Father quickly brings out two folding chairs and puts them on the back deck, allowing me and Donald some privacy. It sits and so do I. Father leaves.
"So," I say, "what do you want to talk about?"
"Well," it says, opening his briefcase on the ground and taking out a notebook, "what can you tell me about Coyle Haven?"
All I really know about Coyle is that he screamed loud and was annoying. I never really had a friendship with him or even consider him an acquaintance. He just happened to be unlucky enough to meet me in the park, alone at night during a period of personal mental anguish that I happened to cure temporarily by lashing out at him. I took him deep into the woods, and he followed like a lamb to the slaughter. Once mute, I carried him over my shoulders in the night through the small woods behind my house, over the backyard fence, and into the garage to finish the job and cut him up for easy disposal.
"Not much," I admit. "I'm… at a loss. Like, I know he was totes nice—" a lie. From what I heard, he was actually kind of a jerk— "and I feel horrible about what happened to him."
Donald looks at me, his eyes glued to my own. Is he searching for signs of fear? Apprehension?
It nods. "Leni," it says, looking down at its notepad and writing something, "even if you don't know much about him, do you have any idea why someone he knew may have been angry with him? Do you think you know of anyone that could have a motive to… do harm to Coyle?"
I pretend to think for a moment and shake my head. "Not that I know of. I don't know much about him, and from what I do know, he got along well with others."
It nods.
"And, like," I continue, "I don't know why this happened to him of all people. Our school isn't perfect, there's a bunch of people there that can be really mean to others sometimes. It almost makes me think, uh, someone was just lashing out on him because he was an easy target or just the first person they saw when they got really mad or something."
It had been writing, but the detective looks up at me when I say this. "That's very insightful, Leni," says Donald. "What makes you say that?"
Only now do I realize that I might have said too much, and I quickly need to recuperate. "I just think, like, why Coyle? He wasn't especially nice or mean. He was the most average guy I probably knew. He's the last person I'd imagine this kind of thing happening to… I mean, like, before, I never imagined someone being killed in the first place… but I don't think anyone had any special motivations to kill Coyle. It doesn't make sense. That's why I think it might have been a spur-of-the-moment kind of thing, or whatever you call it."
It nods. "You seem to be pretty comfortable talking about things like this. Most of the students I've talked to so far have been much less willing to bring up the topic."
I bite my tongue.
"You're also the only one who's referred to Coyle exclusively with past tense words."
Silence hangs in the air.
"Now," it eventually says, "I'm not accusing you of anything of course, but, Leni, I'd like to know. Just out of curiosity. Where were you the night of Coyle's initial disappearance?"
My chest tightens.
I begin to speak up with a lie, but quickly stop myself. "When… exactly was that?" I say, not wanting to give away too much information. The body wasn't discovered until two days after that night. Letting Donald know that I knew the exact night Coyle was gone would raise lots and lots of suspicion.
"That would be the 8th of September."
I nod, thinking. "I was… gosh, I guess I was probably at the mall."
"The mall."
"Uh-huh."
It flips a few pages back in its notebook. "That's…" It squints at his notebook. "That's not the information that I've been given."
"What?"
"According to your friends, that day you had been invited to a party, but refused because that night you said you would be busy getting your watch fixed."
My blood runs cold. "Yeah, I remember." I nod a bit too quickly. "I was going to the watch store in the mall."
"The Royal Woods mall?"
"Yup."
"I'm not aware of any watch store in that mall. Are you sure?"
My stomach turns to ice. "Uh, I'm pretty sure… if not, then I might have thought there was a watch store there."
It flips more pages through its notebook. "From what I've learned from your friends and people that knew you, Leni, you like to spend a lot of time at the mall. It's your favorite place to be. Correct?"
"Yeah."
"And you didn't know that there wasn't a watch store there? It's not an especially large mall."
I put a thoughtful finger to my chin. "No, I guess not."
There's a brief moment of silence before he nods slowly. "Okay. I see." He motions to the back door. "That's all for now. You are free to go."
Though it's chilly outside in the Royal Woods morning, I'm sweating as I walk on the side of the road. The interview with the detective yesterday did not at all go as smoothly as it could have. While I'm usually great at being who I need to be, at faking whatever emotion I need to, for some reason, that was difficult for me to do during my time with Donald. This frightens me greatly.
It's Saturday, and I had planned to meet up with Walter near Nameless Lake. It's not really called that; on no map of Royal Woods, the lake actually has no name. It's just too small and obscure. Thus, the youth of Royal Woods have come to refer to it at Nameless Lake. I come up to the bench that we had agreed to meet up at, sit, and look out at the lake. It's an amazing view.
I don't have to wait long before he comes up the path and approaches me. "Hi, Lori. You ate breakfast, right?"
"Yeah," I lie.
"Me too. Wanna get some coffee? I know a good place not too far from here."
"That sounds lovely, Walter."
We eventually take our seats at an outdoor table at a coffee shop. He offers to go in and order for us both, and I ask him to get me a small coffee, black.
"Uh, black coffee? You sure?"
"I always drink black coffee," I answer truthfully. "Everyday at home."
He chuckles. "Lori Loud, I have a lot to learn about you."
In his absence, I look at the table in front of me; a woman is reading the newspaper, and on the front page I see a picture of a wildfire in California. This makes me think. I have never firebombed anything and I start wondering how one goes about it—what materials are involved, gasoline, matches… or would it be lighter fluid?
"Here you go," Walter says, putting my black coffee in front of me and sitting. He takes a sip of his own, obviously not prepared for how hot it is.
"Thanks, Walter."
He looks at me curiously as I take a sip of my own. "Uh, does that stuff taste good?"
"Tastes like shit," I admit.
"...Then why do you drink it?"
I put my drink down on the table. "I… to tell you the truth, I don't really know."
There's a moment of silence, and then he shrugs. "Everyone's different, I guess."
We both look as not too far from us, on the other side of a street, a cat pounces on a bird. It bites at it for a few moments before growing bored and walking off, leaving the poor bird hanging on to life.
"That's just sick," Walter says. "I hate cats. They're the sociopaths of the animal world."
"What do you mean, Walter?"
"I've never seen anything in a cat's face but simpering incuriosity and self-interest." He takes a sip of his coffee. "You only had to tease one with a mouse-toy to see where it's true heart lay… cats are all about using people"
I think back to a play that me and my siblings put on for my parents, and I wonder why I dressed up as a cat of all things.
Walter continues to talk, but I'm not really listening at this point. I can only think that it did not occur to me, ever, that people were good or that a man was capable of change or that the world could be a better place through one's receiving another person's love or kindness.
This was how I lived my life for as long as I could remember. I don't remember my happiest day. I don't remember ever being happy. I try to expand my knowledge by reading one book a week, but I fear that it is all for nothing. What's the point? What's the point in anything?
Love is mathematics, nothing more than a chemical reaction and random chance. Generosity and selflessness is a joke. Ambition is a lie. Our world is run by sociopaths willing to do anything to get ahead.
Our society is fake, plastic and surface-level, no wonder sociopaths get ahead; we see it reflected nearly everywhere. When you do a job interview, you are taught to smile and shake hands and laugh when you don't feel the need to do so naturally.
Confessing to Lincoln my sins is, I fear, the only way I can change, to be able to enjoy banal and ultimately pointless things like smiles and standing up for a friend. Though I mock those that get off on simple things like hanging out with friends because they enjoy it and not because they need to maintain an image, or people who actually, even just sometimes, put others ahead of themselves, I want nothing more than to be capable of these things and more. I long for it, I need a taste. As soon as I get the chance, I'll tell Lincoln everything. I really don't know what I'll do from there, but it's my best option.
"...I play piano, you know," Walter is saying, "and the piece I'm working on right now is really good. The only problem is that it's really complicated. My teacher keeps on making changes to it. I'm just worried she'll change it so much to the point where we'd no longer be keeping the integrity of the piece..."
Walter, I think, integrity's a neutral value. Hyenas have integrity, too. They're pure hyena.
Monday. At lunch, I begin to walk over to the table I usually sit at with Blair and Becky and some other friends that I really don't know the names of, but before I get there, one table away from them, I see Walter and Chaz sitting. On impulse, I decide to sit down with them instead.
"Hi, Lori," Walter says as I put down my lunch bag at the table.
Chaz looks confused as Walter calls me Lori, and I can see him about to speak up, almost certainly to question this, but I cut him off.
"Hi, Walter. Hi, Chaz. Did you two hear about the accident?"
Both consider this then shake their head.
"No, Leni," says Chaz. "What accident are you talking about?"
I pause. What accident? I was only trying to stop Chaz from speaking. I have no idea what I'm talking about.
"There was… a car accident," I quickly say. "This morning. I… I hit a cat with a car."
"Ouch," says Walter.
Chaz looks up at me, realizing something. "Wait, Lori, you don't have a license."
I giggle. "Did I say car? I meant lawnmower. I ran it over with my lawnmower… shredded the poor thing."
"You were mowing your lawn before school? In the morning?"
I nod my head.
There is a pause as we eat. I take out my lunch. It consists of a salad (extra grape tomatoes, always), a bottle of water, and a sandwich made of a single piece of bread (cut in half so one half could go on the bottom and one could go on the top), a slice of cheese, and a slice of ham.
"Leniiiii," wails Blair from the table behind me, "Why aren't you sitting with us?"
I turn. "I was just having a fascinating chat with Chaz and Walter. Walter is so interesting. Did you know he's an expert on overpopulation?"
He chuckles nervously. "Well, I wouldn't say I'm an expert."
"No, it's true," I assure. "Walter here is a passionate liberal. He knows all about how wasteful our species is! How almost all of us have six-foot-wide plasma TVs that eat up massive amounts of energy, even when we're not even using them! How we strip-mine ancestral hills and feed the coal-fired generators that are the number-one cause of global warming and other excellent things like acid rain."
By now, everyone at Becky's table as well as Walter and Chaz are looking at me, shocked. This is not Leni Loud talk, but I continue regardless.
"Walter is very passionate about the fact that we are adding almost thirteen million human beings to the population, in this country alone, every month!" I get up and stand on top of the lunch table. "THIRTEEN MILLION MORE PEOPLE TO KILL EACH OTHER IN COMPETITION OVER FINITE RESOURCES! AND WIPE OUT EVERY OTHER LIVING THING ALONG THE WAY!" I'm yelling, now. "IT IS A PERFECT FUCKING WORLD AS LONG AS YOU DON'T COUNT EVERY OTHER SPECIES IN IT! WE ARE A CANCER ON THE PLANT! A CANCER ON THE PLANET!"
As I calm down, and catch my breath, I look around the cafeteria. It is now dead silent, and every single person in the room is looking my way.