“If she hadn’t walked by, I’d have probably ended up in the hospital,” Warren said.
Dooley didn’t know what to tell him: learn to control your laughter or learn to fight. One or the other was probably a good idea if Warren was going to survive high school.
“Hey, Warren, if there’s ever anything I can do—”
“Forget it,” Warren said. “You already did it.”
Twenty-Four
Dooley sat on the couch after Warren had left, fingering the flash drive and staring at the pictures. Everley had photographed small animal skulls, one of them with a gold heart draped over it. He had photographed old newspapers.
And he had taken lots of pictures of Esperanza. Esperanza, smiling into the camera, her face radiant in every picture, but who had been crying on Gillette’s shoulder the night of the party. Esperanza who had been afraid that Landers might tell on her—but tell about what?
Everley had locked all of those pictures in password-protected files.
Why would he do something like that?
Dooley phoned Rhodes’s house. He believed it was Esperanza who answered. She had a soft Spanish accent and a softer voice, and she told him that Rhodes—she called him Mr. Winston—was out and wasn’t expected back until later in the day. She asked Dooley if he wanted to leave a message. Dooley said, “No, thank you.”
Dooley looked at the flash drive and the envelope of photographs. He should have given them back to Warren for safekeeping, but he hadn’t. He wondered what the cops would make of them if they came looking for him again. He shoved the pictures and the flash drive in his pocket, thinking he’d drop them off at Warren’s later. Then he took the bus up to Rhodes’s house.
He pressed the bell and Esperanza answered.
“You remember me?” Dooley said. “I was at Winston’s party, the one to raise money for Mark’s scholarship.”
She had big brown eyes and a small, heart-shaped face. “Mr. Winston is not here,” she said.
“I don’t want to talk to him,” Dooley said. “I want to talk to you.”
That seemed to confuse her. She looked over her shoulder.
“I want to talk to you about Mark,” he said. “You were good friends with him, weren’t you? Maybe more than friends.”
She recoiled a little at that and glanced over her shoulder again.
“I just want to ask you a few questions about him,” Dooley said.
She took a step backwards.
“Questions?” she said.
“About Mark,” Dooley said, talking to her the way he might to a frightened child, trying to reassure her. “About what happened to him.”
She was shaking her head before Dooley finished speaking.
“Esperanza,” a voice called. It was a man’s voice, but not Rhodes’s. “Esperanza, where are my shirts? Did the cleaners drop them off?” A man appeared on the divided staircase behind her. He peered at Dooley and then shifted his gaze to Esperanza. “I need my shirts, Esperanza. And I can’t find my black loafers. I need them, too. The airport limousine is picking Mrs. Rhodes and me up at noon.”
“I have to go,” Esperanza said softly.
The man—Rhodes’s father; Dooley would have bet his life on it—descended a few more stairs, his eyes locked on Dooley again.
“Can I help you with something?” he said.
Dooley shook his head. “No, it’s okay,” he said. He glanced at Esperanza, but she refused to meet his eyes. As she started to swing the door shut, Dooley heard the man say, “You know the rules, Esperanza. No visitors during work hours. No exceptions.”
She was afraid of something, Dooley thought. Maybe just of being caught talking to someone when she was supposed to be working. Or maybe it was something else.
Dooley reached out, caught the door, and pushed it open again. The man turned toward it, surprised.
“Actually,” Dooley said, “I was looking for Win. I’m a friend of his from school.”
“Oh,” the man said. He looked Dooley over again. “He’s out for the day. But you can probably chase him down on his cell.”
“I’ll do that,” Dooley said. “Thanks.”
Esperanza dared a glance at him as she pushed the door shut again. This time she looked grateful.
Two houses away from his uncle’s place, Dooley’s heart slammed to a stop in his chest. Beth was sitting on his uncle’s porch steps. She looked fine in jeans and a pale blue sweater with a jacket over top. She stood up when she saw Dooley. Dooley hesitated. Was she going to yell at him again? Was she going to get all the elderly neighbors outside, the ones who were home all day and who had nothing to do but look out the window or sit on their porches and watch what was going on, which was usually nothing, which meant that a girl screaming at a guy right out there where everyone could see would be a real attention-getter.
She stood so still there on the steps that it seemed to Dooley that she wasn’t even breathing. He walked toward her, his insides churning, his breath coming so fast it was keeping time with his heart, which had started pounding in his ears, boy, it was beating double-time. He turned and headed up the walk, and now he could smell her, all soapy and fresh, her long hair gleaming in the sunlight.
She said, “Why didn’t you tell me what the fight was about?”
“What fight?” Dooley said.
“When you hit my brother.”
Now it was hit. Before it had been attack.
“That friend of yours told me. I didn’t believe him. I told him so. He said I could ask at the video store. He said one of the clerks saw it, a girl, Linelle. She told me what you did and why you did it.”
Good old Linelle. Dooley owed her another one and wondered how he was going to pay her back.
“I’m sorry Mark did that,” she said. “I thought he was getting better.”
Getting better? What did she mean by that?
“You didn’t push him off that bridge, did you?” she said, her tone telling him she had already made up her mind.
“I hardly knew him,” Dooley said. The more he said it, the gladder he was that it was true.
“They’re saying now their pretty sure he was pushed.”
“I know.” He looked into her big, sad eyes. “If you want me to, I’ll get hypnotized.” There was no reason not to anymore. He had told his uncle the truth. Maybe he’d get into trouble for where he’d been that night, but that would be nothing compared to the trouble Graff could make for him. “But I’m pretty sure I didn’t see anyone up there with him.”
“I don’t understand why anyone would push Mark off a bridge,” she said. Her eyes were filling up with tears, but her voice was firm. “I know you probably don’t have the best impression of him.” That was putting it mildly. “I know he could be difficult. But it’s not his fault—and he tries to deal with it. Well, most of the time he tries to deal with it. Tried. And he can be so sweet. He participated in this special program at his school last year. He spent all of this past January in Guatemala, helping to build a school in a small village. He loved it there. And people liked him.” Dooley wondered where Esperanza was from. “He was like a different person when he came back. He was relaxed. For a while, anyway” She showed him the whisper of a smile. Then her eyes clouded again and she said, “I don’t understand what you were doing with his backpack.”
He looked at her and wished he could put his arms around her. He wished he could hold her and feel how warm she was. Instead he said, “You want to come into the house?” He said it not because he expected her to say yes but because the old lady across the street had come onto her porch and was standing there, a dust rag in her hand, like she’d come outside to shake it But she wasn’t shaking it; no, she was just standing there, looking across the street at Dooley. Dooley knew that the old woman knew her uncle, who said good morning or good evening to her when he saw her and sometimes went across the street and stood on the sidewalk and chatted with her. Dooley wondered if his uncle had asked her to keep an eye o
n things. It was possible.
“Okay,” Beth said, following his gaze across the street. “Sure.”
Dooley led the way up the steps and unlocked the front door. He went in first and held the door for her. She stepped in behind him and stood there in the hall, looking around, listening, probably wondering if anyone else was home.
“I live with my uncle,” Dooley said. “He’s not here right now.”
He waited to see if she would change her mind, but she didn’t. She closed the door behind herself.
“Can I get you anything?” Dooley said. “Maybe something to drink? A soda? Water? I can make you some tea if you want.”
“I’m fine,” she said.
They stood in the hall. Dooley didn’t know how she felt, but he felt awkward. Here was this beautiful girl in his house—well, in his uncle’s house—not sure about him, but here and, for a change, not yelling at him.
“You want to sit down?” He nodded toward the living room.
She went in, looking all around her the way Warren had, the same half-surprised look on her face that made Dooley wonder exactly what people had been saying about him and what impressions they had formed based on what they had heard. She took a seat on one of the armchairs. He sat across from her, on the sofa.
“How did you get his backpack?” she said.
So he explained how he had gone looking for it, how he had asked around and passed the word, and how a homeless guy had finally showed up at the store with it.
“I was going to give it to you,” he said. “But the cops got hold of it first.”
“They won’t let me have it,” she said. “They say it’s evidence.”
“I’m sorry.”
“Detective Graff won’t say, but I get the feeling he thinks you had something to do with it. But you didn’t, did you?”
“No.”
He fingered the envelope of photographs in his jacket pocket and considered showing them to her. But he hesitated. Finding her brother’s backpack was one thing. What would she think if she knew that he had gone through her brother’s personal things and had broken into his locked files?
“I really am sorry,” he said, apologizing for that even though she didn’t know about it. “At first I thought if I could find out where he was between the time he left home that day and the time I saw… the time he died… I wanted to do something, you know.” Boy, he bet he sounded lame. “I thought if you knew that, it might help you find out what happened that night.”
“At first?”
“When the cops found the backpack…” He hesitated. “You’re right. I think they’re looking at me as a suspect. I thought as long as I’m still out and walking around—” He broke off. She was giving him that look again, the one that told him although she lived just across town, she might as well live on the other side of the world. She had no idea what he was talking about. Probably the most trouble she’d ever been in was being late for school. Probably the only time she had ever talked to a cop before her brother died was if one had come to her school to talk about safety or the hazards of doing drugs. “Beth, was your brother seeing anyone?”
“Seeing anyone?” The idea seemed to surprise her. “You mean, did he have a girlfriend?”
Dooley nodded.
“No.”
Dooley remembered the pictures of Esperanza that Everley had taken close up. You could see the joy in Esperanza’s eyes. You could see how smooth and clear her skin was and you could imagine how it felt to touch it, especially in the ones where she was lounging against something, not wearing much, staring into that camera like she was staring into her lover’s eyes. Dooley would have bet everything he had that she was. When he’d seen her crying on Gillette’s shoulder the night of the party at Rhodes’ house, he had assumed it was because Landers had been hassling her. Now it looked like there was another reason for her tears. But Beth didn’t know about her. He thought about the party at Rhodes’ house. All of Everley’s friends had been there, but not Esperanza, at least, not in the same way as everyone else. She’d only been there because she was working. Rhodes and the rest of them hadn’t paid any attention to her at all other than to make sure she brought in the snacks and answered the door—well, except Landers who had hassled her and Gillette who had comforted her when she was crying. He wondered now… yeah, that had to be it. For some reason, Everley and Esperanza had kept their relationship a secret. That would explain Esperanza’s tears and the way she was treated at the party, like the maid instead of Everley’s grieving girlfriend. It would explain why Everley had locked her pictures on the flash drive. The cops had talked to all of Everley’s friends, but had they talked to Esperanza? If no one knew about her and Everley, maybe they hadn’t.
But if Esperanza had been in love with Everley, why hadn’t she spoken to the police on her own? Maybe for the same reason she and Everley had kept their relationship a secret. But what reason was that? Maybe it had to do with Rhodes’ parents. She had seemed nervous enough when Dooley was at the door.
He looked at Beth and said, “Are Rhodes’ parents funny about the hired help?”
“What do you mean?”
“You know, like, are they strict with their maid? Do they have a lot of rules she has to follow?”
“How would I know that?” Beth said, the look on her face telling him that there was a part two to her question: What does that have to do with anything?
“Well, you know them. Rhodes and his parents, I mean. You know more than me what they’re like.”
“No, I don’t.”
“Okay, so maybe you don’t know everything about them. But you’ve probably seen what they’re like with the help—”
“I’ve never met Win’s parents,” Beth said. “In fact, I only met Win about a week before…” Her throat seemed to close up on her. It looked to Dooley like she was fighting for breath for a few seconds. “I was in this club with some of my friends about a week before Mark died.” Her chin trembled a little. “Mark came in with Win and Peter. He was really surprised to see me there.”
“Win was?”
“No, Mark.” She frowned. “He acted kind of weird that night.”
“What do you mean?”
“When he came into the club, at first he pretended like he didn’t see me. Then it looked like he suddenly changed his mind and was trying to get Win and Peter to leave with him. So I went up to him and said, ‘Aren’t you going to introduce me to your friends?’ I could see he didn’t want to, which made me mad, you know? So I introduced myself. Win and Peter laughed. They thought I was kidding. They thought it was some kind of joke, you know, like Mark had brought them there to pull one over on them. They kept saying, sure I was his sister, like they didn’t believe it, like Mark had put me up to telling them I was.”
“So you’d never even met any of his friends before that?”
She shook her head.
No wonder Bracey had said what he had at the party.
Anyone who had formed an impression of Beth based on the knowledge that she went to a special school and then met her in person would be more than a little surprised.
“You don’t think that’s strange?” Dooley said.
She shook her head slowly. “Mark worried about me all the time. I used to tell him he was being over-protective.”
Dooley wanted to ask what Everley had been protecting her from, but he decided to wait and let her tell it her way.
“I asked him a couple of times why he didn’t bring his friends over to the house. He always said they weren’t my kind of people. I thought he meant because some of them were rough, you know? Maybe that was part of it. You saw how Peter was in the schoolyard that time, and at the party? His girlfriend told me he has a real temper. He gets into a lot of fights. I heard stuff about Eddy, too. Win told me how he met him. Mark probably didn’t want me around people like that. He was probably afraid how I’d react.”
Dooley didn’t understand. She looked down at the floor for a moment an
d was quiet, as if she were lost in her private thoughts. Finally she said, “When I was ten and Mark was eleven, we went down to the States with our father. He was a writer, scripts and stuff. Mostly he wrote things that never got produced. This time, he had just sold a script to one of the big studios and he took Mark and me to L.A. with him. He had a bunch of meetings to go to, but he had lots of time to show us the sights. It was really exciting, you know? We even met some movie stars.”
She had her hands clasped in her lap. It seemed to Dooley as if she were trying to tame them, but she wasn’t having much success. She kept fidgeting while she talked.
“We were on the freeway one night, on our way to a restaurant where my dad said all the celebrities ate. My father was so happy. He’d been trying to make it for a long time and this was a really big deal for him. He was taking us out to celebrate and…” Her voice trailed off. Her chest heaved as she drew in a deep breath and looked at Dooley. “We were car-jacked. Can you believe it? I was riding up front with my father and we pulled up at a light and this guy came at the car with a gun. He made my dad open the door and he told him to get out. My father tried to tell him that he had kids in the car, but that just made the guy angry. He yanked my father out of the car and started hitting him and kicking him. Then he shot him.” She was looking at Dooley, but Dooley knew that she was seeing something else, something from the past. “My father was shot and the guy was screaming at me to get out of the car. But I didn’t. I couldn’t move. I knew he was terrified he was going to shoot me if I didn’t get out, but I just couldn’t make myself do it. I felt like I’d turned to stone.”
She drew in another breath. Dooley could see that she was struggling to stay calm—well, as calm as she could, which, in fact, wasn’t all that calm. Her eyes were glistening now. Dooley knew it was just a matter of time before tears started dribbling down her cheeks. He felt bad for her.
“Mark was in the back seat, and the car windows were tinted. So I don’t think the car-jacker saw him. At least, that’s what Mark always said.” She frowned when she said it, almost as if she didn’t believe it. “I was sitting up front, staring at the guy. Mark burst out of the back seat and he grabbed the gun. I remember screaming. The man had already shot my father. I was sure he was going to shoot Mark and then he was going to shoot me and all I could think of was some police officer ringing the doorbell back home and telling my mother that both her kids and her ex-husband had been shot dead.”
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