“I smacked him upside the head and said he was a fucking asshole.” Jordan sucks on his cheek.
“Have you told anyone?” I ask, not sure what I want his answer to be.
Jordan shakes his head. “I tried to tell Dylan once but he wouldn’t listen. He said Heller’d never do that to him. So, I kept it to myself after that. Figured no one would believe me.” He looks up again. “No offense.”
“None taken.”
“Kid was the best, but he was also a piece of shit. Never could really forgive him after that. Bet you’re glad he’s dead. You should thank whoever did this, you really should.”
My blood runs cold looking at Jordan’s pleased expression, at how relaxed he seems.
“How can you say that?” Anger rises in my voice.
Jordan looks me up and down. “You know, you’d be the one with the motive if people found out you took the blame and now regret that decision. I don’t know if I’d want that information coming out... people accusing you and all.”
“I’d never hurt Heller,” I say, tears pricking my eyes.
“Like he’d never hurt Dylan? Like he’d never hurt you?” Jordan reaches for another cigarette and we stand there as the rain pummels the cement around us. “I don’t think you did anything to Heller, but other people in this town might. I’m telling you to watch your back, that’s all. Don’t go asking your questions too loudly, you know?”
“Fuck you.” I fumble for the keys to the van.
“Good luck, though.”
“With what?”
“Finding out who did this.”
---
My hands shake on the steering wheel as I pull up to the County Clerk’s Office, trying to push Jordan from my mind. If he didn’t kill Heller, maybe his death reallywasan accident? All I know is that Heller’s office better have some answers.
I throw the van in park and peek through the windshield at the tall brick building. Since it’s a Saturday, all the lights are off and there are no cars in the parking lot. I hold Heller’s badge tight in my grip as I dart to the side door where the ID scanner is tacked up against the wall. My plastic poncho sticks to my skin as I fumble with Heller’s badge. I hold my breath but it works immediately, buzzing the door open.
I’ve never been inside the clerk’s office. Never had any interest.But it’s like Heller described it. One big room with lots of desks and floor-to-ceiling bookcases lining the walls. They’re all filled with bound books, newspaper clippings, and cardboard boxes. Heller said the good stuff—theoldstuff—was in the basement, with some super complicated filing system he was always trying to learn. He often said he was worried a big storm or a flood would take the whole thing out, destroying every piece of evidence that Roxwood existed at all, since they could never afford proper barriers or insurance.
The room smells old, like a musty library that hasn’t been cleaned in a while. I scan the corners of the ceiling for security cameras and don’t see any. My shoulders relax a bit and I shimmy out of my poncho and shoes, discarding all my wet stuff in the hallway.
When I glance at the clock, I see I’ve already been gone from camp for half an hour. I have to make this fast.
I weave through the desks looking for Heller’s, any indication that he had claimed a certain space. It takes me a few minutes, stepping over piles of notebooks and bins filled with shredded paper, until I find his desk, tucked away in the third row closest to the wall.
No surprise, the desk next to him has a nameplate sayingSALLY BURKE. But I can’t worry about that right now.
My stomach flips when I see the way he kept it, neat and tidy, like his bedroom. A few paperback books are lined up against the back of it, all nonfiction titles about the history of New England. A Roxwood hockey mug sits next to the clunky desktop computer.
But then I see what’s tacked to the corkboard and my heart almost bursts from my chest. A photo of us. It was taken without either one of us knowing at a random party in the fall. We’re facingeach other, keeled over in laughter, in love. Heller’s eyes are on me and I’m holding myself up with one hand on his chest, the other on my heart. We look so happy.
I can’t believe he kept this.
My legs begin to shake and I drop to the office chair, sinking into the seat. I unpin the photo and hold it in my hands. I don’t know whether to crumple it up and toss it in the garbage or hold on to it forever.
This kind of grief is strange because it feels unearned. I’m not quite sure it belongs to me at all since I hadn’t known Heller in his final days or weeks or months. Certainly not enough to warrant the pit in my stomach, the raw scratching at my throat, the tears that sting and vanish before they can fall. I’m not worthy of this grief. It only makes me feel guilty.
I force myself to open my eyes anddosomething. I have to do what I came here for. Find whatever he wanted Cal to know. There must be something on the computer. I toggle Heller’s mouse, but when the screen appears, I have to enter a password.
Obviously.
Heller was so private about his tech, there’s no way I’d know it. I push the chair back and pull out the drawers in the metal filing cabinet by my side. The first one is empty, save for some pens and Scotch tape, but the bottom one is stuffed with folders, all labeled in alphabetical order. I can’t search through all of this in time—or bring it back to Camp Alpine Lake without anyone seeing. But I thumb through them, trying to see if anything pops out.
