Chapter Twenty-­Five

A couple of days later a notice came ordering Duff to appear in Ashland Juvenile Court on the following Monday. Having heard nothing for so long, I had been hoping the authorities were going to drop the charges. Now I began to wonder if I shouldn’t call the lawyer Father Jackson had mentioned.

“Why call him?” Duff asked. “Why not the lawyer Mrs. Reddy told you about—Oliver Matson?”

“Impossible.”

“Why? I know you don’t like Mrs. Reddy, but that doesn’t mean the lawyer isn’t any good. I am sure Mrs. Reddy likes me, so wouldn’t she want me to have the best possible legal help?”

He was probably right, I thought, insofar as Mrs. Reddy and her friends wouldn’t want him to be sent to some juvenile institution if he was of value to them in their ceremonies. Therefore Matson might be a better bet for us than Father Jackson’s man. It didn’t occur to me that I might be opening a door again, incurring a debt that might be hard to pay.

I looked up Oliver Matson in the Ashland phone book and called him. His secretary put me through immediately, without questioning me, almost as though she had been expecting the call. Mr. Matson was most cordial and sympathetic when I told him about Duff’s problems.

“Boys will be boys,” he said chuckling. “I remember when I was a sprout I caused my folks lots of worrisome times.” His cracker-­barrel way of talking was irritating, but I supposed it might go over big in the local courts. “I don’t think you need fret too much, Mrs. Caine. Judge Sinclair, who’s sitting in Juvenile Court now, is an old friend of mine and he’s generally guided by a boy’s appearance and his family situation. Long as your boy ain’t a long-­haired hippie, and long as he’s repentant, I think things will go all right for him.”

How did he know what Duff was like? Of course Mrs. Reddy could have told him. All in all, I was sure I had done the right thing, although I wasn’t happy to be dealing with a friend of Mrs. Reddy’s. Also, I suppose I was thinking that no judge in the world could treat my son too badly and therefore the choice of lawyer wasn’t going to make a great deal of difference.

I made sure Duff looked his best the morning of his court appearance. I pressed his most conservative suit—a gray flannel that was really too small for him, but I felt might help to make him look more boyish. I made him wear a white shirt and a dark tie of Jack’s, and finally I put a towel around him and trimmed his hair a bit. When I was finished, I was satisfied he looked incapable of assaulting policemen.

Then we drove to Ashland, arriving a good forty-­five minutes before the scheduled ten o’clock appearance. I had arranged to meet Mr. Matson outside the courtroom at a quarter to ten, but I hoped he would be early. He hadn’t asked me any questions at all on the telephone and I was worried about what kind of a defense he was planning to offer.

Promptly at a quarter to ten he came down the corridor, a sprightly little old man with a string tie and a great shock of white hair, much longer than Duff’s. I recognized him immediately. He had been in the congregation at Mrs. Reddy’s the night Jack died.

He pretended not to recognize me. He squeezed my hand warmly and then Duff’s. In answer to my offer to tell him something about Duff he said, “Don’t need to know any more about him. I got all the facts in the case from the records, and I’m sure Duff’s a good, responsible boy. Nothing to worry about here.”

“But the record certainly doesn’t show he’s responsible.”

Mr. Matson winked. “You have to read between the lines.”

He ushered us into the courtroom, where several groups of parents and teenage children were waiting.

“I’ll have Duff taken care of in a hurry,” he assured us, guiding me to a seat in a row ahead of the others. “You’ll be home in plenty of time for lunch.” Then he opened a gate in the railing and led Duff to a seat at a front table. An elderly bailiff looked up questioningly, but he didn’t protest.

Shortly thereafter the judge came out. No one stood up. I was tempted to do so to gain a few points for Duff, but Judge Sinclair didn’t seem to be paying any attention to us. He sat down and rearranged some papers on his desk and repositioned two small American flags, then looked over and nodded to the bailiff. The bailiff arose and summoned Duff.

Duff and Mr. Matson went forward and stood in front of the judge while the bailiff read the charges. Then Mr. Matson announced that Duff was pleading guilty and the judge studied some papers for a couple of minutes. Then he said, “Referred to probation,” and the bailiff called another name.

Smiling, Mr. Matson ushered Duff through the gate and I got up and followed them. At the rear of the courtroom a toothless old woman who looked like a habitual visitor reached out and caught my sleeve.

“He ain’t our regular judge, you know,” she whispered.

“Our regular judge is out of town. This fella was sent in from someplace. You’re lucky. Our regular judge would’ve locked your boy up.”

I pulled away and joined Duff and Mr. Matson in the corridor. “What does the probation involve?” I asked.

“They’re supposed to check on Duff and make recommendations before the judge hands down a sentence.”

“I thought you said there wouldn’t be anything like that.”

“It won’t be a jail sentence. The judge will likely order Duff to report to the probation officer once a month or so for a while. I’ll arrange to have it on Saturday mornings, if you like.”

“And that’s all there is to it?”

“That’s all.”

“Well, thank you, Mr. Matson. Can I give you a check?”

He smiled. “No, you’ll be billed.”

“But I’d just as soon pay you now, if your fee isn’t too high.”

“Oh, I don’t think you’ll find it excessive. And I’d prefer it this way, if you don’t mind. If you gave me a check, I’d probably just lose it. I’m very careless.” He took my hand. “I hope we meet again, Mrs. Caine, under other circumstances.”

I certainly didn’t share that hope but I nodded. He shook Duff’s hand, then bowed slightly to both of us.

“It is my duty to serve you,” he said softly. Then he went down the corridor and out of sight.

“Far-­out,” Duff said.

“He’s a kook,” I agreed, “but he seems to have done the trick for us.”

We had hamburgers and coffee at a nearby restaurant (neither of us had eaten much breakfast) and then went home. Despite my relief, I was vaguely disturbed by Mr. Matson’s assurances. It didn’t seem to me that charges that serious could be dismissed so lightly. I was also concerned about what form his billing might take, considering what I knew about him.

On the other hand what did I really know? Maybe I had never seen him before. Maybe I was going around looking for people to match those I had seen in my hallucination.

On Friday afternoon Father Jackson brought me the sleeping pills. He apologized for taking so long about it, but his pharmacist friend had been away.

“It’s all right,” I said. “I haven’t needed them lately.”

“Throw those away then. Or I’ll do it.”

“No, no, I might need them again.” I opened the vial. There were about twenty white pills in it. “What kind are they?”

“I don’t know. I didn’t ask. And he was very reluctant to give them to me. He said not to take more than one or two a night.”

“Don’t worry, I’ll be careful. And I’ll never say where I got them.”

“When are you going back East, Maggie?”

“One of these days. I still have lots of things to do around here.”

Why didn’t I want to go? For God’s sake, why didn’t I? Because Margaret Dorn was telling Maggie Caine that nothing was going to happen and everything was going to be all right.

The next day, Saturday, was Duff’s birthday. I had asked him again if he wanted to have a party and invite some of the kids in his class, but he refused. I don’t think he ever made any friends at Cainesville High School. He apparently never participated in any after-­school activities and I don’t think he ever met with any of his classmates away from the school either.

I told myself (Margaret Dorn told me) that next year things would be better. He would be at Yale and we would be living in a house in New Haven and I would have a big surprise birthday party for him. This year there would be just a small party for the two of us.

That night I became Margaret Dorn again in body and the General came to me.