Keep No Secrets

by Julie Compton

  "What's this about?" he tries again.

  "We need to ask you some questions."

  "Okay."

  "Something's come up. We're sure it's probably a simple misunderstanding, but we're obligated to follow up, and—"

  "What are you talking about?" Jack's voice is slightly louder than it should be, but something about this whole scenario is wrong. It's making him crazy that Gunner won't just get to the point.

  The Chief turns to one of the officers.

  "Tommy?"

  Tommy leans forward a bit in his chair.

  "Mr. Hilliard, can you—"

  "Jack."

  "Jack." He nods. "Certainly." He breathes in. "Can you tell us where you were on Saturday night?"

  "I guess that would depend upon what time on Saturday night you're referring to." He's being smart, and they know it.

  He stares at the Chief. "What's going on, Gunner? I'm the DA. Are you

  interrogating me? Because if you are, I think you'd better damn well tell me that's what you're doing, and why."

  Claire sits behind her desk and motions for the officers to sit in the chairs on the opposite side.

  "Mrs. Hilliard," the female officer starts. Officer Caruthers, she said. She's petite but projects a confidence that probably results from years of having to prove herself. "We're so sorry to disturb you at work like this, but we need to ask you a few questions. Please understand that you're not in any trouble."

  "Okay." Claire notes that the woman talks to her the way cops talk to laymen, as if she's forgotten Claire is a lawyer. But she isn't about to remind them.

  "It's about Saturday night."

  Claire tenses. She thinks of the incident with Michael and wonders if he lied to her and Jack. Did Michael and Celeste do more than just hang out in the woods and come home late? Was he even with

  Celeste at all that night? She really doesn't know for sure, not for a fact.

  "We're wondering if you can tell us where Mr. Hilliard was that night."

  Officer Caruthers speaks softly and her gentle hazel eyes regard Claire with sympathy. And even though Claire knows exactly where Jack was, she's suddenly furious with him. But for him, she'd never have to be in another's presence and maintain the charade that neither remembered what her husband had done four years before. Has she forgiven him?

  She thinks so, but she'll never be able to forget. Because no one else does.

  She glances at the other cop. He eyes her coldly, his notepad in his left hand and a pen poised to write in the other.

  Claire thinks he looks a little too eager.

  "Are you referring to Jack? Or my older son?"

  "We're asking about your husband, ma'am," the man says, deadpan. "The DA."

  Claire is certain he didn't vote for Jack.

  "He was at home with me. Why? What is this about?"

  With a mere glance, Caruthers shoots a dagger at her partner. But her voice is still warm when she speaks to Claire. "Was there any point between, say, after dinnertime on Saturday evening and before breakfast on Sunday morning that he might not have been at home with you?"

  An image of Jack flashes through her mind, sitting in the chair at the end of the couch in street clothes. In the middle of the night. She thinks of Jenny being back.

  Did he see her even before the two instances he told her about?

  She stands. She feels tears coming, but she's not sure why. She rifles through a folder on her desk, avoiding their eyes, feigning busyness. "I have to ask you to leave unless you tell me what this is about."

  The two whisper together. When Claire looks up, she sees they do not enjoy being partners. Caruthers finally raises a curt hand as if to say: Let me handle this.

  "Mrs. Hilliard, please," she says. "I apologize. If you'll just take your seat again, we'll tell you what we can."

  When Michael steps into the lobby of the front office, two cops are waiting for him.

  Staff and students turn to stare. The cops introduce themselves but their names don't register with Michael.

  He follows the men into a small

  conference room next to the row of guidance counselors' offices. The room is small, barely large enough to

  accommodate the round table and four chairs. As one of the officers fights with a chair to move it away from the door, Michael eyes the side arm at his waist.

  When the man finally gets the door closed, his face is flushed.

  "Michael, thank you for agreeing to talk to us."

  He looks at the other man who's

  spoken. He's much taller, with thick eyebrows that remind Michael of a caterpillar. He wants to say I didn't agree to shit, but doesn't. He doesn't say anything.

  He knows not to talk, his dad has drilled that into his head for as long as he can remember, but Jack would also expect Michael to be polite.

  "First, we want to make it clear that you're not in any trouble. Please don't misunderstand."

  Michael simply nods.

  "It's about Celestina Del Toro," says the officer who battled the chair.

  Suddenly, Michael is incapable of considering what Jack would expect.

  "What do you mean?" he asks anxiously.

  "Is she okay? She hasn't been at school."

  He doesn't add and hasn't answered her phone or responded to any of my text messages since Sunday afternoon.

  The officer hesitates. "Yes, she's . . .

  she's fine. We need to ask you a few questions, but unfortunately we can't tell you much at this point. There's an ongoing investigation that—"

  "You're investigating Celeste?" His eyes dart from one officer to the other.

  "No, no, please." The man with the bushy brows raises his palm. "Celestina's not in trouble with the law. And neither are you."

  Relieved, Michael falls back into his chair.

  "She told us she was with you at a party on Saturday night, and that the two of you had some whiskey afterwards. Is that true?"

  Michael lowers his eyes.

  "You're not in trouble, remember?

  We're not here to bust you for underage drinking, okay?"

  "Then why are you asking this?" he mutters.

  "She said that you couldn't drive her home, that your father had to. Is that right?"

  Michael stares from one officer to the other, trying to understand. "He didn't let us drink, if that's what you mean. He didn't even know until we got to my house. He freaked when he found out."

  "Of course. Any father would. Did he drive Celestina home because you were impaired?"

  Michael nods but looks away from the two men. Through the window he

  watches students cross the campus toward the bus ramp.

  "That's good. You were smart not to drive after you'd been drinking. Do you have any idea how long it took him?"

  What are they getting at? Is his dad in trouble for covering for Celeste? For not letting her dad know what happened?

  "I don't know." He shrugs. "He was just trying to help her."

  "What do you mean?" When he doesn't answer, the tall one presses him. "How was he trying to help her?"

  Michael glances at the clock on the wall. "I need to get to basketball practice."

  "I think we're about done, anyway, don't you think so, Pete?" To Michael, he says, "Thank you for helping us, Mike."

  Michael cringes at his use of the familiar name. Only his dad and close friends from school call him Mike. "It'd really help to know how your dad was trying to help Celestina, though. We don't want to point fingers at the wrong person."

  "Point fingers about what?" he asks as they stand. He has the sense his refusal to give them more information will hurt his dad. When the tall man grabs the

  doorknob, Michael cries, "Wait!" They turn and he says, "He was just trying to help her. He didn't want her to get in trouble with her dad."

  "We still don't understand," Pete says gently.

  "She said things that he thought meant her dad would hurt her if he knew she'd been dr
inking. That's why he waited."

  "Waited?"

  "You asked how long it took to take her home. It took so long because he waited with her in the car. To let, you know, the whiskey wear off."

  "Do you know how long it took?"

  "I don't know. He was gone about two hours, I guess."

  The officers glance at each other. As Pete pulls out a phone, Bushy Brows smiles at him. "Thank you, Mike. You've been very helpful. I know Celestina will appreciate it." With a wink, he adds,

  "Now go play some ball."

  "So your older son went to a party with his girlfriend, and you and Mr. Hilliard stayed home with your younger son?"

  Caruthers talks as the other officer writes on his notepad.

  "Yes."

  "And then Mr. Hilliard heard your older son—it's Michael?"

  Claire nods.

  "He heard Michael come in past curfew, around three a.m.?"

  "Right."

  "Did he tell you what excuse Michael gave? Or were you there?"

  "I'm sorry, Officer. But as I understand it, you wanted to know if Jack was home.

  He was. I don't think how we decided to deal with our son is any of your business.

  In fact, in light of the limited information you've given me, I'm not sure Jack's whereabouts are your business either, but we have nothing to hide, so I was trying to be cooperative." She stands again, intent on getting rid of them. "I think we're done here."

  The chime of a cell phone fills the office. Caruthers reaches for the phone at her belt and answers it. Claire stares at the calendar on her desk and is relieved to see no student conferences scheduled for this afternoon. She just wants them out so she can call Jack. Or should she head over to the school and interrogate Michael? What hasn't he told them? She'll reach Jack from her cell phone on the way.

  "Mrs. Hilliard?" The officer's voice is quiet. She lowers her phone as she speaks.

  "That was one of our other officers. He just spoke with your son."

  " What? " What is going on? And how dare they talk to Michael without permission?

  "Michael claims that Mr. Hilliard drove his girlfriend home on Saturday night because he and his girlfriend had been drinking. Are you aware of this?"

  When Claire stands, she feels dizzy.

  She rests her palms on the desk to steady herself. Without looking up, she says, "I want to you leave. Now."

  Jack's cell phone rings before the Chief answers the question.

  "Excuse me," he says when he sees that it's Claire. "It's my office. I have to take this." Let them think it's a business call.

  "Yeah?" he says into the phone and hopes from his tone and the impersonal way he answered that she knows he's not alone.

  "Jack." Her voice is breathless; she sounds upset.

  "What is it?"

  "The cops just left my office" —Jack stifles a gasp— "and somehow they've talked to Michael, too—"

  "What?" Jack tries desperately to control his voice. The men with him are listening to every word.

  "Why would Michael be telling them that you drove Celeste home on Saturday night?" She's about to cry. He hears it right through the phone. "And why would they care?"

  "I don't know." He needs to let her know that he's with the cops now. "Can I call you back, Beverly? I'm at the police station right now." She lets out a cry.

  "Tell me what I need to know now and then I'll call you back as soon as I'm done here."

  Jack raises a finger to the Chief as if to say, Give me a moment.

  "They showed up here at the law school asking if I knew where you were on Saturday night. I told them we were home all night, but then one of the cops got a call, and when she hung up, she said that Michael told some other cop that you'd driven Celeste home." When he doesn't answer, she cries, "Jack? What's going on?"

  What the hell! They questioned my son?

  Jack glares at the Chief as Claire repeats her question, but the Chief doesn't notice because he's reading the screen of his Blackberry.

  Claire gets that Jack can't answer her just then, doesn't she? "Okay, I got it," he says into the phone, his eyes still concentrating on Gunner as the chief squints to read his device. "Thanks for letting me know. I'll call you back in a few minutes, okay?"

  The Chief glances up and shakes his head. "It'll be more than a few minutes, Jack."

  "Call me on my cell," she says. "I'm going over to the school."

  "I'd rather you wait for me." He tries to sound calm.

  "Just call me when you can." Before Jack responds, she's gone.

  When Jack returns his attention to the men in front of him, the Chief doesn't look so good. Whatever he read on his Blackberry has him upset, too.

  "What's going on, Gunner?" Jack asks, his voice level. He can't let Gunner know what he knows, not yet.

  The Chief sighs loudly. With a jerk of his head, he motions for the other cops to leave the room.

  "Okay, Jack," he begins when they've gone, "this is all off the record for now, okay?"

  Jack crosses his arms over his chest.

  "Our earlier conversation wasn't?"

  Gunner shrugs. They both know it

  doesn't matter; it'd be inadmissible anyway.

  "Go on."

  "Your son's girlfriend is making an accusation against you."

  Jack stares at him, his insides twisting like a tornado. "What kind of accusation?"

  "The worst kind."

  "The kind where it's my word against hers?"

  Gunner nods without taking his eyes from Jack. "She went ballistic when they tried to examine her. She refused."

  Jack wants to go ballistic himself, but he can't let the Chief know how riled he is. But when he speaks, his shaky voice betrays him. "And what's that tell you, huh?"

  "I know, I know." He speaks to Jack as if Jack is a child he's trying to soothe.

  "But here's the thing. I just received some information that'll make it difficult for me not to arrest you."

  At the word arrest, Jack jumps from the chair as if his ass has been stung. " What?"

  "Sit down," Gunner orders. "You tell me what happened, and I'll tell you what she's saying."

  But Jack's not listening. He's too busy pacing the small room as he tries not to hyperventilate. He can't let his family go through this again. He can't let Claire go through this again. It's bad enough that Jenny's back, but now, this. If Celeste was in the room, he'd strangle her. He might even strangle Michael.

  "Gunner, listen to me. I didn't do anything. My only crime is trying to protect that girl from her asshole of a father."

  "Why don't you sit down and tell me what happened? What you're talking about?"

  His word against hers. Jack knows what his word will be worth when it gets out what his accuser looks like, and that he lied to his wife about taking her home.

  "Jack." Gunner practically whispers his name. It works. Jack stops mid-step and turns. The Chief motions to the chair, and Jack falls into it, his legs splayed. He leans forward and clutches his head in his hands.

  "What's she saying?" he asks from the small cocoon he's created. "And what evidence do you have other than her word?"

  "Look, you know I can't go into specifics yet. Why don't you tell me what happened. Then I'll bring my boys back in to put it on the record. You and I can talk in private again afterwards and I'll fill you in more. Okay?"

  "And then you'll arrest me?"

  He regards Jack sadly, but doesn't deny it.

  "Gunner, you saw me on Sunday afternoon, remember? The Bedford

  interrogation? Did I look like someone who'd raped a girl the night before?"

  "There's too much circumstantial evidence, and given your position, and your past" —Jack cringes when he says your past— "there's no way I can get away without booking you. I'll try to make it easier for you, but . . ." His voice trails off and he shrugs apologetically.

  Jack tries to remember why, why, he thought it was a good idea not to tell Claire. There
was no need to protect Michael from his mother. She'd forgive him anything. It seems ridiculous now, in hindsight.

  "Why don't you tell me what

  happened?" Gunner says again. His tone is resigned, as if Jack has no other choice.

  But he does.

  "I'm ready to call my lawyer."

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  EARL'S VOICEMAIL PICKS up and

  Jack is forced to leave him a cryptic message. He gets the same non-response from his cell phone. Jack prays his former boss hasn't decided to spend his private practice salary on a long overseas trip.

  When Earl Scanlon was DA, and Jack one of his assistants, reaching him was as simple as walking a few doors down the hall. It occurs to him now that he hasn't seen Earl in over five months.

  He considers calling Claire—he knows they'll allow him as many calls as he wishes—but he doesn't think he can deal with her questions just yet. Instead, he calls Beverly and asks her to find Earl. He doesn't tell her why.

  When he finishes, the investigator who first tried to question Jack silently leads him to the booking area. He passes him off to a booking officer. The booking officer politely introduces herself before she fingerprints him, collects a swab of saliva, and snaps the mug shot. The photography's not done, though. Digital camera in hand, she asks him to pull up his shirt sleeves, and when Jack looks at his right wrist, he understands why. The faint scratch where Celeste grabbed him is still there. Jack meets the officer's eye, but she's unreadable.

  The officer takes his phone, his wallet, his watch, his keys and his belt. She takes everything except the clothes on his back, and he's grateful. If they wanted to, they could make him wear the orange

  jumpsuit. After he signs the inventory form, she searches him with a cursory pat down. Even though he knows the light treatment is a professional courtesy, the humiliation still stings. Afterwards, the Chief apologizes for putting him through the process, but he insists it'd be political suicide for both of them if he treats Jack differently. "I wouldn't ask you to," Jack assures him, even though he suspects his own political suicide is a fait accompli, anyway. In fact, might as well throw in familial suicide, too, while he's at it.