Guilty (5 page)

I watch. There are quite a few people here. I wonder if there were more at the funeral home where the paper said the service was going to be held. Probably. I've been to funerals before, mostly funerals of some of the old people in the church that Aunt Jenny goes to and where I sing in the choir. Aunt Jenny makes me go to the funerals. She says it's the right thing to do. It's a way to honor people. It's a way to let them know that they were important to the community. So I know the way it works. I know that there are lots of people who go to the service for the same reason that Aunt Jenny makes me go, because it's the right thing to do, because it's expected. And I know that fewer people go to the cemetery for the actual burial because, besides the fact that it isn't required, it's scarier. It's hard to see a person lowered into the ground and to watch earth being shoveled over them because you know that wherever their soul may be, their body is in the ground and it will be there forever, in the dark, away from life.

I see Robert Newsome standing closest to the man who is reading the final words. His head is bowed. I see his son too. Finn, according to the newspaper. His head is not bowed. He is looking at his father, not at the ground. Then the man who has been reading stops. He nods at another man standing back from the mourners. That man steps forward, and the coffin begins a slow descent into the grave.

That's when Finn looks at me—right at me.

I step back.

He steps forward.

He is coming toward me. He walks slowly at first, and I hesitate. Then he walks faster, as if he's afraid I will turn and run before he can reach me. And that's exactly what I feel like doing—running. I have no business being here. Not now. Not at
this
funeral.

But I had no choice.

Even when I was sitting on the bus telling myself it was a bad idea, I was thinking, but when would be a better time? How do I even know I will have another chance? According to the newspaper, Finn's dad is well-off. What if Finn goes to a private school? What if he goes to a boarding school far away?

Sure, there's always his dad. But I can't bring myself to talk to him. It doesn't matter what they say, it doesn't matter who did what first or why they did it, the fact remains that his dad killed my dad.

His dad killed my dad.

I think that's why I don't run away. It's why I stand my ground.

Finn gets closer, and I see that he is smiling. Sort of. There's a smile on his face. And a big question mark. He's wearing a black suit and a black tie. His shirt is dove-gray. He looks like a billboard ad in that suit. When he's near enough for me to see that his eyes are blue, he slows down again, the way you do when you're getting close to a small animal and don't want to frighten it. He stops a few feet from me.

“I thought it was you,” he says. His smile widens, but just for a second. Then it fades, as if he's unsure of himself and of me. “I was surprised to see you.”

“I heard the police say your dad's name,” I say. That, at least, is the truth. “Then I heard on tv about what happened.” That's also the truth, as far as it goes. “It said in the paper where the funeral was going to be.”

If he thinks it's odd that a complete stranger would show up at his stepmother's funeral, he doesn't say so. Instead he says, “Thank you.” Then he says, “My name is Finn.”

“I know. I saw it in the paper.”

He nods. There is a long silence between us, and he looks at me as if he's waiting for something. It takes me forever to figure out what.

“I'm Lila,” I say.

“Lila.” He seems to enjoy saying my name. “Thanks for coming, Lila.”

We stand there looking at each other. I feel like I should say something. But he starts first.

“I thought maybe you thought I was crazy, the way I talked about it at the police station,” he says slowly. “You know, telling you I saw people killed and not saying it was my stepmother.”

And my father, I think.

“It's just…” His eyes turn watery. “It happened before.”

He means his mother.

“I was seven.”

So was I, I want to say. You were seven when you lost your first mother. I was seven when I lost my father for the first time.

Someone calls his name, and he turns.

“Just a minute,” he yells back. “My dad,” he says when he turns to me again. “I guess I have to go.”

I need to talk to him. I
have
to talk to him. But I'm paralyzed.

He starts to move and then swings back.

“Can I call you?” he asks. “Or is that too weird?”

It's too weird, I think. It's way too weird. But there I am, nodding again. I start to recite the phone number at the apartment.

“Wait!” He holds up a hand, and I clamp my mouth shut. He digs in his pants pocket and pulls out a cell phone. “Okay,” he says.

I say my phone number again, and he punches the number in. He smiles shyly when he's finished. This time when his dad calls him, he swings around. I watch him walk away. He and his dad and their friends go back to a string of cars that are parked along the cemetery road. They get in and drive away.

I check my watch.

I have to get going. Detective Sanders has some forms for me to fill out. She put me in touch with someone. My father's funeral is this afternoon. I want to say something about him, but so far I haven't decided what.

Eleven

FINN

I
leave the girl—Lila—behind and join my dad and John and Geordie. We head for the club. People have already gathered in one of the private rooms, and my dad says more will probably drop by. They have come to express their condolences to me and my dad and to talk with him. John and Geordie head straight for the food. They're both into athletics. They're trying to bulk up. When they're not thinking about sports or girls, they're thinking about food.

“Dad, can I take off?” I ask.

“Stay for a while,” he says. “People expect it.”

I do my best not to make a face.

My dad digs in his pocket and hands me his car keys.

“Stay for half an hour,” he says. “Then you can go.”

I join John and Geordie. They're stuffing their faces with little sandwiches and cakes.

“This stuff is great,” Geordie says through a mouthful of puff pastry. John elbows him. John's mom was my mom's best friend. My mom used to say that John and I have known each other since before we were born. We met Geordie later, in junior high.

“It's a funeral,” John hisses at Geordie.

Geordie turns red in the face. John looks at me. Then, just like always when one of us gives Geordie a hard time, we burst out laughing. People stare at us, but we don't care. My dad nods in my direction. I can tell he doesn't mind. If anything, he seems glad that I'm not taking this as hard as I took my mother's death. Well, why would I?

“Come on,” I say to my friends. I hold up the car keys. “Let's get out of here.”

We go to my place, where I turn Geordie and John loose on the fridge. After Tracie died, people brought over tons of food—casseroles, barbecue chicken, pasta and meatballs, meat pies, fruit pies, cookies, squares. You name it, it's all there in the fridge. They fill their plates.

“You're not eating?” John asks.

“Maybe later,” I say.

They eat. We play some video games. They leave before my dad gets home.

The house is quiet.

I head upstairs to get changed. To get to my room, I have to pass my dad's room. His and Tracie's. The door is closed—I never go in there. Why would I? I never liked Tracie. I hated the fact that she was in there with my dad. I hated that she was his wife. It didn't matter how many times he told me that no one could ever replace my mom in his heart. I still hated her.

I guess that's why I stop. Because I'm thinking about Tracie. I'm thinking about how I felt when my dad asked me to show the woman from the funeral home the clothes he had laid out for Tracie to “wear at the funeral.” That's the way my dad put it, as if Tracie was a mourner and not the guest of honor.

I did what my dad asked. I showed the woman to the room. I told her my dad had put out things for her to choose from. I showed her the door. But I didn't open it for her. I let her do that for herself. The woman went in. I didn't even look inside. I just waited.

“What about shoes?” she called to me.

Shoes? What about them?

“Your father said he wanted her to look just like she always did. But I don't see any shoes.”

At first I thought she was kidding. But she came to the door of the bedroom and looked at me, waiting for an answer.

“Your father made himself very clear to Mr. Stone,” she said.

“Mr. Stone?”

“The funeral director.”

She
had
to be kidding. What was the guy's first name? Grave? Tomb?

She waited some more.

“In the closet,” I said. “The one with the pink stripes on the door.”

“Thank you.” The woman went back inside the room. I waited until she came out again with one of Tracie's dresses over her arm and a pair of shoes in her hand.

I never went inside. I never offered to help her. And at the funeral, when my dad insisted I pay my last respects, I went up to the coffin. I had no choice. But I didn't look at Tracie. Instead, I looked at the white satin lining of the coffin.

So now when I pass my dad's bedroom, I stop. I reach out and touch the knob. It's cold. I almost pull back. But I refuse to let myself. I grasp the knob and turn it. I push the door open.

The room is a disaster. There are clothes and shoes, scarves and jackets, sweaters and boots everywhere—on the bed, on the loveseat and the two armchairs in the alcove in front of the window, on the floor. Everywhere. They are all Tracie's clothes. The door to Tracie's closet is open. I say closet, but, really, it's more like a room. A small room with shelves and drawers and padded clothes hangers lining three sides of it from the floor right up to the ceiling. Tracie had a lot of clothes. She always took care of them. She put things away as soon as she took them off. I know, because my dad used to tease her about it. Apparently she had a special section for everything—sweaters, slacks, blouses, casual dresses, fancy dresses, scarves, lingerie, sports clothes—and in each section, everything was sorted by color.

I step into the room without noticing what I'm doing. I make my way to the closet, careful not to tread on any of Tracie's things. (Why do I even care?) Then I am standing in the doorway to the closet.

Every clothes hanger is empty. Every shelf is empty. Every drawer has been pulled out and is empty. It's as if someone has broken into the house and ransacked Tracie's closet. What were they looking for? Valuables? A chill runs through me. Nothing else seems out of place in the rest of the house. As far as I can tell—not that I checked or anything—everything seems to be exactly where it should be.

I spin around. I've heard about things like this—thieves aren't stupid. Some of them follow the news and read the obituaries. They check when funerals are going to be held because that's when the family of the dearly departed is guaranteed to be out of the house. When there's no one around, it's a thief's paradise. Which means that whoever was in this room was just getting started. I probably startled them when I got back with John and Geordie.

I freeze. Maybe they're still in the house.

I stand perfectly still and listen.

I hear nothing. Nothing at all.

I step back a pace, meaning to get the phone by the bedside table and call the police.

A thought hits me: what is my dad going to think? He's already shell-shocked. He's already handled too much. He could have been killed himself. Tracie
was
killed. I slump against the door to the closet. Maybe I hated Tracie, but my dad was in love with her. Then, out of the blue, that man showed up and my dad had to watch Tracie die, up close. He had to watch someone murder her. The same man who murdered my mom. My stomach clenches, like someone has grabbed it and is wrenching it to make a point: Think about your dad, stupid. Think about how he must feel. Think about how you would feel if someone you loved was killed right in front of you. Think about how he's going to feel when he sees this.

That's when the dam breaks, and the tears start to flow—for the first time since Tracie died, I cry. But I do it for my dad, and I do it out of shame. I don't do it for her.

Twelve

LILA

M
y father's funeral isn't anything like Mrs. Tracie Newsome's funeral. The only thing it has in common is that it's held in a funeral home. It's not a bad-looking place either. But as far as I can tell, it's in the smallest room. I can't blame whoever made that decision. After all, it's the city that's paying for it, not the family. In other words, not me.

My father is in a coffin at the front of the small room by the time I get there. It's not a shiny fancy coffin with brass fittings or whatever, like Mrs. Tracie Newsome's. It's wooden. It's polished. But, if you ask me, it looks like plywood. Pine, maybe, stained to look like something darker and more expensive. Not that it matters. My father is going to be cremated, not buried. The coffin is just for show.

There are several rows of chairs set out in the room facing the coffin. There is a man sitting in the front row. He stands up when I come into the room and smiles when he sees me.

“You must be Lila,” he says.

I nod.

“I'm Peter Struthers. I knew your dad when he was in prison. Maybe he mentioned me?”

I shake my head. I've never heard the name Peter Struthers before.

“I heard about what happened. I wanted to drop by to pay my respects.”

I don't know what to say. I don't want to think about my dad in prison. Ever since he died, I've been working at trying to remember him before that, when he was still my dad.