More people filed into the room from its back entrance and from a side door. An older, gray-haired woman with round horn-rimmed glasses entered from the side and sat down behind the raised desk.
“We lucked out,” Cranston said, leaning over Phoebe to whisper to Troy. “The magistrate’s a grandmother and, from what we learned, super tough on crime.”
Phoebe caught her breath as Liam and his parents walked up the aisle right past her to the front row. They shook hands with two men who were waiting for them there. It was the first time that Phoebe had seen Liam in a jacket and tie. He’d recently had a haircut, and his ears stuck out in a boyish way. Her heart ached as she watched him take his seat between his parents.
Phoebe only half listened to the proceedings. It began with a lot of legal mumbo jumbo she didn’t understand. Dates and dockets and blah blah blah. She couldn’t help but wonder what Liam was thinking. How he was feeling. He must have spotted her as he came into the room, but he didn’t turn around or even glance her way. It was as if he were already a prisoner. Cut off from her and the rest of the world. He looked so alone and vulnerable. She hated that she couldn’t let herself love him anymore. It hurt too much to think about that for very long. So she tried instead to concentrate on Uncle Fred’s young male deputy, who was delivering the report to the magistrate. He seemed uncomfortable in his unexpected public role, stumbling over his words.
“. . . establish evidence of a pattern of parental negligence . . . underage drinking on the premises the night of the wedding both by the accused and at least three other invited guests . . . the accused so intoxicated he had to be carried into the house by his father . . .”
It was Phoebe who had told her uncle that Liam’s transfer from Deer Mountain to Moorehouse had been the result of his passing out at his cousin’s wedding. At the time it had seemed to Phoebe like a harmless enough piece of information, but now she heard it turned into another black mark against the Bostocks:
“. . . concerned enough about his behavior to remove him from the local high school he’d been attending and send him to a private prep school in Connecticut. It was from there that he returned home the night in question with two prep school friends. The Bostocks were aware that the boys would be staying overnight without adult supervision. They had invited them, even as they themselves planned to be at another house party over fifty miles away. They had asked the victim to babysit for them, knowing that the three boys would be arriving later that evening to a house equipped with an unlocked liquor cabinet and wine cellar in the basement. The boys, who had already been drinking in the car on the way up from Connecticut, continued the party at the Bostocks’ residence. The victim, alone in the house with her charge asleep upstairs, was coerced into drinking with them. . . .”
The deputy walked up to the magistrate’s desk and handed her a sheaf of papers.
“These are printouts of photos the victim’s father took the day after the incident. As you can see, there is heavy bruising on her neck and arms and stomach area. . . .”
Phoebe closed her eyes, remembering. Brandon’s braying laugh. His body pinning her down. His tongue exploring her mouth. The taste of whiskey on his breath that would later make her so sick. That memory alone almost made her gag. She leaned forward, bowing her head.
“Are you okay?” her dad whispered.
“Phoebe? Do you need some air?” Henry Cranston asked, his concerned voice carrying across the courtroom.
The magistrate stood up, raising her hand to silence the deputy, her gaze scanning the crowd until it rested on Henry Cranston, who had half risen from his seat as he leaned over Phoebe.
“Is there a problem?” she asked.
“I’m fine,” Phoebe whispered, sitting up again, her face flushed with embarrassment. She hadn’t meant to cause a disturbance, and she was upset that the lawyer had made such a big deal out of it.
“No, everything’s okay,” Cranston said. “And we apologize for the interruption.” But the room’s attention had, for the first time and at a critical moment, focused on Phoebe. She could see several people craning their necks to get a better look at her. That round-faced, redheaded teenage girl. Who else could she be but the unnamed, underage victim?
• • •
Martin Freston, the Bostocks’ lawyer, seemed to be on good terms with the magistrate. They exchanged some private words before he took his turn addressing the courtroom.
“Before I begin,” Freston said, “I need to go on record stating my concern that the police investigation into this incident was led by the victim’s uncle. It’s impossible not to believe his findings would be prejudicial, which I very much believe they are.”
“Your concerns are duly noted,” the magistrate said.
“Thank you,” Freston replied. “Now, I’m sure we’re all very sorry about what the victim went through. But we have to ask an important question: Can she substantiate her accusations? What do we actually know about what happened that night? A group of underage teenagers was drinking—and one of them got hurt. Not raped—but unfortunately roughed up.
“Yes, the photos are disturbing,” Freston continued. “But I think we need to remember that everyone bruises differently and the victim is quite fair-skinned. I’m not in any way dismissing her suffering, but I do think it’s important to try to put it in perspective. I go back to what we actually know about what happened that night. An underage girl was drinking with a group of underage boys—willingly, I need to add. The police claim she was coerced—which is, like so much else in that so-called ‘report,’ a biased opinion. No one forced alcohol down her throat. She was underage and she was drinking—so much so that she made herself sick. The boys involved claim they were too out of it to remember who did what to whom, though the victim has accused just one of the boys. As it happens, it’s the one boy she knows well. In fact, a boy she knows very, very well.”
Phoebe didn’t like this man’s tone of voice. She didn’t like the snide way he said the word “victim” or the way he made it sound like she was some kind of a party girl. But her anger turned to alarm when he brought up her relationship to Liam.
“What are you implying?” the magistrate asked Freston.
“I interviewed the other two boys,” Freston said. “One of them told me that it was well-known the victim and the accused had had sexual re—”
“Bullshit!” Phoebe’s dad cried, jumping to his feet. “That’s a damned lie! And I—”
“Quiet!” the magistrate cut in, pointing at Troy. “You will sit down immediately and not say another word or I’ll have to ask you to leave this courtroom.”
She then turned to Freston and said, “I thought you were making a point about what we actually know, but you’ve just introduced inflammatory hearsay of your own into the argument. I suggest that you, too, stick to the facts from now on.”
“I’m very sorry,” Freston replied, though he seemed anything but, as far as Phoebe was concerned. He then went on to detail the Bostocks’ standing in the community. How deeply Michael’s past was rooted in Barnsbury. How Brook came from a prestigious family whose philanthropic endeavors touched cultural institutions across New England.
“But, despite their wealth, the Bostocks lead a simple, quiet life. In fact, after 9/11 they decided to leave New York City and return to Mr. Bostock’s hometown to raise their children in a less stressful and more nurturing environment. They are very loving and involved parents. They will be the first to tell you that they made a miscalculation when they decided not to be home on the night in question. But they did nothing to abet or encourage what took place under their roof. They were as shocked and upset as anyone to learn what happened to the victim. Laws are written to protect the innocent and punish the guilty, but in this case the Social Host Liability law is being turned against two caring, responsible people who made an error of judgment. What parent doesn’t make some kind of error every day of the week?”
The magistrate motioned for the deputy and
Freston to join her at the bench and, turning away from the microphone, conferred with them for several minutes. After directing the men to return to their seats, she leafed back and forth through the police statement and her pad of notes.
Phoebe’s stomach ached. She knew it was Brandon who had repeated the lie about her to the Bostocks’ lawyer. But the fact that it was Liam who’d started it made the blatant falsehood hurt even more. She leaned forward a little, trying to catch a glimpse of Liam, but her view was blocked by Mr. and Mrs. Bostock, who sat flanking their son.
“This is a disturbing and confusing case,” the magistrate said, dropping her pen and looking up from the desk at last. “Clearly, a young girl has been abused physically—and no doubt emotionally, as well. But it is indeed one built primarily on hearsay, not facts. It seems impossible to determine with any degree of certainty which of the boys assaulted the victim. I strongly suggest that the Bostocks as well as the parents of the victim have very serious conversations with their teenagers about the dangers of underage drinking. I assume the Bostocks will learn from their mistakes and start to practice better parental oversight.”
The magistrate looked down at the papers on her desk again, then back up at the courtroom, before adding:
“I’m dismissing the charges for lack of evidence.”
13
“I saw a notice in the post office this afternoon,” Brook told Michael two days after the hearing. “Fred Henderson is holding a meeting tomorrow night at the town hall. It’s on the dangers of underage drinking.”
“I don’t like the sound of that,” Michael said. They were in the kitchen, getting dinner ready. Liam and Tilly were watching television in the music room. Brook had been so relieved when the charges were dropped that she refused to pay much attention to her husband’s prediction that the ruling would only make matters worse with Troy.
Brook had her own misgivings about how the hearing had gone. When she’d asked Liam on the ride home from the courthouse about Freston’s claim that Phoebe and Liam were involved sexually, he’d quickly denied it. But there was something about his answer that had unsettled her. His “No way!” had seemed overly vehement. She’d tried to press him, but he retreated into himself, and she decided to let it go. Ease up on him, she told herself. He’s just had the scare of his life! She could be more forgiving now that she knew he was out of harm’s way. And her relief was buoyed by the thought that this close call would finally motivate Liam to turn his life around.
“I think it’s a good idea, actually,” Brook said. “This is a great opportunity for people to air their concerns and get some professional advice about how to deal with a very serious problem.”
“It’s a great opportunity for Troy to bad-mouth us,” Michael said flatly. “He’s been going around town telling everyone that Liam only got off because we threw our weight around.”
“Honestly, Michael!” Brook said, dropping the silverware in a noisy heap on the table. “Henderson’s called the meeting, not Troy! And I’m getting fed up with the way you keep going on about Troy. The man has a right to be upset with us, okay? I feel terrible about what happened to Phoebe under our roof. I think I’d be saying some pretty nasty things, too, if Tilly had gone through something like that.”
They’d been having more and more disagreements like this one. It seemed to Brook that most of their arguments arose from the fact that she was ready to put the incident behind them—and Michael wasn’t. He was holding on to his anger in a way she’d never known him to do before. And the frustration he was feeling toward their son was an almost palpable presence in their home these days.
“God, you’re so naive sometimes!” Michael told her.
“And you’re so damned negative. We’ve been exonerated, for heaven’s sake. I don’t see why you don’t try to reach out to Troy tomorrow night. Take him aside. Say that we really hope we can let bygones be—”
“I’m not going to that witch hunt and neither are you.”
“I’m sorry?” Brook said. “Since when is it okay for you to order me around? Of course I’m going. We’ve got nothing to be ashamed of. We’ve got nothing to hide. In fact, having gone through what we just did, I think we’ve got a responsibility to share what we’ve learned with other parents.”
But Brook could tell by Michael’s grim expression and the way he folded his arms across his chest that he was having none of it. God, he could be so pigheaded at times! If only he’d let down his defenses a little. Make an effort to bridge his differences with Troy. Why couldn’t Michael see that he was giving up the chance to engage other parents in the town? It was the perfect forum for them to explain what had happened—and acknowledge that they’d made a mistake they now really regretted. And they needed to reach out to Troy in particular. They had to win him over! If Michael wasn’t willing to help, then Brook would have to do it on her own.
• • •
She arrived late, and the parking lot outside the town hall offices was nearly full. As she walked around to the front entrance, Brook glimpsed Fred Henderson through the windows, standing behind a lectern. Rows of people faced him on metal folding chairs, while others stood along the side walls.
“. . . and we were celebrating his seventy-fifth birthday,” a woman in the third row was saying as Brook slipped into the back of the auditorium. “So, of course, my husband broke out the champagne for his dad. All the grandkids were there. We gave each of the teenagers a sip or two to toast him with. So what we did was illegal?”
“The short answer is yes,” the chief responded. “Obviously no one got hurt at Dick’s birthday celebration—so no harm done. Technically, though, if one of the teenage cousins had somehow managed to drink more than that sip or two and hurt himself or someone else? The parents could hold you liable. Knowing your family the way I do, Claire, I’m sure that would never happen. But the worst-case scenario is you could be sued for damages. And those are just the legal ramifications. That’s not even addressing how drinking of any kind is harmful for teenagers—physically and mentally.”
“I’ve got a twenty-year-old serving in Afghanistan,” a man toward the back called out. “You telling me I can’t give that soldier a beer when he comes home on leave?”
Brook heard someone in the crowd say, “Of course you can! That’s ridiculous.” But then the chief held up his hand and, reading from the clipboard he was holding, said:
“The law states that you cannot serve alcohol to persons under twenty-one years of age. Or allow them to consume alcohol in your home even if exceptions permit minors to consume alcohol in other places. Now, I know that as a parent you think, ‘Hey, I’ve got the right to let my teenagers have a beer or two if I’m keeping an eye on things. They’re in my house, right?’ But what happens if, say, your kid—or a friend of his—has a beer or two or three, gets behind the wheel of his pickup, and plows into someone else’s car? That’s one of the reasons the state of Massachusetts tightened up the law to make parents responsible for whatever happens if minors drink in their home.”
“It’s a shame it takes a law to tell certain people how to parent,” said a woman in the middle of the audience. Brook had seen her around town with a couple of school-age children, but she didn’t know her name.
“Was that a question?” Fred asked. “Remember this is a Q and A, folks, okay? Please keep your opinions to yourself. Anyone else? Yes, Ted?”
“In this case, the parents weren’t at home when things got out of hand,” said a man standing against the wall near the front. Brook had only a partial view of him, but she thought she recognized the speaker as a fellow Deer Mountain parent. “I think it’s kind of crazy to blame people for something that happened when they weren’t even there.”
“Yeah, but they knew these underage prep school kids would be spending the night,” said the same mother who’d spoken up before. “What did they think was going to happen? I mean, honestly—”
“And that’s really the point of the law,” Hender
son said. “To encourage you as parents to think about what might happen with your kids even if you aren’t there. Maybe especially if you aren’t there. If you know you’re going to be held responsible for what goes on under your roof, then it’s my guess you’re going to lay down some stricter rules. And you’re probably going to make sure you don’t have kegs of beer lying around, right?”
Brook decided this was the moment to speak up. Stepping forward and raising her hand, she called out:
“Excuse me? Hi, everyone! I’m Brook Bostock. It was my son and his friends who were involved in this recent incident and—” Her words were drowned out for a moment by the noise of dozens of chairs squeaking on the hardwood floor as people turned in their seats. Brook recognized many of them—the librarian at Deer Mountain, a couple of women from her book group—but she was met with mostly curious stares.
“Go on, Mrs. Bostock,” Henderson said.
“We actually have a very regulated home life,” Brook began again, trying to remember how it was she’d intended to explain things. “And I want to make it clear that we’re really very caring and involved parents. We don’t allow or condone underage drinking, and we were just as upset as everyone else when we learned what happened in our house that night. And I just wanted to say that if we had to do it all over again, we would certainly—”
“Well, you don’t get a redo on this one,” Troy said. Brook hadn’t seen him sitting in the front row next to Wanda, but he rose now and turned to face her across the suddenly hushed room.
“I understand that,” Brook replied, determined to hold her ground. She wasn’t going to let herself get into an argument. She was just going to explain and apologize. “It happened. And I’m sorry. We’re sorry. That’s really what I came here to say.”
“You’re sorry,” Troy said, nodding. “You’re sorry it happened. I’m just wondering what you mean by that.”
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