Not Guilty (20 page)

“Sir, what I need is a list of all the incoming and outgoing calls to my home on this date,” Keely said, reciting the date of her husband’s death.

“Your long-distance calls will appear on your bill,” he said.

“No. You don’t understand. I want to know about all the calls, local and long distance, that were made to and from my phone on a particular night.”

“I’m sorry, ma’am. We don’t have a record of that,” he said.

“I know you do, because you were able to tell the police that my husband was online that night.”

“Ma’am, that’s something different. The online server has that information, for billing purposes. With local calls, we don’t keep a record unless the customer has contacted the police beforehand and requested that the line be monitored.”

“I don’t believe you,” Keely said. “You have all the long-distance calls on record. Why not the local calls?”

“No,” the man replied patiently. “We don’t have that information. I’m sorry.”

“Look, is there some kind of court order or subpoena or something that I need to get?”

“I’m sorry, ma’am. This is not like you see it in cop shows on TV. I’m telling you the truth. We don’t have a record. It doesn’t exist. Now, is there any other way I can be of service?”

“No, thanks,” Keely muttered, banging the receiver back into the cradle.

Abby let out a cry and Keely cuddled her. “It’s all right,” she said. “It’s all right.” As she murmured into the baby’s ear, she riffled through his household accounts file in Mark’s desk and pulled out the most recent bill from the cell phone company. She had rarely seen Mark use his cell phone at home, but it wasn’t out of the question, and at least the cell phone bills listed both incoming and outgoing calls. As she scanned the blur of numbers for the date, she saw that the night of Mark’s death was too recent to be on the bill. With a sigh, she dialed the service
number. Once again, she worked her way through recordings to a living being and explained her needs.

“You’ll receive that information in your next month’s bill,” said the service representative.

“I . . . I realize that,” said Keely. “It’s just that . . . I need the information now.”

“I’m sorry, ma’am, but I can’t help you with that.”

“You’ve probably got it right in front of you on your computer screen,” said Keely. “Can you just read to me the calls from that one particular night?”

The woman hesitated. “No, I cannot give you that information over the phone.”

“Can you print it out and send to me?” Keely pleaded. “This is . . . this is a matter of life and death.”

The woman giggled nervously. “Oh come on, now.”

“Do you have children?” Keely asked. “Wouldn’t you do anything to help them if they were in trouble? I need to know who called this phone that night.”

The woman was silent for a minute. Then she said softly, “Our policy—”

“Please,” Keely said. “Please. I understand it’s not your policy. And there’s no reason why you should do this for me. But I’m pleading with you. If you could just print it out and send it to me . . . put the postage on my phone bill. Please. I wouldn’t ask you if it wasn’t urgent.”

“I’ll see what I can do,” the woman said in a grumpy voice.

“Thank you,” said Keely. “Bless you.” The call was disconnected before Keely could say anything more.

T
he next day a huge bouquet of flowers greeted Keely as she arrived at Dylan’s room. “Oh, they’re beautiful,” she cried. She picked up the card that was propped against the vase. “Lucas and Betsy. Betsy keeps calling to see how you are.”

“Lucas stopped by,” Dylan croaked.

Keely looked up at Dylan in surprise. “Your tube’s out,” she exclaimed, rushing up to her son’s bedside.

Dylan nodded.

“That’s great,” Keely said. “You look better.”

Dylan shrugged, then leaned back against the pillow. His complexion was still waxy, but there was a tinge of color in his cheeks. “Feels better.”

“Now don’t try to talk too much. This will take a little getting used to. Oh, honey, I’m so relieved. Maybe now you can come home soon,” she said. “They’re sending a social worker over to our house this morning to look us over, but I’m sure we’ll pass muster. In fact, I just came by for a minute to see how you were doing. I’ve got the nurse at the desk holding Abby. I just couldn’t wait until the afternoon to see you, but I need to get back before the social worker shows up. I’ve got to make a good impression, you know.”

Dylan nodded but didn’t smile.

“Mrs. Weaver.”

Keely turned around and saw Detective Stratton standing in Dylan’s doorway, tapping on the door frame. Her spirits sank.

“I hear Dylan’s able to speak now. I hope you don’t mind,” Phil said, coming into the room. “Hello, Dylan.”

Dylan’s eyes widened at the sight of the detective. “Hello,” he whispered.

“In fact,” said Keely, “I do mind. I spoke to my lawyer about this. He does not want you talking to Dylan unless he is present.”

“That’s your right,” said Phil. “But I do have to ask, for the record, if Dylan was the victim of an assault or if the wound was . . .”

“I did it myself,” Dylan mumbled.

Keely took a deep breath. “And that is all he’s going to say to you,” she said firmly. “May I speak to you in the hallway, Detective?”

Phil Stratton shrugged and nodded at Dylan. “I hope you feel better soon.” He followed Keely outside.

Keely glanced at her watch. She couldn’t afford to be late for the social worker. “Detective Stratton, I’m sure you don’t believe this, but I now know for a certainty that my son was not responsible for Mark’s accident. For Dylan’s peace of mind, for mine, I am determined to find out who was responsible. Because it may have been a visitor, I called the phone company to try to find out who might have called Mark to say they were coming over. The phone company refused to give me any information about incoming calls to my number. They claimed that there is no such record, but my attorney tells me that the police can obtain that information.”

The detective’s expression was impassive.

“Is that true?” she said.

“I can’t help you,” he said.

“
Won’t
help me, you mean.”

Stratton shook his head and gazed at her with pity in his eyes. “You know, I appreciate what you’re trying to do. I understand that you love the boy and you want to believe him. But Mrs. Weaver, I really think you’d be better off spending your time trying to get your son to tell you the truth about what he’s done. You’re not doing him any favors by refusing to see how guilty he feels. And I’ll tell you something—if he doesn’t get it off his chest, this could happen all over again,” he said, gesturing toward their hospital surroundings. “Only the next attempt might be successful.”

Keely felt as if he had slapped her. Before she could reply, he turned and walked down the hall. As she watched him go, wishing she could have found the words to revile him to his face, she spotted the clock over the nurses’ desk. “Oh, Lord,” she said.

A
S
K
EELY’S
SUV
careened into her driveway, she saw a little hatchback parked in front of the house.
Damn,
Keely thought. She had wanted to be here, waiting calmly, when the social worker arrived. A thin woman wearing a plaid skirt and a worn suede jacket stood on the front step obviously surveying the house and the lawn. As Keely lifted Abby out of her car seat, she saw that the woman seemed to be taking note of the
FOR SALE
sign and of the unraked leaves that were scattered in the yard.

Keely rushed up to her. “Mrs. Erlich?” she said.

The woman gazed at her coolly. “You’re Mrs. Weaver.”

“I’m sorry to be late,” said Keely as she unlocked the front door and led the way into the house. “I was at the hospital. Come in.” The woman waited in the foyer while Keely set Abby down in her playpen and handed her a favorite talking book. Abby’s attention was instantly diverted by the pictures and the animal sounds. “That’s my good girl,” Keely whispered.

She turned back to her visitor. “It’s nice to meet you,” said Keely. “Can I take your jacket?”

“No thanks,” said Mrs. Erlich. “I’ll keep it.”

“Can I get you something? Some tea?”

“Tea?” the woman asked, looking slightly incredulous. “I’m not here for refreshments.” She glanced around at the rooms that were visible from the foyer. “I’d like to see Dylan’s room first.”

“Oh. Well, all right,” said Keely. “It’s upstairs.”

She gestured for Mrs. Erlich to go first, but the social worker shook her head and waited for Keely to lead the way. Keely started up the steps, chattering aimlessly.
Too much,
she thought, but she felt helpless to stop herself. “I’m afraid things aren’t looking their best around here. I’ve been at the hospital most of the time. Dylan’s room is a little bit of a maze. Organization is not his strong suit. And you know how kids are. You can’t get them to throw anything away. I think he has every book he ever read, including every comic—”

“Why are you selling the house?” Mrs. Erlich asked, from behind
her.

Keely kept her face composed and did not look back. “Well, as I’m sure you know, my husband . . . drowned in our swimming pool not long ago. I just don’t want to live here anymore. I think it’s grim for the kids. And for me as well.”

“Don’t you think your son has had enough upheaval in his life without moving again?”

Keely bristled at the question and wanted to say that it was none of the woman’s business. But she reminded herself that this was the kind of question social workers were supposed to ask. She remembered it from when she taught school. They were only trying to make sure that things were done in the child’s best interest. “In my judgment, it would be the best thing for everyone,” said Keely evenly. “Here,” she said stepping forward and pushing open the door to Dylan’s room. “This is my son’s room.”

She had picked it up as best she could late last night, but now, seeing it through a stranger’s eyes, she still wasn’t too pleased with the way the room looked. “It may seem a little bit messy,” she apologized. “I straightened it up, but Dylan’s at that age where he’s very proprietary about his things. I don’t like to intrude on that. I mean, I think a kid has a right to a certain amount of privacy.”

“Secretive,” said Mrs. Erlich.

Keely didn’t like that characterization, but she stifled a protest. “You may not believe this,” Keely said, trying to maintain her humor, “but it actually looks pretty good today. At least I was able to collect the dirty laundry.”

The woman nodded. “I see. So you don’t require that he be responsible for anything—not even his laundry.”

Keely’s face flamed. “I didn’t say that,” she cried, then forced herself-to calm down. “He has chores, of course, responsibilities. But I can’t honestly say that he fulfills them without any prodding. I think he’s like most kids in that way.”

Mrs. Erlich walked over to the bed. She lifted the mattress and peered under it. Then she went into the closet. She lifted the lids on several shoeboxes and riffled through Dylan’s mementos. She shut the closet door and frowned at the rock posters of pale, leather-clad guitarists
thumbtacked to the walls. She looked at unfinished projects jammed together on shelves with a black bike helmet and some plastic guns, a haphazard tower of CD cases, and wrestling action figures tangled up in headset cords. “He seems to be attracted to darkness and violence,” the social worker observed aloud.

“I’m afraid the boys are into that sort of thing these days. Unfortunately, it’s a constant presence in the culture.”

Mrs. Erlich nodded as she studied his collection of CDs. “Does he use drugs?”

Keely stared at her for a long minute. “No. Of course not. Drugs are absolutely forbidden in this house.”

“It’s my experience that your son’s interests are common to drug users.”

“He’s a teenager,” Keely said. “Teenagers are rebellious. They embrace rebellious images. It’s normal.”

“It seems to me you have an . . . unusual idea about what is normal behavior, Mrs. Weaver.”

“I was a junior high school teacher for a number of years, Mrs. Erlich. I’ve had a lot of contact with kids Dylan’s age. It’s always seemed to me that these images were just that—images. They don’t necessarily signify drug use or an inclination to violence. Kids that age are trying out things; they’re seeking their identity. They want to shock their parents. It’s a way of expressing their individuality.”

“What could be more violent than cutting your own throat?” asked the social worker.

Keely gripped the doorknob with white knuckles and tried to absorb the verbal slap without flinching. “I . . . don’t deny it was a . . . shocking thing for him to do. But . . . I’m just saying I think it was situational. It wasn’t part of some . . . pattern. I mean . . . if you want to talk about cultural norms, I don’t like these violent images any more than you do. It’s just . . . I’ve never noticed Dylan to be . . . fixated on any of them.”

“You’ve never noticed,” the woman murmured, nodding her head. “You know, a child isn’t going to just come up to you and blurt out that he’s feeling depressed. A parent has to be alert to the signs.”

How dare you?
Keely thought.
How dare you make judgments about our relationship? You don’t even know us.
But she didn’t say it. She stopped herself. “I knew he was depressed. Somewhat. I would have been more worried if my son
weren’t
depressed these days. His father . . . died. Now his stepfather. He’s known more sorrow in his young life than a lot of adults have.”

“Yes, well,” said Mrs. Erlich, returning to the hall, “most adults would have been more sensitive to such a child, for just that reason.”

Keely pulled the door shut behind her, using all her will not to slam it.

The social worker walked down the hall, poking her head into the other bedrooms, seeming to note the expensive fabrics on the slipper chairs, the needlepoint rugs on shining hardwood floors. She walked into the master bedroom and actually rubbed the soft Egyptian cotton of the pillowcases between her fingers. Then she turned to the bureau where Keely displayed silver-framed photos of Mark and the children. She glanced into Keely’s jewelry box and lifted out a turquoise necklace with her index finger. She gazed at it with narrowed eyes before letting it drop back into the tangle of beads in the box. She poked her head into the master bathroom and shook her head at the sight of the matching sinks and the gleaming chrome of the shower fixtures. “You certainly enjoy every luxury,” she said.

Keely stared at the woman in disbelief. Since when has it been a crime to have a nice home, she wondered. “My husband made a very good living,” she said stiffly.

Mrs. Erlich clicked her tongue behind her teeth. “So I gather.” The woman stepped into the bathroom and opened the medicine cabinet. She peered at the labels of the pill bottles and extracted one small amber plastic vial that held a supply of tranquilizers that the doctor prescribed for her after Mark’s death. She examined it with pursed lips, then glanced out the door at Keely.