GUILTY

Norah         
McClintock

ORCA BOOK PUBLISHERS

Copyright © 2012 Norah McClintock

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording or by any information storage and retrieval system now known or to be invented, without permission in writing from the publisher.

Library and Archives Canada Cataloguing in Publication

McClintock, Norah
Guilty [electronic resource] / Norah McClintock.

Electronic monograph.
Issued also in print format.
ISBN 978-1-55469-992-6 (PDF).--ISBN 978-1-55469-993-3 (EPUB)

I. Title.
PS8575.C62G83 2012       JC813’.54       C2011-907709-4

First published in the United States, 2012
Library of Congress Control Number: 2011943677

Summary: After Finn’s stepmother is allegedly murdered by Lila’s father, the two teens must work together to see what is true. And who is guilty.

Orca Book Publishers is dedicated to preserving the environment and has printed this book on paper certified by the Forest Stewardship Council^®.

Orca Book Publishers gratefully acknowledges the support for its publishing programs provided by the following agencies: the Government of Canada through the Canada Book Fund and the Canada Council for the Arts, and the Province of British Columbia through the BC Arts Council and the Book Publishing Tax Credit.

Design by Teresa Bubela
Cover image by Getty Images

www.orcabook.com
Printed and bound in Canada.

15  14  13  12  •  4  3  2  1

Contents

One FINN

Two LILA

Three FINN

Four LILA

Five FINN

Six LILA

Seven FINN

Eight LILA

Nine FINN

Ten LILA

Eleven FINN

Twelve LILA

Thirteen FINN

Fourteen LILA

Fifteen FINN

Sixteen LILA

Seventeen FINN

Eighteen LILA

Nineteen FINN

Twenty LILA

Twenty-One FINN

Twenty-Two LILA

Twenty-Three FINN

Twenty-Four LILA

Twenty-Five FINN

Twenty-Six FINN

Twenty-Seven LILA

Twenty-Eight FINN

Twenty-Nine FINN

Thirty LILA

Thirty-One FINN

Thirty-Two LILA

Thirty-Three LILA

One

FINN

I hear my dad bellow, “What do you think you’re doing?” But it’s Tracie’s voice, sharp and shrill, that pulls me away from my computer.

“Robert,” she shrieks. “Do something!”

Robert is my dad, but Tracie is the only one who ever calls him that. To everyone else, he’s just Rob.

I go to the window, wondering for the zillionth time how he can stand her. She’s always telling him to do something or, better, buy her something, and she does it in a voice that’s like a dentist’s drill. It’s so annoying that you’d do anything to make it stop. I know. I’ve thought about plenty of ways to shut her up.

I look out the window and see Tracie down in front of the garage. The security light makes ugly shadows on her face. She lies about her age to everyone, and that bright light and those shadows make her look even older than she really is.

She’s with my dad, but they aren’t alone. There’s someone else down there. A man. His back is to me, so I have no idea who he is or what he’s doing there. The three of them are just standing in front of the garage—the man with his back to me; Tracie, in the light, her eyes on the man; and my dad, between Tracie and the man.

My dad shouts. It sounds like, “Hey!” Suddenly both he and the man are in motion. My dad lunges at the man. He claws at him, as if he’s trying to wrestle something away from him. What’s going on? Are they serious, or are they clowning around? Is the man a friend of my dad’s? What’s he doing here so late?

Tracie shrieks, “Be careful, Robert!” The panic in her voice puts me on full alert. My dad and the man aren’t just fooling around. At least, Tracie doesn’t seem to think they are. I’ve decided that maybe I should go down there when:

Blam!

Blam!

I freeze. What the—?

Down below me, Tracie crumples and falls to the ground. My dad turns to look at her. He bellows. He lunges at the man again.

Blam!

Blam!

A second person falls to the ground.

Only my dad is left standing.

I run downstairs and fly out the back door. My dad hears me coming. He spins around. He yells at me, “Call nine-one-one. Call nine-one-one.”

I swing back toward the house, duck inside and grab the cordless phone from the kitchen counter. I make the call. I give our address, our phone number, my name. I answer questions. I promise to stay put.

But I don’t.

When I finish the call, I run back outside.

My dad is on his knees beside Tracie. His hand is pressed against the side of her neck.

“Dad?”

When he looks at me, I see astonishment in his eyes.

“I—I think she’s dead. I—that man, he—” He can’t get the words out. He can’t finish his sentence.

“It’s okay, Dad,” I say. “I saw what happened.”

My dad doesn’t answer. He doesn’t move. He must be in shock.

“An ambulance is coming,” I say. “The police too.” I’m just guessing on that, but it’s a safe bet. I mean, I told the 9-1-1 operator that two people had been shot.

“Dad, you should come inside and sit down.” I’m afraid if he doesn’t, he’ll collapse. I take his arm. That’s when I finally see the man’s face.

“I know him,” I say.

My dad’s head whips around.

“I mean, I recognize him. He was here earlier tonight. He asked for you. He must have waited for you to come home. Who is he, Dad?”

My dad doesn’t move for a whole minute. When he finally speaks, his voice is hoarse.

“He’s the man who murdered your mother.”

I look down at Tracie. I’m as stunned as my dad about what has just happened. I feel bad for Tracie. I really do, even if I never could stand her. But she’s not my mother. She’s just some woman my dad married after my mother died.

“I’m talking about Mom, Finn,” my dad says. “That man—he’s the one who murdered Mom. Your real mom.”

I look down at the man who lies motionless on the asphalt. I spoke to him earlier when he came to the door asking to see my dad. Now I find out he’s the one who shot and killed my mother more than ten years ago?

Two

LILA

I’m in one hell of a bad mood by the fifth or sixth time the doorbell rings. I knew something was up when he left the apartment after supper. He was acting strange, but when I called him on it, he lied to me. He told me to stop worrying so much, nothing was going to happen, he wasn’t going to do anything that would get him into trouble. He told me he had some business to take care of. That was hours ago. It’s four in the morning. If he’s drunk or, worse, if he’s on something, I swear that’s it. I’ll pack my bags and be out of here. All night I’ve had the feeling that Aunt Jenny was right. I never should have come here.

The doorbell rings again. I unlatch the door and almost rip it off the hinges when I open it. I’m ready to let him have it.

But it isn’t him.

It’s a man and a woman, both in suits, both grim-looking. The man shows me his id. He’s a cop. Terrific. Three days out—I’m betting that’s some kind of record.

“Are you Lila Ouimette?” the woman cop asks.

If she knows enough to ask the question, then she already knows the answer. But I nod anyway.

“Does Louis Ouimette live here?” her partner asks. He says it Lou-is, like Louis Armstrong.

“It’s Lou-ee,” I tell him. “And he’s not here. If you find him, do me a favor. Tell him I’ve gone back to Boston.” Back to Aunt Jenny, who warned me. I know he’s your father, Lila, but he’s been in prison for ten years. That does things to a man. And before that…

“When was the last time you saw or spoke to your father?” the woman cop asks.

“This morning.” I look at the two cops. “What did he do?”

“Is there anyone else here with you, Ms. Ouimette?” the male cop says, his eyes searching through the open door behind me. I feel ashamed at what they’re seeing—the shabby ground-floor apartment in a tiny run-down house that is almost more than we can afford. It’s nothing like what I’m used to.

“No. I’m here alone. Why?” Something in the way he asks makes me think of all the cop shows I’ve watched. My imagination kicks in. I tell myself I’m being ridiculous, but the words come out anyway. “Where’s my dad? Did something happen to him?”

“I’m sorry to have to tell you this,” the woman cop says. “But your father is dead.”

My mind blanks out. I’m looking at the woman cop. She’s telling me something else. I see her lips move, but I can’t hear her. I can’t hear anything except the pounding of my heart. It fills my ears. My father is dead? That’s not possible.

“There must be some mistake,” I say. Now I sound like someone straight out of one of those stupid tv shows.

The two cops look steadily at me. There’s no mistake.

“What happened?” I ask. “How did he—?”

“He was shot.”

Shot?

“How? Who shot him?”

“We’re still investigating,” the woman cop says. “We’re going to need you to identify your father, Lila, unless there’s some other family member who can do it.”

“I’m it,” I say. “I’m his family.” Aunt Jenny is my mom’s sister. She doesn’t think much of my dad. She never did.

“Is there anyone you’d like to call? Anyone you want to come with you?”

I shake my head. “My father and I moved in here a couple of days ago. Before that, I was in Boston. I don’t know anyone here.”

The woman cop nods. She asks if she and her partner can step inside while I get changed, which is when I remember that I’m wearing flannel pajama bottoms and a ratty old T-shirt. I nod. They come in, and I go to my room to put on some jeans and a sweater. I run a brush through my hair, even though no one cares what I look like. Not under the circumstances.

I lock the door behind me. I ride with the two cops to a morgue. I steel myself for the identification. I tell them, yes, that’s him. That’s my father. He looks like he’s sleeping.

The two cops lead me away from the morgue. They offer me coffee and ask me questions. What has my father been doing since he got out of prison? Who did he associate with? Has he mentioned any names to me?

“What kind of names?”

“People he wanted to get in touch with. People he knew from before.”

I shake my head. “He had a job. He worked as a janitor in a building downtown. They set it up for him. That organization that helps people adjust when they get out of prison. He said he wanted us to be a family. He said he wanted to do the right thing by me. How did you say he got shot?”

“We’re still investigating,” the male cop says again.

“You have no idea who did it? Did someone try to rob him? Because if they did, they picked the wrong guy.”

The male cop perks up when I say that.

“What do you mean?”

“Just that he’s broke. Everything he had went to first and last months’ rent on the apartment. Is that why he got shot—because he didn’t have any money to hand over?”

The woman cop exchanges glances with her partner.

“Did he ever mention the name Robert Newsome?” she asks.

Robert Newsome? I get a bad feeling. My fingers and toes tingle.

“No.”

“Do you know who Robert Newsome is?” the male cop asks.

Yeah, I know. Supposedly my father broke into Mr. Newsome’s house and robbed the place and killed Mrs. Newsome.

I nod.

“Your father didn’t mention that he wanted to see Mr. Newsome or talk to him?” the woman cop asks.

“Why would he do that?” I say, as if I can’t possibly imagine. I don’t think they believe me. If they do, they’re lousy cops.

“He wasn’t bitter about what happened?” the woman cop asks.

“He told me he didn’t do it,” I say. “He told me he didn’t do any of it.”

There they are exchanging glances again. The woman cop’s voice is gentle when she speaks again.

“Lila, he took a plea,” she says.

I glance at her partner. He’s staring stonily at me, and I know what he’s thinking: You need to wake up and smell the coffee, girl, because if you believe a man when he says he didn’t do a crime he pleaded guilty to, then you’re dreaming. And it’s true. My father did plead guilty. He did it in exchange for a reduced charge, manslaughter instead of second-degree murder, ten to life and a good shot at parole instead of fifteen to life with life being a real possibility. But he explained that to me too. He said he did it for me.

“Your mother’s gone,” he said. “I don’t know exactly what happened, but I got framed up good. I know I never killed that woman. But if I don’t tell them what they want to hear, if I go to trial, I’ll lose for sure. I’ll never get out. We’ll never be a family.”

That’s what he said.

I look at the male cop and think maybe he’s right. Maybe I do need to wake up. Maybe he pleaded to a reduced charge because it was a good deal. Maybe he did it for himself, not for me. Maybe he spent his whole time in there thinking about what he would do when he got out. And maybe what he was thinking about wasn’t what he told me he was thinking about.

Focus on the present, plan for the future. That’s what he told me every time I went to see him. For him, that meant staying clean and sober for one more day, keeping his head down for one more day, staying out of trouble for one more day, all so that he could get out when he was supposed to and be my father again. For me, it meant doing my schoolwork and pretending that I didn’t hear what other people, including Aunt Jenny, said about him. If I did hear, I pretended I didn’t care. Every single day. For ten years.

The two cops tell me again that they’re sorry for my loss. They get a uniformed cop to drive me back to the apartment. I wait until the sun comes up before I call Aunt Jenny. It’s only when I tell her what happened that I begin to cry. Once I start, I can’t stop.

Three

FINN

The night lights up. An ambulance arrives, then another. Cop cars arrive—first one, then two, until, in the end, there are half a dozen. The coroner makes an appearance to look at the two bodies. The neighbors all have their lights on. Some of them are out on the street. They cluster together in little groups and talk about what has happened.

Detectives take my dad and me inside. One goes into the living room with my dad. The other one steers me into the kitchen. I try to make myself look as upset as I can so that the cop with me doesn’t think I’m some kind of heartless freak. I do it by imagining how I would feel if my dad had been shot instead of Tracie.

The detective sits at the kitchen table. He makes sure that I take a seat facing away from the window so that I can’t see what’s going on outside.

“What can you tell me about this, Finn?” he says.

“He was here earlier,” I say. “The man. He came here. He asked for my dad.”

“When was this?”

“Tonight. Late.” When I heard the doorbell, I thought maybe my dad had left his keys at the club, that’s how late it was. “After eleven. I told him my dad wasn’t here. He was at the club.”

“The club he owns?”

I nod.

“Were you alone when he came to the door?”

I nod again.

“Tracie—she’s my stepmother—she was at the club with Dad.”

“What did the man say when you told him your father wasn’t here?”

“Nothing.”

“He didn’t leave a message or a name?”

“No.”

“Did he seem upset?”

“No.”

“What did he do?”

“Nothing. He went away. At least, I think he did. I didn’t watch him or anything.” Why would I?

“Then what?”

“What do you mean?”

“What happened after the man left? Tell me everything you can remember, Finn.”

“There isn’t much to tell. I finished my homework. I fooled around on my computer. I was playing a game on it when I heard my dad and Tracie.”

“You heard them?”

“My dad yelled something, and then she yelled something to him. It sounded like something was wrong, so I got up and went to the window to take a look.”

“What did he say?”

“He said, ‘What do you think you’re doing?’”

“And her?”

“She said, ‘Do something, Robert.’”

“When you went to the window, what did you see?”

I tell him everything I can remember.

“You say your dad yelled ‘Hey!’ at the man,” the detective said. “Do you have any idea why?”

“The man must have pulled out a gun.”

“Must have? Did you see a gun?”

“Well, no. I was up in my room. I couldn’t see everything. But the next thing that happened was I heard two shots and Tracie fell to the ground. Then my dad and the man were fighting, and there were two more shots. By the time I got downstairs, the man was on the ground too.”

“Then what?”

“My dad said to call nine-one-one. So I did.”

He asks me more questions, mostly about what I saw from the window. He writes down what I say. He finishes just before my father appears, holding on to the door-frame as if that’s all that’s keeping him on his feet.

“Finn, are you okay?” he asks.

The detective who has been questioning me stands up.

“We’ll need you both to come in later to make formal statements,” he says.

My dad nods, but it seems to me he hasn’t heard.

“Tracie,” he says, his voice breaking.

I get up and go to him.

“I’m really sorry, Dad.”

“That bastard. Why did he have to come back here? Why couldn’t he just leave us alone?” Tears are running down his cheeks. I put my arm around him. He collapses against me. The detective is staring at us. I glare at him. We are not on display. This is our house. This is my father’s grief. It’s private.

“Come on, Dad.” I steer him toward the stairs and help him up to his room. He drops down onto his bed. I help him out of his jacket. I tell him to empty his pants pockets, which he does—wallet, coins, a key ring with a small Swiss Army knife attached to it. I tell him I’m going to get his pajamas for him. When I return with them, his head is bowed. His shoulders are rounded. Suddenly I am seven years old again. Suddenly I remember the night my mother died. My dad’s questions are good ones. Why did he have to come back here? Why couldn’t he just leave us alone?

Four

LILA

Aunt Jenny wants me to come home. I tell her no. The rent on the apartment is paid up for two months, and I want to see what happens. I want to understand why my father was shot dead. I want to know, even though I’m afraid that I won’t like the explanation.

Aunt Jenny says she’ll come up and stay with me. I tell her not to. I tell her I can handle this on my own. I feel like I’ve been handling it my whole life.

Aunt Jenny used to take me to see my father twice a year, on my birthday and at Christmas. She only did it because that was all I ever asked her for—a visit with my father. As soon as I was old enough to get a job to pay for the bus tickets and to make the bus trip on my own, I started going once a month. I would see my dad in a public visiting room with dozens of other people visiting their fathers or husbands or sons or brothers or boyfriends. Mostly I would tell him about what I was learning in school. He said he liked to hear about that. He said he learned a lot from me.

We talked only once about why he was in prison. That was on my fifteenth birthday. My father gave me a small necklace with a heart on it. I wore it every day after that. I’m still wearing it. He told me, “I don’t care what you hear from anyone, Lila. I didn’t do it. I didn’t kill that woman.”

I told him, “I know, Dad.”

That was a lie. I didn’t know anything of the kind. But I wanted to believe my father. I wanted to believe that he was as good as any other father. I wanted to believe that, if he was in prison, it was all a big mistake. I wanted to believe it even though the whole time he was in there—since I was seven years old—all I ever heard from Aunt Jenny was that he got what he deserved.

When my father was arrested for the murder, Aunt Jenny said, “He’s no good. I told your mother that from the get-go. I don’t know why she went ahead and married him. He was always drinking or doing drugs. He was in and out of lockup—fighting, trafficking, petty theft, break-and-enters, you name it. I bet you anything he tells the cops he can’t remember what happened that night.”

And it’s true. I talked to his lawyer. I wanted to know what I was getting into when I agreed to live with him after his release. When he got arrested, first he said he didn’t do it. But they got him with the goods right there in his apartment—stuff stolen from the Newsomes’ house. So then he said he didn’t remember exactly what he was doing the night it happened. He said he took some pills he scored. Someone at work gave them to him. He said he thought maybe he’d been drinking too. Then they told him, Louis, it doesn’t look good for you. We got you dead-to-rights with the goods. We know you know where she lived and that she kept all that stuff in the house. The way we figure it, you broke in thinking you could score some goods to fence. You didn’t think she was in the house. Is that it, Louis? She surprised you, right? And you panicked. That’s why you shot her, right, Louis? I bet you didn’t even mean to do it, did you? But you know how it goes—someone gets killed while you’re committing a criminal act, and it’s serious. You could go down for life. You don’t want that, do you, Louis? Not with that little girl of yours at home, already without a mother. So why don’t you do the right thing? Be a man. Own up to what you did.

And that’s exactly what he did.

He made a deal. His lawyer said it was the smart thing to do because the cops didn’t have the gun. He said that for all anyone knew, my father might have had a partner who did the shooting. He said he had a shot at reasonable doubt, and the cops knew it. But he also said that with my father’s record, it was a crapshoot. He said if my father was smart, he wouldn’t want to roll the dice any more than the cops did, so it was better to make a deal. He said that maybe if my father went inside, he could get himself straight. He said with the deal he made, he would be out before I graduated high school. My father agreed. He told me I shouldn’t worry about him. He told me I was the important one, not him. He said he wanted me to be strong and do my schoolwork and make something of myself. He said he wasn’t proud of himself, but he was already proud of me and he knew I was going to go places.

I didn’t go anywhere except to live with Aunt Jenny. And I went to school.

Meanwhile, my father did his time. He went to rehab while he was in there. The days went by slowly, but it felt like we were both making progress. At least, it did when I was sitting across from him at the table in the visiting room. When I was at home with Aunt Jenny or at school, where everyone knew what my father had done, it felt different. Every minute felt like torture, as if it would never end. But it did.

Finally, my father got out.

Now he’s dead. His picture is in the newspaper the next morning, which is how I finally find out what happened. The article in the paper says he was shot dead in a struggle with Robert Newsome. It says the second Mrs. Newsome is dead and that my father shot her. It says there was a witness who saw the whole thing, but it doesn’t say who that witness is.

It makes me sick to think about it. After all this time, after believing him for all those years, he lied to me when he said he wasn’t going to get himself into any trouble. Because what was he doing at the Newsomes’ house? Why did he have a gun? Why did he shoot the second Mrs. Newsome?

I was stupid for ever believing him.

Unless he wasn’t lying. Unless he was telling the truth.

Is that possible?

Or am I being stupid again?

Five

FINN

I was a kid when my mother died, but I remember it as if it were yesterday.

My dad took me to the club that night. He said he wanted to give my mom a break. They had been arguing a lot. My dad said it was because my mom was tired.

I used to like going to Dad’s club. I still do. I like the noise and the action—the music, the musicians, the singers, all the people, the cocktail waitresses, the bartenders. Dad’s club isn’t one of those massive places with crazy lights and recorded music. He gets real bands in. Blues bands, rock bands, jazz bands, fusion, salsa, world—you name it.

At the end of the night, he always spends an hour in his office doing what he calls the receipts. That means checking how much money the club brought in that night.

His office is in the basement of the club. It’s small and cramped and stuffy. It has one small window up high in the wall that he can open to get some fresh air. The window opens onto the alley, and even though it’s small, it has bars over it so no one can break in. Sometimes when I was little, I’d sit on the couch in Dad’s office and watch him work. But usually I’d play outside in the hall. The hall is long and wide with a smooth floor. It was perfect for riding my trike up and down. It was even better for my remote-control cars.