Page 22 of The Staircase in the Woods

“Who bought, and brought, the alcohol and the drugs?”

“I—we didn’t—”

“Was Matty on drugs? Who got him those drugs?”

“Please—”

She paused. “You sure you don’t need something? I bet a Coke would be good right now. Your mouth is probably dry. It is kind of hot in here, the AC is on the fritz, and—well. You want anything?”

“Do I need a lawyer?”

Detective Doore leaned in. Another smirk teased at the edges of her thin-lipped mouth. Her face no longer looked weary—it looked alive, awake, eyes bright, the lines of her long face deepening with interest.

“Doyouthink you need a lawyer, Mister Zuikas? Lawyers are for guilty people. Are you guilty of something, Owen?”

“No. N-no! You just seem—”

“I seem aggressive. I’m sorry, I am, I’m just trying to get to the bottom of things, okay? The drug thing, I mean, someone could be held responsible for that. One of you buys drugs, you supply them to Matthew Shiffman, he gets a bad batch and loses his mind in the woods, dies out there somewhere of exposure—that’s, well, I don’t know for sure, the DA handles that. But probably manslaughter.”

“We don’t know that he’s dead!” He was sweating. He wanted to cry. He wanted to die.This is your fault,he screamed at himself inside his head.You stupid baby. You could’ve gone after him. But you didn’t. This is your fault, you weak, scared, stupid piece of shit. “Wedon’tknow that he’s dead,” he said again, in a smaller voice.

She leaned back with a sigh. “It’s been three days, and after forty-eight hours, you have to start making some assumptions, Owen. Past tense is what we’re thinking for poor Matthew Shiffman.”

“Jesus.” His voice almost broke. He tried very hard to hold back tears.

“Matthew—Matty—Shiffman was a good kid, by all reports. Gosh, not just a good kid, but wow, a kid with afuture. A go-getter, one of those kinds who does everything. Everything. Star pitcher for the Colonials in the spring, record-setting sprinter in the fall for track and field. The lead in the school musical. On student council. Part of the honor society. Gifted class. And roundly, routinely liked. So forhim to just,poof,go missing, that’s a big deal. His parents won’t let this go, nor should they. Somebody’s going to get put on a hook for this, and I don’t want it to be you, Owen.

“You seem like a nice kid. But you’re weird. You dress in all black. The Satanic Panic may be over, but—hey, all that Marilyn Manson, Nine Inch Nails, White Zombie stuff, that’s going to have people suspicious, you know? I don’t know what happened up there. I really don’t. Maybe it’s just like you all said. Maybe he was sober as a judge and went out into the woods to go home and—and somehow got lost or got dead. Maybe something worse happened, though. Maybe you all killed him. Jealousy over how good he was. Or as some ritual sacrifice. Or just for kicks—thrill-kill fuckups just trying to feel something.” She smiled stiffly and raised her eyebrows. “So I’m going to ask you again, Mister Zuikas. Where is Matty Shiffman?”

Owen pushed the heels of his hands into his eyes so hard, the darkness behind his lids turned nuclear white. Tears pushed their way out. He felt his sinuses thickening with grief and fear.

And then he told Detective Doore one piece of absolute truth:

“I have no idea where he is or where he went,” Owen said. “None of us do.”

14

Home Is the Place You Escape

June 5, 1998

Owen was nervous. Good nervous, mostly. Seeing friends, going camping—escaping home for the weekend—it was a lot for him. Because anything that was anything was a lot to Owen. Going anywhere, doing anything, seeing anyone? A test, a trip, a meal, too much homework, not enough sleep: It all felt like the crushing depth of being underwater, an emotional case of the bends.

And it tended to put his brain in these loops, right?Did you do this, did you bring that, did you say something stupid once that people will remember, do people even want to see you at all, are you late, are you early, what the fuck is wrong with you?Sometimes the loop was one thought, one question, whirling around itself, a tree choking itself with its own growth.

So that was him today. The day he needed to escape home to go camping. Problem was, the loops in his brain rattled him enough that he often—unconsciously—started biting his nails. Sometimes until they bled (and on rare occasion got infected). He wasn’t going to do that today. He didn’t want anyone to see. To judge him. Not Lauren, of course, but also Nick. Nick had a way of finding that thing you didn’t want him to see and justdigging in,like a drill bit.

But Owen had other ways of expressing nerves. Little ways of destroying himself to ease the anxiety. Biting the inside of his cheek. Chewing his lip. Digging his nails into his palms, should he have nails that weren’t yet bitten down below the tips of his fingers. Plucking hairs from places when people weren’t looking, like an eyebrow, orthe top of his arm, even from inside his nose. Picking scabs, if he had any. Picking skin. Scraping the cap off a blackhead. Chewing the sides of his tongue. Peeling calluses. The body was an endless expanse of opportunities topickandpluckandbiteandpeel. It made him feel better. It made him feel worse. He did it anyway because he couldn’t help it.

He looked down at his nails. They looked good today.

He chewed the inside of his cheek. Not to bleeding. There were vents there—skin flaps—from the frequent chewing. He thrust his tongue into them, as if they were gills he could tickle.

Deep breath. Saw himself in the mirror. He looked as good as he was going to.

Let’s go,he thought, and forced himself to smile at himself.

—

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