The Word of a Child (26 page)

"I've read that some people think kids never make false
accusations, and that others think they do all the time."

"Thank God it's over!"

Mariah bit her lip. "You know," she said quietly,
"there'll still be rumors. You need to be prepared. Some people are going
to think Tracy was telling the truth then, and has somehow been railroaded into
lying now. Or they'll figure authorities couldn't prove her story, but there
must have been some basis to it."

He stared at her. "You sound like you know. Has
something like this happened to you?"

"To my ex-husband," she admitted. "He ended
up changing jobs and then, after our divorce, moving. He hated the
whispers."

Gerald said nothing for a long moment. Then he muttered a
profanity and sank into a student chair, bowing his head and tugging at his
short hair. "I wanted to think it was over," he said in agony.

Mariah felt helpless, useless, sitting behind her desk with
her hands clasped on the blotter. Should she be hugging him? But they had never
been that close.

She had to say something, at the very least. "Maybe I'm
being pessimistic. Noreen is writing a letter of explanation. There wasn't
anyone who could do that for Simon." Or who would, she didn't add. Even
his wife couldn't quiet her doubts.

His head lifted and from behind his glasses his wild eyes
sought hers. "You believe I never touched her, don't you?"

"Yes." She was glad to be able to answer honestly.
"I never believed it. I urged Detective McLean to look into other
possibilities."

"Thank you," Gerald said hoarsely.

She moistened her lips. "I hope you can forgive Tracy."

Pain and anger and shame flashed on his face, flushing it
with red. "Apparently I ticked her off."

He gave an angry laugh. "What a way to pay me
back."

"She's a troubled girl."

"Oh, yeah. She's that. I can even see why. Have you met
the mother?"

The
mother.
Mariah had been guilty herself of putting it that way, as if Sandy Mitchell
were not quite the right
kind
of mother, the one you'd say warmly was "Tracy's
mother."

"Yes," she said slowly. "I think she dresses
the way she does because she works in a bar. She seems genuinely concerned
about Tracy."

Squeezed into the student-size desk, his knees poking up,
his elbows akimbo, Gerald said, "And irritated with her for being an
inconvenience."

"Wouldn't you be irritated if you were called to
conferences every few weeks?" Mariah said, in all fairness.

He shrugged.

He hadn't said whether he'd forgive his accuser.

"Tracy looks more brazen than she is," Mariah
tried to explain, knowing it might not be what he wanted to hear right now, but
hoping he would understand. "Sometimes she wears her mother's clothes. I
think she knows, though, that her mother looks different than the other kids'.
She wants to be proud of her and even to be like her, but then she doesn't, too.
It's a hard spot to be in at her age, when a girl is trying to find her
identity."

"That excuses her trying to ruin me?" he said
incredulously.

"No. No, of course not." Would she feel the same,
in his situation? Think how she'd hated Connor and the now faceless woman who
had come at his side to accuse Simon! She had been too selfish then, too
absorbed in her own family's crisis, to feel the compassion or pity she should
have for Lily, the girl who had set it in motion. She had tried very hard not
even to think about her or what she had suffered or why she had chosen to name
Simon. Would she have wanted explanations, justification?

But, remembering, Tracy's small, tear-clogged voice that
morning, Mariah had to try.

"I just want you to remember that she's a kid. She had
no idea what she was setting in motion. She was scared, and hurting…"

"You know, I'm just damn glad I don't have to face
her." Gerald Tanner fought free of the desk, shoving it clattering to one
side. His eyes were angry. "Give me time, and maybe I'll cool off. Right
now, frankly, I'd like to see her expelled."

"I understand…"

"Do you?" He fairly bristled, pain radiating from
his pores like the sweat that beaded his forehead. He blinked, shook his head
like a baffled bull, and said in a choked voice, "Maybe you do. Or you're
trying. Remember—it can happen to any of us. Just like that." He snapped
his fingers.

Goose bumps stirred on her skin; he was right, as she'd
known the day Tracy first came to her. If Tracy had denied talking to her, or claimed
they'd talked about something else entirely, or that she'd touched
inappropriately, she would have had no defense.

But there was something else they had to remember, too.
"Rape happens just like that, too," she said.

He didn't hear her, didn't care. He was looking inward.
"Why me?" he asked. "I can't be the first teacher who made a
student mad."

"Will you keep teaching here at the middle school after
this year?"

"I guess," he said bitterly, "that depends on
how loud the whispers are."

She nodded. Knowing it was inadequate, still she repeated,
"I'm sorry."

"I am, too," he said, and opened the classroom
door. "See you," he threw over his shoulder, and left.

Mariah stared after him, all her vulnerabilities stirred.
Why did this happen?
she had
asked, and never gotten an answer.

She never would, and that scared her.

Why was she dating the one man who reminded her most of the
frailty of her family and her inadequate ability to foresee with confidence the
path of her life?

But even shaken as she was, Mariah knew she wouldn't call
Connor to make an excuse.

Chapter
12

«
^
»

"
R
emember the police lady
who came to talk to our class?" Zofie told Connor.
"She showed us all the stuff she had hanging from her belt." She
leaped up, puffed out her belly and put her hands at her waist, looking stern,
then plopped back onto the couch. "Do you have a belt like that?"

"Yeah, but I never wear it," Connor said. "I
used to. I drove one of those marked cars you see with the lights on top and I
gave tickets for speeding and arrested bad guys for stealing and I even talked
to classes like yours. But now I drive a car you can't tell is a police car,
and I don't wear a uniform anymore except for dress-up."

"Oh." Her brow furrowed. "How come?"

He glanced for guidance at Mariah, who had stuck her head
out of the kitchen and was eavesdropping. She gave an almost imperceptible
shrug indicating—he hoped—a "why not."

Connor answered, "I'm what's called plainclothes. Some
people aren't very comfortable talking to a uniformed officer, and they're more
comfortable with me in my sweatshirt and jeans. Also, they can't look out their
window and think, Oh, no, a policeman is coming! I won't answer the door."

"That's sneaky," she marveled.

He grinned. "Yeah. It is."

Zofie was as easy to like as he'd expected. The kid was a
wonder, not shy at all with adults, her gaze sometimes disconcertingly direct,
her choked giggle infectious. He could tell she was smart from the kind of
questions she asked, and from what Mariah said she was an athlete, too.

He admired Mariah even more as he got to know Zofie. Kids
were supposed to struggle after divorce in a single parent household. There had
to be hard feelings between Simon and Mariah; she'd hinted as much. Yet none of
that had tarnished this pretty, energetic girl's bright smile or made her
inquiring mind hesitate.

When Mariah called them to dinner, he stood and stretched,
thinking how much he liked her apartment, too. Hers was rented, just like his,
with the same bland carpet, countertops and kitchen and bathroom vinyl. White
walls—her rental agreement probably said she couldn't paint or paper them, just
as his did. God forbid a tenant put any permanent stamp on one of these
apartments.

But while his still, after four years, looked as if he'd
just moved in, hers looked like a home. Her books didn't sit unpacked in boxes,
they crammed bookcases. Her couch overflowed with batik pillows in South Sea Island hues of blue and green and teal, colors she'd picked up in a hand-loomed
wall hanging and a colored pencil drawing of a child playing in a dreamlike
jungle setting. The refrigerator was covered with Zofie-artwork, her kid-size
easel was squeezed into the corner of the dining nook, and big baskets of Lego
and Barbie dolls fit comfortably under a coffee table that had once been a
crate, he guessed.

His unrequited desire for a home was intensified by settling
even for an evening into hers.

"You've given this place character," he said,
nodding at the plants on a rack in front of the window, the pretty place mats
and woven runner on the table, the colorful, casual bouquet in a celadon-green
pitcher that sat on the bar dividing kitchen from eating area.

Zofie had a damn cute smile. Her mother's was beautiful.

"Thank you. Why don't you sit over here?" She set
a basket of warm rolls on the table. "After Simon and
I
divided what we had… Well,
I
had to start over. Zofie and
I
like to shop, don't we, punkin?"

"Mommy likes 'tique stores. With old stuff," her
daughter agreed. Her hand snaked toward the basket and snagged a roll.

Reappearing from the kitchen, Mariah placed a huge,
stoneware bowl filled with a great-looking stir-fry on the round table and sat
down, her movements contained and graceful. "Connor, help yourself."

"This looks wonderful," he said. "I eat out
too often."

"You're not a cook?"

As he spooned cashews and chicken and a medley of vegetables
onto his plate, he said, "Actually I kind of like to cook. I just don't do
it often. Sometimes for my family. When you live alone, it's easier to nuke a
frozen dinner or grab a burger on the way home."

"What's nuke?" Zofie asked, predictably.

"Microwave." Mariah's gaze was as direct and
friendly as her first-grader's. "Where do you live?"

He told her about his apartment in a complex with a garden
courtyard and wrought-iron balconies and a peekaboo view of the strait.
"I'd shared before with other cops—with my brother Hugh for a year, until
we decided we had to go our own ways before we killed each other." He bent
his head and lowered his voice conspiratorially for Zofie's benefit.
"Sometimes it's great having a brother or sister, but you don't want to
share a room."

She nodded solemnly, her eyes wide.

"Anyway, I decided it was time I had my own place. I
like the privacy but not the loneliness. I bought the basics of furniture, but
I've never completely unpacked. I don't spend a lot of time there."
Despite his matter-of-fact tone, he knew how sad that sounded.

"You need an interior designer," Mariah said
briskly. "The right chair, the right lamp, a rug underfoot, colors that
soothe…"

"Maybe you and Zofie could help me."

"We could shop for Decktiv McLean," Zofie said
around a mouthful of biscuit.

Amused at the way she mangled "detective," he
suggested, "Why don't you just call me Connor. If that's okay with your
mom."

She smiled, bringing that quiet radiance to her face.
"Why not?"

"I can call you Connor?" her daughter asked
happily. "Like we're friends an' everything?"

He had the strangely pleasant sensation of his chest being
squeezed. This kid could get to him. "I call you Zofie, don't I?"

"I call my friend Laura's mommy Shari," she told
him. "But I don't know her daddy that good. All the grown-up men that I
know are Mr. something. You're the only decktiv."

"Yeah, there aren't so many of us." He met
Mariah's merry eyes and felt his heart lurch. Oh, he was falling in love, all
right.