Page 41 of Dead of Summer
By the time they had brought Henry in, David Clarke was already talking. He looked pale and shaken. He hunched down, his teeth chattering.
“We were out on the b-boat,” David stuttered. “We’d been drinking.” He had said this part with what sounded like deep remorse.
“And then what?” the reporter prodded.
“I don’t know exactly,” he mumbled. “I fell asleep. And when I woke up Orla was screaming and Alice was gone. I ran over and Orla was looking down into the water. There was a boat there in the dark, rowing away from us.”
“Did you get a look at who was in it, David?” the reporter had asked, putting a paternal hand on his shoulder.
“Him,” David said pointing, “Henry Wright. He had Alice in the bottom of the boat. I could see her dress.”
There was a collective gasp from the crowd.
“Now hold up,” Ed had said, holding up a palm to quiet the room. “This is just to gather information; there will be a fair trial here.”
“What direction did they go?” the reporter asked.
“Away, back to his house,” David said, and then he had raised his head and looked straight into the camera. “Please, I need you to find her. She’s one of my best friends.”
Henry was standing dumbfounded, his clothes still damp, when the reporters descended on him and shoved their microphones into his face.
“Is it true? What were you doing out there in the water?”
“I saw the young girl in distress. I was only trying to help,” he’d tried to explain but Geoffrey Clarke had appeared then in the doorway. His arrival quieted the room as people stopped talking to watch him swagger up the aisle. His presence filled up the small community room, a rarity, like seeing a celebrity in the flesh.
His voice sent a ripple through the room.
“This wasn’t the first time you went looking for Alice, though, was it, Henry? There are people who saw the two of you behind the old wharf building. She even told David that you were obsessed with her.”
Henry had hunched in shame. Had she really said that? “No, it wasn’t like that. She’d been the one to find me,” Henry had whimpered as the crowd gasped, titillated by this new piece of information.
“Blaming the victim is a bad look, Henry.” Geoffrey had shaken his head sadly, though Henry thought he was not actually sad.
“You said you saw her. Do you often look for girls, Henry?”
“I look at everything. I like to watch—”
“You have it there, straight from his mouth.He likes to watch!” Geoffrey appealed to the crowd, twisting his face into a theatric look of disgust.
Henry’s mouth clamped shut. He looked around the room. Nearly all in attendance were familiar. They were kids he’d come up with, all grown up. Childhood neighbors and classmates, his dentist and doctor, the owner of the local deli. Most of them people he’d known his whole life. But their faces were unfamiliar to him now, their eyes closed off to his pleas for understanding. A few had held their hands to their chests in shock while several others curled their lips back in disgust; they had already turned on him.
“Now, now,” Ed had interjected from the side of the room where he’d been taking questions. “I said there was no proof of anything at all. We are still investigating.”
“Just a child,” Geoffrey tutted, stepping in front of the policeman. “And they’re going to let him go with a slap on the wrist.”
“There’s no clear evidence that Henry had anything to do with it,” Ed insisted. “Please let’s all allow the process to do its job.”
All eyes went to Geoffrey, who spun toward the crowd raising his hands in question. “The process?” he scoffed. “I don’t know about you, but I expect my police force not to pussyfoot around when a young girl’s life is at stake.” A buzz of angry conversation rippled across the room. Henry swore that he could see Geoffrey grow taller in front of him as he was egged on.
“My own son saw that man take his friend onto his boat.” The murmurs grew louder, angrier.
“But that’s just n-not t-true,” Henry stuttered.
“Did you go out to find the girl, Henry?” the reporter was asking him.
“Yes, I went out to find her, but she wasn’t there. I…” Henry looked helplessly to David, whose head dropped down toward his lap. Henry remembered how kindly Alice had treated him all those times, chatting with him and asking him questions. He’d felt like she was a friend by the end of their last drawing session. He’d been nervous to see the finished drawing, afraid of facing himself, but when she had turned the sketch pad toward him, he felt only a swell of pride. How well she’d captured him. His imperfections were there, the deep grooves in his cheeks, the receding hairline, but they seemed to lend him a certain quiet dignity, something he’d never seen fully in himself. But she did. She was a special girl, and they were out to hurt her. He thought of the men on the boat and how they had loomed over Alice. Anger rose up in his chest. Finding his voice, he leaned over and spoke directly into the microphone. “Something bad was happening out there on that boat.”
“Oh, something bad?” Geoffrey waved his palms at the crowd in mock fear. “Was itreallysomething bad or did you see my son and his friends having fun the way teenagers do? I think you decided to spy on them and got jealous when you saw your creepy little crush there withsomeone her own age. What kind of perversions do you have that make you want to watch teenagers?”
