School Days

Chapter 12

IN THE MORNING it was still not raining, and still on the verge of it, when Pearl and I drove out to Dowling to visit Jared Clark's parents. They lived on some rolling green acreage, in a large, white house with a three-car garage.

It was cool with the foreboding rain. I left Pearl in the car with the windows partly open and walked to the front door and rang the bell. The woman who answered was only a few soft pounds short of heavy, with a kind of blank, blond prettiness that had probably gotten her cheerleading work in high school.

"Mrs. Clark?" I said.

"Yes."

"I'm Spenser."

"Oh, yes. Thank you. Please come in."

She was wearing a bright orange top and white pants and on her feet an attractive pair of flip-flops with orange straps to match her top, and in the center of each strap an ornamental plastic flower. I followed her into the enormous living room. It had the spontaneity of a furniture showroom, and gleamed with the spotless silence of for-company-only. Her husband was standing by the fireplace at the far end. He went perfectly with the room. He had on a pink polo shirt with a discreet alligator on the chest, pleated olive Dockers, and dark leather sandals. He was a nice-looking guy with sandy hair. His face had the same softness his wife's did. He walked to me and put out his hand.

"Ron Clark," he said.

We sat. I had the sense that my butt may have been the first one ever to press against the barrel-backed red armchair I was on.

I declined coffee, fearing I might spill some. Ron and his wife'sat together across from me on a couch. They decided against coffee, too.

"How can we help," Ron said.

Here it was. I didn't like it, but at least it was quick. We didn't have to waste time talking about how rainy the summer had been.

"Do you believe he's guilty?" I said.

Mrs. Clark began to cry. Her husband put his hand on her thigh and patted it.

"He's our only child," Ron said.

I waited. Mrs. Clark continued to cry quietly, her head down, staring at her husband's hand on her thigh.

"Since he was born," she said quietly, "he had this distance about him."

The crying seemed to be tears only. Her voice was clear. Her husband nodded.

"It was like he was always thinking about something else," she said.

"Maybe if we'd had other children," her husband said. "Maybe if he'd had a brother. . ."

"He was never really a bad boy," his mother said. "His grades were good. He was never in trouble. He was just never with us, exactly."

We sat silently in the lifeless, perfect room.

After a while I said, "Do you believe that he's guilty?"

Still crying, without looking up, Mrs. Clark nodded yes. I looked at Ron Clark.

"My God," Clark said, "he confessed."

"Why do you suppose he did it?" I said.

Mrs. Clark's head was still down. She continued to cry quietly.

"We've asked each other a thousand times," she said.

"Sometimes," Clark said, "sometimes I think that maybe he did it for no reason. He did it because he wanted to."

"What does he say?" I asked.

"He doesn't," Clark said. "He won't talk about it."

"Is he mad at you?" I said.

"He doesn't seem to be," Clark said. "You think, Dot?"

"He doesn't seem to feel very much of anything," she said softly.

"His grandmother thinks he's innocent," I said.

"My mother-in-law," Clark said, "has a lot of money. It makes her think anything she wants to believe is right."

"Mrs. Clark?" I said.

"Often wrong but never uncertain, my father used to say."

"Was she close to Jared?"

"She thought so," Ron said.

"Did Jared like her?" I said.

"Hard to tell with Jared," Dot said.

"She wouldn't even know," Ron said. "She's so damned self-absorbed. She thinks he's innocent because he's her grandchild, and her grandchild can't be guilty of anything."

Dot Clark looked up at me. Crying had not helped her makeup any.

"Ron is quite hard on my mother," she said. "I know she cares for Jared."

"Were he and Wendell Grant close?" I said.

"I guess so," she said. "I didn't really know a lot about Jared's friends."

I looked at Ron. He shrugged.

"If he did do the shooting," I said, "do you know where he might have gotten the guns?"

They both shook their heads. It was a question every cop they'd talked to had asked.

"Do you wish me to prove him innocent?" I said.

They stared at me. Then at each other.

"We do not wish to have our hopes raised," Ron said carefully. "We are struggling to accept what is."

"Do you have any idea?" Dot said. "How could you possibly? We've lived here in this town for almost twenty years. We moved here to be part of this. To be part of a small town, and have friends, and know everybody and have everybody know us and . . ." She was looking straight at me and rolling her hands as she spoke, as if she were mixing bread dough.

"They all know us now," Ron said.

Dot finished her sentence as if he hadn't spoken.

". . . feel, like, the rhythm of community life. To belong to something."

"And now?" I said.

Ron shook his head slowly.

"How could you possibly prove him innocent?" Dot said.

"I don't know," I said. "May I look at his room?"