Chapter 51
The Superintendent’s office was wood paneled and had an Indian Design carpet over the institutional carpeting that lined all the offices. Ron had thought of calling Quimpy before the meeting but decided against it. Things between them were not the same since Zoe. Ron had left work at the bell for one of the first times that he could remember. He had cancelled his appointment with Dennis Mooney and driven straight up to the school. He managed to get there by 3:15 and was proud of himself.
There was a large mahogany desk in the middle of the room, a brown leather couch against one of the walls and three leather backed chairs arranged in front of the desk. There was a portrait on the wall over the Superintendent’s head of John F Kennedy.
Bob O’Neil was a large man with prematurely white hair and a red nose. He did not stand when Ron and Charlie came into the room and at first he did not speak. Quimpy was sitting on the couch with one leg crossed over his knee and his arm extended along the back of the couch. There was a yellow legal pad on his lap and a pen in his hand. Ron blinked for a second. The appearance that Quimpy made here was so much different than the one that he made at his apartment or at the bowling alley.
Charlie ushered Ron to the middle seat and sat on the window side of him. Quimpy did not stand up and fill in the other seat and he did not greet Ron.
“Alright Charlie, how did all this mess start and what is our involvement?”
“None that I can see,” said Charlie. “Everybody here knows the story with the kid. No sense of going over that again. Ron here had been tutoring him for about a month.”
O’Neil turned his gaze to Ron. “Kid ever talk to you about his father?”
“Not directly,” said Ron. “He talked to me about feeling like a weirdo and not wanting to ever go back to the school and not wanting to ever go out of his house.”
O’Neil gave no sign as to whether Ron’s answer had been satisfactory. “Was the mother always there when you met the kid?”
“She was always in the house. She never came down into the basement, which is where we worked. We always had a brief conversation before I left.”
“What about?” said O’Neil.
“Just how Jim was doing. Lately she asked about my mom. I had to cancel an appointment when my mom had a heart attack and she was angry about the cancellation until she found out why.”
Ron knew that it was the first time Quimpy had heard about his mom. He saw it register on his face. They had been friends of sorts with him bringing back blankets from Mexico that his mother had bought, and they had talked about selling them from her ceramics shop and making a good profit.
O’Neil just moved to the next question. “Did she ever mention her husband?”
“No, never.”
“Did she ever mention the school at all?”
“Not really.”
“Don’t give me not really,” said O’Neil. “Did she mention the school or not?”
Ron looked into Bob O’Neil’s eyes and thought a moment and it came to him that this was only about the school’s exposure. Should the school have known anything? Had he been told anything that he should have relayed to the school? “I don’t recall her ever mentioning the school.”
O’Neil looked over at Quimpy and smiled. “You said this one would understand.”
Charlie broke in. “It’s not that we don’t give a shit about James Devin” he said to Ron, “but there’s nothing that we can do for him now and this is a big story in the papers.”
O’Neil pointed his finger at Ron. “Which you aren’t talking to. In fact you aren’t talking to anyone outside this room other than the cops. After your interview with the police,” O’Neil looked at Charlie and then at Quimpy, “which one of you should he call?”
“He can call me,” said Quimpy. “Charlie, you’re busy tonight right?”
Charlie nodded. “Yeah, we can talk in the morning.”
“Alright,” said O’Neil. “Call him,” pointing at Quimpy. Keep your answers short and to the point. Don’t offer any information that might be considered personal about James Devin and certainly nothing that you might have been told about his father. If you are uncomfortable for any reason, conclude the interview and tell the police that you would like to have the school’s attorney with you when you resume.”
“Why would I need a lawyer?” said Ron. He felt color drain from his face. His heart began beating faster. He wondered if there was something else about this that he wasn’t being told.
“I have no fucking idea,” said Bob O’Neil. “Did you ever talk to anyone about James Devin?”
“Only Charlie and Quimpy.” Ron decided that mentioning his mother would not make them happy and would serve no useful purpose.
“OK,” said O’Neil. “Anyone have any questions?”
Quimpy and Charlie shook their heads. Ron was silent but he wanted to ask questions. He would wait until he talked with Quimpy. He looked at Quimpy. “Should I call you tonight?”
“Yeah,” said Quimpy. “You still have the number, right?”
Ron nodded.
The police station was smaller than he expected it to be. He didn’t know that it was one of five satellite stations they were at the far ends of the city with the main station centrally located. Ron was ushered to the shared desk of Detectives Humbolt and Garvey.
“Thanks for coming in,” Ned Garvey.
Ron nodded. He didn’t realize that he had a choice.
“What exactly was your relationship to the Devin family?” said Garvey.
Humbolt sat off to his partner’s right with a pad and a pencil. Garvey did not take his eyes off of the interviewee. Ron instantly wondered if they knew that he smoked pot. He could not help himself. He felt his chest tighten a little bit and then he said, “I’m James Devlin’s tutor.”
“Did they hire you?”
“No, I was assigned by the school district to provide bedside instruction.”
Humbolt’s eyebrows went up as he wrote. “And what exactly is bedside,” he emphasized the word, “instruction?” said Garvey.
“When a student is going to miss more than two weeks of school, he is assigned a home instructor.”
“Who assigned you?”
“Charlie Rothstein.”
“And who is Charlie Rothstein?”
“He’s the school psychologist.”
Humbolt wrote furiously and after each answer Garvey paused to make sure that his partner was getting everything. “Why wasn’t James Devin in school?”
“My understanding was that he was school phobic,” said Ron. “But I think he generally didn’t leave his house at all.”
“And why was that?” said Garvey.
Ron’s head started to whirl. What should he say? “He and I didn’t talk about that.”
“Did you talk about it with anyone else?” said Garvey.
Ron scolded himself. He should not have said anything about him not leaving the house. He heard O’Neil’s voice in his head saying keep your answers short. Don’t volunteer anything. Instantly his mind flashed on Jackie Gleason from the Honeymooners wailing, “I’m a blabbermouth. A big blabbermouth.”
“When I was assigned, I was told that he had family issues and that he was going to be with me for the rest of the year and that the school was hoping to get him counseling.”
He was fucked. He knew it. Counseling for what would have naturally been the next question and Ron almost started to answer it figuring fuck them why should he get himself in trouble over this.
But Garvey said, “OK, let’s get to the day of the shooting. What time did you arrive?”
“About 3:30.”
“Was that your normal arrival time?”
“Yes.”
“And how long were you scheduled to stay?”
“Until 5:30.”
The Detectives exchanged a look. Garvey said, “Do you remember whether there was a car in the driveway?”
Ron closed his eyes and tried to picture it. He saw himself park on the street in front and walk up to the side of the house through the driveway. There was no car. “No, I remember there was no car because I walked up the driveway to the side door.”
“Why didn’t you use the front door?”
“The side door was closest to the basement and that was where James was.”
“How did you know that he was in the basement?”
“That’s where he always was. That’s where we worked.”
“Who answered the door?”
“James did.”
“Did he look unusual in any way?”
“What do you mean?” said Ron. His mind flashed on the black toenails.
“Anything out of the ordinary?”
Ron shrugged. “Not that I noticed.
“Was Mrs. Devin there?”
“Yes, she was in the kitchen. She called down to me.”
“Do you remember what she was wearing?
“I didn’t actually see her. I heard her voice.”
“Was Mr. Devin there?”
“I never met Mr. Devin. I don’t think that he lived there.”
Ron almost bit his lip when he added that. Gleason again moaning, “A big blabbermouth!”
Garvey leaned forward. “Why didn’t he live there?”
“I don’t know.”
“How did you know that he didn’t live there?”
“James told me.”
“But he didn’t say why?”
“No, he just said that his father didn’t live there anymore.”
“And you never met Mr. Devin?”
“No,” Ron could feel himself sweating now. He thought Jesus if I had actually done anything wrong, I’d be confessing.
“Did you ever talk to him on the phone?”
“No.”
“And you said that you stayed until 5:30?”
“I finished up a little early, maybe 5:15.”
“And then you left?”
“Yes.”
“Did you see, Mrs. Devin before you left”
“No and that was unusual. Usually she wanted to know how James was doing and asked me to talk with her before I left, but that day when I called up that I was leaving there was no answer, so I just left.”
The two detectives looked at each other and nodded. “Thanks for coming in Ron. If we have any other questions, we will need your name address and phone number so that we can contact you.”
Ron felt queasy giving them the address but he didn’t have a choice and he reminded himself that he hadn’t done anything wrong. He felt a rush of relief when he got back into the car. He wondered if he had looked nervous.
“Quimpy, it’s Ron.”
“Hey man, what’s happening?”
“I just got home from the police station.”
“Yeah?”
“I think it went well. I was nervous a few times but they didn’t ask the really hard questions.”
“What really hard questions? You didn’t shoot them did you?”
Ron felt slapped in the face. “No, but they didn’t ask what I had been told about Devin’s father or who told me. That seemed to be what O’Neil was worried about.”
“Yeah, there were privacy issues. Charlie got his ass chewed out for sharing what he had shared with you, but as long as you got through it without having to bring that shit up, everything is cool.”
“Do you need the chapter and verse of what they did ask?”
“Nah, they just asked who was there, what did they say, what did they look like, did you notice anything, right?”
“That was pretty much it.”
“Who interviewed you?”
“Two cops, one named Humbolt, the other Garvey.”
“Yeah Humbolt is a dumb shit but Garvey is a prick. Did they tell you anything?”
“Not a damn thing.”
“They are in out of their league with this. My bet is that it gets turned over to the county prosecutor before the week is out, but I don’t think anyone is going to need to talk to you again.”
Ron felt a surge of relief at those words. “OK, then I can just move on and forget about it?”
“Pretty much. You’re golden with Bob for not fucking this up. I’d say that you have a job for as long as you want it.”
“Does he know about my certification issues?”
There was a pause. Then Quimpy said slowly. “There are no issues, right?”
“Right.”
“You hear from Zoe?”
Ron felt his whole body stiffen again. Quimpy had some fucking nerve even bringing her name up. “Since when?”
There was kind of a stumbling stammer on the other end of the phone. “You know, since she left.”
“She’s called a couple of times.”
Again there was silence. Ron wanted to say something cutting but he felt a loyalty to Quimpy and the way that Quimpy had stuck his neck out to help him get the job. He didn’t believe that it should have extended to him fucking Zoe but there was really nothing more to be said about that.
“Well man, catch you through the week.”
“Yeah,” said Ron. “Absolutely.” He had no intention of having Quimpy catch him ever again.