Guilty (8 page)

My dad pours himself a refill from the coffee maker on the kitchen counter. I reach for a mug too. I don't drink a lot of coffee, but every so often I need some to get me going in the morning. Today is one of those days.

“That was the police,” my dad says, stepping aside to let me at the coffee maker.

“Is everything okay?”

He gives me a peculiar look. “Sure. Why wouldn't it be? They just called to tell me they're filing their final report. Tracie is a homicide. Ouimette was self-defense. It's over, son. Now we have to find a way to move on. You hungry? You want me to make you some eggs?”

“It's okay. I can do it myself.”

“Nonsense.”

He sets down his mug and starts to take stuff out of the fridge—eggs, milk, butter, cheese, green onions and a loaf of bread. I watch in astonishment as he ties on a chef's apron and starts to whip up a six-egg cheese omelet.

“Dad, I'm not
that
hungry.”

He grins at me. “Who says it's all for you?”

He slides four pieces of whole-wheat bread into the toaster oven and turns it on. A few minutes later we're sitting across from each other at the kitchen table scarfing down a terrific omelet. My dad eats like a man who has been starving. He washes down the last mouthful with the rest of his coffee, stands up and starts setting plates into the sink.

“I'll do that, Dad.”

“Don't you have to get to school?”

“It's early. I can handle it.”

My dad doesn't argue with me.

“I have to get to the club. We're supposed to open the new floor this weekend. I have to check on the details. See you later, okay?”

I sit at the table drinking my coffee even after he's gone. The clock on the wall reads
8:00
AM
. If I'm going to get to school on time, I have to get a move on.

But I stay right where I am.

About the time the late bell is ringing halfway across town, where my school is, I get up and carry my breakfast dishes to the sink. I rinse them and my dad's dishes and set them into the dishwasher.

My phone rings. I check the call display..

John.

“Hey, man, where are you?”

“I'm taking a sick day,” I tell him.

“You okay?” There's genuine concern in his voice. “Is everything okay with Rob?”

My dad is famous for telling everyone, even my friends, to call him Rob. So they do.

“Yeah. They closed the case. He's at the club. I just need another day.”

“Catch you later?”

“Yeah. Sure. I'll call you.”

I leave my phone on the table and head up the stairs to my room. My plan: crawl back into bed, pull the covers up over my head, and try to get the sleep I didn't get last night.

Only I don't make it to my room right away. Instead, I stop at my dad's bedroom. The door is closed—Tracie always insisted on it, like she was afraid I was going to go pawing through her stuff. I guess it never occurred to her that that was pretty much the last thing I would ever do, that I could barely stomach the idea of her and my dad together in the same bed, and the thought of her in that room made me physically ill. But now I push open the door. I don't even know why. I guess to see if my dad did anything about the mess.

The bed is neatly made. There are no clothes on it. There are no clothes on the floor or on the any of the furniture. He must have cleaned up after I went to bed.

I go into the room and cross to Tracie's closet. I open the closet door.

Oh.

It's almost funny, like the kind of thing I used to do when I was a kid and my mom used to tell me to clean up my room. I'd shove everything under my bed, wait half an hour and then invite her to come and take a look. I don't know why I bothered. It never worked.

“Where did you get the idea that shoving things out of the sight is the same thing as tidying up?” she always said.

Now I know.

My poor dad. He probably just wanted to get everything out of sight.

I sigh. I start to close the closet door. Then I decide to do something nice for a change.

I go back down to the kitchen. I take a box of green garbage bags and a roll of masking tape. I dig around in a drawer and find a felt pen. I go back upstairs and I start to fold and sort.

I put all the long-sleeved sweaters in one bag and label it
long-sleeved sweaters
. I put all the blouses in another bag and label it
blouses
. I work my way through slacks, jeans, workout clothes, T-shirts, blazers, scarves, every category of clothing you can think of. I keep everything separate and label everything neatly so that my dad knows what's what and can make decisions about what to do with it. Finally the only things left are…underwear stuff. I don't even want to touch the things. They're all tiny and lacy, and call me a pig, but I can't help thinking what I'm thinking. I scoop everything, all of it, into a bag, seal it and set it aside without labeling it. Out of sight…

I take all the bags out into the hall and set them in a row where my dad won't be able to miss them. Then I go back to close the closet door. In fact, that's just what I'm doing when I see something hanging out of one of the drawers that line the bottom half of one wall. I pull the drawer open. Jeez, more underwear. I go back out into the hall, unknot the underwear bag, bring it back and scoop the things into it. Before I reseal it, I start to go through all the drawers. Might as well make sure I got everything.

I pull open drawer after drawer.

Empty.

Empty.

Empty.

Empty.

More underwear. Thongs, mostly. She could have opened a lingerie store with all the stuff she had.

Empty.

Empty, and kind of stuck. I slide this particular drawer back and forth a few times. Yeah, definitely stuck. Maybe warped. I try to pull it open again, and this time it sticks for good. I can't open it all the way, and I can't close it.

I get down on my hands and knees. Something is definitely blocking it.

So I pull out the drawer under it. I pull it right out of its frame. Then I reach under the stuck drawer to see if I can figure out what's blocking it.

It's some kind of paper. It probably slipped out and got wedged in there. I pull at it, but it doesn't come out. It takes a moment to work it free. Finally, I have it. It's an envelope, all crunched at one corner thanks to the drawer opening and closing on it until it jammed.

I toss it aside and go through the rest of the drawers. When I'm satisfied I've emptied everything, I retie the lingerie bag and put it back in the hall. Then I pick up the envelope, close the closet drawer and head to my room. I'm about to throw the envelope on my dresser when I get curious. What if Tracie was hiding it? What if there's something in there she didn't want people to see—like… Hey, maybe the envelope contains incriminating photos of Tracie in some of her tiny, lacy lingerie.

For a minute, I can't decide if that's a reason to open the envelope or a reason to burn it. I mean, do I really want to see…?

I unseal the envelope and pull out what's inside. It's a piece of paper. It doesn't feel like photographic paper, but still, I only peek at it through one half-closed eye.

I'm relieved.

And, I admit it, disappointed.

It isn't a photo of Tracie.

It isn't a photo at all.

It's some kind of bill from what looks like a handyman. Then I remember how my dad is as bad as me when it comes to his things. He's always shoving stuff into drawers and then forgetting where he put them. He's better at the club. At least, he says he is. But he spends a lot of time at home looking for stuff that he's put somewhere but can't remember where. My mom used to tell him that if he added up all the time he spent looking for stuff, it would be years of his life, and that he could have spent those years doing something fun if only he'd been more organized.

I toss the envelope onto my dresser. I'll give it to him later.

I crawl into bed.

The next thing I know, I'm being blinded by the afternoon sun. I check my clock. It's nearly three. School will be out soon. I reach for my phone. It isn't there.

Right. I left it in the kitchen.

I roll out of bed and go downstairs to retrieve it. When I hit the button for my list of saved numbers, I see hers right under John's. Lila. The girl from the funeral. It was nice of her to show up, especially considering what she told me about her dad.

I don't even hesitate. I call her.

The phone rings twice, three times, four times at the other end. I hear a breathless voice.

“Hello?”

“Lila?”

“Yes?” She sounds guarded, as if she's expecting bad news and is bracing herself.

“It's Finn. From the police station. And the funeral. You gave me your number, remember?”

The pause that follows is so long that there can only be two possibilities—she doesn't remember, or she's trying to figure out what to say to make me go away.

“I remember,” she says at last. If there's any way she could sound less enthusiastic, I can't come up with it. I remind myself that her father died. That was why she was at the police station.

“So…how are you doing?”

“I'm kind of busy,” she says.

“If there's a better time…”

“No.” She doesn't hesitate, not even for a split second. “No. It was a mistake to give you my number. I'm sorry.”

I hear the click, but I can't quite believe it. No one has ever hung up on me before. I stand there like an idiot and stare at my phone. Grief, I can understand. But what did she mean when she said,
It was a mistake to give you
my number
? Is it just that she isn't interested in talking to anyone, especially a stranger? I can understand that. But that isn't what it sounded like.

Whatever.

I call John. We agree to meet up near school.

I wait for John about a block from school where none of my teachers will see me, even though I know that none of them would dare challenge my absence today. Last year, the mother of a kid in my class died in a car accident. He was out for nearly two months with a complete mental breakdown. Well, I can top that. I saw a shooting—two people killed right in front of my eyes, and my father nearly killed. Still, I don't want any hassles. And I sure don't want any awkward moments of forced or even sincere sympathy.

John's hungry. What else is new? So we head to a burger place, where he orders a cheeseburger with bacon, fries with gravy, and a chocolate milkshake.

I order a Coke.

“That's it?” he says.

I shrug, and he nods.

“You okay?” he says.

I tell him, yeah. And then I start to tell him about the girl.

“The one you were talking to at the funeral?” he says. “She's hot. Who is she?”

I explain the little I know about her.

“But you got her number, right?”

“I called her today.”

John grins. “And?”

“She hung up on me.”

He sits back in his chair, a look of mock astonishment on his face.

“Blown off? By a hot chick? How did
that
happen?” He laughs and drags a couple of French fries through thick gravy before shoving them into his mouth.

“She said she made a mistake when she gave me her number,” I say.

“I could have warned her.” He chuckles. “So, you're going to call her again, right?”

“Didn't you hear what I just said? She blew me off.”

“Yeah, but you've got to ask yourself—if she's not interested, what was she doing at the funeral? Who shows up at the funeral of a complete stranger? I'll tell you who—no one. Unless that person has already met one of the grieving family members—which you said she did, at the police station—and feels for that person, which I bet she does, because you said it yourself, she was there because her father died. Obviously he didn't just drop dead of a heart attack. You don't go to the police station for that. So it must have been something pretty bad. Maybe some grisly car accident. Maybe a hit-and-run. She's obviously grieving, Finn. And she obviously sees you as some kind of kindred soul. That's why she was at the funeral. If I were you—”