Guilty (7 page)

“So you'd think,” my dad says. “He must have been on something. There are more drugs in prison than there are on the streets. There's something wrong with the way they run those places, if you ask me. Some guys go in there straight and come out addicts. If only I'd never heard of him.”

Yeah. If only.

“You want me to help you clean up all this stuff, Dad?”

He shakes his head. “I'll deal with it. It's got to go anyway. Maybe someone else can make good use of it.”

I stare at all the dresses and skirts and sweaters, the blouses and scarves, the shoes and sandals, the lingerie. It's right out there where I can see it, not that I want to.

“You want me to get you some boxes?”

“It's okay, Finn,” my dad says. “I'll take care of it. It's my mess.”

He's still sitting on the bed when I leave the room to go downstairs. When I come up again a few hours later and glance through the open door, he's still there. He hasn't moved.

Fourteen

LILA

A
fter Detective Sanders drops me off, I go inside and put the kettle on to make myself a cup of tea. It's what Aunt Jenny and I used to do every day after I got home from school. She'd put the kettle on, and we'd have a cup of tea while she asked me about school. Then I'd get out my books and we'd sit at the kitchen table together, both of us doing homework. Aunt Jenny is a nurse. For most of the time I lived with her, she worked the overnight shift so that she could go to school during the day. She was always upgrading her skills, always improving herself. It was nice, just the two of us, our books and notes spread out all over the kitchen table, studying. While I wait for the kettle to boil, I wonder if Detective Sanders is right. Maybe I should just go home. I miss Aunt Jenny, and I know she misses me.

But how can I leave now? I went to see my dad regularly for years. It was always just him and me. When I was little and Aunt Jenny used to have to take me, she never came inside with me. She told me, “You probably want time alone with your dad.” But I know now that that wasn't the real reason she didn't come with me. I know now that she didn't like my father. Worse, she didn't respect him. To her, he was weak. It was the only reason she could think of that he didn't take himself in hand, as she put it, that he didn't shake off his demons, that he constantly disappointed my mother before finally catching her in his own vortex of misery and weakness. It was the reason he didn't see what he was doing or where she was heading.

Maybe Aunt Jenny was right at one time. But gradually over all those years I went to see him, I saw a different father from the one I remembered when I was little.

He smiled when he saw me.

He asked me about school.

He asked me to tell him what I had learned, and he listened intently to my answers.

He was in the here and now. He was clean on the outside—scrubbed and combed and shaven—as well as on the inside. I saw light in his eyes instead of shadows. I saw interest instead of oblivion. He talked about the long-term future instead of the next drink or the next fix.

He was different.

He was good.

So what happened? How is it that a man—my father—who spoke for a whole year about what he wanted to do when he got out, went and killed a woman? He said he wanted to find a place where we could live together. (“But only if you want to, Lila. You don't have to. You know that, right? If you want to stay with your Aunt Jenny, that's okay.”) He said he wanted to learn to cook. (“So I can make a meal for you. I remember all those eggs you used to make for me. You were just a little girl. But you knew about eggs and protein.”) He said he wanted to get a library card. (“They have a library in here. At first I thought it was stupid—big books with big words written years ago by guys who were dead before I was born. But you know what? Once you get into one of those things, it's not so bad.”) He talked about getting a decent job. (“Sure, I know I'm going to have to start with scut work. What else are you going to do when you're a con? But they have programs, Lila. They say you can change, if you want it bad enough. You can do anything if you want it bad enough.”)

It's true. You
can
do anything…

…if you want it bad enough.

What I want: to understand how a man who talked so much about a future that was different from his past could, three days after he got out of prison, take a gun to another man's house and kill that man's wife and then try to kill that man.

That's what I want. And I want it bad. I guess that's why I go out even though it's dark already. I ask a bus driver for directions. Half an hour later, I'm standing in what's called the entertainment district. Competing bass lines throb out of clubs and rock the night. People are out on the streets in front of bright signs. They are talking and smoking. The women—most of them look like girls—wear short tight dresses and impossibly high heels. They wear glittery makeup and dangly jewelry. The guys are dressed in sharp suits, their hair gelled and spiked. Everyone eyes everyone else. Everyone is on the make.

I scan the neon signs until I find the one I'm looking for.
The Siren.
Robert Newsome's club.

There's a line outside—made-up girls and gelled-up guys waiting to get in. At the head of the line, blocking the door, stands a massive man, his arms crossed over his chest. I approach him.

He looks down at me—at my jeans, at my jean jacket, at my clean-scrubbed face.

“We got a dress code, sugar,” he says.

“I don't want to get in. My dad used to work here.”

It's like talking to a block of granite. There's no expression on his face. I get no response.

“He worked here ten years ago,” I say.

“Ten years ago, I was in junior high.”

He isn't even looking at me.

“They say he shot Mr. Newsome's wife,” I say.

Mr. Granite looks down at me again.

“You're being a nuisance, sugar,” he says. “You know what I do when someone is a nuisance?” He turns and nods to a slightly smaller version of himself, who starts toward us.

“I mean it,” I say. “My dad was in prison for it. They say he shot Mrs. Newsome. Ten years ago.”

The junior version of Mr. Granite perks up.

“I heard about that. That junkie guy, what's his name?”

“Louis Ouimette,” I say.

He nods. “That's it. That's the guy.” He looks triumphantly at Mr. Granite. “Same guy who just killed Tracie and tried to kill Mr. Newsome,” he says. “But Mr. Newsome plugged him first. How could you not know about that, man? It just happened. They just had the funeral. You didn't go?”

Mr. Granite shakes his head:
Of course I didn't go
. When Junior looks at him like he's the biggest loser in the world, he says, “What? You did?”

“The man's wife was shot dead right in front of him,” Junior says. “Yeah, I went.”

I decide he might be more helpful than Mr. Granite. When I talk next, I direct myself to him.

“I'm trying to find someone who worked here back when the first Mrs. Newsome got shot,” I say. “Anyone.”

Junior eyes me closely. “I know you,” he says. “You were there too. At the funeral.” He looks at Mr. Granite again, as if to underline once more the fact that attending the funeral was the right thing to do.

“Is there anyone I can talk to?” I ask again.

“There's Mr. Newsome,” Junior Granite says. “And Mr. Goodis.”

“Who's Mr. Goodis?” I ask.

“The manager.”

Great. There's no way I want to talk to Mr. Newsome. And I'm betting Mr. Goodis won't be much better. If he's management, he's probably close to Mr. Newsome.

“Nobody else was around back then?”

Junior Granite looks me up and down.

“Well,” he says, “there's Dodo.”

“Dodo?”

“He used to be a bouncer. Had an accident a couple of years back. Mr. Newsome gave him a different job. He's the janitor now.”

“Is he here?”

“Dodo? He's always here,” Mr. Granite says. He's grinning, like he's about to sit down on a whoopee cushion and he knows it and relishes the rude noise that's about to cut the air.

“That was really your dad who killed Tracie?” Junior Granite says.

I nod.

“C'mon.” He waves me away from Mr. Granite.

“You're not supposed to leave your post,” Mr. Granite rumbles at him.

“I'll remember that next time you need to step away from the line for a minute or two,” Junior Granite shoots back. He leads me to the side of the building and starts down the long dark alley that runs between it and the building next door.

I stop at the mouth of the alley. Junior Granite glances back over his shoulder.

“You want to see Dodo or not?” he says. “He's in the back.”

Alarm bells sound in my head. How many times has Aunt Jenny told me never to go off with strangers? How many times has she told never to venture into a dark alley? Yet here I am about to do both.

Junior Granite stops a few paces into the alley. He turns back to look at me.

“Your choice,” he says with a shrug.

I peer into the alley and don't see any light at the end of it. But he's right, it is my choice.

“How come you call him Mr. Newsome but you call her Tracie?” I ask.

Even in the gloom of the alley, I see the white of his teeth.

“She was always telling people to call her that. Mr. N., he didn't like it. But Tracie…she was friendly.” There's a note of disdain in his voice, as if he didn't respect her for that.

I start after him.

He doesn't wait for me to catch up but instead keeps walking and disappears from sight before I'm halfway down the alley. When I finally come out the other end, he's standing a few paces away from me, near some concrete steps that lead to the basement of the club. He waits until he sees me before he goes down the steps and pushes open the door. I wait up above.

“Dodo! Hey, Dodo, you there?”

Nothing happens.

Junior Granite turns and looks up at me, his shoulders rolling upward, as if he's about to tell me,
I tried.

I see a faint light at the bottom of the steps. It gets brighter. A face appears. An old face, black and weathered. A sinewy old man steps out of the basement, a push broom in his hands, and I try hard not to stare. One side of his head is caved in, like a too-soft soccer ball kicked too hard.

“Someone wants to talk to you,” Junior Granite says.

Dodo squints at me.

“Her dad used to work here. That guy who shot Mrs. Newsome. Loo-is.”

“Lou-
ee
,” Dodo says, pronouncing my father's name correctly as he stares at me with new interest. “You Louis's little girl?”

I nod.

Dodo comes up the steps, and I see from the roll of his gait that he's limping. I see too that his left leg is stiff.

“How is your dad?” he asks.

“Dead,” Junior Granite said. “You didn't hear? He killed Tracie. Took a shot at Mr. Newsome. And got himself killed.”

Dodo doesn't seem surprised by this. I take that as a bad sign.

“I never was much for keeping up with the news,” he says. “It's never anything good. Always something bad.” He squints at me again. “He used to tell me his little girl looked exactly like his late wife. Your mama must have been a real beauty.”

I blush despite myself and am glad for the darkness that hides it.

We hear a roar: “Antoine!”

Dodo looks at Junior Granite.

Junior Granite disappears back into the alley.

Dodo leans on his push broom.

“When did it happen?” he asks me. “Your daddy getting killed, I mean?”

“A couple of nights ago.”

“I didn't even know he was out,” the old man says. He stands there staring off into space. I'm the one who finally breaks the silence.

“Did you know him well?” I ask.

“We worked together. We both had our troubles. His landed him in the lockup. Mine got me in the hospital and then this damn thing.” He balls one hand into a fist and strikes his stiff leg. The
thunk
of knuckle against something equally hard tells me that he has an artificial leg.

“I was wondering…do you know anything about what happened that night, the night the first Mrs. Newsome was shot?”

He stares at me, shaking his head slowly.

“My own daddy was a son of a bitch, if you'll excuse me for saying so,” he says. “But he did give me one piece of good advice. Don't ask the question unless you're sure you want the answer.”

“With all due respect, Mr. Dodo,” I say. “My dad was an alcoholic and a drug addict. He spent ten years in prison. And he just got shot to death. There's nothing you can tell me about him that can upset me or hurt me or shock me.” I meant it too, when I said it.

Dodo draws himself up straight.

“You think, huh?” he says. “How about this? Your daddy spent ten years in prison for something he never did.”

Fifteen

FINN

W
hen I go downstairs the next morning, my dad's on the phone.

“I see,” he says, nodding. He smiles at me when I step into the kitchen. He's shaved and showered. I can smell the aftershave and the soap on him. And the shampoo. He's dressed for success in one of his power suits that he gets tailor-made. He looks like his old self.

“Yes. Okay,” he says into the phone. He listens intently before finally saying, “All right. Well, thank you.” He hangs up the phone and turns to me. “Sleep well?”

“Okay, I guess.” The truth: I tossed and turned all night. I kept thinking about Tracie and replaying the sound of those gunshots and the sight of her falling to the ground. Don't ask me why, but I can't stop wondering if she died as soon as the bullet hit her or if there was some time, even a couple of seconds, when she realized what had happened, when she knew what was going to happen. And it bothers me. It also bothers me that just before it happened, when I heard her voice, I thought, God, why doesn't she shut up once and for all? Then,
blam
, that's exactly what happened. I know my thinking it didn't cause it to happen, but I feel bad about it all the same.