They Call Me Crazy (12 page)

Chapter Eighteen

Maryanne

“I
’ll take your class for the rest of the day.” Bobby Leo claps his hands together, looking genuinely pleased. “Fifth graders! What fun! I really should do this more often.”

Over the years, Bobby Leo and I have become friends. We’ve had our differences, just as any teacher and principal would, but all in all, we have a satisfying yet professional relationship. His mild-mannered and ever-cheerful attitude is perfect for an elementary principal. He’s always been fair and honest.

So I’m glad that after Benny leaves, Bobby is the one who finds me crying in the teacher’s lounge, instead of one of my nosy coworkers. They’ll have enough to talk about in the weeks to come, and I sure as hell don’t want to get them started early.

“Thank you.” I hug him.

He stiffens, pulls away, and clears his throat. Okay, hugging the boss is a bit inappropriate, but I’m so happy to be out of here for the day. I need to see Shaylene and Clay, and what I don’t need is twenty-five fifth graders asking me questions about why the police wanted to talk to me. I have to get it together. I can’t risk losing my job, but I have to prioritize. I have to take care of me and mine.

When Benny showed up at my classroom door this morning, I knew exactly why he was there. Even though I was expecting him, I really had no way to answer his questions.

We walked down the hallway to the teacher’s lounge. He cleared out Mrs. Cranse and Miss Leweck, who were on their prep time, explaining that he was on “police business.” Then we were alone, and I still didn’t know what to say.

“Got anything you want to tell me, Maryanne?” He was stepping lightly, trying to be careful. Maybe he didn’t want to get me riled up, or perhaps he didn’t want a scene in the elementary school.

“If you got something to say, why don’t you just say it?” I was surprised at how confident I felt. I wasn’t going to back down to him. After all, I hadn’t done anything wrong.

He sat on the green couch that has been a fixture of the teacher’s lounge since my first day sixteen years ago. The worn vinyl creaked under his weight. “I got a call from the bank this morning. Seems you and Roland Adams had a joint bank account.”

I sat across from him in one of the armless straight-backed chairs. I couldn’t keep my legs still, so I pressed the soles of my feet on the floor, hoping Benny wouldn’t notice. I smoothed my skirt and clasped my hands in my lap, one thumb on top of the other. “So? That isn’t a crime. Whose business is that?”

“You could say that it’s my business, seeing that I’m trying to investigate his murder.”

I squeezed my hands together so tightly I could feel the tension in my shoulders. “It’s a pretty simple investigation, isn’t it? She says she did it, and she was caught trying to dump his body. I don’t see what I have to do with it.”

He leaned forward and rested his elbows on his knees. “You and Cass are friends, right?”

I laughed. “Not hardly. We used to be… many, many years ago. The last time I talked to her was about three years ago at Safeway, and she insulted me.”

“What about Roland?” Benny wasn’t going to come right out and ask if I was sleeping with Roland. But he didn’t need to; I knew what he was asking.

“Roland and I were friends. That’s all. He’d come over once in a while and have coffee in the morning, and we’d talk. But we were just friends.”

He raised one eyebrow.

“I swear, Benny. Friends. The money was for Shaylene. Okay? He started that account when she was a baby. He’s been putting money in it every week since, and so have I.”

“Shaylene? Then why ain’t her name on the account?”

I shrugged, trying to appear casual. But I knew he was really itching to ask why Roland was saving money for Shaylene. “She was a baby. He felt sorry that she didn’t have a father to raise her and wanted to do something to help us out. I never touched it. Well, I did once, when she needed braces, but otherwise, it’s for her college education. There something wrong with that?”

“What about Clay? Far as I know, she’s got a daddy.”

“He does right by her, too. But Roland never had any kids, and I guess he thought Shaylene was the closest he was gonna get.” I shook my head. “I still don’t see what this has to do with his murder.”

He scratched his chin with his thumb and forefinger. “So far, I can’t find a reason for his wife to kill him. Now, you have thirty thousand reasons.”

I stood and crossed my arms in front of me. “Don’t you even say that, Benny. I told you, that money is for Shaylene, not me.” My voice cracked on the last word, and I cleared my throat.

He sat there for the longest time, lightly tapping his chin. Then he stood and adjusted his hat as if preparing to leave. “I guess that makes sense.”

I knew he wasn’t going to let it drop at that, and I was more uncomfortable with his sudden decision to leave than if he’d sat there and grilled me until I told him everything.

I reached for his sleeve, hoping to appeal to a childhood friend. “Benny? What do I do?”

His face was rigid as stone. “You might want to talk to a lawyer. I guarantee you will be answering to Richard Warner on the witness stand, and he’s a bit more ruthless than I am.”

I drive toward the high school, but I can’t bring myself to turn into the lot. I go straight and end up on the old highway. I can’t wait until this evening. I’ve got to see Clay. I head for his house.

After knocking, I wait for several minutes on his porch. That’s typical for Clay. It usually means he’s out back and has to wash the worm crap off his hands before coming to the door. By the time he opens the screen, I’m teetering from one foot to the other.

“We need to talk.”

“Not you, too,” he mumbles. He holds open the screen and allows me to pass.

I might not be his first visitor of the day, but I’m sure I’ll be the most interesting. I head straight for the couch. He doesn’t sit next to me like usual. Instead, he drags up one of the battered wooden chairs that are part of his small dinette, turns it around, and straddles it, resting his forearms on the backrest.

I start right in, telling him about Benny coming to visit, about the bank account, and about what I’d said to Benny. He lets me have my say.

“Clay, I never wanted to hurt anyone, not you, not Cass, not Shaylene. But it’s all going to come out now.”

“What’s going to come out, Maryanne?”

He isn’t as dumb as he pretends. His smug expression stabs me like a Ginsu blade, and suddenly, his attitude makes sense. He knows exactly what I’m trying to say, but he’s going to make me say it.

“Roland was Shaylene’s father.”

He starts laughing. “You think I didn’t know that?”

“You never said…”

His eyebrows pinch together over a flat stare. “He was my brother, Maryanne. He was twenty years old, and you were away at college. You think he didn’t brag about his conquest? Honestly, I don’t know what you or Cassie saw in him. He was an asshole. He talked about you and her all the time. Compared you two. All the time. It made me sick, and both of you fawned over him as if he was some prize to be won.” He tips the chair over as he stands, and doesn’t bother to pick it up. “He wasn’t even man enough to claim his own child.”

“Clay, I—”

He holds one finger to his lips. He isn’t finished. I guess he deserves this.
I
deserve this.

“Do you really want to know what kind of man fathered your child?” He stands in front of the coffee table, facing me. He speaks slowly, deliberately. “He told me all about it. He was so proud of himself. Said you had been crying about going back to college and still being a virgin and all. He said he had no problem taking care of that for you.”

I’ve never seen Clay so mad or so cruel. My chin trembles, and I stare at my hands.

He doesn’t stop. “Then you come back with Shaylene, and he just goes along with the whole story of some boyfriend who had been killed in a wreck. He didn’t even claim her. Helluva man.”

“But you did. And I thank you–”

“Thank you, my ass. She’s my blood, too. And I’m the one she calls Daddy. You remember that when you tell her what kind of woman you really are.”

I shoot from the couch and slap him. Hard. He raises his chin, his blue eyes cold and gray. I turn to leave, but he grabs my arm. I pull away.

“No,” he says. “You’re not telling her without me. I don’t care who the hell you’ve slept with, but there’s a piece of paper on file with the county that says she’s
my
daughter. Don’t you forget that.”

He grabs his truck keys off the coffee table and storms over to the screen door. I follow him outside.

Before he gets in his truck, he turns back to me. “And when you’re done, you need to tell Cassie.”

Chapter Nineteen

Clay

T
here have been few people in my life that I’ve wanted to take care of. I mean
really
take care of. My mother was one. Cass is another. And then there’s Shaylene.

When Maryanne came home from college with a baby, it didn’t take long for me to figure out her story about the dead boyfriend wasn’t true. I’d known Maryanne long enough to know when she was lying. But I didn’t care who the daddy was. I needed something special in my life, and there was Shaylene. The first time I saw her, she smiled at me, wrapped her tiny hand around my finger, and wouldn’t let go. I fell in love with that little girl on day one.

I knew Maryanne and Rolly had had a thing, but the possibility of him being Shaylene’s father didn’t cross my mind. But as the years went by and Maryanne became almost obsessed with my brother, I figured that out, too. I never asked either of them. I didn’t want to hear the words spoken aloud.

In the end, that didn’t matter to me, either. Shaylene needed a daddy, and I wanted to take care of her. I would have adopted her even if she wasn’t blood. According to the state of Kansas, and to me, that girl is my daughter.

“What are you thinking about?” Maryanne is sitting at her kitchen table, wringing her hands.

I’m sitting across from her, trying to hold my anger inside and wishing this dirty little secret never had to come out. “Shaylene’s been nothing but good her entire life. She doesn’t deserve this.”

So much of our lives are told in secrets. They always come out, though, and I guess deep down I knew this day would come, too. My watch reads 3:15. Shaylene will walk through the door any minute. Then her world will change.

“I never meant to hurt anyone. I never—”

My fists are clenched on the table, and I shake my head. I can’t think about her right now.

I hear the door open, and Shaylene yells down the hall, “Dad?”

When my truck is here in the middle of the afternoon, it’s usually to take her for a trip to Sonic for cherry limeades. That’s our time.
But not today, little girl.

She walks into the dining room, throws her books on the table, and wraps her arms around me for a big hug. I hug back—a second too long. I can tell she senses something.

She pulls away and studies my face then settles in an empty chair. “Are you two okay?” It’s funny how adult-like she sounds, trying to soothe her mother and me, two hurting children. I glance first at Maryanne, then both of us turn to Shaylene.

“What?” she asks. Her eyes dart between us.

Maryanne clears her throat. “I need to tell you something. About your father.”

Shaylene looks at me, and her eyes moisten. “Are you
okay?
Please tell me you’re okay.” She swallows hard, and I can’t help but picture her as a little girl, a head of dark pigtails peeking over the top of her blanket when I’ve tucked her in for the night and checked the closet for monsters, waiting for me to tell her that it’s all clear.

I smile and reach out to give her hand a squeeze. “I’m fine, Shay.”

“I mean your real father. Your biological father,” Maryanne says.

Shaylene shakes her head. “I don’t want to hear it. I know the story. That’s enough.”

Maryanne starts crying. For a second, I feel sorry for her. But just for a second.

“The story, the one I told you… it’s not true,” Maryanne says so low it’s almost a whisper.

Shaylene doesn’t move. She doesn’t say a word.

“Roland was your real dad.” Maryanne lowers her head and stares at her hands. Dirty hands. Lying hands.

“No,” Shay says.

Maryanne reaches for her daughter’s hand, but Shaylene pulls away. “Shay, there’s a lot of things that are going to come out this week. I wanted you to know about your father, but…” She takes a deep breath. “I’m sorry, but I had my reasons.”

Shay shakes her head.

Maryanne tries again. “Shaylene—”

Shaylene stops her mother by putting a hand in the air. She stares at me, tears spilling over, and I blink back my own tears. She gets up, and I push my chair back. She sits on my lap and wraps her arms around my neck. I hold her close, not wanting to let go. I won’t let go.

A father is not someone who abandons you at birth or doesn’t claim you, or who suddenly decides he’s never coming home again. A father is someone who loves you, no matter what.

“No.” She buries her head in my chest. “This is my daddy.”

I feel her tremble and pull her even closer. No matter how long it takes, I intend to hold her until she stops.