Page 16 of What Boys Learn

“Don’t tell me.”

I tried to remember where Benjamin was on Saturday night. Whether I’d gone to sleep early. Whether he might have slipped out to join a party less than four or five blocks away. Whether I heard him return.

Robert shook his head. “No, I’m not saying Benjamin was there. I’m saying he wasn’t.”

“That’s a good thing.”

“No, Abby. It’s not. The other kids have an alibi.”

“My kid didn’t go to some party that shouldn’t have happened in the first place, and he’s the one in trouble?” I paused, the wordalibislowly sinking in. “You’re making it sound like Izzy’s death was a crime. But suicide isn’t a crime.”

“It’s looking more complicated than that.”

“What do you mean?”

The radio at Robert’s belt squawked. “I can’t talk about it yet.”

He stood up and pointed toward one ear while glancing past me, down the hallway, where Benjamin was in his bedroom, no doubt listening.

I whispered, “They think someone hurt Izzy?” I couldn’t bring myself to saykilled.

“It’s a developing situation.”

“But wait . . . what about Sidney?”

Robert had rarely been tight-lipped before, even in those months when he was trying his hardest to be a rule follower, preparing for a promotion to detective that never came. He would tell me when he could. I knew that. But this was important. So important, I’d actually forgotten for a second about my own son’s harebrained act of petty theft.

“So, you didn’t book Benjamin?”

Robert looked at me with puppy dog eyes. “Of course I didn’t book him. Abby, that would have been a big deal.”

“But you can’t just . . . Someone could . . .”

“Yes. Someonecould. But you aren’t going to tell anyone, and Benjamin isn’t either. Listen, I’ve got to get out to the car.”

“Wait. Where’s the diary?”

“I shoved it inside the Scarlattis’ front door mail slot.”

“With a note or something?”

“No note. Hopefully, they’ll just think a girlfriend or someone had it and wanted to give it back.”

“But what if someone saw you?”

“I was in uniform. I can say I found it in the bushes. Who cares where I found it?”

I stood up, calling, “Benjamin, come out here.”

“I’ve got to go,” Robert said. “By the way, I left two Cubs tickets on your fridge.”

A classic Robert ploy. We weren’t an item anymore, but I’d known him off and on since second grade, and he’d never stop trying to manufacture reasons to hang out together.

“And before you ask,” he said, moving toward the door, “I don’t have a third ticket and I wasn’t trying to trick you into spending the whole day with me. Those tickets are just for you and Benjamin. But I understand you may not want to reward tonight’s behavior.”

“So then why are you giving them to menow?”

He stopped with one hand on the doorknob, the other worrying the spot above his top lip where a ginger-colored mustache used to be, before I told him I hated mustaches. He whispered, “Because you looked pretty wrecked this afternoon. And you look even worse now. That whole story about the hitchhiking girl—”