Never Come Back

Chapter Thirty-one

Paul sent me away from the hospital. He walked me down to the front door and told me that I wasn’t doing any good there, especially if I was losing my cool.

“Losing my cool?” I said. “If anyone deserves to lose her cool, it’s me.”

“I’m not disagreeing with that,” he said. “But the days ahead just grew a lot darker, don’t you think?”

I couldn’t argue. The days ahead had just turned as black as night. I wasn’t sure we could even call them days anymore.

“We’re both going to need to be at our best,” he said. “Why don’t you go home and rest? I’ll stay here with Ronnie, and you can come back later.”

What he said made sense, and I could feel the logic of it seeping into my brain. But I still didn’t like it.

“No,” I said. “My place is here. There’s so much more to talk about—”

“I know. And we’ll talk about it.”

“What did you want to talk to Richland about?” I asked. “I don’t like there being secrets. If you had something to say, you should say it in front of me.”

Paul’s face flushed, as if he’d been caught in a lie. I don’t know what I liked least—the fact that he might have tried to keep something from me or the fact that I’d exposed him for it. Had he been planning to tell Richland that Ronnie really did need to be put away? And he just didn’t want me to hear him say that in the wake of our fight?

“It wasn’t anything about Ronnie,” he said. “Not directly.”

“Then what?” I asked.

He let out a deep breath. “Look, just… I wanted to talk to Richland about our legal options with Ronnie. And I didn’t want to say it in front of you because I thought you were running out of patience with the whole thing. And I was right.”

I started to object, and he stopped me.

“I’m not saying you didn’t have a right to. I’m just saying you were on the verge of losing your cool. And that’s why I think you should go now. Go home. Regroup. If anything changes, I’ll call. When Frank Allison gets here, I’ll deal with him. I know him a little. Otherwise, you can come back later.” He paused and looked at me a long time. His eyes contained a message, some significant meaning I was meant to understand but couldn’t. “Who knows? Maybe some things will be clear then.”

He gently guided me through the glass doors of Dover Community and into the midmorning sun.

“What could possibly be clarified by then?” I asked.

But Paul just waved at me and turned to go back into the hospital.

I didn’t like being dismissed and shunted aside. I didn’t like having my emotions questioned, as though I were a hysterical woman who couldn’t stand the pressure of a big moment in the life of our family.

I didn’t like not knowing everything that was going on.

I also had no idea of what I could do about those things unless I went back into the hospital demanding answers from the detectives, the doctors, or even my uncle. And if I did that, if I pitched one more fit or made one more scene, I might have ended up doing more harm than good.

Then I remembered the person who might be able to help me in the way a lawyer could not, who might be able to hold my hand while I stepped through the minefield.

I didn’t have his phone number, but I did have his e-mail address. And I knew how to reach him through Facebook. I tried both approaches sitting in my car in the hospital parking lot.

As soon as I sent the messages, I felt empty again. It was a Saturday morning. What were the odds he would write back? And what were the odds he could help?

It took only thirty seconds for me to hear something. My phone chimed with the new e-mail message, and I read it with a little bit of a smile on my face.

Good to hear from you, Teach. Want to have coffee at the Grunge?

I arrived at the Grunge first. I ordered coffee, black. I didn’t feel like messing around with anything as dainty and polite as tea. As I sipped the coffee and felt the first jolt of the caffeine hit my bloodstream, I wished I carried a bottle of whiskey with me. I could have used a shot of that to go along with it. But I settled for ingesting the only drug it was really acceptable to ingest so early in the morning.

I drummed my fingers on the table while I waited. The Saturday morning crowd in the Grunge consisted of locals, mostly professors, who came in for a coffee, a bagel, and a copy of the New York Times. A few students occupied tables in the corners, their eyes still droopy from sleep, their bodies still recovering from the previous night’s debauchery. I downed half my cup before Neal came through the door. He smiled when he saw me and came straight to the table without ordering anything.

“Hey, Dr. H.”

“Neal,” I said. “You know you can call me Elizabeth. We’re outside of class, and I’m asking you for a favor.”

“Elizabeth,” he said. “Whoa. What’s that one book? You know, the one about the guy sleeping with his female professor? Lolita?”

“That’s not what that’s about. And neither is this meeting.”

“Still. Okay, Elizabeth. What do you need from me?”

He was wearing the army jacket again, and his beard looked a little fuller, a little less scraggly. He wore a gray shirt open at the collar with nothing on beneath it.

“Are you going to drink anything?” I asked. “Coffee?”

“I don’t touch the stuff when it’s fresh,” he said. “Besides, I have enough energy.”

“Okay,” I said. I leaned forward a little. Despite the noise around us, I still felt worried about everyone hearing our conversation. “I’m not even sure if you can help me. I just… Some things are beyond my control and understanding right now.”

“Is this about your mom getting offed?” he asked.

Offed?

“Yeah, it is.”

“Tell me all about it,” he said.

“You need to tell me something first,” I said.

“Shoot.”

“What exactly do you do?” I asked. “I mean, outside of school? What is it you spend your time doing?”

“Why do you want to know about this stuff?” he asked, half smiling.

I had to admit the smile was charming. He wasn’t my type. He was too scruffy, too unwashed. I could imagine whoever lived with him spent a lot of time picking up dirty socks and putting the toilet seat down. But he had a presence, an energy that I suspected drew a certain kind of undergraduate girl to him like a magnet to iron.

“You said something to me in the hallway the other day, something about your dad working to help people. I just wanted to know what you meant.”

“Oh, that,” he said. “It’s true. My old man’s a lawyer. Well, he was a lawyer at one time. Are you looking for a lawyer?”

“I have one of those.”

“Who?”

“Frank Allison. He practices here in Dover.”

“Never heard of him,” Neal said. “But my dad doesn’t do the law stuff so much anymore. You know?”

“Then what does he do?”

“Like I said, he helps people. Say somebody suspects their husband is cheating on them, and they need to know for sure in order to go to court. Or maybe somebody has an employee, and they think the guy’s doing drugs and is in danger of ruining the company. My old man checks that stuff out. He helps people.”

“He spies on them?” I asked.

“He investigates,” Neal said. “Like a PI, I guess. But without all that Tom Selleck shit. Sometimes I help him, especially if it’s a matter involving the campus. Look, we can get the job done for you. Just tell me about it, and we’ll figure something out.”

I hesitated. I didn’t know that he could really do anything for me. I stood up and went to the counter, where I refilled my mug. When I came back, Neal sat with his face eager and open and expectant.

“Okay,” I said. “You read the stuff in the paper about my mom, right?”

“I did.”

“There’s something else to it, something that hasn’t had time to be in the paper yet, but believe me, it’s going to be there tomorrow or the next day.”

I told him about Ronnie’s confession as well as the reason the police had suspected Ronnie in the first place. I told him about the scene at the hospital that morning, and Ronnie’s refusal to answer my questions about whether he’d committed the crime or not. Neal listened to all of it attentively, his eyes fixed on my face as though I were telling him the most important story in the world.

When I was finished, I said, “Well?”

He stood up. “I’m hungry. I need a bagel or something.”

I waited while he went through the line. He came back with a bagel smeared with peanut butter. He took a big bite and started chewing with his mouth open. He didn’t say anything.

“Well?” I asked. “What do you think of what I just told you?”

“I’m kind of wondering what you think we can do to help you,” he said. “You have a lawyer, like you said. It’s always good to have a lawyer on your side if you’re charged with something. That’s what Dad’s always told me. He first told me that when I was eight.”

“I guess I don’t know what I want you to do,” I said. “That’s what I thought you would figure out.”

He nodded his head, chewing the whole time. He wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. “You want to know if it’s possible that someone else killed your mother, and you want us to help you find that out. You think the cops are taking the easy way out, letting this confession thing fall into their laps. Right?”

“I guess so.”

“And you think this lawyer guy you have— What’s his name?”

“Frank Allison.”

“Frank.” Neal laughed a little. “You think he’s too old-school for the case. I mean, he’ll do his job and everything, but you don’t think the legal wheels will turn as fast as you want things to turn. Right?”

“Sure.”

“I have to say, if you want my professional opinion—”

“Are you a professional?” I asked.

“I get paid, don’t I?” he said.

“Okay. Go on.”

“Anyway,” he said, “I have to say it looks pretty rough for your brother. I mean, the lack of an alibi, the violent past. And, hell, a confession. Looks like a slam dunk.”

“I know.”

Just hearing the facts recited back to me weighed me down. My shoulders dipped as though someone had placed bricks across my back.

Neal must have seen the slump in my posture. He leaned forward, leaving his bagel alone for a moment. “Hey,” he said. “I’m sorry.”

“I know Ronnie,” I said. “There’s just a part of my mind that can’t accept he would do this.”

“But a part of your mind does?” he asked.

I didn’t answer.

Neal pressed on. “Is it typical for people with whatever it is your brother has—”

“Down syndrome, Neal.”

“Right. That. Does it tend to make people violent?”

“No more than anyone else,” I said. “I guess if you have a disability that limits some aspects of your life, you might tend to get frustrated easily.”

“That makes sense.” He stuck a finger into his mouth and dislodged some peanut butter. “And was your mom pretty tough on him? I mean, did she ride his ass about things?”

“She was tough. She expected a lot from him. And me.”

“Sort of like you in class,” he said. “A hard-ass.”

“She loved Ronnie. She’d do anything for him.”

“I hear you, Teach. We all love our moms. Right?” Neal shook his head. “My mom. Sheesh. She’s a tough lady. I bet your mom was like that too. I can see it, Teach.”

“Can you do anything?” I asked. “Or can your dad?”

He chomped on the bagel again. This time he didn’t bother to wipe the peanut butter and crumbs from out of his beard. I wanted to grab a napkin and reach across the table myself, but I knew better.

“I’ll poke around a little bit, see what we can find out.” He threw the last bite of the bagel into his mouth. “Hell, I’ll do it pro bono. That means free, right?”

“Yes, it does,” I said. “But you can’t just do it for free. If you’re working, you should get paid something.”

He nodded, a large smile spreading across his face.

“What?” I asked.

“I know what my fee will be,” he said.

“What?”

“Have you graded my paper yet?”

He laughed and winked at me.