Dooley Takes the Fall

by Norah McClintock

  There they were, those tears. They streaked down her cheeks, pooled at her jaw line, and fell like plump raindrops into her lap. She didn’t seem to notice.

  “But it didn’t turn out that way. Mark jumped out of the car and he grabbed the guy’s gun. Do you believe it? He was eleven years old—well, almost twelve. It was two weeks before his twelfth birthday. Anyway, I guess the guy was taken by surprise or something because the next thing I knew the gun went off again, only this time it was the carjacker who was shot, not Mark. The guy fell down and Mark started kicking him. The guy was lying there on the ground—I don’t know if he was dead of not. I couldn’t take my eyes off Mark. He was kicking him and kicking him and kicking him. You can’t believe the sound it made.” She shuddered, as if she were hearing it right that second. “He was still kicking the guy when the police got there. He didn’t even check to see how my dad was. Neither of us did. Can you believe it? We didn’t even check. He could have been alive and we wouldn’t have known it. By the time the police and the ambulance got there, though, he was dead. That’s what the ambulance guys said. Mark was a mess. He kicked the guy until he couldn’t stand up anymore. And I was screaming. That’s what Mark said. He said I was screaming and he was yelling at me to stop, but I wouldn’t. He said that scared him worse than anything.”

  Jesus, Dooley thought. He didn’t know what to say. He got up, grabbed a box of tissues from an end table, and handed it to her. She pulled out a tissue and wiped her eyes and her cheeks.

  “Anyway,” she said, “I guess you could say we both had problems after that.” Dooley just bet they did—Everley especially. He wondered how much Beth knew about her brother and what he’d been up to. “I’d get scared,” she said. “Strange people, sudden moves, loud noises, that kind of thing. My mom took me out of public school and sent me to a small private school. Mark had different problems. He used to get so angry. But never with me. He never got angry with me. He always looked after me.”

  And that, Dooley guessed he was supposed to assume, was why Mark Everley told his friends that his sister went to a special school. To protect her. But what did he expect her to do with her life? Become a nun?

  She blew her nose delicately and looked at Dooley.

  “I thought that was why he didn’t want to introduce me to his friends.”

  It sounded like a good reason not to introduce her to Landers. But what about Rhodes?

  “Later that night, Mark told me it was also because of the way his friends were with girls. He said they were never serious, that they were only interested in one thing.”

  Dooley flashed on an image of Landers at the party, pushing himself on Esperanza. Yeah, he could see how a guy wouldn’t want to introduce his own sister to someone like that.

  “Win, though, he’s different,” Beth said. “He called me the next night and we talked for an hour.” A smile played across her mouth. Dooley tried to imagine what it must be like to be the guy who could make her glow like that. “He’s kind of shy, you know? He called me four or five times before he finally asked me out.” Dooley wished he could ask her out. He wished that there was even a ghost of a chance that if he did, she would say yes. “It didn’t work out, though, because then Mark died and Win… I guess he thinks I need some time. He’s been great. He calls all the time to see how I am. He threw that party to raise money for the scholarship. He even came over one time and talked to my mother—told her all kinds of nice things about Mark. It meant a lot to her.” Her eyes were moist now and Dooley was afraid she was going to start crying again. There was no way he could even consider showing her the other pictures. If it ever came to it, he sure didn’t want to be the one to show her how fucked up her brother really was. “Why do you want to know how Win’s parents are with their servants?”

  Dooley shrugged.

  “Curiosity, I guess,” he said. “I never saw a place like theirs before. I never knew anyone with a maid. I was just wondering.”

  She nodded and they sat there for a few moments, Dooley wishing he could think of something to say and wishing even more than that that he was in the same league as Rhodes so that at least he’d have a fighting chance, and Beth, well, Dooley guessed she was thinking either about her brother or about Rhodes, and why not?

  “Well,” she said, breaking the silence. “I just wanted to apologize.”

  “No problem,” Dooley said, jumping to his feet when he saw she was getting up.

  She stood opposite him, looking at him. He wanted to reach out and touch her. He wanted to pull her close against him so that he could feel her all over. He wanted to kiss her and taste her and…

  She turned and started for the door. Dooley stumbled behind her. They both reached for the doorknob at the same time, their hands making contact, then they both pulled their hands back at the same time as if they had each touched an open flame which, in truth, was exactly how Dooley felt. Finally Dooley opened the door and she said a soft good-bye as she stepped out onto the porch. Dooley closed the door quickly behind her so that he didn’t look like a complete loser, but he stood there, looking out the little diamond-shaped window, watching her cross the porch, descend the steps, walk down the path to the sidewalk, and, finally, disappear from sight. Only after she had vanished did he think again about Esperanza.

  Esperanza with her soft sweet Spanish accent.

  Esperanza who was afraid of something.

  Esperanza with her secret.

  Then he was ran up to his room, taking the stairs two at a time, praying that his uncle hadn’t done one of his circuits of the house with a big trash bag, emptying all the wastepaper baskets.

  And…

  No. It was still there where Dooley had left it. He scooped it out now—the business card he had found in Everley’s backpack—Bryce Someone-or-other, who had something to do with immigrants and refugees, together with the scraps of paper that had fallen out of the notebook along with the card. He glanced at the scraps. Everley had photocopied something—it looked like something from the newspaper—and then had torn it up. Dooley threw them back into the wastepaper basket. He read the address on the business card and then stuck it into his pocket.

  Twenty-Five

  The address turned out to be a large office above a hardware store. The place was open-concept. Just inside the door, facing what Dooley took to be a reception desk, were a couple of rows of chairs where people—all kinds of people from, it looked like, all over the world—were waiting with, in some cases, what looked like their whole families. Beyond that were dividers that, as far as Dooley could see, marked off little cubicles where still more people sat at desks piled high with file folders while they talked to still other people.

  Dooley went up to the woman at the reception desk, who was having a conversation with a man in gray flannel pants and a sports jacket. When the receptionist finally turned to Dooley, he asked to see the man whose name was printed on the business card.

  “I’m Bryce Weathers,” the man in the gray flannel pants said. “What can I do for you?”

  Dooley had given this some thought on the way over. There were two ways to go: tell the truth or bend the truth. He chose the latter.

  “A friend of mine was in here a while ago,” Dooley said. “Mark Everley.”

  Bryce Weathers frowned. “The name doesn’t ring a bell,” he said. “What was the issue?”

  “It was about his girlfriend.”

  “Can you be more specific?”

  “Mark died a few weeks ago. His girlfriend gave me the card you gave Mark. She asked me to talk to you.”

  Dooley fished the card out of his pocket. Bryce Weathers looked at it and handed it back to Dooley.

  “Oh,” he said. “He saw Sara, not me. Sara is always running out of business cards. When she does, she grabs one of mine and scribbles her name on it.” He went up on tiptoe so that he could look over the tops of the dividers. “Down that aisle, fourth cubicle on the left.”

  Dooley followed his directions a
nd found himself looking into a cluttered cubicle at a young black woman who was talking on the phone. She looked up and waved him into a chair, putting up a finger to signal that she’d be just a minute.

  Dooley sat down and waited a couple of minutes before she finally hung up the phone.

  “What can I do for you?” she said.

  “I’m here because of my friend Mark Everley,” Dooley said. “He came to see you about his girlfriend Esperanza.”

  Sara didn’t say anything. If Dooley had been forced to name the expression on her face, he would have said it was suspicion. Dooley put the business card on the desk in front of her. She glanced at it and then looked at him.

  “Mark died a few weeks ago,” Dooley said.

  That made her sit up straight.

  “What happened?” she said.

  “He fell off a bridge. It was in the papers.”

  “The papers,” she said. “I don’t have time to read the papers. I feel like I don’t have time for anything anymore. Was it an accident?”

  “Yeah,” Dooley said. If she didn’t read the papers, what was the harm?

  She let out a sigh. “Well, thank goodness for that.”

  Dooley looked at her.

  “I’m sorry,” she said. “He was your friend. It’s just that when he was here…” She broke off. “I’m sorry. I really can’t discuss my conversation with Mark. We guarantee confidentiality.”

  “But Esperanza asked me to come,” Dooley said.

  “With all due respect, how do I know that you’re telling me the truth?” Sara said. “You could be anyone. You could be with the immigration department.”

  “I’m seventeen years old,” Dooley said, pulling out his ID to prove it. “I went to school with Mark. I know Esperanza. She needs help.”

  She looked at his ID, including his student card. Then she studied him for a moment. Dooley let her think it through.

  If she wasn’t going to tell him, she wasn’t going to tell him.

  “I’m afraid I can’t tell you anything that I didn’t already tell Mark. Esperanza’s visitor’s visa expired over a year ago. She could have applied to extend it, but she didn’t and now it’s too late. She’s in the country illegally. The only hope for her being able to get status here is to leave the country and then to apply through the regular channels. And there are no guarantees she would be accepted, especially since she extended her stay illegally in the first place.”

  Well, that explained why Mark had the business card.

  “As for her employment conditions,” Sara continued. Employment conditions? Dooley wondered what Sara was talking about. “There’s really nothing that she can do about that, either, except leave her job and try to find another one. But the reality is that it’s very difficult for undocumented workers to find decent employment. First of all, anyone who hires them knowing of their status is breaking the law. Second, without documentation, there are very few honest people who are willing to hire them. As I understand it, Esperanza got her present employment through a friend of her family’s who is also in the country legally. Her employers are fully aware of her situation. From what Mark says, it sounds as though they think they’re doing her a favor—saving her from a terrible life back home. It doesn’t matter. They are still breaking the law. So is Esperanza.”

  Dooley wondered how much of a favor Rhodes’ parents were doing. Judging by how nervous she was around Rhodes’ father, he wouldn’t be surprised to find out that Rhodes’s father was taking advantage of her situation.

  “I’m sorry about Mark,” Sara said. “And I’m sorry for Esperanza. But there really isn’t much I can do except offer to go with her to immigration.”

  Dooley thanked her for her time. He got up. As he was leaving her cubicle, he said, “Why thank goodness?” She looked at him.

  “You looked relieved when I said his death was an accident,’ Dooley said.

  She offered him a wan smile. “I was probably being over-dramatic,” she said. “But…” She hesitated again. “I gave him nothing but bad news when he was here. Just before he left, he said he had one more question.” She hesitated again. Dooley bided hid time. “He wanted to know, if anyone Esperanza knew got into serious trouble with the police and the police questioned her and found out she was here illegally, what would happen to her?”

  “What would happen?” Dooley said.

  “Well, at the moment the police have a don’t-ask, don’t-tell policy. They wouldn’t ask her about her immigration status unless it were relevant. But if someone else were to tell them, she’d be taken into custody, handed over to immigration officials, and deported.”

  He felt bad for Esperanza, too, but not too bad. Maybe she didn’t know it, but she was better off without Mark Everley. He also felt confident that, knowing what he did, he could get her to tell him whatever she knew about the pictures Everley had taken and what he had been up to the night he had died.

  Esperanza didn’t answer the door at the Rhodes residence. Rhodes did.

  “Hey, Dooley,” he said, smiling, pleasantly surprised. “My dad called me from the airport. He said you came by. What’s up?”

  Going through Dooley’s head at that exact moment were two words: think fast.

  Then it occurred to him: why not just play it straight—well, as straight as he could without blowing things for Esperanza before he had a chance to speak to her.

  “I wanted to talk to you about Mark,” he said.

  Rhodes looked surprised.

  “What about him?” he said.

  “You heard what happened at school yesterday,” Dooley said. Of course he had. Rhodes had been right there. Dooley had seen him put his arm around Beth and lead her inside. “So you probably know that the cops think maybe I pushed him off that bridge.”

  Rhodes’ cheeks turned pink. “I heard,” he said, peering at Dooley from behind the lenses of his glasses. “Did you?”

  “No,” Dooley said.

  Rhodes hesitated before opening the door wider.

  “Come on in,” he said. He led Dooley down the hall to the games room where the party for Everley’s scholarship had been held. “You want something to drink?” he said.

  “Ginger ale,” Dooley said.

  Rhodes went behind the bar and pulled a can of soda and a beer from the fridge.

  “You sure you don’t want something else?” he said. He held up the beer can. “Something with a little more kick? We got it all.”

  “Ginger ale is fine,” Dooley said.

  Rhodes shrugged and tossed him the can of ginger ale.

  He twisted the cap off a beer for himself and waved Dooley over to a couch.

  “You knew Mark pretty well, didn’t you?” Dooley said.

  “Sure. As well as anyone, I guess. Why?”

  “He ever strike you as… odd?”

  “Odd?”

  “Strange,” Dooley said, trying to clarify without getting into too much detail. “For example, he sure seemed to like to pick a fight.”

  “Mark had issues,” Rhodes said. “Something about what happened to him when he was a kid.”

  “Did he tell you about that?”

  “Not much,” Rhodes said. “Just that his father was murdered. He didn’t go into details. But my mom used to be a social worker, so I know all about stuff like that. Mark’s father was killed right in front of him. Mark had problems with that. People see something like that…” His voice trailed off and he shook his head again.

  “Did he ever say anything to you about other stuff he might have done? Weird stuff?”

  “Weird stuff? Like what?”

  “He never mentioned anything about, say, animals?”

  “Animals?” Rhodes looked completely baffled. “What are you talking about, Dooley?”

  Yeah, Dooley, what are you talking about? What kind of person would collect small animal skulls? A sick person, that’s what kind. And how likely do you think that person would be to discuss that collection with his pals? He de
cided to try another tack, feel things out a little.

  “Do you know if Mark was seeing anyone?”

  “You mean, did he have a girlfriend? Why?”

  “If he was, maybe I could talk to her. Maybe—”

  Dooley’s pager vibrated. He dug it out of his pocket and looked at it. Wouldn’t you know it?

  “Everything okay?” Rhodes said.

  “I have to make a call,” Dooley said, looking around.

  Rhodes looked at him as if he’d just dropped down from Mars.

  “You don’t have a cell phone?”

  Dooley shook his head. He was definitely going to have to do something about that.

  “You can use that phone,” Rhodes said, nodding to the one on the end of the bar.

  Dooley thought about what his uncle, who had just paged him, would say if he found out that Dooley was at Winston Rhodes’ house after everything that had happened and after his uncle had warned him to stay away from Rhodes and the rest of them.

  “I think I’m going to have to find a pay phone,” he said.

  Rhodes thought for a moment. “I think the closest one is…well, to be honest, I have no idea where the closest one is. But there must be one in the neighborhood somewhere.”

  Shit.

  “My uncle,” Dooley said, feeling as lame as he no doubt sounded. “After what happened at your party…”

  Rhodes understood immediately.

  “You can use the phone here,” he said. “We’re not listed. The read-out says Private Number. You could tell him you’re at a friend’s house.”

  Dooley supposed he could, if he thought his uncle would believe for one minute that he even had a friend.

  “Or maybe you borrowed someone’s cell phone,” Rhodes said. “You know, someone who wants to keep it private.”