“My cards! You found my wallet!” I’m so relieved I actually smile.
He’s not feeling my vibe. “You lost your wallet?”
“Yes. I’ve been looking for it since yesterday morning. I couldn’t find it anywhere.” I turn to Mom. “Remember? I told you last night.”
Her lips are still pressed together. Her face is hard. What the fuck?
The officer writes in his pad. Why does he have my cards?
“This lost wallet. Did you report it?”
“What? No.” Do people actually do that?
“Would you like to know where we found these? Maybe you already have an idea where.”
I shake my head. None of this makes any sense to me. “No. Where?”
He starts examining my face, ignoring my question. “You have some bruises there, some scratches too. Can you tell us how you got those?”
“I got in a fight with my brother, Sunday night.” Mom’s nodding again.
The officer looks back and forth between us. “That’s how you got bruised and scratched?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Sunday night?”
“Yes.”
“Officers.” We all turn toward Mom, who hasn’t spoken until now. “I was there on Sunday when my boys were fighting. I saw the whole thing. My other son hit him pretty hard a couple of times in the face.” She looks down. “And I noticed Declan was bleeding. When he came home last night, that big scratch was scabbed over.” She points to where I got gouged by Seamus’s ring. “Not fresh.”
Not fresh? What is she talking about? Who cares how fresh my scab is? I realize she knows what they’re asking me all this for, and I don’t.
“What time was that?”
“About eight, I guess.”
I try to make eye contact with her, but she turns her face away. Why? I need her right now. I turn back to the officer who showed me the cards. “Sir, why do you have them?”
He sighs, and the two of them look at each other. The guy with the French name nods, tells the younger guy to go ahead. “They were given to us by the owner of the golf course on Harwood. He found them on his property.”
He’s studying me, waiting for my reaction.
“Golf course?”
“Yes, Mr. O’Reilly,” the French guy answers. “The Harwood Golf Course, where there’s been thousands of dollars in damage to the property. Vandalized. Someone made a nice mess spinning tires on the eighteenth-hole green and then took a joy ride in a golf cart—rammed it into the garage wall and left it on its side.”
I’m starting to get it now. “And my cards were found there, so you think I did it?”
“It seems like you were there, no? It’s a ten-minute walk from the school.”
“I didn’t do it. I’ve never been there.”
All three of them stare at me. Mom shakes her head.
“Mom, honest! I didn’t do it!”
Can she really think I did? I try to put all the pieces together. Sunday night. My wallet. Sitting by the Dumpster. How could my cards have gotten to the green? The only problem is, I’m kind of in panic mode. My brain isn’t working properly.
I look at Mom. She’s drained and tired. I remember her screaming at me the night of the fight. Does she really think I did this? I shocked her when I lost it with Seamus. Does she think I lost it after seeing Dad at Kate’s?
It seems like you were there. The officer’s words ring in my ears. How did my cards get there? And why couldn’t I find my wallet the morning after the fight?
Slowly a picture begins to take shape in my brain. I remember Seamus leaning on the hall table on his way out the door. Steadying himself on the same table where I leave my wallet and keys every night. The next morning, no wallet. He’s always hitting me up for money. Was he still mad because I said no when they showed up at the rink? Mad enough after the fight to steal my wallet? Made a mess spinning tires. The blue Taurus?
Seamus would vandalize a golf course. Just like the shed he and his friends torched two years ago. Just like the wipers on that teacher’s car.
I feel sick to my stomach thinking about what my brother might have done to the golf course and to me. “Mom, maybe Sea—”
“No, Declan!”
“But Mom, Monday morning before school, I couldn’t find my wallet. It hasn’t turned up since. I’m sure it was on the table Sunday night.” I open my eyes really wide, trying to get her to see what I’m not saying. She knows I keep my wallet there. It’s a habit. I grab it and my keys before I leave the house, every time I go out. Everybody in the house knows that. Everybody.
I search Mom’s face. I’m sure she knows what I’m thinking. She shakes her head and presses her lips together again. Her eyes bore holes into me, warning me not to go there. It’s not the encouragement I was hoping for.
Great. Seamus must be involved in this. But it’s obvious Mom doesn’t want me to say it. What’s going to happen to me if I don’t? The police think I did it. It seems she expects me to take the rap for my brother, like she’s protecting him.
Who’s going to look out for me then?
“Officer.” I take a deep breath and turn away from Mom.
Both officers face me.
“I think I might know what happened.” I wipe my palms on my jeans. Everyone’s eyes are on me. “There’s a chance my brother took my wallet when he left here Sunday night. He’s always asking me for money. After we fought, he stopped and leaned on that table. I think he might have left with my wallet.”
“Declan! He wouldn’t! How could you—”
I turn to Mom and say, “He would. You know it too.”
The French officer holds up his pen to get me to focus on him. “You think he took it? You mean he stole it?”
It’s tough to tune Mom out. She’s shaking her head, trying to get me to stop. Stole it? I didn’t think of it like that. “I guess so. He had his back to us, and there was a lot going on. But he stopped there before he left.”
I force myself to look at Mom. She’s studying the shredded Kleenex in her hand.
“Your brother is Seamus O’Reilly?” The officers share a meaningful glance. They already know his name, but they turn to Mom for confirmation. She nods, then covers her mouth with her hand. The other hand is balled up around the shredded Kleenex.
“Officer, I’m not saying he did this thing at the golf course. But he could have taken my wallet. It wasn’t me at the golf course. I didn’t have my cards.”
“We’ll follow up on this new information. But I’m afraid we will still have to take you to the station—”
“The station? What?!” My voice cracks. “Why? I didn’t do anything!”
“We don’t actually know that yet. We’re still investigating. This is interesting new information.” He taps his pad. “We’re not charging you at this time. But we want to take your fingerprints. In order to do that, we have to take you in, so we’re arresting you. Do you understand?”
“Arrested? Charged? No!” This is going way too fast.
“For now, we want to take your fingerprints and your statement. We’re not charging you with anything—yet. We’re just going to hold on to you for a little while.” The officers smile at each other. Pricks.
“There’s a difference between being charged and being arrested?” I ask.
“Yes. You have to be arrested first to be charged, but sometimes you aren’t charged when you’re arrested. It depends on our evidence. But we need to arrest you or we can’t take you in for your fingerprints.”
“So you’re arresting me just so you can take my fingerprints?”
“Yes.” He hands Mom an official-looking paper. I can see it says Warrant on it. “He’ll be at the station in Vaudreuil. You can follow us in your car if you want to stay with him. Or you can call.” He takes a small folder out of his pocket and hands her a business card. “Ask for me or Sergeant Re
id. We can’t take you in the cruiser. Sorry.”
Mom’s still shaking her head. Ryan and Kate have her car. She can’t even come with me. “Mom! I have to go alone? Call Ryan! Call Kate! Please!” She just stands there, shaking her head.
I swallow hard. Breathe. “Sir, after you’re done fingerprinting me? What happens then?” The contents of my stomach are liquefying. My voice sounds like it did when I was twelve.
“After that you will probably just come home and have breakfast with your mom.”
Funny. But I exhale.
“What will you do with my fingerprints? How…when will I find out if you’re going to charge me?”
“Don’t worry about that now. You need to come with us.”
Is he crazy? Don’t worry? Then I think of something. “Sir, can’t my fingerprints also prove I wasn’t there?”
“Yes, they can eliminate you from the investigation.”
“Oh, they will, sir, they will.”
“We’re going to see about that.” Both officers stand up and motion for me to do the same. One of them pulls an orange zip tie out of his pocket and uses it to tie my wrists together behind me. It seems funny to me that it looks like they get their handcuffs at Canadian Tire. Then the guy who was questioning me says the scariest words I’ve heard since my parents told us they were getting a divorce.
“Declan O’Reilly, you are under arrest for…c’est quoi, méfait?” He actually has to ask his friend for the English word!
“Mischief. Public mischief.”
“Mischief. You have the right to remain silent, and you have the right to legal counsel. That means you don’t have to talk to us anymore until you speak to a lawyer. A youth-justice worker from Legal Aid will meet us at the station. Do you understand?”
I nod my head.
“Mr. O’Reilly, you have to answer the question.”
“Yes, sir.” My knees are about to give out. I’m in a cold sweat. I’m so dizzy I almost topple over. The guy holding my arms sits me down so I can put my head between my knees before I walk. He does it like it’s all in a day’s work.
I catch Mom’s face as the officers are turning me around to take me out the door. She looks terrified.
Eighteen
For the second time tonight I’m riding in a stranger’s car.
The front seats where the two officers are sitting are leather and really plush. In the back, the seats are like molded plastic buckets, and it smells like someone puked. There’s zero legroom, so I’m all cramped. Every time we turn a corner I have to brace one of my shoulders against the window or the back of the seat so I don’t tip over. The orange zip tie digs into my wrists.
Well, at least I know what happened to my wallet.
There are three panes of Plexiglas between the front and back. The middle one is open. I don’t know whether to be insulted or relieved. Between their two seats there’s a laptop, and I can hear a woman’s voice on the two-way radio. The officer with the French name is driving. Reid laughs at something he hears on the radio. He picks up the two-way and speaks into it in French, and the two of them smile at some cop in-joke. He keeps glancing back at me in the mirror. I turn my head to look out the window.
The snow beside the road doesn’t look the same from the back of a police car; it’s really far away and not part of my world anymore. Same road I walk on every day. I turn and watch it disappearing out the back window.
Funny it never occurred to me before that Seamus lifted my wallet. I only had about fifteen dollars in there. For fifteen bucks, I’m sitting in the back of a fucking police car. Unless he guessed my PIN number before he lost my bank card on the golf course. It’s 6-2-6-3: MAND. I wonder if he would have figured it out.
I keep seeing Mom’s face as I was leaving, trying to figure out what bothers me about it. It’s like she’s more afraid of something happening to Seamus than to me. Like if it’s me, it’s not real. But that zip tie biting into my skin? It’s real.
What if this gets out at school? Not if—when. I want to vomit. Maybe that’s why it smells like it does back here. What about Leah? She would never hang out with someone who got hauled to the station in the back of a police car, even if the cops did get it wrong.
The cruiser slows down and we pull into the parking lot of the Vaudreuil police station. Vaudreuil gets a bit more night action than Rigaud. A couple of cars pass on the road, and a block away there’s lights on at the Tim Hortons. Everyone else is just going about their lives.
We walk in together, right through the front door of the station. The guys all say salut and chitchat with each other, but even though their conversation’s in French, I can tell it has nothing to do with me.
I look around. It’s more like a doctor’s waiting room than a place for criminals. There’s a guy wearing a quilted work jacket and a plaid cap with flaps over his ears, fast asleep on a chair. His head is resting on a table where there’s a coffeemaker and Styrofoam cups and other coffee stuff.
Except for the guys in uniforms, the only sign of any security is another Plexiglas window, with holes you can talk through, at the reception desk. The whole place looks really modern. Sergeant Reid takes me to a small room. A sign on the door says Interrogation 1. Inside, there’s a table and three chairs and a garbage can full of fast-food wrappers and empty Tim’s cups. It smells like coffee and old fries. On the table there’s a pen and a pad of paper. It’s just a room.
He cuts the zip tie off my wrists and then apologizes before he checks all my pockets and pats me down. He puts my keys, my cigarette package, fifteen cents left over from the money Dave lent me for my lunch cookie, and my pencil stub in a little basket. “Sit here, Mr. O’Reilly. We’ll be with you shortly.”
I sit in one of the chairs.
“Oh, and I’ll need your jacket.”
I stand up and hand it over, glad that I have my plaid shirt and a T-shirt underneath, and sit down again.
“Have you ever given a statement to the police before?”
What does he think? I make weekly visits?
He explains. “Sometimes people make statements because somebody stole their lawn mower, or someone’s threatening them online…things like that.”
Oh, not just the bad guys. I shake my head.
Reid smiles at me, but I’m too nervous to say anything. I just nod. He leaves the room with my stuff and the door closes with a clunk. My stomach flips. I’m locked in. The only way to get in or out is by entering a code on a keypad beside the door. What if I have to pee?
The fluorescent light hums above me. The walls are painted concrete, and there’s a map of the Montérégie region taped up beside the door, just like the one in the main office at school. Figures that schools and police stations would get their maps at the same place.
It’s quiet.
Sergeant Reid comes back, and I’m glad to see him. He hands me a cordless phone. It’s black and grimy.
“You can call your mom if you like, let her know you’re okay. You’re safe with us. You can even sleep here.”
Was that supposed to be a joke? I take a moment to consider the possible accommodations. I don’t remember seeing any cells. I guess they wouldn’t be right out in the open like on that old police sitcom Ryan watches.
“Also, the youth justice counselor’s going to come talk to you before we do anything. Just so you understand what will happen. You’ll write your statement with him.” He pauses. “You know, about the fingerprints. Even though you say they’ll show you weren’t at the golf course, you have to understand that they could incriminate you. You have to sign a consent form saying you understand that.”
“Incriminate me?”
“Well, let’s say maybe you didn’t do this, but you did something else—stole a computer or a car or something—and we have fingerprints in the database that match. We can charge you with that too.”
“Too?”
“Don’t worry.” He slaps me on the back. “I’m pretty sure we won’t be charging you for anything tonight. We just need to ask you some more questions, get your statement. We’re going to show you some pictures from the golf course. And we need some information so we can verify where you were last night. All right?”
“I guess so.” Does that mean they have to go to my school? It’s always a big deal to see cops at school. You know someone’s in deep shit. Never thought it would be me.
He says he’ll be back later with the youth justice guy, then smiles again and leaves me with the phone. It smells like aftershave and chewing gum. When I try to dial my number, my mind goes blank, and it takes me three tries to get all the digits right.
Mom picks it up on the first ring. “Hello.” Her voice comes out fast and worried.
“Hey, Mom.”
“Dekkie! Are you okay?”
“Yeah, I’m fine. I’m just sitting in a room. It’s really quiet—”
“Did they, did anyone—”
I repeat that I’m fine except that I wish she was here. She answers me with a sigh. It’s her way of saying the topic of her coming to the police station is closed.
I try harder to get her to change her mind, but when she says she needs to stay there in case Seamus shows up, I realize there’s no use. She’s made a choice. I hear her voice, but it sounds a thousand miles away.
She asks me a bunch of questions, almost like she’s got a list, and I tell her what’s happened so far. She tells me I have to talk to a lawyer, because I’m a minor. I’m surprised to hear her say this, but I relay the information Reid gave me about the youth justice counselor. Then she asks me if I’ve been charged.
“Why would I be charged? I didn’t do anything.”
“Well, just in case things don’t go the way—”
“No, Mom. I wasn’t there, and they’re going to find that out when they take my fingerprints.”
“And be careful what you say. Don’t get them mad.”
What? Where is this shit coming from? “Why would I get them mad, Mom? I’m not your crazy son, remember?”
She doesn’t answer for a few seconds. “Did he really take your wallet?”
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