10
“I think we should look at Wells,” Holiday announced grandly.
I frowned. “Wait,” I said, momentarily taken aback. It was later that afternoon; we were sitting on the patio at an ice cream shop she liked in Edgartown, the kind of place where even just one scoop in a cup cost eleven dollars and they only had weird flavors like green tea and everything bagel. “You have?” I’d been looking forward to seeing the surprise on her face when I told her what I’d learned from Birdie that morning; in fact, I’d spent the whole ride over here practicing my delivery. It was a tiny bit disappointing, if not a giant shock, to find out I was still a step behind. “Why?”
Holiday shrugged. “I mean, all the reasons you mentioned the other day, to begin with,” she said reasonably, licking the back of her spoon. She’d gotten a scoop of lavender, which she insisted was delicious, though when I’d tried it myself, it tasted like a dusty bar of soap or the kind of candle they’d burn for ambience in a nightgown shop for old ladies. “Plus I stalked him a little bit on myphone, and let’s be real, if anybody at August House gives off the faint whiff of expensive shampoo and violent sociopathy, it’s him.”
I glanced down at my pretzel cone, which held two unpleasantly spicy scoops of something purporting to be chipotle–chocolate chip, and remembered the sting of the orange against the naked skin of my back. “I mean, you’re not wrong.”
“The problem is we have zero proof.” Holiday sat back in her chair, her broad shoulders pink and freckled in the afternoon sunlight. “Like, yes, it definitely seems like he’s capable of hurting someone, but for all we know, his deepest, darkest secret is an extensive collection of vintage Hello Kitty memorabilia. We can’t just stroll into the police department likeDon’t worry, professional law enforcement officials, here we are with our big weird hunches!We have to have actual, incontrovertible evidence.”
I felt myself startle at that. I guess I hadn’t really thought about what might be waiting at the end of this particular trail of bread crumbs; that day on the patio, the idea of turning Wells—or anyone else—over to the police still felt vaguely ridiculous and far-fetched. As far as I knew, nobody at August House had heard anything from Reyes or O’Neal since the morning after the party, which I could only suppose meant they were satisfied that whatever had happened to Greg had been an accident. Whatever proof we brought them—assuming we could find any—would need to be pretty convincing.
Still: “I might have a place for us to start, actually,” I told Holiday, then filled her in on what Birdie had said in the kitchen that morning.
By the time I was finished, Holiday’s dark eyes were shining. “I knew you had it in you,” she told me, her smile wide and white and dazzling across the table.
“And what’s that, exactly?” I raised my eyebrows.
Holiday lifted her cup, tapping it gently against the remains of my cone in a dorky little toast. “Truly brilliant detective work,” she said.
I made a face, but the truth is I was weirdly flattered. It had given me an unexpected rush, what Birdie had told me this morning; more than that, it was a thrill to have something of value to bring to Holiday, even if it did make me feel a tiny bit like a dog dropping a dead squirrel onto its master’s doorstep. This whole time I’d been telling myself this was Holiday’s circus—that I wasn’t even convinced an actual crime had been committed, that I could walk away whenever I chose. But it turned out that I was invested now too.
We tossed our trash and headed down the tourist-clogged street, which was lined with tiny jewel-box shops that sold organic soaps and ethically made Montessori toys and a six-hundred-dollar designer raincoat that Holiday pulled me inside the store to properly admire. “Oh, that’s cute,” she said, reaching out to gently touch one rubbery sleeve.
“I mean, sure,” I said, “if you want to spend half a month’s rent to look like the Gorton’s Fisherman.”
“It’s an Oak and Thunder,” the salesgirl informed us, footsteps echoing on the wide wooden planks of the floor as she hurried over. “Isn’t it fantastic?”
“I love it,” Holiday said—or something like that, anyway. I hadalready drifted boredly across the shop. I remembered this from when we used to hang out all the time: the occasional stark reminder that, as unaffected as Holiday acted by her parents’ wealth, at the end of the day she had a hell of a lot more in common with the Kendricks than she ever had with me. Sure, her mom and dad went to fundraisers for Democratic candidates and plunked a Black Lives Matter sign on the lawn of their three-million-dollar house in Cambridge, but how different was she from any other rich girl on this island, really? Privilege was privilege. Wealth was wealth. And being comfortable in a store where even the simplest leather key ring cost more than I’d made in a week all summer long was something I couldn’t quite imagine, no matter who I was trying to become.
“You ready?” I asked, my voice sounding loud and rough in the genteel quiet of the shop. Holiday raised her eyebrows, didn’t reply.
At last we headed back out onto the crowded sidewalk, Holiday grabbing my arm and yanking me out of the way as I almost got mowed down by a little kid on a scooter. My ankle gave briefly underneath me and I stumbled into her side, swearing under my breath. “Shit, Michael,” she said as she steadied me, “are you okay?”
I nodded even as my eyes watered. “Yup,” I promised, waiting to get my breath back. “I’m good.”
“Are you sure?”
“I said I’m fine, Holiday.”
Holiday let out a low whistle that might as well have been a whole entire song about toxic masculinity, and we both knew it; still, she didn’t press me, and in return I tried to swallow down mysuddenly sour mood. “Okay,” she said instead, “back to the night of the party. Walk me through it one more time, will you?”
“Which part?”
“I mean, all of it,” she said, “but let’s start with what Greg looked like when you found him in the pool. What was he wearing?”
I thought about it for a moment. “Red shorts?” I guessed. “And boat shoes, obviously.”
“Obligatory. Any shirt?”
“No, actually.” I’d been able to see the pleats of his backbone through his skin, I remembered suddenly, the ridges of them weirdly vulnerable-looking even on such a beefy person. I thought again of Greer and the night of the accident, the terrifying fragility of a human body. “No shirt.”
“But he’d been wearing one at the party?”
I hesitated. “…Yes?”
“Are you asking me or telling me?”
