that crap to her?”
“I’m just asking questions.”
“Yeah, well, I don’t like your questions. You can’t pin it on me.”
“I’m not trying to pin anything on you. Trying to get at the truth, that’s all.”
“Told you, man, I got no truth for you. I got nothing for you.” He sucked at the schooner again, dribbling a little beer down his chin this time. “Last Saturday night, when them rosebushes of hers was dug up, I was in Reno with a couple of buddies. And when that damn cat got poisoned, me and Melanie here was together the whole night at her place.” He nudged the blonde with a dirty elbow. “Wasn’t we, kid?”
Melanie giggled, belched delicately, said, “Whoops, excuse me,” and giggled again. Then she frowned and said, “What’d you ask me, honey?”
“Wednesday night,” Doyle said.
“What about Wednesday night?”
“We was together the whole night, wasn’t we? At your place?”
“Oh, sure,” Melanie said, “all night,” and the giggle popped out again. “You’re a real man, Charley, that’s what you are.”
Doyle nodded once, emphatically, and said to me, “There, you see? You satisfied now?”
“For the time being. But I might need corroborating evidence later on.”
“Huh?”
I slid out of the booth and left the two of them sucking beer and rubbing on each other again. Once of those perfect matches, Doyle and Melanie, that you know exist but fortunately seldom encounter. Four tiny brain cells, drunk or sober, united against the world.
Kerry wasn’t home yet-she had a late meeting at Bates and Carpenter, one of many that had become necessary since her promotion to agency vice president-but Emily was there, working on her computer. We’d instructed her to come straight home after school and I didn’t have to ask her if she’d obeyed. When she was told to do something, she did it without failure or question. Always had until this drug business, anyway.
She had a thin little smile for me, but the sadness and hurt still showed in her eyes. I asked her what she was working on; she said research for an American history project. Two minutes on that subject and then we got down to what was on both our minds.
On the way home I’d worked up a different approach than the ones we’d used before-an appeal to her good judgment and common sense. “Emily, I know you hate to break promises, but this cocaine business is different-it’s a serious adult issue. A promise to your parents is more important than one to a friend or schoolmate.”
Her gaze held steady on mine. “I didn’t break my promise to you.”
“Not about using drugs, but bringing cocaine home amounts to the same thing. Unless you had an innocent reason for doing it. Did you?”
“Yes.”
“Then tell me what it was.”
“I can’t. I don’t want anyone to be hurt.”
“It’s too late for that. You’re hurt; Kerry and I are hurt.”
“Not as bad as they’ll be hurt.”
“They? More than one person?”
“No. Just… no.”
They. Meaning “he or she.” Grammar was one of Emily’s best subjects; she’d used the plural on purpose, to disguise the person’s sex.
What I said next went against my principles, but if it was the only way to pry the truth out of her, then I was willing to make the sacrifice. Kerry would be, too. You can’t police the entire world, especially the complex and volatile segment inhabited by teenagers. “It doesn’t have to be that way, Emily. I’ll make you a promise. If all you did was bring that box home to protect a friend, and that friend isn’t pressuring you in any way, then all you have to do is tell us who and why and we’ll let the matter drop. No one will ever know you told us.”
She shook her head. “That’s a promise you wouldn’t keep, Dad.”
“Why do you say that? I’m not a promise breaker any more than you are.”
“I know, but…”
“But what?”
Silence. Her gaze shifted to the computer screen. You could almost see her withdrawing again, the muscles in her face tightening, the remoteness coming back into her eyes.
“Tell me about the box,” I said.
“What about it?”
“Did you talk to the person it belongs to today?”
No immediate response. Thinking about it, and squirming a little in her chair as if the memory was causing her some discomfort. It was almost a minute before she said, “The person I thought it belonged to, yes.”
“Thought it belonged to?”
“It doesn’t. It’s not theirs, the box or what was in it. I was wrong.”
“You sure about that?”
“I believe them,” she said, but there was something in her voice that made me think she might not be completely convinced.
“Did the person ask you what happened to the cocaine?”
“Yes.”
“What did you say?”
“I told them. How Mom found the box… everything.”
“Were they upset?”
“Sort of.”
“Did they want you to get it back? Turn it over to them?”
“No, they’re not like that. They don’t have any idea who it belongs to.”
“Ask you not to tell us their name?”
“… Yes. But it’s not what you think. They don’t want anyone to get the wrong impression.”
“That they’re the one doing coke, you mean.”
“Yes. Because they’re not.”
“Emily, where did you find the box?
“I can’t tell you that.”
“Emily…”
“You’ll know if I tell you and I can’t… I can’t. ”
“All right. You didn’t see it being lost, did you?”
“No. I found it afterward, later.”
“Then why did you think it belonged to this person you talked to today?”
Headshake.
“Did somebody else tell you who owned it?”
“No. I… saw it once before.”
“In this person’s possession?”
“Yes.”
“Why didn’t you go to the person right away after you found it?”
“I couldn’t.”
“Why couldn’t you?”
Headshake. Like trying to pry out splinters with a fork.
I said, “Did you open the box before you brought it home?”
“No. Not until after I got home. I wish I hadn’t; I wish I’d never seen what was inside.”
“Would you have returned the box with the cocaine still in it?”
“I don’t think so. I might’ve just thrown it away. Or come to you and Mom, asked you what to do.”
“But once you were sure whose box it was, you felt you couldn’t do that.”
“No, I… No.”
