On that Saturday, when the tree house was halfway built, Ed came out to the yard with his bottle of Genny and, from the patio, tilted his head one way and then the other to scrutinize what my father was doing. I had been roped into baby-sitting for Meggy and Justine while our mother played tennis, and I was watching them run through the sprinkler my father had set up for them in a corner of the yard. Mr. Lonergan finished his beer and tossed the bottle into the trash can my father was using to collect leftover pieces of wood. “Looks a little cockeyed, Tom,” he called to my father, losing the “Tom” in an unsuccessfully muffled belch. “This end over here looks higher than that one.” He waved vaguely in the direction of the tree, where my father had paused to hear what Ed Lonergan had to say.
My father rubbed a hand through his hair and then wiped it on the towel he kept hanging from his back pocket. “I think it’s okay, Ed,” he answered. “I measured it all, and anyway, it’s a tree house. Better if it’s a little rough around the edges. Gives it some character.” He saw that Matt, who was six then, had been looking up at him with an anxious face in the wake of his own father’s criticism. He reached over to fake-punch Matt on the shoulder. “Right, partner?”
“Right,” Matt said, his glance darting over at his father to see if his defection had been noted. Ed Lonergan stood still for a moment, then nodded as if in defeat. “What the hell,” he said. “What do I know about manual labor. I’m just an engineer.” Even at that age, I understood that he was taking a dig at my father’s job record and the type of work he did. I looked at my father to see if he was going to say anything back, but he had started hammering again, and Matt was proffering nails in a glass jar like an acolyte holding the grail. Mr. Lonergan came over and yelled at Justine and Meggy for wearing his grass down as they ran through the sprinkler. He yelled at me for wasting the water it took to cool them off.
Hearing this, my father put down his tools and told Mr. Lonergan he was taking us all to a movie. Mr. Lonergan said he was coming, too. My father said he didn’t think it was a good idea, and Mr. Lonergan said that was pretty funny coming from a man who thought it was a good idea to tap the bedpost three times before—here, he glanced at us kids and gave my father a sly smile—having carnal relations. (I remember the exact words he used because at the time I thought he said “carnival,” and I thought he meant that somebody in our family belonged to a circus.) My father’s back stiffened and he took in air with a sound, but he didn’t say another word to Ed Lonergan. Instead he just walked out of the yard and we kids all followed him, and after I’d changed the girls into dry clothes he took us to see Rocky.
That night my parents had a fight. He was mad at her for telling Kay things that should have been kept in the family. My mother said she was sorry, she really was, but he couldn’t know what it was like to have to keep so many secrets.
“Of course I do,” he answered, sounding as if he couldn’t believe what she’d just said. “Are you kidding?” They were lying in bed—I was listening from down the hall—and after the fight they started to rustle the covers. I heard them kissing and moving around, and my mother began to make little noises in her throat. After a few minutes, my father said, “Goddammit,” and my mother told him, “It’s okay.”
“I’m sorry,” he said. I thought I could hear him slapping his own skin. I put my head under my covers then and stopped listening, because I was too close to understanding what they were talking about.
Now Matt Lonergan sat on the tree-house ladder, his big frame dwarfing the topmost step. “I saw you over there the other day,” he told me while nodding at my old house. “I saw you go in. What happened? They throw you out?”
“Of course not,” I said, too embarrassed to tell him the truth. I wondered exactly how much he’d been able to see from up there, and whether he’d heard some of what went on, too. “It just felt too weird.”
“They’re kind of jerks,” he said. “Except the father. He seems okay.” Then he appeared to consider coming down to meet me at ground level, but thought better of it and remained where he was. I didn’t blame him; he must have realized he would need some kind of defense—height, momentum—against whatever I might have come to see him for.
“Matt—” I said, putting my hand out to touch the ladder. His leg jerked as if I had made contact with his flesh instead of mere wood. “Sorry,” I said, withdrawing my hand. “I don’t mean to bug you, Matt. I just never had the chance to talk to you about what happened.”
“Talk about what?” He was looking down at his knees.
“Remember that day at the pool, before we knew, and you were looking for Meggy?”
He nodded, flicking his fingers against his shins.
“Why were you looking for her?” I asked.
“I told you. We were thinking about catching a movie.”
“Come on. It was more than that—I could tell.” I leaned into the ladder’s steps, and I knew that at the other end of the wood, he felt the pressure of my plea.
“It’s really not a big deal,” he muttered, more to himself than to me.
“Matt.” He tried to make himself look up, but couldn’t. I knew he wanted to help me. “There were pages ripped out of her diary. Do you know what that was about?”
He shook his head. “How would I know what she wrote?” But he was struggling, biting his bottom lip.
“I saw Meggy the night before, late,” I went on, pressing my advantage. “After our father went to bed. It seemed like she wanted me to know something, but she didn’t know how to say it.” I paused. “But I think you know what it was. Please—just tell me, Matt. I promise I won’t ever bother you again.”
I held my breath as he stood up, towering over me from the height of branches. If he’d wanted to, he could have swung out and flattened me beneath him with a jump.
But instead he plunked down the ladder steps so that we were on even ground. “Okay,” he said, and I flinched at the anger in his voice, even though I knew it was directed at something other than me. “I saw her that night, too. Earlier, like around ten. We snuck out here.” He raised a finger to point at the tree house.
“What for?”
“Well—” I could see him flushing under the collar of his shirt. “Look, I may as well just tell you. My mother doesn’t want me to say anything, but it’s really no big deal. We were kind of—going out.”
“You and Meggy?” I almost laughed—it sounded so unlikely, and cute—but I caught myself. “Really?”
“Yeah.” Matt punched at one of the wooden steps where the footing was coming undone. “It hadn’t been going on very long. I mean it was, like, a week. I don’t know; we went to the Toll Gate one night with some other kids, and then they dropped us off and we were talking, and we ended up making out.” He looked away from me at the last words, as if he felt ashamed.
I tried to imagine Meggy and Matt kissing, but all that came to me was an image from the time when they were five or six and both had the chicken pox. Our mother gave them oatmeal baths together, and they spelled out all the words they knew—cat, dog, mommy—in the glop on each other’s backs.
“You did?” I said, realizing too late that I was repeating myself.
“Well, it wasn’t for very long. Like I said, maybe a week. We’d come and hang out up here at night. Meggy was pretty bummed out about your mom leaving and everything.” He paused and made himself look at me. “But listen, Ana. We never went all the way, I swear to God. You have to believe me.”
“I do believe you.” And this was true; I was sure there was no way Meggy could have kept it from me if she were having sex, although it was surprising enough to find out what Matt was telling me. “So you were up here that night?” I tried not to be impatient to hear the rest.
“Yeah. Just fooling around, you know, but I guess—I guess she did have her bra off.” He coughed on the word “bra.” Now the words came spilling, as if he couldn’t wait to get them out and done with. “We were just kissing, and fooling aroun
d, and a couple of times she stopped because she thought she heard something, but I said it was just the wind.
“But then there was another noise, like someone coming up the ladder. It stopped, and we listened for a while, and she was going to get up to check but I wouldn’t let her. I started kissing her again, but she wasn’t into it. I could tell something was wrong.” He faltered and found his voice again. “At first she wouldn’t tell me, but then she got up and put her shirt on and said she thought she’d seen your father’s eyes in the doorway, looking in.”
“What do you mean?” I frowned, unable to absorb the last part of what he’d said.
“From the ladder. She thought he’d sneaked up to look at us. I said she was crazy, she was seeing things, and she said, Yeah, maybe. You’re right. But I could tell it still bothered her. She said she had to go home.” Matt was staring straight ahead, as if seeing the Meggy of that night in front of him. “That was around 10:30. I told her to call me later, but she never did.”
“Jesus.” The yard was tilting. I couldn’t think of what else to say.
“Matt?” Behind us the door opened, and Kay stuck out her head. “Everything all right? It’s time for dinner, hon.”
“Yeah, Mom. Be right there.” Matt moved so that his back was to his mother, so that nothing and no one would come between us. “The last thing,” he said, then choked a little and gathered up a breath. “The last thing she said was, ‘If that was him, he’ll kill me.’” On kill his voice gave out again, but I could still hear it. “I didn’t think she meant anything, Ana—I swear to God. First of all, I was sure he didn’t come up here. But even if he did—I just thought she meant he might be mad.”
“I think that’s what she did mean,” I told him, though I wasn’t so sure of this. But he needed to hear me say it. “I don’t think she had any idea.”
“Matt?” Kay’s voice was more insistent now, sounding scared. He turned away from me.
“Matt, wait—” I didn’t really want to hear any more, but neither was I ready to let him go.
“That’s all,” he mumbled, and he walked across the yard to where his mother held the door open, waiting to close him safely inside.
Between the Lonergans’ house and the police station, the digital numbers on my car’s clock changed seven times. It was 6:49 when I parked and 6:51 by the time I’d grown calm enough to get out, climb the steps to the front door, pass through it, and approach the reception desk. Did Tom Dolan really do his daughter? I held my breath, afraid I would see the same officer that had been on duty that day, but this time it was a woman who looked up to greet me though I still stood a few steps away.
The badge over her breast said Mahalia Vines. “Help yourself,” she told me, and I raised my head, startled, thinking she’d issued a command. But then I saw that she was gesturing at a plate of brownies next to the Far Side calendar propped up on the counter between us. “Supposedly they’re low-fat,” she added. Her lips blew a skeptical sound. “Yeah, right.”
“No, thanks,” I said. I was hungry, tempted, but I didn’t want to ask for a favor with food caught between my teeth. “I wondered if Frank was working today?”
“You mean Officer Garhart?” She squinted and I blushed.
“Yes.”
“Well, I believe so. Let me just check.” She picked up the phone and dialed an extension. “Young lady to see you, Frank,” she said to the receiver. “What was your name again?”
I told her, and she had barely repeated it and hung up before I heard his footsteps coming down the old fifth-grade corridor. “He doesn’t respond that fast to 911,” Mahalia said, giving me a sororal wink.
“Ana.” Frank didn’t go so far as to use a formal name to try to fool Mahalia, but neither did he greet me in any physical way, though I had to fight the impulse to raise my face and kiss him. “Good to see you. Come on down to my office so we can talk.” He didn’t touch me until we had rounded the corner and entered his office, when he put a hand to my face. I closed my eyes for a moment, then opened them when he spoke. “I was just about to go out and grab some dinner. You hungry?”
“No.” I shook my head. “I won’t keep you.”
“Oh, I didn’t mean that. I just meant I’m glad I didn’t miss you.”
“Well. I would have waited.” Hearing the seriousness in my voice, he got up to close the door behind me.
“I’ve been thinking about you,” he said. “I’ve been wondering.”
“About what?” For a moment, I forgot that I was the one who’d come with a purpose in mind.
“What do you think? We sleep together and then you disappear, and I’m not supposed to notice?” Then he laughed. “Hey, don’t we have it backwards here? I thought the guy’s the one who’s supposed to not give a damn.”
“I give a damn,” I told him, though I realized there was no proof of this anywhere for him.
“I didn’t mean it that way. But why’d you stop answering my calls? When I saw you at your house that day, over the summer, I thought maybe I could get you alone to talk for a minute. But your sister was hanging around.”
“She had every right to be there,” I said. I thought of Justine in the yard on Pearl Street, squatting on her freshly plump knees as she picked out souvenir pieces of stone.
“Oh, I know. Of course she did. Ana, I’m not—don’t get mad, okay? I mean, no hard feelings, right?” Then he laughed at himself for the triteness of the line and tapped his desk blotter with the sharp end of his pencil, leaving gray dots on the green. “All I mean is, you’re not sorry we spent that night together, are you? When you didn’t call back, I figured it was no big deal, just something that happened.” He leaned forward across the desk. “But you’re not going to tell anyone, in an official capacity?” He waited for me to understand what he was saying, and when I didn’t, he added, “Because I could get in a lot of trouble.”
“Why?” I said. “I’m of age. Besides, we didn’t really—you know.”
“Well. But you were a principal in a crime we were investigating. It would be seen as inappropriate. Taking advantage of someone at a bad time, you know what I mean?” He looked away, his glance hooded by guilt.
In my best imitation of Mae West I reminded him, “I took advantage of you.”
He smiled. “That’s not how they would see it, though.”
“Look, that’s not why I’m here,” I said. “Why is everybody so afraid they’re going to be sued?”
“Who said anything about suing?” Now he shifted in his chair and pulled back from me. He got up and opened the door. “What can I do for you?” His tone turned official.
“I want to see my family’s file.”
“I can tell you anything you need to know.”
“Why can’t I just see it?”
“You can. But I’m suggesting for your own sake that you just ask me whatever it is you want to know.” He went over to a filing cabinet and opened the drawer labeled A–G, from which he pulled two bulging manila folders and carried them back to his desk. “There are photos of the crime scene in here, for instance,” he told me, clutching the folders close to keep stray papers from dropping out, “which I don’t think you’d want to look at by accident.”
“Oh.” My throat constricted, and I coughed to shake it loose. “No, you’re right.”
“But any specific piece of information—”
“I want to know,” I interrupted, “if there’s anything in there from my father’s shrink. Did you interview him? He won’t tell me anything, but I thought maybe you guys would have more.” I hadn’t felt the tears coming, so they fell before I could catch them. “Please tell me. Please, Frank.” I sat down hard in the chair. Frank went out of the room and brought me a paper cup of water, which he held to my lips but which I spilled, anyway, on my shirt.
“I don’t understand,” he said after a minute. “Doesn’t the note say it all?”
My stomach went cold, and for a moment I couldn’t see his face. “What not
e,” I said.
“The one your father left.”
“But my mother burned it. At least, she said she did.”
“Wait a minute.” He took his arm away, and I heard papers rustling.
“Oh, my God.” I stood up so suddenly that I almost lost my balance again, but when he reached out I shrugged away from his touch. “Oh, Jesus. I can’t believe I never thought of this.” I leaned over the way people are directed to when they are about to faint. “Of course. You guys have a copy. Right?”
“You mean you’ve never read it?”
“No.”
“Oh. Jeez.” He lifted two fingers to knead the skin above his eyes. Then he sighed. “Actually,” he said slowly, “what we give the family is a copy. We keep the original. But not up here. It’s downstairs, in the evidence room.”
“Take me.”
“Ana, that might not be such a good idea.”
“I know. But I have to.” I swallowed hard. “Please.”
Before he opened the door of his office, he drew me close again and said, “Okay,” the word muffled into my hair. He led me into the hall and back to the reception desk, where Mahalia Vines, who was chuckling into the phone, motioned to the plate of brownies and pantomimed eating. I waved to decline, but Frank picked one up and bit in as we continued down the corridor to the staircase, where—when we went to school in this building—members of the Safety Patrol used to be stationed when we filed by our homerooms to the playground or cafeteria.
“God,” I said, slowing down as my hand hit the cold rail slanting toward the basement. “I just remembered the time this kid fell and hit her head on the steps. There was blood all over the place.” A second later I had the girl’s name: Janet Peyser. We were in the middle of multiplication when we heard her screams, and the teachers tried to prevent us from running out of our classrooms to see what was happening. Phil Cunningham was on the Safety Patrol that year—everyone was surprised when he was picked because he was such a troublemaker, but somebody overheard his teacher saying that if they showed some faith in him, he might live up to it. Phil was the one monitoring traffic in the hall that day. Janet, who was in the third grade, lay on the landing with her eyes open, blood seeping out from under her hair. It didn’t take long for the teachers to come to their senses and rush us back to our rooms, but when the ambulance came they didn’t stop us from watching out the windows.
And Give You Peace Page 19