Not Guilty (15 page)

Keely met her gaze belligerently. “They had their problems. It was nothing serious.”

“The kid sold the bike Mark gave him for a present. We have that on authority from Mrs. Ambler. Dylan rejected every overture Mark made to be friendly to him.”

How do you know that?
Keely wanted to say.

Maureen saw it in her eyes. “Mark told me the kid hated him. Resented him.” There was triumph in her tone. She seemed to be relishing
the fact that she had this information, that she could reveal it to Mark’s widow. “He confided in me.”

Keely felt outraged that Mark would have told their personal business to a colleague. But she couldn’t afford to be sidetracked by her emotions. “It’s only natural,” said Keely, “given Dylan’s age and the situation. Mark understood that.”

“How much did he hate Mark?” Maureen asked. “That’s what I need to find out.”

“Oh, for God’s sake,” said Keely. “Dylan is a child. He didn’t hurt anybody. He didn’t shoot his father. He didn’t ‘arrange’ an accident for Mark. This is just vicious speculation. He’s a normal kid in tough circumstances, and you are persecuting him.”

Maureen leaned forward on her desk and looked at Keely with narrowed eyes. “You really don’t get it, do you? You should sit in my seat for a while.”

Keely shook her head. Maureen stood up and walked a few steps to a file cabinet in the corner. She wrestled out a handful of files and threw them down on the desk. “There,” she said. “You see that pile? Those are all the files of innocent kids, Dylan’s age and younger. Right here in Profit County. I’ve got thirty more just like them . . .”

Keely turned her head away as Maureen picked up the stack and began to leaf through it. “Assault with a deadly weapon, armed robbery, attempted murder, reckless disregard, attempted murder . . .” She dropped the files one by one back onto her desktop, and each one landed with a thud. She leaned over and looked at Keely.

“There is no such thing as an innocent fourteen-year-old these days. This kid of yours has a way of getting rid of people who stand in his way. I’m just trying to prevent its happening again . . .”

In spite of herself, Keely found her thoughts turning to the warnings of Dr. Donahue at Dylan’s school. She thought of the boy from the cafeteria who ended up in the hospital, getting stitches.
It’s not the same thing at all,
she thought.

“Dylan is not that kind of kid,” insisted Keely.

“That’s what every mother I meet says. Just before her kid is hauled off to jail.”

“This isn’t about Dylan,” said Keely angrily. “It’s about you. It’s a vendetta on your part because Mark . . .” She didn’t finish the sentence.

Maureen came around to Keely’s side of the desk, folded her arms across her chest, and rested her trim derriere against the front edge of her desk. Instead of reacting defensively, she seemed to become more relaxed and cool. “Because Mark what?” she asked.

Keely glared at her. “Because Mark broke your engagement and married me,” she said.

“Really?” Maureen asked. “You think I should be jealous of you?”

Before Keely could reply, Maureen went back behind her desk and picked up the photo of the red-headed children.

“I don’t deny,” Maureen said, “that I have personal reasons for prosecuting these juvenile offenders so aggressively. My twin brother Sean,” she said, turning the photo so that Keely could see it, “was murdered years ago by a kid like yours—a messed-up teenager.”

Keely felt both chastened by Maureen’s confiding such a tragedy and furious that the D.A. would link it to Dylan. “That’s terrible,” Keely murmured. “But I resent your comparing my son to a murderer. You have no right—”

“Somebody protected him, too,” Maureen continued, drowning her out. “Just like you’re trying to do. The law never got to him. It happened on mischief night, and people referred to it as a prank. A prank. My twin brother died as a result of that prank. And no one ever paid for it. But that’s not going to happen in this case. Your son is not going to get away with it.”

“I can’t help what happened to you,” Keely said. “But I’m warning you. Leave my son out of it.”

Maureen snorted with laughter. “You’re warning
me?
”

“I’m going to tell Lucas Weaver about this conversation.”

“Don’t count too heavily on Lucas,” Maureen countered. She crossed her middle finger over her index finger. “Mark and Lucas were like that. Once he realizes what’s really going on here, you may not have his support. You’ll have to excuse me, Mrs. Weaver. I have work to do.” She walked over to the door.

“Josie,” she called out to her secretary. “Have you got those printouts I asked for?”

Josie approached the door and handed a sheaf of papers to Maureen, but her curious gaze lingered on Keely. Without another word, Maureen resumed her seat, picked up her telephone, and began to punch in a number. It was as if Keely had already left the room. Keely rose unsteadily to her feet and slipped out.

R
eturning home, Keely expected to be greeted by an impatient Dylan with Abby clinging to the leg of his baggy jeans. Instead, the house was quiet and there was no sign of either of them. “Dylan?” she called out. There was no answer.

She went down the hall to Abby’s nursery, thinking she might find the baby asleep in her crib, but the room was empty. None of the baby gates were set up on the first floor.
Maybe he took her out for a walk,
she thought, but she knew it was unlikely. Dylan did as little as possible when he had to baby-sit.
Don’t panic,
she thought.
Check upstairs.
She ran up to the second floor and started down the hall. As she got near his door, she recognized, with a mixture of irritation and relief, the rhythmic thud and whisper of Dylan’s headset.

She threw open the door without knocking. Dylan, who was sitting in his desk chair, feet up, eyes closed, and listening to a CD on his headset, jumped as the door banged open. “Hey,” he complained, pulling off the earphones, “did you ever hear of knocking?”

Keely ignored his complaint. “Where is your sister?”

Dylan scowled and put the headset back into place. “Next door,” he said.

“Next door?” Keely cried. She grabbed the headset and yanked it away from his ears. Dylan jumped up from his chair, in a fighting stance.

“What is she doing next door?” Keely demanded. “What happened here?”

“Nothing,” he said angrily. “Ms. Connelly wanted to take her.”

“So you just gave her to the neighbor? You were supposed to be watching her. What is going on, Dylan?”

“She was crying. She fell.”

Keely’s heart started to pound. “Abby fell? Fell where? Is she all right?”

“She’s all right,” said Dylan disgustedly. “That old . . . lady next door heard her crying and came butting in. Just because she found
him
—”

“Him?” Keely cried.

“Mark,” Dylan grumbled. “Now, she thinks she can just barge in whenever she pleases—”

“Goddamit, Dylan. I . . .” Keely could hardly speak. She pointed a finger at him. “Don’t move from this room. I will deal with you later.”

Keely raced down the stairs, out the front door, and across the adjoining lawn to the sprawling, slightly shabby Dutch colonial–style house next door. She hammered on the front door, which set the dogs to barking loudly. After a few moments, she heard the locks turning, and then Evelyn opened the door.

“Evelyn,” said Keely, flustered. “Dylan said you have Abby over here.”

Evelyn sighed dramatically and stood back from the door. “Come on in.”

The dogs continued to yelp at her as Keely sidled by them.

“They won’t hurt you,” said Evelyn impatiently. “Come on.”

Keely had never been inside the Connelly house before. All the blinds in the house were drawn, so that it was as dark as twilight in the large, low-ceilinged rooms. The air in the house smelled stale and faintly like a kennel. The gloomy living room was filled with settees, small end tables, and chairs, although each chair had been placed at a daunting distance from the others.

“She’s back here,” said Evelyn. She called to her dogs, and they followed her through the house, panting, their toenails clicking against the worn hardwood floors.

They passed a small, dark, cluttered library where old Dr. Connelly was snoring, asleep sitting up on a sofa that was covered by a red-and-green throw with a Christmas motif. The television in front of him was turned on to a talk show.

Evelyn Connelly put a finger to her lips and beckoned for Keely to follow her. Keely obediently trailed the older woman through the dimly
lit house down the hall until they reached the kitchen. The kitchen had a paneled ceiling and walls, and the appliances were an avocado green color. Abby was seated on the worn linoleum beside the dog bowls, examining a nugget of dog food. There was a wide gauze bandage on Abby’s chin. Keely rushed to her daughter and scooped her up, wresting the dog food from her little fingers and dropping it back in the bowl, which started the dogs barking again.

“Zeus, Dobie, hush,” Evelyn commanded, as Keely kissed her baby on the head and looked her over. Evelyn helped herself to a glass of water from the faucet in the sink and then sipped it.

“I was out raking leaves,” she said. “Somebody has to do it. This property won’t take care of itself. Even with all I have to do looking after my father, I can’t let it go or else—”

“I know,” Keely said, interrupting. “What happened?”

“I saw you go out this morning. So when I was raking the side yard next to your house and I heard an ungodly shriek coming from your house . . . well, after what happened the last time, I figured I’d better look into it. I could tell it was the baby, and she was just screaming bloody murder.”

The image of the quiet street rent by Abby’s screams made Keely feel both ashamed and wildly frustrated, as if it were her own incompetence causing everything in her life to go wrong. “Oh Lord,” she said miserably.

“Apparently,” said Evelyn, washing out her glass and carefully placing it in the dish drainer, “she’d fallen and banged her chin on the coffee table. There was blood all over the place. When I walked in, she was sitting there by herself, wailing, with blood all over her, all over the carpet . . .”

“Where was Dylan?” Keely demanded.

Evelyn Connelly shrugged. “For a minute, I thought you’d left her all alone in the house. I assumed the boy was in school . . .”

Despite her guilty feelings, this was too much for Keely. “That’s absurd. I would never do that,” Keely said angrily.

Evelyn wiped her hands on a dish towel, examining, for a moment, her large, sparkling diamonds. “At any rate,” Evelyn continued,
“I cleaned up the mess and changed her clothes, bandaged her cut . . .”

“Thank you, Evelyn. That was good of you,” Keely said stiffly.

“Oh, I’m used to it,” said Evelyn. “I’m a doctor’s daughter. I’ve seen my share of blood.”

“And where was Dylan all this time?” Keely asked.

Evelyn cocked her head and pursed her lips. “He wasn’t much help,” she said. “He was more in the way than anything else.”

“So he tried to help,” said Keely, somewhat relieved. “Well, toddlers do fall. They have accidents.”

“
If
that’s what happened,” said Evelyn. “We only have his word for that.”

Keely felt as if her face were frozen. Abby tugged cheerfully at her mother’s hair. “Well, thank you, Evelyn, for helping us out.”

“I brought her over here because I didn’t think it was a good idea to leave her alone in the house with him,” Evelyn continued ominously.

Keely had to bite her tongue, to remind herself that her neighbor had been trying to do what she thought was right. “As I said, thank you for your help. We’ll get out of your way now.”

“All right,” said Evelyn, in a tone that indicated she had done all she could and was washing her hands of the problem. She led the way back down the hall, followed by the dogs, to the front door. Keely bundled Abby close and edged past the dogs and her disapproving neighbor. She hurried away from the dark house without looking back.

Once she reached her house, she closed the front door and leaned against it, holding Abby so tightly that the baby squirmed in protest. Keely gazed up the stairs. The hallway seemed to spin around her, so she shut her eyes. Finally, she exhaled, opened her eyes, and carried Abby into the nursery. She changed her, got her a bottle of juice from the kitchen, and set her down in the playpen. Though the playpen was once her favorite place, when she wasn’t very mobile, Abby now fretted in protest at being confined there. “I’ll be right back,” Keely promised.

Taking a deep breath, she started up the stairs. The door to Dylan’s room was locked. She knocked loudly. “Dylan,” she said. “Open the door.” There was no answer from inside the room.

She stood in the hallway waiting, her anger rising by degrees. “Dylan,” she said.

“Goddamit.” She turned the knob and jiggled it. “Open this door.” She heard the lock turn, and then the door opened and they were face to face. The room surrounding them was in a state of utter chaos, as if he had deliberately strewn his belongings across the surfaces of his desk, bureau, and bed. He gazed at her defiantly.

Her anger and frustration boiled over. “Dylan,” she said, “I told you to watch your sister when I went out. I told you not to leave her alone,” she cried.

“I didn’t,” he said sullenly.

“Ms. Connelly told me that when she came in the house, the baby was sitting there all alone, covered in blood and screaming.”

“She’s an old b . . . bag,” he said.

“Are you saying she’s lying? She has no reason to lie about it, Dylan. You, on the other hand . . .”

“It’s my fault, of course,” he said bitterly. He sat back down in his chair and swiveled it away from her. “The stupid baby falls down and busts her chin and you blame it on me.”

“What am I supposed to think?” Keely cried. “How am I supposed to trust you?”

“I wouldn’t, if I were you,” he said sarcastically.

“I trusted you today,” she cried. “I trusted you to take care of Abby. In spite of everything, I trusted you to take care of her.”

Dylan looked up at her with narrowed eyes. “In spite of everything.”

“Oh, come on, Dylan. Let’s not play word games. I’m over there trying to convince the district attorney of what a fine, upstanding kid you are and how she’s not being fair to you, while you’re here letting God knows what happen to your sister.”

“You don’t trust me,” he said flatly. “Why can’t you just admit it?”

“It’s not about me trusting you. I thought you would have learned your lesson by now. To be careful. To think,” she cried. “Instead, you just continue on the same way. You think about yourself, and that’s it. The hell with what happens to anybody else.”

Dylan leaned back in his chair, laced his hands behind his head,
and nodded. “You’re right, Mom,” he said. “Everything you say is right.”

Keely shook her head. “Don’t take that attitude with me, Dylan.”

“I’m just agreeing with you,” he said innocently.

“You’re just being fresh—that’s what you’re doing. Instead of taking responsibility for your actions—”

Dylan leaned forward and the chair landed on the floor with a crack, at the same time that his fists landed on the desktop. “Just get out of here,” he shouted.

Startled, Keely jumped but stood her ground. “You don’t tell me what to do,” she said.

“It’s still my room,” he snarled.

“And a royal mess it is,” she observed angrily. “Clean this place up.”

Dylan looked around at the littered surfaces, the piles of clothes. “It looks fine to me,” he said.

In that instant, staring at the utter disarray, Keely was reminded of another, worse mess—the way Prentice Weaver’s apartment had looked when she and Lucas had unlocked the door and walked in. It was as if the horrible condition of his dwelling had reflected the torment of his mind, the chaos of his life. Keely didn’t want to think that about her own son. It was different with kids, after all. They were messy. It took time for them to learn to clean it up. But she realized, even as she told herself that, that Betsy Weaver had probably told herself the same thing when Prentice was a teenager, only it hadn’t been a passing phase. It had been a sign of trouble yet to come.
Oh Dylan,
she thought.
What do I do with you?
She took a deep breath and tried to think calmly before she spoke.