“I must have dozed off,” Mary answered. Must have, though she couldn’t remember the last few moments before drifting off to sleep, nor were there any recollections of dreaming, those piecemeal snippets that usually survived reentry into the waking world at least as much as the washed-out memories of her father’s death had. Maybe she was just tired, too tired to dream, or too tired to care about dreaming. She had not slept well since...it happened. That was something her mother would not want to hear, and therefore something she would not share. “How are you, mom?”
“Fine, as always. How are you, sweetie?”
“Good. I’m doing good. What are you up to?”
“I’m knitting a sweater. Have I made you a sweater yet?”
Mary looked at the blue and white Afghan draped on the back of the couch, and pictured the matching yellow scarf and bonnet tucked away in her ‘I’ll wear that someday’ drawer. Well, there was still room in that drawer. “Not yet.”
“I didn’t think I had. You like yellow, don’t you?”
“Love it.” A white lie...so what? The woman was old and born to dote. Add to that busy hands and Mary knew the good Lord had created a fleshy machine that ate yarn and spit porous winter wear.
“Tomorrow I’m starting on ski caps for Kyle and Gary.”
Case closed, Mary thought, smiling at the receiver and thanking God that her sister had chosen children over career. That meant the drawer might not spill over to another for two or three years. Mary’s nephews would be buried in yarn by then. “What color?”
“Blue for Kyle and red for Gary. Gary will want the blue one but Kyle is older and Julie says it’s his favorite color.”
“How is sis?”
“Worried about you,” Jean Louise Austin answered casually. “I told her not to be. So, tomorrow...are you prepared?”
“I have my lesson plans right...” Mary patted her lap, but it was empty. Her eyes darted about, searching, not having to travel far. On the spotless glass surface of the coffee table, hardly a kick distant from the chair, the pages she’d been working on were neatly stacked, her pen laying on top. “...here.”
A brief, pensive quiet rushed the distance from the green corner house north of Chicago. “Is something wrong, Mary?”
“No,” she answered quickly. “No. Of course not. I just... I shouldn’t have let myself doze off. Afternoon naps leave me feeling all dopey.”
“Do you know that I have never taken a nap?” Jean Louise Austin asked matter-of-factly. “As far back as my memory goes it’s been up at six and to bed at ten. Of course I had a few late nights when you and Julie were babies, but even then I didn’t nap.”
“That’s that farm blood in you, mom,” Mary said, listening as her mother snickered softly over the clicking of her knitting needles. “Rest to you is hanging the laundry out to dry.”
“Idle hands breed idle thoughts. So, tomorrow...”
“Tomorrow will be fine.”
“Will all of your students be returning?”
Mary nodded before speaking, feeling the polite, evasive bluntness that her mother had mastered over the years. Asking ‘Had Maureen been sick long?’ instead of ‘What killed your daughter, Mrs. Green?’ Or when Mrs. Patterson’s oldest boy Neal was arrested for torching the dumpster behind Zebo’s filling station, her mother had inquired if ‘Neal would be at the Fourth of July block party?’ The knitting machine shunned conflict like the plague. She’d even refused to sue the company whose truck had run the stop sign and killed her husband. A dozen lawyers had stuffed their cards in the door jam.
“They’re all coming back,” Mary said as she glanced at the opening to the dark hallway. Poking from the shadows of her bedroom and sweeping back and forth on the floor was a finger of orangish fur, the extreme back end of her lazing cat. “All of them.”
“I can’t understand why the police would think any of your students would do what was done to that boy,” Jean Louise Austin commented, pausing just long enough that tact seemed possible when she added, “However awful he was. Julie mentioned that his family has a lawyer.”
Vintage mom, Mary thought...lovingly, though there was that wee feeling that the walls were a bit closer than before the call, the air thicker. Illinois was a good distance, she thought. A healthy distance. Little sis Julie lived in Georgia and summered in Maine. “You know how some people react.”
“Spiteful people,” Jean Louise Austin agreed, adding her own elaboration as her busy hands knitted on. Clickity click click. “So have the police found who did do it?”
“I think they’re still looking at my kids.”
“What do they think, that my daughter has a bunch of little murderers in her class?”
“They say they have evidence.”
“Phooey. I have the class picture you sent me on my wall. Those children are beautiful, sweet creatures.” Except the one whose narrow head stood just that much above his classmates, Jean Louise Austin thought but didn’t say. And he was beyond suspicion, unless he’d committed the oddest kind of suicide she’d ever heard of. “You know the children. Could any of them do this?”
Mary didn’t have to think hard for an answer, but she found herself reluctant to give it voice. Not because she lacked belief in it. In fact, the exact opposite was the reality, and that was what gave her pause. She knew that none of her kids could have killed Guy Edmond. Knew without a doubt.
Not believed...knew.
She knew that they had not killed Guy, despite the evidence, despite that little demon called logic telling her in one ear that it was possible. Whatever it was that was talking into the other ear talked much louder and offered something infinitely more palatable.
Besides, she simply knew, strongly enough that if this were some junior high challenge she would have sworn on her dead father’s grave.
That voracity shocked her.
“They didn’t do it,” Mary finally answered. Not even ‘couldn’t have’. Did not.
The satisfied nod traveled the miles from middle America, silent and powerful just the same. The needles quieted. “You are a wonderful teacher, sweetie. I’m sure your students know that. Help them, sweetie. Help them all move on.”
Mary watched the cat’s tail twist and curl sluggishly, like a New Year’s party favor being tooted limply by a reveler long on drink and short on breath. After a second she looked back out to the rain and said, “I’m going to try.”
“Try nothing,” Jean Louise Austin countered. “You do. You are a doer. Am I right?”
“You’re right,” Mary replied obediently, and the needles began their clickity click click again, the weave continuing. She flinched as the night outside flashed white, and drew her free arm tight across her chest, bracing for the thunder. It came fast, shaking the windows, and died slowly, a fierce roar fleeing into the storm. “Is it raining where you are, mom?”
“Like God himself turned on the tap,” Jean Louise Austin answered, the moment then sinking into a wordless quiet ruled by the joust of the needles. A quiet near bottomless, one Mary recognized as one of her mother’s ‘blue’ moments. Jean Louise Austin ended it herself. “Losing a child must be dreadful. Even a child like that.” Click click, and then the silence was full for a few seconds, just the rain drumming on two roofs separated by thousands of miles. “I wonder if anyone sent flowers.”
Mary looked slowly over her shoulder, eyes sweeping past the hallway and fixing on the long, narrow buffet just this side of the kitchen. Baskets and vases bursting with vibrant, colorful floral life covered it, and the floor around it, and half the counter space in the kitchen, the perfume of the arrangements charging every room with the scent of a June garden in bloom.
People had sent flowers.
Mary shivered and looked away.
“I doubt it, mom.”
Three
The rain stopped about five, the clouds blown eastward toward the Cascades by an Alaskan cold front. Seattle was going to have its first icy night of the season.
Dooley laid two pieces of split pine on the fire and drew the wire mesh screen shut. He sat in his den in a chair that was close enough to feel the heat thrown from the growing blaze, but from which he could also look off through the bay window and watch the boats flit about in the harbor.
Every so often a small burst of embers would crackle sharply from one of the logs, and every so often Dooley would twist the cork from a bottle of chardonnay and add a bit to his glass. He sipped, watched the boats, and let himself be warmed by the fire.
And he waited.
Near nine in the evening the doorbell rang pleasantly, a soft chiming that drew Dooley’s eyes from the parade of fishing boats straggling in for the night. Feet shuffled on the old planks of his porch, and when he looked past the kitchen and through the darkened living room to the front door a foggy black smudge moved across the frosted pane set into the wood.
The bell rang a second time. Dooley set his wine aside, light from the fire glinting off the sweating glass in dazzling four-point sparks. He went to the living room and stood in the quiet night filling the space. The shape on the porch shifted back and forth in silhouette. In halting, visible shivers as the cold took its toll on whoever was blotting the yellowed light of the streetlamp.
But this shadowmaker was not an enigma. Dooley knew who it was. Knew who it would be even before the moment came.
The shadow stilled as Dooley approached and opened the door.
“Detective Ashe,” Joel Bauer said, his determination to speak some piece as apparent as the white, misty breath that rolled off each word. “I don’t know you at all, but from the little I’ve been told I get the sense that you’re a good cop. The kind who could never walk away from a case. The kind who’d never give up.” An icy gust moved across the porch, tossing the hem of his overcoat. He looked into the wind, short hair barely moving, then back to Dooley. “I’m a good cop, too, Detective Ashe.”
A heady proclamation, Dooley could have thought, but the expression Joel Bauer wore, equal parts steel and plea, might have been his some ten years earlier. Or ten months.
Certain crimes got under a good cop’s skin, and itched, and nagged, and refused to go away. Couldn’t be salved into remission, not with rationale, or promises, or even time. Certainly not with bad booze.
Or even good wine...
Dooley’s eyes dipped briefly, then traveled again to Joel Bauer. “You look cold.”
“I am.”
Dooley stepped aside, opening the door wide. After a moment’s hesitation, Joel came in from the cold.
* * *
Only one boat remained on the water, a tight cluster of white lights bobbing toward its mooring. Joel stood close to the window, a glass of wine held gut-high.
“Is this good?” Joel asked, lifting the glass and turning to face his host. “I’m usually a beer drinker. Bartlett doesn’t pay enough to drink much else.”
From his chair Dooley attempted a polite smile, but the expression was barely an approximation. “Wine Spectator rates it a ninety-seven.”
“So that’s good?”
Dooley nodded.
“You have a nice place here,” Joel said. His eyes played over the room and its precise, complimentary furnishings. “View. Everything.”
“My ex decorated it.”
Joel nodded and took the seat opposite Dooley. A low, cedar table separated them. “You were married.”
“I was.”
A slow, agreeable nod now, and Joel said, “Ten years now for me. We have two kids. Our son’s nine and we just had a girl three months ago.” He flashed a smile that died of loneliness a few seconds later. “Do you have any?”
“No,” Dooley answered. It felt like a lie, though it was most definitely not.
Joel noticed his host shift where he sat, eyes drifting off to the glowing hearth. “I was surprised when Lieutenant Evans told me you’d be at Anchor Bay today. Were you—”
“You came for a reason?” Dooley focused a hard, sour gaze on Joel as he interrupted the inevitable question.
“I did. I think you know why.” Joel cupped his glass now in two hands as he leaned forward, forearms on knees. “That’s why you wouldn’t talk to me earlier. I told you where I was from.”
“I read the papers,” Dooley confirmed blandly.
“We had a thirteen year old male killed at school,” Joel began to explain, looking occasionally to the golden swirl of chardonnay. “Just a kid. His skull was crushed by a single blow from a baseball bat. Six of his classmates found him, and their prints are the only ones on the bat. One of the six had a broken arm,” he qualified with a raised brow. “The day before a few dozen kids used this bat. Not a print from anyone else on the handle. Not a one. The state lab says the handle was wiped clean before the kids’ prints got on there.”
“One-armed kids don’t play baseball anyway,” Dooley commented obviously.
“And sixth graders aren’t supposed to kill each other,” Joel reminded him.
Dooley lifted the bottle of chardonnay by its neck, swished the scant contents, and tipped the remains into his glass. He dipped a finger into the liquid and, content that the chill was still sufficient, drank slow on it for a moment. “Since when are sixth graders unsupervised?”
“It happened at recess, behind a classroom. There’s a fence there and an orchard beyond that. It’s not a witness-friendly environment. Their teacher was on her break in the teachers’ lounge, and the ones watching the kids at recess were on the opposite side of the building leading a game. Softball or kickball. Something like that. The first any adult knew about it was when one of the six kids came to the office for help.”
“And what do these kids say happened?”
“They say they found him laying there with the bat next to him. And they all deny touching it.”
Dooley let his hand and glass drape lazily over the arm of the chair. His expression edged toward softness. “Kids can lie.”
Joel nodded. “You ever try getting permission to hook an eleven year old to a polygraph?”
“Eleven, no,” Dooley answered.
Realization showed quickly in Joel’s expression, as a curious, morbid eyebrow raised. He started to say something, hesitated, then finally asked, “Jimmy Vincent’s almost thirteen now, isn’t he?”
Dooley nodded. “Almost.”
“Were you there to see him today?” Joel probed further, testing earlier waters.
Words strung together with a rising tone at the end. A question. How close it came to picking at a scab reluctant to heal. “Don’t be fascinated by him. He’s not remarkable. He killed three little boys. Anyone could kill three pre-schoolers.”
“But you got him to admit to it,” Joel said. “What did the headshrinkers try for? Six months? You broke through in one.”
“Six weeks,” Dooley corrected, noting the admiration in the young detective’s voice. Far too much, he thought. “Criminals eventually talk.”
“Eventually is a long time to a family wanting to know why their child had his head bashed in at school,” Joel observed, and the brief sideways glance Dooley steered his way told him that his words had hit home.
“How much cooperation are you getting?”
“The school district is behind us,” Joel answered. “They need to know who did what as much as we do. More than that, they can’t look like they’re hindering the investigation.”
Dooley nodded slightly. “How long did it take the family to get a lawyer?”
“Eight hours. Just in time for a weepy press conference on the late news. The papers should be filed tomorrow morning.” Joel ‘tinged’ his glass with a flick of his finger. “One hundred million dollars.”
“How about the parents of your six suspects?”
“Not as easy. No one’s little angel would do such a thing, and how dare I suggest they would. They’re cooperating, barely.”
Dooley stood and approached the window looking out to the harbor. He stood close, his breath leav
ing transient, foggy ovals on the glass. “And the kids just found him.”
Joel stared into the fire, hot yellow licks spiraling upward from crumbling knots of orange and black. “These six, I don’t know...”
“But you’re thinking something,” Dooley said. “So share.”
“Perfect little kids. Polite. Smart. Good kids. Five of them run the class. President, vice president, stuff like that.”
“But?”
“I spent hours with each one, but afterward I got the feeling that there was one little brain telling the mouths what to say.”
“Rehearsed?”
“I wouldn’t doubt that at all.”
“It sounds like a tight, happy group.”
“Tight as tight gets. I would have thought more than one would be scared enough to tell the truth. One little girl I was sure of. But they’re not. They’re together on this. As for happy...” Joel shook his head at the rug. “I don’t think they should have the choice to be happy. I think they should be dogged until one of them breaks.”
“You think one of them did it and the rest are covering?”
Joel contemplated the question for a moment. “They’re all guilty, if you ask me.”
A faint, knowing smile reflected back at Dooley in the glass. “How long have you been working murders?”
“Murders?” A muddled snicker slipped from the detective. “People don’t get murdered in Bartlett that often. I made detective three years ago and I’ve worked five. Four of those were drug related, and the last one was a lady who got tired of her husband beating the crap out of her and administered some twelve gauge justice to his sleeping head. I solved them all.”
The smile dissolved. “Felt good to put ‘em away, didn’t it?”
“All but the wife.”
“Ah, so you do know what you get when you mix black and white.”
“Pardon?”
Dooley turned away from the window and eased over to the fireplace, letting an elbow rest on the simple mantle, his wine glass dangling. It was nearing empty. “Nothing. An objective lesson. So, all your guilty little children...” A quick, improper toss finished off the remaining chardonnay. “Why kill their friend?”
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