Before the Storm (35 page)

of a massive mahogany desk.

“I appreciate you seeing me so quickly,” I said as I sat down.

I’d only received his name from Ms. Terrell the day before, but

the attorney’s receptionist said he’d be able to squeeze me in.

“I can imagine what you’re going through,” he said as he sat

down on the other side of the desk. “I’ve heard the rumors.”

“You’ve heard them here? In Wilmington?”

“The fire was big news,” he said, “and although the officials

aren’t calling it arson,everyone knows it’s arson—or in legal terminology, the ‘burning of a church.’ People love a good twist to

a story. What better twist than the hero turns out to be the villain?”

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“He’s not, though.”

He nodded, the overhead light glinting off his glasses. He was

a slender man, but soft looking, as though he didn’t have to

work hard at keeping the weight off. His face was long beneath

thinning dark hair, and he wore a smile that was equal parts kind

and self-confident. I liked him. I was practically in
love
with him.

He would help me make sense of this ridiculous mess.

“Tell me what you know,” he said, clicking his ballpoint pen

above a yellow legal pad. “What evidence do they have so far?”

“As far as I know, they just have the word of a few people

that Andy was outside during the lock-in. I don’t believe it,

though. Even if it’s true, so what? But my son is a very concrete

thinker. If the rules say, ‘this is a lock-in and you stay inside,’

he’d stay inside.”

“What do you mean, he’s a concrete thinker?”

I explained FASD to him. Maybe it would have been better

to find an attorney already familiar with the disorder. But

Dennis took notes and appeared to be listening carefully.

“All right,” he said when I had finished talking.“Who are the

witnesses who claim they saw Andy outside during the

lock-in?”

“One is a boy named Keith Weston.” I told him about Andy’s

fight with Keith during the lock-in and about their long-ago

history as childhood friends. “Another was a woman who was

just passing by the church that night. Of course, she couldn’t

identify Andy by name, but she described seeing a boy who

may have resembled him. Then his friend Emily—who’s also

a special needs child—said he disappeared during the lock-in.”

He looked at me as if waiting for more. “That’s it?” he asked

finally.

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“That’s all I know of. They searched his room.”

“They had a warrant?”

“No. I signed a consent-to-search form.”

“Did they remove anything?”

“They took the clothes he had on the night of the lock-in.

And I think some information from his computer.”

Dennis tapped the pen against his jaw. “Andy seemed to be

the only person who knew a safe way out of the building, is

that correct?”

“Yes. But that’s not a crime.”

“Hardly.” He chuckled. “From what I’ve read, your son is

viewed as an outsider. Not very popular. Do you agree with

that description of him?”

I nodded. “Yes,” I said. “He doesn’t fit in very well, but that

doesn’t mean he’d set a fire to make himself look like a big man

on campus.”

“Well.” Dennis rested his pen on the legal pad and sat back

in his chair.“Unless there’s more to this picture than meets the

eye, it would seem that all they have now is circumstantial

evidence. Nothing they can use to pin a felony on your son,

that’s for sure. How did he get to the lock-in?”

“My daughter—his sister, Maggie—drove him.”

“And I assume Maggie knows he wasn’t carrying a couple

of gallons of flammable liquid, right?”

I smiled. I was beginning to relax about this whole thing. It

was, as I’d thought all along, absurd. “Right,” I said.

“As long as his clothes don’t come back from the lab with

traces of accelerant on them, I’d say he’s home free.”

“That won’t happen,” I said. I knew that for a fact.

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* * *

with the radio in my car. I opened the windows, letting my hair

blow around my head in the warm spring air as I sang oldies-

but-goodies at the top of my lungs all the way to the swing

bridge.

I turned right after crossing the bridge and headed for

Jabeen’s. Maybe Sara was still in Surf City and would have

some time to catch up. Once again, I felt out of touch with

her. I’d called twice in the past few days, but she hadn’t called

back.

Dawn was cleaning the counter when I walked into the

empty café. She looked up and gave me a halfhearted wave.

“Hi, Dawn,” I said. “Is Sara in today?”

“She’s back at the hospital.” She barely glanced at me as she

sprayed a spot on the counter, but I could see that her eyes were

bloodshot and I was immediately worried.

“Is Keith okay?” I asked.

“He’s actually doing better.” She put down the cloth and

spray bottle and picked up a paper cup, holding it under the

spigot of one of the coffeemakers. “But those burn treatments

don’t sound like fun.”

“I know,” I said. “I had a couple of burn patients when I was

in nurse’s training.” Scrubbing scorched skin raw had been,

without a doubt, one of the most disturbing parts of my

training. “Poor Keith. It’s got to be so hard for Sara to watch

him go through that.”

Dawn snapped a lid on the cup of coffee I hadn’t ordered

and handed it to me.

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“Thanks,” I said, taking a sip.

“She makes out like she’s doing all right with it,” Dawn said,

“but you know she must be wrung out.” Dawn looked wrung

out herself. There were puffy bags under her eyes.

“How about you?” I didn’t want to pry, but something was

clearly wrong. “Are you all right?” I asked.

She nodded.“Just tired.” She sat down on the stool behind the

cash register, her feet propped up on the rung, and rubbed her

palms on her lean, denim-covered thighs.“You wouldn’t believe

how the money’s been rolling in since the
Today
show,” she said

with a little more pep in her voice. “Thanks for your help with

that.”

“You’re the one doing all the work.” I took another sip of

the coffee. “Is Ben’s head healed?”

She ran her fingers through her pretty red hair, taking her

time, as if she had to think about her answer. “Doesn’t Maggie

keep you informed?” she asked.

It took me a moment to realize that my children would see

Ben at swim practices. “Oh, of course,” I said, “I guess if he

were having any problems, Maggie or Andy would have let me

know.” Actually, I wasn’t sure either of them would think to

tell me. “He
is
all right, isn’t he?”

“He’s fine,” she said quickly. Then she chuckled, and I

imagined she was thinking of a private moment between them,

because when she spoke again, it wasn’t about anything funny.

“Listen, sugar.” She leaned forward, resting her elbows on her

knees. “I know there’s all this talk about Andy, and it must be

driving you ’round the bend.”

“It is,” I acknowledged.

“Well, I just want to say that, even if Andy
did
have something

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to do with the fire, I’m sure he’ll be able to get off because he

couldn’t possibly understand the seriousness of what he was

doing.”

I stared at her, momentarily speechless. I knew she was

trying to comfort me, but it certainly wasn’t working.

“Andy didn’t do anything wrong,” I said.

“I’m just saying, even if he did.”

I let out a long sigh.“All right.” I gave up. People were going

to believe what they wanted to and there wasn’t much I could

do about it. “Thanks for the coffee. And if you talk to Sara

before I do, please tell her I was asking about her and Keith.”

As I drove home, I wondered if Sara hadn’t returned my

calls because she, too, believed Andy was responsible for the

fire. Ludicrous. Sara knew Andy nearly as well as I did. I’d try

calling her again as soon as I got home.

There was a police car in front of the house when I pulled

in my driveway, and the sight of it wiped Sara from my mind.

I hurried into the house and found Maggie standing in the

entryway with Sergeant Wood.

“They think we gave them the wrong clothes,”she said quickly.

I looked from her to the sergeant.

“Sorry to disturb you again, ma’am,” he said. “But we have

some pictures from the lock-in that kids took with their cell

phone cameras. The clothing and shoes you gave us are not

what Andy has on in those pictures.”

“You’re kidding.” I didn’t look at Maggie. I never should have

dragged her into this.

“I’d like to take another look in his room for the right

articles of clothing.”

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I hesitated, maybe a moment too long. “Sure,” I said. “Go

ahead.”

We followed Sergeant Wood upstairs, Maggie gnawing her

lip. I wished she didn’t look so guilty.

In Andy’s room, I watched the sergeant pull the correct pair

of sneakers from his closet. “These look more like it,” he said.

He withdrew a photograph from his shirt pocket and studied

it, then handed it to me.

My hand was damp with sweat as I took the photograph

from him. The picture was of two boys I didn’t know, posing

like bodybuilders, flexing their arms to show off their small

adolescent biceps. Andy and Emily stood off to one side of the

boys, vacant looks on their faces, clearly incidental to the main

subjects of the photograph.

“I was sure he was wearing those others,” I said, afraid the

sergeant would lift the shoes to his nose and smell what I had

smelled on them, but he simply dropped them into two

separate bags. I looked at the picture again. “And I could have

sworn he’d had on that sage-colored shirt.”

“Me, too,” Maggie added. “He had it on earlier that day, so

I guess we got mixed up.”

I wanted her to be quiet, afraid she’d give us away—if we

were not already given away.

“Uh-huh,” Sergeant Wood said. I didn’t think he believed a

word we were saying, but apparently he wasn’t going to call

us on it. At least not yet.

He finished his collection of clothing and we followed him

downstairs again.

“Good day, ma’am. Miss.” He nodded to us, then let himself out.

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313

As soon as the door shut behind him,Maggie grabbed my arm.

“Why didn’t you throw them away?” she asked. “The shoes

and his clothes?”

“I didn’t think of it,” I said. “I never thought of pictures. But

I should have given them the right clothes from the start. That

was really stupid of me. I’m sorry, Maggie.”

We fell quiet, neither of us moving away from the front

door.

“What should it matter?” I asked. “He’s innocent, so the

clothes won’t have anything flammable on them, right?”

“Oh God, I hope not.”

“Maggie, you can’t possibly think—”

“What if his cigarette lighter leaked, like you said?”

“Then we’ll explain about the lighter,” I said calmly. “I met

with the lawyer this morning, and he said everything’s circumstantial evidence so far. So as long as the clothes come back

clean, Andy’s in the clear.”

She looked at me with worry in her eyes.

“Nothing will be on them, Maggie.” I hugged her to me and

she melted in my arms, unusual for my independent daughter.

“We have nothing at all to worry about.”

I DIDN’T HEAR ANYTHING FROM BEN THE DAY after Dawn

busted me, even though I left six messages for him. Between

the cop coming back for Andy’s clothes and me waiting for

Mom to say,
I had a call from Dawn Reynolds today, Maggie,
I was

ready to slit my wrists. And I had the tiniest—just the teeny

tiniest—bit of doubt about Ben. That was the worst part of

all.

He finally called on my cell that night. “I’ll call you right

back!” I said. Then I went out to our pier; I couldn’t take the

chance Mom would overhear me.

I speed-dialed him as soon as I was far enough from the

house to talk. “I’ve been freaking out!” I said when he picked

up. “What did Dawn say?”

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“Everything’s cool,” Ben said. “At least for now. She was

rabid when I got home last night, though.”

“What did you tell her?”

“I calmed her down. That took a while.” He laughed a little.

“I told her…you know…how she thought we…her and

me…have something that we don’t.”

I relaxed. I used to feel sorry for Dawn, but after last night

when she was such a bitch, that was over. “Was she really

upset?”

“Yeah. Sure. I think she got it, though.”

“Do you think she’ll tell?” I’d reached the end of the pier

and sat down on one of the posts. “I thought for sure she’d call

my mother today.”

“Well, that could still be a problem, Maggie. She thinks it’s

wrong for us to see each other. That I’m robbing the cradle.”