“Calm down,” Betsy said. “I did some checking. Apparently, Bo never had any intention of going on that trip to Birmingham. He told Scout’s mom, Anna, his mom wanted him to spend the night with her and go to the party, and Anna, not knowing any better, took him home from school with her, and on to the party.”
“That little con artist,” Wyatt said. “I don’t know whether I want to pat him on the back or whack him on his butt. But I still don’t see how Callie can say any of this is my fault. It was her weekend to have Bo. I didn’t call him, didn’t pick him up, didn’t hide him from his mom.”
Betsy shrugged. “Don’t kill the messenger, okay? Callie’s made a serious charge, and Stackpole, in his totally random way, seems to find her story believable. So we’re going to see the judge this afternoon.” She looked over his shoulder and saw the waiter approaching with a tray of food. “Right after we get you your pancakes. And see my dermatologist.”
* * *
“Sir, remove those sunglasses and that hat,” the Honorable Cedric N. Stackpole said, as soon as Wyatt and Betsy were seated in his office.
Wyatt shrugged, took off the glasses and the baseball hat. Stackpole cringed. “Are you having some medical issues?” he asked brusquely.
“An allergic reaction to some underbrush he was clearing,” Betsy said. “He’s gotten a cortisone shot and he has some steroid cream. He’ll be fine.”
Callie was sitting in a chair on the judge’s left side. She was dressed in a short pink skirt and a tight-fitting black tank top that displayed yet another tattoo, and glimpses of her abdomen whenever she moved. She leaned forward and grimaced. “You look like something out of a horror movie.” She glanced over at her lawyer. “I don’t want my son to see him like that. It’s upsetting.”
“I’m fine,” Wyatt said, clenching and unclenching his fists. “The swelling has already started to go down. It’s not contagious. Bo has seen me with poison ivy before.”
“Let’s stick to the subject at hand, shall we?” Stackpole said. He looked down at a file on his desk. “Mrs. Keeler, you’re alleging that Mr. Keeler is interfering with your son’s visits with you? Something about a birthday party?”
“Bo knew we’d been planning this trip to Birmingham, to look at houses,” Callie said. “Wyatt knew it, too. We’d been planning the trip for weeks, and then suddenly, Bo was having a fit over going, because of some little party a friend was having. When I went to pick him up from school on Friday, he wasn’t there!”
She leaned across her lawyer and glared at Wyatt. “You put him up to this. And I know it.”
“Put him up to what?” Wyatt demanded. Betsy gave her client a small headshake, warning him not to be baited.
“Bo deliberately lied to his friend’s mother, told her I wanted him to spend the night with them that night, so he could go to the party! He even packed a bathing suit and pajamas and hid them in his school backpack,” Callie said. “He never would have done that on his own, not without his father giving him the idea.”
The judge eased back in his leather desk chair. “Mr. Keeler, did you suggest to your son that he disobey and lie to his mother?”
“Absolutely not,” Wyatt said. “This is the first I’m hearing about any of this. Bo did tell me his mother had scheduled a trip out of town, and he was upset over having to miss his friend’s party that he’d been looking forward to for weeks. He even admitted he called his mother a bad name. But when I told him that wasn’t acceptable behavior, he told me his mother called him that name first.”
Stackpole raised an eyebrow. “What kind of bad name?”
“Bo told me his mother called him a little shit,” Wyatt said calmly.
“Ridiculous,” Callie snapped.
Stackpole’s head swung in her direction. “Do you deny calling your son that name?”
Her face reddened. “Bo’s been hostile to me for the last few months. He acts out, talks back. Whenever he comes back from a visit with his father, he’s belligerent and defiant. And he’s openly disrespectful to my fiancé.”
“Mrs. Keeler, did you call your six-year-old a ‘little shit’? Yes or no?”
Callie burst into tears. “He’s my little boy! How would you like it if your son told you he hated you? How would you like it if you went to pick up your son and he refused to get in the car? I may have called him that, in the heat of the moment, but I never meant it.”
Wyatt folded his arms across his chest and looked away. Callie loved to turn on the waterworks whenever she was backed into a corner. It was her go-to tactic. He wondered if Stackpole would fall for it. Betsy claimed the judge hated women, but Callie seemed to be the exception to that rule.
Betsy saw an opening and went for it. “Judge, Mr. Keeler is also concerned about his son’s behavior. If Bo is unhappy after returning from a visit with my client, it’s because he is uncomfortable seeing his mother living with a man other than his father. Bo is upset over the breakup of his parents’ marriage, which is totally understandable, and I want to address that in a minute. But in the meantime, Mr. Keeler would like to know more about this past weekend. If Bo wasn’t at school when Callie went to pick him up, why didn’t she notify my client?”
“I left him a voice mail!” Callie said. “He never returns my calls. I basically assumed Wyatt had Bo.”
“But she didn’t know that,” Betsy said calmly. “Did she do anything else to check up on her son’s whereabouts? Question the teachers at the school? Go over to my client’s home to see if Bo was there? Did she call his friend’s homes to see if he’d gone home with one of them?”
“I just told you, I figured Bo was with Wyatt.” Callie glared at Betsy.
Stackpole frowned. “Mrs. Keeler, did you leave town for the weekend without knowing your son’s exact location?”
“We had to get on the road,” Callie said, her voice shriller by the minute. “We had dinner reservations. It’s a long drive to Birmingham, and I was positive Bo was with his father. I never would have left Bo home alone. And it turned out fine! He was with Anna.”
Betsy went in for the kill. “He could have been abducted, Judge. My client relied on Mrs. Keeler’s representation that his son was in her custody for the weekend. He had no knowledge that Bo wasn’t where he should have been. And we find that very disturbing.”
“As do I,” Stackpole agreed. He looked Wyatt up and down. “Mr. Keeler, Dr. Talbott-Sinclair tells me you’ve been attending her divorce-recovery sessions, and I, ah, noted your presence there this week when I stopped by. She seems pleased with your progress.”
He swung around in his chair and considered Callie, who was dabbing at her crocodile tears with a Kleenex in a valiant effort to look brave and vulnerable.
“Mrs. Keeler?”
“Yes?” she whispered, her lower lip trembling.
“If you and your son are having relationship issues, perhaps you’d better spend more time working on your relationship with him, and less on your fiancé.”
Stackpole said the word “fiancé” as though it were some revolting sexual practice. Wyatt felt his spirits start to brighten.
“A young, impressionable boy needs a father in his life. Mr. Keeler had that regrettable episode at the baseball park, but he seems to be making some progress handling his anger and hostility. I’m starting to rethink the wisdom of allowing you to move your son so far away from his father.”
Yes! Wyatt wanted to jump up, fist-bump Betsy, maybe even hug Stackpole. Nah, not that. But still.
“Now, Judge,” began Callie’s lawyer, who’d been noticeably silent until now. “Mrs. Keeler’s fiancé has already accepted a job in Birmingham and put his home on the market. It’s going to work a real hardship on them if you prevent them from moving…”
“I’m not preventing anybody from doing anything, yet,” Stackpole interrupted. “I’m just saying I’m rethinking. I still want to wait a few more weeks to make sure that Mr. Keeler completes his therapy, and I want to hear reassurances from Dr. Talbott-Sinclair that there won’t be any more episodes of violence before I rule on this custody issue.”
“Thank you,” Wyatt said fervently. “Thanks very much, Judge.”
Stackpole was staring at Callie, eyes narrowed.
“And Mrs. Keeler?”
Callie blew her nose on the tissue. “Yes, Your Honor?”
“The next time you are in my presence, I do not want to be assaulted with the vision of your body piercings. Is that clear?”
Callie looked down and yanked her top over the diamond-studded navel ring winking from her abdomen.
* * *
Wyatt waited until they were in the elevator to gather his aunt into a bear hug. “You did it!” he exclaimed. “Finally, a win for our side.”
“Not a win, necessarily, but at least a point for our team,” Betsy conceded. “I can’t believe that little…”
“Shit?” Wyatt grinned.
“Shit works, although I
was
going to call her an ignorant slut,” Betsy said, returning her nephew’s smile. “No offense.”
“None taken,” Wyatt said. “You were awesome in there, the way you kept on about how Callie just left town, not knowing where Bo was.”
“I wasn’t just grandstanding. It really is appalling that she was so focused on her little trip she didn’t even care enough to make sure Bo was somewhere safe. In the past, I just thought Callie was a selfish, stupid, self-involved little twit. But now I’m starting to wonder how fit a mother she is.”
Sobered, Wyatt nodded in agreement. “I keep telling myself she really does love Bo, but since she hooked up with Fatso, Callie’s changed. It’s like she’s turned into this eighteen-year-old party animal overnight. She wasn’t always like this. She was a good mom. She wouldn’t even let Bo sleep in his nursery until he was, like, eighteen months old, because she’d read all this crap about Sudden Infant Death Syndrome. He slept in a bassinette in our bedroom or in bed with us, until I finally convinced her he’d be okay in his own room. Maybe we got married too young. Maybe she’s just immature. Maybe this, the tattoos, the piercings, the clothes, maybe it’s all just a phase.”
“I hope you’re not making excuses for her,” Betsy said. “She’s thirty-six. It’s a little late for her to be in a ‘phase.’”
“Hell no, I’m not making excuses for her.” Wyatt pulled his baseball cap on again. “Maybe I’m making excuses for me, for letting her go without putting up a fight.”
“Don’t beat yourself up,” Betsy said. “Callie and her lawyer are doing enough of that. You’re a good guy. Remember that, okay? And don’t go getting soft on me.” She made a fist and thrust it into his face. “And if you start thinking about taking her back, I’ll punch out
your
car window.”
“No worries there,” Wyatt said.
“Listen,” Betsy said suddenly. “Did I understand Stackpole right? Did he actually sit in on your therapy session the other night?”
“Yep,” Wyatt said.
“So weird. What was he doing there?”
“Paula said she invited him,” Wyatt said. “But there’s something definitely … kinky going on between the two of them.”
“Kinky and Stackpole are not two words you necessarily think of together,” Betsy said. “Kinky how?”
“There’s a vibe between them. And everybody in the group noticed it. Paula was positively giddy that he showed up. In fact, she was stone-cold sober, which is a major change.”
“Your therapist? You mean she’s not usually sober? Wyatt, what’s going on with this group?”
* * *
The elevator dinged, and the doors opened. They emerged into the courthouse lobby. Betsy pulled Wyatt by the arm, gesturing for him to sit on a bench.
“Talk,” she ordered.
“Paula’s stoned out of her gourd during most of our sessions,” Wyatt said. “The first one, I got there a little late, and she was passed out cold. I had to wake her up to make sure she realized I was there. On a good night, she’s just vague and glassy-eyed. During our second session, the light was getting dimmer, if you know what I mean, and then after we got back from break, she zoned out again. We actually left her on the sofa in the reception area. But before we left, just to make sure she hadn’t overdosed or something, we checked her purse and figured out she’s mixing tranquilizers and sleeping pills.”
“Don’t you think that’s something you might have mentioned to your lawyer?” Betsy scolded.
“Wouldn’t do any good,” he said. “Like I was telling you, Stackpole showed up at our last session. Paula was on her best behavior, all dressed up and proper and professional. She actually ran the session.”
“She doesn’t usually?”
“Not really,” Wyatt said. “But this week was different. She had her act together, and was so excited about him being there, it was kind of pathetic. He made a stupid little speech, about what a good thing it was we were all doing, blah, blah, blah. And it was going good, and all of a sudden Paula just ended the session. We’re supposed to be there an hour, and it wasn’t even thirty minutes.”
Betsy was shaking her head. “How on earth did he find this woman? And if she’s obviously on drugs, like you say, why would he refer people to her?”
Wyatt glanced around the lobby and lowered his voice. “I’ll tell you why, but you’re not gonna believe it. Because he’s in her pants.”
“Shhh!” Betsy yanked him up by the arm and hustled him out of the courthouse.
“Oww,” Wyatt winced and she loosened her clutch.
“In my car,” she said, making a beeline for the parking lot.
* * *
When they were in Betsy’s car, with the air conditioner blowing at full blast, he gave her the whole story. Or as much of it as his pride would allow.
“Wednesday night, after Paula let us leave early, we all went over to the Sandbox, like we always do.”
She gave him a fishy look. “Tell me that’s not a strip joint.”
“All those women? You know I’m the only guy, right? The Sandbox is a bar. In Cortez.”
“That dumpy little fishing village?”
“It’s not all that dumpy,” Wyatt said. “Anyway, the Sandbox is a classic dive bar. It’s even got an original Ms. Pac-Man. One of the women in the group, Grace, her mother owns it, which is why we go there.”
“Who’s we?”
“Everybody in the group. Me, Grace, Camryn, Ashleigh, and Suzanne. Like I said, I’m the only guy. At first I thought they were gonna scratch my eyes out, because they’ve all been shafted by their husbands, and they all hate men, but we’re cool now.”