The Children's Secret Read online

  That this year, the potato salads and the coleslaws and the peach cobblers and the slices of watermelon will sit in people’s refrigerators, uneaten.

  Most of all, they know that the children won’t come out to play. There’ll be no games of Sharks and Minnows behind the church. No hopscotch squares drawn in chalk on the sidewalk. No bike races around Main Street.

  It would have been a beautiful afternoon for it. After a night of rain, everything is shining, like it’s been made new. And it’s cooler at last. It would have been a Labor Day picnic to remember.

  But the children aren’t coming.

  Or anyone else from the town.

  They know this, the dragonflies and the hummingbirds and the caterpillars and the bullfrogs.

  Like the horses knew, in the heat of yesterday afternoon, that the girl in the green dress and the sunburnt skin was making her way through the fields to the stable and that she carried trouble with her like the storm clouds that were gathering overhead.

  And they can see something else. That whereas the people from the town are staying inside, too scared to face this new day, there are new faces walking the streets. People from the big cities with notepads and cameras and recording devices. Already, they’re parking by the church and the library; they’re buying coffee in the general store; they’re walking along the brook, muddying their city shoes; they’re knocking on doors and waiting outside the gates of the middle school. And they’re asking questions. These days, reporters get to the scene of a crime before the police do. News travels fast.

  They’re here because they want to understand why this girl, in particular, was shot—what the children had against her.

  And they want to understand who fired the pistol.

  Because when someone gets shot, there’s always a reason, isn’t there?

  And there’s always someone to blame. There can only be one person who pulled the trigger, right?

  They’ll keep asking questions until they find their story: a bright, colorful story that will carry their words around the world. The story of a small town, of a stable, of a hot afternoon in August, of a little girl who had no friends, of a gun, of a party that went terribly wrong.

  Yes, they can see it coming, the dragonflies and the hummingbirds and the caterpillars and the bullfrogs. They know better than we do when the world is shifting. When the ground is cracking open.

  CHAPTER

  15

  5 p.m.

  THE MIDDLEBROOK POLICE Department, with its one full-time chief and its three part-time police officers, is too small to handle a case like this.

  The parents have to drive their children thirteen miles away, to Colebrook.

  There’s a Children’s Advocacy Center there. A place set up to handle cases involving minors.

  It takes most of the afternoon. They’re separated out. Each one taken to a room by a detective while, in another room, their parents, a police officer and a district attorney watch the interview relayed through a video screen.

  You have to be careful with children. Not to frighten or overwhelm them. To ask the right questions. Questions that will get them to tell the truth.

  Lieutenant Mesenberg sits back in her chair and folds her hands behind her head.

  She’s listened to the tapes over and over. The words swim in her head:

  She came out of nowhere …

  It was meant to be a game …

  He told us to be careful with it …

  It looked like a toy …

  It wasn’t anyone’s fault …

  We told him to be careful …

  It happened fast …

  I wasn’t really looking …

  We lost track of who was holding the pistol …

  We took turns …

  The girl, the one in the green dress, she wouldn’t stop talking … It was like she …

  I was scared, but I didn’t say anything …

  It wasn’t anyone’s fault.

  I was sitting outside the stable …

  I didn’t see it happen …

  She wanted us to play her game …

  The shot came out of nowhere …

  We were playing …

  We were just playing.

  It wasn’t anyone’s fault.

  She should have gotten clearer answers by now. They were children, for Christ’s sake. And she’d been doing this for over thirty years.

  And they were tired.

  And scared.

  Scared about their friends being hurt: the girl with the bullet hole through her lung fighting for her life; a little boy with his twisted arm.

  And scared about what might happen to them as a result.

  Usually that was enough. The exhaustion. The fear. The awe at being interviewed by the police.

  One of them, at the very least, should have given her something to go on.

  But there was nothing. Just a blur of confused statements.

  And only two of the children had phones: Skye Bowen and Astrid Carver. The detectives have already pulled apart Skye’s phone: there’s nothing except messages between her and her dad and some selfies of her and Cal Johnston. Astrid Carver’s phone is missing, along with the pistol.

  Damnit, this shouldn’t be so hard.

  She goes back a few seconds in the recording.

  It wasn’t anyone’s fault.

  Then she goes back a little further.

  It wasn’t anyone’s fault.

  And then further back still.

  That same phrase. Different children stating it like they’d rehearsed a script. It was the only thing their statements had in common. Like they’d agreed, in advance.

  She turns to a set of papers on her desk. Statements taken from the parents. Those who were at the party. Some who left early, before the shooting. Others who’d been invited but didn’t come.

  We didn’t know there were firearms on the property or we wouldn’t have come …

  Bryar Wright was missing from most of the party …

  We were in the house when it happened …

  Ben Wright was meant to be at the party … No one understood why he wasn’t there …

  Aren’t those foster children meant to be under some kind of special supervision? Should they even be allowed to go to parties …?

  My children would never touch a firearm …

  There was alcohol …

  We found it strange how those twins were wearing religious outfits to a kids’ party …

  We were hot … that’s why we stayed in the house …

  It was a long afternoon … everyone was tired …

  He shouldn’t have left his little boy alone without adult supervision … But he lets his children run wild …

  And the one thing everyone seemed to agree on:

  Astrid Carver was never meant to be at the party.

  The lieutenant presses her eyes with the heels of her hands and then blinks them open again. As soon as the girl wakes up, she’s going to have to question her. At least she won’t have anything to hide.

  And the little boy too. He’s too young to know how to keep secrets. He’ll give her something.

  Lieutenant Mesenberg sits up, picks up her mug of cold coffee, takes a long swig, and replays the interview tapes one more time.

  CHAPTER

  16

  7 p.m.

  KAITLIN SWITCHES OFF the engine and looks through the rear-view mirror. She can still see them, parked at the bottom of the drive, their cameras set up. They’ve been waiting for her and Bryar to come home.

  Part of her had wanted to jump out of the car and set them straight: that they should pack up their stuff and look else-where for their answers; that neither her husband nor her son were to blame in any of this. But the lieutenant had told her not to talk to the press. That it would make things worse for them. So she’d bitten her tongue and driven right past them, ignoring the questions they yelled out.

  She looks away from the mirror and stares out across the fro
nt yard at the house. It feels like they’ve been away for a lifetime.

  Kaitlin remembers standing here on Sunday afternoon, holding the rainbow cake, waiting for the children to gather around. How Bryar had run over with Lily, his face beaming. In that moment, she’d thought that maybe she’d done it. That, despite everything, her little boy was going to be okay: he was going to make friends; that middle school wasn’t going to be the disaster elementary school had been.

  Her eyes well up. She can’t believe how stupid she’d been—to believe that she could fix her son’s life with a cake and a few balloons.

  She looks back at the rear-view mirror, at Bryar this time. He’s staring at the stable, at the police tape stretched over the doors.

  A crime scene, that’s what they were calling it.

  It’s not a crime scene, she’d wanted to scream. It’s my home. My family. My life.

  “Will we have to go back to the station?” Bryar asks. “To answer more questions?”

  “I don’t know. Probably.”

  “But I’ve told them everything,” Bryar says, his voice shaking. “I know, buddy. I know.”

  For hours, Kaitlin had sat watching the video screen that relayed Bryar’s interview with the police detective. She’d felt it in her body: how they pounded those questions at him, trying to wear him down.

  But he just gave them same answers as yesterday:

  Yes, he was the one who took the pistol out of the safe.

  And worse than that: he’d gone back into the house without any of them noticing, to get bullets out of the safe in the basement.

  No, no one had forced him to do it, he’d said. It had been his decision.

  And after that?

  He wasn’t sure what happened.

  They were playing a game.

  Things got out of hand.

  They were bunched up together.

  They were passing the pistol around so fast.

  Wynn was jumping up … he wanted to have a turn … Everyone was yelling at him to get out of the way but he wouldn’t listen …

  But no, he doesn’t remember who was holding the gun when it went off.

  He’d looked hollowed out after the interview, his shoulders hunched over. It had taken everything out of him: to sit there, answering questions without telling them anything.

  She’d sensed the frustration in the detective’s voice at the lack of new information. But Lieutenant Mesenberg didn’t seem worried.

  It’s not like a bunch of kids can pull the wool over our eyes, she’d said after the interviews. We’re trained to do this. We’ll find out soon enough who fired that pistol.

  Kaitlin wondered whether the lieutenant had children of her own, and whether she knew how strong children could be. Stronger, often, than grown-ups.

  And how long they could keep hold of a secret. If they were scared enough.

  If they had enough of a reason.

  Kaitlin turns around to look at Bryar. His eyes are still fixed on the stable.

  “Come on, let’s go inside now, Bryar, it’s getting late.”

  She gets out of the car and opens his door.

  Bryar looks up at her. “Mom?” he asks.

  She turns back round. “Yes, Bryar?”

  “I want to go to school tomorrow.”

  “Oh, Bryar, I’m not sure that’s a good idea.”

  “I thought you’d want me to go.”

  “I think it might be best to take a few days, Bry. We can do some work at home—”

  “No.” His mouth is set hard. “I want to go.”

  Her heart contracts.

  If she’d been scared about him starting school before the party, what would it be like now? What happened on Sunday would be all over town. They’d have been talking about him. And they’d make him feel it: that he was the kid at whose party Astrid Carver got shot.

  “It’s going to be hard, my love,” Kaitlin says.

  “But they’ll be there, won’t they—the others?”

  “The others?”

  “The kids who were there today, at the station,” he says. “My friends.”

  My friends. She swallows. How she’d longed to hear him say those words.

  “I … I don’t know, Bry. I think so … I haven’t spoken to their parents. I guess everyone has to make their own decision.”

  “But Lily’s going. She told me.” Bryar looks Kaitlin right in the eye and she notices a new expression in her son’s face: confidence. “So I’m going too,” he says.

  “Maybe I should talk this through with Dad—”

  “Please, Mom.”

  She remembers what one of Bryar’s first therapists had said to her: that mothers of kids with special needs often hold them back. She’d said that it was a natural impulse to want to protect your child. But that it didn’t help, not in the long run. Kaitlin had been furious. Hadn’t she spent her life trying to help Bryar move forward—to join in with the other kids? But maybe the therapist had been right. Because, right now, she’d do anything to keep him away from a world that, she feels, has already decided he’s guilty.

  As she tries to think of something that will persuade Bryar to stay home tomorrow, she notices a police car at the bottom of the drive. A moment later, Lieutenant Mesenberg is parking beside them.

  “Why don’t you go inside, Bryar? Grab something to eat.”

  Bryar stares at the lieutenant.

  “I’ll come in and check on you in a bit.”

  She picks up the bag of Bryar’s clothing that one of the police officers gave her at the station. Kaitlin remembers how bewildered the children had been when, on Sunday evening, they were asked to change out of their clothes and hand them over. And how they’d all gone home in a bunch of ill-fitting sweatshirts and pants that the detectives had given them. The Sayed twins, especially, had looked so very different.

  We have to test for gunshot residue, one of the officers had said to her when she asked why they needed the clothes.

  It still doesn’t feel real: that they’re part of a police investigation.

  Bryar takes one more look at the lieutenant and then walks off toward the house.

  Lieutenant Mesenberg gets out of her car. “Good evening, Mrs. Wright. I’m here to take another look at the stable.” The lieutenant’s eyes follow Bryar as he walks up the porch steps. “My team still hasn’t found the pistol.” Her eyes settle on Kaitlin. “No idea where it might have gone?”

  Kaitlin stares at her and blinks. “You think I might be hiding it?”

  “I don’t know, Mrs. Wright.”

  She’s right, of course. If she believed it would make a difference, Kaitlin would do anything to protect Bryar.

  “If I find it, I’ll let you know,” Kaitlin says.

  The lieutenant cocks her head to one side. “And your son—he hasn’t mentioned it?”

  Kaitlin swallows hard. “No. He’s told you everything he knows.”

  “It’s surprising, don’t you think? That the firearm should just disappear like that?”

  “Yes, it is.”

  “My team used metal detectors. Brought in a German shepherd. Swept the whole area. And still nothing.” She pauses. “It’s unusual.”

  “May I ask a question?” Kaitlin says.

  “Sure.”

  “What difference will it really make? Finding the pistol, I mean? You already know that the bullet they removed from Astrid’s chest matches the gun that’s missing from the safe in my office. And my son told you that he was the one who opened it. What else do you need to know?”

  “We need fingerprints.”

  Kaitlin’s heart contracts.

  She thinks back to what Bryar said. About how the children passed the gun around, how they’d made a game of it. How he doesn’t remember who was holding it when Astrid got shot.

  “What if there’s more than one set of fingerprints?” she asks.

  “We can probably work out who pulled the trigger. There’ll be dominant prints.”
r />   She sounds so certain that she’ll work out who did this, thinks Kaitlin.

  “Bryar must be comfortable with firearms,” the lieutenant adds.

  Kaitlin sees the light on in Bryar’s room. She looks back at the lieutenant. “Comfortable?”

  “Having grown up with guns. With his father. I gather your husband has quite a reputation at the range.”

  “A reputation?”

  “He’s a good shot.”

  “Yes—but he’s in law enforcement. It’s part of his job—”

  “But for your husband, it’s more than a job, right?”

  Kaitlin feels sick. “More than a job? I don’t understand.”

  “Did Bryar ever go with him—to the range?”

  Kaitlin thinks back to the first time Ben took Bryar to the shooting range: it was a year ago. Bryar’s birthday. He’d bought him a rifle as a present, like his dad had on his tenth birthday. He was passing on a Wright tradition that he hoped, one day, Bryar would pass on to his son or daughter.

  But Bryar had hated every minute of it and begged to go home.

  Kaitlin had been disappointed for Ben—by how Bryar had reacted at the range. And she’d been worried that it would cause a rift between them. They were already so very different.

  Though, of course, Ben had taken Bryar back to the range. He couldn’t force his son to like guns but he’d make sure that he knew how to handle them safely.

  He taught him how to load and unload a gun.

  How only ever to aim the weapon at a target.

  How to keep the safety catch on until you were absolutely sure you were ready to shoot.

  “Yes, they’ve been to the range together. But Bryar isn’t interested in guns.”

  “I see.”

  Kaitlin looks back up at Bryar’s bedroom window. He’s drawn the curtains. “It’s been a long day, Lieutenant. My son needs me.”

  “Of course.”

  Kaitlin turns to go but then she stops and looks back round at the lieutenant.

  “What’s going to happen next?” she asks.

  “Next?” she asks.

  “With the investigation.”

  “Well, we need to be thorough—I’ll keep taking samples from the stable, and looking for the pistol. We’ll have another around of questions for the kids—and the parents. In a homicide investigation like this—”