Snake
Previously: Charlie Dagonet starts to tell the truth.
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4:43 PM - Thursday, November 6, 2014
50 Laurel Street, Presidio Heights, San Francisco
Paco clocked the profile of Margot Dagonet, highlighted by the light from the broad windows overlooking The Presidio tree tops. When the ring landed on the coffee table in front of her son, something shifted a little; subtle, almost imperceptible, but it was there. A tightening around the jaw which then led to a hard swallow in her throat. Inhaling sharply, she bent slightly to place her teacup and saucer on the table with a light clatter.
“Your father’s ring, Charles.” Mrs. Dagonet scolded softly.
“It’s my ring, Mom. Dad gave it to me when I turned 16 — you know that.”
“And you gave it to this girl?” Charlie turned to level his mother with a silent look, eyes wet.
“Yes. She was my girlfriend.” Charlie exhaled. “I know you only met her once, but she was —”
“Charlie — I didn’t know it was this serious.”
“YOU’RE NEVER HERE!” Charlie’s face went red as he yelled at her. Mrs. Dagonet flinched as though his words actually hit her in the face.
“Okay, that— that’s enough, okay?” It was Mark, leaning forward slightly, his hand moving down gently as though he could will the tension to ease with a gesture. Charlie’s forehead was pinched as he looked down at his hands, feet shuffling slightly. He sniffed and wiped his eyes with a wrist. Margot Dagonet rose slowly and reached out to touch her son’s shoulder for a moment before walking out of the room.
Jeannie exhaled and looked between Mark and Paco, although none of them knew what to make of any of this.
“Are you alright, Charlie?” Jeannie asked the boy quietly. He nodded silently and inhaled sharply. “Okay, let’s just take a take a moment. Do you want some more tea?” Jeannie reached for the pot and refilled Charlie’s cup even though he didn’t respond. She’d just replaced the pot on the tray with Mrs. Dagonet strode back into the room with a box of tissues encased in a silver box cover. Even their Kleenex is fancy, Paco thought.
She placed the box on the coffee table within reach of Charlie’s chair, but pulled three sheets and haded them to him gently.
“I’m sorry,” she whispered to her son, leaning forward to try to get him to look at her. Charlie slowly accepted the the tissues. “I’m sorry I didn’t know what she meant to you.” Charlie nodded again and dabbed his eyes. Margot Dagonet leaned back into the pale blue sofa cushions.
Jeannie looked to Paco and Mark again, both offering the merest of shrugs in response.
“O—okay, let’s back up to Friday, if we can?” Jeannie began again tentatively. “Can you tell us about your day on Friday, Charlie? And when I say that, I need you to include everything from the moment you woke up, to the end of the night.” Charlie considered her with a head tilt, sniffing slightly.
“Eva?” He asked softly.
“Yes.” Jeannie paused. “Was that the first time you’d spent the night at Alexa’s?”
“No. Her parents took the kids away to San Diego earlier in October — Alexa had a soccer tournament so got to stay home.” Paco saw Margot Dagonet roll her lips and go back to a pink shade.
“So, you spent the night at Alexa’s while they were away, but this time her parents were there. That’s pretty bold.” Charlie rolled his head slightly.
“I’m not sure Spiro Thomas would be okay with that.” Mark chimed in quietly.
“A friend of ours from school plays in a band — we went to see them on Clement Street Thursday night. The show ended around 9, we relieved the kids’ sitter and I ended up staying. Alexa’s parents were out at some gala or something, so they didn’t get home until much later.”
“Okay. So when you leave on Friday morning, you see Eva on the stairs and sneak out before the sun comes up?”
“Just barely.”
“And then?” Charlie shrugged a bit.
“And then I went to swim at the Olympic Club, came back for school, and I was there all day.”
“And after school?” Mark probed. “What did you do between end of the school day and the time you got to Tripp’s?”
“I told you before.”
“No, you told us what had happened once you arrived at Tripp’s at around 7pm.” Mark challenged him.
Charlie’s eyebrows flared. “Okay, I walked home. Alexa had stayed behind at school to help Jen Tyson with her costume, but she came over here around 3:45 or so? We hung out —” Charlie paused, “—up in my room, and then I walked her home around 5.”
“How did you walk her home? What route did you take?”
“We went through the park — the Ecology Trail — I’d shown her how to do it before. We got near her house and it was already a party — kids, parents, costumes, everyone running around — Halloween in full swing.” Charlie sighed. “I kissed her, she went inside and I went home. I showered and got my stuff together to DJ at Tripp’s. I loaded the car and went over there.”
“No dinner?”
“Um— yeah, I think Marci had made some lasagna. I heated up a slice when I got back from taking Alexa home.”
“And then you went to Tripp Hartman’s, you did your DJ set, Alexa asked you to take Ryan Dominguez home, you did that around 9:45, dropped off your DJ gear, and then went back to the Hartman’s, is that correct?” Mark listed this summation of their talk from Sunday. Charlie gave him a long look and nodded.
“Yes, that’s it.”
“At any time did Alexa talk with you other than to ask you to drive Ryan home?”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean, did she seem in distress in any way? Upset?”
“No, not to me. I was playing the music though, so I wasn’t monitoring the party too closely. I didn’t see her until I was re-loading my car after things began winding down. I told you — it was in the driveway.”
“Did you do anything in that conversation that may have shown someone else that you two were involved?”
“We were in the driveway,” Charlie repeated. “The party was winding up, people were milling around…we just chatted quietly. We, we didn’t kiss or anything if that’s what you’re asking. We weren’t advertising.”
“What was the plan for that, Charlie?” Paco prompted in his low voice. Everyone turned to look at him as he’d been silent so far.
“Plan?”
“You were serious, but you two were on the down-low? At some point people would find out. What was the plan? When were you going to be public?” Paco draped an arm along the back of the elegant sofa as her turned toward Charlie a little.
Charlie sighed. “I — I was happy for us to be public, but Alexa was scared. It seemed like — it seemed like she maybe had something to do, something — I don’t know. She just kept saying “not yet”. I think that if she had come skiing over Christmas, we would have come back official, but that’s my assumption.”
“Do you think she was trying to get back at Seb somehow? Or Dash and Tripp?”
Charlie shrugged and shook his head.
“I have no idea. She was more…like, she kind of just wanted to be left alone, you know? She didn’t want to have anything to do with the Xavier guys. She didn’t want to rehash last year, she was just doing her thing and figuring out college. She spent time with me and Carolina, sometimes MJ and Zizi were around…but she was low-key.” Paco nodded at him silently.
“Everyone said she seemed happy and content this year.” Jeannie said softly. “I’m sure you had something to do with that.”
Charlie squinted a little and looked up, trying to hide fresh tears. There was a long quiet beat.
“I want to know about when you got back to Tripp Hartman’s.” Mark began again. “What exactly do you remember from when you arrived?”
Charlie blew out a breath, looking up at the ceiling.
“I pulled up to the curb. Presidio Terrace was…mostly quiet. Still some kids in costumes moving around, but far less than earlier in the evening. The houses were still lit up though — like, everything was ending, but there was a little bit of activity.”
“How did you come in the house, through the driveway?”
“No, front door. I didn’t know who’d be around.”
“And the door was open?”
“Yes, it was unlocked. Just opened right up.”
“So, you go inside, and—”
“—and it’s empty, the lights were on in the kitchen, and I could see back toward toward the family room, where the party was — it was empty. I went into the kitchen and all the party food was all over the island. It was a mess. Tally was there at the kitchen table.”
“What was she doing there?”
“When I walked in? She was finishing a fat line of blow off of a dinner plate.” Paco saw Margot Dagonet’s face go pale this time. “She had another one waiting in backup. She offered it to me, and I declined, so she did that one too. She ushered me over to the other chair at the table, insisting we should chat because it had been “too long”—“
“—do you think she was expecting you?” Mark asked.
“I don’t know. I doubt it. I don’t know why I even went back to Tripp’s — I could just have easily gone to the Point. I thought about it.” Charlie shook his head. “I wish I had. Alexa — I’d have — she’d still —” Charlie faltered again, face pinched.
“You can’t think that way Charlie.” Jeannie told him. He met her eyes and she shook her head slightly. “There’s nothing to gain thinking that way.” It was a gentle warning. Paco looked at Jeannie’s face and she suddenly looked like she’d aged in an instant. In the next moment it was gone and her rosy cheeks were back again, but it had been there: some deep exhaustion and hurt just below the surface.
“So you chat with Tally?” Mark brought him back again. “Was that the first time you’d seen Talbot Briggs use cocaine?” Charlie scoffed at him.
“Everyone’s seen Talbot Briggs use cocaine.”
“Charles —” Mrs. Dagonet’s voice was a murmur of shock.
“And what else happened?” Charlie considered this.
“She was talking a mile a minute. She got up and got a glass — it looked clean — and poured Diet Coke in it.”
“Did you see her pour it directly.”
“No —” Charlie admitted ruefully. “No, she placed it on the counter and stood right in front of it. I didn’t see the coke go in the glass, just the full drink when she was done pouring.”
“So, it’s possible she put alcohol in the glass and you didn’t see it.”
“Yes. It’s one of these things I keep thinking about: she was just talking constantly and I was already over it. She could just be so annoying. I didn’t even want the drink, really, but I didn’t want to be bringing her to the Point, either. I just — I just kind of wanted out of there. I asked her where Tripp was, and she said he was upstairs but that they were heading to the party soon.”
“We know that was a lie — Tripp was already at the party.” Mark told him.
“There was something wrong and I knew it, but I knew I couldn’t do anything. Like, why was she there in this big empty house with all this mess? It felt…I don’t know, off? She brought me the Diet Coke, and bent down and kissed me.” Jeannie glanced at Mark.
“And?” Mark prompted.
“I recoiled.” Charlie admitted. “I couldn’t help it, it was natural. I — I’d kissed Tally before when we were in like, 8th grade maybe? Kid stuff. But I hadn’t wanted to ever since. And it just, like it caught me off-guard? She smelled like the cocaine and I didn’t want any part of it.”
“Why wouldn’t you want to kiss Tally?” Paco probed him. “She’s beautiful, smart, sophisticated—”
“She’s a fucking snake.”
“Charles.” Margot Dagonet was aghast.
“She is, Mom. The drugs, the meanness — ask Carolina. Ask anyone. She’s not making any friends these days.”
“Where does she get her cocaine?”
“From Tripp. Everyone gets their drugs from Tripp.”
“Well, that I do know.” Mrs Dagonet admitted.
“You know about Tripp Hartman supplying drugs?” Mark asked her, leaning forward.
“Yes, of course. Tripp’s elder brothers were at school with my eldest two, and all of them got well out of hand with drugs and alcohol. We had plenty of meetings with Brother Driscoll at Xavier trying to put an end to it, but we got through it instead.” She looked at her son, “and then Charlie —” she whispered.
“In all of that, were the Hartmans at all concerned?” Mark asked her.
“No, not really. They seemed to think it was sort of “boys will be boys”.” Her tone was flat.
“Do you know the Hartmans socially?” Jeannie prompted her.
“Beyond school fundraisers? No, not at all. The husband is—” she shook her head. “I never really cared to get to know the wife. There’s something — I don’t know. Something doesn’t quite connect there. And I heard the eldest son ended up having legal troubles — is that true?”
“I understand he’s put that behind him.” Jeannie said with a half smile that didn’t reach her eyes. She turned again to Charlie in the chair between them. “So, you take the Diet Coke and Tally kisses you. What did you do?”
“I pounded the drink really quick — I thought it would mean that I could leave.”
“And how long after that did you start to feel unwell?”
“A few minutes — Tally was talking at me. Being nasty about people at the party, but I stopped hearing her. Everything started going fuzzy around the edges. My stomach started flipping. I got up, went to the bathroom to try some cold water on my face but it didn’t work.” Charlie shrugged again. “And then I ended up in the wet grass, like I told you.”