Change of Heart

by Norah McClintock

  “Dad, you don’t think that Billy ... that he would ...”

  My dad swallowed a piece of chicken.

  “Do I think it’s possible that Billy killed this kid?” he said. “Stranger things have happened, Robbie. When people get swept up in strong emotions, anything is possible.” Nick was a case study in that. “But, seriously, do I think that Billy would kill another human being? No,” he said firmly. “No, I do not.”

  I wished that Morgan could see things the way my father did.

  I found my dad at the dining room table the next morning, a mug of coffee in one hand, the newspaper spread out in front of him. He turned when he heard me behind him. The somber expression on his face scared me.

  “Sit down, Robbie,” he said.

  “Is something wrong?”

  He nodded at a chair. I pulled it out and dropped down onto it.

  “The police have made an arrest in the Sean Sloane murder,” he said.

  “Already? Did they find a witness or something?”

  “They have a witness who says they saw someone at the scene of the murder. They also found the murder weapon in that person’s possession. It had that person’s fingerprints on it. He also has a motive, but no alibi. It sounds like it’s a slam-dunk.”

  “So that’s good, right?” I said.

  My dad looked me directly in the eye. “The person they arrested—it’s Billy.”

  “Y

  ou’re kidding,” I said, even though I was sure this was something my dad would never kid about. I reached for the newspaper. There was an article in it about the murder and the arrest, but it didn’t say much. It didn’t even name the person who had been arrested. It just said that it was a male youth.

  “How do you know it’s Billy?” I said.

  “Your mother called.”

  “Mom? What does she—”

  “Billy’s parents called her. They want her to represent Billy.”

  If Billy’s parents had called my mom, then what my dad was saying was true. But my brain was saying, No, no, no, it’s not possible.

  “Billy didn’t do it,” I said.

  My dad didn’t say anything.

  “He didn’t do it, Dad.”

  “Robbie, we’re just going to have to wait and see.”

  Last night he had seemed so certain that Billy could never take another life. Now he sounded as if he thought it might be possible after all.

  My cell phone rang. It was Morgan.

  “They arrested Billy,” she said.

  “I heard. It has to be a mistake. It just has to.”

  “I talked to Sean’s brother Kevin,” Morgan said. “It doesn’t sound like a mistake. It sounds like he really did it. Do you know what that means, Robyn? It means that I spent the past five months going out with a murderer.”

  “He’s not a murderer, Morgan.”

  I glanced at my father, who kept his eyes firmly on his newspaper.

  “What’s the matter with you, Robyn?” Morgan said. “Didn’t you hear what I just said? Why are you always taking Billy’s side?”

  “Because he’s not a killer, Morgan. You know he isn’t.”

  That’s when Morgan did something that she had never done before, no matter how angry she was.

  “She hung up on me,” I said to my dad.

  He looked up from his newspaper. “This will probably be rough, Robbie. If I were you, I’d try to stay neutral.”

  “I’ve been trying to stay neutral. What else can you do when your best friend cheats on your other best friend? But you know what? It doesn’t work because Morgan is completely unreasonable. One minute she’s in love with Billy. The next minute she calls him a stalker and a killer. If you were me, and one of your friends had just been arrested for murder, the very last thing you’d do is stay neutral—and the first thing you’d do is try to figure out what really happened.”

  “Robbie,” my dad said, his voice gentle now, “you told me yourself how Billy has been behaving. And you know the case against him—he had a grudge against the victim, he was found with the weapon, he was at the scene. Motive, method, opportunity. It’s the trifecta of homicide.”

  I stared at him in disbelief. “What are you saying, Dad?”

  “Sean was killed by a blow to the back of the head, which means that whoever did it hit him from behind. It wasn’t a fight. It wasn’t self-defense. Someone came up behind Sean and hit him hard enough to kill him.” I didn’t want to believe what he was telling me. “When Sean’s mother found the body, Sean’s face was covered. It was covered after Sean was dead. Murders don’t usually cover their victims’ faces after they kill them, Robbie—unless they feel remorse.” He peered at me with his slate-grey eyes. “Does that sound like anyone you know?”

  What was wrong with everyone? “It’s a mistake. It has to be. Billy would never do anything like that.”

  My dad didn’t say anything.

  “Charlie Hart is working on the case,” I said.

  “I know. Your mother told me. He’s a good cop, Robbie. Cautious, too.”

  In other words, Charlie Hart wouldn’t have arrested Billy unless he was sure that he had a solid case. If there was some way the situation could have been worse for Billy, I couldn’t think of it.

  “When did you talk to Mom?”

  “She called me this morning. She wanted me to give you a heads-up.”

  I punched in her cell-phone number. She answered on the third ring.

  “Mom, I want to talk to Billy.”

  “He’s in custody, Robyn.”

  “But he can have visitors, right?”

  “He can see his lawyer and his parents. Robyn, I really think it would be better—”

  “He’s my friend, Mom. Don’t you think he would want to know that someone besides his parents and his lawyer cares how he’s doing?”

  I heard my mom sigh at the other end of the line. “I’ll see what I can do,” she said. “I’ll talk to his mother and see if she can get you approved. But it won’t be today. Okay?”

  “Thanks, Mom.”

  I got dressed and headed for the door.

  “Where are you going?” my dad said.

  “For a run. I have to think.”

  I made record time going down the stairs. I didn’t want to take the chance that I’d bump into Nick. I ran all the way to the river that cuts through the city, and then I ran north along it, my feet pounding on the cement path as I thought about Billy. He couldn’t possibly have killed Sean Sloane. He rescued injured birds. He fought to stop animal testing of cosmetics and pharmaceuticals. He volunteered at an animal shelter that had a no-euthanasia policy. He was the most humane person I knew.

  On the other hand, he had gotten into a fight with Sean, which I wouldn’t have believed if I hadn’t seen it with my own eyes. He had phoned Morgan repeatedly, almost obsessively, even after she had asked him to stop. And he had been caught spying on her while she was with Sean. Lately, Billy had been doing a lot of things that were out of character. But still, murder?

  I hated to admit it, but my dad was right, at least about one thing: when people get caught up in strong emotions, they do crazy things. I had seen that happen to Nick. I’d seen it happen to other people, too. And because of that, I could picture the events surrounding Sean’s death.

  I could picture Billy going to the arena. I could picture him seeing Sean there and maybe going over to talk to him, to tell him to stay away from Morgan. Sean had been killed by a blow to the head from behind—and now that I had seen Billy kick Sean in the schoolyard, now that I knew how much he was hurting, I could picture him picking up something and maybe lashing out at Sean. Not meaning to kill him, but maybe, because of what he was feeling, meaning to hurt him. I could picture Billy standing there and looking in horror at what he had done and then covering Sean’s face in remorse before turning and fleeing from the scene. I hated myself for it, but I could picture it.

  The rest of the day dragged by. I tried to do homework, b
ut I couldn’t concentrate. I picked up the phone a dozen times to call Morgan and put it down again just as many times. She had hung up on me. She should call back.

  But she didn’t.

  I went out and rented a couple of DVDs and popped them into my dad’s DVD player, but they washed by my eyes like boring scenery outside a speeding car. All I could think about was Billy.

  On Sunday my dad said he had to drive out to the country to talk to some potential clients. He asked if I wanted to go with him. I said no.

  “A change might do you good, Robbie,” he said.

  I told him I had to go to the library. I said I had an assignment due. I don’t know if he believed me or not, but he kissed me on the cheek before he left and he said he’d try to be home for dinner. After he’d gone, I wrote him a note and left it on the dining table. Then I went to my mom’s. At least she was doing something to help Billy. She was surprised to see me. When I asked her if she thought Billy had done it, she said, “That’s up to the prosecution to prove. And it’s up to me to make sure that he has the best possible defense.”

  “But he says he didn’t do it, right, Mom?”

  “Robyn, if there’s a trial, you could be called as a witness. It’s inappropriate for me to discuss this with you. You know that.” Then she said, “You can see Billy tomorrow after school.”

  I didn’t see Morgan until French class, which was just before lunch. But then, I hadn’t exactly been looking for her. I was still angry that she had hung up on me and never called back to apologize.

  Morgan and I sit side-by-side in French. Usually we talk to each other before class. Sometimes we pass notes to each other during the lesson. But today I approached the classroom nervously, wondering what kind of mood she would be in and how she would treat me.

  She didn’t get to class until the late bell rang, and then she slipped into her seat without looking at me. I tried to catch her eye a couple of times, but she refused to turn in my direction. As soon as the end-of-class bell rang, she hurried to the door. It was the last straw. She was supposed to be my friend. Friends don’t treat friends like poison. I ran after her.

  “Morgan,” I called.

  She kept walking. I had to move fast to dart in front of her and block her way. I’d been planning to give her a piece of my mind, but when I got a good look at her, I felt a little less angry. Her face was pale, and there were dark circles under her red and puffy eyes. She hadn’t bothered with makeup.

  “How are you doing?” I said.

  “My boyfriend was murdered. How do you think I’m doing?”

  I wanted to say, But he’s only been your boyfriend for a few weeks. I wanted to say, Someone you’ve known your whole life has been arrested for murder. Instead, I said, “I bet you haven’t been eating right. Come on. Let’s go to the cafeteria.”

  She stared at me. I was sure she was going to walk away, but she surprised me.

  “Okay,” she said in a whisper.

  When we got to the cafeteria, she said, “Billy’s mother called me.”

  I waited.

  “She wants me to go and see Billy. She said it would mean a lot to him.”

  “And?” My fingers were crossed.

  “I told her I couldn’t. Robyn, it was one of the hardest things I’ve ever done, harder even than breaking up with Billy.”

  “You told her no?” I couldn’t believe it.

  “Of course I told her no.” She seemed astonished by the question. “You’re not going to see him, are you?”

  “Yes, I am, Morgan, he’s my friend.”

  “What about me? I thought I was your friend.”

  “You are. You and Billy are my best friends.”

  “You put me and Billy in the same category, after what he did?” She shook her head. “You have to choose. Either you’re my friend or you’re his. And if you’re mine, you won’t go and see him.”

  “Morgan, I have to. I—”

  “Fine,” she said. She turned and marched out of the cafeteria.

  My mother picked me up after school and drove me to where Billy was being held. We had to sign in at the front desk and go through a security check. My mom walked with me to the visiting room.

  “I’ll wait out here,” she said. “You go in. They’ll bring Billy down.”

  I sat down to wait and was shocked when Billy finally appeared. He’s tall and thin—really thin—even though he has a huge appetite. But now he seemed so fragile that a gentle breeze could have blown him over. His face was a greyish color and his blond hair was greasy and matted in the back, as if he hadn’t bothered to wash or comb it in days. He sat down opposite me at one of the visiting tables.

  “Are you okay, Billy?” I asked.

  Instead of answering my question, he asked one of his own: “Have you seen Morgan?”

  I nodded.

  “I asked my mom to call her and ask her to come and see me. Did she say anything to you about that? Do you know when she’s coming?”

  “No, I don’t.”

  Billy looked down at the tabletop. He took a couple of long, deep breaths before raising his head and fixing his pale blue eyes on mine.

  “She doesn’t think I did it, does she, Robyn?”

  I felt terrible. How many lies was I going to have to tell him?

  “She’s pretty upset about what happened,” I said. That was true. “But she’s known you forever, Billy. She knows the kind of person you are.” That was also true, even if Morgan wasn’t exactly focusing on it right now.

  “They arrested me, Robyn. They came to our house with a warrant. They searched the house and the yard. My mom was freaking out, and she doesn’t do that very often.” Billy’s mother is a successful businesswoman. “My dad’s working out of the country, so he couldn’t help. Then they arrested me. They put handcuffs on me and took my rights, Robyn. The neighbors were all watching. Then they put me in a police car and they took me downtown.

  “My mom phoned your mom, and she came down to the police station. She was with me while they asked me questions. That was the only time I wasn’t one hundred percent scared, Robyn—when your mom was there. Then I was only about ninety percent scared. The cops think I did it. They think I killed Sean.”

  I looked into his blue eyes and saw a hundred different Billys: little Billy, from kindergarten, his hair so blond it was almost white, his hands covered in finger paint. Billy and Morgan and me out on the frozen lake up at Morgan’s cottage one winter, skating from the island where the cottage was to the town on the opposite shore. Billy and Morgan and me in junior high, organizing a pet pageant to raise money for Billy’s favorite animal-rights group. Billy and Morgan and me downtown so early in the morning that it was technically still night, rescuing injured birds that had crashed into office towers and taking them to Billy’s rescue organization for treatment. Billy in the cafeteria at school, working up the nerve to ask Morgan out that first time.

  “What did the police say?” I asked.

  “That someone saw me go into the arena the night Sean was killed.”

  “Did you? Go into the arena, I mean?”

  He hesitated before finally nodding. “I—I called his house. I wanted to talk to him. One of his brothers answered. He told me that Sean wasn’t home, that he was at the arena, practicing.” He shook his head. “I know I shouldn’t have called, but I wanted to talk to him. I had to talk to him, Robyn. He didn’t really care about Morgan. I know he didn’t. But I do. I wanted him to leave her alone.”

  I sighed. He kept refusing to accept what had happened between Morgan and Sean. If anyone had told me a year ago that Billy would be so crazy about Morgan that he’d go off the deep end when their relationship ended, I would never have believed it. Up until recently, we were all just friends. Good friends. Best friends. I don’t even think Billy noticed most of the time that Morgan and I were girls.

  “So when you found out he was at the arena, you decided to go and talk to him in person?”

  “I know
what you’re thinking,” Billy said. “It was a stupid move, especially after what happened in the schoolyard.”

  That’s exactly what I was thinking.

  “At first I wasn’t going to do anything,” Billy said. “I kept telling myself I should let it go. But I couldn’t stop thinking about Morgan. So around ten o’clock, I went to the arena.”

  “And someone saw you?”

  “The head janitor. When I got there, he was just coming out. He smiled when he saw me, like he was expecting me. It turns out he thought I was Sean’s ride. Apparently Sean was waiting for someone to pick him up. When I said I was looking for Sean, he told me where he was and asked me to remind him to lock up when he left. Then he went out to the parking lot. He must have sat there for a while, because his car was still there when I left.”

  “So he saw you come out again?”

  “I guess,” Billy said.

  “You guess? The cops didn’t say anything about it?”

  “No. But if he was still there, he must have seen me. I remember wondering if he’d forgotten something. I wish he had. I wish he’d gone back inside after I left. Then he would have seen that Sean was still alive.”

  “What exactly happened when you went inside?”

  “Sean saw me. He skated over to the boards and asked me what I was doing there.”

  “What did you tell him?”

  “That I wanted Morgan back.”

  “Billy—”

  “I know,” he said. “You think I’m pathetic. Poor Billy—his girlfriend dumps him and he goes to the new guy and begs for her back. But it wasn’t like that, Robyn. She didn’t just dump me. He stole her. Sean stole Morgan from me.”

  “Billy, you can’t steal a person.”

  “Yes you can.”

  What I meant was, You can’t steal a person who doesn’t want to be stolen, but I couldn’t bring myself to say the words.

  “I heard him, Robyn. I heard him say he was going to do it. And then he did it.”

  “What are you talking about, Billy?”

  “I was out near the bleachers one day at lunchtime, waiting for Morgan. Sean was talking to his brother. He said if he wanted to, he could get any girl he wanted. He said he’d already picked one out. He pointed to the door, Robyn. And do you know who was coming out of school right then?”