“I didn’t kill him,” Dooley said.
“She says he raped her, Ryan. You know what that means, right?”
Yeah, he knew. Did Randall think he was stupid?
“I read the complaint,” Randall said. “I read Parker’s statement, too. One thing no one’s denying is that he had sex with her. How did you feel when you found out, Ryan? That’s why you went to the tennis club, isn’t it? And to the party? Because you knew that Parker’d had sex with Beth.”
Dooley felt a swirl of cold blackness begin to rise in him. He wished Randall would shut up.
“Beth told you he raped her. So you went looking for Parker to punish him, didn’t you? You went there to make that rich son of a bitch pay for laying his hands on your girl. Isn’t that right, Ryan? I bet it drives you crazy, picturing him with her, doesn’t it? Something like that could drive a guy crazy enough to want to beat someone’s head in. Is that what happened? You pictured him with Beth. You pictured what he did with her and grabbed the nearest thing you could lay hands on and you—”
Dooley stood up. He wanted to punch something.
“Sit down,” Randall said.
Someone knocked on the door to the interview room. Randall grimaced in annoyance and went to open it.
“The kid’s lawyer is here,” said the cop at the door.
“He didn’t ask for a lawyer,” Randall said.
“I want a lawyer,” Dooley said.
“I heard that,” a voice said. Annette Girondin stepped into the room. She gave Dooley a concerned once-over before turning to Randall. “Is he under arrest?”
Randall glowered at her. “No,” he said finally.
“Right,” Annette said. “Come on, Ryan.”
Her high heels clickety-clicked to the elevator. She didn’t say a word until they were out of the building and in her car.
“What did you say to them?” she asked.
“Nothing.”
“Why didn’t you call me? You forget my number?”
“No. I just thought—”
“You thought you could handle it on your own? For God’s sake, Ryan. You think you know the law better than they do?”
“No, but—”
“Next time, call me.”
Which gave Dooley an opening to ask, “How did you know I was there, anyway?”
“Your uncle,” she said. “He has more sense than you do. He called me.”
His uncle? How did he know?
Dooley got a bad feeling.
SEVEN
Annette pulled up in front of Dooley’s uncle’s house. She reached into her purse, pulled out a small silver case, opened it, and handed him a business card.
“Put that in your wallet,” she said. “It has my cell number on it. You can get me 24/7.”
He nodded.
As he got out of the car, he saw his uncle come out the front door and stand on the porch. Alarms went off in Dooley’s head. His uncle should have been at work, but there he was, looking down at Annette’s car, his fist to one side of his head, index finger and pinkie finger extended, gesturing to Annette that he would call her later. He stood aside to let Dooley into the house, closed the door after him, and followed him into the kitchen, where Dooley busied himself looking in the fridge, mainly so he wouldn’t have to look at his uncle. He felt his uncle’s eyes on him. Sure enough, when Dooley backed out of the fridge with a container of orange juice, his uncle was standing with his hands on his hips. Dooley edged by him to the cupboard to get a glass. He poured himself some juice and drank half of it. His uncle was still staring at him.
“How did you know?” Dooley said finally.
“That vice principal at your school called.” He must have meant Mr. Rektor, who held Dooley in about as much esteem as Dooley’s uncle held Rektor. “Said he didn’t know whether I knew it or not, but a couple of police officers from the local division had picked you up outside the school. You want to tell me why I had to hear it from him? You forget what I told you to do if the cops started hassling you again?”
Dooley didn’t answer. He knew his uncle well enough to know the question was rhetorical.
“I got in touch with Annette,” his uncle said. “But she hadn’t heard from you, either. So she said she’d go down there and check it out. What did they want?”
“They wanted to ask me some questions.”
“About what?” his uncle said, his tone making it clear that he was in no mood to coax the information out of Dooley one piece at a time.
“About some guy.”
“Jesus Christ, Ryan. Either you spit the whole thing out right now or I’ll get someone on the phone who will.”
“It’s none of your business.”
“I’m responsible for you. You’re under a supervision order. It damn well is my business.”
You’re not even really my uncle, Dooley wanted to say. I didn’t ask to be here, so get off my case. He caught a picture of himself in his head, looking and sounding like some pissed-off little kid: I didn’t ask to be born. Except that he’d accepted his uncle’s offer. He’d lived in his uncle’s house; he’d eaten his uncle’s food; he’d let his uncle go to bat for him more than once; and, in exchange, he had agreed to play by his uncle’s rules.
“They wanted to talk to me about some guy who was killed.”
“Killed?” It took his uncle a moment to digest what Dooley had said. Clearly, it was the last thing he had expected. “What guy? What is it with you, Ryan? Someone gets killed and the next thing you know, the cops are looking at you.”
“Parker Albright,” Dooley said.
His uncle was as still as stone. Dooley wondered if he was having a stroke or something.
“Parker Albright, who supposedly sexually assaulted Beth?”
“Supposedly?”
“Allegedly,” his uncle amended. “You telling me he’s dead?”
“That’s what Randall said.”
“Randall?” Dooley’s uncle knew him well.
Dooley nodded. He wished he was anyplace else but in his uncle’s kitchen—well, or that interview room.
“What, exactly, did Randall say to you?”
“He asked me if I killed Parker.”
“You told me you didn’t even know the Albright kid existed until you found out what happened to Beth. I took that to mean you’d never met him. Was I wrong?”
“I met him,” Dooley said. “I talked to him.” Then, since his toe was in the water, he plunged deeper. “A couple of times.”
His uncle’s face was rigid. It was not the answer he had been hoping for, but it seemed to be the one he’d been fearing.
“Circumstances?”
Dooley shifted in his chair. He was living in his uncle’s house. He would be there for another six months, until his supervision period was over, assuming he hadn’t screwed that up already. His uncle—he still hadn’t come to grips with his uncle not really being his uncle. He didn’t want to be like Lorraine. She had been messed up ever since she found out she was adopted—well, and since she’d learned the circumstances of her adoption. She’d never got over it. Dooley had known plenty of guys who were adopted and who were uneasy in their skin because of it. He’d figured they were lucky. He’d figured, hey, they’re not your real parents, so you don’t have to listen to them; they’ve got nothing on you, so what’s your problem? How many times when he was little had he wished that he was adopted, that Lorraine wasn’t his real mother, that there was someone out there who wasn’t Lorraine, and who maybe regretted that they’d given him up, and who maybe was even looking for him? And now here he was, living in the house of his uncle who wasn’t really his uncle, who had despised his adopted sister and all her bellyaching. His uncle, who had taken him in despite all that, who had taken responsibility for him. Who was taking responsibility for him now, when, really, when you came right down to it, Dooley didn’t think it was his uncle’s business, not now, not when they weren’t even related.
But there he wa
s, looking at him and waiting for an answer. And, for some reason, Dooley felt he owed him one.
“I wanted to see what he looked like,” Dooley said.
“That’s it?”
Lorraine would have accepted what he said and let it go, assuming she’d asked in the first place, assuming it had even occurred to her to ask. But Dooley’s uncle? He’d been a cop. He pressed and pressed until he had a picture in his head that satisfied him.
Dooley met his eyes.
“I wanted to see what he had. You know?”
He was skating around the edges of the truth—he knew it and, judging from the set of his uncle’s jaw, his uncle knew it, too. Christ, why was he sitting here and subjecting himself to this? Why did he care what some old ex-cop thought? He drew in a deep breath.
“I wanted to see ... you said it yourself. That girl”—Annicka—“saw them holding hands. I just wanted to see him, that’s all.”
His uncle nodded grimly. “Anything else you want to tell me?”
Dooley shook his head. But it didn’t stick. The next thing he knew, he was telling his uncle what had happened between him and Parker at the tennis club. He told him he’d stopped by Parker’s house, too, although he didn’t go into all of the details. It would just complicate things. He told himself that he was spilling the story because people had seen him—a lot of people—and that his uncle would find out anyway. But he wasn’t sure that was the whole reason.
“How did this kid die, anyway?” his uncle said.
“Randall didn’t say.” But no, that wasn’t quite right. “He said something about beating his head in.”
His uncle frowned. “This Albright kid—where did he live?”
Dooley told him.
“Like that kid they found in the ravine,” his uncle said.
“What?”
“The kid I was telling you about last night. The one they found in the ravine with his head stove in. It’d be quite a coincidence if there were two kids who died like that.”
His uncle stared at him. He was doing his cop scan, reading Dooley’s expression, what he was doing with his eyes, what he was doing with his hands, the way he was sitting, every detail of his bearing, and was comparing it to every thief, robber, assailant, and murderer—liars, the whole lot of them—that he had ever met and wrung a confession from.
“According to what I heard on the news, which wasn’t much—and what little there was in the paper—he was killed Saturday night.” Dooley could see him remembering and doing some mental calculations. “You were working Saturday night. You closed. You telling me a smart guy like Randall didn’t bother to check that out?”
“About that—”
“Jesus!” his uncle said. “Don’t tell me you weren’t working.”
“I kind of switched with Linelle.”
“Kind of?”
“I switched with her, okay?” Christ, his uncle could be such a pain.
His uncle glowered at him.
“Look, I’m sorry I wasn’t upfront with you,” Dooley said. “But I didn’t kill that guy.”
His uncle studied him, his lips pressed together.
“I’ve been straight with you about Parker. I told you I went to his tennis club.”
“To pick a fight with him.”
“I went to his house, too.”
“To pick another fight with him.”
“You don’t get it,” Dooley said. “You should have seen Beth. She—she was all messed up. And the way that jerk-off talked about her—” Rage pulsed through Dooley, even now.
“You let him get under your skin, didn’t you?”
“Wouldn’t you, if it was Jeannie?” He knew his uncle would. He pictured some slick guy, starting in talking to his uncle about Jeannie the way Parker had talked to Dooley about Beth. Slick would be talking through a mouth full of broken teeth before he finished his first sentence. There was no doubt in Dooley’s mind about that.
“Yeah,” his uncle said after a moment. “Okay, so I can see how that could happen. But that doesn’t make it right.” Dooley could see that he had to say that. He’d been a cop for most of his life. If it hadn’t been hard-wired into him from the start, it had been pounded into him over thirty on-the-street years. “I can see you needed to see the guy. I understand what you were looking for. But, for the love of God, why did you go back a second time? And to a party, no less, where, I assume, there were plenty of witnesses.”
Dooley didn’t have an answer to that, at least, not one that made sense.
His uncle studied him for a few moments, his mouth working like it was about to spit out something unpleasant.
“I’m assuming that if you weren’t at work, then that story about the guy who threw up on you was just some more bullshit that you decided to throw my way. Am I right?”
Dooley had been hoping that wouldn’t come up. But here it was, another stupid move come back to bite him in the ass.
“That part’s true,” Dooley said. He looked his uncle in the eyes. It scared him how good he was getting at that, giving cops and ex-cops that sincere, I-got-nothing-to-hide gaze, steady, unwavering. “Only it was on the way home from Parker’s, not on the way home from work.”
His uncle stared at him. He didn’t say a word—another cop trick. The same damn trick Randall had used—let the silence hang between them for longer than was comfortable. Nine times out of ten, it ate at a guilty mind and made the perp talk, trying to solidify his story. Dooley waited him out.
“So,” his uncle said finally, “if it comes down to the cops asking me if I noticed anything unusual that night, that’s what you expect me to tell them—that some panhandler barfed on you.”
“Tell them what you want,” Dooley said. “I had nothing to do with what happened to Parker.”
His uncle kept up his cop stare.
“I know you’re hiding something from me, Ryan. And I know that if you try that with the cops, you’re going to be in big trouble.”
Dooley peered evenly into his uncle’s steely gray eyes.
“You think because they let you walk out of there with Annette that they’re done with you? How do you know they’re not messing with you? How do you know they didn’t let you walk because they just got a lead on an eyewitness who can put you at the scene at or near the time of death? How do you know they’re not going to come back at you tonight or tomorrow or the day after that with an airtight case that’s going to see you go away for murder?”
“I didn’t do it,” Dooley said. Jesus, wasn’t he listening?
“I sincerely hope that’s true.”
Right. Dooley calmly walked up to his room, quietly closed the door, and beat the crap out of his pillow. His uncle let him be.
EIGHT
Warren, bleary-eyed and clutching a travel mug that Dooley assumed was filled with coffee, was standing in front of school the next morning. As soon as he spotted Dooley, he waved to him.
“I tried to call you yesterday, but I couldn’t get through.”
He must have called while Dooley was with the cops, and then, after Dooley got home, he hadn’t checked his voicemail.
“What’s up?”
“I got called into work early yesterday. I did a double shift.” Warren lifted his mug, tilted it back, and took a good, long swallow. Dooley waited patiently. Warren never wasted his time. There was a point to everything he said. “A guy up on seven called in sick. They asked me to cover for him.”
Dooley perked up. Beth was on seven.
“Did you talk to her?”
“For a couple of minutes, yeah,” Warren said.
“And? How is she? Did you ask her to call me?”
Warren blinked at him from behind his glasses.
“She didn’t smile at me the way she usually does.” That seemed to bother him. “She looked sad. But she asked about you.”
“She did?”
“Yeah. She asked how you were.”
“Did you tell her to call me?”
&
nbsp; Warren nodded.
“And? Did she say she would?”
“She didn’t say anything. Then I got called away. Some guy down the hall had an accident, and I had to go clean it up.”
“Accident?”
“Mostly the job’s okay. But sometimes the patients have accidents, then they call for a cleaner. It was all over the floor. I thought I was going to puke.”
“Did you see her again?”
“I tried to. But she had a visitor.”
“Her mother?”
Warren shook his head. “Some guy.”
“What guy?”
“She was crying and the guy was trying to calm her down.”
“What guy, Warren?”
“A tall guy—your height. Your build, too, kind of. Toothy guy. I think she called him Kevin.”
“Nevin?”
“Yeah,” Warren said, surprised but nodding. “That’s what it sounded like, but I thought I must have heard wrong. I never heard of anyone called Nevin.”
Dooley wished he hadn’t either.
“What was she crying about?”
“I wasn’t eavesdropping, Dooley. I was mopping the floor out in the hall.”
“You didn’t hear anything?”
“I don’t know why she was crying. But I heard her mention the cops. She wanted to call them, and that guy—Nevin—he kept asking her what she meant.”
“What did she mean?”
“I don’t know. I heard her say he deserved it.”
“He? Who?”
“I didn’t hear a name. She said he deserved it and that she was going to call the cops and was going to tell them. Then one of the nurses called me. They needed me downstairs. They’re so short-staffed there, you can’t believe it. Anyway, by the time I was finished down there, it was time to go on my regular shift down on two. I never got back up to where she was. Dooley, I think maybe I—”
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