Part 8 (1/2)
Stratton was unruffled. ”I have a point I'd like to make, Counselor.”
”Well, make it, and let's get this over with,” Lucas snapped.
”Did your dad let you play with his gun, Dylan?”
Dylan looked offended. ”No. Of course not.”
”Did you even know he had a gun?”
Dylan hesitated. ”No.”
”You're sure about that?” said Phil. ”You never saw that gun before?”
”No. I said no,” Dylan insisted.
”And that day, when you 'found' your father . . . where did you find the gun?”
”I didn't!” Dylan cried. ”I just saw him lying there, and I went and hid in the closet.”
”That's strange,” said Phil.
”What's strange about it?” Keely demanded, before Lucas could tell her to stop. ”He was a nine-year-old boy. He was frightened.”
The detective ignored her and stared at Dylan. ”I say strange, Dylan, because your fingerprints were all over that gun. Now how could that be if you never touched it?”
9.
Keely felt as if the room was tilting. She heard Lucas shouting at Phil Stratton, but her attention was focused on Dylan, whose complexion had turned ashen. He did not return her gaze. Then, slowly, she turned back to the detective and regarded him with wrath. ”That's not true,” she said.
Stratton looked at her steadily. ”So you're taking the position that you didn't know about this?”
”I'm taking the position that it's a lie,” she said.
”Oh, it is most certainly a fact, Mrs. Weaver,” he said. ”There's no need to pretend you didn't know it.”
”You're making it up,” Keely insisted.
”I'm afraid not,” he said. ”It's a matter of record.”
”Record where?” Keely demanded.
”The Ann Arbor Police Department.”
”No. Someone would have told me.”
”Your husband knew-Mark Weaver. He knew.”
”He didn't. He would've-”
”Stop, stop,” said Dylan. ”Okay.”
All the adults turned to look at him.
”Okay,” said Dylan. ”I guess I . . . I think I picked it up.”
”You think?” Lucas asked.
”I did. I picked it up.”
”Oh my G.o.d, Dylan!” Keely cried. Her mind flashed back to that terrible day. To Richard, sprawled out in blood, and Dylan, in the closet. Now she was forced to visualize Dylan, nine years old and mesmerized by the sight of a loaded gun. Approaching it, picking it up, staring down the barrel. ”You could have been killed.”
”Tell us about it, Dylan,” said Phil Stratton.
”Wait just a minute,” said Lucas angrily. He leaned over and clapped one hand on Dylan's shoulder. He began whispering urgently in his ear. The boy listened, nodding slightly. Then Dylan shook his head sharply.
Lucas sighed. ”All right,” he said. ”Proceed.”
Dylan sighed and hunched over the table, staring at his pale knuckles, one hand clenched over the other. ”When I came in the room and I saw my dad on the floor, I didn't know . . . The . . . gun was on the floor beside him. I . . . I'd never seen a real gun. I crouched down to look at it, and then I picked it up. I could smell this funny, sickening smell off of it. And then I think I realized . . . you know. So I put it back down.”
”A perfectly normal thing for a nine-year-old boy to do,” said Lucas.
Stratton nodded. ”Perfectly normal. That's what the police in Ann Arbor thought. The child was found in the room with his father's body. That's exactly what they thought had happened.”
”So why are we dredging this up now?” Keely cried. ”Haven't we suffered enough to suit you?”
”That was before your second husband died in a suspicious accident,” said the detective.
”It wasn't suspicious. He drowned. He couldn't swim,” Keely shouted. ”What is there to be suspicious of?”
”Well, for starters, Mrs. Weaver, I'm a little suspicious of you.”
Keely sat back, stunned.
”Let's see. You came home one day and found your first husband dead and your son Dylan here holding a murder weapon.”
”He wasn't!” Keely cried.
Lucas shook his head.
”A tragic accident, you told yourself, the first time. You spun some kind of story around it to protect your son. What else would a mother do? At first you told the police it was probably suicide. Headaches and all that. Then, when Mark Weaver got involved and you wanted the insurance money, you started talking about an intruder in the neighborhood, and how your husband bought a gun to protect the family. Afterall, it could have happened like that. But when your second husband died 'accidentally,' when it happened a second time, weren't you just a little bit concerned that your son's role in all this was not merely coincidental?”
”All right, that's enough,” said Lucas. ”You're making wild accusations based on nothing. You're spinning these preposterous theories out of this family's bitter misfortune. Keely, Dylan, come on. We're leaving.”
Stratton looked at Dylan coolly. ”You wanted him dead, didn't you, Dylan?”
”Dylan,” said Lucas sharply, ”come. Don't say another word to him. Phil, we've tried to be cooperative. But don't think for one minute that I don't know where this is coming from. I am surprised at you, Phil. I thought you were your own man.” Lucas swung his briefcase off the table and pointed a finger at the detective. ”She's using you, Phil. Did you ever hear the saying 'h.e.l.l hath no fury like a woman scorned'? She has an agenda, and you're just a tool in it. There's nothing to this but smoke and mirrors and one woman's vendetta. There's no case here.”