Fall Guy

depended on his skill. No way was it Parker who killed the O'Fallon brothers and his aunt, leaving enough clues around that anyone at all, hearing the so-called facts, would finger him as the killer.
    The keys next to the body. That was the last straw. I know it happened sometimes, a killer would drop his keys, even his wallet, at the crime scene. But not Parker. He made mistakes, for sure. But not that many of them. Not with something so important, so dangerous. Because like Tim, Parker was a survivor.
    Someone else had dropped the keys near Dennis, left them there on purpose. Someone else had left the beaded purse in Parker's closet. Someone wanted to be sure that if the cops figured out that O'Fallon's death had not been a suicide, there'd be someone lined up to take the fall. There'd be a Freddy Baker in the wings. Only this time the bushy-haired stranger was a real person. This time his name was Parker Bowling.

CHAPTER 25
    I didn't think I'd sleep, but I did. Sometime before dawn, thinking about the O'Fallon family with all their secrets, Dashiell lying tight against me on the office daybed, using my legs as a pillow, I fell asleep and stayed that way until I heard Maggie in the hall, coming back from the bathroom. The office door was open and I saw she'd put her slacks back on, that she'd covered her legs.
    „Why?“ I asked her. „After all these years, why tell me that ridiculous story about the kid from Nyack whose legs got burned?“
    She came into the office and sat on the end of the daybed, not looking at me. „I was that ashamed,“ she said, her voice barely a whisper.
    „That you let them tie you up?“
    She shook her head. „No. Not that.“
    „Then what?“
    She sat on the very edge of the bed, as far away from me as she could get. „When I look at my legs, I think: There it is, Mary Margaret, there's the proof.“
    „Of what?“ I sat up, leaning toward her, too tired to be patient or diplomatic, just fed up and wanting to know. „The proof of what?“ I said when she hesitated.
    Maggie turned to look at me then. „That God doesn't love me.“
    „Oh, Maggie.“
    „Last week Father Jack told me it's not true, but I don't believe it. How could He love me?“ she asked, tears tracking their way silently down her pale, swollen cheeks. When I reached for her, she put up one hand to stop me. „Father Jack says God loves us all, that he loved my harsh, unloving father, my timid, alcoholic mother, my brother Dennis, who worked such long hours that there was no time left for his wife, his children, his mother, his brother or his sister. He said that God loved Timothy, even though he murdered his kid brother.“ She was sobbing now, and talking too loud. „And that he loves me, who instead of honoring my parents, my flawed, human parents, dishonored them with a lifetime of lies. That's why I told you that a boy named Freddy Baker got burned, because I didn't want you to know. I didn't want you to hate me, too. You've been so kind. I didn't want ...“ She stopped, one hand momentarily in the air, then falling to her lap.
    „But you did want me to know.“
    „What do you mean?“ Eyes as round as a child's.
    „Maggie, you took your slacks off.“
    Her mouth opened but no sound came out.
    „You've carried the secrets long enough, haven't you?“
    Maggie nodded. „I have. Too long. But it's all I know.“ She got up and took the box of tissues off the desk, sat on the bed again, blew her nose. „When I look in the mirror, Rachel, there's no one there. There is no Maggie O'Fallon. She doesn't exist.“
    „Like Freddie Baker?“
    „Worse than that. He never had the chance. He wasn't real. But I was. And I've let a pack of lies destroy my life and keep me from the people I loved.“
    „In the story you told your parents about that day...“
    „Freddy Baker was the boy who set the fire. We didn't call him by name in front of our parents, of course. That was just for ourselves. Somehow that was supposed to make it less tragic, that we were fooling them. In front of them, he was 'that boy.' And when my father pressed us, we said his name was Freddy, Freddy something, that he'd never said his last name. But among ourselves, he was always Freddy Baker. We joked about him all that year. For the five months my legs were healing, they'd come and tell me Freddy Baker stories, how he 'borrowed' Tim's bike and got it stolen, how he took ten dollars from my mother's purse or a bottle of gin from the