Gracie's Game: Sudden Anger, Accidentally on Purpose (23 page)

"It was Justin!" Gracie said.

"Gracie, what in the world are you talking about? You're not trying to tell me that Justin shot his father, are you?"

"No, but I think he shot
at
him," Gracie replied. "Then he stole the stuff and tore up the house so it would
look
like Dad had surprised a burglar."

"But why would he do that?" Clarissa asked. She was beginning to think all this detective stuff was going to Gracie's head.

"Well, I don't really know
why
," Gracie admitted. "But let me tell you what I think
did
happen, and see what you think."

Gracie proceeded to tell her mother, in great detail, how she'd put the pieces together. Clarissa asked a few questions, but only a few because Gracie seemed to have covered everything.

"Have you talked to Justin about this yet?" Clarissa asked.

"No, I wanted to talk to you first. And I want to show you something." Gracie stood up and beckoned for her mother to follow.

Only when she saw the pillowcase full of loot did Clarissa finally believe Gracie's story. She hadn't wanted to, even then. It was still possible, she told herself, that Jennifer had been the one to shoot at Charles and cover her tracks with the supposed burglary. Not her son.

Clarissa told Gracie to stay outside while she went in the house and upstairs to speak to Justin. She wasn't looking forward to this.

She knocked on Justin's door. "Justin? It's Mom. I need to talk to you."

"I'm busy! Is the pizza here?"

"No, it's not," she said to the closed door. "This is about your father. I need to ask you some questions, and if you don't come out in about three seconds I'm coming in. It's important."

Justin opened the door and told her "Gracie already told me about the funeral. I'll wear the freakin' suit but I'm not riding there with Jennifer and her girlfriend, guess you'll have to come get me."

Clarissa stepped past Justin into the room, pulled the chair out from under the desk and sat down. "I'll be happy to take you to the funeral, and I want you to know I truly appreciate your wearing a suit. I know you hate them. But that's not what I wanted to talk about."

Justin flopped down on his bed and picked up his headphones, toying with them nervously. "So whadda you want?"

"Your sister thinks she's figured out what happened during the burglary."

"What, is she trying to pin it on
me
?" he asked.

Clarissa met his eyes. "Did you do it?"

"
No
!" Justin said, outraged. "How could
I
do it, I was in school that day. Talk to the step-bitch, she probably got pissed because he wouldn't give her more money and took a shot at him."

"It seems you failed to pay off the source of your purchased alibi," she told him in a deadly calm voice. "Tina's not going to lie for you now.
And
we found your cache of jewels."

Justin stared at her for a moment, his eyes big and round with shock. Then he just seemed to collapse in on himself, covering his face with both hands. He began to sob.

"I didn't mean to hurt him! I really didn't! He was yelling at me and I had the gun in my pocket and thought maybe it would scare him if I shot it and he'd calm down."

Clarissa got up and patted Justin's shaking shoulder. "I know you didn't," she told him. "Let's go down and talk to Gracie and you can tell us all about it."

"I don't want to talk to Gracie! She'll never let me live it down. I told you I didn't mean to do it, now please just go away," Justin blubbered.

"I'm afraid you'll have to talk to more than just Gracie, Justin. I'll have to call Lieutenant Freeman and tell him what happened. But first I want to hear what you have to say. And since Gracie thinks she's figured it out, you can tell us both."

Reluctantly, Justin stood up and his mother gave him a big hug. "I love you, Justin," she told him. "I always will. But we can't just pretend this didn't happen. I'm afraid you may be in some serious trouble, but I
promise
I will do everything I can to help."

Clarissa and Justin went out to the patio and sat down with Gracie. Justin sat slumped in his chair and refused to look at either of them. Gracie watchedhim for a moment, then turned to give her mother a questioning look. Clarissa simply nodded.

Gracie broke the silence. "I know you weren't shooting
at
Dad, Justin."

He looked up at his sister. There was no emotion on his face; he had no emotions left at this point. "You do?" A little spark of the old Justin surfaced and he said, "If you're so damned smart why don't you tell me what happened ?"

Gracie did just that. For the third time today she went through the sequence of events she'd put together. She started with the torn jeans pocket and the bitter-smelling smear on the lining and her guess that it was gunpowder and how she'd figured out things from there, ending with finding the stolen items in the pool house. Justin just sat there, dumbly nodding his head during the entire explanation.

When she was done he said, "You got it, Sis. It happened just like you said."

"Except I'm not sure why you fired the gun," Clarissa said. "Were you trying to frighten your father?"

"I'm not really sure, myself," Justin said shaking his head. "I felt like I was pissed off at Dad all the time. I couldn't ever do anything right. I didn't make good grades like Clarke – and I wasn't a
girl
like Gracie. I'm not into football, and I couldn't stand that music he liked, it
sucks
."

Gracie laughed, remembering she'd thought the same thing. She told Justin about it.

"Unfortunately you're the middle child," Clarissa said. "You had the misfortune to have a smart older brother and your younger sibling was the only girl in the family. I tried to help – you take after me in more than just looks. You're sensitive, and more than a little artistic. Your father couldn't accept that, he thought of it as weakness."

Justin nodded. "I told myself I didn't care, that I'd do whatever I wanted." He paused and there was deep pain in his voice as he said, "But I did care. I wanted him to accept me the way I am."

"I know about that," Gracie told him. "Dad always acted like my interest in the ecology was stupid. No,
silly
, and that's worse. He just tolerated it because I was the Princess. And before you say anything, I didn't like being treated like a princess. It wasn't fair to you or Clarke; I mean, it wasn't
your
fault you were born males!"

Justin stuck his tongue out at her, but only half-heartedly. "You wanna know what the fight was really about?"

"Of course," Clarissa said.

"I was mad because Zack would rather go to lunch with that goody-two-shoes Carrie than take me home to get the money. I think that's part of why I took the gun, thought I'd go shoot something and it'd make me feel better. It didn't fit in my pocket well, I had to kind of wiggle it in. Then I decided I'd get high first – and do it in the den. It seemed like a great idea at the time, kind of like getting back at Dad by doing it in the house."

"But didn't you hear your father come in the front door?" Clarissa asked.

"No, guess I was already stoned. He came in the den yelling about the money and the pot and how I was such a big disappointment to him. By the way, I didn't know about the trap, he never told me. Guess he figured if it wasn't his
wife
it had to be me. He'd put the money in a different drawer, I found the gun while I was looking for it. I saw the paper-clip, but didn't think anything about it," Justin explained.

Clarissa and Gracie didn't say a thing, waiting for him to continue.

"Anyway, his yelling just made me madder and all I could think of was that I wanted him to
stop
. He wouldn't even let me
say
anything. I stood up thinking maybe I'd just run out the door, I knew I could outrun him. But when I did I felt the gun in my pocket. I don't know, I just pulled it out and pulled the trigger. And then...and then Dad fell over and hit the floor. I thought I'd killed him."

"Didn't you check? Feel his pulse or something?" Gracie asked.

"I was too scared," Justin admitted. "I didn't know what to do. You're right, Gracie. I shoved the gun in my pocket and the trigger guard caught on the edge and tore it. But I didn't realize it at the time, I just stood there. That shot was so loud I expected the cops to knock on the door any second! When that didn't happen I finally started to think."

"That's when you got the idea to set up the 'burglary'," Gracie said.

"Yeah. I started throwing pillows all over the place, knocked some stuff off tables, even smashed a bottle of Dad's Scotch – the really
expensive
one that's forty gazillion years old or something. At some point I realized the gun had fallen out of my pocket, so I wiped it off with my T-shirt and dropped it by the body. What I
thought
was the body, anyway. I was about to leave when it occurred to me that I might as well take the rest of the money and tear up the office, too. While I was doing that I thought about Jennifer's bling and figured I might as well take it too."

"I thought you might've put it all in your backpack and hidden it in your locker," Gracie said. "Why didn't you? No one would've thought to look there because who would've suspected you?"

"Because I didn't want to get caught with it," Justin explained. "I was
scared
, remember? I thought if the cops found it in the pool house they couldn't prove I'd put it there."

"That makes sense, after a fashion," Clarissa said. "They'd have been more likely to suspect Jennifer than you."

"Yeah, I figured that out later," he said. "So I ran back to school and gave Tina that line about getting back at Zack. But I was scared all afternoon, and it got worse when we got out of school."

"You must have been
terrified
," his mother said.

"At least," he said in understatement. "When Zack turned the corner I expected to see cop cars and yellow tape all over the place. I didn't know what was going on, especially when I saw Cindy's car was there. And when we went in Jennifer was freaking out about the burglary but didn't say anything about
Dad
. I finally realized that I'd only
thought
he was dead."

"So you figured you were home free," Gracie told him.

"
No!
" he said. "I figured my problems were just starting! Dad was gonna be majorly pissed. I thought he was probably out signing me up for military school or something. And when we got back to the house later and Jennifer told me Dad had been shot for real, I didn't know
what
to think."

"It's all over now, Justin," Clarissa said. "Don't you feel better for having told us?"

"Yeah. Except now you're gonna call that cop and he'll throw my ass in jail."

"I'm not so sure about that," she told him. "I'm no lawyer, but it seems to me there were definitely extenuating circumstances involved. I
promise
you I will help you get through this.

"Would now be a good time to say the pizzas are here?"

All three turned in surprise to see Jennifer standing by the patio doors, pizza boxes in her hands.