“I have a history team meeting,” she said. “I’ll be late.” There was something in her voice—a stiffness and a weariness—that jarred him.
“Okay, tomorrow then,” he said.
“We’re doing a field trip tomorrow night for English. We’re going to a play. I won’t be home until late.”
“I have to work Friday night,” he said. “Come on, Beth.”
Kevin rapped on the glass. When Dooley turned, Kevin pointed to his watch.
“You’d better go,” Beth said.
For the first time in a long time, she didn’t go up on tiptoes and kiss him before she left.
Shit.
He called her cell phone on his break. She didn’t answer. He left her a voice mail. He tried her cell again later, when he got off work. Voice mail again. He had already said what he had to say. He didn’t leave another message.
Dooley’s uncle was sitting in front of the TV, when Dooley got home.
“So, how did it go?” Dooley said.
“How did what go?”
“The cops. You went to talk to them, right?”
“Yeah, I talked to them.”
“And?”
“And what?”
“What did they want? How come they wanted to talk to you?”
His uncle leaned forward toward the TV, trying to catch the weather report, like that was more important than answering Dooley’s question, maybe even more important than going in to talk to the cops.
“What did they want?” Dooley said again, going for patience but not quite getting there.
His uncle kept his eyes on the TV screen. “They wanted to know where I was the night she died.”
That was a no-brainer. They’d asked Dooley the same question. It was police investigation 101.
“You were at the poker game,” Dooley said. “You already told them that, right?”
“Yeah,” his uncle said.
Something was wrong. Dooley saw it in the dullness of his uncle’s eyes, the slump of his shoulders.
“What else?” he said.
“They wanted to know where I was between eleven and eleven-thirty.”
“Is that when she died?” Dooley said.
His uncle nodded.
No way, Dooley thought. There was no way they could have narrowed down the time of death to such a small time frame. Thanks to all those crime-scene shows, everyone knew they couldn’t do that. The time frame was always longer.
“She was wearing a cheap watch,” his uncle said. “They showed it to me. It was broken. Time said eleven-thirteen. I think they think that means something.”
“But if you were at a poker game—”
“Seems I got there a little later than I intended.”
A little later?
“How much later?”
“A couple of hours.”
“Jesus,” Dooley said. A lot could happen in a couple of hours. “Don’t tell me you lied to the cops?”
His uncle’s eyes flicked away from the TV screen to Dooley. “I told them the truth.”
“So,” Dooley said, “when did you get there?”
“Get where?”
Where did he think?
“To the poker game.”
“A little after twelve.”
Twelve?
“So when I called you—” Dooley began slowly. He was having trouble processing this piece of news. He had called his uncle at eleven o’clock that night. He had heard music and had asked him if he was at the poker game or a party. He thought about their brief conversation. No way, he told himself. No way. Except that his uncle had given him a distinct impression. “You lied to me?”
His uncle muted the TV and turned his eyes on Dooley. His gaze was firm and steady. It felt forthright. But maybe it wasn’t. Dooley couldn’t shake the idea that his uncle was doing what Dooley himself did all the time—making a point of looking him straight in the eye because he knew if he didn’t, Dooley would think he was trying to hide something.
“It wasn’t intentional,” his uncle said. “I just lost a couple of hours, that’s all.”
“What do you mean, you lost them?”
His uncle, whom Dooley had known for a grand total of two years and had lived with for a little over six months now, and who always came across as Mr. Straight-and-Narrow, said, without a trace of apology or regret, “I guess you could say I was kind of pissed by the time I got to Jerry’s.”
“Pissed?”
“I’d had a few drinks. Maybe more than a few. I wasn’t keeping track. They talked to Jerry and some of the other guys. Then they wanted me to go down and talk to them again, so they could get everything straight.”
“And they did, right?” Dooley said. “I mean, if you had a few drinks, someone must have seen you. You told them what bar you were in?”
“I wasn’t in a bar,” his uncle said. “I was in my car.”
Alarm bells went off. “You were drinking in your car?” When did that ever happen?
“I had a bottle I was taking to the game.”
“So you had a few drinks and then what? You got so pissed that you lost track of the time, and then you drove to Jerry’s?”
“I think maybe I nodded off for a while first,” his uncle said. “It’s stupid, I know, especially considering the past six months.” The past six months, during which he had been on Dooley’s case to do the right thing, which, mostly, meant staying away from substances like alcohol. “But shit happens, right?”
Right. Except that his uncle wasn’t a guy who got pissed on his way to a poker game. He didn’t even get pissed when he was there unless the game was at his own house and he was either winning big or losing big. Getting pissed wasn’t what his uncle was about—at least, it hadn’t been up until the last couple of days. And getting pissed and then getting behind the wheel of a car? No way.
“What did the cops say?” Dooley said.
“They thanked me for coming down.”
Dooley looked at his uncle, who was staring at the TV again. Something wasn’t right. He looked around the house, feeling a void.
“Where’s Jeannie?” he said. “I haven’t seen her for a while.” In fact, he hadn’t seen her since before the cops had showed up with the news that Lorraine was dead.
“She’s busy.”
“Yeah, but I would have thought, you know, under the circumstances—”
His uncle’s eyes flicked over him, the chill in them telling Dooley that his uncle didn’t want to talk about that, either.
Oh.
“You didn’t tell her, did you?” Dooley said. He couldn’t believe it after the way his uncle had tried to make him feel about lying to Beth. “Does she even know about Lorraine?”
His uncle turned back to the TV and turned up the volume on some reality-TV bullshit that Dooley knew for a fact he wasn’t really watching. No, that was just the excuse.
Dooley hated having to wait. He also hated not knowing, which was too bad because he was faced with a whole lot of both. He hated having to wait to see Beth and not knowing what was going on, what she was thinking, if she was even thinking about him at all. He hated having to wait to find out where the cops were going with their investigation into Lorraine’s death and not knowing what they had talked to his uncle about and why they had asked Jerry Panelli all those “weird shit” questions. He hated not knowing what those weird shit questions were. He hated having to wait for his uncle to spit out whatever he seemed to be choking on and not knowing why he was acting the way he was, or even whether the way he was acting was in character or not because, when you came right down to it, he didn’t know his uncle all that well. He’d met him for the first time two years ago, and what had come after that were once-a-week, sometimes once-every-two-weeks, visits, which really didn’t tell him anything except what his uncle was like when he was doing his hard-ass, retired cop routine, visiting his newly discovered nephew who was up shit creek. Then came the past six months living in his uncle’s house. Maybe
those six months should have told him something, but, then again, maybe not. After all, his uncle had lived nearly three times longer than Dooley before Dooley had even made his acquaintance, and that made it hard for Dooley to tell if the way he had been the past six months was the way he always was or just the way he was now that Dooley was around. Finally—and, okay, it was a minor problem, all things considered—he hated having to wait for Jeffie to pay him back and not knowing whether he’d been stiffed or not. If he ever got his hands on Jeffie …
When Dooley turned up the front walk after school, a woman got out of a car that was parked at the curb. Gloria Thomas, Lorraine’s sponsor. She had a package in her hand.
“You didn’t get in touch,” she said. “So I thought I should drop by.” She held the package out to him.
Dooley looked at it. It was a squarish object in a big brown envelope.
“What is it?”
“Why don’t you open it?”
He looked at her. She didn’t know him, but he bet she thought she knew Lorraine.
She took one of his hands and folded it around the package.
“I don’t want it,” Dooley said.
Her hands were wrapped around his so that he couldn’t let go even if he’d wanted to. He saw a steely determination in her.
“About two weeks after I met your mother, she went through a bad patch,” she said. “I found her tearing her place apart, ripping things up, smashing things—she was on a real rampage. I managed to wrestle this away from her. I was sure she’d regret it if she destroyed it. When she pulled herself together, she asked me to keep it for her. It’s yours now. What you do with it is up to you. It was very nice meeting you, Ryan.”
She released his hand and started back to her car.
“Hey!” he called.
She turned.
“You said she called you the night she died.”
She nodded.
“What time?”
He could tell she was wondering why he wanted to know, but she didn’t ask.
“Ten,” she said, “according to the read-out on my home phone.”
The cops knew Lorraine had been alive at ten o’clock. They figured, by her watch, that she’d died a little more than an hour later. What they didn’t know for sure yet—his uncle said they were treating her death as suspicious—were the circumstances. It made Dooley uneasy.
She walked to the curb and climbed back into her car. Dooley went around the side of the house where his uncle kept the garbage cans. He removed the lid from the nearest can and dropped the package inside. On his way back to the house, he realized that Gloria Thomas’s car was still there. Their eyes met. Then she turned the key in the ignition and pulled out onto the street.
Jeannie came over that night—for the first time in a long time. She filled the house with her perfume, made his uncle smile a little, and, when she went upstairs with him later, made Dooley yearn for Beth. He tried Beth’s cell. No answer. He prowled restlessly in his room. There was too much going on, too much to think about, and no way to make it all go away.
As soon as things quieted down in his uncle’s bedroom, Dooley went outside and dug Gloria Thomas’s package out of the garbage can. He held it in his hands. It felt like some kind of book. He thought about opening it but couldn’t make himself do it. He wanted to tear it up, burn it, shred it, stomp it, hack it to pieces. His hands picked at the corner of the envelope. If he kept it, he’d destroy it for sure. He lifted the lid on the garbage can again. Then hesitated. Finally he took the package inside and slipped it into his backpack.
Six
Warren stopped short when he rounded the corner at school the next day and saw Dooley standing at his locker.
“You can’t make it,” he said, despondent but resigned.
“What?” Dooley said.
“Alicia’s party. You can’t make it.” He shook his head. “I already told her you were coming. She was so excited—”
“I said I’d be there, and I will,” Dooley said.
“Really?”
“Even if I have to call in sick.”
Warren breathed a sigh of relief. “I really appreciate it, Dooley.”
“I like your sister, Warren. She’s a sweet kid.”
Warren beamed at him. “She is,” he said.
“Look, Warren, I need you to do something for me.”
Warren didn’t hesitate. “Sure.”
Dooley pulled a bulky envelope out of his backpack and handed it to Warren.
“Hang onto this for me for a while.”
“No problem.”
“Just until I decide what I want to do with it.”
“You got it.”
“It’s nothing that’ll get you into trouble.”
“I didn’t think it was.”
Dooley shook his head. There was such a thing as too much trust. He should probably tell Warren that some time.
The two homicide cops were waiting for Dooley when he got to work that afternoon.
“You remember us, right, Ryan?” Detective Randall said.
Dooley just looked at him—how stupid did he think Dooley was? But he couldn’t remember Randall’s partner’s name. He couldn’t even recall if Randall’s partner had even mentioned his name.
“We’d like to talk to you,” Randall said.
“I’m supposed to be working.” Linelle was watching him through the window. Dooley wondered if she had made the two suits as cops.
“I’m sure your employer will understand,” Randall said. “After all, it’s about your mother. You want to help us get things straight, don’t you, Ryan?”
“I guess.”
“You don’t sound sure.”
“I told you, we weren’t close.”
“You did say that,” Detective Randall agreed. “Still, we need to ask you some questions.”
“Are you arresting me?”
“Arresting you? Why would we do that? We just need you to help us clear up a few things.” Randall glanced around. “Come on. Let’s find a place where we can sit down for a few minutes.”
Dooley glanced at Linelle again, but he couldn’t read the expression on her face.
“Okay, whatever,” he said.
He went with the two detectives to a restaurant two doors down from the video store. They sat in a booth. The cops ordered coffee. Dooley didn’t want anything. Then Randall said, “Why don’t you tell us again about last Wednesday night, Ryan.”
“Last Wednesday?”
“The night your mother died.”
“What for?”
“Like I said, we’re just trying to get everything straight. You want to know what happened to your mother, don’t you, Ryan?”
Dooley hated talking to cops. It unnerved him the way they always looked directly at you and didn’t care that you knew that they thought everything you said was bullshit. Well, whatever. He’d already told them about that night. He’d tell them a hundred times more, if that’s what they wanted. They couldn’t touch him.
“I went to the library,” he said. “I did some research for a school project. Then I went home. I was home by eleven. I called my uncle from the home phone. I know you can check that.” They could get phone records that would verify what he was saying, or at least that someone had made a call from his uncle’s house at eleven o’clock that night, and tell them the number that had been called.
“Did you talk to anyone at the library, Ryan?” Randall said.
“What? Why do you want to know that?”
Randall repeated his question.
What was going on? Were they trying to put him in it?
He thought for a moment. It had been over a week ago now. He hadn’t memorized everything he had done that night, and even if he had, he wanted to come across like a normal person. Most normal people don’t remember every detail of a routine evening a whole week ago.
“I went to the information desk,” he said. He made a show of thinking it over. “Yeah. I was havin
g trouble finding what I needed, so I went to the information desk and talked to a woman there.”
“You mean, like an information clerk?”
“Yeah.”
Randall pulled out a notebook. “An information clerk remembers talking to you,” he said.
That brought Dooley up short. They’d already done some checking. He couldn’t decide if that was good or bad.
“She recognized your picture,” Randall said. His picture? They’d been showing his picture around? “She said you were very polite. Do you remember what time you talked to her, Ryan?”
“I’m not sure,” Dooley said. But he had a feeling that wasn’t going to cut it. If the woman remembered talking to him, maybe she also remembered when they had spoken. “I think it was pretty soon after I arrived.”
“She helped you, didn’t she?” Randall said. “She said she pointed you to some resources on the environment, is that right?”
Not only did the woman remember but it also sounded like she had a total-recall memory.
Dooley nodded.
“If you had to estimate what time you talked to the information clerk, what would be your best guess?” Detective Randall said.
“I guess maybe eight, eight-fifteen.”
“Then what did you do?”
“I found the material I needed. I worked on my assignment. Then I left.”
“Do you remember what time it was when you left?”
“No.”
“If you had to estimate what time you left, what would be your best guess?”
Why was Randall pushing on where he’d been that night? What was he after? He couldn’t possibly think—
“Ryan? What time did you leave the library?”
“I’m not sure,” Dooley said. The place had been jammed with people, but he hadn’t spoken to anyone except the woman at the information desk, so maybe he was okay. “But the place closes at ten, right?”
Randall shook his head, as if he were disappointed in Dooley.
“Are you saying you stayed at the library until it closed?”
“No,” Dooley said. Not now he wasn’t, not when Randall had that look on his face. “I don’t remember when I left. I’m just saying it must have been sometime before ten because that’s when it closes.”
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