A Night's Tail

chapter 16

After a minute or so I kissed the top of Hercules’s head, got up and went to wash my face. Then I changed my pajama pants for jeans, gave my hair a brush and headed downstairs, Hercules beside me.

The guys were sitting at the kitchen table going over their set list, talking about which songs to keep and which to replace. There was a large pizza box on the table with a couple of slices left. Owen was sitting next to Ethan’s chair.

“Hey, Kath, did you change your mind about the pizza?” Ethan asked, gesturing at the box. Milo and Derek both nodded hello.

I shook my head. “No.” There was no way I could ever swallow past the lump in my throat.

I studied Ethan, hair wild as usual, gesturing with the pencil he was holding. He had such strong feelings about everything and for better or worse he brought that passion to everything he did. I remembered him as a baby and how quickly I came to love him and Sara with all that I had.

Owen walked around the table to me and I bent and picked him up, which gave me, somehow, a tiny shot of courage. He nuzzled my chin, Hercules leaned against my leg and I leaned against the counter.

Ethan looked across the table at Derek and then grinned at me. “Guess what?” he said. “Derek’s going to join the band. I mean for good.”

My stomach clutched.

Derek ran his fingers through his two-day-old beard. “I’m thinking I may have to get some dye for this,” he said.

“Then you could pretend you’re Liam’s older brother instead of his dad,” Milo joked.

“Derek, where is your son is going to school?” I asked.

He glanced over at me. “He hasn’t decided yet. He’s waiting to see how many offers he gets.”

The lump at the back of my throat wouldn’t go away. “But you’re pulling for him to go to Saint Edwin’s. It’s kind of your alma mater.”

“Derek didn’t go to college, Kath,” Ethan said without even glancing up from the sheet of paper in front of him. “Remember?”

“Derek didn’t finish college,” I said.

Ethan frowned, finally looking up at me. “No. He didn’t go in the first place, and what are you, the education police all of a sudden?”

“No one else would accept you, would they?” I said, keeping my eyes on Derek. If I looked at Ethan I’d start to cry again.

Ethan’s dark eyes flashed. His expression was both angry and puzzled. “I don’t know what you’re talking about, Kathleen, but knock it off. Why don’t you eat something? Maybe your blood sugar is low.”

“How did you know?” Derek asked.

I knew those words were directed at me.

“I saw an old team photo of you standing in front of Lewis Wallace.”

Ethan jumped to his feet, the chair scraping on the floor. “Derek didn’t know that jerk, so will you please tell me what the hell is going on?”

I saw the realization dawn across Milo’s face. “Stop talking,” he said. He pushed his chair back and got to his feet as well. Ethan opened his mouth to say something and Milo put both hands on his chest and pushed him back into his seat. “Stop, just stop, okay?”

I think it was the first time I’d ever heard Milo raise his voice, even a little.

“Did you know he was going to be in town?” I asked Derek. I could see Ethan out of the corner of my eye, perched on the edge of his seat. I couldn’t look directly at him because I was afraid I wouldn’t be able to keep going.

“I found out he was maybe going to set up his new business here. When Ethan told me you lived here it just seemed like things were finally going to go my way.”

“You wanted his help,” I said. “You wanted your son to play football for the college that kicked you out.”

“It was only fair,” Derek said. “They screwed me over. I told Lewis we needed to talk in person. I told him we’d be here. He agreed to meet me but said we had to keep the fact that we knew each other quiet. He didn’t want anyone to find out about the whole cheating thing. He had something going that could be ruined for him. I wanted him to put in a good word for Liam. After all, he owed me.” He was holding a pencil in his right hand, turning it slowly between his thumb and index finger.

“All those years ago he paid you to take the blame for stealing those test answers.” I didn’t say the words as a question because I already knew the answer.

“He said all they’d do was put me on academic probation. They kicked me out!” Anger flashed in his eyes. He swallowed hard a couple of times.

From the corner of my eye I could see Ethan staring up at the ceiling as if somehow there were answers up there. He looked in my direction, anger etched in the lines on his face.

“Liam has talent,” Derek said. His eyes were glued to my face. It was like we were the only two people in the room. “I knew all he needed was to get into a good college program. I knew Lewis still had connections with the football program at Saint Edwin’s. A few weeks ago I finally got in touch with him. He kept saying he’d do something but nothing happened. Finally, that night he admitted he couldn’t write the letter. He said it would look suspicious if he spoke up for the kid of the guy who got kicked out for doing what he’d originally been accused of. He said he could help in other ways. He offered me money. He tried to buy me off again!”

Ethan was so jumpy I thought he was going to come out of his skin. “Kathleen, tell me what the hell is going on,” he all but shouted at me.

Derek finally shifted his attention away from me. He looked at Ethan. “It’s been good working with you guys. It’s been better than good, but we don’t exactly live in the same worlds.”

“What is that supposed to mean?” Milo asked.

“It means I’ve had to fight for every damn thing I’ve ever gotten. No one’s ever given me a break.”

“So that makes it okay to kill somebody?”

Derek shook his head and his mouth twisted to one side. “You saw the kind of man Lewis Wallace was.”

Milo was already shaking his head. “That doesn’t make it right.”

Ethan jumped out of his chair. It fell backward, hitting the floor. “Kathleen, this is crazy,” he shouted. His hands were everywhere. “You know Derek didn’t kill anyone. Some guy you know gave him an alibi.”

Derek looked up at me. “I don’t understand that part. When Marcus came and said someone had given me an alibi, I couldn’t figure it out. Who did he see?”

“He saw you,” I said. My hands were shaking. “He just got the time wrong. Ian Queen’s battery was dead on his phone. His old truck didn’t have a clock—or a working radio. When he walked into his mother’s house he looked at the clock for the time. The thing is, Patricia is one of those nitpicky people. It was the night we switched to daylight savings time. Right after supper she changed every clock in her house. When Ian looked at the time—”

“—it was wrong,” Derek finished.

“Yes.”

He sighed. “I was going to confess. I swear to you that I was and then Marcus walked in and said some guy had given me an alibi and I thought maybe it was some way that the universe was evening things up and I just . . . I just kept my mouth shut.”

I nodded. I could understand that.

Derek shrugged. “You know, the funny thing is, I didn’t even know where Lewis was. Then I got one of those stupid alumni newsletters they sent out. They must have gotten my address from my mother. It had this section where they say what people are doing now.”

“And you found out that Wallace was doing pretty well.”

“Yeah. He cheated and they were writing about him like he was some big deal. At first, I was just going to out him, tell the truth. But I figured, who was going to believe me over him? So I thought, why not get something for myself, for my kid?”

“That night at the bar, he called you Christmas.”

He nodded. “He gave me that stupid nickname the first time we met. Even though we agreed we weren’t going to let on we knew each other he said it, out of habit, he claimed.”

Owen shifted in my arms and I stroked his soft gray fur. “How did you know Wallace was at the hotel and how did you know where the meeting room was?” I asked.

“It was the nicest hotel in town. Where else would he stay? As for the meeting room, Ethan had sent me a text about getting the muffins for your friend Maggie and putting them in the meeting room so you wouldn’t find out.”

I heard Ethan make a strangled oath.

“He said he’d just walked through the lobby and no one had stopped him. I knew Lewis had always had problems getting to sleep and would probably be up. I was going to go up to his room but there he was, wandering around the hallways. I pulled him into the meeting room to talk, popped the lock the same way Milo had shown me once.”

He looked at Milo. “Sorry, man,” he said in a voice barely above a whisper.

I set Owen on the floor, giving Hercules a quick scratch on the head as I straightened up. I folded my arms across my chest. The room suddenly seemed colder. Or maybe it was just me.

“He wouldn’t help me,” Derek said in a voice laced with bitterness. “I told him I’d tell everyone that he paid me to lie and say I stole those test answers. He said no one would believe me.”

It occurred to me that was probably true.

“He said he’d help me some other way but he couldn’t let the truth come out, not now. I knew what that meant. I wasn’t taking another payoff. He grabbed one of those muffins and . . . I didn’t stop him. In fact, I smashed it into his fat mouth. I didn’t mean to kill him.”

“You took his EpiPen away from him.”

“He dropped it on the floor.” Derek looked away.

“You kicked it across the room,” I said.

“Not to kill him!”

“Well what did you think was going to happen?” Milo asked.

Derek looked from me to Milo. “He owed me. Don’t you get it? I just wanted what he owed me.”

“Do you remember Dwayne Parker?” I asked.

Derek frowned. “Dwayne? Wait a sec, you mean Chunk?”

I nodded. “He works at Saint Edwin’s. Wallace called him. Asked him to go see your son play.”

He shook his head. “I don’t understand.”

“Wallace said he was going to help you and he did. Saint Edwin’s is probably going to offer Liam a scholarship. You got what you wanted, what you seem to think you were owed. You didn’t need to kill him.”

The door opened then and Marcus stepped into the kitchen. I’d called him before I’d come downstairs. He started to read Derek his rights. I walked into the living room. I knew what was coming and I didn’t want to watch that part.