SIXTEEN

Dooley pictured it happening this way: his uncle, sitting in his cramped little office at the back of the first of two dry-cleaning stores he owned, his watch off his wrist and propped up in front of him like a little clock, staring at the minute hand and then the second hand until he calculated that Dooley had had enough time after the final bell to go to his locker, fill his backpack with homework, and make his way down the stairs and out the front door of the school to the sidewalk. Then, at the precise moment when he calculated—correctly, it turned out—that Dooley’s foot had hit the sidewalk, he pressed the speed dial number for Dooley’s cell phone.

Dooley groaned when he read the display. What now?

“Get over here right now,” that’s what.

“Why?” Dooley said.

A gusty, irritated sigh blew into his ear.

“Randall called.”

Shit.

“What did he want?”

“He wants you.”

That didn’t sound good.

“Did he say why?”

“He said he wants you to go downtown and talk to him, so I can only assume he has more questions for you. I put in a call to Annette. She’s tied up in court. We’re going in first thing in the morning. Randall’s okay with that. But we need to talk, Ryan. Now.”

Double shit.

“I have some stuff I have to do. Can we talk when you get home?”

There was another long pause.

“Do you have any idea how serious this is?” his uncle said at last. “He’s a Homicide detective. He was at the house a couple of days ago with a search warrant. He took some of your clothes. And now he wants to talk to you—again. That doesn’t tell you something?”

What it told Dooley was that Randall was still on him as a possible second suspect, but that right now he didn’t have enough to arrest him. But he didn’t say that to his uncle. He might jump to the wrong conclusion.

“I know it’s serious,” Dooley said. “But there’s this stuff I have to do. I’ll be home at supper. We can talk all you want. I promise.”

He hit the END button, knowing, even as he did it, that he would regret it. His uncle had probably blown a gasket once he realized that Dooley had hung up on him.

He checked his watch. He didn’t have to be at the athletic center until five o’clock. That gave him a little time. He headed down to the public park.

The baseball diamond was swarming with little kids and parents. Dooley scanned the adult faces, but didn’t see the one he was looking for. He loped down the hill to the diamond and approached one of the moms. She was standing alone behind the backstop.

“Excuse me,” he said. “Do you know when Mr. Ralston will be here?”

She shook her head and opened her mouth to answer, but a man in a windbreaker beat her to it.

“He hasn’t been around in over a week,” he said. “Hasn’t bothered to let anyone know, either. I left him some messages, but he didn’t get back to me.”

Dooley had a pretty good idea why.

“I heard he was coaching here,” Dooley said to the man. “He used to coach me. I thought it would be nice to catch up with him.”

“Yeah, well, good luck.” The man turned and yelled something at the kid who had just gone up to bat.

Dooley looked at the woman again.

“Do you have any idea how I could get hold of him?”

She shook her head.

Terrific.

He glanced around and wondered if he would have any luck with any of the other parents. Little League coaches probably gave out their phone numbers to parents. But how many gave out their addresses? What was the point in that?

He saw a kid standing by himself to one side of the bleachers and headed for him instead. He stood beside the kid for a while, watching the game.

“You’re not playing?” Dooley said finally.

“Can’t,” the kid said. “I sprained my wrist, so my mom won’t let me. She says I need to let it rest at least another week.” He nodded at a woman sitting in the bleachers with a couple of other moms. The woman’s eyes were sharp on Dooley. He could read the expression on her face: I’m watching you.

“Tough break,” Dooley said. “You have a good coach?”

“He’s okay.” There was a distinct lack of enthusiasm in the kid’s voice.

“It’s Mr. Ralston, right?” Dooley said.

The kid nodded.

“He was my coach when I was in Little League.”

The kid didn’t react.

“He was a lot of fun,” Dooley said.

“He likes to buy stuff for us,” the kid said. “Pop and chips and stuff.”

“Yeah. He used to do that when I was a kid, too.”

“But he plays favorites.”

A chill of memory ran through Dooley. “What do you mean?”

“He takes some kids out for pizza. He invites some kids over to his house.”

Dooley just bet he did.

“He never invited you, huh?”

The boy shook his head. Dooley glanced up at his mother again. She was staring at him. Dooley bet she hadn’t taken her eyes off him even once.

“Do you know if he lives around here?” Dooley asked the kid.

The kid shook his head again. “You have to drive to get there.”

“You know where it is?”

“You know that big white apartment building across from the plaza at Victoria Park?”

“Yeah. Sure.”

“Right next to it, there’s this house. My mom calls it a triplex. He lives there, on the ground floor. He has the whole backyard to himself. He had a sleepover one night, but that was right after I sprained my arm. My mom wouldn’t let me go.”

Lucky kid, Dooley thought. To the kid he said, “I hope your arm gets better soon.”

The kid nodded glumly.

Dooley checked his watch again. He didn’t have the time to stop by Ralston’s and still get to the athletic center by five. As it was, the bus got hung up in a maze of roadwork. Dooley’s guts started to roil as the minutes ticked by. He sprang off the bus the minute it reached his stop, sprinted the four blocks to the athletic center, and burst through the front doors, panting with nerves and exertion. There, right in front of him, was a glass wall that looked in on one of the center’s smaller gymnasiums. Inside, dozens of girls in leotards were warming up for their session. He was late.

He hung around at the window until he caught Cassie’s eye. She nodded to him just before she mounted the balance beam. Jesus, she was graceful. Dooley wondered if Kate and the rest of them were anywhere near as accomplished as Cassie was. He applauded when she leapt down after what was to him a flawless performance. After a brief chat with her coach, she headed for the exit. Dooley circled around to meet her.

“The bus was slow,” he offered by way of explanation. “Is she here?”

“She’s the one in maroon with the black stripe,” Cassie said. “Her brother’s in there. He’s on the chair under the clock. He usually stays there and waits for her when she goes to the locker room after training. The locker room is down that hall.” She pointed. “We finish at seven.” Seven. Shit. That meant he wouldn’t be home until nearly eight. His uncle would freak out. “Down that hall, just past the door for the girls’ dressing room, there’s another hall. It leads to an emergency exit. Meet me there. I’ll make sure she’s with me.”

“I really appreciate this, Cassie.”

Her face was expressionless.

“I have to get back.” She turned and ran back into the gym. She was something else in her leotard—confident, self-assured, astonishingly poised.

Dooley went back to the window to watch. He spotted Pam, no problem. She looked tiny beside Cassie, and Cassie was, like most female gymnasts, lithe, muscular, but petite. Pam’s long, thick black hair was pulled back into a ponytail. She had large brown eyes and a heart-shaped face that was pulled into tight concentration. There was no mystery about why she had caught Parker’s eye.

Dooley looked to the other side of the gym. A heavyset young man was sitting on a plastic chair under the clock, just as Cassie had said. He was the same guy Dooley had seen in Parker’s neighborhood the night Parker had died. He’d been looking for something—for his sister, Dooley realized. Had he caught her with Parker? Had he gone back to Parker’s later to teach Parker a few things about what happened to guys who fooled around with his sister? He looked like he could go a few rounds, no sweat. He had what looked like a Blackberry in his hands. His fingers flew over the keys. He didn’t look at his sister even once. But Dooley did. She wasn’t as proficient as Cassie, but she was good. And her small taut body was a pleasure to watch.

Dooley’s cell phone rang at six o’clock. He checked the display. It was his uncle, calling from home. Dooley hesitated. Then he switched off the phone. If his uncle was going to explode at him, Dooley would rather he did it all at once.

At ten minutes to seven, Dooley left the window and went to wait near the emergency exit that Cassie had told him about. He wondered what Cassie was going to say to Pam to get her to make a detour away from the locker room.

At exactly one minute after seven, he heard girls’ voices. A lot of girls. Then, closer, another voice, “Where are we going?”

“Just trust me, Pam,” Cassie said. “It’s important.”

Then there they were, still in their leotards, Pam’s eyes wide with surprise. She looked to Cassie for an answer.

“He’s Beth’s boyfriend,” Cassie said.

Pam froze.

“She killed Parker. Why have you brought me here, Cassie?” Dooley read accusation and betrayal in her voice. She spun around to leave.

Dooley grabbed her arm.

Pam whirled back, alarmed but furious and full of fight.

“I’m sorry.” Dooley murmured. He dropped his hand. “But I need to talk to you. Cassie’s right. It’s important.”

Pam glowered at Cassie.

“Beth didn’t do anything,” Dooley said.

“But she said—”

“She didn’t do it.” Dooley kept his voice calm, spiking it with as much gentleness as he could manage.

“Then why did she tell the police she did?”

“It’s complicated. A couple of minutes. That’s all I ask.”

Pam looked at Cassie again. Cassie nodded encouragement.

“Kuldip will come looking for me.”

“I’ll watch for him,” Cassie said. “Beth is a good person, Pam. Please?”

Pam hesitated, then relented. Cassie slipped around the corner.

“What do you want from me?” Pam said.

“You were at the party at Parker’s house the night he died.”

She fixed him with defiant eyes.

“Says who?”

“There were dozens of kids there, Pam.”

Her answer came fast—too fast.

“No one saw me.”

Dooley looked evenly at her until she realized she had given herself away.

“Yeah,” he said. “Someone did.”

“I don’t believe you. If you tell anyone I was there, I’ll deny it.”

“I just want you to tell me about it, that’s all.”

“If my brother or my parents—”

“We can keep it between you and me,” he said. “If you want.” A veiled threat. He hated to have to resort to it.

She looked uncertain, but she didn’t walk away. Finally her shoulders sagged, robbing her posture of grace.

“What time did you get there, Pam?”

“A little before ten. I was supposed to be there earlier, but I couldn’t get away. I had to wait until my parents had gone to bed and Kuldip was out. Then I snuck out of the house. I called Parker and he met me out in front of his house. He got me in—I was so sure no one saw me. There’s a hedge along one of the walls. He stayed behind it. If my parents ever found out—”

“They won’t. Not from me. What happened after that?”

“Parker had some champagne.” She ventured a tiny smile. “It was expensive. We snuck to the back of the yard and sat under the stars, just the two of us. We drank the champagne and we talked. I know what Beth said about him. But I don’t believe it. Parker is nice. He’s sweet. He kisses me so softly.” Her fingers went to her cheek, as if a kiss still lingered there. “We talked, that’s all.”

Dooley found that hard to believe, but she looked and sounded sincere. Maybe it was all the lying and sneaking around she had to do to live the life she wanted.

“How long were you with him?”

“Not long.” Her voice broke a little. “Not long at all. I heard someone coming and I got nervous. My brother saw Parker talk to me one time. The next day, Parker told me he saw Kuldip sitting in his car outside his house. I was afraid he’d found out I snuck out of the house. I was afraid he might have seen Parker sneak me onto the property. If he found me at Parker’s house, he’d—”

“Kill Parker?” Dooley said. A guy could hope, after all.

“Tell my parents,” Pam said. “And they’d send me back home to get married. I don’t want to go back there. I don’t want to marry someone my parents choose. I want to make my own decisions.”

Dooley thought through everything he knew about Parker and decided that, in this case, Pam’s parents had the better idea.

“So what happened?”

“I told Parker I had to go. He said he’d stay there and head off whoever it was. He told me to stick close to the hedge along the wall where there are no lights. It was dark there. He said no one would see me.”

Dooley wondered if Randall had noticed the lighting—or lack of it—along the wall. He probably had. He was pretty sharp. Maybe that’s why he was sold on the idea it was Beth. She didn’t have to scale the ravine face to get at Parker. She could have just stuck to the shadows. He probably thought Dooley had done the same thing.

“What happened then?” Dooley said.

“I did what Parker told me. I went home.”

“Do you have any idea who you heard coming? Was it your brother?”

“I don’t know. I don’t think so. He was sitting out in front of the house with a bunch of his friends when I got home. It looked like they’d been there for a while.”

“Did they stay there?”

“It got pretty quiet, but I didn’t check on them or anything.”

“So he could have left,” Dooley said, mostly to himself. “Did you talk to him at all that night or the next morning?”

“He came into my room late—after midnight. He burst in, you know, without knocking. I think he was checking on me.”

“And?”

“And nothing. When he barged in, I woke up. But he just stood in the doorway. He didn’t say anything.” She thought for a moment. “He was grinning, you know, like he had some big secret.”

“He didn’t say anything about the party?”

“He didn’t know about the party.”

“Are you sure about that?” Dooley said.

“If he knew, I wouldn’t be here now. I think that’s why they let me compete—so they have something to take away from me if I don’t do what they say. I have to do what they say all the time. Kuldip ... with sons, it’s different, that’s all my dad ever says.” The words were clearly bitter on her tongue.

Dooley hesitated.

“Where do you live, Pam? In Parker’s neighborhood?”

“No.”

“Does your brother have friends in Parker’s neighborhood, maybe on his street?”

“No.” Her voice was sharp again. “Why are you asking that?”

“Because I saw him the night of the party. Your brother and, I think, some of his friends. They were on Parker’s street.”

Pam’s eyes widened. She glanced over her shoulder. When she spoke again, her voice was a whisper.

“Are you sure?”

“Positive.” He let it sink in. It took a moment, but then she was shaking her head.

“No,” she said. “No.”

“He was there,” Dooley said. “What was he doing there if he didn’t have any friends on the street? It’s not the kind of street where you go just to hang out. For a moment there, just after I left through Parker’s gate, it looked like he was going to say something to me.”

She was still shaking her head.

“Maybe he was going to ask me if I’d seen you,” Dooley said. “Maybe he was there because he got wind of the party. Maybe he thought you were going to be there and that’s why he was hanging around there with his friends.”

“No.”

“Maybe that’s why he burst into your room after you got home and asked you that question. He knew where you were, Pam.”

“I already told you, if he’d known, I wouldn’t be here tonight.”

“Maybe he found a different way to deal with it.” Like, eliminate Parker. Maybe have a bunch of friends good and ready to alibi you, too. Dooley thought back to his first encounter with Kuldip, before he knew who he was. He’d been wearing dark pants, Dooley was sure of that. And some kind of shirt. But, really, Dooley hadn’t paid him much attention. Why would he?

“Do you remember what he was wearing when you saw him, Pam?”

“Why are you asking me that?”

“Do you?”

“Clothes.”

“A shirt?”

“Of course, a shirt.”

“Long-sleeved?”

Her eyes drilled into his. There was a lot of spunk behind that sweet face and, he bet, a lot of strength in that tiny body.

“Yes,” she said finally.

“You remember the color?”

“No.”

“Was it blue?”

“I just told you, I don’t remember.” Her tone made it clear that was the end of that particular line of questioning. Dooley shifted gears.

“Who do you think it was who interrupted you and Parker that night, Pam?”

“I don’t know. I didn’t look. I kept my head down and got out of there as fast as I could.”

“So you don’t know if it was a guy or a girl?”

She hesitated.

“It was a guy.” The words came out reluctantly, as if she wished she could answer differently, as if she wanted it to be a girl—to be Beth—and not a guy, for sure not her brother, no matter how strict a keeper he was.

“Did you hear his voice?”

“No. But I heard Parker. He was angry, I think because if the person hadn’t shown up, we would ...” She blushed and looked down for a moment. “I know it was a guy because Parker said, ‘What the F are you doing here, man?’”

“But you didn’t see who it was?”

“No.”

Well, that was something—although not necessarily something he wanted her to tell the cops. Not yet, anyway.

“You didn’t notice anything else, anything at all?”

She shook her head again and glanced nervously over her shoulder.

“My brother—” she began.

He nodded and she scurried back around the corner to the change room. Cassie was leaning against the wall, her arms crossed over her chest, studying him.

“You don’t believe her, do you?” she said.

“Pam? Yeah, I do.” Unfortunately.

“I mean Beth. She said she killed Parker, but you don’t believe her.”

He didn’t want to get into what Beth had said to him, so he shrugged.

“You think it was Kuldip?” Cassie said.

“I wouldn’t mind knowing more about him and where he was that night.”

Cassie stared at him in silence for a few moments.

“He works out,” she said finally. “There’s a gym near his place. He’s there every morning, six-thirty to seven-thirty.”

He wondered how she knew that.

“There’s this guy I know who hangs out with him,” she said, answering the question he hadn’t asked. “He’s fun to talk to. We went out a couple of times. Then his parents brought over this girl from India—they’re getting married in the summer.”

Dooley didn’t know what to say.

Cassie told him where the gym was.

“But good luck,” she added. “The guy I knew, he was okay. But Kuldip? He’s a first-class asshole. I’m not kidding.”

On his way out of the athletic center, Dooley pulled his cell phone out of his pocket. He wondered how many times his uncle had called him in the past hour. He was probably foaming at the mouth by now. But Dooley had one more stop to make before he went home.

As he rode the bus, a thousand thoughts jangled in his brain: Beth’s confession, Randall’s questions, what Beth had seen, what Pam had heard ... what he himself had seen and heard and done.

One thing for sure: he and Beth weren’t the only people who had a hate on for Parker.

Annicka was no friend of Parker’s.

Neither was Ashley. He wondered about her, about what she might have seen that night as she stood sullenly watching Parker. Had she tracked him when he’d gone to meet Pam? Had she seen them together? Had she decided on revenge?

No, it didn’t fit. Beth had seen the whole thing. She said she’d seen a guy—Dooley—not a girl. Not Ashley.

What about Brad? Mr. Wrestler, who’d shown up itching for a fight with Parker and had to be escorted off the property? He could have snuck back later. And he was built. Dooley bet he could have smashed Parker over the head with as little effort as it might take him to skip stones on a lake. It was possible. It was possible, too, from down where she was, that Beth hadn’t got the best look. Well, except for the blue shirt. She’d been pretty definite about that. Brad had been wearing a white T-shirt. Dooley remembered it clearly. It was what had made him pay special attention. The T-shirt was so taut across Brad’s chest that you didn’t need any imagination at all to know what his pecs looked like or to be sure he had a six-pack, hell, an eight-pack.

But he could have changed. Or thrown a blue shirt over his T-shirt later that night when he snuck back into the party and made his way to the back of the yard where Parker was.

Had anyone told the cops about Brad and his grievance? Had Randall or some other cop talked to him? Had they given him a serious look? Or had Beth’s confession thrown them off? Had it shut down the investigation before they considered all the possibilities? Or had the cops had tunnel vision from the get-go? It happened. It was one of the main reasons, right up there with incompetent defense attorneys and faulty eyewitness identification, that innocent people ended up doing time. And yes, Virginia, despite what a lot of cops will tell you, there actually are innocent people in prison.

So what about Brad? Where had he been later that night when Parker was killed?

And where had Kuldip been?

He bet the cops hadn’t looked into that because (A) Kuldip hadn’t been at the party, and (B) the cops probably didn’t know that Pam had been there. But from what Dooley could see, Kuldip had as good a motive as Beth, maybe an even better one, given how his family was determined to keep a short leash on Pam. The family wanted Pam to be a good girl. They wanted her to marry someone not just approved by, but chosen by, her parents. They didn’t want her hanging out with some white boy; it didn’t seem to matter how wealthy his family was. Kuldip knew about Parker. He knew where Parker lived; Parker had seen him sitting out front once. Kuldip was in the neighborhood the night Parker died. Dooley was willing to bet he knew Pam had been out of the house; he probably knew exactly where she had been. He had dark hair, too, just like Dooley. Looking up from a dark ravine, Beth could have made a mistake, especially if he was turned partly away from her. But what had Kuldip been wearing that night?

And how could Dooley find out? He knew where to find him. But what were the chances he would tell Dooley anything? Maybe he should just go to Randall and spell out his theory.

But before he did that, he wanted to make sure that he was in the clear himself, in case Randall decided to follow up on his own theory and try to get Beth to come clean about her accomplice. Boy, Dooley could picture him at work: Ryan must have gone crazy when he found out what happened. He’s a hard case, that one, but you know what, Beth? I believe he loves you. I believe he’d do anything for you. Is that what happened, Beth? Did he help you? All the time probably sitting there with Dooley’s file in front of him, reading and re-reading about baseball bats and the woman in the wheelchair, thinking not only wasn’t it a stretch but it was a pattern; anyone could have seen this coming a million miles away. So, job one (and he couldn’t believe he had put himself in the situation where he actually had to do this): find Ralston.

He got off the bus at Victoria Park and walked south one block until he was standing in front of the new white apartment building there. Sure enough, just as the kid at the park had told him, there was a sand-colored brick triplex next to it, the place further subdivided into six apartments. Dooley read the names beside the buzzers to the left of the main door. There it was: Ralston, 1A. He pressed the corresponding buzzer.

No answer.

He pressed again.

Still nothing.

He read the other names and pressed the buzzer for the basement apartment.

“Yes?” came a tinny voice.

“Are you the super?”

“Yes.”

“I’m looking for one of your tenants—Ralston, 1a.”

“Just a minute.”

A man in work pants and a plaid shirt appeared. He looked gruffly at Dooley as he pushed open the door.

“You a friend of his?”

“I’m looking for him,” Dooley said.

“He didn’t send you here?”

Send me here? Why would Dooley be asking for Ralston if Ralston had sent him here? More to the point, why would Ralston send him here?

“He skipped out of here a week ago,” the man said. “The rent was covered—he paid first and last when he moved in. But he left all his stuff here. I need the place cleared if I’m going to rent it.”

“He didn’t leave a forwarding address?”

“Would I be talking to you if he did?”

“And you haven’t heard from him?”

The man stared at him, probably wondering how a guy who obviously spoke English didn’t understand when it was spoken to him.

“Did you notice a kid hanging around with him, maybe thirteen or fourteen, say, this tall?” Dooley held his hand at shoulder height.

“I’m not that kind of super,” he said. “People don’t pay their rent, I talk to them. Someone complains about noise or whatever, I talk to them. Otherwise, they got their privacy. It’s what they pay for. It’s what we all pay for.” He turned to go back inside.

“Hey!” Dooley said.

The man turned, but the look on his face made it clear that he had better things to do.

“Did you notice anything about him before he left?”

“Like what?”

“I don’t know. Anything different.?”

“All I know is, I heard him come in a week ago Saturday night, and a couple of days later when I saw the mail piling up in his mailbox and went to knock on his door to see if everything was okay, there was no answer. I never saw him again.”

Terrific.