Keely looked over at him in surprise. “You know Grandma wants to see you,” she said.
Dylan sighed, then opened the car door and got out without looking at his mother. He walked up the path to the front door, opened it, and walked in. Keely followed behind him. If she were by herself, she would have knocked. She and Ingrid had a good relationship, but there was also a certain formality between them. Dylan, by contrast, always swaggered into his grandmother’s house, calling out to her, certain of his welcome.Keely tapped on the open door and stuck her head inside. Abby was sitting on the immaculate green wall-to-wall carpet, and Dylan was bent over, enveloped in his grandmother’s embrace.
“How’s my big boy?” Ingrid exclaimed, and indeed Dylan towered over her these days.
“Hello, Ingrid,” said Keely. “How’s your back?”
“Still aches,” Ingrid admitted. “I’m taking a lot of pain medication.”
Keely crouched down on the floor beside Abby, who was playing with a pile of plastic toys Ingrid kept for their visits. “Was she good?”
“Oh sure,” said the older woman. “She was into everything.”
Keely glanced around the room, which was immaculate, every figurine and basket of dried flowers in its place. “Sorry,” said Keely. “She’s at that age.”
“I didn’t mind,” said Ingrid. “She was no trouble.”
Keely put her arms around Abby and kissed her head, feeling protective of her. She knew that Ingrid liked babies and would recount Abby’s doings to all her friends when she had a chance. But there was always that reserve in her voice when she spoke about Abby that was never there with Dylan. Abby, she cared for. Dylan, she loved.
“What did the police want?” Ingrid asked.
Keely looked at Dylan, who gave her a wide-eyed glance of warning. “Just making out their reports about the accident,” said Keely. “You know how it is.”
Ingrid nodded, reassured. “Now hold on a minute,” she said to Dylan. “I want to measure something against you.”
Keely suppressed a smile at the expression of alarm on Dylan’s face. As Ingrid bustled from the room, Dylan caught his mother’s eye. He mouthed the words “Another sweater,” and rolled his eyes. Keely tried not to laugh. Last Christmas Ingrid had knitted him a red sweater with reindeer on it. The only place he ever wore it was to this house, with his jacket zippered over it, and he would complain almost immediately of being too hot and have to remove it.
“Dylan, come in here, honey,” Ingrid called out from the back bedroom, which had once been Richard’s, where she now kept her sewing machine and her plastic boxes full of fabric, knitting needles, and yarn,as well as Richard’s old computer. Keely had offered it to Ingrid when they moved here. Mark had had state-of-the-art equipment. At first, Ingrid had declined. But then Dylan had offered to hook it up for her and show her how to use it to get online. Now Ingrid e-mailed Richard’s sister, Suzanne, in San Francisco, used it to download patterns, and belonged to groups that exchanged recipes online.
“Coming,” Dylan said, trying to sound enthused. Keely gave him an encouraging smile as he trudged off down the hallway. Keely stood up and walked over to the cherry-wood entertainment center that took up one wall of the living room. The only electronic equipment it held was a small TV and a VCR. The other shelves were filled with framed mementos of the family. In the compartment beside the TV, where Ingrid normally kept her Hummel collection, there were two fat photo albums balanced one on top of the other. Ingrid must be feeling nostalgic today, Keely thought. She opened the top book and riffled through the pages, stopping at a photo of Richard in the front seat of his first car, an ancient convertible, with Mark in the seat beside him. Mark told her that he had practically lived at Richard’s house. In the car photo, both boys were waving and mugging at the camera. The pictures in the album had been carefully arranged in a time sequence, so she found several other pictures of Mark as well, from those years when he and Richard had been inseparable—long before she knew either one of them. It was still so strange to her to think that she had married both of these men, these long-lost friends.
She heard Dylan coming back into the living room and closed the cover of the album. Dylan was modeling a black pullover sweater with a lightning bolt down the front of it. Keely looked at him with raised eyebrows. “That’s pretty nice,” she said.
“Better than reindeer,” he agreed.
“Bring it back in here,” Ingrid called. “It’s not finished.”
“I’m coming, Grandma,” he said. “The sweater’s pretty cool.”
Keely felt proud of him. He wouldn’t hurt Ingrid’s feelings for the world. The doorbell rang as Dylan left the room. “I’ll get it,” Keely called out.
She walked over to the door and opened it. A young man in a whiteshirt, jeans, and a blazer stood on the doorstep. He was carrying a black microfiber briefcase. “Mrs. Bennett?” he asked.
“No, I’m her daughter-in-law,” said Keely.
“She’s expecting me. My name is Tom Mercer,” he said.
“Just a minute. I’ll get her,” Keely said.
“Ingrid,” she called down the hall. “There’s a Tom Mercer here to see you.”
“Tell him to come in,” Ingrid called back.
Keely returned to the doorway. “Won’t you come in?”
The young man entered the living room. He saw Abby sitting on the floor. He cooed at her, and she rewarded him with her gummy grin.
Ingrid bustled in, followed by Dylan, and peered at the young man in her living room. “You’re the fellow that called from theGazette?” she asked.
Keely was instantly wary. “TheGazette?”
The young man extended his hand. “Tom Mercer. Nice to meet you, Mrs. Bennett.”
Ingrid shook his hand. “Have a seat, Mr. Mercer. Do you want something to drink?”
Keely looked suspiciously at the young man, who was removing a tape recorder from his briefcase. She looked at her mother-in-law.
“I’m sorry,” said Ingrid. “This is my son’s former wife. The one we were talking about on the phone. And this is my grandson, Dylan.”
Dylan shook hands perfunctorily, but Keely frowned and bent down to pick up Abby. “Why were you talking about me?” Keely asked
“Mr. Mercer is doing an article about Richard,” said Ingrid proudly.
“Why?” Keely demanded, and she could hear how rude her question-sounded.
“Why not?” Ingrid asked. “He was a brilliant man.”
“Yes, but Richard’s been dead for nearly five years. Why are you doing this article now, Mr. Mercer?” Keely asked.
“Keely,” Ingrid protested. “What a question.”
“Actually, I was hoping for a chance to talk to you, too, Mrs. Weaver,” he said.
“About what? What do you know about me?” said Keely.
“Obviously, I’ve done some research for this piece,” Mercer said carefully.
Keely could hear the evasiveness in his answer. She looked at him through narrowed eyes. “This isn’t just about Richard, is it?” she said bluntly. “This has to do with Mark’s death.”
“Actually, it’s about both men,” Mercer said in a placating tone. “A human interest kind of story. Two high school friends, successful in their respective fields, both died young and tragically, and they were further linked by the fact that they married the same woman. People want to read about that.”
“We don’t want publicity,” said Keely vehemently. “We want to put this behind us.”
“Mrs. Bennett seemed to be more than willing to talk about her son,” Tom Mercer said stubbornly but politely.
“I’m sure Mrs. Bennett didn’t realize what you were up to,” said Keely, jiggling Abby, who was beginning to fuss in her arms. She did not look at her mother-in-law, who was standing behind her, but she prayed that Ingrid would support her.
“I don’t see what harm it could do,” said Ingrid.
Keely turned to look at Ingrid. She rea
lized the older woman did not know about the ugly questions posed by the detective today. Keely was not about to bring it up in front of this reporter. “I just don’t think it’s appropriate,” she said.
“Well,” said Ingrid stiffly, “you can do as you wish. But I won’t be told who I can and can’t talk to in my own home about my own son. I’ve been looking forward to this. I don’t often get a chance to talk about Richard. Heaven knows, you never mention him.”
Keely felt her face redden as Tom Mercer gave her a sly smile. He sat down on the couch and crossed his legs. Keely shifted Abby to her other arm, picked up her purse, and fished out the keys. She was not about to discuss this with Ingrid in front of a reporter. “Dylan,” she said. “Let’s go.”
Dylan looked warily from his mother to his grandmother. Then he walked over to Ingrid and gave her another hug. “The sweater’s cool, Grandma,” he said. “Thanks.”
“You’re welcome, darling. I’ll finish it up this week,” she said, kissing his cheek.
Without looking at Keely or the reporter, Dylan walked out the front door.
“Thank you for watching Abby,” said Keely, avoiding her mother-in-law’s baleful gaze. “Mr. Mercer, don’t bother to call me. I have nothing to say to you.”
Keely carried Abby out to the car. The three of them rode home in silence, Abby falling asleep in her car seat during the ride. In the driveway, Keely lifted the baby out and cradled her against her chest. Abby’s tiny fingers grasped a handful of the front of Keely’s silk blouse as she slept.
After they walked into the house, Dylan started up the stairs to his room. Keely stopped him. “Dylan,” she said. “You just steer clear of that man if he comes around trying to talk to you at school or anything. Don’t talk to him. I don’t like this whole thing.”
Dylan nodded. “I won’t. But you know, it’s true what Grandma said. You never do talk about Dad. You act as if he never existed.”
Keely looked at her son wearily. “Honey, it is difficult for me to talk to Grandma about Daddy. But that has nothing to do with how I feel about your dad. You and I can talk about him anytime. I’d be happy to talk about him with you.”
“Yeah, right,” he said, staring over her head.
“Dylan, I loved your father very much.” For a second, she thought about dinner and homework and the time. And then she deliberately put those thoughts aside. “Look, let me put Abby down and get these uncomfortable shoes off and then we can sit down, maybe look at some of our old videos. How about that one of the camping trip, when you were seven? I love that one. Remember when the raccoons took the food and we had to hang the rest of it in a tree?”
“I don’t want to do that,” he snarled. “I’m not a baby.”
“But honey, you just said—”
“You think you can make it all just go away by showing some old video?”
Keely looked at him uncomprehendingly. “Make what go away? Ithought you wanted to talk. Dylan, we’ve had a terrible day. That business with the police and everything that’s happened. All I’m trying to do is . . . I just want you to know that I do understand.”
“You don’t understand anything,” he said.
“Well, explain it to me,” she pleaded.
“You don’t listen. It’s like talking to the wall.”
“Thank you, son,” she said bitterly.
“I’m going upstairs.”
Keely sank down on one of the lower steps, clutching her baby in her arms. Dylan’s heavy footfalls, as he ascended, shook the tread beneath her.
11
Keely walked out to her mailbox, looking wistfully at the golden autumn day.You should take the baby and go somewhere,she told herself.It would take your mind off things.Every time the phone rang, she jumped, expecting it to be the detectives from the prosecutor’s office, homing in to take another nip out of them, like circling sharks. As she walked back up the driveway to the house, she almost dreaded going inside because the silence that surrounded her was unnerving.
Last night she had dreamed that she was sitting at a table, a cafeteria-style table, visiting Dylan at his new school. He was wearing a uniform and he kept telling her that he hated it and he wanted to come home. In the dream, she couldn’t think why she had sent him away to school. She had never even given such an idea a waking thought. The other boys were silently shuffling past them, and she was wondering to herself why their parents weren’t visiting them, too. But the feeling of dissociation in the dream was too strong to ignore. She kept wanting to take Dylan out of the school and bring him home, but she knew that she couldn’t. And the minute she woke up, still troubled, still lying flat on her back in bed, she understood. It wasn’t a school. It was a prison.
She shook her head, as if to physically shake the memory of the awful dream.You should take Abby in the stroller and go out,she scolded herself.Before long, every day will be cold and gloomy.But the prospect of going out was daunting. She always felt so lonely when she pushed the baby’s stroller through this silent, pristine neighborhood with its houses set so far off the street that you saw no signs of life as you walked along. And the truth was that she felt so weary these days, as if the simplest tasks were too difficult to accomplish.
She wasn’t the only one. Keely thought of Dylan, who was having so much trouble getting out of bed in the morning these days. He had always been an early riser, but lately it was like trying to wake someone out of a coma. She told herself it was just teenage hormones—kids were known to require more sleep when the teen years arrived. But she feared that it might be depression in his case, too. Whenever she mentioned that he might want to talk to someone, a counselor or someone else, he looked at her as if she had suggested that he might enjoy being beheaded. But one of these days, she was going to have to insist.
Keely sat down at the kitchen table with a sigh and shuffled through the catalogs and envelopes that had come in the mail. She stopped at an elegant brochure advertising a special promotion for valued customers at Collier’s Jewelry Store. It was a family-owned store downtown where Mark bought most of her gifts. Immediately, she remembered the invoice for the smoky quartz bracelet. She had meant to check with the store’s owner to see if he was still holding the bracelet, but it had slipped her mind with all that had happened since. “It’s worth a trip to find out. Come on, baby,” she said to Abby, who was still in her high chair, banging her spoon on the tray. “We’re going downtown.”
Abby kicked her legs joyfully, her eyes alight at this prospect.
“Oh, my baby,” Keely said, scooping her out of the chair and embracing her, warm, sticky oatmeal face and all. “You save me. You really do. While we’re out, we’ll go see the ducks.”
Determined now, Keely retrieved the bill from the pile on Mark’s desk in the den and then gathered together sweaters, a bottle, diapers, a bag of stale bread for the ducks, and whatever else she could jam into the diaper bag. She wrestled Abby’s stroller out of its berth in the garage, folded it, and stuck it in the back of the SUV. Then, giving her own hair a perfunctory combing and her mouth a swipe of lipstick, she picked up the baby and carried her out to the Bronco, buckling her into the car seat while Abby pointed at squirrels and squealed.
As she was climbing into the driver’s seat, Keely heard the phone ringing inside the house. She hesitated for a moment. Her first thought, always, was of Dylan. Second, the police.Or it could be the Realtor,she thought reasonably, wanting to make another appointment.Or Lucas,with more papers.If it was Dylan, and it was important, he knew her cell phone number, and he would know to call it. Her cell phone was nestled in the diaper bag.Otherwise, I don’t care,she thought.I don’t want to know. Abby and I are going out. They can call back.She slammed the car door and revved the engine.
THE LITTLE TOWNOFSt. Vincent’s Harbor, historic and charming, looked especially picturesque in the beautiful autumn light. Keely pushed the stroller up Main Street and stopped in front of Collier’s. The window was filled with gleaming watches and g
listening jewelry displayed on black velvet. Keely pushed the door open, and the bell tinkled discreetly. Reginald Collier, natty in a bow tie, was waiting on an elderly woman who was giving him an oral history of a necklace she wanted repaired. Keely waited patiently as the jeweler assured and reassured the customer, then deposited the necklace in a plastic bag which he slipped into a drawer beneath the display cases. Finally, he turned to Keely. “May I help you?” he asked.
Keely took a deep breath. “I hope so. My name is Keely Weaver,” she said. “My husband, Mark, used to shop here at your store.”
The jeweler looked pained. “Mr. Weaver was a valued customer,” he said. “It was an awful tragedy. Please accept my sympathies.”
“Yes,” said Keely. “Well, thank you. But I’m here to inquire about this.” She pushed the bill over the top of the display case.”
Reginald Collier nodded slowly. “Oh, yes,” he said. “Of course.
Well, I apologize, Mrs. Weaver. I should have warned the bookkeeping service not to pester you with this right now. This is tacky. Terrible. There’s absolutely no hurry on this.”
“My husband bought me quite a few gifts here,” said Keely.
“How well I know. And he had excellent taste. Your husband had a long-standing relationship with Collier’s. This is just a bookkeeping snafu. I decided to hire an automated service that sends out the bills and keeps track of accounts because my wife and I just couldn’t keep up with it anymore. But this is what happens. You lose the personal touch,” he said, ripping up the bill and tossing it into a wastepaper basket behind the counter. “Believe me, I will speak to them about this. Youtake all the time you need, Mrs. Weaver. I know you have many more pressing things on your mind these days. And I’m so sorry if you were upset by this.”
“Well, that’s very kind of you,” said Keely, mollified, “but, actually, the problem is that I don’t have the bracelet. I was wondering if perhaps Mark left the bracelet here for engraving or something. I’ve never seen it.”
Reginald Collier frowned. “No. Mr. Weaver took it with him. It was a lovely bracelet, as I recall. Smoky quartz. The stones were rectangular-shaped in an emerald cut and set in gold.”
Not Guilty Page 10
