We went back to my room.
“Look, there’s something I want to show you,” I said, “but you have to keep it to yourself.”
He licked his lips and I saw his body stiffen.
“What do you mean?”
I told him about my excursion with Toby.
“I wouldn’t believe him about anything,” Blaize said with unusual vehemence. “I think all that about what his father says is stuff he invented anyway, just to make himself important.”
“I don’t know why I ended up with him last night. I guess I just wanted to show him …”
“You don’t have to show him anything. You’re worth ten of that fat son-of-a-bitch.”
I hesitated, caught up short.
“Hell, Blaize …”
“I didn’t mean to embarrass you, Colin. I know you aren’t supposed to say things like that, because only queers say that kind of stuff. Is that what you were thinking?”
“No. I just … Forget it.”
“Well, I’m not queer, if that’s what you were wondering.”
“I wasn’t, so shut up and listen.” I told him about the earring and then I opened the little box and handed it to him. He took it reverently, eyes large as dinner plates, and his hand started to shake.
“It’s hers,” he said.
“Hers?”
He hesitated and then gave a little shrug. “I saw her wearing them in class. I remember thinking how they didn’t seem like her but …”
The phone interrupted and I heard my father’s voice.
“Colin, listen to what I’m saying: I want you to stay where you are and don’t go anywhere until I get there. I’ll be home in five minutes.”
“What’s this about?” I’d never heard such urgency in his voice before.
“Some men may come there. From the police. I don’t want you to say a word until I get home, is that understood?”
“Yes, sir.”
The phone went dead and I stared blankly at Blaize.
“That was my dad. He says the cops are coming here.”
My friend’s mouth went open. “Shit.”
I took the earring from him and replaced it in the tin box.
“Toby,” I said. “That shit told his old man where we went last night. You’d better get out of here.”
“No.”
“Man, you don’t want to get caught in this. If that earring was hers, it’s evidence and I fucked with it.”
“I don’t care. I’m not leaving you.”
I put a hand on his shoulder and only moved it when I heard car doors slamming a second later.
Two doors slamming. Two people.
Something melted in my guts. I looked over at the little box.
“I’ll take care of it,” Blaize said suddenly, reaching into the box and removing the earring. “In case they want to search.”
“Shit, man, I don’t want you to get your ass in a trap because of me.”
“Shut up,” he said quietly. He took a step toward me, his dark eyes fixing my own: “The earring was never here, okay? You never saw it. Whatever Toby told them was a lie.”
“But if it’s part of a crime …”
“It isn’t, though. It belonged to her and it doesn’t have anything to do with the crime.”
“But fingerprints …”
“You handled it and now I’ve handled it. That will have wiped out anybody else’s prints.”
I heard the doorbell ring and then another car door closed.
My father …
“I’m leaving the back way,” Blaize said. “I’ll be at my house. You can tell me what happened.”
“I owe you,” I said.
“We all owe each other,” he said.
Before I could reply he was gone and the front door was opening. I stood helpless, like a deer pinioned in a spotlight. I saw my father, his face drawn. Behind him came two men, one skinny, with a loose tie and a coat that sloped off his narrow shoulders. The second man was more substantial, the size of a linebacker, and he was chewing gum. The first man flipped a cigarette butt into the bushes as he entered, as if he were about to get down to business.
“This is my son Colin,” my father said. “If you’d like to sit down we can talk in here.”
The big man eyed the skinny man but the latter nodded.
“That’s fine.”
My father turned to me.
“Colin, these men are from the sheriff’s office. They want to talk to you about something that’s supposed to have happened last night. You can sit down if you want but I expect you will tell them the absolute truth.”
I swallowed.
“We hear you went out to the place where your teacher was killed last night,” the skinny one said. His voice was high-pitched and he kept sniffing, as if he had an allergy.
“She wasn’t my teacher …” I began but the big one cut me off:
“Son, you get wise, we’ll find a place for you at LTI.”
Louisiana Training Institute was the juvenile detention center and though I didn’t know anyone who’d ever been there, we’d all heard stories …
“I don’t think we need to hear about LTI right now,” my father said. He looked me in the eye:
“Colin, did you go out to that place last night?”
“Yes, sir.”
“With whom?”
I looked at the floor.
“Don’t matter,” the thin one said. “Your friend, the Hobbs boy, got caught by his father climbing in his window. His father got the truth out of him. Now we want to hear your side, before we decide where to go with this.”
“We were there,” I mumbled.
“How did you get there?” the big one demanded.
“I drove,” I said, my voice weak.
My father’s head gave a little shake, as if to let me know how disappointed he was.
“Whatever possessed you?” he asked.
I shrugged. “It was for Stan. We thought maybe we’d see something that could help. We don’t think his father did it.”
The two detectives exchanged glances.
“And did you find anything?” the thin one asked.
I looked away. “Nothing important.”
“You let us decide what’s important,” the big one snapped.
“Just some stuff. A woman’s earring in the bushes.”
“Where is it?”
I thought of Blaize and his good deed. I was damned if I’d be like Toby and drag him in.
“I threw it out,” I said.
“The Hobbs boy said you kept it.” He leaned toward me like a mountain about to fall.
“I threw it out on the way home, after I dropped him.”
“You know what happens when you lie to the police,” the thin one said.
“Yes, sir.”
“We don’t want you to get in any deeper than you already are,” he said.
“… which is pretty deep, trespassing on a crime scene, removing evidence,” his partner said.
“Like I said, I threw it away,” I said. “If I’d have known it was important …”
“We’re trying to help you,” the thin one said. “But you have to understand, son, we’re investigating a murder.”
“You boys were out there the night it happened,” the big man said. “Pretty interesting coincidence.”
I shrugged again. “I told that deputy what we saw.”
“Did you?” the big one said.
My father reached for his pipe and all at once I had a sense that I might not go to LTI after all.
“Was there anything marking this as a crime scene?” he asked. “I mean, that said for people to keep out?”
“Everybody knows it was a crime scene,” the thin one said, taken aback. “And there’s a NO TRESPASSING sign on the gate.”
“But there’s no closed gate, as I recall,” my father said. “And if I remember correctly, that sign was put up by the property owner.”
“That’s right,” the big m
an said. “Which means your son was trespassing.”
My father nodded slowly, and lit his pipe. “Has the owner of the property complained?”
The two men exchanged looks again.
“Well, no,” the thin one said. “But the crime scene …”
“How long does a place stay a crime scene?” my father asked. “I mean, don’t the police put up some signs or something? Surely a place can’t be a crime scene forever?”
“No, not forever,” the thin one said. “But the investigation’s not finished and …”
“But you gentlemen were finished with the investigation of that particular location, weren’t you? Or you would have put up something to tell people to keep away.”
“Dr. Douglas, you know as well as we do that your boy had no business out there last night. All we’re asking is for you to cooperate, the way the Hobbs boy’s father co-operated.”
“Certainly. That’s why I’ve invited you in to discuss this with my son. You’re welcome to search, for that matter. I’m sure he doesn’t have anything to hide. And, after all, you’ve made your arrest. Or was that a mistake?” Before either man could answer my father rose. “Gentlemen, I’m not happy with what Colin did and I promise you, I’ll handle it. But you know how boys are. I’ll bet you every teenager in the parish has been by that place since the murder. Some may even have walked around the cemetery. Summer school’s starting in a few days and I can assure you Colin will be too busy to be making any more midnight excursions, besides the fact that he won’t be doing much driving for the rest of the summer. Now, is it your intention to charge him and the Hobbs boy? I mean, after all, you’ll have to charge both of them, because they were both involved. Because if that is your intention, I’d like to call my attorney now.”
The two detectives seemed to draw into themselves, as if they’d been suddenly deflated. The thin one got up slowly. His partner seemed more reluctant, but at last he followed suit.
“All right,” the thin one said. “There won’t be any charges for right now. But we expect you to keep your boy under control.”
My father showed them to the door and only closed it when their car pulled away from the curve. He turned slowly to face me.
“Colin, what in the hell’s going on?”
“Nothing. I mean, we were just curious. We don’t want Stan’s dad to …”
“I feel as sorry as hell for Stanley. But Stan’s dad has made his own bed and now he has to lie in it.”
“You think he’s guilty?”
My father exhaled. “Son, I don’t know. I wish I did. At first none of us wanted to believe it. But things have been coming out, a little bit at a time, things that, well …”
“I know.”
His brows arched. “Yes, I expect you do. Your grapevine may be better than our own. It seems like kids know things these days before grownups. But, damn it, Colin, I’ve told you about hanging around with Toby Hobbs. I’m sure he put you up to this.”
I dropped my gaze.
“Or maybe you just wanted to enjoy your new driver’s license, is that it? I can understand that, though I abhor deception.”
“Yes, sir.”
“But do you know what I abhor even more?”
I shook my head.
“Stupidity. The least you could have done was told him not to smoke in the car. It reeked of cigarettes. That doesn’t say much for the intelligence of either of you.”
They were the most scathing words I’d ever heard from my father and I felt as if I’d shrunk in size until I was a few inches off the floor.
“And another thing,” he said, pointing his pipe at me like a gun: “Those policemen couldn’t do anything because they’d have to have done something to Toby, and they know his father’s in a position to make it hard for them, but they knew you were lying, and I do, too.”
I didn’t say anything, just let the fear seep through me.
“I …” But I stopped before I got started.
“Oh, I don’t think it’s about anything important. I know you didn’t have anything to do with that crime and I don’t think any of your friends did. But there’s something else you’re hiding. I won’t pry into it because I doubt it’s important. What’s more important is that you’ve taken advantage of me and my trust.”
“I’m sorry,” I said. “It was the earring. Toby was right. I did find it.”
“Where?”
I explained and my father listened intently, pulling on his pipe and sending clouds of aromatic smoke throughout the room.
“A gold earring with a star,” he repeated. “For pierced ears?”
“I guess. I mean, I reckon I didn’t really notice.”
“Fine detective you are.” He sat quietly for a long time, staring into the smoke. Finally he turned back to me:
“Where is it now?”
“I gave it to somebody.”
“Blaize,” he said, nodding, and sighed.
“How did you know?”
“Toby would have given it up and you haven’t seen Stanley for several days. Who else does that leave?”
“Dad, please don’t get him in trouble. He didn’t have anything to do with this. He was just doing me a favor.”
My father sighed and put a hand up to his face, as if he were in the throes of a major decision. At last he brought his hand down.
“’No mask like open truth to cover lies, As to go naked is the best disguise.’”
“What?”
“William Congreve, but you probably haven’t ever heard of him.”
“Yes, I have. He has a poem in our English book.”
“Mirabile dictu. Well, I expect you’d better get Blaize to give you back that earring and then you hand it over to me. I’ll keep it until I can see whether it’s relevant or not. I don’t intend for my son to get involved in something he had no part in just because of teenaged stupidity. But if it turns out the object would change the course of the investigation—save an innocent man, for example—then it will have to be produced.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Now you’d better call Blaize and get it back.” He got up and accompanied me to the telephone.
But when I got Blaize he told me he’d thrown it down a sewer.
“I just figured we were all better off if it disappeared,” he said. “Is there a problem?”
“No.”
When I told my father he stroked his chin.
“Do you think he’s telling the truth?”
“He wouldn’t lie to me.”
“No, I’m sure he wouldn’t.”
That night I got up to go to the bathroom and saw the light in the breakfast room was on. I smelled the aromatic smoke that told me my father was up. I caught just the outline of his back, seated in one of the straight wooden chairs, and then I tiptoed back to my room, lifted the window, and peed through the screen into the bushes outside.
When I woke up the next morning for the first day of summer school my father told me that Stan was missing.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
I rise this morning determined that today I will meet the demons. I have been here for two days and I have as yet not summoned the courage to visit the place where it happened. I dress and go downstairs into the sunlight, determined to let nothing interfere, not even the rumblings in my stomach.
It’s so easy, after all: just take the River Road from where it starts under the new bridge and follow.
And that is what I do, this warm summer morning, driving slowly along with the green levee on my right, past the frame houses, the campus incinerator, the new Veterinary Medicine Center. There is almost no traffic, though the road has long since been paved. I wonder, as I glance out at the purple flowers dotting the sides of the levee, and pass occasional bicyclists, if I will even recognize the place. The store has probably been torn down.
But the odometer has just marked four miles when I see it ahead on the left, the same gray-board, tin-roofed structure that I remember. Except that as I
near it I see the gas pumps are gone and the front window is boarded. No one lives there now but ghosts. Bergeron must have died long ago and as for Michelle …
That morning I had to ask my father to repeat himself.
“I just heard it a little while ago,” he said, knotting his tie. “I had to call Paul Terry about next fall’s schedule and he told me he’d heard it from the campus police.”
“But when?” I asked, thunderstruck.
“Last night, apparently. His mother went to wake him up and he was gone. His bed hadn’t been slept in.”
“I should have gone over,” I said.
“Well, there are lots of things we should have done in retrospect, but I imagine he’ll be all right. He probably just took off someplace to think things over.”
“But where? He doesn’t have any money.”
“He can’t go far. His mom will be out looking for him, as well as the police.”
“But what if somebody kidnapped him?”
“I think you’re letting your imagination run wild. Now you’d better get dressed and get some breakfast. I plan to leave as soon as I finish reading the paper.”
I stared down into my raisin bran. Stan gone. Why the hell hadn’t I gone over there and at least offered comfort?
“I’m sorry your dad killed Miss Gloria. I’m still your friend.”
Sure. That would have worked fine. Still, I couldn’t get that night out of my mind: His mother following his father out, yelling after him, and Stan morose in his little room that wasn’t even a part of the house, as if he’d been exiled so that he would not have to witness what went on in the domestic circle. I’d always thought it was great, having his own place, but now I saw it from a different perspective.
The summer course I’d enrolled in was a typing class that lasted from nine until eleven. It provided no school credit but my father said everyone should know how to type, and that it would stand me in good stead later, because no teacher wanted to read handwritten papers, and a paper that came in typed always made a better impression. But I knew the real reason for my enrollment was that it gave me something to do in the mornings.
I don’t remember much about that first class meeting except that I heard nothing the earnest young graduate student instructor said, because my mind was on Stan.
Where would I go if I were he?
The Levee: A Novel of Baton Rouge Page 12