Misdirection, page 32
part #2 of Borealis: Without a Compass Series
“We’ll talk about that later.” He squeezed Shaw’s arm and gave him a cautious smile. “You ok?”
Shaw gave a microscopic smile back, shrugged, and then let his gaze slide to the door. “Mr. Virani refuses to let me into the residence. The police took the access card, so I couldn’t—”
“So you couldn’t do exactly what you were trying to do.” Kishor’s voice was hard. He was in gray mesh shorts and a white tank, the total amount of fabric approximately enough to cover a dinner plate, exposing good shoulders and great arms. “So you couldn’t enter a student residence without authorization and a trusted adult accompanying you.”
“Yeah.” North gave him a hard grin. “Wouldn’t want anyone poaching on your grounds, would we?”
A blush worked across Kishor’s face. “Get the hell off campus. I’m calling security right now.”
“Hold on,” North said. “I need to show you something.”
Kishor’s response was automatic and understandable: he waited as North approached. When North got within range of the door, though, he must have realized something else was happening. He tried to shut the door. He was too late. North kicked, catching the door just below the handle, and the force of the blow threw the door back. It caught Kishor in the gut, and he stumbled. North kicked again, and this time, the door flew all the way open.
North pushed into the residence, catching the rebounding door on his shoulder, and glanced at the boot print he’d left on the polished wood. Then he looked back at Shaw.
“Just like Gladys the Groovy Mule,” Shaw whispered.
“Mules kick backward, dumbshit.”
“North, it was very impressive. And mules are powerful animals. I was giving you a compliment.”
“Next time, I’ll stand back and watch him hand you your ass.”
Shaw raised his chin. “It was a trap. I was luring him into a trap.”
Wheezing, Kishor had managed to get himself up on one elbow. He was staring at them with a dazed expression as North headed toward the stairs, Shaw trailing after him.
“Stay down,” North said.
Kishor made a wet, coughing noise and flopped onto his stomach. As North reached the first landing, a boy with floppy brown hair stepped out of the hallway, his eyes going from them to the stairs.
“Where’s Jos?”
The boy must have seen Kishor, who was still gasping for breath, because his eyes got huge.
“Jos!” North snapped.
“205,” the boy said, pointing to the hall on the other side of the landing. “What’s—”
“Everything’s fine,” Kishor managed in a rough voice. “Go back to your room, Chance.”
Taking Shaw’s arm, North hustled him in the direction the boy had indicated. A glance back told him that the teacher had regained his feet and was coming after them.
“A little faster,” North said to Shaw, “if you can manage it in your dancing boots.”
“These aren’t dancing boots, they’re vellies, and they’re really comfortable.” A frown creased Shaw’s lips. “I could probably do a jig in them if you—”
“Just walk faster, for God’s sake.”
The door to 205 was open a few inches; from inside came the steady thump of a bassline and a whiff of noxious, strawberry incense that was covering up something else—body odor and cigarettes, North guessed. He elbowed the door open, nudged Shaw inside, and then stepped in after him. He pulled the door shut and set the lock.
“What the shit?” Jos sat up on the bed, knocking aside a calculus textbook and a graphing calculator. His blond hair was mussed. He wore a black v-neck tee and black joggers, and although the clothes softened the lines of his body somewhat, they didn’t hide the fact that he had a man’s build—not a boy’s.
“This is your show,” North said to Shaw. “I don’t think you have a lot of time.”
“My show would be called Gladys the Groovy Mule and Friends. No, wait. It would be called Gladys the Groovy Mule’s Fun-in-the-Sun Party Hour. No—”
“Hey, faggot brigade,” Jos said. “What the hell are you doing in my room?”
“North,” Shaw said, “did you know that extreme homophobia is often an externalized manifestation of an internal struggle with one’s own homosexual desires?”
“No shit,” North said. “Everyone knows that.”
Jos’s face had gone strangely still. Almost dead. Only his eyes were alive, and bright with what North thought was hate.
“How long have you been in love with Flip?” Shaw asked.
“I’m not—” Jos checked himself with a visible struggle. After a moment, a sickle smile cut across his face. “Get lost, faggots.”
“We saw the videos.”
“What videos?”
“Jos, we know it’s you.”
“What videos?” But sweat beaded at his forehead, and his smile had dulled.
“I didn’t understand at first. In the videos, it sounds like you hate him. Like you want to punish him. But it wasn’t that, was it? You hated yourself. You wanted to punish yourself. And then I saw the sweat and it all fell into place. You used a spray tan and dye to make yourself look different; you couldn’t stand the risk of anyone figuring out it was you. But you used cheap dye; it came off with your sweat sometimes. We’d been looking for a brunet, but we should have been looking for a blond.”
“You don’t know what you’re talking about.” He looked like he was trying to stop himself, but the words slipped out: “You don’t understand.”
“I understand,” Shaw said gently. “Your parents are Bosnian, but you’re American. Your friends are rich, but you’re a scholarship student. Your parents are Muslim, but you’re gay, and you can’t let that happen.”
“I’m not!” Jos slipped off the bed, chest puffing up, shoulders back. “I’m not—that, what you said. I’m not!”
“Everyone likes Flip. He’s nice. He’s sweet. He’s attractive. He’s a white-bread, high-achieving rich boy. Basically every closeted kid’s heroin. You both found each other, realized you had more in common than either of you suspected. And then what?”
Jos stared at them. He was breathing too fast, a slight whistling noise accompanying each inhalation.
“Why did you make the movies? Were you going to run away together? Was that the plan? No matter how much you love someone—”
The laughter was so abrupt and so harsh that it took North a moment to recognize it as such. Jos threw his head back, brittle laughs rolling out of him.
“I didn’t love him. Jesus.” Jos touched feverish cheeks. “I needed money. He needed money. A hole is a hole. Simple.”
“Then help us understand,” North said. “What was the plan here? It makes sense that Flip would have someone helping him from inside the house, but why do it at all?”
“I didn’t help him. I didn’t even know he was here. We fucked a few times. I let him record it. That was over winter break.” A smile like a live wire crackled on his face. “The spray tan had worn off by the time we were back in classes. The first few months, he gave me my cut just like we agreed. Then, a couple of weeks ago, when he was supposed to give me my cut for April, he blew me off. I thought—I don’t know what I thought. I went up to his room. The door was locked. I kicked it open because it was my money, and I needed it.”
“Wait,” Shaw said. “When we got to his room, when we found the door kicked in—that was you?”
Jos looked down at the bed and played with a loose thread. “I was going to tell someone that I did that, just so people would stop saying he’d been kidnapped, but then the cops got involved, and Flip really was missing. I didn’t think it mattered.”
“It mattered a whole hell of a lot.” North shook his head. “No wonder we were chasing our tails.”
“And then what happened?” Shaw asked.
“Nothing. I didn’t know where he was; I figured he’d run off with the money, and he’d be back after he’d blown it all. You know how Flip is; he winds himself up until he pops his top, and then he goes back to being a good boy.”
“You weren’t sneaking him food, checking on him, talking to him to keep him from going crazy?”
“Are you even listening to me? I told you: I didn’t know he was down there. Like he’d even tell me, right? I was a good fuck, and then when I wasn’t useful to him anymore, boom, sayonara. I guess it’s not like he ever pretended we were anything else. He acted like we barely knew each other in public, which, fuck, whatever. I don’t care.”
A key turned in the door, and North braced his shoulder against it as the knob turned.
“Open up,” Kishor shouted, pounding on the door. “Open up right now, or I’m calling the cops.”
Jos flinched.
“Jos,” Shaw said. “It’s ok to feel hurt by how Flip treated you. That wasn’t right. You didn’t deserve that.”
“I told you, I don’t care.”
“I think you might care. I think maybe you care a lot. There’s a lot of emotion in those videos you made.”
“We were fucking,” Jos snapped. “Was I supposed to be reading the New Yorker while I boned him?”
“You just highlighted Shaw’s niche porn.” North grunted as Kishor threw his weight into the door, forcing it open a few inches. “If you add garden gnomes and Elvira and Groucho Marx twiddling his cigar. Shaw, this door is some seriously weak shit. Hurry it up.”
Kishor hit the door again, and North slid a few more inches.
“I know some of that emotion was what you feel about yourself,” Shaw said. “And I’m sorry about that. Growing up Muslim, feeling what you feel, not being able to reconcile those two—”
“You’re not my therapist. You know fuck-all about me.”
“—but I think some of that emotion was what you felt for Flip. You cared about him. You had some really big feelings for him. And those feelings were all tangled up because you wanted more than he gave you, and you hated yourself for wanting more, but you kept wanting it.”
Jos’s jaw trembled. His eyes were wet, but no tears fell.
Kishor crashed into the door, and North stumbled back, allowing the door to fly open. Kishor stumbled to a stop, breathing hard, tank askew.
“I didn’t give two shits about Flip,” Jos said, his expression suddenly hard and smooth. “He kept my secret. I kept his. We had a nice thing going. And if he opened his mouth, he knew I’d nuke him. Mutually assured destruction, that’s what I told that bitch. We learned about it in Kish’s class.”
“What was Flip’s secret?” North asked, rubbing his shoulder, careful to keep himself between Kishor and Shaw.
Jos held Kishor with an unwavering gaze.
“Don’t do this,” Kishor said, his voice broken. He glanced away, straightening the tank, and whispered, “Jos, you don’t have to do this.”
Voice tinged with cruel satisfaction, Jos said, “It didn’t matter if I felt anything for Flip. Wouldn’t have changed anything. He only had eyes for one person.”
Kishor put a hand over his face.
“I walked in on them fucking in the classroom, a hot little scene.” Jos shrugged, as though he might have agreed. “You want to know who was helping Flip? The inside man? You’re looking at him.”
A shudder tore through Kishor. Then he drew several deep breaths, squared his shoulders, and dropped his hands. His eyes were red but dry when he met North’s gaze.
“You fucking son of a bitch,” North said. “You’re going to prison for this.”
Kishor shook his head.
“Let’s start with murder. Tack on statutory rape. Then we’ll throw in kidnapping. Arson and attempted murder. We might as well add harboring a runaway, just for fucking funsies—”
“Oh my God,” Shaw whispered, “please say that every time we catch a killer.”
Shock obliterated the weary resignation in Kishor’s face. “Murder? Arson? What are you talking about?”
“You killed Hiwet Zerai. She found out about you and Flip, and she tried to blackmail you. That’s why you told Flip he had to run away. That’s why you had to get rid of Hiwet. You tried to burn down my partner’s house while he was sleeping—”
“Are you kidding?” As shock faded, a strange kind of relief flooded Kishor’s features. “Oh my God, I was at a soccer game. In St. Charles. The police already talked to me; they talked to all the staff.”
North risked a glance at Shaw. Shaw was frowning.
“You’d better tell us everything,” North finally said.
Shifting his weight, Kishor shot a furtive look at Jos. “Can he—”
“No, he’s staying in case you try to bullshit us.”
Kishor sighed and nodded. “Flip and I were…involved.”
“You were fucking him.”
“We were in love. We are in love.”
“I’ve seen the movie; I know how this ends. In a few years, he’s not your twinkie treat—”
“Oh my God,” Shaw breathed with excitement.
“—anymore, and you break up until you find the next teenager you can cornhole.”
“You don’t know the first thing about me. About us.” Kishor pushed his dark, wavy hair back with both hands. “Flip comes from this terrible home, and he’s under unbelievable pressure to be perfect. He’s had this horrible life, and somehow he turned out to be good and sweet and wonderful. He’s amazing.”
North snorted at the same time as Jos, and when he turned, he was surprised by the smile breaking the teen’s sullen façade.
“Fine. He has it rough at home. He didn’t get those two-thousand-dollar Nikes, and Daddy doesn’t come to his soccer games. Really rough. All of which justifies statutory rape, I guess.”
“It’s not statutory—it’s not that,” Kishor snapped. “He’s seventeen. That’s the age of consent.”
“But you’d be fired if the school found out,” Shaw said slowly. “Possibly sued.”
After a moment, Kishor gave a grudging nod.
“Is that why you helped him try to run?”
Down the hall, a door opened, and a Post Malone song thundered through the residence. Boys laughed, and then a chorus of them picked up the lyrics, belting out the song in varying degrees of pitchiness.
“I don’t understand.” North studied the teacher, trying to get past the pretty surface to glimpse the monster underneath. “You took advantage of a position of authority, you took advantage of a vulnerable kid, you fucked up his head so you could have fun with him, and as far as I can tell, you’re in shit up to your nose. You need to start digging yourself out. If you talk now, maybe things will go easier on you when the police get involved.”
“I did what you said.” A boy ran past them, feet slapping the floor, and Kishor flinched. Then a door slammed, and the music cut off, and the house was quiet. “I helped Flip. He was determined to run. I begged him to finish the school year. We had a plan. He would go to school at Wash U, and we’d be together in secret for a couple of years, until we could make things public without people thinking it had started while he was a student here. But he was…he was out of control. It was scary. He was insane about it, wouldn’t listen to me, wouldn’t tell me why. He just kept saying he had to go. He just kept saying he had to do it or he’d never be free. I begged him to tell me why. He was shoving clothes into a bag, and I grabbed his arm.” Kishor touched his cheek, a note of amazement infusing his words. “He hit me. I’d never seen him like that. I was scared. Of him. For him. So I agreed to help him. I made sure he got food. I talked to him. I gave him the all clear when he just wanted to stretch his legs and get out of that room. It was only supposed to be for a few days, but then you were here, and the police thought it was a kidnapping, and instead of a few days, it turned into a week. And then you found him, and—and I haven’t talked to him since. He won’t return my messages.”
“Boo hoo,” North said. “I smell some serious horseshit. He wanted to run away, but you didn’t know why? And you still helped him? Whatever else, that’s harboring a fugitive, and at his age, they might slap you with kidnapping too.”
“It’s the truth! He wouldn’t tell me!”
“You’re a fucking liar. You wanted the kid all to yourself, and you convinced him that running away together was the only way, and it didn’t matter to you that this kid had a family, that they’d be worried sick—”
“They don’t care about him. This was all a publicity stunt! That’s all they wanted out of it!”
“—people who had already lost a daughter and now were going to lose a son—”
“See? See? You don’t know what you’re talking about! They didn’t lose a daughter.”
“What are you talking about?” Shaw said, his voice taut with an energy North didn’t understand.
“Sara Beth,” Kishor said, faltering under the intensity of Shaw’s gaze. “Flip’s sister. She’s not dead; she’s alive. She’s in one of those treatment centers for troubled teens.”
Chapter 34
THEY DROVE TO THE Chittenden home in silence. The evening had a crystalline quality, a fragility and clarity accentuated by the purple light decanted into the hollow of the sky. It was the last time, Shaw knew, that he would make this drive. The farmhouse was lit up against the dusk, the white clapboard glowing. The last homely house, Shaw thought, and he thought of Tolkien, and how power made monsters of everyone. North parked, and when Shaw opened the door, the smell of corruption met them. Roadkill. Or something that had died behind the tree line and been left to rot. Shaw adjusted the satchel on his shoulder and got out of the car. They climbed the stairs to the porch, and one of the barn doors swung in the wind, clapping against the siding, hinges squeaking.
When North knocked, only silence answered them, and the clapping of the barn door, and the protesting hinges. He knocked again, harder.
“So help me God,” North muttered, “if I have to deal with Gavin because she’s giving an interview or doing a photo shoot or—”
The door opened. Celia stood there in nothing but rumpled flannel pajamas. Her short blond curls were mussed, and one side of her face had a red line, as though she been sleeping somewhere uncomfortable. She had also, Shaw decided after an experimental sniff, been bathing in whiskey.
