Change of Heart (7 page)

My father got home just before seven. He was carrying two large paper bags.

“Chinese,” he said, setting them onto the dining table. “Are you hungry?” He headed into the kitchen to get plates and cutlery.

“Nick left something for you,” I said while I watched him set the table.

My dad glanced at the envelope but didn't pick it up. Instead, he started to open up containers of food—stir-fried vegetables, shrimp, beef in black bean sauce, steamed rice.

“Help yourself, Robbie,” he said.

I sat opposite him and spooned some food onto my plate.

“What's going on with Nick, Dad? Why was he here? What's in the envelope?”

My dad heaped food onto his own plate.

“I missed lunch,” he said. “You have no idea how tempted I was to start eating while I was still in the car.” He dug enthusiastically into the beef and black bean sauce.

“Nice try.” I repeated my questions.

“Nick is a lot like your mother,” he said. “He likes to keep his personal affairs private.”

“Private from me, you mean,” I said. “He seems to be getting along great with you.”

My dad set his fork aside.

“I'm sorry things didn't work out between you and Nick,” he said. “I don't think it was easy for Nick to come to me.”

“Come to you for what?”

“He asked me not to say anything to you, Robbie. At first I agreed. But now ... I told him yesterday that, under the circumstances, I was going to have to tell you something and that he had to make up his mind about what he was going to do.”

“What do you mean?” I said. “Under what circumstances? What are you talking about, Dad?”

“You may run into Nick from time to time, Robbie. He's doing some work for me.”

“What?”

“He's trying to get back on his feet.”

After Nick had left town and had ended up in trouble—again—he'd come back to no job and no place to stay. He'd been living with his aunt on and off, but it never worked out. Nick didn't get along with his aunt's boyfriend. He didn't have parents to help him out. He had to support himself. My dad had let him have an apartment downstairs, but when Nick had got back to town, he'd decided not to move back in. Now that we were no longer together, he had even more reason to want to stay away. The last I'd heard, he'd been sleeping on a friend's couch.

“He called me two weeks ago and asked me if I knew of anyone who was hiring,” my dad said.

“So you hired him?” I couldn't believe it.

“I gave him a few leads, but they didn't pan out. So I threw a little work his way.”

“What kind of work?”

“Research. Gathering background information.”

“Nick doesn't even have a computer.”

“I gave him access to one. It turns out he's good at it, Robbie. He's tenacious, he's creative, and he's good at coaxing information out of people. He likes the work, too. But if it bothers you that much, I'll encourage him to look for something else.”

Oh sure. Nick had finally found something that he was good at and that he liked. He was earning praise and being appreciated for it. And I could ruin it for him by whining to my father.

“Just because we're not going out anymore, that doesn't mean I don't want him to be happy,” I said.

My dad picked up his fork again but didn't dig into his food.

“There's one other thing, Robbie,” he said.

I waited.

“He needed a place to stay.”

“Please don't tell me that you asked him to move in here, Dad.”

My father shook his head. “But I gave him back his old apartment.”

This was getting better and better.

“He's a good kid, Robbie. He needed a break, and I was in a position to give him one. That's all.”

“It's okay, Dad,” I said, even though it didn't feel okay.

I speared a piece of red pepper and put it in my mouth, but I couldn't tell you what it tasted like. All I could think about was that Nick was living right below where I was sitting. Every time I came in there was a chance that I'd bump into him on the stairs. There was a chance that I'd find him here in my dad's loft if I dropped by unexpectedly. I had been having enough trouble keeping my mind off him. I had broken up with Ben because I couldn't stop thinking of Nick, even though it was obvious that he wasn't interested in me. Now it was going to be hard to avoid him.

I decided to change the subject. “Dad, did you hear about that murder at the arena?”

“The hockey player?” I nodded. “I heard something on the news. Why?”

“Morgan was going out with him.”

My dad looked surprised. “But I thought she and Billy—”

I filled him in on what I knew, which included how Billy had been acting. Then I asked the question that I had been trying not to think about ever since I'd left Morgan's house.

“Dad, you don't think that Billy ... that he would ...”

My dad swallowed a piece of chicken.

“Do I think it's possible that Billy killed this kid?” he said. “Stranger things have happened, Robbie. When people get swept up in strong emotions, anything is possible.” Nick was a case study in that. “But, seriously, do I think that Billy would kill another human being? No,” he said firmly. “No, I do not.”

I wished that Morgan could see things the way my father did.

I found my dad at the dining room table the next morning, a mug of coffee in one hand, the newspaper spread out in front of him. He turned when he heard me behind him. The somber expression on his face scared me.

“Sit down, Robbie,” he said.

“Is something wrong?”

He nodded at a chair. I pulled it out and dropped down onto it.

“The police have made an arrest in the Sean Sloane murder,” he said.

“Already? Did they find a witness or something?”

“They have a witness who says they saw someone at the scene of the murder. They also found the murder weapon in that person's possession. It had that person's fingerprints on it. He also has a motive, but no alibi. It sounds like it's a slam-dunk.”

“So that's good, right?” I said.

My dad looked me directly in the eye. “The person they arrested—it's Billy.”

“Y

ou're kidding,” I said, even though I was sure this was something my dad would never kid about. I reached for the newspaper. There was an article in it about the murder and the arrest, but it didn't say much. It didn't even name the person who had been arrested. It just said that it was a male youth.

“How do you know it's Billy?” I said.

“Your mother called.”

“Mom? What does she—”

“Billy's parents called her. They want her to represent Billy.”

If Billy's parents had called my mom, then what my dad was saying was true. But my brain was saying,
No, no, no, it's not possible
.

“Billy didn't do it,” I said.

My dad didn't say anything.

“He didn't do it, Dad.”

“Robbie, we're just going to have to wait and see.”

Last night he had seemed so certain that Billy could never take another life. Now he sounded as if he thought it might be possible after all.

My cell phone rang. It was Morgan.

“They arrested Billy,” she said.

“I heard. It has to be a mistake. It just has to.”

“I talked to Sean's brother Kevin,” Morgan said. “It doesn't sound like a mistake. It sounds like he really did it. Do you know what that means, Robyn? It means that I spent the past five months going out with a murderer.”

“He's not a murderer, Morgan.”

I glanced at my father, who kept his eyes firmly on his newspaper.

“What's the matter with you, Robyn?” Morgan said. “Didn't you hear what I just said? Why are you always taking Billy's side?”

“Because he's not a killer, Morgan. You know he isn't.”

That's when Morgan did something that she had never done before, no matter how angry she was.

“She hung up on me,” I said to my dad.

He looked up from his newspaper. “This will probably be rough, Robbie. If I were you, I'd try to stay neutral.”

“I've been trying to stay neutral. What else can you do when your best friend cheats on your other best friend? But you know what? It doesn't work because Morgan is completely unreasonable. One minute she's in love with Billy. The next minute she calls him a stalker and a killer. If you were me, and one of your friends had just been arrested for murder, the very last thing you'd do is stay neutral—and the first thing you'd do is try to figure out what really happened.”

“Robbie,” my dad said, his voice gentle now, “you told me yourself how Billy has been behaving. And you know the case against him—he had a grudge against the victim, he was found with the weapon, he was at the scene. Motive, method, opportunity. It's the trifecta of homicide.”

I stared at him in disbelief. “What are you saying, Dad?”

“Sean was killed by a blow to the back of the head, which means that whoever did it hit him from behind. It wasn't a fight. It wasn't self-defense. Someone came up behind Sean and hit him hard enough to kill him.” I didn't want to believe what he was telling me. “When Sean's mother found the body, Sean's face was covered. It was covered after Sean was dead. Murders don't usually cover their victims' faces after they kill them, Robbie—unless they feel remorse.” He peered at me with his slate-grey eyes. “Does that sound like anyone you know?”

What was wrong with everyone? “It's a mistake. It has to be. Billy would never do anything like that.”

My dad didn't say anything.

“Charlie Hart is working on the case,” I said.

“I know. Your mother told me. He's a good cop, Robbie. Cautious, too.”

In other words, Charlie Hart wouldn't have arrested Billy unless he was sure that he had a solid case. If there was some way the situation could have been worse for Billy, I couldn't think of it.

“When did you talk to Mom?”

“She called me this morning. She wanted me to give you a heads-up.”

I punched in her cell-phone number. She answered on the third ring.

“Mom, I want to talk to Billy.”

“He's in custody, Robyn.”

“But he can have visitors, right?”

“He can see his lawyer and his parents. Robyn, I really think it would be better—”

“He's my friend, Mom. Don't you think he would want to know that someone besides his parents and his lawyer cares how he's doing?”

I heard my mom sigh at the other end of the line. “I'll see what I can do,” she said. “I'll talk to his mother and see if she can get you approved. But it won't be today. Okay?”

“Thanks, Mom.”

I got dressed and headed for the door.

“Where are you going?” my dad said.

“For a run. I have to think.”

I made record time going down the stairs. I didn't want to take the chance that I'd bump into Nick. I ran all the way to the river that cuts through the city, and then I ran north along it, my feet pounding on the cement path as I thought about Billy. He couldn't possibly have killed Sean Sloane. He rescued injured birds. He fought to stop animal testing of cosmetics and pharmaceuticals. He volunteered at an animal shelter that had a no-euthanasia policy. He was the most humane person I knew.

On the other hand, he had gotten into a fight with Sean, which I wouldn't have believed if I hadn't seen it with my own eyes. He had phoned Morgan repeatedly, almost obsessively, even after she had asked him to stop. And he had been caught spying on her while she was with Sean. Lately, Billy had been doing a lot of things that were out of character. But still, murder?

I hated to admit it, but my dad was right, at least about one thing: when people get caught up in strong emotions, they do crazy things. I had seen that happen to Nick. I'd seen it happen to other people, too. And because of that, I could picture the events surrounding Sean's death.