At the Edge

by Norah McClintock

  “Well then, let’s take a detour.”

  He turned off the main road and followed a winding gravel road to a waterfall.

  “We rented a place up here one summer when I was a kid. I loved to go behind the falls,” he said. “I’d pretend I was an explorer. Or that I was sneaking up on the enemy.”

  “It’s beautiful,” I said.

  We got out and walked around, and then, because I could see he was dying to, we picked our way across some rocks and slipped behind the cascading water. James smiled. He looked more content than I had ever seen him. He was still smiling when we started back down the gravel road to the highway.

  This was my chance. I hesitated. I didn’t want to ruin his mood. But I did want to know more about Eddy Leonard.

  “Can I ask you something, James?” I said at last.

  “Sure.”

  “I’ve been doing some reading about ...” Why was it so hard to come out with it, to call it what it was? “About what happened to your brother.”

  I felt James tense up beside me. “Oh?”

  “You said your dad told you that he’d seen someone hurrying away from the sound of the gunshots. He thought that was strange, right?”

  “Yeah. Why?”

  “Well, he said the same thing to the first police officer who arrived on the scene. He even described the man. But then he changed his mind and told the officer that he’d been wrong. He said that there were so many people on the street that when he heard those shots, all he could think about was his son.”

  James winced at the word. He glanced at me. “Where did you hear that?”

  “I read it,” I said, lying—again. It seemed kinder than telling him I had spoken to a detective. Or maybe I was just being a coward. “I’m sorry. After you told me, I went online.”

  He was silent for a moment. Finally, he said, “And?”

  “Did your dad describe that man to you—the one he saw hurrying away from the alley?”

  James’s jaw tightened.

  My dad is pretty good at reading people—at least according to Vern Deloitte, his business partner. My mom disagrees. In fact, I once even heard her ask Vern, “If Mac is so good at knowing what people think, why does he always act so surprised when I get mad at him for doing the same thing for the millionth time?” It was a good question.

  I was good at reading some people. I could always tell when Nick was angry but was trying not to show it. I could tell when Morgan was irritated and was trying to hide it. Okay, maybe that was a no-brainer—Morgan never tried very hard. I would have bet my life that I had just struck a nerve with James. The thing I couldn’t figure out was, which nerve?

  “No, he didn’t describe him.”

  “Are you sure? He didn’t describe the man to you and ask you if he was the one who’d shot your brother?”

  “No!” His hands were clenched on the steering wheel. His eyes were fixed firmly ahead, as if I were the last person on Earth he wanted to look at.

  “I’m sorry,” I said. “I just—” Just what? Don’t understand? What was there for me to understand? Gregory Johnson was dead. Edward Leonard had walked on the charge. And James hadn’t gotten over it. Maybe he never would, and who could blame him? And what was I doing? I was thinking about the mistakes that everyone had made—James, his father, the prosecutor, the police—everybody except my mom. She hadn’t made any mistakes. It was everyone else who had messed up.

  James had made a mistake when he’d insisted at the trial that he had seen something the night of the shooting he couldn’t possibly have seen. Eddy Leonard hadn’t been wearing a blue plaid shirt. Other witnesses corroborated that fact. Besides that, there were gaps in James’s story. He hadn’t answered all of my mom’s questions. He hadn’t told her how the shooting had actually happened. Why was that? Why hadn’t he answered?

  Then there was James’s father. He had told the first officer on the scene that he’d seen someone hurrying away from where he’d heard the shots. Then he had changed his story. And, according to James, he had never described this man to James, had never asked James if the man he’d seen was the same one James had seen. Why not? And why hadn’t he recognized Eddy Leonard in the photo array or at the lineup? He’d been right there with James, holding his hand. If he had recognized him, would he have strengthened the prosecution’s case? Charlie Hart didn’t seem to think it would have made much difference, given the lack of physical evidence. And, knowing what I knew, I had to agree with him. It probably didn’t matter.

  Then there was the prosecutor. Maybe if he had prepared James more carefully, James wouldn’t have become so rattled on the stand. Maybe James wouldn’t have confused what he saw at the lineup with what he had seen the night of the shooting—assuming that James had been confused and not mistaken.

  The first officer on the scene, the one who had spoken to James’s dad before the detectives arrived, had definitely messed up when he hadn’t passed along everything that James’s father had said. Maybe Charlie Hart had messed up too. Maybe if he had gone over everything carefully with the other officer when he arrived on the scene himself, he would have known what James’s dad had seen. Maybe that would have changed something. Or maybe not. Sure, maybe Mr. Derrick had seen Leonard fleeing the scene. But that didn’t put Leonard at the scene. It didn’t put the gun in his hand—the gun that had never been found. It didn’t have him pulling the trigger. James was the only one who could testify to those facts. James was the only real eyewitness.

  James, who had insisted at the trial that he’d seen something he couldn’t possibly have seen.

  James, who had been rattled.

  James, who had already been carrying a heavy burden. His little brother had almost died once before in James’s care. And then, that night in the alley, James had been responsible for Greg—for Richard’s son—and Greg had died. That was certainly bad enough. But then to stumble so badly during the trial, to feel responsible for letting the killer walk, to believe that the man he called Dad blamed him for that ...

  “I’m sorry, James,” I said again. “I was just wondering, that’s all.”

  James was silent for a few moments. A new song started to play.

  Finally James said, “I told the cops. I told the prosecutor. I told everyone. He had dark eyes. He had a long, thin nose. He had ears that stuck out. He had shaggy brown hair. He had a small mouth. He had a scar on his chin, right here.” He touched his own chin.

  Those were the same words James had used when describing the man to Charlie Hart and that Charlie Hart had read to me out of his notebook. They were the same words he had used when he first described the man to me.

  They were the same words he had used in court.

  Always the same words.

  Charlie Hart had said that after James had described the man he’d seen—and that had taken a while because James had been so rattled that he’d been mute for an hour or more—he had repeated the description over and over. Charlie had said it was as if he didn’t want to forget it. Or couldn’t shake it. I could see that. But to still be using the same words, the same order, every time, after all these years? The only things I could do that with were song lyrics and a couple poems I’d been forced to learn by my seventh-grade teacher, who had insisted that everyone should know a few solid poems by heart.

  “James, why did Eddy Leonard shoot Greg?” I said.

  James tensed up again. “What do you mean?”

  “I mean, what did Greg do?”

  “He surprised him. We surprised him. The man was standing beside my dad’s car when we went into the alley. He fired at Greg.”

  “You must have been afraid he was going to shoot you, too,” I said. I sounded just like my mother had at the trial.

  James didn’t look at me.

  “He shot Greg,” he said. “Then he ran away.”

  “But weren’t you afraid he was—”

  “I don’t want to talk about it, Robyn,” James said. His face was white. “I’m
sorry I ever brought it up.”

  I mumbled an apology and promised myself that I wouldn’t mention it again. It had been a mistake to bring it up in the first place. The past was the past. But it kept eating at me. At first I’d thought my mom had been at fault. She had made it look like he wasn’t sure what had actually happened.

  But the more I found out, the more I began to wonder. James had described the aftermath of the shooting to me in detail, just as he had at the trial, but in different words, emphasizing different things. He had told me what he’d thought, what he’d felt, what he’d seen. But he had never told me—or anyone else, according to everything I had read or heard—about the shooting itself. Why had Eddy Leonard shot a nine-year-old boy? Was it because he was trying to steal James’s father’s car and he was afraid that the boys would identify him to the police? It seemed like an extreme response. And both boys had seen him. Both could have ID’d him. Why did he only shoot one of them? Especially since James could identify him as the man who had shot Greg?

  And why had James’s dad told the first cop on the scene that he had seen someone suspicious and could even describe him—using words almost identical to the description James would give—and then almost immediately change his story? What had made him decide he was wrong?

  And why was it all bothering me so much? Why couldn’t I let it alone?

  “It’s just that I know you feel terrible that your dad blames you for what happened,” I said softly. “But it could have happened to you too, James. The man shot your brother. It’s a miracle he didn’t shoot you. I mean, you were right there. You saw him.”

  “I said, I don’t want to talk about it,” James said, his voice so sharp that I jumped.

  Let it alone, I told myself. Leave him alone. You’re just stirring up bad memories. I even had a pretty good idea now why he was so angry. It was because he hadn’t been shot. Because he thought that his dad probably wished it had been James shot dead and Gregory still alive. Because he had let his brother and his parents down when he’d fallen apart on the witness stand. Because he felt responsible for the killer walking free.

  “It happened,” he said, trying to control himself. “Greg got killed. I should have been”—he broke off and drew in a deep breath. “The guy shot Greg. I saw him. He had dark eyes. He had a long, thin nose. He had ears that stuck out. He had shaggy brown hair. He had a small mouth. He had a scar on his chin. He killed my little brother, Robyn. Greg was lying on the ground. He looked so small. And he was looking up at me. Like he was wondering how I could have let something like that happen to him ... I want to forget it. I just want to forget the whole thing. But I can’t. It’s like a nightmare. Or like a movie that keeps playing and playing and that I can’t turn off.”

  “I’m sorry,” I murmured again.

  James was silent for a moment. Then he said, “I want to have some fun for a change. You can’t believe how much I’ve been looking forward to this weekend. It’s a chance to get away. We can take a walk in the woods when we get there. Then we can drive into town and pick up Morgan and Billy. We can get something to eat, too. And there’s this island in the middle of the lake. It’s so peaceful. You’ll love it.”

  I laughed. “I thought the whole point of the trip was to clean the place up so your dad can sell it. When were you planning to do that?”

  “I’ll get to it,” James said, smiling. “I can always finish it next weekend.”

  I let him keep talking about the island and his plans for the day. He began to relax. I asked him how he felt about moving again so soon.

  “It’s on the other side of the world,” he said. “Maybe if I get that far away, I can forget about everything.”

  Maybe. But I doubted it. You could never really escape your memories, especially bad ones like he’d been carrying around.

  “I can’t wait to go,” he said. “I wish we could leave right now, after this weekend. I wish we could just move on before”—he broke off again.

  “Before what?”

  “I wish we could just leave. It was a mistake to come back here. I thought changing my name would make a difference, but it didn’t. I thought if I went to visit Greg and told him how sorry I was, that would make a difference. I was wrong about that too. I thought ... I thought a lot of things. But I see now that we were wrong. We never should have come back. I never should have let my dad talk me into it.”

  “James, I’m sorry,” I said. “I didn’t mean to ruin your weekend. It’s just that I know you feel responsible for what happened, and when your dad told me about the car crash—”

  James’s head snapped around to look at me.

  “He talked to you about that? What did he say?”

  We turned off the highway and onto a gravel road into which countless vehicles had worn two deep parallel grooves.

  “He just mentioned it,” I said. “While we were waiting for you to come home for dinner that night.”

  James slowed the car down. The road was old and washed out in places. The trees were dense on either side, and there were no signs of life, let alone of other houses, along the desolate road.

  “Hey, do you think we could take a picnic out to that island?” I said to lighten the mood. “What are the sunsets like up here?”

  James brought the car to a stop and shut it off.

  “What did he say about it, Robyn?”

  “Nothing. Really. I don’t even know why I brought it up. We came here to get some work done and have some fun. Coming back has been hard enough on you—”

  “What did he tell you?” His eyes burned with emotion. His voice was quiet but insistent. “Please, I’m not mad at you. I won’t get mad. It’s just that after it happened, my dad and I never really talked about it. But he said something to you. What was it?”

  I hesitated.

  “Please, Robyn.”

  “He didn’t say a lot, James. Seriously. Just that it happened two years after your mom died. And that the police thought it was an accident ... He said he was in the car with you when it happened and he doesn’t blame you for what happened.”

  “What?”

  “He said you took your mom’s death hard, which is totally understandable, and—”

  “He doesn’t blame me?” James said. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  “He said you weren’t yourself after your mom died. Grief affects different people in different ways.”

  “He doesn’t blame me,” James said again. He sat very still. With the car engine off, so far from the highway and from any houses or cabins, all I could hear were birds—calling, singing, telling each other their bird secrets.

  “Is everything okay, James?”

  He nodded—curtly, almost imperceptibly—but didn’t look at me. He turned the key in the ignition and started the engine again. We drove farther down the sloping road, deeper into the woods, even farther from the main road.

  Finally we turned onto an even narrower road—a driveway, it turned out. Moments later, a two-story, chalet-style house appeared, all rich brown wood and glinting windows against a slash of blue—a lake—behind it.

  A red Honda sat on a patch of scrubby grass to one side of the driveway.

  James frowned. “That’s my dad’s car,” he said.

  “When you said he went out of town, you didn’t say this was where he went.”

  “I didn’t know.” He parked behind the other car.

  We got out, and I started to open the back door to retrieve my purse and backpack.

  “We can unload later,” James said. “Let’s see what’s going on.”

  He approached the house cautiously. He did not seem pleased that his dad had shown up. It was becoming clearer and clearer to me that there was a lot of unresolved tension between father and son.

  James climbed up onto the screened porch and opened the outer door.

  “Hello?” he called.

  “Is that you, Dee?” came Mr. Derrick’s rich, deep voice. “Is Robyn with you?”
>
  I joined James on the porch.

  “Hello!” I called.

  “Where are you, Dad?”

  “In the kitchen. Come on through. And lock the front door behind you, will you, Dee?”

  James’s frown deepened, but he did as he was told. We walked through a large, sunny living room to the spacious kitchen at the back of the house. The kitchen overlooked another screened porch, through which I could see the dazzling blue of a vast lake dotted with treed islets. The view would have been breathtaking if I had been able to give it my full attention. But I was distracted—by the man kneeling on the kitchen floor with his hands clasped behind his head, and by the gun in Richard Derrick’s gloved hand.

  J

  ames stared first at the man on his knees and then at his father. My attention was riveted to the man. I recognized him even though I had never met him. It was the same man who had been in all those pictures on James’s cell phone.

  “What are you doing here?” James said to his father. “What’s he doing here?”

  Mr. Derrick shook his head slowly.

  “We talked about this, Dee,” he said. “We talked about it dozens of times.”

  My eyes went back to the gun. What was going on?

  “You know the plan,” Derrick said.

  “Dad!” James looked frantically at me.

  “It’s all right,” Mr. Derrick said. “We don’t have anything to hide from Robyn. We talked about this, Dee. We talked about how it would go. He spotted us up here. He recognized us. He recognized you. He threatened to get even with you back then. The police know he did. They have a record of it. And he’s never forgotten that threat. He’s never stopped blaming you for his family leaving.”

  The kneeling man looked up, and James met his eyes. The color drained from James’s face. One of the man’s hands reached out, groping for anything that could steady him. He found nothing.

  “But I thought—”

  “You thought what?” Mr. Derrick said.

  “You got that new job in Australia. You’re going back to teaching. I’m going to college. We’re getting out of here. I thought we could put this behind us.”