Forty-Four

"I went there," Bonnie said.

"To Billy Finster's," I said.

Bonnie nodded.

"It was stupid, I know. I was so angry, so... enraged by this shit he was pulling, what he was doing to you after you'd already been through so much. You didn't deserve that. So I... I went there to confront him."

She sighed. "Even while you were telling me what happened, I knew I was going to do it. Threaten him. Tell him who my sister was. That if he didn't stop this, I'd see that he got arrested."

We were sitting in the kitchen. Marta had left about ten minutes earlier. In another ninety minutes I was supposed to be at my school to talk to parents about the books I had assigned their kids to read.

I said, "Let me guess what happened. When you got there, he was dead."

Bonnie slowly shook her head no. "I went to the house and no one answered. I saw a light in the garage and went out there. That's where I found him."

She took a breath.

"He was alone. I told him who I was, that I was your wife, that I knew what he was doing, and it had to stop. He pretended to have no idea what I was talking about."

"He denied it?"

She nodded. "He told me to get out, but I wasn't having it. I guess I raised my voice, kind of lost it. Told him you were a good man and would never have done what he was accusing you of, and he said something like, ‘I don't know who the fuck you're talking about.' And that's when he started waving a gun around."

I shuddered. "Jesus."

"He pointed it at me, and..."

Bonnie's hands were starting to shake. "...and I wondered at that moment whether he was going to kill me. I'd never in my life had anyone point a gun at me, and it changes you, you know?"

Like facing down someone with a bomb, I thought.

"And I thought about you and Rachel and what a huge mistake it had been, to go there. So I said I was leaving. And the second I was out of that garage I ran back to my car, didn't look back, was scared that he might be chasing me, that he'd take a shot before I could get out of there."

I put my hands over hers to calm them. "But you're okay. Nothing happened."

Or hadn't happened yet. Because at some point, things came to an end for Billy.

She nodded and wiped a tear from her cheek. "I guess, for a moment, I was thinking I was back learning how to be a cop, before I decided to do something different. Thinking I could handle this. What I should have done, what we should have done from the beginning, was bring Marta into it, tell her everything. I'd been thinking all day that when I got home, I'd talk to you about it, insist we call her, because this wasn't something we could handle. But then she shows up here, and says he's dead... I had no idea. Somebody killed him, and my car was spotted, and even then I thought I could find a way to explain it, but then you—"

"Jumped in and covered for you."

"Why? Why would you—" Bonnie cut herself off. She was trying to put it together. "Because you thought maybe I'd done it."

"I never seriously considered that as a possibility."

"Not seriously," she repeated. "But you hadn't ruled it out. Oh my God, Richard."

"I didn't think it was good for anyone to think you might have been anywhere near Billy Finster's place."

"So you came up with that story because... you knew he was dead. You knew he was dead before Marta came here."

"I did."

The kitchen suddenly seemed very quiet. The only sound was the faint noise of Rachel's movie.

"How... how would you have known he was dead?" she asked tentatively.

"I was there last night, too," I said. "Clearly, after you were. I wanted to confront him, get real evidence he was lying in case he went public. So I asked Mrs. Tibaldi to look after Rachel. I was thinking I shouldn't face him alone, so I dropped by Trent's place to see whether I could talk him into going with me. But he was out. By then I was hyped up, had to see it through. I had this idea I could record him on my phone, get him to admit there was nothing to his accusations, that he just wanted money. So I went there."

"You shouldn't have."

"Look who's talking."

"Richard, tell me you didn't..."

"Let me finish," I said. "I get there, but then this other car came along. A man and a woman get out, go to the house first, and then the garage, and I hear shouting and all this banging about. And then these two came back out, went into the house, and I could kind of make out through the blinds and curtains that they were tearing the place apart. Finally, they left."

Bonnie waited.

"So that's when I went to the garage and found him. Facedown, not moving. There was blood all over the place and I didn't have to feel for a pulse to know. He was dead. I hadn't touched a thing except the door handle and I wiped that down and I threw out the shoes I was wearing because I was worried I might have left footprints in the garage."

"They killed him," she said. "Did you hear a shot or anything?"

I shook my head. "There'd been so much banging around I thought maybe they'd beat him to death. A story online said he'd been shot. So maybe they used a silencer or something."

"Who could they have been?" Bonnie asked. "Why would they kill him?"

I shrugged. "I don't know. But they were looking for something, that's for sure."

Bonnie put her head in her hands for a moment. "We have to tell Marta."

"If we do," I said, "and she doesn't believe me, I've put myself at the scene. I had a motive, I was there."

"Yeah, but there's those two that came to the house."

"There's just my word that that happened. I could be making that part up, for all she knows."

"Oh come on. She knows you. She knows you wouldn't do anything like that."

I was not convinced. "Does she? Who knows what someone in my situation might do? Accused of something like that."

Bonnie was thinking. "Do you think it happened at all? Do you think someone—someone from your school—did abuse him? I mean, why come up with something like that if there's absolutely no basis for it?"

"I think someone did do it to him. Someone from the school. But how does that become a case of mistaken identity? Someone messes with you, forces you to do things to them, how do you not remember who that was?"

"None of this makes any sense," Bonnie said.

"No shit." I glanced at the digital display on the microwave, noticed the time. "You won't believe this, but I have to go to this thing at the school." I quickly filled her in.

She shook her head in exasperation. "Cancel."

"If I don't go, and Marta finds out, it would look like her visit freaked me out. I have to see these parents."

"I don't know how much more the two of us can take."

We got up from the table and held each other. "I know," I said.

"What now?" Bonnie asked. "I don't know, what with that man being killed, whether our problems are over or just beginning."

I was at the school forty-five minutes later, a good fifteen minutes before the meeting was supposed to start. Trent had arranged for it to be held in the library. Not only was that a good place to set up chairs, but we'd be surrounded by books. Seemed appropriate.

I was out of the car and heading into the school when I heard a woman call out my name. She was getting out of a blue SUV parked over on the far side of the lot. She looked familiar to me, but I couldn't quite place her. I stopped and waited for her to close the distance between us. I assumed she was part of the delegation tonight and wanted a few words with me ahead of time.

"Mr. Boyle," she said once she had reached me. She was in her early fifties, thin and wan-looking, in a shapeless pale green dress that hung on her like it was still on the hanger.

"Yes?"

"I'm Fiona LeDrew."

Now I knew where I'd seen her. On the news. Christ, it wasn't enough the LeDrews were suing me? They didn't like the books on my curriculum, either?

"I came by late this afternoon and you'd already left, but they said you'd be at some meeting tonight and I wanted to catch you before it started."

She extended a hand hesitantly, unsure I would take it. I did.

"Ms. LeDrew." I wasn't sure what to say. "I don't believe we've ever spoken, certainly not recently."

"No, I don't think we've met. Not even when Mark attended here."

"I'm very sorry for your loss."

She nodded. "I'm going to make my husband drop the lawsuit."

I let that sink in a moment. Jumping up and down didn't seem right in the circumstances, but it was nice to have some tidbit of good news. "I see," I said.

"It's the only way he knows how to deal with the situation," she said. "To lash out at everybody else, like he—like we—didn't have anything to do with it. And I think... I think he's trying to make up for things even if it's too late."

She took a breath.

"He's... he's a cold man, my husband," she said. "I love him, and I know he loves me, and that he loved Mark, but he wasn't very good at showing it. After Mark died, Angus... he's been doing a lot of soul-searching. But not enough that he hasn't wanted to shift the blame to others. Good people like you."

I said nothing.

"We shouldn't be going after you. It's wrong. We should be thanking you. I hope you can find it in your heart to forgive."

I didn't know what else to say but "Of course."

"I can't imagine what might have happened if you hadn't talked to Mark. He was a very, very unhappy young man, an angry young man. He was blaming so many others for how his life had turned out. But we have to be responsible for our actions, don't we, no matter what has happened to us?"

I nodded.

"Nothing would justify coming here and... and doing what we all know he planned to do. But he was hurting. Someone hurt him here."

"Hurt him how?" I asked.

Fiona pressed her lips together hard and looked away briefly. "There were things he never told my husband, things he only told me, that he made me swear never to tell his father. He was too ashamed."

"What kinds of things?" I asked.

She looked like she was about to tell me, stopped herself, and then tried again. "Abusive things," she said finally. She reached out and touched my arm. "And I know it couldn't have been you. If it had been... he'd have taken you with him when that bomb went off."

"Are we talking some kind of sexual abuse?" I asked.

She nodded. "Mark said it... made him doubt who he was. He felt... like he went along with it to get things in return."

"Did he say what?"

"No."

"Ms. LeDrew, did your son say who did this to him? Was there a name?"

She shook her head. "I tried to get him to tell me. He only talked to me about this a couple of times, and when I tried to bring it up later, he shut me down."

A thought occurred to me.

"Did your son wrestle? Was he on the team?"

"No, I mean, he might have done wrestling in his gym class, but he wasn't on a team."

"What about Herb Willow? Mark mentioned his name when we talked."

"Mark hated him, for sure, but not because of... you know. Mr. Willow just put him down all the time, made him stop believing in himself. And, you know, that's pretty bad, too, crushing a young man's spirit."

"Was there anyone you suspected?"

"No. The closest Mark ever came to telling me was that he called him the lawnmower man. He would never give me a name. There'd be too much trouble, he said."