School Days - By Robert B. Parker Page 0,54

one. Everyone sat.

"My daughter," Lily Ellsworth said after a moment. "And my son-in-law, and this lawyer want me to fire you."

"Eek," I said.

Leeland leaned forward and started to speak. "The boy is . . ."

Lily Ellsworth turned her head and looked at him.

"I am neither senile nor a dolt," she said. "I am able to talk for myself."

"Of course, Mrs. Ellsworth..."

She gestured for him to be quiet and looked back at me.

"You feel that Jared is retarded," she said.

"Functionally retarded," I said. "Yes."

"You have had him examined by a competent psychiatrist," she said.

"Yes."

"Without permission," Leeland said.

"Shut up!" Lily said without looking at him.

Leeland glanced at Ron and Dot and shook his head slightly, exhaled a long, suffering breath, and was quiet.

"They don't believe you," Lily said.

"Doesn't mean it's not so," I said.

"You believe it is so."

"Yes."

"They say even if it is so, he'll still have to go to jail."

"Yes."

"He did it," she said.

"Yes."

Lily was silent. She knew. She probably always knew but told herself it wasn't so.

"He's where he should be," Dot Clark said softly.

Lily waved at her to be quiet.

"Please, Dorothy," she said. "I'm trying to think what is best for my grandson."

Dot squealed as if someone had jabbed her with a sharp instrument. Lily flinched at the sound.

"Grandson?" Dot said. "Grandson? He's my fucking son, mother. He's my only goddamned child. He killed a bunch of people. Maybe he's retarded, maybe he's crazy, but he did what he did. He's where he belongs."

"I'm trying to do what's best for him," Lily said.

Her voice was surprisingly quiet.

"Do what's best for me," Dorothy said. "Do you know what this has been like for me? For us? We enter a room and there's an uncomfortable pause. People pretend not to see me in the market."

"Dorothy," Lily said.

"Shut up," Dorothy said. "How does this shrink know? How can he spend three hours with him and say our son is retarded, and we've lived with him all his life and saw no sign? Who the hell does he think he is? How nice it will be for us if people now think we harbored this murderous retard all his life and never did anything about it."

"Dot," her husband said to her.

She turned toward him in her chair and screamed at him. "You shut up, too. What if he got out? Do you want to live the rest of your life worried what he's going to do next, watching him all the time? Terrified every time he goes out? Fearful for yourself even when he's home? He's where he should be. Can't you all see that? Can't you fucking all see that? He's gone already. We've lost him already. Lost him, lost him, lost him . . ."

She started to cry. It was a bad sound-loud, blubbering, graceless, agonized, and very unpleasant to hear. Her husband put a hand on her shoulder. She pushed it away. She wanted to be alone in her misery.

"Even if his mental situation is confirmed," Leeland said, "they won't let him go."

I nodded.

Lily Ellsworth's eyes looked a little moist. But her voice was steady.

"Is that true?" she said.

"There are some things I still haven't fully figured out yet," I said. "Some things that might explain why, and might be mitigating."

"If you do, and they are," Lily said, "what is the best that Jared can hope for?"

"He's not an attorney," Leeland said.

"I sometimes wonder if you are," she said. "I trust him. What can you get him, best-case scenario?"

"An easier room in hell," I said.

"Oh, God," Dot said, still crying.

Her mother sat erect. Her face seemed gray; the skin seemed tightly stretched.

"And you believe he did what they accuse him of," she said.

"What he confessed to," Ron said.

She ignored him. She looked at me, waiting.

"Yes, ma'am," I said.

She turned toward her daughter and rested her hand on Dot's shoulder. Dot let it stay there.

"I am a forceful woman," Lily said, "and I am rich. And I have never seen any reason why I shouldn't get what I want."

Dot nodded faintly.

"But I love you," Lily said.

Her voice was a little shaky.

"Mama," Dot said.

Dot leaned out of her chair, put her head against Lily's chest. Lily put her arms around her and patted her softly on the back. She looked past her daughter's head at me.

"It is over, Mr. Spenser. Send me your final bill.... I thank you for your effort."

"Yes, ma'am," I said.

Then Lily began to cry, and she and her daughter cried softly together with their arms around each other.