“Her body is being flown back today,” she says.

“Whose body?”

“Hers. Melody’s. Melody’s body.”

I pull away from her again, move over to Mr. Van’s leather chair, and put my elbows on my knees. My head fills with this rushing, ringing noise. My hands cover my ears. My mother kneels next to me. A gale-force wind starts blowing through my head. Then a sound like rattling metal takes over and gets louder and louder until that dies down, too, and all that is left is a harsh note in my ears that repeats itself over and over in a familiar way. It was the crow, I realize, the crow on the Lone Pine Indian Reservation, that morning when we stood by the side of the road together and all we had was each other. Then I hear her voice, talking about Mike, so clear it’s like she’s standing in the room. I push it away, and as I do that, I realize I will never hear it again. All that’s left is the cawing noise, over and over. That doesn’t go away. I open my eyes.

“Her dead body?” I ask.

“Yes.”

“From Los Angeles?”

“No,” she says. “From Las Vegas.”

“Las Vegas?”

Mom brings a chair over next to me. “I called Allegra. She’s coming down. I’m taking the next two days off.” A long silence stretches in which my mother starts crying again and my mind is full of useless thoughts, thoughts like I bet those are Mr. Van’s African violets over there by the window.

“Was it an accident?” I ask. The minute the question comes out, I know the answer. I knew it before I asked. There has never been a moment in my life where I didn’t know.

She shakes her head. “No.”

In the time it takes me to ask the next question, the clock ticks, the phone rings on Mrs. Kmiec’s desk outside the door and she takes a message, the bell rings, the noise of passing students fills the hallway and then subsides. The longer I wait to ask the next question, the more time I have for it not to be true. I think I’ll let so much time go by before I ask it, that I won’t ask it until we’re all dead and the answer won’t matter.

I clear my throat. “Was she killed?”

“Yes.”

I remember those hands, that thing stretched into a rope, those empty eyes. I saw that she didn’t love him and how weak he really was. I remember Scot telling me about football: where the enemy is vulnerable, they are dangerous.

“Was it Mike Lyle?” I ask.