Page 86 of Worse Than Wicked
“Which means Mr. Harris’s death will be barely a blip,” I point out. “No one cares about teachers.”
“Maybe no one has to know,” Mabel says. “They haven’t found the body. Maybe we get rid of it. A disappearance instead of a death.”
“I thought only girls disappeared from this town,” I point out.
“What if it’s never reported?” she says slowly. “What if we make it look like he left.”
“How do you propose we do that?” Baron asks.
“Maybe he left a note for his wife,” Mabel says. “Sent her an email telling her what he did, saying he can’t live with the guilt anymore, and he can’t go back to the school where it happened, so he’s leaving.”
“That’s not something men like that do,” Baron says. “They don’t feel guilt.”
“Never?” Mabel asks, and I’m sure she’s disappointed to learn her grandpa never suffered, not even his own conscience.
Baron slices through the organic egg, letting the bright orange yolk spill out like blood. “They don’t think they’ve done anything wrong, so no. If anything, once they’re caught, they’re the victims, unjustly persecuted for taking what they’re entitled to.”
“How do you know that?” Mabel asks, narrowing her eyes at him.
Baron slides a wedge of muffin around in the yolk on his plate, soaking it up. I see the blood on the floor of Mabel’s house, spreading around the body of the man we killed.
“Because we lived with a man like that for eighteen years.”
I frown at Baron, surprised he would say something like that. Out of all of us, Baron is the most loyal to our family. Even if he didn’t show it, I assumed he was devastated about Dad. Devastated enough to leave us all behind and move to another state so he didn’t have to deal with it, not even coming to the funeral, like Mom when Crystal disappeared. But I also know that he’s the observer, and he wouldn’t say that if he hadn’t studied it long enough to come to that conclusion.
In his own way, Baron is the most accepting person there is. He takes everything in, but because he doesn’t have a moral compass, he doesn’t place expectations on them to meet any standard or share his values to be considered a good person. Heaccepts everyone and loves the ones that society tells him to as well as he is able, all along knowing exactly who they are.
Suddenly, I’m flooded with this swell of love for my brother, and I miss how it used to be so much that my ribs ache.
“You’re probably right,” I say. “But here’s the thing. Most people aren’t like that. The majority want to believe that even the most vile predators have some redeeming quality that makes them human, because that means we are too. Most everyone fears, deep down, that they aren’t a good person. But if there’s someone worse, and he can be worthy of sympathy, then so are we.”
Baron’s eyes light up, and I know in that moment that he feels exactly what I feel, that he misses me too, misses the way we’d play off each other, each playing to his own strengths, to challenge each other. Two parts that are made to go together, reflections of each other and therefore mirror opposites—the sun and moon, the faces of comedy and tragedy, Batman and the Joker.
“Go on,” he says.
“That’s why people believe in death bed confessions,” I say. “That even the worst person can change, and if they truly change in their hearts, they’re still deserving of heaven, no matter if they’ve committed the most heinous crimes. It’s the same reason people watch documentaries about serial killers. They want to dig into their pasts, know about their abusive childhoods and say that’s what made them that way. They have to make sense of it. They don’t want to believe anyone can be simply evil with no reason. That’s too scary to comprehend. That means anyone can be evil, even the people we love the most.”
“Or ourselves,” he says.
“Or ourselves,” I say, smiling at him.
“Okay,” he says. “It’ll be risky. An email creates a trail, and a trail can be followed, or come back to us, no matter howwell I hide it. A written letter can have forensic evidence on it, not to mention handwriting.”
“Handwriting analysis isn’t as conclusive as they make it look in the movies,” Mabel says. “It’s often not even admissible in court. But hold up a second.” She looks back and forth between us, pointing her fork. “What just happened?”
A little smile tugs up the corner of Baron’s mouth as his gaze holds mine. “We need a place to bury a body.”
Reluctantly, I break eye contact and turn to Mabel. “Know anywhere? Maybe the woods over there?”
I nod to the forest beyond the yard, a curtain of green hiding dark secrets in its shadowy depths.
“I don’t want his body on my land,” Mabel says with a shiver. “Or the Delacroixs. Obviously Dahlia would be okay with that, but she doesn’t live there, and if someone else found it, they’d turn it over to the cops. But I still don’t understand.”
“We don’t want his disappearance to be cast as a tragedy, and we don’t want a big manhunt,” Baron explains. “If his wife thinks he’s a predator, she’ll be too ashamed to make a stink.”
“But what if she doesn’t tell the police that part?” Mabel asks. “Women cover for their husbands too. What if she just tells them he’s missing?”
“Then we post something online from a throwaway account,” Baron says. “Start a rumor at the school that he was inappropriate with students. People will spend a lot less time concerned about finding him if they think he’s not worth looking for.”
