Joyeaux turned to Dooley. “When did you leave the party, Ryan?”
“I don’t know.”
“Did you talk to anyone before you left the party? Did you say goodnight to anyone or maybe arrange to meet anyone—” Dooley knew he meant Gillette. “—somewhere after the party?”
“I don’t remember.”
“The police questioned you that night, didn’t they, Ryan?”
“They questioned him the next day,” Dooley’s uncle said.
“In conjunction with a smash-and-grab at an electronics store,” Joyeaux said, not taking his eyes off Dooley.
“He wasn’t charged,” Dooley’s uncle said. Dooley could tell he was annoyed.
Joyeaux turned to him. “It would be a lot better if you let Ryan answer the questions,” Joyeaux said.
Dooley’s uncle scowled at Joyeaux but didn’t say anything.
Joyeaux turned back to Dooley.
“The police questioned you in conjunction with a smash-and-grab, is that right, Ryan?”
“Yes,” Dooley said.
“Did you and Edward do that together?”
“You said you wanted to talk to him about this kid’s whereabouts,” Dooley’s uncle said. “You didn’t say you wanted to talk to him about the electronics store.”
“I’m just trying to get a picture of what happened the night Edward was last seen,” Joyeaux said. “It might give us some idea of what happened to him.” He was smooth-talking Dooley’s uncle, but Dooley’s uncle wasn’t buying it. Joyeaux turned to Dooley.
“Do you know where Edward Gillette is?” he said.
“No,” Dooley said.
“Did you do anything to Edward Gillette?”
“No!”
“That’s it,” Dooley’s uncle said. He stood up abruptly, glowering at Joyeaux before turning to Dooley. “Let’s go.”
On the way home in the car, Dooley’s uncle said, “This Edward Gillette—who is he, exactly?”
“Someone I used to know.”
His uncle gave him a sharp look. “You mean, someone you know.”
“I mean, someone I knew from before,” Dooley said. “We used to hang out together.”
“Define hang out.”
“You know what I mean.”
“I’m afraid I know what you mean,” his uncle said. “You want to put my mind at ease?”
“I can’t,” Dooley said. “You’re right.”
“And now you’re hanging out with him again? What the hell’s the matter with you, Ryan?”
“I’m not hanging out with him. It turns out he goes to my school.” It was kind of funny if you looked at it in the right light: two guys who had made a career out of avoiding school as much as they could get away with, and here they were, both in the same school, both, as far as Dooley could figure, attending or else.
“It didn’t occur to you to mention that to me?” Dooley’s uncle said.
“I didn’t think it was important. He’s not in my life anymore.”
“He was in it Friday night.”
“Turns out he was a friend of the dead kid, Mark Everley. The party was a sort of memorial for Everley—his sister wants to start a scholarship in his name. I guess that’s why Gillette was there.”
“Tell me again why you didn’t ask me if you could go to the party.”
“Come on,” Dooley said.
“Tell me, Ryan.”
Jesus. He was serious. Fine.
“Because I didn’t think you’d let me go.”
“Now you see why?”
Yeah, now Dooley saw why.
Jeannie was in the kitchen in silver slippers that looked like sandals and that had skinny little straps on them and a red silk robe with a big dragon on the back. She was humming while she made Sunday morning breakfast—sausages and French toast. Dooley’s uncle was at the kitchen table in relax-fit jeans and a gray T-shirt. He was drinking coffee. Every so often he glanced over at Jeannie. Dooley was at the table, too, flipping through the newspaper from the day before and smelling the sausages. He was working on a second cup of coffee and thinking about French toast swimming in maple syrup—the real stuff that his uncle insisted on, he had a friend in Quebec who shipped him up a dozen cans every year—when the doorbell rang.
“Get that, will you, Ryan?” his uncle said.
Dooley got it.
It was the homicide detective from the ravine, Detective Graff.
“Hello, Ryan,” Graff said. “You home alone?”
“My uncle’s here.”
“Let’s go talk to him,” Graff said, stepping into the front hall and forcing Dooley to back up. Graff was a little shorter than Dooley, but he had a swagger that made him seem taller. Dooley believed it was their guns that gave cops that confidence. That and the fact that everyone knew how much grief you could earn by messing with a cop. Graff followed Dooley through to the kitchen.
Dooley’s uncle looked up, surprised.
“He’s a cop,” Dooley said.
“I know,” Dooley’s uncle said, standing up. “Graff, right?”
“That’s right,” Graff said.
“What’s this about?” Dooley’s uncle said.
“I’d like Ryan to come in,” Graff said. “I’d like to talk to him.”
“About?”
“About Edward Gillette.”
“He already talked to someone about that.”
“There’s been a new development.”
Dooley and his uncle waited. Dooley didn’t know about his uncle, but he had a bad feeling. After all, Graff was a homicide cop.
“They found Edward Gillette,” Graff said. “He’s dead.”
“Dead how?” Dooley’s uncle said.
“Massive trauma to the head,” Graff said. “A guy out walking his dog found him in a ravine a ten-minute walk from this house. He was in a ditch, covered with scrub and leaves.”
Eighteen
In the interview room, Graff told Dooley—again—that he was not a suspect. He said he just wanted to ask Dooley some questions. He told Dooley he didn’t have to answer if he didn’t want to. But he warned him that if he did answer, anything he said could be used in a subsequent criminal proceeding. He told Dooley he had the right to have a parent or guardian present.
“He knows the drill,” Dooley’s uncle said. “And I’m here. Let’s get on with it.
Graff asked him how he knew Edward Gillette.
Dooley said, “We used to hang around together.”
“You used to do more than that, didn’t you, Ryan?”
Dooley felt his uncle’s eyes sharp on him.
“Yeah,” Dooley said.
“You did some purse snatchings together, didn’t you, Ryan?”
Dooley felt his uncle tense up.
“You were pretty tight, weren’t you, Ryan?”
“For a while,” Dooley said.
“And then what?” Graff said.
Dooley shrugged.
“The woman, right?” Graff said.
Dooley stared down at the tabletop.
“What’s that got to do with anything?” Dooley’s uncle said. “He did his time. He’s been keeping his nose clean since he’s living with me.”
“Except for last Friday,” Graff said. “Tell me about the party, Ryan.”
“I don’t remember,” Dooley said.
“I heard you partied a little too hearty.”
“Someone slipped him something,” Dooley’s uncle said. Graff looked pleasantly at him. “Oh,” he said. “You were there?”
Dooley’s uncle didn’t like that.
“He’s my nephew. I trust him.”
Graff opened a file folder and thumbed through the pages inside. He slid the folder over to Dooley’s uncle. Dooley’s uncle read the top page. He looked at Dooley.
“Come on, Ryan,” Graff said. “You and I both know you were an early bloomer when it comes to club drugs. Edward Gillette, too.”
“You said he wasn’t a suspect,” Doole
y’s uncle said.
“He isn’t,” Graff said. “I’m just trying to get some facts straight. Like, for instance, this altercation you and Edward had at that party last Friday night.”
“I don’t remember,” Dooley said.
“It came to blows,” Graff said. “A couple of the kids who were there had to break it up.”
Dooley looked at him. This was the first he’d heard of that.
“I don’t remember,” he said.
“What were you doing between the time you left the party and the time you were arrested on that smash-and-grab?”
“I don’t remember.”
“Was Gillette with you?”
“I don’t remember.”
“Did you kill Edward Gillette, Ryan?”
Dooley’s uncle stood up before Dooley could say anything. He grabbed Dooley’s arm and Dooley got the message that he should stand up, too.
“Not a suspect, my ass,” Dooley’s uncle said.
“What about Mark Everley?” Graff said. “Did you push him off that bridge, Ryan?”
That stopped Dooley’s uncle short. “What are you talking about?” he said. “I thought the Everley kid fell because he’d been drinking and fooling around up there.”
Graff just looked at him, maybe wondering how Dooley’s uncle knew that and probably coming up with an answer good and fast. He didn’t say anything.
By the time Dooley and his uncle got home, Jeannie was gone. She’d left the French toast and the sausages and a note on how to warm them up, but neither Dooley nor his uncle was hungry. His uncle spooned coffee and poured water into the coffeemaker and stood at the counter while the coffee brewed. He said, “Is there anything about Edward Gillette I should know, other than what Graff told me and you didn’t?”
“No,” Dooley said.
“You had some kind of fight with him at that party.
What was it about?”
“I don’t remember.”
“If I was Graff, I’d think you were rehearsing your defence,” his uncle said irritably.
Had it really come to that? Was his uncle really wondering whether or not he should believe Dooley?
“Maybe it was because Gillette told Beth about me.”
“Beth?” his uncle said.
“The girl I told you about.”
“The girl who was the reason you went to the party?”
“Yeah.”
“What did he tell her?”
Here it came—crunch time.
“There was this thing that happened with Mark Everley,” Dooley said.
Dooley’s uncle was quiet for a moment. Dooley imagined him thinking, What now? “Does it have anything with why Graff asked you that last question?” he said.
“Maybe,” Dooley said. “Probably.”
His uncle waited. Dooley wondered how he would take the story.
“Well?” his uncle said when Dooley didn’t continue.
“It’s complicated,” Dooley said.
“It’s Sunday,” his uncle said. “I’ve got nothing but time.”
Dooley took a deep breath. Where to start?
“Mark Everley came into the store a couple of months ago, just after I started working there. I didn’t even know who he was. He was with another guy I didn’t know either.” Turned out it was Landers.
His uncle was still standing beside the coffeemaker. He had a clean mug in his hand. His uncle was a coffee addict, but he wasn’t reaching for the pot. He was watching Dooley.
“There was this girl in the store. She was… different. Someone said she had Down’s.” His uncle nodded, but just barely. “Everley started making fun of her behind her back, the way she looked, the way she walked, the way she talked. He was trying to get laughs from the guy he was with.” He could see it as he described it. He still couldn’t understand what kind of person would do something like that. They seemed to know who she was. It was Landers who had pointed her out. He had also looked around the store, like he was checking to see if someone else was there with her. “The girl caught on. She knew what he was doing. You should have seen the look on her face.” Poor kid. She’d been crushed. Something else, too. Something that told Dooley this wasn’t the first time some jerk had made fun of her like that. Something that also told Dooley that she was way smarter than Everley gave her credit for.
“Anyway, she came up to the cash and I rang up her rental.” The Little Mermaid. “She left. And I said to Everley, why don’t you leave her alone?” Boy, Everley had perked up at that. Dooley didn’t get it at first. “He laughed. He said, You gonna make me?”
Dooley’s uncle shook his head. Dooley bet he had a pretty good idea where this story was going.
“Anyway,” Dooley said, “then Everley and the other guy went out of the store. The girl was out there. I think she was waiting for someone.” He wasn’t sure about that, though, because no one ever turned up to get her. “And he started in again.” He knew Dooley was watching him. He looked right at him. “So I went outside,” Dooley said.
His uncle shook his head again, but he didn’t say anything.
“He was being loud, you know?” Dooley said. “And he didn’t care that people were walking by looking at him.” Boy, all those people, and what had they done? Absolutely nothing besides stare and then just move it along. “The girl was really upset. She was covering her ears. So I stopped him.”
“Stopped him?” Dooley’s uncle said. He still hadn’t moved to fill his mug.
“I told him to knock it off. He just kept running his mouth.” Only now he was making fun of Dooley: look at the video store clerk, offering excellent customer service out there on the sidewalk, did he really think he could tell anybody what to do? “He wouldn’t stop. So I grabbed his arm and pulled him away from the girl. He didn’t like that.” Well, that wasn’t entirely true. Everley had got this crazy look in his eyes, like, yeah, here we go, bring it on. “He threw a punch at me.” Dooley could tell right away that Mark Everley had thrown a lot of punches. He was like some guys Dooley had crossed paths with, guys who thought they were tougher than anyone else and who really got off on proving it. Guys who liked to get things started just so that they could finish them off. “I connected first.”
“You hit him?” his uncle said.
“You would have, too, if you’d been there,” Dooley said. “He was asking for it.”
His uncle stared at him.
“Okay, so maybe you wouldn’t have. But he threw the first punch, and he was giving that girl a hard time. It wasn’t right.”
“And the guy he was with, that was Edward Gillette?” Dooley shook his head. “That was another guy. But Gillette was hanging around, too. He saw it happen. He told Beth.”
He could see his uncle didn’t get it.
“Beth is Everley’s sister,” Dooley said. “The way Gillette told her the story, I beat up Everley.”
“Did you?”
Yeah, it had come to that. His uncle didn’t know what to think anymore, but he was leaning toward the worst.
“No.”
“How many times did you hit him?”
“I think maybe two or three times—and only because he was hitting me. The guy was crazy.” That didn’t even begin to describe it. It seemed to Dooley that Everley was having the time of his life. The guy loved to fight. He liked to inflict pain. Maybe he even got off on getting some back. “Then the guy who was with him stepped in and told him he should forget it, he should walk away.” Dooley believed Landers had done that only because, unlike the teasing, the fight had drawn a crowd, and a few people were muttering about calling the cops. He also believed that if there had been no one else around, Landers probably would have jumped in and started swinging at Dooley alongside Everley. Landers seemed like the kind of guy who had no trouble with two against one so long as he wasn’t the one.
“Did you break anything?” Dooley’s uncle said.
Dooley shook his head. “He ended up with a swollen eye and some bruise
s. But all I did was stop him. I didn’t beat him up. Believe me, I know the difference.”
“Why would Gillette tell this girl you beat up her brother if you didn’t?”
Dooley hesitated.
“I think he’s afraid of me,” he said at last.
His uncle looked at him for a moment before finally pouring himself a cup of coffee. He stirred some of Jeannie’s Sweet ’n’ Low into it and sat down at the table. Dooley sat opposite him.
“And he’s afraid of you because…?” his uncle said, slowly, drawing out the question as if to put off having to hear the answer.
And what a question. It was the big one—the biggest one—and the answer was the thing Dooley had never told another living soul, the thing he’d been carrying around with him for nearly two years now.
“Ryan?” His uncle was leaning across the table now, eyes hard on Dooley. “You’ve been doing pretty well since you moved in here. Going to that party, that’s turning out to be a big mistake. If you’re going to straighten it out, you’re going to have to be straight—with me, anyway.”
It was easy to say, but harder to do. The thing was, nobody knew—unless Gillette had told someone. But why would he do that? You told most people something like that, and they’d go straight to the cops. The first time Dooley had run into Gillette after he moved in with his uncle, he’d caught the panic in Gillette’s eyes and had realized that Gillette was afraid of him, afraid of what Dooley might do to him. But if Dooley told his uncle that… or if Gillette had said anything to anyone…
His uncle was still looking at him, still waiting, his last words visible in his eyes: You’re going to have to be straight.
“That last time I got busted,” Dooley said, “you know, the thing with that woman?”
His uncle nodded, but Dooley could see he didn’t want to think about that.
“Gillette was with me,” Dooley said.
His uncle slumped back in his chair. “Go on.”
“That’s it,” Dooley said. “He was there. He’s the one who set it up.” Before his uncle could say anything, Dooley added, “I’m not saying it’s his fault. I went in there, same as him, I was the one who hit that woman. But Gillette was in on it. I got caught. He didn’t.”
Dooley Takes the Fall Page 13