Before the Storm (31 page)

answers given.

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Even CNN had people there. That’s what happened with

exposure on the
Today
show. Suddenly a small-town fire was

big news.

“Is it true several witnesses saw Andy Lockwood outside the

church during the lock-in?” a reporter had asked.

How did this information get out?
I’d wondered. Did it float

through the air and settle in people’s heads?

“As I said,” the police chief repeated for the third or fourth

time, “the investigation is ongoing and we’re still conducting

interviews and collecting evidence.”

“Would you call him a person of interest?” someone asked.

“Everyone with a connection to the church that night is a

person of interest,” the chief said.

“We’ve heard reports of Andy Lockwood’s temper,”a reporter

said. “Can you verify that he’s lost his temper in public before?”

“That’s not something I personally have ever witnessed,” the

chief said.

I remembered a time Laurel went out of town to give an

FASD speech. The school called me, since I was Andy’s second

backup emergency contact.The first was Sara,of course,but they

couldn’t reach her. Andy’d been suspended for the day. He’d hit

a girl who called him a jerk-off. There were other incidents

Laurel had dealt with over the years, though not an infinite

number. Andy could be unpredictable—calm and cuddly one

minute, furious the next. I could see him beating up Keith at the

lock-in. His temper was a flare, though. Impulsive. Never premeditated.

It didn’t matter that nothing incriminating had been said

about Andy at the press conference; the seed was planted by

the questions themselves.

“Hey, Uncle Marcus.”

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Maggie walked across the sand near the corner of my house.

I turned the paper upside down on the off chance she hadn’t

already seen it.

“Hey, Mags,” I said.

“I knocked, but I figured you were back here when you

didn’t answer.” She climbed the steps to the deck.

“Don’t you ever go to school anymore?” I teased.

“I
had
to see you.” She stood in front of me, her hair blowing

in long wavy strands around her head.“You have to tell me what’s

going
on.
” She pulled an elastic band from her pants pocket and

tied her hair back as she spoke.“That press conference last night

was flippin’ unbelievable, and I just don’t get what’s
happening!
”

She grabbed the long ponytail and raked her fingers through it.

“Sit down, Mags.”

She plunked down in one of the deck chairs. “I am so
totally

pissed off,” she said.

“Can I get you a Coke?” I asked, although caffeine would

probably be a mistake for her at the moment.

“No, you can tell me what’s
really
going on in the investigation.”

I watched the Lab get flipped by a wave. He shook himself

off and ran in the water for more.

“Uncle Marcus!
Tell
me.”

“You know I’m not on the team any longer,” I said.

“They searched Andy’s room yesterday.”

I nodded. “Did they find anything?”

“A condom and some cigarettes.” She shrugged.“They took

the clothes he was wearing that night. Like they’d actually find

something on them.”

“A condom, huh?” Did Laurel ask Andy where he got it? Did

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he tell her? She’d kill me, but he was fifteen and I didn’t know

how much she’d talked to him about sex.
Someone
had to do it.

“It was so…
invasive,
” she said.“Yuck.” She sounded like a real

teenager. Most of the time, she seemed much older. I usually

had to remind myself she was only seventeen.

“Is your mom okay?”

“
No,
she’s not okay. Everybody’s suddenly saying Andy’s an

arsonist. How could she be okay? It’s insane.” She looked at me.

Her face was crimson. “First of all, the guy at the press conference didn’t even
call
it arson. Couldn’t it have been some

kind of accident?”

“They won’t officially call it arson until the investigation is

over, but a burn pattern like that doesn’t happen by accident.”

“Couldn’t it have something to do with the electricity going

out in the youth building, though?”

“That still wouldn’t explain the burn pattern.”

“Tell me what evidence they have,” she demanded.“Do they

have something on Andy I don’t know about?”

“They know the type of fuel,” I said. “A gasoline and diesel

mix.”

She snorted. “Like Andy carried gasoline and diesel to the

lock-in. I drove him there. I think I would have noticed.”

“I know, babe.”

She looked toward the beach. “I feel like they’re only

looking at Andy as a suspect now. Not even trying to figure

out what really happened.”

“Andy just makes a colorful rumor, that’s all. The truth will

come out eventually.”

“Didn’t a church burn down in Wilmington this year? Could

it be, like, a serial arsonist?”

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“Pretty good, Mags.” I was impressed.“I’m going to suggest

the investigators hire you.”

“Seriously?”

I laughed. “No, not seriously. If
I
can’t be on the team, they

sure won’t take Andy’s sister. But that was a good catch about

the church in Wilmington. The big difference is, that church

was empty.”

“But they’ll still consider the possibility, won’t they?”

“Of course,” I said. “Has your mom talked to a lawyer yet?”

“I don’t think so.”

“What’s she waiting for?” I said. “She’s in denial.”

“I don’t know. All I know is that Andy’s so confused. He

cried in bed last night. He kept saying,‘But I’m the
hero.
’” Her

voice cracked. “I didn’t want him to go to school today. Kids

are going to be so mean to him.”

“Maybe he should stay home for a day or two,” I thought out

loud.

“I’m starting to plan this fund-raiser at school for sometime

in May,” Maggie said. “A big makeover event with the beauty

college coming in and a silent auction and everything. Now I

don’t even feel like doing it.”

Couldn’t keep that niece of mine down. Who cared if she

was valedictorian or not? “Well, just remember it’s for the

victims,” I said.“Don’t punish them because people are spreading rumors about Andy.”

She screwed up her face.“You’re right,” she said. She looked

at her watch. Sighed. “I’d better go back to school.”

“Listen, Mags,” I said as she got to her feet. “The best thing

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you can do—and I can do—is be there for Andy. Be his

support right now, all right? Don’t let this get you down.”

“Okay.” She still looked glum as she leaned over to kiss my

cheek.

I watched her walk down the steps. Once she’d disappeared

around the corner of the house, I turned the newspaper over.

Stared at the headline again. Could Fire Hero Be Villain?

I felt suspicion closing in on Andy, the way it had closed in

on me years earlier. I knew how destructive it could be. How

unstoppable. Like the waves ripping the sand away from my

beach.

I WAS SUMMONED TO THE PRINCIPAL’S OFFICE like a

wayward little kid. That’s how I felt, sitting on one of the

small, armless wooden chairs outside Ms. Terrell’s office in my

white nurse’s jacket, waiting to be invited inside. From where

I sat, I could see one end of the high school through the office

windows. How was Andy faring over there today? Maybe I

should have kept him home. I told him that if anyone called

him names or said anything upsetting to him, to use it as an

opportunity to practice self-control. He said he would do that

and I knew he meant it at the time, but even I had little faith

in his ability to tune out ugly words from his classmates.

Certainly, this visit to Ms. Terrell’s office had something to

do with Andy. I knew a few parents had called the high school

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principal, angry that he was still attending classes. They were

worried that, like some other kids who didn’t fit in, he might

bring a gun to school and slaughter his classmates. I imagined

his principal calling Ms. Terrell, asking her to persuade me to

withdraw him for the rest of the year.

“Mrs. Lockwood?” Ms. Terrell had opened her office door

and stood smiling at me.

I followed her inside. At my modest five feet, five inches, I

towered over her.

This was Ms. Terrell’s first year at my school, and I didn’t

know her well personally, although I did know quite a bit

about her. She was fortyish with a doctorate degree in education, a petite African-American woman who’d grown up on

the streets of Baltimore and who, despite her tiny size, the

string of pearls she always wore, and the heels you could hear

clicking through the halls, was tough as nails with the kids.

They both feared and respected her. I found, sitting across the

desk from her, that I had the same reaction.

“How are you holding up?” she asked.

“I’m managing.” I smiled, trying not to look as wary as I felt.

“I wanted to touch base with you, given the situation with

your son,” she said, folding her hands neatly on her desk. “I

thought you might want to take some time off while you’re

coping with this.”

I hesitated, trying to read her face. There were frown lines

on her forehead and what I read as concern in her eyes.

“Are…have parents complained that I’m here?” I asked.

“No,” she said.“I
do
know that some parents over at the high

school have complained that
Andy’s
still attending school, but

I’ve had no formal complaints about you at all. I simply—”

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277

“You’ve had informal complaints?”

She sighed.“
Complaints
is too strong a word,” she said.“Certainly there’s no problem with your work here. The children

adore you.” She unfolded her hands and dropped them to her

lap. “But people talk.You know how that goes.”

“They have no right to speculate about my life or my son,”

I said sharply. Then I pressed my hands together in front of me

as if in prayer. “I’m sorry,” I said. “I’m not usually so defensive.

I just…I know Andy’s innocent and it’s hard to…he’s misunderstood enough as it is. This is the icing on the cake.”

“I hear you,” she said. She looked out the window toward

the high school and I wondered what she was thinking. “I have

a son, myself,” she said finally.

I was surprised. “You do?” I didn’t think she’d ever been

married.

“I had him when I was fifteen years old. He’s now twenty-

five and in medical school at UNC.”

“Oh my God,” I said. She must have been a determined

little dynamo right from the start to get where she was today.

“How did you ever manage to…” I waved my hands through

the air as if taking in her office and the diplomas on the wall.

“You’ve accomplished so much.”

“I had plans for my education even back then,” she said,“and

I would’ve had an abortion, if I hadn’t been scared and waited

too long, but of course I have no regrets.” She smiled, looking

at a framed picture on her desk. I couldn’t see the picture, but

I imagined it was a photograph of her son. “I was very lucky,”

she said. “My mother and grandmother helped raise him so I

could keep up with school. When he got into his teens, the

area we lived in…well, it was no good for an African278

diane chamberlain

American male. He wasn’t a Goody Two-shoes, but he also

wasn’t a misogynist hip-hoppin’ junkie, like a lot of the other

boys his age. The cops didn’t know that, though. They saw this

black teenaged boy and lumped him together with the others.

I was making enough money teaching by then that I could get

him out of the city. As I said, I was lucky.” She folded her hands

on her desk once again and leaned toward me.“I’m telling you

this to let you know that
I
know about being young and doing

irresponsible things like getting pregnant at fifteen, or—” she

nodded toward me “—like drinking while you’re pregnant,

and I know about ostracism and about motherhood. So, I’ll

understand if you need to take some time off while this is going

on.”

I stared at her for a moment, taking it all in. “Thank you,” I

said finally. “Maybe I could take a few days while I try to find a

lawyer.”

“You don’t have one yet?” She seemed surprised.

I told her I’d called the attorney I used for my will and other

documents, and he gave me the name of a woman in Hampstead who, as it turned out, had a nephew injured in the fire.

She refused to take the case and didn’t bother to offer me other

names. I was ready to turn to the yellow pages.

Ms. Terrell wrote a name on the back of one of her cards.

She tapped a few keys on her computer keyboard, then jotted

a number beneath the name.

“I don’t know this man well,” she said, handing the card to