Fall Guy

first.
    I wondered what I should be doing next. I wondered if I should be telling Brody the things I'd learned. And the things I'd surmised. But then I thought, if O'Fallon had wanted Brody to know his family's secrets, he would have made him his executor instead of me. He hadn't done that. He'd chosen me. He must have known I wouldn't stop until I'd dug up everything. He must have wanted that, to shield Maggie. He didn't know what she knew. She hadn't told anyone. He wanted to keep things from Dennis, too. And to keep the truth from Brody. I could understand that. It wasn't pretty, what I'd heard.
    But why me? What did he want me to do with what I'd found out? Because if I was right and he hadn't killed himself, it had nothing to do with his murder, his death. It had to do with his life.
    Maggie came downstairs dressed, her hair still damp. She accepted a mug of coffee, but she said she didn't want any food. I didn't think what I had to tell her would increase her appetite either. We sat outside at the table. I told her that Brody Would come for her in half an hour, that he'd drop her off at Tim's. I said I'd pick up boxes on my way there and pack up the rest of the things she was taking.
    She reached for my hand.
    „I can see why my brother liked you so much,“ she said.
    I didn't have the heart to tell her again that I hadn't known her brother, that we'd been strangers. Besides, Dashiell was barking and running toward the gate. It was time for her to go.
    I sat in the garden for a while longer after Brody and Maggie left, thinking about Timothy O'Fallon, wondering if I'd ever have the answers I was looking for. I thought back to the beginning, to that day at Breyer's Landing—Joey standing on top of the rocks, the cruel faces of his brothers and his cousins below. But the goading hadn't been enough. Suddenly, from behind, his big brother gave him the push that sent him from this world down into the next, a pitch-black world of ice-cold water and unforgiving rocks. And then the other boys waited, jeering and laughing. And then they waited quietly. They waited for Joey to come up from where he'd gone down, his fair skin blue from the cold. But the water was still where it had closed around Joey, closed as fast as it had opened to accept him.
    How long had it taken for the panic to set in? How long before the horrible realization? How long to make up the story, the story that would become part of their family history?
    At day's end, only one truth is known: that Joey is dead. And even when his limp body is brought out of that cold, black place, none of them break. No one confesses. And so they are believed. There is no punishment from without. But the punishment from within is relentless. Not only for Tim, for every last one of them.

CHAPTER 26
    I stopped at the Golden Rabbit on the way to Horatio Street. They had two small boxes they said I could take. I dropped those off at Tim's and went back to the little deli on the corner of Horatio and Washington streets. They had two more boxes for me. I wanted to be sure I could get everything packed before Maggie came and have an extra box or two in case she decided at the last minute to take something else.
    Taking things after someone died often had little to do with the intrinsic value of the items. People often want things they don't need, even things they'll never touch or look at again. The stuff becomes a substitute for love, and because of that, I thought that at the last minute Maggie might have trouble letting her brother's things go, that she might need things to make up for the love she hadn't gotten. And didn't we all fall into that trap at one time or another?
    After I'd packed the pictures and the books that Maggie had set aside, I continued to work. I wouldn't have trouble letting go of the things in
    Tim's apartment. I wanted to be finished, to go on to something I could understand better.
    I decided to empty the desk, take the rest of the papers and records home and look at them there. I slipped the files into shopping bags, taking everything, even things I knew I'd toss later. Then I went back to the bookshelves and saw the little pot that had held everyone's keys. I turned it over into my hand: three sets left. Spreading them out on the desk, I could see right away that one of the sets was Tim's, spare keys to the apartment and the car. I put the car key with Maggie's things and tossed the now useless apartment keys. But then I reached into the