We looked at each other and something shifted. I knew I could rail and stomp and threaten him. I knew I could be pious and moralistic and disapproving and it wouldn't change a thing. He knew the score as well as I did and what we had to offer each other might not be a bad bet on either side.

"All right, you got it," I said.

"Let's go somewhere and talk," he said. "I'm freezin my nuts off.

It bothered me to realize that I'd started to like him just a little bit.

Chapter 15

We went to The Clockworks on State Street; he on his motorcycle, with me following in my car. The place is a teen hangout and looks like something out of a rock video; a long, narrow room painted charcoal gray with a high ceiling and the lighting done in pink and purple neon tubing. The whole of it resembles the interior of a clock in abstract and futuristic forms. There are mobiles looking like big black gears suspended from the ceiling, the smoke in the air moving them in slow circles. There are four small tables near the door and on the left are what look like shelves at chest height in a series of standing-room-only booths where couples can neck while drinking soda pop. The menu posted on the wall is larded with side orders like dinner salad and garlic toast that kids can snack on, paying seventy-five cents for the privilege of taking up table space for hours at a time. You can also buy two kinds of beer and a house chablis if you are old enough and have tangible proof. It was now nearly midnight and there were only two other people in the place, but the owner apparently knew Mike and his gaze slid over to me appraisingly. I tried to look like I was not Mike's date. I didn't mind a May/December romance now and then, but a seventeen-year-old is pushing it some. Also I'm not clear on the etiquette of making deals with junior dope peddlers. Who pays for the drinks? I didn't want his self-image to suffer.

"What do you want?" he asked, moving toward the counter.

"Chablis is fine," I said. He was already pulling his wallet out so I let him pay. He probably made thirty grand a year selling grass and pills. The owner looked over at me again and I waved my I.D. at him casually, indicating that he could card me, but he'd be wasting a trip across the room.

Mike came back with a plastic glass of white wine for me and a soft drink for himself. He sat down, surveying the place for narcs in disguise. He seemed strangely mature and I was having trouble dealing with the incongruity of a kid who looked like a Boy Scout and behaved like a Mafia management trainee. He turned toward me then, resting both elbows on the table. He'd taken up a sugar packet from the container on the table and he tapped it and turned it restlessly, addressing most of what he had to say to the trivia question printed on the back.

"Okay. Here's what happened," he said, "and I'm tellin' you the truth. For one thing, I didn't stash at Uncle Leonard and Aunt Marty's until after she got killed and he moved out. Once the cops got done and everything, it occurred to me the utility shed was perfect so I moved some stuff in. Anyway, I went by the house the night she got killed…"

"Did she know you were coming?"

"Nuh-uh, I'm getting to that. I mean, I knew they went out on Tuesday nights and I thought they'd be gone. Like, you know, if I was hard up and needed some bucks or something, I might cruise by and pick up some loose change. They kept cash around-not a lot, but enough. Or sometimes I'd take something I could unload somewhere else. Nothing they'd miss and nobody'd ever said anything about it so I figured they hadn't tipped to it yet. Anyway what happened was I went over there that night thinking the place would be empty, but when I got there the door was open-"

"The door was standing open?"

He shook his head. "I just kind of turned the knob and it was unlocked. When I stuck my head in I knew something weird was going on.…"

I waited, watching him uneasily.

He cleared his throat, looking over his shoulder at the front entrance. His voice dropped.

"I think the guy was still there, you know? The light was on in the basement and I could hear someone knocking around down there and there was this rug in the hall, like an area rug that had been thrown over something. I saw a hand sticking out with blood on it. Man, I took off."

"You're pretty sure she was dead at that point?"

He nodded, hanging his head. He ran a hand along the pink center divider of hair, looking off to one side. "I should've called the cops. I knew I should, but the whole thing really freaked me out. I hate that shit. And what was I supposed to do? I couldn't tell the cops anything and I didn't want 'em looking at me, so I just kept my mouth shut. I mean, 1 couldn't see what difference it made. I didn't see who did it or anything like that."

"Do you remember anything else? A car parked out front…"

"I don't know. I didn't stay long. I took one look at that shit and I was gone. I could smell all these gasoline fumes or something and…"

He hesitated briefly. "Wait a minute, yeah, there was a brown grocery bag in the hall too. I don't know what it was doing there. I mean, I didn't know what the fuck was happening, so I just backed away real quiet and came on down here and made sure people saw me."

I took a sip of wine, running through his story. The chablis tasted like fermented grapefruit juice. "Tell me about the grocery bag. Was it empty, full, crumpled?"

"It had stuff in it, I think. I mean, I didn't see anything in particular. It was one of those brown paper bags from Alpha Beta, standing just inside the door to the right."

"Did it look like she'd been shopping? Is that what you're trying to say?"

He shrugged. "It just looked like junk, I guess. I don't know. Maybe it belonged to whoever was down in the basement."

"Too bad you didn't make an anonymous call to the cops. Maybe they could have gotten there before the place went up in smoke."

"Yeah, I know. I thought about that later and I was bummed I didn't do that, but I wasn't thinking straight."

He polished off his soft drink and rattled the ice in the cup, tilting a cube into his mouth. I could hear the ice crunching in his teeth. It sounded like a horse chewing on a bit.

"Do you remember anything else?"

"No, I guess that's it. Once I figured out what was going on, I back out of there and hightailed it down here as fast as I could."

"You have any idea what time it was?"

"Nuh-un, not exactly. It was quarter of nine when I got here and it probably took me ten minutes on the motorcycle by the time I found a place to park and all like that. I had to walk the sucker for two blocks so nobody would hear me start it up. It was probably eight-thirty or something like that when I left Uncle Leonard's house."

I shook my head. "Not eight-thirty. You must mean nine-thirty. She wasn't killed until after nine."

He took the cup away from his mouth, looking at me with puzzlement. "She wasn't?"

"Your uncle and Mrs. Howe both say they talked to her at nine and the cops took a call they think was your aunt at nine-oh-six."

"Well, maybe I got it wrong then because I thought it was quarter of nine when I got here. I looked at the clock when I walked in and then I turned around and asked this buddy of mine what time it was and he checked his watch."

"I'll see if I can check that out," I said. "By the way, how's Leonard related to you?"

"My dad and him are brothers. Dad's the youngest in his family."

"So Lily Howe is their sister."

"Something like that."

The purple neon tubes began to blink out in succession and the pink ones went dark after that. The owner of the place called over to the table. "Closing down in ten minutes, Mike. Sorry to break it up."