Spare Change

by Bette Lee Crosby

  Clara grabbed hold of Ethan’s hand but before they were out the door, the police sergeant, said the boy had to stay until they’d heard his version of what happened. A rookie named Timothy Michaels was on his first full tour of duty that night and he’d turned queasy at the sight of Scooter’s body. Taking note of his condition, Clara asked, “Would you care for some Pepto Bismal? Or tea maybe?”

  Officer Michaels shook his head and then with Clara leading the way, he tromped off to ask if the neighbors had seen or heard anything. The questioning of Olivia was left for Sergeant Gomez to handle.

  After having released Sam Cobb earlier in the day, Gomez breathed a sigh of relief when he arrived at the Wyattsville Arms apartment building and discovered the attacker was Scooter Cobb, not Sam. Knowing Mahoney had identified the elder Cobb as a murder suspect,” Gomez immediately put in a call to the Eastern Shore Precinct. For hours Mahoney had been bouncing from bar to bar in an effort to find Scooter; when he heard the news of what had happened he turned the car around and headed for the mainland. He pulled onto the last ferry of the night, with not a minute to spare.

  Gomez was a man with a bushy black mustache, he was low to the ground and round as a pumpkin, as different from Charlie Doyle as a man could possibly be; but when he spoke Olivia could swear it was the voice of her dead husband. “There are questions I have to to ask,” he said, “but it’s simply so that we can get an understanding of what happened here; it’s nothing to worry about…”

  Olivia, who was already a nervous wreck, broke into tears.

  “Now, now,” Gomez said and patted her hand in the most comforting manner.

  Olivia’s sobbing grew louder.

  “This is routine procedure,” he assured her, “there’s no reason…”

  “I’m sorry,” she sniffled, “it’s just that you remind me of Charlie.”

  “Charlie?”

  “My husband; Ethan’s grandfather.” She immediately segued into a lengthy tale of what happened—not an explanation of how Scooter Cobb was shot to death in her foyer, but the story of how Charlie had died of a heart attack while they were still on their honeymoon.”

  “That is a tragedy,” Sergeant Gomez said sympathetically, “…but, let’s get back to what happened here tonight.”

  “Well,” Olivia sighed, “I was in the kitchen, preparing pineapple upside down cakes for the bake sale…” She hesitated a moment and asked if he’d care to have a piece; when the Sergeant shook his head, she continued on. “That’s when the doorbell rang. After Sam Cobb was here last night, I borrowed a shotgun from Seth Porter, and I had it right here on the hallway table. When I opened the door and saw who it was, I grabbed hold of the gun.”

  “He was the one at the door,” Gomez pointed to the body, “right?”

  She nodded.

  “So, why’d you open the door?”

  “I thought it was my downstairs neighbor, Barbara Conklin, delivering the box of sugar I’d asked to borrow.”

  “You have a neighbor who looks like him?”

  “Barbara doesn’t look anything like him! I just didn’t look.”

  “Do you normally do that; open the door before you check through the peep-hole to see who’s standing there?”

  “No!” she answered indignantly. “But, I was busy in the kitchen and I figured for sure it was Barbara. I’d spoken with her a few minutes earlier and she said she’d be up in a few minutes, so—”

  “What did he say, when you opened the door?”

  “Say? He didn’t say much of anything, just came charging at me.”

  “That’s when you shot him?”

  “Yes. If someone came charging at you, wouldn’t you shoot them?”

  Sergeant Gomez gave her a deadpan look and didn’t answer.

  The detective was wearing an expression that concerned Olivia; his mouth was stretched straight across and eyes narrowed. She began to worry that he might have seen some incriminating bit of evidence she’d missed; or maybe she’d said something that gave him doubt as to the truth of her story. “He was nine times my size,” she blurted out nervously, “if I hadn’t shot him, he would have killed me—me and my grandson both! If it were you, would you stand there and let an intruder murder your family?”

  “So you thought he was an intruder?” Gomez asked.

  “Absolutely; just by the way he charged at me, I knew he was here to do us harm. Look at this,” Olivia slid back the shoulder of her blouse to show the mark of Scooter’s hand, which was already turning purple. “I had to protect Ethan Allen. He’s already lost his parents; I’m all he’s got.”

  Gomez glanced over at the huge body, then back to Olivia. “How could you get to the shotgun and take aim with him standing so close?”

  This was the question she’d been dreading, the make or break believing of her story. Olivia knew she had to watch every word. A line of perspiration was already rising up along her forehead, but her hands were colder than a chunk of ice. “It happened so quickly,” she said. “I can’t swear to the exact order of things; all I remember is that I reached for the shotgun the minute I saw him, then he grabbed me by the shoulder…”

  “Where was the gun?”

  “On the hallway table.”

  “Isn’t it a bit unusual to have a shotgun on the hallway table?”

  “I wanted it there for our protection. Ethan Allen had been attacked once by this man’s son and I was afraid he’d come back here and—”

  “Okay, okay. Then what happened?”

  “I tried to get loose; but my shoe got caught in the carpet and I tripped. As I was falling down, I squeezed the trigger as hard as possible and the gun went off.”

  “Let’s see if I got this right,” Gomez said, a considerable amount of doubt mingled in with the words. “While you were falling, you were able to fire both barrels?”

  “Yes,” she answered. “You see, I didn’t fall straight back, I sort of stumbled, then fell; so the first time I pulled the trigger I was still in the process of stumbling.”

  “Well now,” Gomez said shaking his head as if he’d heard something beyond believing, “that’s truly amazing. You were off-balance and unfamiliar with the gun, yet you were able to pump two shotgun shells into your assailant.”

  “God must’ve been on my side,” Olivia replied, figuring a mention of the Almighty would make her seem a bit less culpable.

  “Where was the boy when all of this was happening?”

  “In bed; sound asleep.”

  “The commotion didn’t wake him?”

  “The sound of the shots did. When he came to see what was going on, he told me this man was Scooter Cobb.”

  “Hmm,” Gomez fingered his chin pensively, “And, you say you’ve never before handled a shotgun…no target practice? No other shooting experience?”

  “Not really,” Olivia sighed, “but the Good Lord—”

  “I know, was on your side,” Gomez reiterated. “Well, what about the boy? Does he know how to use a gun? Has he maybe done some hunting?”

  “He’s eleven! An eleven year old boy has no business with a gun!”

  “Maybe not in town, but on a farm—”

  “The boy had nothing to do with this. It was me. I shot Scooter Cobb. Shot him because he was breaking into my house; that’s all there is to it.”

  “Would you be willing to take a lie detector test?”

  “I most certainly will not,” she answered. “You have no right—”

  “Whoa,” Gomez said, “it was just a question. With a shooting like this, it’s routine. It just helps us to determine the truth, right off.”

  “I’ve already told you the truth!”

  “The lie detector is just to confirm—”

  “No!”

  After he’d finished with Olivia, Sergeant Gomez questioned Ethan, but the boy did just as he’d been instructed; he swore he was sound asleep and didn’t hear a thing. “No doorbell ringing? No shouting? Arguing maybe, you hear any of that?” Gom
ez asked, but Ethan shook his head repeatedly. The few things Ethan did make mention of matched what Olivia said, word for word.

  The rookie returned long about the time Gomez gave up on questioning Olivia and Ethan Allen. “A few of the neighbors claim they heard gunshots,” he said, “but nobody saw anything. Fred McGinty, the man who lives directly beneath this apartment, he’s the one who called the police. He claims he heard a commotion coming from this apartment, then gunshots, that’s when he called it in.”

  “So nobody knows nothing,” Gomez said, shaking his head in disgust.

  The crime scene investigation detectives had all but finished by the time Jack Mahoney arrived. “What have we got?” he asked Gomez.

  The detective shrugged, “A questionable self-defense shooting.”

  “Questionable?”

  “It’s all just too pat. Nobody saw nothing. Nobody saw this guy come into the building, nobody saw him force his way into the apartment. The woman claims she opened the door thinking it’s a neighbor and Scooter Cobb is standing there. Now, she just happens to have a shotgun lying on the hall table, so when he attacks her, she bangs off two shots, one of which nails him square in the middle of the chest. She does all of this while she’s struggling to get loose from a guy who’s three times her size. Pretty skillful for somebody who’s supposedly never before used a shotgun—no?”

  Mahoney, with a grin playing at the corner of his mouth, shrugged. “What about ballistics?” he asked, “You got anything there?”

  “Not likely. I’m sure her prints are all over the shotgun, but the way that buckshot splattered, the lab guys are just gonna be guessing at the trajectory.”

  “I think she just might be telling the truth,” Mahoney said. “Scooter Cobb’s a mean old bastard; I wouldn’t doubt he came here to kill her and the boy. There’s an arrest warrant out for Cobb, and enough evidence to prove he was the one who murdered the boy’s daddy. That, let me tell you, was a brutal affair—one of the worst I’ve ever seen.”

  “You think maybe the kid shot Cobb for revenge?”

  Mahoney shrugged. “Anything’s possible, I suppose.”

  “Hmmm…” Gomez raised an eyebrow, “You figure if I push harder on the woman or the boy, I might get at the truth?”

  “I doubt it,” Mahoney said, “I truly doubt it.”

  Of course, Gomez didn’t give up quite that easily. For weeks on end he’d come knocking on Olivia’s door with some other question he’d forgotten to ask. Two months after the shooting he gathered together a flimsy packet of evidence and presented it to the District Attorney. “The kid did the shooting, I’m certain of it,” he said; hoping to get the go ahead on an indictment.

  “Are you kidding?” the District Attorney asked. “In an election year you want me to indict some little kid on this kind of crappy evidence?” He accused Gomez of wasting the tax-payers money and told him it was time to move on.

  Afterwards, the question of whether or not Olivia was telling the truth slid into oblivion and that was the end of that.

  Jack Mahoney

  I’ve worked many a case during my twenty years on the force, but never one quite as loose-ended as the Doyle murders. My gut tells me the kid’s story is true, but now that Scooter Cobb is dead, we’ll never know the absolute truth of what came about. One thing I can say for sure, there’s a sizeable amount of grief attached to the Cobbs.

  Sam left the force; he’s running his daddy’s diner now, but with that bad leg of his he’s gotta sit more than stand. Emma, poor woman, sold the house and moved off to Connecticut, to live with her sister. The Doyle place went for taxes. Benjamin was up to his ears in debt so there wasn’t really anything left to hold onto. I doubt the kid much cared; neither he nor his grandma had any interest in coming back here and I can’t say that I blame them.

  Olivia Doyle swore up and down she was the one who shot Scooter Cobb and did so because he was trying to break into her house. Gomez had his suspicions about the truth of her story, but couldn’t get anyone to say otherwise. He finally gave up trying. Me? I don’t doubt she’s covering for the boy; but listen, the kid’s already gone through enough and besides Scooter Cobb probably got what he deserved.

  Christine always says the Almighty doles out his own kind of justice, and you know what—I’m beginning to think she’s right.

  Thirty-two years later

  Ethan Allen Doyle, who for the past three years has presided over Richmond County Family Court, is said to be the fairest Judge in all of Virginia. He is also the youngest ever appointed to the bench. Some claim it was the influence of his Grandmother that gave him a uniquely strong character; others believe he was simply born with a clarity of purpose. One thing is for certain, the youngsters who appear before him seldom walk away without a better understanding of life.

  Once a year Judge Doyle’s courtroom is closed—no cases are heard, no young boys admonished to watch their language, no children reset upon a pathway that’s more straight and narrow. That day is always the eleventh of April, the anniversary of when his grandmother passed away. On that day, Judge Doyle, his wife, Laura, and their two boys visit the cemetery and place a large bouquet of flowers beside the headstone that reads: Olivia Ann Doyle, Wife of Charles and Beloved Grandmother of Ethan Allen. On this, the fifth anniversary of her death, they do as they have always done.

  Spring is late this year, some of the streams are still frozen and there are no crocuses poking their heads from beneath the soil. On this particular morning there is a bitter chill in the air and a wind that tears through overcoats like the pointy tip of an icicle. But Laura bundles the boys in warm parkas and off they go.

  Their first stop is the florist; where despite the fact that cut flowers are astronomically expensive this year, Judge Doyle buys a bouquet of twenty seven long stemmed red roses—one for each year that he and his grandmother shared.

  The younger boy, Charles, was but a baby when she died so he has no memory of his great grandmother. Oliver, the elder of the two, barely remembers her. Their father, Ethan Allen, remembers her with more love than it seems possible for a heart to hold. “I surely do miss you, Grandma,” he sighs, as he bows his head before the grey headstone with an angel carved into the face of it.

  “How come Daddy always says that?” Charles asks his Mother.

  She looks over at her husband and smiles. Ethan takes hold of the boy’s hand and answers, “Because I do miss her. Your great grandma was quite a woman.”

  Laura can tell by the upturned corners of Ethan’s mouth that he’s remembering the way it was. Soon, he will, as he always does, launch into stories of the years they spent together—the boy and his grandmother, a woman who at one point claimed to have no use for children and then risked everything to protect him.

  “I’m named after her,” the eight year old Oliver boasts.

  “So what!” Charles answers, “I’m named after Grandpa Charlie!”

  “Big deal,” Oliver taunts, “Grandma Olivia is the one Daddy loved most.”

  “Boys!” Laura chides, and they stop bickering.

  “You’re right, Oliver,” Ethan finally says, “I did love Grandma Olivia the most, but that was because I never knew Grandpa Charlie. Grandma did, and she said he was the finest man who ever walked the earth. She loved him till the day she died. A person has to be pretty special to warrant that kind of loving, don’t you think?”

  Charles gave a get-even grin.

  “Daddy had a special secret with Grandma Olivia,” Oliver, needing to have the last word said. “Right, Dad?”

  “That’s right, son. A very special secret.”

  “Tell us the secret,” Charles whined.

  “If I did that, it wouldn’t be a secret anymore, would it?” Ethan said. He squatted beside the grey tombstone and traced his fingers along the etching of his grandmother’s name.

  How easily it all came back to mind—his mama dead without ever once seeing New York City, his daddy, beaten so viciously that he w
as no longer recognizable. Ethan Allen had stood by and let those things happen; what could he do he reasoned, he was just a kid. But then, there was that fateful night, the night he finally found enough courage to protect a person he loved. Killing wasn’t a thing to be proud of, but he was proud. He was proud of being able to set his fear aside and do what had to be done to save his grandma. He was proud enough to have shouted from rooftops his doing of such a deed. But Grandma Olivia saw it differently; she wanted to protect him as he had protected her. Only three people knew the truth of what happened that night—two of them had died without telling, and if that was the way Olivia wanted it to be, he also would take the secret to his grave.

  Ethan silently said the words to the Lord’s Prayer then he stood and turned to leave. In the misty grey of an April morning, with his wife walking alongside and his boys bounding several steps ahead, Ethan turned back and whispered, “I love you, Grandma.”

  “I love you too,” Olivia answered, but of course the words came to him only as a thought—a remembrance of her having said those words countless times before. She said it at night when she tucked him into bed, mornings as she sent him off to school, the day he graduated high school, the day he graduated law school, the day he got married, when each of the boys were born, she’d said it a million times, maybe ten million—little wonder the memory of her saying such a thing was so easy to call to mind.

  Heaven

  Olivia and Charlie Doyle linked hands as they watched Ethan Allen and his family leave the cemetery. You can surely be proud of the way you raised that boy, Charlie said without speaking the words—for in heaven words are unnecessary, thoughts simply float from a person’s heart and settle where intended.

  I am, Olivia responded.

  He’s wrong, Charlie said; wrong in thinking only three of you knew what happened that night. After I was forced to leave the earth so suddenly, I began watching over you. I watched over you every minute of your life, including that night. I knew you were telling the truth when you told Detective Gomez you’d been the one to do the shooting.