Ear-Witness (11 page)

“But you work until two, every night!” Mom said.

Raffi sighed, then stood up and circled the porch. When he sat down again he looked at his fingers. They were gripping the arms of his chair. “Not all the time, I don't,” he said. “Sometimes I get off early.”

Mom's face got sort of hard then, and her voice was pure ice. “You mean you lied?” she said. “You lied to me? And not just once?”

Raffi shut his eyes, and leaned his head back against the brick wall. “That's putting it pretty strongly, Lynda. I mean, I do work till two, most of the time. When I don't, I sometimes visit a friend.”

“Freddy,” Mom said.

I hadn't met this Freddy, I hadn't even heard of him, but from the sound of Mom's voice, I wasn't sure I wanted to.

“Yeah, Freddy,” Raffi said.

“So what is this?” Mom asked. “Am I the warden, or what?”

“Sometimes,” he said. “Yeah. Sometimes you are.”

I hate it when they fight, so I went inside, got the salad, the plates, and the cutlery, and came back out. Then I helped myself to some of everything. Nobody said a word, but the space around them was heavy with stress. “I think I'll go inside,” I said. “Where things are a little more relaxed.”

Being around adults who are fighting is the loneliest feeling there is.

I ate the celebration dinner by myself. When I finished, I rinsed off my plate and left it in the sink. Then I headed back down the hall, to see if Mom and Raffi had cheered up any. They hadn't. I could hear them talking through the screen door.

“The trouble with you, Lynda,” Raffi said, “is that you always believe the worst about people. There's nothing wrong with Freddy, nothing at all! But you make such a big scene every time I see him ...”

I'm not supposed to eavesdrop, but sometimes I do it anyway, because it's the only way to find out what's going on. I perched on the steps leading down into Mom's bedroom. I couldn't see either of them from there, and unless they got up out of their chairs, they couldn't see me either.

“How can I ever trust you if you're going to sneak around like that?” Mom asked.

“You don't trust me anyhow,” Raffi said. “That's what this is all about, isn't it? You think I could have been involved in a murder...” His voice got thick then, like he had a bad cold, but maybe he was crying.

“Of course I don't think you were involved,” Mom said. “You'd never do anything like that. I just don't understand why you needed to lie to me. Sure, I made a big deal about you seeing Freddy, but you know why.”

“So he smokes a little grass occasionally,” Raffi said. “It's not catching, Lynda. I'm not into substances, you know that. You think I'm going to turn into a dope fiend if I hang around with him?”

“You might,” Mom said. “If you hang around with people who do dope, you could get in trouble with the cops.”

“I've got news for you,” Raffi said. “I am in trouble with the cops. I don't have an alibi for the time of the murder.”

“I thought you were with Freddy!”

“I went over to his place that night, but he wasn't there. So I came home. All I did then was watch TV for a while, and go to bed.”

I'd heard enough. More than enough. I crept down the hall to my room, and lay on my bed, feeling absolutely horrid, like everything was my fault. I only got up once, to clean my teeth and put on my nightgown. Mom and Raffi were still outside, on the porch. They never even said good night.

The next morning, Flavia caught up with me on the way to school. She was extremely cheerful.

“He's back!” she said. “Your mother's friend.”

I tried to smile, but I couldn't. “Yeah,” I said. “It was a misunderstanding, I guess. He slept in and didn't make his appointment.”

“My father and Carlos are very happy this morning also. They told what happened that night, and guess what? No problem!”

“That's good,” I said. “What did they hear? The same stuff I did?”

“Yes, like you. The argument, the fight, the crying. But more also. My father had just come back from work, and he saw someone.”

“Who?”

“A man. A very large man, like your mother's friend.” She looked away from me, then looked back. “Or like Mr. Bird was. That size. It was still dark. My father could not see clearly.”

“He can't describe him or anything?”

“The police asked that also. No. A very big man. He can not say more than that.”

Jon's house is tall and skinny, just like him. A black iron gate leads into a little courtyard where big clay pots of pink geraniums stand on either side of a bright blue door. It was open and Jon was waiting, watching me come towards him.

The first thing I noticed inside was the smell of apples cooking with cinnamon. The second was the books. Outside a library, I'd never seen so many together in one place. Not just on the shelves, which covered two whole walls of the living room, but all over the place. Piles of them stood on the floor in front of the bookcases, on end tables, leaning into armchairs, even on the couch. There were newspapers too, three or four different ones, and serious-looking magazines.

The walls that didn't have book-cases had paintings. I moved closer to look at them. Thanks to Raffi, I'm not a total ignoramus about art. These were abstracts, really nice ones.

Jon touched one, on the frame. “My mom's. I guess the room's sort of a mess.”

“I love it,” I said. I wasn't just being polite. It was the best room I'd ever been in.

I followed him through the dining room, where half the table was covered by a computer work station, and two very untidy piles of paper: one hand-written; the other printed. The printed pages had corrections marked on them in red pen. Behind the table there was a china cabinet. It was full of books too.

“They must be in the kitchen,” Jon said.

Mr. Bell looked exactly like I expected he would, only older. Long and thin and cheerful-looking, just like Jon, but with greyish, rather
than blond hair. Mrs. Bell was a complete surprise. I expected her to be tall and thin too, and elegant and sophisticated. Instead, she was short, shorter even than me, and sort of roly-poly. When she twisted a wisp of dark hair behind one ear and smiled, she looked like one of Santa's elves.

“You'll have some applesauce,” she said. “Fresh made.” This wasn't a question, it was almost an order, but nobody was taking offence.

We sat on benches at a huge polished wooden table that looked really old. It had gouges all over it, even some black circles from cup rings. While I talked to Mrs. Bell about the cookbooks on the openshelved cabinet behind us, Jon and his father got into an argument about politics. It was an OK argument; they were listening to each other, but they disagreed. Nothing mean was going on.

After we finished our applesauce, Jon and I went back to the living room to talk about the murder. The only new thing I had to tell him was about Raffi.

“The cops took him away, but ...” I explained how they only did that because Raffi hadn't gone to his appointment. “Then they let him go.”

Jon frowned. “He can't be a serious suspect if they let him go,” he said.

“He seemed pretty worried to me, I guess because he doesn't have an alibi.”

“That doesn't mean he did it,” Jon said. “I don't have an alibi either.”

“You aren't a suspect. Raffi is.”

“Do you believe he actually ...?”

“No, of course not,” I said. “But I have a bad feeling about the whole thing.”

Jon put his hand on mine. “Why?” he said.

“I wish I knew.”

“I met Jon's parents,” I said.

“And?” Mom's mouth was full of cornbread, but she asked anyway.

“They're nice. They read a lot. Mrs. Bell paints.”

“Speaking of reading,” Mom said, “there was an article on vegetarianism I wanted to save but I can't find the magazine. Have either of you seen it?”

I shrugged.

“I think I read it,” Raffi said. “But I don't know where. Is Jon's mother Abby Bell, Jess?”

I shrugged again.

“You saw paintings?”

I nodded.

“Abstracts? Lots of colour? Geometric shapes flowing into each other?” he asked.

“Yeah,” I said. “How did you know?”

“She's a real artist,” he said. “I knew she lived around here somewhere. So when do we get to meet Jon?”

“I dunno,” I said. “What's going on here?”

“Sheena called,” Mom said. “She wants to see you tomorrow, after school. She'll pick you up out front unless she hears from you.”

“Maybe Jon will come too,” I said.

Mom cut herself a second piece of cornbread. “You aren't spending much time with Kelly these days. Is anything wrong?”

“Is that a way of saying I shouldn't spend so much time with Jon?”

“No. Not at all. Don't be so quick to criticize, Jess. I just don't want you to lose Kelly because of some guy.”

“He isn't just some guy! And it's Kelly who hasn't got time for me, not the other way around.”

Mom's eyes and mine met, and held.

“She's very involved with Joey,” I said. “And she hasn't been making it to school that much.” Kelly would be really upset if she knew I'd said that. Too bad.

The cruiser was waiting in front of the school. Sheena popped the lock on the passenger door as Jon and I crossed the sidewalk.

“OK if I bring a friend?” I said.

She shook her head. “Sorry. This is an official interview.” This was the bullet-word Sheena, not the friendly one. I turned to Jon and raised one corner of my mouth. “See you tomorrow,” I said.

Sheena pulled a U-turn on Jameson, and headed back towards King Street. “I thought we'd just cruise around a bit.” she said. “Rather than go to the station.”

“Sure. Is something wrong?”

“It'll keep,” she said.

We followed the Lakeshore to the Exhibition grounds, which were almost deserted. The lake was grey, and the sky was covered by a dirty-looking blanket of clouds.

“It's about Raffi,” she said.

I kept looking at the lake. “What about him?”

“How long has he been hanging around with your mom?”

“I was eleven,” I said. “Four years. A little more.”

“I was reading over your statement this morning...”

I sighed. It was almost a relief to know what was coming.

“And you were a little, uh, cute, weren't you?” she said.

“Cute?” Sitting in the front seat of the cruiser meant I didn't have to look at her, which was fine with me. She was looking at me though, I could see her out of the corner of my left eye.

“It's
just Mom and me
. That's what you said.”

“That Bud guy asked me who lived with us. I told the truth.”

“You implied that your mom was alone. That she didn't have anybody.”

I turned to her then. “He didn't need to be so insulting! Even you saw that. Remember how you pretended to shoot him?”

Sheena shook her head. “I didn't tell you to lie! A cop can ask you anything he darn well wants, so long as it's relevant to what he's investigating. What interests me is why you were covering up for this guy”

“Covering up?”

“Pretending he didn't exist.”

I sighed again. “One of his friends, another black guy, who hadn't done anything bad at all, got shot by a cop just two days before! Raffi worries about things like that. The police scare him.”

“I noticed. People can be scared of cops for lots of different reasons, I guess, but the most common one is that they've done something against the law.”

“I didn't lie,” I said.

“You misled the police,” she said.

“What does it matter whether my mother has a boyfriend or not? What's that got to do with anything?”