Aftershock by Andrew Vachss Page A

on TV every year. Dolly is addicted to it, never misses a single one. I only watch it to be with her. “Just enough to learn,” I told her. “Not enough to say anything.”
    “But why would MaryLou have had EPO in her blood? She’s not—”
    “Big game coming up? College scouts? Scholarship?”
    “Dell!”
    We didn’t say a word to each other the rest of the way.
    T hat evening, Dolly finally let loose what was building inside her.
    “Why did you tell MaryLou not to speak to a lawyer? Even if he was some sleaze the county assigned to her, he couldn’t repeat anything she said. There’s this lawyer-client privilege, right?”
    “Right.”
    “And that whole EPO thing. You’re thinking that maybe she overdosed, or mixed a bad cocktail? Or she was blood-doping on her own?”
    I didn’t say anything.
    “When MaryLou did … what they say she did, it was on a Friday, the last day of school. The last day of that school
forever
for MaryLou. There’s no way she was partying the night before, so it couldn’t be the aftereffects of someone slipping a date-rape drug into a drink.”
    I knew she had more to say, so I just shifted my body enough to tell her I was listening.
    “And she’s not a violent girl. The only time I ever heard of her hitting anyone was when she beat up her little sister.”
    “How did you hear—?”
    “Oh,
everybody
heard. It wasn’t any big secret. Last year, Danielle showed up at school with raccoon eyes. So the nurse called the Child Protective people. Her parents said they had no idea what happened. Her father’s a confirmed slug—he just watches his big-screen all day and night. And her mother, when she’s not working, she stays drunk. So, with Danielle saying she fell down the stairs the night before, there was nothing they could do. But everyone knew MaryLou had really smacked her around.”
    “You know why?”
    “I don’t have a clue. I mean, teenage girls get into fights over nothing, but MaryLou is twice Danielle’s size, and Danielle was only in middle school then. Some of the clique girls tried to rumor it as all about jealousy, but that never took root.”
    “Why would MaryLou be jealous of her kid sister?”
    “Well, supposedly, it was because Danielle’s so much smarter. I mean, she’s already skipped two years in school. And she’s very cute, too. Doesn’t look anywhere near her age … but that happens a lot more now than it used to.”
    “Wait! What happens?”
    “Puberty, Dell. It’s not even a little bit surprising when a ten-year-old starts menstruating. And they … develop right along with it.”
    “Oh.”
    “And MaryLou, well, you’ve met her, Dell. She isn’t what you’d call … pretty. She’s bigger than most of the boys, too.”
    “Ever happen again? Her beating up her sister, I mean.”
    “No. I would have heard if it did.”
    I nodded agreement—I knew what Dolly was saying was true. It’s not just that this is such a small town, it’s that the pipeline runs right through our house.
    “Dell, do you think …? I mean, do you think MaryLou was on some kind of drug?”
    “Me? No. A lawyer might, though. There’s no other way to beat this case except some kind of temporary insanity, right?”
    “Well, she must have been on
something
.”
    “No. She went in there with a job to do, and she did it.”
    “How can you possibly say that?”
    “Dolly … Dolly, you know what I did. What I did my whole life, before I gave it all up.”
    “We don’t talk about that.”
    “And we don’t have to now, either. But you asked me—remember?—how could I know that she was on a mission, how could I know that once it was over nothing much else mattered to her?”
    “But that’s like saying she meant to do it.”
    “She did. And she got it done. That’s why nothing else matters to her anymore.”
    “It matters to me, Dell. Maybe I don’t know what actually happened. But, whatever it was, all that matters is what happens to MaryLou