Blindfold (6 page)

Maggie was thin and wiry, with the agility of an

athlete, but she had a hard time on the slick metal. Though it had been years since a load of fuel had been delivered, a fine sheen of coal dust remained on the surface. Even without it, the metal itself was slippery. Sneakers might have helped. Maggie was wearing boots with leather soles. Useless. Using her hands and her knees was her only hope. Her shoulders and back ached witlrthe strain of pulling herself upward by gripping the side walls. Below her, Whit called out encouragement.

No one appeared at the edge of the small, semicircular hole over the coal bin to see how they were doing. Don't they care that we're stuck down here? Maggie wondered resentfully. Why isn't someone doing something to help?

Alex called, 'What if you get to the top and the window is latched from the outside?"

"I thought you never played down here." Maggie's voice was husky with exertion. "So how do you even know there is a window?" What if he was right? What if the window was locked from the outside? She couldn't very well undo an outside latch from in here.

"I saw it in the display at the Women of Heritage Society. Remember? They had a diagram of the basement before this place became the courthouse. We talked about how easy it would have been for a thief to crawl into the Bransom mansion by unlatching the coal chute window, until Mrs. Potter told us the chute window was always locked from the inside, too."

"Right." Maggie, breathing hard, had reached

the top of the chute. The window was filthy with cobwebs and grime. Kneeling, unable to loosen her grip for fear she'd slide right back down to the bottom, she had to twist her upper body to use her elbow against the webs. She shuddered involuntarily, but quickly reminded herself that cobwebs were harmless, and began seeking out the inside lock.

There it was, a sliding bolt on the bottom of the peeling, white frame. She hoped it hadn't rusted in place.

It hadn't. By locking one leg around the side rail and holding on firmly with her right hand, she was able to release her left hand to slip the bolt free. It moved easily. The window was unlocked from the inside.

But it was physically impossible to stay in place using only her leg and one hand. She was already beginning to slip backward. She had to use both hands. Reestablishing a two-handed grip on the chute's sides, she swung her left elbow again, this time to push against the window. It didn't budge.

"Try it again!" Whit urged. "It's probably just stuck!"

"Or locked on the outside!" Lane called, her voice grim.

Sirens screeched to a halt somewhere outside.

Maggie pushed on the window again, and then again, and then a third time. Nothing happened.

She sank back on her heels, still gripping the chute sides with her hands. "It's locked," she said heavily. "From the outside. We'll just have to wait for Petersen to do his rescue thing."

Just then, something soft and furry scurried past her along the windowsill, brushing against her bare elbow.

Maggie gasped. But instead of recoiling in revulsion, she involuntarily threw her elbow against the window again, harder this time. Too hard. One of the panes shattered with a sharp, tinkling sound. A thin shard of glass sliced the top of her arm in the fleshy part just below the elbow, and blood gushed forth.

Mindful of the furry creature, which just might decide to take another pass at her at any moment, Maggie recklessly thrust her injured arm through the new hole and reached up to undo the outside latch. She left thin streaks of bright red on the unbroken panes.

But she got the window open.

A minute or two later, she was lying on her back in the parking lot, surrounded by fresh air and sunshine. She automatically kept one hand on her injured arm to stop the bleeding. She lifted her head only when a fireman approached, calling out, "Hey, you okay?"

Maggie didn't answer. Couldn't. Because she really didn't know the answer.

When the papers reported that remark of Dante's, like they reported every single word he uttered and every move he made, I couldn't believe he'd actually said something so stupid. That he was afraid of strangling his girlfriend? Idiot. The sheriff, who was in charge before they moved Dante to Felicity, must have thought he'd hit pay dirt. And Dante's lawyer, dumb old Milton Scruggs, must have just about fainted. Or maybe old Miltie was too stupid to even realize that his client was putting his own head in a noose, talking so much.

Of course, Christy wasn't strangled, so maybe Dante's comment wasn't so self-incriminating. No, that was not how she died. Death by tire iron was the fate that befell Christy Miller. Still, if I were a detective on the Greene County payroll, and I'd already made up my mind that a certain person had murdered someone, I guess I wouldn't quibble about the chosen method. I'd take whatever I could get, especially if it had just been handed to me like a birthday present by the person I'd already decided was guilty.

Dante never budged from his story that he'd been home all night long, down by the pond. The trouble was, no one could back up his story. His dad was away at a farm equipment exposition in Cincinnati, his mother at a neighbor's farm crying on her best friend's shoulder about how impossible it was to "raise a teenager these days" . . . that quote directly from the best friend, who had no qualms about talking to newspaper reporters.

As for me, I couldn't give him an alibi, that's for

sure. How could I testify that he really had been brooding down by the pond all evening when I wasn't anywhere around? Because I... well, I was elsewhere. With Christy, of course.

Like I said, I never meant to kill her. I just wanted her to dump Dante, really dump him, and make him know that she meant it. So that Dante could get back to being the Dante Fd known. So his family could get back to normal. Christy was destroying all of them with her flirting and her temper tantrums and her manipulating ways. It was because of her that the Guardinos fought all the time now, just like my family. It was her fault that Mrs. Guardino cried all the time, and Mr. Guardino looked ten years older than he used to.

She agreed to meet me that night. She actually believed me when I said Dante wanted to see her. Fool. But then when she showed up, she refused to do what I asked. She said she had no intention of dating only Dante, because she was young and there were too many other cute boys around... but she wasn't about to let Dante go, either. He was too good to her, she said, always buying her nice things, taking her out to dinner in decent restaurants instead of only to Dairy Queen. "So," she said coldly, "/ have every intention of hanging onto him, and there's not a thing you can do about it "

First, she had ruined my life, going in a different direction without me. Then she'd ruined Dante's life, and his family life, too. Never mind that Dante had been stupid to get involved with her in the first place. People do dumb things when their hormones

are running wild. But Dante was still a good guy. It wasn't too late to save him, it couldn't be. All she had to do was leave him alone, and everything would be fine again.

But she refused. She came strolling down the frozen, rutted dirt road that night like the sign had her name on it instead of "Lazy Dog Road." Wavy blonde hair bouncing around on her shoulders, makeup perfect, the collar of her red coat drawn up around her neck like it was a mink stole.

"Where's Dante?" she asked, looking around like she expected him to jump out from behind a tree. "You said Dante wanted to see me. So where is he?"

"I wanted to talk to you," I said, leading her into the woods to stand in the underbrush, the frozen creek on one side of us, Dante's old truck on the other, "and I figured you wouldn't come unless I said Dante wanted to see you."

All she had to do was promise to leave him alone, that was all. But she refused. She was determined to keep going, a human tornado, destroying everything in her path. I couldn't let that happen. She was only thirteen years old. Thirteen! She had no business ruining so many lives. I wanted to kill her for what she'd done.

So I did.

But I still didn't mean to do it.

It just happened.

And once it had, there was nothing I could do to change it. Nothing.

"No kidding," Scout muttered, his face covered with coal dust.

Although Maggie hadn't noticed a no admittance sign posted near the basement door, she knew it wouldn't have stopped them. The third floor of the courthouse had been condemned for years, but kids still sneaked up there to play. Teenagers went up there for privacy. And so far, that floor hadn't collapsed.

One of the firemen returned to his truck to fetch a first aid kit for Maggie. Her arm was bleeding profusely. "Someone notify the Red Cross," she joked weakly. "This would be such a perfect time for me to donate blood. If I had any left by the time they got here."

"Does it hurt?" Lane asked. Her clothes were filthy, her sleek, dark hair no longer shining like patent leather.

"Does it hurtV Helen echoed. "Of course it hurts." She knelt beside Maggie and handed her a clean, white handkerchief to wrap around the wound. The cloth bore her initials in delicate, pale blue stitching. "Ms. Gross got me these for Christmas. Fm the only person in town under eighty who carries a handkerchief, but she says tissues are disgusting. She thinks anything disposable is disgusting. She says we're becoming a totally disposable society, too lazy to take care of things. Maybe she's right."

"I can't use this," Maggie protested, holding up the fine, linen square. "It's too pretty. It'll get ruined!" She thrust the hankie back into Helen's

hands. "Anyway, a fireman is bringing a first aid kit. But thanks, Helen."

While a fireman wound white gauze around the gash in Maggie's arm, speculation over the cause of the collapse began circulating in the crowd. Maggie heard, "Bound to happen, sooner or later" and "Beam must have given out. Wonder it didn't give years ago" and "Good thing there weren't any people on that floor when it went."

Something she heard sounded wrong. Something jarred, as if a word had been pronounced incorrectly. She couldn't put her finger on what it was.

The fireman was gentle, but his ministrations still hurt. "You'd best get yourself to the emergency room," he told her when he had finished. "Looks to me like that might need stitches."

"I'll take her," Scout said, standing up. His deep-set blue eyes looked owlish, surrounded by so much gray grime. He reached down to help Maggie to her feet. She reeled slightly as she stood, and he wrapped a protective arm around her. "You okay?"

"Yeah." She glanced around her. Her friends were getting to their feet, too, swiping in vain at their blackened jeans and shorts and shirts. "Helen, how about coming, too? Lane? Maybe you inhaled coal dust or something, and need to be checked out."

The truth was, she didn't want to go to the hospital with just Scout. He was being very considerate and helpful, but if she was going to need stitches, she wanted Helen alongside her, not Scout. He'd had stitches so many times as a result of athletic injuries, he'd think nothing of it. Magdalene Jaye Keene, on the other hand, had never once been sewed back together, and she wanted someone there who would ooze sympathy. That would be Helen.

"Well, thanks a lot!" Alex declared with mock indignation. "I didn't hear you invite me and Whit along. You don't care if we inhaled coal dust, too?" He swiped at his eyes with the back of one hand.

"You guys can come, too," Maggie said. "I wasn't sure you'd want to. You hate hospitals, Alex. You've said so a thousand times."

Alex's father had died recently after a long battle with cancer. During the last year, Alex had spent more time at the hospital than he had in school. While maintaining a vigil at his father's bedside, he had tried hard to keep up with his school-work. Maggie, Helen, and Lane had helped as much as they could, bringing him assignments and notes from classes. Alex's mother had thanked them at the funeral, insisting they'd made it possible for Alex to pass.

Maggie was sure Alex would have passed anyway. His grade-point average was one of the highest in their class, allowing him plenty of leeway.

He'd gone through a tough time, though. Alex's basic personality was easygoing and calm, but he'd been angry about the unfairness of the illness itself. "My father never hurt anyone in his life," he had railed to Maggie, "why does this have to happen to him?" She'd had no answer for him.

But what made matters so much worse and turned Alex's anger into rage, had been the firing of

his dad by the city manager, for whom his father had worked for twenty years as an accountant. Although he'd still been well enough to work, he had been "let go" for losing time to radiation and chemotherapy treatments. In spite of a generous severance package and the extension of medical benefits, the loss of the salary had been hard on the family. They were forced to sell their country house and move into an apartment in Felicity. Alex's mother, trying to make the best of a bad situation, had insisted the move made sense because it eliminated the long round-trips to the hospital. Alex agreed reluctantly, but he told Maggie he didn't like living in town. He missed the country.

After his father's death, his anger grew when his mother was forced to go to work, at a time when her family needed her at home. And he was furious when the only job she could get was in the same courthouse where her husband had been employed for twenty years. Alex had protested that move, too, feeling she was being disloyal to Alex's father, but Mrs. Goodman had no choice.

She still worked there, but had received several promotions in the past year and would be moving into her own, modern office in the new building.

When Alex applied for his driver's license, six months after his father's death, Maggie had gone with him. As they emerged from the building into bright sunshine, angry tears shone in Alex's eyes. "That building just doesn't feel the same without my father in it," he had said quietly. "Whenever my mom and I came into town, I always liked going upstairs to his office to see him. Now all I can think about in there is how they treated him." He had added bitterly, 'Til bet that new accountant they hired doesn't know spit."