Change of Heart

by Norah McClintock

  “It wasn’t a practice night.”

  “Then why was Sean there?”

  “His head hit the ice pretty hard when he had that accident. He was going to have to sit out a few games—you know, before he could get medical clearance. I guess he was afraid he’d lose his edge. Maybe he was also afraid the scouts would lose interest in him if they saw how well the team did without him.”

  “What was the rest of the team doing that night?”

  “How would I know?”

  “What were you doing?”

  “What’s it to you?”

  “I was just wondering.”

  “Because of your friend, huh?” He shoved more fries into his mouth before answering. “I went downtown to pick up some protein-shake mix. Then I just walked around. You want to know what I was thinking about? I was wondering where I was going to be next year at this time.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I graduate this year. I don’t want to go to college. I want to play hockey. I’m still hoping to make it to the major juniors, but who knows? For sure I have a shot. And it’s the best way to make it, you know?”

  I didn’t.

  “But, hey, after that last game, we’re looking good for the championship. If we make it, that could be good for me. And now that Sean’s not around to hog the limelight, maybe I have a shot at getting drafted.”

  “Drafted?”

  “You really don’t know much about hockey, do you?”

  I admitted that I didn’t. After he explained the hockey draft to me, I said, “But what does Sean’s death have to do with your chances of getting drafted? You said Sean was planning to go to college. He was going to play NCAA. He promised his mother.”

  Jon laughed. “You don’t know hockey, and you don’t know Sean. I said Sean could go to the college of his choice—if he wanted to. But all this season he was boasting that he could get his mother to do anything he wanted. She never let up about getting a good education, especially after the way his brothers turned out. But it wasn’t just college scouts who were interested in him. The major junior scouts came around, too. And the NHL. He started to hear rumors about the draft and how he’d be a first-round pick for sure. How he’d get a great contract, make some serious money. Trust me, he was going to go for it.”

  “What about his mother?”

  Jon shrugged. “All I know is what he was telling the team, which is that if he finished high school with a minimum B-plus average, he could sell her on anything.”

  “Since when do you need a B-plus average to be a professional hockey player?”

  “He was going to tell her he was keeping his options open, that he could always go to college later if things didn’t work out. He said she’d go for that. He said the important thing for her was that he didn’t end up like his old man.”

  I remembered Sean’s father from the funeral. He didn’t look so bad to me.

  “What about his dad?” I said.

  “He was a hockey player too. I think he had maybe one season in the NHL, something like that. Sean said his parents got divorced after his dad was dropped from the roster. Last I heard he was a mechanic out west somewhere. Sean’s mother wanted better than that for Sean. He was her big dream, the one who was going to make it.” He shook his head again. “Guess that didn’t work out, huh?”

  I

  told myself I wasn’t going to call Morgan, but unless I wanted things to be over between us, one of us had to make the first move. Maybe I should be the good guy, I thought.

  When she didn’t answer and I heard her perky voice—“Hi, this is Morgan. Leave a message.”—I got angry. I remembered what she had said to me after the funeral and how she had treated me at school. I thought about her refusal to visit Billy. Okay, so she wasn’t going out with him anymore, but she had known him forever. If she’d been arrested for murder—even if it turned out that she’d actually done it—Billy wouldn’t have hesitated even for a second to go and see her. Maybe Morgan really had loved Sean, although I didn’t see how you could truly love someone you’ve only known a few weeks. That was no excuse for treating her friends the way she had. Besides, she was wrong about Billy. I ended the call without leaving a message.

  Billy’s mom called. She said that Billy wanted something from school—a picture that was hanging on the inside of his locker door. She asked me if I would get it for her. I knew the picture she meant. Poor Billy. Despite everything that had happened, he still hadn’t gotten over it. He was still picking at the scab and making it impossible to heal. Having that picture in there with him wasn’t going to make it any easier. But it seemed like the least I could do. I told his mother I’d get it and bring it over to her the next day after school. Then I tried to do my homework. Tried, but didn’t succeed. My mind kept going back to Sean. What had happened to him at the arena that night? More to the point, who had happened to him?

  Billy’s locker was exactly nine lockers away from Morgan’s. I had a pretty good idea how Morgan would react if she saw me getting that picture out of it, so rather than chance a run-in, I went to school extra early the next morning.

  The hallways were deserted. Well, almost deserted. When I got to the second floor I saw someone opening a locker halfway down one of the halls.

  Wait a minute.

  The locker had a great big star on it. It was Sean’s locker.

  “Hey,” I called.

  The kid who had just opened Sean’s locker spun around. It was Aaron Arthurs.

  “What are you doing? That’s not your locker,” I said.

  Aaron looked up and down the hall. He was probably checking to make sure that there was no one else around. When he saw the coast was clear, he said, “It’s not yours, either, so back off.”

  I’d seen a lot of people give Aaron a hard time over the years. Usually he just turned red in the face, looked embarrassed or intimidated, and said nothing. But usually there were a lot of people around, watching and laughing. Now there was only me, and Aaron didn’t seem remotely intimidated. Instead, he was surly and hostile.

  “Maybe I’ll buzz down to the office and tell Mr. Dormer that I caught you stealing from Sean’s locker,” I said. “Or maybe I’ll find Colin and tell him.”

  The surly expression on Aaron’s face vanished instantly.

  “I’m not stealing. I’m taking back some stuff that Sean borrowed from me.”

  I couldn’t imagine Sean even acknowledging Aaron’s existence, much less borrowing anything from him.

  “I’m going to the office,” I said.

  “Hey, wait a minute.” He sounded panicky. “How do you think I got the combination to this lock?” That was a good question. “Sean must have given it to me, right?”

  “It’s a brand-new lock,” I said. The vandal—named Billy, if you believed Morgan—had removed the original lock with a bolt-cutter two days before Sean was murdered. “Maybe he hadn’t memorized the combination yet. Maybe you saw where he’d written it down. Or, wait. All locker combos are recorded in the school office! You’re in the office a lot. Do you know where the combinations are kept? Did your mom tell you?”

  Aaron’s face turned scarlet. He reached up to the top shelf of the locker, pulled out a history textbook, and handed it to me.

  “Look inside the front cover,” he said. “Go on.”

  I opened it. The name printed inside was Aaron Arthurs, not Sean Sloane.

  “He borrowed it from me after he lost his own,” Aaron said. “He never got around to returning it. And, if it’s okay with you, I don’t want to have to pay for a new one if I don’t have to.”

  I handed the book back to him. He stuffed it into his backpack, reached into the locker again, and removed two more books, leaving only a stack of binders, all looking neat and new, on the shelf.

  “You want to look at these, too?” he said, holding the two books out to me.

  I shook my head.

  “I’m sorry,” I said. I watched him close and lock the locker. �
��I didn’t know you and Sean were friends.”

  He didn’t answer. He just jammed the books into his backpack and walked away.

  I continued down the hall and turned the corner to Billy’s locker. I was reaching for the framed photograph that hung inside when someone behind me said, “What do you think you’re doing?”

  Morgan. What was she doing at school this early?

  She stared stonily at me, then reached past me and snatched the photo from the hook Billy had attached inside the locker door. It was a picture of her and Billy, their arms around each other, both smiling contentedly at the camera.

  “What were you planning to do with this?” she said.

  “Billy’s mother asked me to get it for B—”

  She flipped the frame over, removed the back, yanked out the photograph, and thrust the frame at me. She tore the picture in half, then in quarters. She kept tearing until the pieces were as small as confetti. They fluttered from her fingers to the floor.

  “Morgan—”

  She turned and walked away.

  The picture that Morgan had torn up was one that I had taken on New Year’s Day. I had given a copy to Billy and another to Morgan. Billy had framed his and hung it in his locker. Morgan had stuck hers to the mirror in her bedroom where she could look at it as many times a day as she looked at herself. I was willing to bet that her copy was long gone.

  I had also kept a copy for myself. I went home after school to get it and then slipped it into Billy’s frame. When I got to Billy’s house, his mother was coming out the front door. She had her car keys in her hand and a worried expression on her face.

  “I brought Billy’s picture,” I said.

  His mother stared at it for a moment and shook her head.

  “I know it’s what he wants,” she said. “But I’m almost afraid to give it to him. You know what I mean, Robyn?”

  I knew exactly what she meant. Looking at that picture was like looking into the past—and the past is always gone for good.

  As she got into the car, I said, “Would it be okay if I went with you to see him?”

  She smiled gratefully at me. “I would really appreciate that, Robyn. And I know Billy would, too.”

  Billy’s mother had to give the photo to him as it was, just the picture, no frame, no glass. Her lower lip trembled a little, but she nodded and said, “Of course.”

  Billy looked even thinner and paler than he had the last time I’d visited him. But he told his mom that he was fine, really—he was just having a little trouble sleeping. Still, she fussed over him for a few minutes before filling him in on the news from home. Billy’s sister was expecting a baby and was busy decorating the baby’s room. She had picked out names, too—Samantha if it was a girl, and Samuel if it was a boy. Billy nodded vaguely, but I could tell he wasn’t really listening. Finally his mom said, “Why don’t I let you and Robyn have some time alone to catch up?” Before she left, she gave him the photograph.

  Billy gazed at it. A little smile appeared on his lips. Then he turned the picture over and his smile vanished.

  “This isn’t the one that was in my locker,” he said.

  “It’s the same picture, Billy.”

  “But it isn’t mine. Mine has lipstick on the back. That’s how Morgan autographed it for me. She kissed it.”

  “I’m sorry,” I said. “I didn’t know. I—I forgot to go to your locker, Billy. So I brought my copy instead.”

  He studied me for a few moments. “So you’ll bring mine the next time you come, right?”

  “Billy—”

  He looked me straight in the eye, and I knew that he knew.

  “Something happened to it,” he said.

  “I’m sorry, Billy.”

  “Did someone take it?”

  I nodded.

  “Who?”

  “What difference does it make?”

  “What difference does it make? They arrested me, Robyn. They think I murdered Sean Sloane. You think it doesn’t make a difference to me that there are people who would go into my locker and take my stuff while I’m stuck in here? You think it doesn’t make a difference to me who believes me and who doesn’t?” He was talking so loud that the guard who was standing at the door turned to look at him. “I try not to. I try to get my homework done. I try to read. I try to keep caring about the stuff I’ve always cared about. But I can’t help it. I think about who believes me and who doesn’t. And I think about what it’s going to be like if I get out of here and have to face all those people who think I killed someone. I think about whether they’re really going to believe I didn’t do it or whether they’re going to think I got away with something. But you know what I think about the most? I think about what will happen if I get convicted, even though I had nothing to do with it. It happens, right, Robyn? The cops make mistakes. Innocent people end up in jail. Their lives get ruined.”

  “I believe you, Billy.”

  “That cop was here yesterday. He wanted to ask me more questions about what happened that night. He said it would go a lot easier on me if I cooperated. How can I cooperate when I didn’t do it?”

  “Billy, did you trash Sean’s locker?”

  His face hardened.

  “Come on, Billy, I know you didn’t kill Sean.”

  “Then why are you asking me about his locker?”

  “Because someone killed him. People don’t go around killing people for no reason. Someone must have had it in for him. If you didn’t trash his locker, then someone else did—someone who had a grudge against him. Maybe a big enough grudge to want him dead.” I hated to have to ask again, but I needed to know for sure. “So, did you do it, Billy? Did you trash Sean’s locker?”

  “No.” His voice was defiant. He seemed to be waiting for me to challenge him.

  “Okay,” I said. “What about all the phone calls Sean was getting? Was that you?”

  That earned me another indignant look.

  “No.”

  “Morgan says you called her night and day.”

  “I wanted to talk to her.”

  “But you didn’t call Sean?”

  “I called him once—the night I went to the arena.”

  “Morgan said he was getting threatening phone calls.”

  “Not from me,” Billy said. “I only called Morgan.”

  “What about the day before Sean was killed? Did you go to the arena on Wednesday, Billy? Maybe after I saw you outside school, after Sean threatened you?”

  “The police asked me the same question. And the answer is no. I was nowhere near the arena that day.”

  “Did they believe you?”

  “They had to. I have an alibi for the whole day.”

  I waited, but he didn’t tell me.

  “Where were you, Billy?” I said finally.

  His eyes slipped away from mine.

  “What’s the matter, Billy?”

  He looked doggedly down at the tabletop.

  “Billy?”

  “I was with Ben.”

  “Ben? I didn’t know you and Ben hung out together.”

  Billy knew Ben, of course. So did Morgan. And I knew they both liked him. But it had never occurred to me that either of them would spend time with him now that Ben and I had broken up.

  “We don’t exactly hang out together,” Billy said. “But I wanted to talk to him, you know, because he—well, just because.”

  “Because why?”

  Billy shifted his gaze back to the tabletop.

  “Billy?”

  “Because I thought he would understand how I felt.”

  He meant because I had broken up with Ben like Morgan had broken up with him. And for more or less the same reason—because of another guy.

  “I’m sorry, Robyn. I wasn’t going to say anything, but ...”

  “It’s okay. You can spend time with anyone you want. You don’t need my permission.”

  “I called him, and he said he had Wednesday off school to volunteer.” Ben goes
to a private school that is very big on community service. “He invited me to go with him. I met up with him after I saw you at school ...”

  “After you tried to see Morgan again,” I said gently.

  He nodded. “He picked me up just up the street, like we arranged. We spent the day at an animal shelter in the west end. They just finished adding a new wing, and they had a whole bunch of volunteers there painting, getting the place ready for the animals. There were lots of people who saw me there all day, Robyn. Afterwards I went over to Ben’s house. I was there until eleven at night. I told the police that. They took his name and everything. They must have checked with him. I had nothing to do with what happened to Sean at the hockey game.”

  Well, that was something.

  “Maybe whoever sabotaged Sean’s helmet decided to go even further,” I said. I wondered if Charlie Hart had thought about that. But why would he? He had an eyewitness who placed Billy at the scene of the crime just before Sean’s body was found. He had found the murder weapon on Billy’s property, with Billy’s fingerprints on it. What difference would it make who had tampered with Sean’s helmet when all the evidence pointed to Billy? Billy even had a history of attacking Sean. I looked across the table at Billy and realized that he’d never told me the whole story about that.

  “What happened the day you got into that fight with Sean? Why did you go after him like that?”

  Billy hung his head again. “He said something. He said something and I ... I just lost it.” He looked up at me. “I know how that sounds. If I could lose it like that and attack him, I could also kill him, right?”

  “I didn’t say that, Billy.”

  “But I didn’t kill him.”

  “What did Sean say that made you so mad?”

  Billy let out a long shuddery sigh before leaning across the table. In a soft voice, he repeated what Sean had said. Then he sat back in his chair and looked at the floor.

  “You know what, Billy?” I said. “If he had said that to me, I think I would have jumped him, too.”

  Billy’s head bobbed up. He almost smiled.