I certainly wasn’t.
Chapter Twenty
Lew sat on the edge of my father’s favorite armchair, insisting that Mark confront Mains at the Justice Center. My mother and sister paced the living room on individual but intersecting orbits. My father observed the hysteria from his wheelchair under the picture window, adding bellowed advice into the fray. Mark cowered on the couch alone, saying only that he had been at a park all day thinking. What he’d thought, he didn’t share. His shorts and T-shirt were speckled with dirt and dust as if he’d spent many of those thoughts rolling across a sandy baseball field. His left knee had a bloody scratch. He refused to explain it, regardless of our mother’s innumerable entreaties to do so. I skirted the fringes of the room, close to the front door—whether to block the exit or reserve myself a clean getaway, I hadn’t decided.
“For God’s sake, Mark, talk to the police,” Carmen said as she made her hundredth pass by Mark and the sofa. “We all know that you didn’t do anything wrong.”
“Don’t swear, Carmen,” Mom reprimanded from her loop. “Mark, honey, I understand how much you cared for Olivia, but you have to face these accusations.”
“Your mother’s right.” Lew gave an uncomfortable laugh. “Nip this thing in the bud, son.” He was certainly fond of that particular cliché.
“If you all would be quiet, maybe the boy would have a chance to speak,” Dad said.
Mom rounded on Dad. “He’s had plenty of opportunity to speak, Alden.”
“It is doubtful that you could hear him if he did, the way you and Carmen are behaving.”
“How we’re behaving? This is serious, Dad. Mark is really in trouble, but, as usual, he’s completely unconcerned,” Carmen said, as if insulted.
“Does he look unconcerned to you?” Dad said.
As one, we assessed Mark’s level of anxiety. He stared resolutely at his folded hands. All the anger he’d spat at me the day before was gone as if it had been drained from his body. In my eyes, he was thinner, paler, and utterly weak.
Tears welled up in my father’s eyes, and I suspected he saw the same. My mother and Carmen were less sympathetic.
Mom directed her next question to Lew. “Could the police question Mark here?”
“Possibly,” Lew remarked, “but wherever Mark meets the detective, he better be willing to talk. And before he can talk to them, he must talk to me. I cannot represent him if I don’t know what he knows.”
“He’ll talk,” Carmen said. She stood over Mark. “You have to talk. Don’t you want to end this? You almost lost your job today. They might not be able to fire you for being a suspect, but they have every right to do it if you don’t show up for class and spend the entire day doing God-knows-what at some nameless park.”
Mom folded her arms. “Don’t swear—”
“I know, Mother!” Carmen shouted, cutting her off.
My mother recoiled.
Carmen became positively unhinged. Pregnancy hormones no doubt. Under different circumstances, I would’ve enjoyed the spectacle.
I spoke up. “Screaming at each other isn’t helping.”
Big mistake. Carmen turned on me.
“Maybe if we all leave, Mark will feel comfortable enough to talk to Lew about, um, whatever happened.” I hastened to defend myself before she struck.
I leaned against the wall, satisfied that I had settled the entire matter. I was wrong. Mom and Carmen both sputtered in an attempt to be the first to correct me. Whoever yells loudest wins, and Mom won.
“India, we need to know what happened, why Mark is in all this trouble.”
“He doesn’t have anything to hide, so why can’t he talk to Lew with us in the room?” Carmen asked.
I thought of the framed engagement picture lying at the bottom of the trunk. He doesn’t have anything to hide? Is that really true?
If possible, Lew’s burnt skin had deepened into a darker shade of red. “I think that India has made an excellent suggestion, and, as your attorney, I encourage you to give us some privacy.”
Carmen stopped mid-stride in her circuit. “Fine.”
I jumped out of the way as she stomped out the front door. I hoped the twins didn’t inherit their mother’s temper.
“You’ll have to excuse her. She’s due in the fall,” Mom said to Lew, as if he hadn’t noticed.
She followed Carmen out the door. I wondered what her excuse was.
My father murmured quietly that he’d be in the study if needed. He left the study door open half an inch.
It was fast approaching seven, and I was thinking of adjourning to the kitchen where I could find some peace, and possibly a snack, when Mark spoke. “India can stay.”
“Fine, fine,” Lew said, beaming, apparently relieved Mark hadn’t completely lost the use of his tongue.
“I really don’t think I should,” I argued. “I mean, shouldn’t this be confidential?”
Lew pointed to an empty armchair. I sat.
“Are you willing to speak to Detective Mains?” Lew asked.
“Yes,” Mark said. “Can it wait until tomorrow?”
The lawyer thought for a minute. “I don’t see why not. It’s already late in the day. It won’t hurt to sit a few more hours. You’re not under arrest. But I have to add, Mark, you’re not under arrest right now. I haven’t had much time on your case, so I do not know all the particulars, but I do know the Blocken family has fixated on you as the main suspect.”
“Was Olivia murdered?” I asked. I still couldn’t fathom that possibility.
“Undoubtedly. The coroner is a tennis buddy of mine. After your father called me and told me the situation, I gave her a ring. She explained that the pronounced bruising on Olivia’s back is consistent with other injuries she has seen when the victim is shoved hard. The coroner believes that Olivia was deliberately pushed into the fountain. There are also bruises on the front of her calves, probably sustained when she collided with the low rim of the fountain as she fell in. She must have been caught by surprise, because there were no marks on her hands indicating that she reached out to catch herself. In addition to the head injury, she had a pretty serious case of whiplash from the impact. Whoever did it had to be mighty angry. To have back bruises that pronounced, she was shoved with tremendous force.”
I shuddered.
“However, the coroner said the cops don’t believe that the murder was premeditated.”
Mark whispered something I couldn’t make out. Apparently, neither could Lew. “What’s that?”
“It’s my fault,” he whispered hoarsely.
“Your fault?” Lew asked. “Are you saying that you are responsible for Olivia’s death?”
“Yes.”
It was as though a lead rock had slammed into the center of my chest; my lungs constricted. Mark had killed Olivia? I felt lightheaded and longed to place my head between my knees, but I was afraid to move. I allowed my mind to play with the idea, but then rejected it like I did my paintings if they amounted to nothing more than wasted paint. Breath reentered my lungs.
“Did you kill Olivia Blocken?” Lew asked, calm as ever.
“Yes.”
“How?”
“I could have saved her,” Mark said. “I could have been with her. I heard her talking to somebody at the fountain, but I went back to my office to wait for her to come to me. I was always the one to take the initiative in everything. For once, I wanted her to come to me first.” Tears rolled down my brother’s sunken cheeks. He said, barely above a whisper, “If I hadn’t been selfish, if I hadn’t had to prove to myself that Olivia would look for me, I could’ve protected her from whoever did this to her.”
Regardless of my parents’ rule of no smoking in the house, Lew shook a cigarette out of a crumpled pack and lit it with a yellow plastic lighter. “Did you push her into the fountain?”
Mark looked up from his folded hands, startled. “No, of course not.”
“Then, it’s not your fault that she died. Don’t take responsibility simply because you have some misguided white knight fantasy.”