Twenty Minutes Late

by Caroline Crane

  Chapter Five

  Maddie eased her old red Chevy into the driveway and parked behind Ben’s truck. She had survived her first day at public school. Now they would be asking her all about it.

  She stayed in her car with the doors locked, steeling herself to get out. Home wasn’t safe anymore. Evan could be anywhere. Lurking behind the rhododendrons that grew tall and thick. Or in Ben’s truck, although Ben always locked it even at home.

  The truck didn’t mean Ben was there. He usually walked to school. It was less than a mile. This was the day of his Sci Fi Club. She would be alone in the house except for the dogs. Evan had made a point of befriending those dogs.

  She had her key ready. The kitchen door opened without it.

  Ben stood resting against a counter. Rhoda, their mother, sat at the table with a plate of Ritz crackers and an unopened jar of peanut butter. The conversation stopped when Maddie went in. Rhoda gave her an absentminded smile.

  Maddie said, “What are you guys doing home?”

  Rhoda sometimes came home early if she had no more appointments. But Ben?

  Neither of them answered. She asked Ben, “What happened to Sci Fi?” He had founded the club. He wouldn’t miss a meeting.

  He shrugged. “It’s still there. Unless it isn’t.”

  “But you’re not? What happened?”

  “A lot.” He poked at the buttons on the dishwasher.

  “You quit the club?”

  “I quit everything.”

  She turned to her mother, who kept a wary eye on Ben.

  Maddie took a breath. “Would somebody mind—”

  Ben said, “I’m out of Lakeside. As of today.”

  “Lakeside? Threw you out? How could they?”

  He left the dishwasher and scrubbed at a spot on the marble countertop.

  “It started yesterday.” His jaw tightened. He had a strong jaw, a vivid, handsome face with dark eyes and an olive complexion. Long ago, Maddie’s friends decided he must be some kind of Eastern prince. Or a Barbary pirate.

  He went on scrubbing, giving it all his attention. “I didn’t want to talk about it then. I hoped that was the end of it.”

  Maddie tried not to scream with frustration. “What started yesterday?”

  “The truth is—” He tackled the spot as though life depended on it. “It started before that, but yesterday they took it to a new level. They called me out of class, down to the conference room. Did you know there’s a conference room next to Payton’s office? I used to wonder what that door was.”

  She gritted her teeth.

  “That was yesterday.” He always had to explain, to make sure people got it. “They kept me there two and a half hours with Yeager screaming and yelling the whole time.”

  It didn’t surprise her that he was upset. Ben couldn’t stand even a minute of yelling. He never went to football games. “Who’s Yeager?”

  “Some sort of attorney.” Ben showed her a cartoon he had drawn of a man with whiskers and a boater hat. Ben was a brilliant cartoonist. He was good at so many things.

  “I’m not kidding,” he said. “About the screaming. I thought he’d give himself a stroke.”

  “Weren’t you scared? I’d fall apart if somebody yelled at me for two hours.”

  “Two and a half by the time they finished. I was numb. Payton didn’t do anything except tell me I’d be dragged away in handcuffs like that old guy last year who used to hang around.”

  So that was what happened. Maddie felt sorry for the old man even though he probably was up to no good.

  “Then today,” said Ben, “they got me again. Marched me out right in front of the whole class. Two guys I never saw before, one on each side, like I was some kind of crook.”

  She would have died if they did that to her. Ben must be very strong to survive it.

  “What was it this time?” she asked. “More yelling?”

  “This was sentencing day. Three weeks’ suspension. They can go to hell. I’m not setting foot on their hallowed ground again.”

  “But why? What did you do?” She looked to her mother for enlightenment. Rhoda must have heard it all, but said nothing.

  Ben glanced uneasily at his mother. As though he might not have told her everything.

  “They’re drawing up charges,” he said. “And then there’s a hearing. According to Yeager, I’m guilty of harassment.”

  Her own brother. Maddie felt the blood heat right up to her scalp.

  “You creep! After what I went through with Evan! How could you?”

  “Madelyn!” shouted her mother.

  Maddie kept quiet, but the red was still there in front of her eyes.

  “I’ll thank you,” Rhoda said, “not to jump to conclusions. That’s what they did. Although,” she added, “they should know the facts. Payton should, anyway.”

  Maddie clutched at her head to keep it from exploding. “What facts?”

  “The facts in this case. It wasn’t at all what happened to you.”

  “Okay, tell me.”

  Ben drummed his fingers on the back of a chair. He did it without making a sound but Maddie couldn’t watch. Her nerves were already in pieces.

  He noticed what he was doing, and stopped. “There was this girl.”

  “Kelsey Fritz?”

  Rhoda shook her head, but it wasn’t news to Maddie. Ben had talked about Kelsey for months. He seemed to think his infatuation was an exciting new adventure.

  “We were getting along great,” he said. “That’s what I thought. We liked the same music, the same books. She talked about joining the Sci Fi Club.”

  “Because of you?”

  “Because she likes sci fi, okay? Anyhow, I thought we were in sync. I thought—well, anyhow I asked her if she’d want to go and see Galaxy Seven.”

  “You asked her out?” As far as Maddie knew, it was a first for Ben. “What did she say?”

  Again, Rhoda shook her head. “Please let him talk.”

  She was letting him talk. She only tried to move things along. It never worked with Ben.

  “That’s what I don’t understand.” He punched the refrigerator, then looked to see if he’d made a dent.

  “She didn’t say anything. She just froze up. It’s not like I asked her to go to bed with me, so what the hell? I tried to find out what was wrong.”

  He punched harder. Rhoda winced. It was a brand new refrigerator, shiny black.

  “She wouldn’t tell me,” he said.

  Maddie asked, “She never heard of just saying no thanks?”

  “It’s possible she said something and I just didn’t get it. People never come right out and say what they mean.”

  Kelsey might have tried to let him down gently, not realizing that with Ben you had to be clear and specific.

  “I wanted to know if something was wrong,” he said, “like with her or with me. All she did was shake her head and walk away. What kind of answer is that? I tried emailing. I thought it might work if she didn’t have to talk to me. She could have deleted all the messages but she printed them. Now they’re in Yeager’s hands and I don’t know who else’s.”

  Maddie’s anger evaporated. Ben was a man, almost old enough to vote, but in some ways, he was still so innocent. He just didn’t understand people. And they didn’t understand him. They took it for granted that he should be like them and damned him if he wasn’t, even though he couldn’t be. He wasn’t put together the same as they were. So damn them, too.

  “That sucks.” She had never thought much of Kelsey. Or even really noticed her until Ben did. A colorless wimp. Who knew she could be such a bitch?

  Ben never had an easy time of it, but this was a new low. All he wanted was a friend.

  “It sounds to me like a set-up,” she said.

  “I doubt it. She’s not the conniving type.”

  “Then she’s just loony. It’s too bad you couldn’t drop it and leave her alone. Give her up as a lost cause. There are other girls.”

/>   Not for Ben. He must have thought he’d found his soul mate.

  “I only wanted her to tell me what was wrong. Why couldn’t she tell me?”

  “Because she’s psycho. Or maybe she doesn’t know herself what’s wrong. It could be some deep hidden problem that she’s not aware of.” Maddie glanced at her mother who was a trained psychologist. Rhoda had nothing to say.

  “I thought we could skip the show,” Ben said, “and go on being friends. I still don’t see why not. I never made a move on her.”

  “But you kept after her,” said Maddie.

  “I, uh—I called her home a couple of times. It’s an unlisted number. That might be one of the things they have against me.”

  Ben could be such an idiot at times.

  But how did that blow up into three weeks’ suspension? Why couldn’t they just talk to him?

  They might have thought they did, with that Yeager person ranting for two hours. Payton should have known better. The whole system was biased in favor of Kelsey. As it ought to be, Maddie felt after her experience with Evan. But in this case, no allowance was made for Ben’s disability. They called it that, even though it often seemed to Maddie that other people were the disabled ones, both mentally and morally.

  “Ben,” said his mother. “You’re a big, strong man.”

  That interested him. He waited for the rest of it.

  “Big strong men,” Rhoda continued, “aren’t always aware of the effect they have on other people.”

  “What effect?”

  “Their size, their strength, can be intimidating if they keep after a woman and she’s not sure of their intentions.”

  “My intentions were always honorable. She should have trusted me.”

  His mother agreed, but added, “She doesn’t know you the way we do. It might have seemed to her like stalking.”

  He groaned. “It did. But how could she think that? I never did anything to threaten her. I thought we were friends.”

  “It was the persistence,” Rhoda said. “I know you didn’t think of that. You couldn’t see it from her point of view.”

  Ben had trouble seeing anything from someone else’s point of view. It was part of the syndrome, and no one understood that.

  Maddie still wasn’t satisfied. “But why the big fuss over that when they blew off what Evan did to me? He hit me.”

  Ben rested back against the dishwasher. “Evan’s a football player. He’s valuable.”

  “For what? That whole team is a joke. Evan’s a turd and he doesn’t have half your brains. Are you going to fight this?”

  “Maybe. Later. After I see what charges they come up with.”

  “Oh, screw them. What a load of crap over such a stupid thing. Evan hit me. That’s worse than you ever did, I hope.”

  “I could never hit Kelsey. Or any girl, except maybe you. I must have really spooked her. They said she was carrying a knife.”

  Rhoda’s face went pale.

  Maddie shrieked. “A knife. What is wrong with her? If they knew it, how could they let her bring a knife to school?”

  Ben only shrugged.

  “But Evan—” She tried to breathe. She felt strangled. That would be Evan’s next move, strangling her. “He hit me. He gave me a black eye. That doesn’t bother them, and it doesn’t bother them that she has a knife to use on you. What have they got against us? Didn’t you,” she asked her mother, “give them enough money?”

  Ben poked again at the dishwasher buttons. “It’s because I’m weird. People don’t like weird.”

  Maddie remembered saying something like that to Cree Penny.

  “Oh, they’re not weird, oh no. You never did anything violent and Evan did, but he doesn’t have Asperger’s, so it’s okay. I hate that school. I hope it falls in the lake and drowns.”

  She turned to her mother. “I think you should sue them. At least get back what you paid them all those years. I mean it. What if she used her stupid knife?”

  Ben gave another shrug. He seemed resigned.

  Maddie asked, “What are you going to do? Just stay home?”

  “Hell, no. You want me to give up? I’ll go to the public school. They can’t turn me down even if I’m weird.”

  “That’s for sure,” Maddie said. “I met somebody today who hears voices in the toilet. But I have to warn you, Southbridge High is big and noisy.”

  “On the plus side,” he said, “it doesn’t have Payton. Or Yeager. Or Kelsey with her knife. You want me to stay at Lakeside?”

  “No, I hope it drowns. Would it help if I talk to Kelsey? Try to straighten her out?” She would have liked to straighten out Kelsey’s face. Flatten her nose.

  “Don’t even think about it,” he said. “I’m not supposed to have any contact with her and that goes for you, too. It’s the same thing.”

  Before she could ask how it was the same, he shoved his way past her, stormed out to his truck, and roared away.

  Chapter Six

  The first thing Cree saw as she coasted down the hill onto Riverview was Grandma’s red hair. And then Jasper. They stood alone in front of Olive’s house. Overhead a helicopter whup-whupped, flying low.

  As Cree went to join them, Grandma shaded her eyes, watching the copter. “Will you look at that. They’ve got the whole works out there, dogs and everything.”

  “It was cold last night,” Cree said. “If he’s outside, he hasn’t got a chance.”

  Grandma patted her arm. “Not to worry. None of them was cadaver-sniffing dogs, I asked. I offered to go out with Jasper but they said he’s not trained. Search and rescue dogs have to be trained.”

  “I still don’t see how he could have gone out by himself.”

  “Yes, but who would go in and take him? And why didn’t Davy see anything?”

  Phil Reimer drove up, again wearing the mustard plaid jacket that matched his car. “Hey,” he said.

  “Hey,” said Cree, and thanked him for his story. “Would you happen to know if Mrs. Hurlow is going to work?”

  “I wouldn’t happen to know anything,” he said. “I can’t even talk to her. I’ll bet you have some pull. How about you get me in there?”

  She wasn’t sure she could get herself in. “Give me a minute. I’ll see how she’s doing.”

  It wouldn’t be a minute alone. As she opened the door, voices came through it. She saw the policewoman and several neighbors in the living room.

  Olive was in the kitchen making coffee. Why weren’t those others taking care of her? Maybe she needed something to do.

  “Oh. Cree.” Her voice was flat. She wore jeans instead of her black waitress pants, and looked faded with no makeup. Her dark blond hair hung loose and lank.

  Cree said, “I was wondering if you need me today.”

  “I don’t know. Yesterday was shot and I’ll lose my job. What am I going to do?”

  “Wouldn’t they understand? Did you talk to them?”

  “Not yet. The cops said this could go on for days. Till they find him, I guess. If they find him.” Olive sniffled and took a tissue from a box on the table.

  Cree asked, “How’s Davy holding up?”

  “They’re talking to him now.”

  “Who’s talking to him?”

  “Some psychology people. They’re trying to make him remember.” Olive plugged in the coffeemaker.

  “Make him remember?”

  “Oh, you know. Whatever they have to do. He was right there on the couch with the TV. He’s got to know what happened.”

  “He might have been asleep. He seemed kind of groggy when I got here.”

  “He says he wasn’t.”

  “He might not remember falling asleep,” Cree said.

  “He’d remember waking up. I always do. Look, he’s got to know something, maybe a lot. He’s just being a brat. Doesn’t want to admit it.”

  She couldn’t mean what it sounded like. “Admit what?”

  “Oh, you know. It must have been him. Nobody else was here.�
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  She did mean it. Cree said, “Is that what you think?”

  “It’s what they all think. They got him to admit nobody was here, and then he clammed up.”

  Of course, he clammed up. He would be frightened out of his mind, one little kid against a roomful of inquisitors. “How many of those people are there?”

  “Oh, two.”

  Two adults and one small child. Olive still didn’t get it.

  “Davy’s only five,” said Cree. “He must be all scared and confused with people shooting questions at him and nobody believing what he says. I think you should be there. Give him some support.”

  “They don’t want me there.”

  “You could insist. He’s your kid. You have more right than they have.”

  Olive’s face stayed blank. She thought Davy was guilty of something, even if she wasn’t sure what. They were all against him.

  Cree said, “You don’t know what they’re doing to him. They could be putting all sorts of ideas in his head. Making him say things that aren’t true just because it’s what they want to hear.”

  “Why would they do that? They’re professional people.”

  “Maybe they don’t mean to, but it happens. Kids are very suggestible. People ask leading questions and the kid says yes because he doesn’t know any better.”

  Davy was so helpless. Even his own mother wouldn’t stand up for him.

  “I read about a case once,” Cree said. “This happened years ago, a nursery school teacher in New Jersey who was accused of molesting the kids. She was in prison five years before they found out it wasn’t true. Five years out of her life. Not to mention what the kids went through, getting their heads stuffed with gruesome false memories. All because those so-called professionals planted ideas.”*

  It was more information than Olive could handle. “I don’t think anybody molested him.”

  “That’s just an example. They might think they’re doing the right thing, but if they screw up, it won’t help Kip.”

  Phil Reimer poked his head in. “How’s it going, Lucretia?”

  Cree had forgotten about him. He might be able to make Olive understand.

  Olive gave him a cold stare. “I don’t talk to the press.”