigation.

  I had been so focused on dragging information from Ethan that I hadn’t noticed that Nicky had her hands on her head and was physically trembling. It was as if her whole body was being jolted with electrical current. “Oh my god. We have to do something.” Whatever humor she had been able to find when she thought the police suspected me was gone now that we were talking about Ethan. But Ethan still didn’t understand the implications of his friend’s text.

  He slipped his hands into his pockets. “What was I supposed to do? Narc Kevin out? It’s not like he hurt Dad or anything. It was totally unconnected. And if I had told her I hung out alone for an hour, she would’ve wanted to know why. And then Kevin would have gotten busted, and I’d look like a bad kid by association. And now that’s exactly what the cops are going to think.”

  “Ethan, were you high on Friday?” I asked. “Is that what you didn’t want to tell the police?”

  His shoulders began to shake as the severity of the situation descended upon him. I stepped toward him and pulled him into my arms. To my surprise, Nicky did the same. Our kid was in trouble, and we both knew it.

  Nicky was the one to convince Ethan to leave his phone in the living room with the two of us while we spoke in private. The last thing we needed was to have Ethan text something that one of his friends would post on Snapchat or sell to a gossip website.

  Nicky was running her half-painted fingernails through a tumble of dark blond waves she had draped over one shoulder. “We have to do something. I can’t believe this. My kid’s going to be treated as a murder suspect because he’s covering for some 90210 pot peddler?”

  “He doesn’t have a lot of friends,” I said.

  I heard Nicky mutter something about wondering where he got that from.<
br />
  I didn’t need her to guilt-trip me about this. That’s why I had never mentioned the incident last year with the gun in his backpack. For so many years, I had been able to assure her that Ethan was happy, smart, thriving, funny—all the other adjectives that kept her content with the idea that she had basically lost her son, but that he was having a better life because of it. The few times he’d gotten in trouble, I thought I was handling the situation, protecting him from an overreaction. But now, here we were.

  “I’m pretty sure the police think Ethan killed his father.” It was the first time I’d been able to speak the words aloud.

  “I agree,” Nicky said. “It was better when I thought they were accusing you.”

  Totally deadpan, once again. I was starting to remember what it was like to live around my sister. “I think I need to get him a lawyer.”

  “Why don’t you call your boyfriend? What? I mean, if I had to guess . . . that’s apparently your type. Is that the Bill name you gave the cops?”

  “Will you stop? He’s the magazine’s lawyer, and he’s eighty years old.”

  Of course, I didn’t tell her that “the boyfriend” she was asking about worked at the same firm, two offices down from Adam. The reality is that I couldn’t think of a better person to give me a referral for a criminal defense attorney than Jake. And a phone call to one of my husband’s law partners wouldn’t look suspicious, even to Nicky, who apparently knew my tell.

  “I’ll call someone at Adam’s firm.” I made a point of looking up Jake Summer’s contact information in the master contact list on my computer, then using our landline to call his phone number. The least intimate method of communication possible.

  “Hey,” he said. So much feeling with that one little word. His voice was tender and caring. I wanted to fall into it.

  “Hi, Jake,” I said, trying to sound businesslike. “I’m so sorry to call you.”

  “Of course you can—”

  “Thanks so much for asking. Yes, we’re holding up as best we can. But I have a favor that I wish I didn’t need to ask.”

  “Chloe, stop it. Of course I’d do anything—”

  In an instant, I saw a life I might be living if I had left Adam the way Jake wanted me to. Somewhere in my gut, I knew none of this would be happening now if I had simply walked away.

  “We have attorney-client privilege, right?”

  “Yeah, of course. As long as you’re contacting me in my capacity as a legal advisor. Is that what’s happening here?”

  “I need to call a criminal defense attorney. Not someone like you or Bill. Someone who could potentially handle a homicide case.”

  “Oh, Chloe. The police can’t possibly think—”

  “Someone who could represent a teenager, for example.”

  “Oh my god. I’m coming over right now. Please. Let me help you.”

  I felt my eyes begin to water. I wanted to travel back in time and undo so many choices. “A phone number. And a name. Really, that’s what I need right now.”

  The name he gave me was Olivia Randall. After a quick Google search to make sure she was legit, I made the call.

  Forty minutes later, Guidry and Bowen were back. And this time, there was no call from the doorman to announce their arrival. They had six officers in uniforms with them, and a search warrant.

  21

  Guidry watched over us in the living room while the other officers—all men—swept through the apartment as if they were expecting henchmen with machine guns to ambush them from the closets.

  “You were just here. Is this all necessary?”

  Guidry was silent until someone—Bowen, I thought—yelled “Clear!” from Ethan’s room. “We have the right to keep you here while we execute the warrant, but to be clear, you’re not under arrest.”

  “We have a lawyer on the way,” Nicky said.

  “That’s all fine and well,” Guidry said, “but that’s not going to change anything about the search warrant. Now we’re going to do a brief pat-down on all three of you just to make sure you’re not holding anything that might be used to hurt us, okay?”

  A uniformed officer thoroughly patted down my terrified son, checking his pockets and inside his waistband, while Guidry used a cursory back of the hand for Nicky and me.

  “We’ve got some sharp objects over here,” one of the officers noted, gesturing to the coffee table.

  “It’s stuff I use for jewelry,” Nicky explained. “Trust me, a paper cut would be worse.”

  The officer inspected a pair of wire cutters and tucked them into his already-loaded belt. I couldn’t believe this was happening. They were frisking us and seizing Etsy tools. Nicky rolled her eyes, and for the first time ever, I wished I had her fuck-it, this-is-bullshit attitude. I was the one who was always worried about low-probability but high-consequence outcomes. I was also the one who tended to trust authority. Even now, when I saw clickbait about police supposedly getting something wrong, something in me said “There must be more to the story.” Deep down, in my fearful, rule-abiding core, I believed that if the police were in my apartment with a warrant, they knew they were going to find something.

  I was picturing the burner phone in my desk when the apartment door opened. Olivia Randall was pretty with dark, straight, shoulder-length hair, angular features, and an athletic build. She wore jeans, a black T-shirt, and flats, and had probably pulled on the blazer at the last minute when I begged her to come over as soon as possible. The fact that she recognized my name as soon as I uttered it probably explained the instantaneous house call.

  She immediately homed in on me. “We okay here?” she asked, taking in the activity unfolding around us.

  I handed her the document that Guidry had served me. She gave it a cursory glance before focusing on Guidry. “I’m Olivia Randall, and I represent Ms. Taylor and her son, Ethan.”

  Guidry told her to feel free to review the warrant.

  “I just did, and even from the face of it, I can tell that it’s overbroad. Do you have any reason to believe that Ms. Taylor is holding evidence of a crime?”

  “The warrant speaks for itself.”

  “It does, and it’s obvious that you have treated Ms. Taylor and her son as if they were equal co-occupants of a particularly large residence for New York City, without making any attempt to discern between separate living spaces.”

  The tit for tat that followed was quick and technical, but I could make out the arguments. Guidry believed the whole apartment was fair game. My stranger of a lawyer was claiming that they were obligated to carve out areas of the apartment that were under the control of individual people.

  “My office,” I blurted out. “I’m the only person who uses it, exclusively for business. I can prove it. I took a home deduction on it and survived an audit. That’s got to mean something.” I had rolled Nicky’s suitcases into the closet as soon as I was alone in the room. Sometimes excessive neatness comes in handy.

  Olivia Randall jumped on the information and then started building the case against searching my bedroom.

  “It was the victim’s bedroom, too,” Guidry said. “No dice.”

  She left us momentarily and disappeared, first into our bedroom and then into Ethan’s. As she stepped back into the hallway, she paused at my open office door.

  “I take it this is your workspace?” she asked.

  I nodded, and Guidry pulled the door shut. “Great. Now Ms. Randall can justify the thousand dollars an hour she’s going to charge you for being here.”

  “You don’t need to have them standing here, either,” Olivia said.

  “No one’s leaving,” Guidry said.

  “At least let them sit in the office until you’re done.”

  Guidry shrugged, and we shuffled single file down the hall. Once we were alone, Olivia introduced herself.

  “I didn’t understand any of that,” Ethan said. “Why did they need a warrant? And why is this room off-limits but the rest of the apartment isn’t?�
��

  I started to tell Ethan that they had a right to look around our apartment, as they had at the house, because Adam was a crime victim, but Olivia shot me a sharp glare. “I’m sorry, Chloe, but you’re not helping right now.”

  When I opened my mouth to speak, Nicky shook her head.

  “Ethan,” Olivia continued in a firm voice, “you already know that your friend Kevin told the police you were by yourself for an hour Friday, not far from your house, after you had told them you were with Kevin all night long. Clearly they have used that information—and perhaps more—to get a search warrant. Unlike the crime scene processing they did in East Hampton, this is a search for criminal evidence based on probable cause against a specific suspect.”

  I doubted if anyone had ever spoken so directly to Ethan before, let alone about a subject so serious. He wouldn’t stop blinking. “A suspect? But then how come they’re not in here?” His question provided its own answer. He looked at me and collapsed in on himself, hunching over and crossing his arms.

  Nicky and I were patting him on the back, telling him it was going to be okay, but Olivia Randall kept on lawyering. “No matter what happens here tonight, Ethan—all of you—it’s only the beginning of a process, okay? It’s possible that nothing will happen at all, but even if they find something that’s a problem, there’s an investigative process, charging, a grand jury—nothing that gets decided today is permanent.”

  This time, I knew exactly what she was talking about. I had been married to a prosecutor. She expected Ethan to be arrested.

  “None of us is going to talk to them without Olivia present,” I said. “Does everyone understand that?”

  Ethan was nodding, but I could tell he was scared and going along with anything we said. Olivia was more firm. “Ethan, I need you to practice this with me. ‘I’m not talking without my lawyer.’”

  She made him say it ten times. By the end, he gave a small smile at the absurdity of it.

  “And you remember my name?”

  “Olivia Randall,” he repeated. She was pretty. My son remembered the names of pretty girls.