An incident at a child's birthday party sets in motion a series of deadly, inescapable events in Laura Lippman's Every Secret Thing.
By COLETTE BANCROFT
Published October 30, 2003
[Publicity photo]
Laura Lippman’s latest book, Every Secret Thing, is a departure from her previous novels about a Baltimore private investigator.
Laura Lippman, a former reporter for the Baltimore Sun, has written six novels about Baltimore private investigator Tess Monaghan. Lippman's new book, Every Secret Thing, is a departure from the series. It begins the day two 11-year-old girls, Alice Manning and Ronnie Fuller, are ejected from a friend's birthday party.
The events that follow result in both girls being jailed for the death of a baby. Every Secret Thing tells the story of what happens after Alice and Ronnie are released at age 18 and try to go on with their lives.
In this excerpt from the prologue, Alice and Ronnie are walking home after being kicked out of the birthday party.
- COLETTE BANCROFT, Times staff writer
* * *
It was a baby carriage, sun sparking off its silver handles, perched at the top of the stairs.
"The metal must be hot, sitting in the sun like that."
She seemed to expect an answer, so Alice said: "And it's too close to the stairs. It could tumble right down."
"Just roll right down."
"Unless the brake is on," Alice pointed out.
"Even if the brake is on, that's not right," Ronnie said. "You're not supposed to leave a baby like that."
"Her mother is probably right inside."
Ronnie grabbed Alice's elbow and gave it a wrenching pinch on the tip. Alice glanced at the bruise from an earlier pinch, remembered the clink of Maddy's mother's teeth as Ronnie's fist struck her jaw. No, this was not a day to contradict Ronnie.
"Not even for a minute," Ronnie said. "Anything could happen. Someone has to look after that baby."
They crept up to the door. The screen was heavy metal mesh, so dense that it was hard to see much in the cool dark house beyond. But they heard nothing. No footsteps, no voices. Did you call out? Later, they would be asked that question so many times, in so many ways. Did you knock? Did you ring the bell? Sometimes Alice said yes, and sometimes she said no, and whatever she said was true at the moment she said it. In her mind, there were a dozen, hundred, thousand versions of that day. They called out. They rang the bell. They knocked. They tried the door and, finding it unlocked, marched inside and used the phone to call 911. The mother was so happy that she gave them twenty dollars and called the newspaper and the television stations, and they were the heroes on TV.
Most of the time, Alice was sure of two things - they knocked on the door, the screen door, with its mesh so tight and small that it was almost impossible to see anything in the shadowy house. It was a screen over the screen, an intricate metal design, like something on a castle. It ended in tall thin spikes, higher than their heads. They said: "Hello? Hello?" Maybe not very loudly, but they said it.
"This baby is alone," Ronnie said. "We have to take care of this baby."
"We're too little to baby-sit," said Alice, who had asked her mother about this at the beginning of the summer, when she was trying to figure out a way to make enough money to buy her jellies and other things she wanted. "You have to be in high school."
Ronnie shook her head.
"We have to take care of this baby."
The baby in question was asleep, slumped sideways in her carriage, so her full cheeks were flat on one side, full and puffy on the other, like a water balloon whose weight had shifted. She wore a pink gingham jumper with matching pink socks, and a pink cap of the same gingham.
"Baby Gap," Alice said. She loved Baby Gap.
"We have to take care of this baby."
Later, alone with her mother and the woman with the spotted face - exquizits, Alice finally got Ronnie's joke - they would ask her again and again just how Ronnie said this. WE have to take care of this baby. We have to TAKE CARE of this baby. We have to take care of THIS BABY. But Alice could not, in good faith, remember any emphasis. Eight words, requiring no more than five seconds to utter. We have to take care of this baby. We have to take care of this baby. We have to take care of this baby. Wehavetotakecareofthisbaby. They were being good, they were being helpful. People like children who are good and helpful. That's what Alice kept explaining. They were trying to be good.
