Chapter 43
The Kennebunk house was one of the more modestly sized on Beach Avenue, which meant it was worth closer to a million dollars than two.
I’d called ahead—I wasn’t about to intrude on grief unannounced—and spoken to Rakestraw himself, who agreed to give me some of his time on Saturday morning, though he couldn’t guarantee his wife would do the same.
“It has been very tough for her,” Rakestraw explained. I told him I understood, and I did.
But as it happened, Hailee Theriault was seated in a window nook when Rakestraw showed me into the big kitchen, the gauzy horizon of the ocean visible through the trees.
She was wearing a yellow cotton dress and her feet were bare.
She was a small woman, made smaller by her husband, who had played point guard for the Black Bears in his college days.
Rakestraw was dressed in chinos and an open-necked formal white shirt.
Like his wife, he looked weary, but unlike her, his eyes didn’t have the subdued glassiness of the sedated.
They offered coffee, or soda or tea if I preferred.
Since the coffee was already made, and they were each drinking a cup, I took coffee.
“The house isn’t usually this quiet,” said Rakestraw. “The kids are playing at a friend’s place.”
He made an odd, apologetic little gesture with his hands. I had only just arrived and he’d already referred to kids and uncommon silence, words he might have preferred to have avoided in front of his wife, especially when the subject at hand was her deceased eldest child.
Hailee Theriault didn’t move in the alcove except to turn her head to regard me; neither had we shaken hands, nor had she spoken. Only when her husband was pouring my coffee did she ask: “Why has Ward hired you?”
“He’s unhappy with the verdict of accidental death,” I replied.
“Does he blame us for what happened?”
“I believe he blames himself above anyone.”
She snorted air through her nostrils in lieu of laughter.
“It’s a little late for Ward to become a martyr.”
“It’s never too late for that,” I said.
She shrugged. “You may be right. Perhaps I’ll join him. Perhaps I already have.”
She went back to looking out the window. Rakestraw sat next to her. She moved her bare feet so they rested against his thigh, but otherwise did not acknowledge his proximity.
“If you have questions,” said Rakestraw, “we’ll do our best to answer them.”
I began by going through much of what Ward Vose had told me, including Scott’s intolerance for alcohol. Hailee Theriault confirmed the diagnosis, but claimed it hadn’t stopped Scott from fooling around with booze.
“Not hard liquor,” her husband clarified, “only beer. And not much of that,” he added.
“Not that we know of,” said his wife, “but Scott was running wild by the end, and alcohol might have played its part. Who can say? That was why we had to send him to Spero.”
“By running wild—?”
“He was mouthing off,” said Hailee, “smoking pot, skipping school. He was impossible.”
“He was difficult,” said Rakestraw.
“Impossible,” his wife repeated, but without feeling.
“Did he remain in touch with you after he arrived at Spero?”
“Only to ask us to allow him to come home,” said Rakestraw. “When we refused, he cut off all contact.”
“How long did you plan to leave him up there?”
“For as long as it took,” said Theriault.
“For what?”
“For him to change.”
“And suppose he didn’t?”
“Then he’d have to stay at Spero.”
“We could have sent him somewhere worse,” said Rakestraw. “There’s always somewhere worse.”
“I’m not sure there is,” I said. “Eventually, it all ends with a hole in the ground.”
Rakestraw let it go.
“So when was the last time either of you spoke to him?”
“August, I think.” Rakestraw looked to his wife for confirmation but received none. “Yes, late August.”
“And no phone calls, texts, or emails since?”
“None, not from Scott. We reached out but …”
Rakestraw trailed off. I waited for his wife to contribute, but she didn’t. Strike “mildly sedated” and substitute “heavily.” The silence rapidly became uncomfortable, even for someone who regarded silence as a weapon in the interrogator’s armory.
“How was your relationship with Scott, Mr Rakestraw?” I asked, when the sound of my own heartbeat began to bore me.
“Up and down. It started awkwardly when I married Hailee, improved for a couple of years, then deteriorated again. COVID didn’t help, what with all of us cooped up together. We got through it, but the damage was done.”
“Jerry tried hard with Scott,” said Hailee Theriault, “but he didn’t reciprocate.”
“He was young,” said Rakestraw.
“Not that young, not by the end.”
The dynamic here was not what I had expected, but I didn’t rush to judgment: There were as many ways to grieve as there were to be bereaved. But if that was as much as I was going to learn from the trip, it would be wasted.
“Is Ward planning to sue Spero?” Hailee Theriault asked.
“You’d have to ask his lawyer,” I replied. “Do you intend to sue?”
“We could try,” said Rakestraw, “but it would be difficult. We signed a liability waiver. It was a condition of Scott’s acceptance as a student. We’d have to prove negligence, meaning the staff failed to meet the required duty of care. My lawyer isn’t confident of a result should we proceed.”
“We’re not going to proceed,” said Hailee Theriault. “What happened to Scott wasn’t Spero’s fault. He brought it on himself. You can tell Ward there’s no money in this for him, or you.”
I didn’t bother telling her that I didn’t think it was about money for Ward Vose.
As for me, only the unimportant cases were about money.
I liked being paid—sleeping on the streets had never appealed—but I was cursed with a conscience.
I wanted to believe Hailee Theriault might be similarly troubled, no matter what indications she gave to the contrary, but being in her company was trying.
I hadn’t anticipated a joyful encounter, but neither did I expect it to be so enervating.
Here was toxic grief. I spent a while longer getting nowhere while the life was slowly sucked out of me before thanking Hailee Theriault and Jerry Rakestraw for their time and preparing to leave.
“Is that it?” Rakestraw asked.
“Yes, that’s it.”
I put my notebook in my pocket. I’d written about half a dozen words since arriving, and three of those were “Rakestraw/Theriault Interview.”
“I’ll show you out,” said Rakestraw.
“Goodbye, Mrs Rakestraw.” I said.
She continued to watch the sea, but I glimpsed my reflection in the glass, like a pale god rising above the waters.
“Aren’t you going to tell me you’re sorry for my loss?” she asked.
“Would you like me to?”
“Isn’t it the done thing?”
“Not for me,” I said. “Each loss is different.”
“How very profound you are.”
The level of misery and denial in the room was beyond measure. I had no desire to add to it by scoring points off a traumatized woman. I wanted only to get out, but first I made an attempt at conciliation.
“If it helps,” I said, “I’m not working for Ward Vose. I’m working for your son.”
“Then I have bad news for you,” said Hailee Theriault. “You won’t get paid.”
Jerry Rakestraw’s face was a mask, but behind it, his eyes were pleading with me not to engage further. I let him lead the way to the hall, where he opened the door and walked me to my car.
“Don’t leave here despising her,” he said.
“Was it her decision to send Scott to Spero?”
“Yes, but I could have argued more strongly against it.”
I didn’t bother asking why he hadn’t. Hailee was Scott’s mother, and Rakestraw might have seen the appeal of an easier life. If she was prepared to make the hard call, so be it.
“Would you consider it strange if I said I felt sorry for Santopietro and the staff up there?” Rakestraw asked.
“I have a high tolerance for strangeness,” I said.
“The school did exactly what it promised it would, and that didn’t include keeping Scott locked up in his room or chained to a radiator. When he ran away that last time, it turned into a tragedy for everyone.”
“For Scott, most of all.”
“I’m trying here, Mr Parker.”
I wanted to tell him it was too little, too late, but as with Hailee Theriault, those points were too easy to score.
“How much medication is your wife taking?”
“It varies between too much and not enough. Today, I’d say it’s closer to the first.”
I let my gaze pass over the neat house with Old Glory hanging from a pole above the porch, over the trimmed lawn and the beds of fall flowers, and heard the sound of the sea.
“Did Scott ever fit in here?”
“Not really,” said Rakestraw. “Our girls sort of looked up to him, but the age gap was too big for them to be properly close. We all might have gotten along a lot better had he been able to live with his father instead of us, but short of sharing a prison cell, that wasn’t an option.
And once we sent him to Spero, any hope of a functioning relationship was blown to pieces.
Maybe I was deluded. I had a vision of a happy multiracial family, but it was never that. ”
“Would the happy multiracial family have been more politically saleable?”
“That’s quite the question to ask.”
“If you’re going to be all sensitive,” I said, “politics may not be for you.”
A more calculating Rakestraw showed his face.
“In the first district, perhaps, if we’re talking congressionals,” he said. “The second is less predictable. For governor, it’s a toss-up. You know, you ride a tall horse, Mr Parker. The fall, when it comes, will be painful.”
“Will your stepson’s death affect your ambitions?”
“A few years is a long time in politics.”
“It’s a long time, period,” I replied. “Long enough for people to forget, if you want them to.”
“We’ll see. I’d have preferred not to have to take that into account.”
The politician departed, and the stepfather reassumed his place.
“You know, Scott screamed when they took him,” he said.
“He screamed, and he cried, and he begged and begged. He made so much noise that one of the men slipped a gag over his mouth because they were afraid someone might call the police. Scott kicked and fought so hard it took three men to subdue him, and they had to put cable ties on his hands and feet. I think letting it continue was the worst thing I’ve ever done. ”
“You could have stopped it.”
“I could, but I didn’t want to. That’s my failing. Isn’t that what you came to hear?”
“By now, I don’t know why I came,” I said. “I just wish I hadn’t. What about your wife?”
“She repeats what you heard in there: that Scott brought it on himself, that it was his own fault. She’d like to believe it’s true, but she can’t, so she keeps saying it over and over in the hope it might make it true.”
Rakestraw’s voice dried up. He coughed hard. After, he was able to speak again.
“Scott was far from perfect as a son, but we should have been better parents. We were the adults and he was the child, so the onus was on us, not him. That makes us complicit in his death, however it occurred. Do you know what Santopietro told us when we first met him to discuss Scott’s future?
He said that we shouldn’t blame ourselves for sending him away because we weren’t trained to deal with troubled children. But what parent is?”
I had nothing useful to offer. Behind Rakestraw, Hailee Theriault floated to the front door.
“Jerry,” she said, “let the man be about his affairs.”
“If you learn anything—” he began.
“Alcock will let you know,” I said.
“Not you?”
“No.”
I got in my car and drove away. I tried to think of a child who had been failed so badly by more of the adults in his life than Scott Theriault, but couldn’t come up with any. And I couldn’t decide whether that was a good thing or a bad.