The Lonely Dead Read online

  But even with my eyes closed, I could feel their loneliness tugging at me. My hope was when there was no one like me around, they just slept. And that they didn’t find themselves yanked back to life very often.

  “My mom never came to see me in the funeral home,” Tori says. “Just my dad.” Her words hitch. “He was crying.”

  “Your dad?” It’s hard to imagine. Her dad has always looked the same. Distant. A little disdainful. Even today.

  “Not just crying. Sobbing. He kept saying he was sorry. Telling me if he could just turn back the clock, do things over, then everything would be different.” Sadness colors her voice. “Only it was too late. Because back when I was alive, it didn’t matter if I got good grades or flunked a class. It didn’t matter if I came home late or never came home at all. I was always looking for a reaction, and I never got one.” She attempts a smile. “Now they finally realize they have a daughter. But it’s too late.”

  While we’ve been talking, Mrs. Rasmussen has been hugging every single person who has just walked past her dead daughter. Mr. Rasmussen shakes their hands. In between, he just keeps staring at the coffin, at the top of Tori’s head resting on that tufted pillow.

  And then there’s Luke. Even this far away, I can see how sad his eyes are.

  My attention is caught by a tall, thin man with a tired face scanning the auditorium. He wears a wrinkled blue suit. It’s the guy I saw talking to Charlie in the school office, the one who looks like Charlie. The one who’s a cop.

  He must be here to figure out if one of Tori’s mourners is also her killer.

  “I know you don’t remember who killed you, but has seeing anyone tonight jogged your memory?”

  “No!” She makes a face. “I mean, I saw you looking at Mr. Conner, but he’s just pathetic. And he’s super old!”

  “The police seem to think that it’s someone you knew. Has anyone said anything that might be a clue?”

  She shakes her head. “A few people have said mean things, that’s all. I thought you weren’t supposed to speak ill of the dead.”

  “Like what?”

  “Aaron said, ‘Sorry, Tori.’ But he said it all sarcastic. And right to my face.”

  “He didn’t think you could hear him,” I remind her, pressing my temple with the tips of my fingers as if I could push the pain back in. “Besides, you did tell people he looked like a ferret.”

  “Well, he does!” she says, and I don’t argue. With his prominent, pointy nose, she’s right.

  “Still, you have to admit that you did turn into kind of a bully as you got older.”

  “No, I didn’t!” She blows air through pursed lips. “It’s not like I was giving people wedgies or tripping them in the hall.”

  “You did it another way—made fun of people, sometimes to their face.”

  “I did not!”

  “Not true. You made fun of Murphy because he always wears pants that are too short. And remember when you made an O with one hand and held it up to your eye like a sailor looking through a telescope? Then you yelled, ‘Land ho!’ when Maddy D came into the cafeteria.”

  Tori stops protesting. But I don’t stop whispering. For years, I’ve been keeping track of things she’s done.

  “And you spread rumors about people. Or sometimes you just downright ignored them. You might not ever have laid a hand on them, but it still hurts when someone acts like you’re not even there.”

  “Yeah, well, now I know exactly what that’s like.” Her mouth twists. “Maybe God has a sense of humor.” Then she looks straight into my eyes. “I know why you can see me. It’s because it’s up to you to figure out who killed me.”

  “That’s not why, Tori. It’s just something that runs in my family.”

  “But you owe me,” she insists, her lower lip jutting out. “If you hadn’t come to my party, if you hadn’t kissed Luke, then we wouldn’t have fought. And I wouldn’t have left. And whoever killed me couldn’t have gotten to me.”

  “And what am I supposed to do that the real cops can’t? They’ve got profilers and databases and search warrants. I’m just a high school student.”

  “For one thing, you’re good at watching. Even when we were little, you always noticed things. Like when Mrs. Haslet”—she was our second-grade teacher—“stopped wearing her wedding ring. You noticed it right off.”

  I raise one shoulder in a shrug. “That still doesn’t make me a detective.”

  “But you have one thing the real cops don’t,” Tori says.

  “And what’s that?”

  She points at her chest. “Me.”

  FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 30, 9:49 P.M.

  SNAPPED

  Tori wants me to team up with her. To sleuth. To unmask her killer.

  “Okay, okay, I’ll try.” My right eye is watering. “But I have to go now.”

  Tori’s eyes widen. “No! You can’t go. You can’t leave me alone.”

  “But I have to leave sometime,” I point out. “Besides, what if while we’re talking you’re missing an important clue?”

  Hope lights her face. “Maybe if they arrest the person who killed me, I’ll be free. I’ll be able to go on to whatever’s next.”

  I don’t point out that the girl at the End of the Trail museum hadn’t been murdered, yet she was still stuck there 150 years later, just a little faded. I only nod. “You’ve got the best chance of anyone of figuring it out.”

  I stop whispering, because Aspen and Brianna are walking up the aisle near me.

  “She kind of looks like she’s sleeping,” Brianna says.

  “No, she doesn’t.” Aspen shakes her head. “She looks like she’s dead.”

  As soon as they are past, I say, “I have to leave now, Tori. I’m sorry.”

  “But you’ll come back tomorrow for the funeral? We can compare notes.”

  “Okay.” I’m already getting to my feet. “Of course.” My head is throbbing with every beat of my heart.

  With my right eye closed, I make my way out of the auditorium. Every step away from Tori, the pain eases a notch. As I push open the heavy door, the fresh, damp air wakes me up like a splash of cold water.

  It’s a relief to be out of her sight. Out of earshot. Out here, Tori’s really dead, not sort of alive. The pain continues to recede.

  People are crowded outside the doors and clustered in the nearby parking lot. A few are talking to the reporters penned up on the far side. Cigarette and even pot smoke lingers in the air, and a few of my classmates are tipping back flasks I’m pretty sure hold more than just water. Out here, there’s tears, of course, but there’s also a few smiles and even a little flirtation. Tori belongs here far more than she does inside, where there’s no one to flirt with and nothing to laugh about.

  And out here, the idea that I can help Tori figure out who killed her seems more than slightly ridiculous. Despite what the police think, it probably was a stranger, some man who spotted her storming off and then took advantage of her being too drunk to realize what was happening.

  As I wind through the crowd on my way to the bus stop, I overhear snatches of conversation.

  “I heard she was stabbed to death,” Aaron says.

  “No, she was shot,” Dylan declares.

  Suddenly Petra is in front of me, blocking my path. “I can’t believe you have the guts to show up here. It’s your fault Tori’s dead.” Around us, conversation stills. “If you hadn’t kissed Luke, he and Tori wouldn’t have gotten into a fight, and she wouldn’t have taken off.” It’s Tori’s argument.

  I swallow hard. “I was drunk, and I made a mistake. I wasn’t thinking. Obviously.” My breath shakes. “If I could apologize to her, I would. A million times.” In truth, so far I haven’t said it once. “And it’s not like we were never friends. Tori and I—you know how close we used to be back at Maplewood.”

  “Yeah, like, when we were seven!” Still, Petra nods, appearing slightly mollified.

  “I feel awful about what happened. That’s w
hy I came tonight.”

  “You should feel awful.” But Petra’s words lack their former vehemence. People turn away, losing interest.

  “I’m not the one who killed her. Tori was just in the wrong place at the wrong time.” My words make it sound like a mistake, an accident, as if she and the killer are equally innocent—or guilty. “So what happened at the party after I left?” I burrow my cold hands into my pockets.

  “She told Luke she didn’t want to see him again. That it was over between them. He tried to calm her down, but she just pushed him away and told him to leave. So he did.”

  That part I already knew. “And Tori? What did she do then?”

  “You know Tori!” Petra rolls her eyes fondly. “She wanted everyone to think she was fine. She was dirty dancing. Singing karaoke. Getting people to do shots.”

  I nod. It sounds like Tori. And it also sounds like she wasn’t exactly hurting.

  The smile falls from Petra’s face like a plate from a shelf. “When the party started breaking up, I couldn’t find her, even though I looked all over. Sometimes when she drinks that hard, she does weird things. Once after a party at my house, I found her sleeping on my dog’s bed.”

  Vintage Tori. Even a dog wasn’t safe around her when she wanted something.

  “While I was looking for her, her dad showed up. He wasn’t supposed to be back until the next day. When he saw what was happening, he started yelling. I’d never seen him like that. He put his suitcase down and then he took his arm, and he just swept everything on the kitchen counter onto the floor.” Petra demonstrates, swinging her arm in front of her. “Glass was breaking and everything. And he was grabbing at people, saying he was going to call the police. Everyone scattered. I ran out, too.” She takes a deep, shaky breath. “And I never saw Tori again.”

  A chill runs across my skin that has nothing to do with the cold. What had Tori said? That in the funeral home her dad had cried and cried, repeating that he was sorry?

  But what was he sorry for?

  Was it for ignoring her when she was growing up? Or was it for something else?

  In my mind’s eye, I picture her house. In every room, something that could be the murder weapon, that could fit into that terrible red groove around Tori’s neck. Electric cords on appliances. The cords on the custom blinds. Even kitchen twine.

  Maybe the reason Mr. Rasmussen sobbed in the funeral home was because he had snapped. He had snapped and killed his own daughter.

  FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 30, 9:58 P.M.

  SOMEONE WE KNOW

  When Justin calls Petra’s name, she leaves without saying anything more to me, not even goodbye. She just gives me one last side-eye and walks away.

  As the ramifications of what Petra said wash over me, I start to shake. If Tori’s dad is the one who killed her, would Tori really want to know? Right now, she’s got some measure of closure, a feeling he’s finally regretted the kind of father he’s been.

  I scrub my face with my hands. When I let them drop, I notice Laquanda leaning against a tree about fifteen feet away, smoking a cigarette. It’s pretty clear she heard every word Petra and I said.

  I walk over to her. “Can I bum one?” I don’t smoke, but it gives me a reason to talk to her. Like me, Laquanda watches people. So what did she notice at the party that night?

  She doesn’t say anything, just pulls a pack from her purse. Silver rings glint on every finger and even her thumb. Then, when it’s obvious I don’t have matches or anything, she produces a lighter.

  The first drag is bitter on my tongue and scratches my throat, but I refuse to cough.

  “You were still at the party when I left,” I say. I remember her watching, face impassive, while Tori berated me. “What happened after that?”

  “When you left?” She snorts two streams of smoke. “Is that how you’re telling the story? That you just decided for no reason to take off? Tori shamed you in front of everyone and then she practically marched you out of the house.”

  I keep my voice low. “That was my fault. Because of what happened with Luke.” Just the thought of it makes the back of my neck hot.

  “And Tori chose to handle it by dragging everyone else up there so they could witness her humiliating you. Now even people who weren’t at the party know what happened.” Laquanda leans closer. “And you should know they’re all starting to talk.”

  “About how I kissed Luke?” The flush spreads to my face.

  Her mouth twists. “About how you might be the one who killed her.”

  “That’s ridiculous,” I scoff, but her expression doesn’t change. “Maybe I was upset, but there’s no way I killed Tori. She humiliated a lot of people, not just me.” I look closer at Laquanda’s face. “What about you?” I ask, suddenly bold. “Did she ever make fun of you?”

  She looks away. “No.”

  “Right.” I give the word a sarcastic spin. Even though I’ve never witnessed Tori mocking her, I know the truth in my bones.

  “Okay.” The words rush out of her. “She used to call me ‘daughter of the night,’ because I’m so dark. And she wouldn’t stop talking about my hair, asking if she could touch it.” Laquanda shakes her head of tight curls.

  Count on Tori to say something outrageous. Or several somethings. “Then why were you even at her party? And why are you here?”

  Her dark eyes meet mine. “Couldn’t I ask you the same questions? You and I both know Tori is—was—complicated. She’s smart. And funny. She could be generous. And it was impossible to take your eyes off her. She was like a force of nature. Sometimes you just want to be a part of that.”

  Her words set off echoes. Even when we were kids, it was hard to look away from Tori. I remember her making up elaborate stories about her Barbies. Telling jokes in class that made even the teachers laugh. And more recently, falling apart in my arms when she realized she was dead.

  “That’s Tori,” I agree.

  “Right. That’s Tori. Which means she could also be cruel. And maybe one of those times is what got her killed.”

  “What happened at the party after I left? I heard she made Luke leave.”

  “After that, it was like she wanted to prove she didn’t care. She was all over Ethan, and he’s been with Jazzmin since middle school.” Laquanda looks around before adding, “And Jazzmin was pissed about that.”

  I freeze, the cigarette halfway to my mouth. Jazzmin always wears cloth headbands. Headbands about the width of the mark on Tori’s throat. I imagine Jazzmin looping one over her hands and then yanking it over Tori’s head.

  Reading my expression, Laquanda rolls her eyes. “Don’t tell me you think Jazzmin could have gone after her. That skinny little track girl? Tori was so fierce. She would have decked her.”

  Laquanda doesn’t know how Tori was killed, but I do. And according to what I found on the internet, it wouldn’t take muscles or even much time. Compress the carotid arteries on the sides of the neck, and unconsciousness results in only ten to fifteen seconds. As one forensics site said, “The victim’s death can come very suddenly after.” I’ve tried to forget the pictures I also saw online.

  I shrug. “I don’t think it’s that far-fetched. Not if she was mad. Maybe she snuck up on her.”

  “What about Ethan?” Laquanda counters. “Maybe he figured out Tori was just playing him to make herself feel better.”

  In my mind’s eye, I see Ethan, his left arm permanently glued to Jazzmin’s shoulders. Around his wrist, he always wears a woven black survival bracelet. I heard him talking once about how it’s made of paracord. Which, according to him, can be used to make a shelter, a tripwire, a tourniquet, and a million other things.

  Or, I think, a garrote to compress the blood vessels on the sides of the neck.

  “Did you see Tori leave the party?” I ask. “Did Ethan go with her?”

  “What are you, the police now?” Her mouth purses. “Like I told them, I didn’t see where Tori went. I didn’t even know she was gone. I’d been t
alking to Murphy for a while, and then when I went back to the kitchen to get more beer, I realized a lot of people had already left. And then Tori’s dad showed up and everyone took off. Including me.”

  Suddenly it hits me how ridiculous this all is. There’s no way Ethan, Jazzmin, Tori’s own father, or even creepy Mr. Conner killed her. Despite what the police think, it has to have been some stranger, some serial killer.

  “Do you really believe the person who did this was someone we know?”

  Instead of answering directly, Laquanda says, “Did you ever read that Agatha Christie book—and it was a movie, too, maybe a couple of movies—called Murder on the Orient Express?”

  I shake my head.

  “This guy is murdered on a train. The detective knows it has to have been one of the other passengers. Then it turns out every single person on the train had some kind of reason to kill him.” She looks at me with eyes as dark as ink. “Maybe Tori’s like that.”

  FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 30, 10:07 P.M.

  SIGNS OF A STRUGGLE

  Laquanda throws her cigarette butt down on the wet pavement, then twists the toe of one of her Vans on top of it. She lifts her chin. “I gotta go.”

  “See you,” I say, and I mean it. I feel like I’m really seeing her. I’ve talked to her more in the last few minutes than I ever have. Maybe when this is all over, we really can be friends, the way I first thought at the party.

  She leaves me plenty to think about. Did Tori send Jazzmin into a jealous rage? Or did Ethan realize he was just Tori’s plaything and decide to teach her a lesson? Or is Laquanda right, that it might be easier to make a list of people who didn’t have a reason to be angry at Tori?

  Lost in thought, I don’t hear anyone approach. Then a voice next to me makes me jump. I let out an involuntary cry.