Not Guilty (14 page)

“He probably figures you have enough to worry about,” said the principal.

“I worry about him, mainly,” Keely admitted.

“It’s a difficult age.”

“Believe me, I know,” said Keely. “I taught in a junior high.”

“So you
do
understand,” said Dr. Donahue.

“But Dylan is not a threat to anyone,” Keely insisted. “I would know it if he were.”

“That’s what every parent says, Mrs. Weaver,” the principal said wearily.

The gym teacher came back. “He’s not in there.”

“He’s not?” asked the principal.

“Where is he?” Keely demanded.

The coach grimaced. “He told a kid in there that he was leaving.”

“What do you mean, leaving?” Keely asked.

“Leaving the school,” said the coach, acknowledging, by the solemn look on his face, the seriousness of the infraction.

Keely looked in alarm at the principal. Dr. Donahue’s expression was grim. “He was told to come back immediately from the rest room. There was nothing ambiguous about my instructions.”

“Why would he leave?” Keely cried.

Dr. Donahue gazed at her with arched eyebrows. “Defiance, I imagine. Showing us his temper. I can’t tolerate this kind of behavior. He cannot just wander out of this school. We are responsible for him while he is here. You have to make him understand that, Mrs. Weaver. You are ultimately responsible—”

Keely heard the criticism, understood the principal’s concerns, but she could think of only one thing. “I’ve got to find him,” she said.

“Mrs. Weaver,” the principal snapped, but Keely did not stop. She ran out to the car and looked around. Where could he be? Which way would he go?

It was too far to walk home. He took the bus to and from school.
She got into the SUV and turned on the ignition. So where else could he be? She began to troll the streets of the neighborhood, driving as slowly as possible. Luckily there were very few cars on the road; only one person honked at her and then pulled a vehicle out around hers. The sky began to darken as she drove, the beautiful autumn day turning dank and gloomy, and finally, raindrops began to spatter on her windshield. She looked left and right, trying to catch a glimpse of that worn brown leather jacket. Unfortunately, the dried leaves on the trees made it hard to discern anything else of that color.

The intermittent raindrops turned into a steady drizzle as she squinted out at quiet houses; a church, its doors firmly locked; a school playground and a park, both deserted because of the rain.
Dylan, where are you?
she pleaded, as if she could reach him with her thoughts.
Where did you get to?

She called Dr. Donahue on her cell phone, just to see if her son had returned, and was put through immediately. “Perhaps we should call the police,” said the principal.

“No, no, don’t,” Keely pleaded. She knew the principal was just covering herself, not wanting to be held responsible for losing one of the students while he was supposed to be in her charge. But Keely did not want Detective Stratton to get wind of this, to start on them again. Dylan was here somewhere, and she would find him. “Let me look a little longer,” Keely said. As soon as she put the phone back, she was struck with the bitter irony of it. She should be the one calling in the cops, asking for their help. It was her son who was missing. But because of the way he had been treated, she was afraid to ask for help, afraid Dylan would only hide from them. It was all so unfair.

She passed a sign for the parkway and thought maybe she should get on it and go back to their neighborhood. Perhaps he had hitchhiked—something he was forbidden to do, but then again, he was forbidden to just leave school, and that hadn’t stopped him. The thought of his hitchhiking made her blood run cold. She pictured some predator pulling a car up alongside her son, recognizing a golden opportunity.
Oh please, God, no. No.
She drove slowly toward the parkway ramp, not wanting to leave the neighborhood of the school but not knowing where else to look in the area. She hesitated as she approached the entrance and looked back. Then, under the parkway bridge that loomed over the quiet street, she saw a movement against the cement pillars. She squinted through the rain-streaked window beside her, then rolled it down, letting the rain pelt her in the face. There was a figure huddled against the cold concrete. It looked like a homeless person, desolate and defeated. She looked closer and saw a shaved head, the leather jacket.

Dylan,
she thought, her heart leaping. She almost cried out his name, but then caught herself. What if he saw her and began to run? She pulled the SUV up on the shoulder of the road and got out. Rain ran down under her collar and into her eyes as she waited to cross over to him.

Under the bridge, he must have heard the car door slam, because he looked up. Their eyes met, and she felt her heart sicken at the blankness,
the hopelessness in his expression. As he recognized her, his expression turned to one of irritation and he started to stand up.

Keely ran across the four lanes of the quiet road, and rushed over to him. She reached out her arms to him, but he turned his back on her.

“Dylan!” she cried, “I’ve been worried sick.”

“I’m fine,” he said. “What are you doing here?”

“I’m looking for you. What else would I be doing? I went over to see
Dr. Donahue, and the gym teacher said you had left the school.”

He shrugged with apparent disinterest. “No reason to stay. I’m sure they told you I got suspended.”

Keely shivered and wiped the wet tendrils of hair out of her eyes.
“Honey, what happened? Dr. Donahue said you were in a fight.”

“There was a fight in the cafeteria. No big deal,” he said. “Except, of course, that I was the one who got blamed.”

“Did you start it?” she asked, trying to touch his arm, but he jerked it away.

“What do you think?”

“I don’t know. That’s why I’m asking you.”

“Of course I started it,” he said. “I’m a baaad person.”

“Oh, Dylan, don’t,” she said wearily. “Just tell me what happened.”

“And you’ll believe me, right?”

“Of course I’ll believe you.”

Dylan peered at her with narrowed eyes and shook his head.

Keely looked at him helplessly. It was as if he were somewhere far out of her reach, drifting ever farther away. “The principal said these boys have been harassing you for a while. Is that true?”

“This is nice,” he said. “It’s just like being in the police station again.
Only more fresh air. Hey, by the way, I saw they have a big article about me in the paper today.”

“How do you know about that?” Keely asked.

“Everyone knows about it. I saw it in the garbage can in the principal’s office.”

“That’s where that paper belongs,” Keely said vehemently. “In the garbage can.”

Dylan reached out and patted her condescendingly on the shoulder.

“Oh, come on now. Buck up. I thought you’d be proud of me, making the front page like that.”

Keely jerked her shoulder away from him. “Dylan, for God’s sake.
Stop talking to me like I’m your enemy. You know how vicious I think they are being.”

“Aw, come on, Mom. Admit it. It makes you wonder a little bit, doesn’t it? Just a teensy little bit?” he said, sneering.

She wondered, all right. She wondered how she was ever going to get through to him. She wondered if he would ever be the child she knew and loved again. It was as if he were drifting away from her and she were helpless to stop him. Keely shook her head. “Dylan, just drop it, all right? Let’s go home.”

“Home sweet home,” he said. “By all means.”

He did not wait for her, but jogged out across the street, without even looking to see if any cars were coming. She wanted to call out to him, but the words caught in her throat. Her heart felt as if it were being squeezed.
I’ve got to do something,
she thought. She thought of the psychiatrist that Dr. Donahue had mentioned. She would call as soon as they got home.

Although rationally she knew better, it felt like she was admitting defeat. She needed help with him. She thought of Richard, always so delighted with his son. Dylan had been such a sweet-natured, intelligent little boy. She and Richard would often look at each other with a mixture of pride in and wonder at their child, the same feelings she had shared with Mark when they looked at Abby. And now, when that sweet-natured little boy seemed to be coming unglued, she did not seem to be of any help to him. Everything she said seemed to force him deeper into silence and anger. She knew teenagers were difficult to deal with—she’d spent her career dealing with them. But this was different. This was her own child, and the tension in their life was becoming too oppressive to live with. She was forever plagued with the anxiety that there was more to it than just normal teenage angst—that somehow, she was to blame.

Despair, ever at her elbow these days, threatened to overwhelm her, but she couldn’t allow it. She ran across the street after her son. She
reached the driver’s door and tugged at it, but it would not open. Dylan had locked the doors from the inside. She reached in her jacket pocket, but the keys were still in the ignition. Dylan looked up at her, standing in the rain, jiggling the door handle and tapping on the window. His gaze was impassive, and for one terrible minute, Keely thought,
He’s going to leave me out here. He’s not going to unlock the door.

“Dylan, open the door,” she cried.

He looked away from her, tilting his head back and closing his eyes.

Oh God,
she thought. Then she heard the thunk of the locks popping up. She was ashamed for doubting him, and at the same moment, she knew he had expected her to doubt him. He was satisfied when she did. She opened the door and climbed, soaking wet, into the driver’s seat.

She looked over at him, wanting to ask him why, but he was staring out the side window as if she weren’t there.

T
he next morning, Keely threw open the door to her son’s room with a bang and flipped on the overhead light switch. Dylan was entangled in the sheets, his face buried in the pillow. The combination of sound and light seemed to rouse him from his torpor, and he sat up rubbing his eyes in confusion. “Whaa . . .” he mumbled.

“Dylan, I’ve called you four times. You have to get up. I need you to watch Abby. I have to go out.” Dylan blinked and sighed. Then he squinted up at his mother. “Where you going? You’re all dressed up.”

“I have to go and see someone,” Keely said. “I left a number by the phone. Abby is all fed and in her playpen. There’s a cartoon show on, so she’ll watch that for the next half hour, but you need to get dressed and get downstairs. This is a suspension, not a holiday, buddy.”

Dylan’s shoulders slumped as if he had just remembered what he was doing here in his bedroom on a weekday morning. “ ’kay.” he mumbled.

“
Now,
Dylan.”

“Okay,” he shouted. “Okay, leave me alone. I’m coming.”

“Five minutes,” she said, slamming the door behind her.

She walked out and looked in the hall mirror. She had dressed carefully for this encounter. She wore a black gabardine pantsuit, partly to remind Maureen Chase that she was in mourning and partly because it was still the most sophisticated outfit she owned. She looked at her fingernails, polished with pale enamel and buffed. She hadn’t done her nails since Abby had been born. She’d taken the time to blow-dry her silver-blond hair so that it curved, shining, on her shoulders. She had been unable to eat at breakfast. Her stomach was jumping with nerves.

She went downstairs and waited, tapping on her watch, her foot
bobbing impatiently. She smiled, in spite of herself, at the sight of Abby, riveted to the brightly colored characters on the TV screen, talking in baby gibberish and shrieking with laughter for no apparent reason. Keely was just about to get up and start shrieking up the stairs herself, although not with laughter, when she heard her son’s heavy tread on the staircase.

He came down, rubbing his shaved head, wearing the same clothes he had worn yesterday. She thought of scolding him, of making him go up and change, but she didn’t want to postpone this meeting any longer. She might lose her nerve.

“All right, Dylan,” she said. “I left your breakfast in there. Eat something and then get Abby out of the playpen and let her roam. But keep a good eye on her.”

“I will,” he said irritably.

“If Dr. Stover’s office calls, tell them we need an appointment. I’ll call back when I get home.”

Dylan blew out a loud breath impatiently.

“I won’t be long,” she said.

“Where are you going?” he asked.

She hesitated, then she decided he had a right to know. “I’m going to see the district attorney, Ms. Chase,” she said. “I have had enough. I’m going to confront her about all this.”

“She’ll think you’re crazy,” he said.

“Thanks for the vote of confidence.”

Dylan shrugged. “Sorry. Thanks, Mom,” he said softly.

His one kind word was inexpressibly soothing. She leaned over to try to kiss him good-bye, but he frowned and shook his head. It was too much to hope for. She sighed and, after another kiss on Abby’s downy head, let herself out of the house.

T
HE
PROSECUTOR’S OFFICE
was on the fourth floor of the county courthouse. Keely felt her stomach lurch, along with the elevator, as it stopped on the way up. Her heart pounded as the light above the door indicated the fourth floor and the doors rolled apart. Standing at the open doors, pressing at the Down button, was the handsome young
black man with bronze dreadlocks that Keely had seen in Lucas’s office. He stood back to let her exit the elevator, and she was struck again by the blue-green eyes, so unexpected against his broad, African features. The young man got into the elevator and pressed the button without meeting Keely’s gaze, a distracted frown on his face.

Keely checked the numbers on the door and then approached the prosecutor’s reception desk. She stood awkwardly in front of the desk and waited for Maureen Chase’s secretary to get off the phone. The secretary scratched her scalp with the eraser of her pencil as she expertly persuaded the agitated caller that her boss couldn’t be disturbed and would call him back before the day was out. Keely had to admire her style. She had that combination of efficiency and decisiveness that a person needed to run interference in a place as highpitched as the prosecutor’s office. It was going to be difficult to get past her. Keely tried to summon every skill she’d ever had for being persuasive as the young woman returned the phone to its cradle and gazed up at her.

Keely forced herself to smile. “My name is Keely Weaver. I’m here to see Miss Chase.”

The secretary glanced at the calendar, dense with penciled notes, on her desk. “Do you have an appointment?” she asked.

“There’s a rather urgent matter I need to discuss with her,” said Keely. “It just came up.”

“I’m sorry. She’s busy for the rest of the day. If you’d like to make an appointment . . .”

Keely nodded. “I understand. It won’t take along. I assure you.”

The secretary was used to lawyers’ tactics and would not be moved. “I’m sure it won’t,” she said firmly. “She’s got a half hour free in the morning, the day after tomorrow. If you can just tell me what it’s in reference to . . .?”

“It’s personal,” said Keely.

The secretary turned back to her computer. “Call her at home.”

Keely felt anxiety flooding her heart. She couldn’t go home and tell Dylan that she hadn’t even gotten in to see Maureen Chase. Casting about for some means of persuasion, she noticed the framed photo of a
baby in a tiny Orioles baseball cap on the desk. “Is that your son?” she asked.

“Yes.” Then she turned around and faced Keely. “And don’t start telling me how you have a son, too, and he’s in trouble, because I get mothers in here all the time with the same problem. Tell it to your lawyer, who can talk to the D.A.”

Embarrassed that her ploy had proved so transparent but still resolute, Keely said, “Look, I know a lot of people need to speak to Miss Chase, and it’s your job to screen them. But I’m not coming back the day after tomorrow. I want to see her right now, and I want you to tell her that.”

The secretary pursed her lips. “You look like a nice woman,” she said. “Don’t make me call the security guard.”

“All I’m asking,” Keely pleaded, “is that you tell her I’m here.”

“What you’re asking is impossible,” she reiterated. “I am doing what I am supposed to be doing. If I bothered her about every . . . crank who wants to see her right away, I’d lose my job, okay?” She pointed one red fingernail at the baby picture on her desk. “He’s gotta eat; I gotta work. Now, do you want to make an appointment or not?”

“She was engaged to my husband,” Keely blurted out.

The secretary leaned back in her chair and regarded Keely with new interest. “Who?” she asked.

“Your boss. She was once engaged to my husband. Mark Weaver.”

The young woman’s eyes widened. “You’re Mark’s wife?” she asked.

For a moment, Keely was taken aback by the familiarity in her voice. She reminded herself that Mark was a high-profile attorney. Naturally, Maureen’s secretary would know him. “Yes,” said Keely.

“That was a tragedy,” she said. She reached for the telephone receiver, tapping her fingernails on the desktop. Then she turned her back on Keely. Keely heard the murmur of a conversation and then the young woman hung up the phone and turned back to her. She pointed a pencil at the closed door of Maureen’s office. “Go on in,” she said.

Keely tried to conceal her amazement at the instantaneous effect mentioning Mark’s name had had. “Thank you,” she said, trying to sound calm and dignified. Conscious of being watched, Keely walked
over to Maureen’s door, tapped on it, and turned the knob at the same time as the assistant D.A. called, “Come,” from inside.

Maureen was seated at her desk with her back to Keely, tapping sharply on the keyboard of her computer. Amidst precarious piles of folders, half a bagel with cream cheese lay uneaten on a sheet of foil. A Christmas cactus, which looked like it had not seen a drink of water, never mind a bloom, in many a Noel, perched between the Rolodex and the phone. On her desk was a framed photo, which looked like it had never been dusted, of two redheaded children, a girl and a boy, their arms linked. Keely stared at it while she waited. She was quite certain that Maureen had no children. It could be a niece and nephew, but the colors in the photo were faded, as if it had been taken long ago. Maureen and her brother, perhaps, when they were young, Keely thought. Other than the one photo, there were no personal items to give any indication about the nature of the woman in the olive-green suit behind the desk.

“Miss Chase?”

Maureen was staring intently at the computer screen and her gaze did not waver at the sound of Keely’s voice. “Sit,” she said. “I’ll be done in a minute.” She ran a hand through her blaze of auburn hair and sighed. Then she swiveled around in her chair and leveled her keen, gray-green gaze at Keely. “Well?” she said abruptly.

“I’m Keely Weaver.”

“I know who you are,” Maureen said.

Keely crossed her legs and tried not to make it apparent that she was studying the woman who was sitting across from her. She could not help picturing Mark with this woman, a woman he’d planned to marry. She was dressed in a stylish, well-tailored suit that revealed a slim figure. Her face was expertly made up, and each deft stroke of color had been used to emphasize her beautiful, even features. She wore chunky jewelry, and her fingernails were painted with a terra-cotta shade of polish. But there was something determinedly aggressive about her, as if she had steeled herself for an attack.

“I’m sorry. Am I interrupting your breakfast?” Keely asked.

“I’m done,” Maureen said. She wrapped up the half-eaten bagel
and dropped it into the wastebasket as if to put an end to any small talk.

All right,
Keely thought.
I can be all business, too.
She took a deep breath and tried to keep any hint of pleading from her voice. “I’m here because my son has endured enough with these two tragic . . . events in his life and he doesn’t need all this badgering from your detectives and in the newspapers.”

“Badgering,” said Maureen flatly.

“Yes, badgering,” said Keely stubbornly. “I know you cared about Mark, and for his sake, I’m asking you to leave my son alone. Mark always . . . spoke highly of you, and frankly this sort of thing seems a little bit . . . beneath you.”

Maureen’s lips smiled, but her eyes were cold. “That’s your opinion,” she said.

“What does that mean?” Keely asked.

“Tell me, Mrs. Weaver, were you surprised to learn that your son had handled the weapon in your first husband’s ‘accidental’ death?”

Keely did not reply.

“You see, I knew about it a long time ago. Mark told me about it. Around the time he was first representing you to the insurance company.”

Keely felt her face flame at the idea that Mark had told Maureen about this without telling his own wife.
Forget about it,
she reminded herself.
The only important thing is Dylan.
“It doesn’t mean anything,” she said, “despite your innuendoes.”

“That’s what Mark thought at the time,” said Maureen. “Poor fool. They didn’t get along, did they? Mark and your son.”