About That Night (20 page)

She sees Sergeant Tritt through the glass wall. He is standing facing her and comes to open the door for her.

“Your principal has put an office at our disposal,” Tritt says. “Third on the right.”

It's Ms. Syros's office. They go inside and Tritt closes the door. He waves her into a chair and then grabs the chair from behind the desk and places it so that he can sit facing her.

“What did you want to talk to me about, Jordie?” he asks.

“It's about what happened to Derek.”

Tritt sits at attention, leaning forward so that he is on the very edge of invading her space. He waits.

“I talked to Ronan,” she says.

“Okay.”

“He says he ran into Derek that night.”

“Ran into him?”

“Behind Derek's house. Right near where they found Derek.”

If Tritt were an insect, his antennae would be all aquiver, Jordie thinks.

“He says he had an argument with Derek.”

“An argument?”

“And that it got kind of physical.”

“I see.”

“He says Derek grabbed him and that's how that button ended up where it did.”

“The button from Ronan's jacket, you mean.”

Jordie nods. She hopes she is doing the right thing, but she can't think of anything else to do.

“They kind of got physical and Derek grabbed Ronan and pulled the button off.”

“Did Ronan say what he was doing over there behind Derek's house?” Tritt asks.

“Yes.” Ronan was so honest with her that it alarmed her. She tells Tritt about the bracelet.

“This whole thing is about a bracelet?” Tritt is shaking his head, as if she's told him that Derek got killed over something as trivial as a pack of cigarettes or a twenty-dollar bill.

“That's how it started,” Jordie says.

Tritt leans back in his chair now. “That boy must have it bad for you, young lady.”

“What do you mean?”

“Confessing to murder? Giving you all the details? It's clear he wants you to forgive him.” He pauses. “You tell them, ‘You'll feel better when you get it off your chest.' Half the time—more than half the time—they don't listen. But with this kid?” He shakes his head again.

“He didn't confess to murder,” Jordie says quietly.

“Well, okay, so technically he didn't. But you're a smart girl. You do realize that everything you've told me just seals the deal, don't you? He's just put himself at the scene of the crime. We have physical evidence of that, but now we have him telling someone he was there. We have him getting into an altercation with the victim.” He glances at her. “Sorry. With Derek. And we have the motive—the bracelet. You knew where you were going with this when you asked to see me, didn't you, Jordie?”

Jordie sits tall and straight. “He says he didn't kill Derek, and I believe him. He says he ran into Derek and that they had an argument. But he swears Derek was fine when he left him.”

Tritt leans forward again. “He left him in the exact location where he was found, with a button from his jacket beside the bod—beside Derek. But you're telling me that you believe him when he says Derek was still standing?”

“Yes.” She says it firmly and without even a second's hesitation.

Tritt lets out a long sigh. “But you do realize that what you've told me makes things even worse for Ronan, right?”

“That isn't why I called you,” Jordie says. “There's more.”

“Now you're going to tell me that not only did Ronan
not
kill Derek, but that he knows who did. Maybe he passed a stranger on his way back to wherever he was going. Or maybe—”

“I don't think he knows who did it,” Jordie says.

Tritt studies her. “But?”

“But I think I do.”

» » »

It's Saturday, and Renee, the home-care nurse, isn't there all day the way she is during the week. She'll drop by around noon and help Ronan's mother with her personal care. She'll check her vitals too. So Ronan makes a soft-boiled egg for his mother and manages to get her to eat most of it. He gets some tea into her, too, but she drinks it clear, so there are no calories there, no nutrition.

“You should have some milk,” Ronan says. “Or some juice.”

His mother shakes her head. “I can't.”

Ronan debates with himself: make her drink some milk, or let her be? She's wasting away day by day. She was never what you might call hefty, but now she is like a tissue-wrapped skeleton. Her skin is almost translucent, and her bones stand out in relief. Her eyes are sunken and no longer sparkle like they used to when she laughs. But then, she no longer laughs. Even smiling seems to take more effort than she can manage. It won't be long. He knows it, and she knows it. He tries not to think about it, at least not while he is in her presence. If he thinks about it, he chokes up. Sometimes he cries. Jeez, if the kids at school saw that, they'd never steer clear of him again. Or maybe they would. Nothing makes people more uncomfortable than a guy who cries in public. Better to put your fist through a wall. Or through some other kid. And better by far to do almost anything at all than to let his mother see him burst into tears. She's doing her best to be strong, and she's told him that she's counting on him to do the same. “We have to be strong together” is how she puts it. She also reassures him—which he hates—that there is money set aside for his education. She wants him to go to university. She wants him to make something of himself. She wishes she could do more for him, but she can't, and she's sorry about that.

He decides to let her be. A glass of milk isn't worth an argument. It isn't worth draining her strength.

“You should take a nap, Mom,” he says. “I'm going to go clean up the kitchen.”

She reaches out and squeezes his hand. “You're a good boy. I love you, Ronan.”

“I love you too, Mom.” He bends down and kisses her on the forehead. Her skin is cool and dry, like paper. He takes the tray with the egg cup on it and the mug still half filled with tea.

He cleans up, just as he said he would. He sets her dishes into the dishwasher along with his cereal bowl and the plate he used for his toast. He wipes the toast crumbs off the counter and puts the jam back in the fridge. Then he sits down to wait.

Half an hour later, he tiptoes upstairs and checks on his mother. She is sound asleep, and if the past few weeks are anything to go on, she will sleep for hours. He leaves a note on her bedside table, where she is sure to see it. He goes back downstairs, puts on sneakers—his boots won't fit over the device that's attached to his ankle—and pulls on his coat. He grabs his hat, gloves and keys. He locks the front door behind him and starts down the front walk.

The ankle device starts beeping before he hits the sidewalk, but that doesn't stop him. He keeps walking. He's still walking when a patrol car pulls up in front of him and two cops get out, one near the front of the car, the second back a ways, both ready to unholster their weapons. Ronan puts his hands up. He tells them, yes, he knows he's violated his bail conditions, and yes, he knows what that means. He offers no resistance when they handcuff him and pat him down. When one of them puts his hand on Ronan's head to guide him into the squad car's backseat, Ronan informs them that he wants to talk to Lieutenant Diehl. One of the cops laughs.

“Don't worry,” he says. “He's waiting for you back at the station house.”

At the police station, Ronan is rebooked and led into another room. He's only there for a few minutes before he is taken into an interview room. This time, because he is under arrest and in violation of his bail conditions, he is handcuffed to an iron loop set into the heavy table. He is left there, and it seems as if an eternity passes. He starts to worry about his mother waking up in an empty house to a note that is sure to raise more questions—and worry—than it answers. He begins to imagine her becoming frantic and wonders how that will affect her. What if she tries to get up on her own before Renee arrives? What if she falls down the stairs? What if, in doing all of that, she takes the oxygen tube off, or it comes off? He stands up abruptly and is jerked back by the handcuff. This is all a mistake. He shouldn't have walked out of the house like that. He should never have come here.

The door opens and Diehl steps into the room, a cup of coffee in one hand, a donut in the other. He grins at Ronan.

“Going somewhere, sport?” he says.

Ronan sits down again. What else can he do?

Diehl comes another pace into the room so that the door can close behind him. He pops the rest of the donut into his mouth and washes it down with a gulp of coffee.

“So,” he says, “I hear you want to see me.”

Ronan settles himself. He pushes all thoughts of his mother from his head and instead fixes his attention on Diehl. “That's right,” he says.

Diehl polishes off the rest of his coffee and tosses the paper cup into a garbage can in the corner of the room. He grabs the chair opposite Ronan and drops down onto it.

“I'm all ears,” he says.

Ronan looks around. There's a mirror on one wall. Ronan isn't fooled by it any more than anyone else who gets put in this room. He knows that whoever is on the other side can see into the room even if he can't see them. He also knows that they can hear him, so he leans across the table to Diehl and whispers, “What I have to say you probably don't want anyone else to hear.” In case Diehl doesn't get it, he nods at the mirror.

Diehl's eyes are impossible to read. He looks right at Ronan, but Ronan can't get a fix on what he's thinking.

“Is that right?” Diehl says in a normal voice. “And why is that?”

“Trust me,” Ronan says.

Diehl laughs heartily, as if this is the funniest thing he has heard in a long time.

“Trust you? Why would I do that, Ronan?”

Ronan leans even farther across the table, as far as the handcuff will allow him. His whisper is even softer: “Because it wasn't Derek. It was me.”

Diehl's face hardens. For a moment, Ronan thinks he is going to say something. Or maybe he's going to do something. Something that Ronan won't like and won't be able to defend himself against.

But he doesn't.

He looks at Ronan as if he's studying a new specimen of vermin. Then he stands up, crosses to the mirror and pulls down a blind, making the mirror disappear. He also flicks a switch on the wall. He sits down again, his face harder than ever.

“Suppose you tell me what you're talking about,” he says.

Ronan notes that big, bad, supercool and unflappable Lieutenant Diehl has impatience in his eyes.

“It wasn't Derek you saw that night. It was me.”

Diehl shakes his head. “I don't know what you're talking about.”

But there's a wariness to Diehl now. It's in the way he watches Ronan, in the quick lick of his lips, in the glance at the blinds covering the mirror, as if to make sure.

“Sure you do.” Ronan settles in. “You know, and I know. And I want a deal.”

“A deal?” Diehl forces a laugh. “For what?”

“You don't go to prison, and neither do I.”

“Me go to prison? For what?”

“For what you did to your wife.”

Aha! It flits through his eyes like a bird on the wing—it's there, it's gone. But Ronan recognizes panic when he sees it.

“And what is it you think I did to my wife?” Diehl relaxes back in his chair, his posture a mirror of Ronan's.

“You forced her out of the house.”

“Right,” Diehl says. “Now that we have the goods on you, you just happen to remember something you never brought up before. Or should I say you spin me one? Nice try, kid.” He starts to get up.

“I didn't know before that you live across the street from Maugham.” Ronan says the words calmly, like it's no skin off his nose if Diehl walks out on him. He can tell his story to any cop in the building. “I didn't find out until yesterday. Your wife was that teacher, the one that had to retire when she got Alzheimer's, the one that supposedly walked away from your house when you were asleep. Only you weren't asleep that night. And she didn't just walk away. You forced her out. I saw you. It wasn't Derek. It was me.”

Diehl is standing behind the chair. His eyes are narrowed.

“That's some story,” he says.

“It's a true story.”

“But who's going to believe it?”

“Everyone. Because I can prove it.”

Diehl laughs. “Is that right?” The cocky bastard.

“Yes, it is. For starters, I can prove where I was that night. I was in the Maughams' house. I broke in. I can prove that too. I can also prove exactly when I was there.”

“So now you're not just a murderer. You're a burglar too. Suppose you tell me all about that.”

Ronan shakes his head. “You drop the charges against me. You let me go. You say you made a mistake. I walk away, and I don't tell anyone what you did to your wife—and what you did to Derek.”

“Oh? So now I did something to the Maugham kid too?”

Ronan has to hand it to Diehl. Maybe he was nervous at first, but he sure isn't now. Is there something Ronan has overlooked? He glances around the room. They're in here alone. Diehl could do anything to him and no one would be the wiser until it was too late, and Ronan is confident that Diehl could spin his own story about why the kid who was arrested for murder is lying dead on the floor, maybe shot with Diehl's gun.

“You killed him because you thought he saw what you did.”

“Uh-huh.” Diehl is all boredom. “And I suppose you can prove that too.”

He wants to know what I have, Ronan thinks. He wants everything so he can get rid of me and explain everything away.

“You came over to the house,” Ronan says. “You rang the bell.”