“Yeah, well, if it wasn’t for bad luck, some people would have no luck at all, Robbie. The guy’s an amateur astronomer. He was out there with his son and a telescope. They were watching for that comet, the one the papers were making such a big deal about? The guy says he saw a car weave into the old drive-in.” He checked the message on his phone again. “Weave. That’s what he said. When the driver got out, the guy trained his telescope on him. He said he thought maybe the guy was drunk. But that wasn’t it. It turned out the driver was just a kid. The guy got a good look at him before the kid took off down the road. Then he went home and called the cops. By Monday morning they’d tied the car to the hit-and-run. Nick was arrested, and the rest you know.” He looked across the table at me. “Not the way I’d want to celebrate my birthday, that’s for sure.”
I remembered the colorful wrapping paper and the birthday card I’d found in his backpack. “Nick got arrested on his birthday?”
“The day after. He turned sixteen on Sunday.” He closed the notebook and tucked it into his pocket. “That’s why he got sprung from the group home for the weekend—so he could spend the big day with his aunt. A couple of years ago, the timing would have meant a break for him for sure. Now things are different.”
“What do you mean?”
“The hit-and-run happened Saturday evening. Up until a couple of years ago, if a youth under the age of sixteen committed pretty much any offense, they’d get a youth sentence, which was pretty light compared to adult sentences. Sixteen and over, for certain serious offenses, they could get an adult sentence. But that’s changed. Now the magic age is fourteen. Fourteen and over, for certain crimes—basically, any crime that would result in a sentence of two years or more for an adult, and by that I mean anyone eighteen and over—the prosecution can ask for an adult sentence. The kid’s lucky he’s got your mother on the case. She’ll probably work something out with the other attorney. She’ll argue that the guy dying wasn’t Nick’s fault. I wouldn’t be surprised if the prosecution was only pushing the negligence-causing-death charge to bargain for a serious settlement on bodily injury. But no matter how you look at it, Nick’s facing more time, maybe in secure custody this time.”
“Secure custody?”
“Locked up. As opposed to the group home he’s in now, where he’s under strict supervision and has to have permission to go out, but he’s not locked up.”
My phone trilled. I answered it.
“That was Mom,” I said after I hung up. “She’s here to pick me up. I have to go, Dad.”
My father stood up. “Then by all means, let’s go.”
“Dad, I don’t think you should—”
“Don’t worry, Robbie. I’m just going to say hi.”
He said considerably more than hi. He said enough to put my mother in a bad mood. Enough to make me hesitate to ask her any questions.
“Iam not going to discuss this with you,” my mother said as we drove home. “I shouldn’t have talked to you about it in the first place. And you shouldn’t have discussed it with your father.”
“I was just trying to figure out what happened. Why he did it.”
“There’s nothing to figure out, Robyn. He admitted he did it. He’s ready to take his punishment. It’s over.”
“But why was he even allowed to leave the house? His aunt was supposed to be responsible for him. Why wasn’t she watching him?” If she’d been with him like she was supposed to, nothing would have happened. That man might still be alive. And Nick would be leaving the group home in a couple of months.
“He’s sixteen years old, Robyn.”
“But you must have asked her,” I said. “He was supposed to be supervised, right? He wasn’t supposed to go out alone. Right?”
My mother gave me a slightly exasperated look.
“His aunt works long shifts as a waitress,” she said. “She was working on Saturday. She started at six in the morning. After her shift, she went home, made dinner, even made a cake for him, for his birthday. They had a little celebration—”
“On Saturday? But his birthday was on Sunday,” I said.
My mother looked surprised. She was probably wondering how I knew when Nick’s birthday was. But she didn’t ask.
“He had to be back at the group home by three o’clock on Sunday afternoon,” she said. “So they had the cake and presents on Saturday. His aunt rented some movies for him. Then, because she had to go on shift again at six the next morning, she made an early night of it. She went up to bed and left him downstairs watching movies.”
“So she wasn’t supervising him.”
“It’s not her fault, Robyn. This is all on Nick.”
“How early?” I said.
“What?”
“You said she made an early night of it. How early?”
That earned me another exasperated look. “What difference does it make?” She shook her head. “Around eight thirty. She went upstairs a little before eight thirty. She trusted him, Robyn. That’s what she told me. She trusted him to stay put.”
But he hadn’t. Why not?
. . .
I had an idea, but my mother didn’t like it. She threw her car keys into the bowl on the table in the front hall, kicked off her shoes, and went into the kitchen to put the kettle on. While she waited for it to boil, she told me that she’d been over the incident a dozen times with Nick. He wasn’t exactly communicative but that at least he hadn’t tried to deny it. She said I’d be surprised how many people get caught practically red-handed and then deny they were even involved. She said maybe the RAD program really did work because Nick didn’t seem angry about what happened. She said he was taking responsibility for his actions for maybe the first time in his life and that showed real maturity. She said even the police were surprised by how forthcoming he was.
“I just want to talk to him,” I said.
“Robyn, this is none of your business.”
“But it doesn’t make sense, Mom. Everyone said he was doing so well, and then he does something incredibly stupid. It just doesn’t make sense.”
The look of exasperation on my mother’s face changed to one of concern.
“Is there something between you and this boy?” she said.
I shook my head.
“Because if there is—”
“There isn’t. I just—” Just what?
“Robyn,” my mother said, her voice soft now, “do you have any idea why Nick is in that group home?”
I shook my head. I wasn’t sure I wanted to hear this.
“He trashed the office at his school. Took a length of pipe and went through that place, smashing everything—computers, phones, windows, you name it. He even swung at one of the vice principals.”
“Just swung?” I said. “Did he hit him?”
“No,” my mother said. “But that’s not the point. This boy has been in a lot of trouble.”
“Has been. In the past.”
She looked even more concerned now. The kettle started to shrill. She turned away from me to pour boiling water over herbal tea bags in two cups, one for her and one for me. She handed one to me.
“I’m only telling you this so that you’ll forget about this boy, Robyn,” she said. “This is not to leave this room. Do you understand me?”
I nodded.
“Something else happened on the weekend, something that Nick’s aunt thinks explains why Nick did what he did.”
I waited.
“On Friday night, Nick met his aunt’s new boyfriend for the first time.”
When his aunt had picked him up at the animal shelter, she had mentioned that she thought it was time Nick met Glen. Glen must be her boyfriend.
“Apparently it didn’t go well,” my mother said. “According to Nick’s aunt, Nick took an instant dislike to the man. He and his aunt had a big fight about it that night. Nick’s aunt thinks that’s why Nick took off on Saturday night. He has trouble keeping his emotions under control. That’s what gets
him into trouble every time, Robyn. That’s why he’s in that program at the animal shelter.”
I stared down into my tea. So that was the missing link, the explanation for why Nick had suddenly thrown it all away. He had lost his temper—again—and had taken his frustration out on someone else. It made sense to his aunt. It made sense to my mother.
So why didn’t I want to believe it?
. . .
I couldn’t sleep. I kept thinking about what Nick had done. It was so stupid. Okay, so maybe he hadn’t liked his aunt’s new boyfriend. But to retaliate by sneaking out and taking someone else’s car? And then run into a cyclist and not even stop to see how the person was? Nick had been putting all his energy into helping to rehabilitate a dog. He was helping Antoine and the others too. How could a person who was capable of being so patient and kind also be so rash and callous?
I tossed and turned.
That wasn’t the only thing that bothered me. Why had it taken Nick so long to ditch the car? It was nearly four hours from the time Nick had hit the cyclist to the time when he had been seen dumping the car. What had he been doing all that time? And why had he driven the car north, out of the city, before abandoning it? Hadn’t he been worried that someone had seen the accident and could call in a description of the car? Why hadn’t he just got rid of the car and run?
And what about those fingerprints? Come on. When you hit someone with a car and then flee the scene, you just know that sooner or later—probably sooner—the cops are going to be all over that car. And if you’ve already got a record, you know your prints are in the system. And yet he didn’t think to wipe the car clean? Even if he’d panicked at first, he’d had hours to figure things out before he ditched the car.
And come to think of it, why did he go all the way across town to take a car? Why didn’t he just grab something in his aunt’s neighborhood?
If only his aunt had watched those videos with him. If he hadn’t been alone, he wouldn’t have been able to leave the house.
Okay, so my mother was right when she said it wasn’t his aunt’s fault. But his aunt knew Nick. She knew he was upset, and she knew how he acted when he was upset. So why had she been so trusting? Why had she left him alone at eight thirty in the evening if she thought he might be upset enough to do something crazy?
Oh.
I sat up straight in bed, staring into the darkness. Then I switched on the light, reached for my phone, and dialed my father’s number.
“You know Ed Jarvis, right?” I said.
“Robbie?” My father sounded groggy. “It’s nearly midnight.”
“Sorry, Dad. Did I wake you?”
“Actually, yes.”
“Dad, I have Nick’s backpack. I found it at the animal shelter. I want to give it back to him.”
There was silence on the other end of the line for a moment before my father said, “But your mother is his lawyer. Couldn’t she arrange to get it back to him?”
“Please, Dad?”
“You just want to return his backpack?”
“Well, and maybe talk to him.”
More silence. Then, “I’ll call him in the morning. But I’m not making any promises, Robbie. Nick’s in custody. There are rules about visitors.”
“Thanks, Dad.”
. . .
I dug up the phone book the next morning, flipped to the Ts, and looked up a number. Nick’s aunt was surprised to hear from me, but she remembered who I was. She especially remembered my father. She was also surprised by my question, but she answered it. Then she said, “Are you and Nick friends?”
“He knows a lot about dogs,” I said. “People at the shelter really respect him.”
“Oh?” She sounded surprised. I thanked her for her time. Then I made one more phone call.
. . .
My father called me just before noon. He said he’d pick me up. I told him it was okay, I’d meet him at his place. I didn’t tell him that I had to collect Nick’s backpack from the closet where I’d left it.
“Correct me if I’m wrong,” my father said later, when I emerged from my room, “but isn’t that the same backpack you had with you when I picked you up the day before yesterday?”
“Possibly,” I said.
He glanced at it again, but he didn’t say another word about it.
Twenty minutes later, he pulled up to the curb in front of a large, rambling brick house on what looked like a regular residential street. Ed Jarvis was waiting for us inside.
“Thanks for bringing that over,” he said, nodding at the backpack. “Nick’s been frantic. He thought he’d lost it.”
“I’d like to give it back to him myself,” I said. “If that’s okay?”
Mr. Jarvis looked at my father. My father just shrugged.
“I’ll have someone bring Nick down,” Mr. Jarvis said. “You can wait for him in the visiting room.”
. . .
I was sitting at a table in a room at the back of the house. One entire wall was glass, so I saw Nick as he approached with a man. Nick looked at me. He did not smile. He came into the room. The man who was with him stood out in the hall, watching.
“Mr. Jarvis said you have something for me,” he said.
I dropped his backpack onto the table. “You left it at the shelter the day you got arrested,” I said.
He grabbed it, opened it and rooted through it.
“Everything’s there,” I said.
He zipped the pack closed again, slung it over his shoulder, and turned toward the door.
“I have a confession to make,” I said.
He turned back to me.
“You know that dog book that’s in there? The one that Stella gave you? I read some of it.”
His eyes were hard on me, like he was trying to show me he didn’t care about me or anything I had to say.
“It was really interesting,” I said. He didn’t say anything.“I know a few things about dogs. But I didn’t know a lot of the stuff in that book.”
No reaction. But then, I hadn’t really expected one.
“For example,” I said,“I didn’t know that some things that people eat can make dogs really sick. Onions and garlic, for example. They both contain a lot of sulfur. Sulfur destroys red blood cells in dogs. Did you know that?”
He just stared at me.
“Of course you did,” I said. “You underlined it in your book. Chocolate is bad for dogs too. It contains something called theobromine that can make dogs sick and even kill them. One single-serving regular chocolate bar contains enough theobromine to make a small dog very, very sick. And baking chocolate, you know, the kind used to make cakes and cookies, contains an even higher concentration. Baking chocolate can kill a dog.”
“I gotta go,” he said.
“Orion was sick last Sunday, Nick. Monday too.”
“So?”
“So he was sick because someone gave him chocolate cake.”
Still no reaction other than a frosty stare. I bet it had taken him years to perfect it.
“I saw cake crumbs and icing on his blanket, Nick. Chocolate cake and blue icing. Your aunt made your favorite cake for you on Saturday—double chocolate fudge. She wrote Happy Birthday Nick on it with blue icing.”
Nothing.
“You went up to the animal shelter on Saturday night, didn’t you? You broke in, didn’t you?”
He just stared at me. It was impossible to read what he was thinking.
“The thing that doesn’t make sense is why you would feed Orion chocolate cake when you knew what it would do to him.”
He crossed his arms over his chest and stared at me.
“You know what I think, Nick? I think that when you told the police you hit that man with that car, you didn’t know the whole story. I also think that when you said that you’d done it, no one saw any problem with that—not your aunt, not the police, not your lawyer, not even Antoine, who respects you. I mean, it’s not like you’re such a good guy, right, the kind of guy
who never gets in trouble?”
That finally got a reaction. He glowered at me.
“But there was something that bothered me, Nick.”
I waited for him to ask what it was, but he didn’t.
“If you wanted to go joyriding,” I said, “why did you go all the way across town to take a car? Why not find something closer to home? Closer to your aunt’s home, I mean. Not closer to Joey’s.”
Nothing.
“Because that’s where the car was taken from,” I said. “Fifth and Main. I know the area. In fact, I had dinner at a restaurant near there not too long ago. It turns out that Joey and Angie live almost right across the street from the place.” Angie, the very pregnant young woman I had helped down off the bus the day I’d gone to meet Billy. Angie, who had sent Nick a birthday card. Angie, in the photo with Nick and Joey. “When’s the baby due?” I said. “Is that why you gave Joey money? For the baby?”
Finally—a flicker of surprise.
“How did you get from your aunt’s house to where you took the car, Nick?”
Of course he didn’t answer.
“You must have taken the subway and then a bus, right? I mean, how else can you have gotten across town? You don’t have a car. You don’t even have a driver’s license. You want to know how I figure it?”
It was like talking to stone.
“Your aunt goes to bed a little before 8:30. You wait fifteen minutes or so until you’re sure she’s settled in for the night. Then you slip out. You take the subway and the bus up to Fifth and Main and borrow a car. Am I right?”
No answer.
“The only trouble is, the timing doesn’t work. At that time on a Saturday night, it takes at least forty-five minutes to get from your aunt’s house all the way across town to where the car was taken. I know. I called the transit authority and checked.”
Nothing. No reaction.
“So say you left your aunt’s house at 8:45, after you were pretty sure she was asleep. You couldn’t have made it to the west end much before 9:30. But the accident happened at 9:40 back in your aunt’s neighborhood. So you know what I wonder, Nick? I wonder how you got back so fast. That drive takes at least twenty minutes.”
Last Chance Page 15