Guilty (6 page)

Maybe Peter Struthers reads my mind, because all of a sudden he looks ill at ease.

“I just wanted to drop by for a minute,” he said. “I didn't mean to intrude.”

It sounds like he's getting ready to leave. Good.

“Anyway…” He shuffles back and forth and then sticks a hand into his pocket. “I wrote down my phone number,” he says. “I know you and your dad haven't had much time together. I got to know him pretty well. If you ever want to talk about him, or if there's anything I can do, please feel free to call me. I mean it.” He hands me a neatly folded piece of paper. I take it, but I don't look at it. “Well,” he says finally, “I should get going. I wish we could have met under happier circumstances.”

Sure, I think. Like I'm even remotely interested in getting to know an ex-con.

He leaves, and I'm glad. I sit down in the chair next to the one he was in. For the longest time, I am the only person in the room. Then I hear a rustle behind me, and I turn around and see Detective Sanders. She stands at the door looking around. When she sees me, she starts toward me.

“How are you holding up, Lila?” she asks.

I tell her I'm fine.

She sits down beside me.

“It's tough when you've been away as long as your father was,” she says, as if he's been out of the country and has simply lost touch with all his old buddies instead of having spent ten years at state expense after guaranteeing that no decent person would ever want to have anything to do with him ever again. Except me, of course.

A man from the funeral home comes through a door at the front of the room. He glances around. If he's surprised to see so few mourners, he manages to hide it. He comes over to me and, in a hushed voice, asks if I'd like to begin or if I'd like to wait a few more minutes.

“You can begin,” I say.

I know it won't take long. The man told me the service he was going to say. He asked me if it was okay. I asked him to make it short.

He starts reading something sappy about death and dying. Even though I promised myself I wouldn't, I start crying. Detective Sanders pulls out a small packet of tissues and hands it to me. I wipe my eyes.

The man finishes reading and asks me if I want to say anything. I shake my head. And that's it. That's all there is.

My father is to be cremated. I have a little card that tells me when I can pick up his ashes. I still haven't decided what I am going to do with them.

Two more men appear and wheel the coffin out of the room. I stand up. So does Detective Sanders.

“What did you want to ask me?” I say.

She frowns. “Ask you? Nothing.”

“But I thought—” My cheeks turn red when I realize my mistake. “I'm sorry,” I say.

“It's okay. You need a lift home?”

I want to say no, but she's been nice enough to come.

We walk out to her car and get in. She pulls out from her parking spot at the curb.

“So,” I ask after a few blocks, “is there anything new?”

She glances away from the road for a moment.

“It looks pretty open-and-shut,” she says. “When it's all over, if you want, you can request a copy of the police report.”

“Do you know why he did it?” I want to add,
And if
you do, would you tell me?

She hesitates.

“Did your dad need money, Lila?”

“What do you mean?”

“He just got out of prison. I know he came out with a little money. And he had a job, correct? But he only worked for a couple of days. He hadn't gotten paid yet.”

I nod.

“He paid the rent on your place, first and last. That must have taken most of what he had.”

“It did.”

She glances at me again.

“How did he cover day-to-day expenses?”

“I've had a job since I was thirteen.” First delivering flyers. Then working checkout at a grocery store. Then as shift manager at a video store. I put in a lot of hours. I needed the money to pay for bus fare to go and see him regularly. Then I decided to save up for when he got out. “We were going to use my savings until he got paid. And I was going to look for a job.”

“What about school?”

“What about it?”

“I spoke to your Aunt Jenny.”

The flare in my eyes is automatic. I can't help it. I hear Aunt Jenny's name, and right away I think of all the things she must have told Detective Sanders about my father.

Detective Sanders reads the look on my face.

“It's my job, Lila,” she says.

“What did she say?”

“That you loved your dad. That you went to see him regularly. That you spent all your time either working or studying. That you wanted to make your father proud of you by going to university.” We're close to the house now. She pulls over to the curb. “She said you were hoping to get a scholarship but that it didn't work out.”

I'm imagining Aunt Jenny and her disapproving face.

“Did she tell you that if I'd spent fewer weekends going to see my father and less time working, I'd probably have got that scholarship?” She sure told me often enough.

“No, she didn't.” She turns and looks out the front window of the car for a few moments. “Did you tell your dad about it? About not getting a scholarship?”

I'm not sure what she's getting at, but I am sure that if she tells me, I won't like it. I shake my head.

“Did you know that your Aunt Jenny told him?”

My head whips around to stare at her. “
What?
When did my dad talk to Aunt Jenny? Or did she call him? That's it, isn't it? She hates him. She always did. She called him, didn't she? She called him and told him so he'd feel bad. She wanted him to send me home, is that it?”

Detective Sanders doesn't say anything for another few moments. She just looks at me. Her face is unreadable. It's her professional face, I think. It's her on-the-job face. Her stillness is the same thing. They're both part of what she does every day when she talks to people. She studies them. Maybe she even knows some tricks about how to read them. You have to know that when you're a cop, especially when you're a detective. You have to know how to watch people, how to look for the tics and twitches that give them away, how to have some idea when they're lying to you and when they're telling the truth. You learn how to make silence work for you too. How to leave things hanging long enough that it makes the other person uncomfortable and that person starts talking. With suspects and people with something to hide, that's a big plus. The more they talk, the better the chances are that they'll say something that will give them away.

“She says he called her, Lila. She was surprised. He wanted her to talk you into going home.”

“And she decided to tell him I didn't get a scholarship?”

Detective Sanders nods—and waits.

“Oh,” I say. I remember her asking me if my dad needed money. I couldn't figure out why she'd asked, but I get it now. “You think that's what it was all about? You think that's why he went over to the Newsomes? You think he wanted money for me so I could go to university?”

She doesn't answer. Instead, she does what she does best. She asks another question.

“Did he say anything to you about Mr. Newsome?”

I shake my head.

“Did he mention anything to you about money?”

“You asked me that before. The answer is still no.”

“School?”

“No.”

She sighs and leans back again the car seat.

“You should call your aunt, Lila,” she says. “You're a smart girl. You're young. Your whole life is ahead of you. You should go home. You should go to school. I know you love your dad. You can still make him proud.”

I know she means well. At least, I'd like to think she does. I'd like to think she came to the funeral because she cares, not just because she wanted to pump me for information. But I don't know for sure. After all, she's a cop.

“Thanks for the lift,” I say as I open the car door.

“Do you still have my card?”

I nod.

“Call me,” she says. “Anytime. For anything. I mean it, Lila. Even if you just want to talk.”

I nod again. She may be a cop, but she seems okay.

Thirteen

FINN

S
o there I am, leaning against the door to Tracie's closet, staring at the mess inside and crying like a baby. It's like once I've started, I can't stop. I'm glad John and Geordie aren't there. They know exactly how I feel about Tracie. If they'd seen me like this, they would have been sure I was ready for the loony bin.

I hear something behind me—a little rush of air.

“Finn, what are you doing?”

I spin around, and there's my dad. He's in the doorway to his room, a look of surprise on his face. I can't tell what put it there. Maybe it's the tears, or maybe it's the fact that I'm in his room. Or—I glance around at all the clothes on the floor—maybe he thinks I'm the one who trashed the place.

“Dad, I—”

“What's going on?”

“It wasn't me.”

“What?”

“All this stuff.” I sweep my hands around the room. “It wasn't me.”

“I know.”

“We should call the cops. We should check the rest of the house.”

My dad comes into the room. “It's okay, Finn. It's not what you think.”

“But someone was here, Dad. Someone did this.” I cross the room and reach for the phone. My dad comes toward me. He takes the phone from my hand.

“It's okay, Finn. We weren't broken into. It was me.”

I hear him say it, but I don't register the meaning of the words.

“It was me, Finn.” He hangs his head. “I don't know what came over me. Rage, I guess. That's what it felt like. I was in here—in there.” He nods toward the bed. “I could smell her perfume on the pillow. And I thought about what he said—and what I said. I should have handled it differently. I should have—” He broke off. It took a minute for him to gather himself. “I just went crazy, I guess.”

What he said?

“Who do you mean, Dad?”

He sinks down on the bed.

“Dad?”

“Louis Ouimette. The man who killed Tracie. And your mother.”

“What did he say to you?”

“He called me.”

“He
called
you?” That is news to me. I sit on the bed beside my father.

“The day before he showed up here. He called me and left a message on my voice mail. I shouldn't have erased it. But what was I supposed to think? I mean, how dare he call me and make demands like that, after what I did for him. How
dare
he?”

“What do you mean? What did you do for him, Dad?”

My dad shakes his head slowly.

“You don't remember him, Finn?”

I'm drawing a blank. I feel like something important is happening here, but it's passing me right by.

“You were just a kid,” my dad says finally. “You were hit pretty hard by what happened. You probably blocked it out. That child psychologist I took you to said that would happen. You remember the psychologist, right, Finn? I took you to see him after Mom died?”

I remember. He was a tall man with round glasses who smelled like pipe tobacco. I went to see him every week for over a year.

“Ouimette used to work at the club,” my dad says.

“What are you talking about, Dad? What club?”

“My club. The Siren.”

“He worked there?” I can't seem to get a grip on the idea. “Mom's killer worked there?”

My dad nods, and I feel like an idiot. It happened ten years ago, and here I am, being surprised by an important fact. Why didn't I know this already? Why hadn't I asked a million questions about what happened instead of sticking my fingers in my ears and squeezing my eyes shut, as if I could make it all go away? What kind of son am I that I didn't want to know more—that I didn't want to know everything?

“I knew what he was before Matthew hired him,” my dad says. “I knew he was an ex-con. But I believed what I was told. I believed he was clean. And he was honest about his record. He didn't try to hide it. I guess I was dumb enough to think that counted for something. I thought that if he was up-front about his past, about all the arrests and the drugs, if he could tell the truth about that, then he must be telling the truth when he said it was all behind him. So I decided to give him a chance. I okayed Matthew's decision, Finn, and there isn't a single day that I don't think about how things would have been different if I hadn't.”

I wanted to shake him. I wanted to scream at him, What were you thinking? He's probably right—if he hadn't okayed that stupid decision, my mom would still be alive. So would Tracie, except that she never would have been part of my life. My dad would never have even looked at her. Why would he, when my mom was still around?

“What did he say when he called you, Dad?”

“He wanted money.”

What?

“Can you believe it?” my dad said. “He gets out of prison after—after what he did. And he calls me and tells me he wants money.”

“Did you call him back?”

My dad looks at me like I'm crazy.

“Of course not! Why would I do that? I didn't owe him a thing. He owed me. He killed my wife!”

“Did you call the police?”

“I didn't call anyone.” He's angry, but I can't tell if he's angry with me or with himself. “I just deleted the call and went on with my life. I didn't think he'd have the nerve to show up at my house, not after what he'd done.”

“Is that why he was here? For money?”

My dad nods.

“I told him no. That's when he shot Tracie.”

“I don't get it, Dad. Why would he ask you for money? He must have known you wouldn't give it to him.”