Free Psychopath by Keith Ablow

rolled his eyes. "Did Dean Walsh happen to mention who tipped him off to look in my locker in the first place?"
    "No.  He didn’t.  But it doesn’t—"
    "You didn’t ask him very many questions," Billy interrupted.  "You just figured they’d caught me red-handed.  Period.  Guilty as charged."
    Clevenger didn’t like the way Billy was trying to turn tables on him and maneuver him into the witness seat.  He especially didn’t like being accused of not sticking up for him, not after he’d laid everything on the line to save him from growing old in prison.  "If you’ve got a point to make," Clevenger said, "make it.  Otherwise, please skip the self-righteous bullshit so we can spend our time figuring out where to get you help for the drugs — if you’re using — and where you should finish school, if you intend to."
    "Scott Dillard," Billy said smugly.
    "Scott Dillard," Clevenger echoed.  Dillard was the leader of the trio who had been hounding Billy.  "Scott Dillard turned you in."
    Billy nodded.
    "So what?  Has he got the combination to your locker or something?  You think he planted the drugs there?  Give me a break."
    "They don’t change the combinations year to year," Billy said.  "He must have gotten it from somebody who had it before me."
    This whole discussion, Clevenger thought, was vintage Billy Bishop.  He was offering up a plausible, if improbable, explanation for the jam he was in.  It was the kind of defense that might go over in a courtroom, the punch line about recycled locker combinations delivered Perry Mason-style, which was probably what bothered Clevenger the most about it.  Billy always seemed to be banking on the proverbial shadow of a doubt.  "I suppose I can’t know for sure what happened," he said, "but..."
    "I just told you what happened," Billy protested.
    "What I do know for sure is that Auden Prep doesn’t want you back."
    "They’re suspending me?" Billy asked.  "For how long?"
    Clevenger looked at him.  Had Dean Walsh really not told him?  Or hadn’t Billy been ready to hear what Walsh had to say?  "They’re not suspending you, Billy.  You’re expelled."  The words didn’t seem to register.  "Dismissed.  Permanently," he said.
    "Expelled," Billy said.
    Clevenger watched Billy’s eyes get watery.  And the part of him that wanted to hold him, rather than hold him to any standard, started to grow.  But even with that impulse, he had to wonder whether Billy’s tears were genuine or contrived.  You couldn’t know with this kid.  He wasn’t just movie-star handsome.  He was a very good actor.
    "Why don’t you at least ask Dean Walsh whether they change the combinations every year?" Billy asked.
    "It’s not going to make a difference to him," Clevenger said.  "Maybe if it hadn’t been for the fights, but...  his mind is made up."
    "Fuck it, then.  I’m done with this place.  I don’t care what Walsh thinks, anyhow.  I care what you think.  No one else."
    That sounded like playing to the crowd.  "Sure," Clevenger said.  "I can see how you’re always looking to make me proud."  He shook his head, started the car, and backed out of the space.  When he glanced back at Billy, he saw him staring straight ahead, tears streaming silently down his face.
    Clevenger shifted the truck into park again.  "Hey," he said.
    Billy didn’t look at him.
    "Here’s what I think," Clevenger said, in a calm voice.  He waited for Billy to turn to him.  "I’m in this with you for the long haul.  Got that?  Nothing you could do would make me walk away.  Nothing.  Not getting bounced out of Auden Prep, not selling grass.  So the only difference between telling me the truth and lying to me is that I can’t get you the help you need if I don’t have the facts.  I can’t be a good enough father to you without the facts."
    Billy nodded.
    "I’m going to ask one more time," Clevenger said, "because it’s important we both know the score if we’re gonna