Blood Trail (2 page)

I met Mom coming in the driveway, and she told me the same thing—well, she didn't call me bung brain, but she told me no, I wasn't going anywhere, get back in the house and get the trash out of the cellar, it was a firetrap.

Mom and Dad are divorced, and I get stuck with most of the grunt work because he doesn't come around. Which is not really his fault, because Mom can't seem to forgive him and she gives him freezing hell if he comes near her. So all his jobs got passed on to me, including the basement.

I was pissed. I kept telling Mom I had to go to Aaron's right away and she kept asking why and I didn't have an answer. I mean, what could I tell her?

So about five minutes later, I was down in the household dungeon by the washer and dryer, piling empty Tide boxes into a garbage bag and swearing to myself, when a siren went screaming past my house.

That sound went through me like a jolt from a stun gun. I mean, it's not exactly commonplace where we live. The road doesn't go anywhere except around the development. “Mom!” I yelled, running upstairs. “What was that, where did it—”

She and Jamy were both standing in the front doorway looking out. Toward Aaron's house. “Ambulance,” Mom said as another siren blared and a police car swept past.

I started sweating like a spaghetti pot. “Mom, I've
got
to get to Aaron's house. Please.”

She and Jamy both turned at the same time and gave me the same long look. Finally Mom asked one more time, “Why?”

I blurted out part of it. “He said he was scared, Mom!”

Jamy said, “He kept trying to call him on the phone—”

I yelled at her, “Shut up!”

Mom said, “Jeremy,” in a warning voice, and asked Jamy, “Aaron phoned here?”

“No. Butthead kept trying to phone Aaron.”

Mom didn't even frown at her for calling me Butthead, just looked at me. “You think something happened to him?”

“I don't
know
!”

“Stop shouting, Jeremy. Calm down. We'll go see what's happening as soon as you calm down.”

chapter two

Calm. I had to stay calm.

We took the car to get there faster. The minute Mom drove around the curve in the road, I could see that yeah, it really was Aaron's house. Ambulance going blinky-blink in the driveway, two police cruisers with their lights going in front, crowd of neighbors on the lawn with a cop motioning at them to get back, guy in an orange vest waving at us to drive past.

Mom stopped anyway and yelled at him, “What happened?”

“I don't know, lady. You can't stop there. Keep moving.”

“Let me out, Mom,” I said.

“Me, too!” Jamy butted in from the backseat.

Mom drove on without answering either of us and pulled over in the first place she could find. Before she could stop me, I jumped out and ran back toward Aaron's house.

A state police car screamed in as I ran. The crowd swarmed all over the lawn and the edge of the road now, most of them people from the development. I saw one of my mom's friends with her hand on her mouth like she might puke, her eyes spooky wide. I saw the old guy who mowed lawns looking grim like a soldier. I saw little kids not playing, just huddled together like it was cold. I saw a couple of fire department guys trying to help the cops push people back. What scared me the most—

Calm. Stay calm.

The worst thing was the way the cops looked as panicky as I was trying not to feel. Cops shouldn't look that way.

“What happened?” I asked the first person I came to, a neighbor lady. She just stared with the funniest look, like she was made of wood, like she couldn't hear me. I pushed past her into the crowd, still hoping—I don't know what I was hoping. That it wasn't Aaron, I guess. That some old guy had snuck into his house to throw a heart attack or something.

“What happened?” I asked again.

A few heads turned, but nobody answered. For a big crowd, it was so quiet it was weird. All I heard was somebody crying somewhere behind me, and off to the side some guy saying, “The little kids shouldn't see. They ought to get them out of here.”

I saw the state trooper come out of the house with his face fish-belly pale.

I grabbed the old lawn-mower guy by the arm. “What
happened
?”

He turned and glared at me, but he said, “Kid's dead. Stabbed to death.”

“What?
What kid?” My heart was pounding so hard it hurt.

The old guy turned away without answering, but I already knew the answer.

No. It couldn't be. It had to be some other kid. For some reason, somebody had stabbed Aardy, or Nathan—

But no, I could see Nathan standing in the doorway with his sister hanging onto him sideways, her face hidden behind his back. He acted like he barely knew she was there. His arms hung straight down at his sides. Even at that distance, I could see how white his narrow face was. And I could see dark stains on his T-shirt, like he'd been painting or something.

But it couldn't be Aaron who was dead. It had to be somebody else. Some neighbor kid.
Please.

Heads turned as a Volvo swerved into the driveway and stopped. Aaron's dad got out and ran toward the house, still in his grocer's apron, with his sleeves rolled up. He must have been at the store when he got the call. The state trooper met him in front of the door.

The crowd was so quiet, I could hear almost every word.

“… according to your daughter, Cecily, the body is that of your stepson Aaron. I'm sorry, sir.”

“He's
dead
?” Mr. Gingrich's voice cracked like glass.

Aardy must not have realized her dad was there until she heard his voice. Then she let go of Nathan and darted out the door to her father. One glimpse of her face, and I had to close my eyes.

“Yes, sir, he is dead,” said the police officer. “I'm sorry—”

“No. That can't be.” Mr. Gingrich's voice. I looked, and saw him patting Aardy's shoulders as she hugged the rough cloth of his apron, but he barely seemed to know what he was doing. “Nathan—” Mr. Gingrich reached toward Nathan, who was standing a few feet away from him inside the front door. But Nathan didn't look like he'd heard.

The trooper edged over to stand between Mr. Gingrich and the door. “If you'll wait in the cruiser—”

Mr. Gingrich shook his head. “There's some kind of mistake.” Pulling away from Aardy, he tried to head into the house. “Let me see him. Let me see.”

I heard Aardy sobbing. I couldn't look at her.

“We advise against it, sir. We will ask you to identify his clothing—”

“Let me see my son!”

Someone pulled at my elbow. I turned. It was Mom. She didn't say anything, just motioned with her head for me to follow her, and I did. I couldn't handle watching Mr. Gingrich anymore.

A couple of cops were stretching yellow plastic ribbon between the crowd and the house, edging people back, back. Mom led me out of there. At the edge of the crowd, Jamy stood hugging herself and shaking. Her voice shook, too, as she said, “Mom, Aardy's crying.”

“I know.”

“I saw one of the cops puking into a paper bag.”

“Hush.”

“I heard—”

“Jamy, hush. Good grief …” Mom stared past me. I turned and saw a TV news van pulling in at the Gingriches' place.

Mom said, “Come on before it gets even worse.” She herded both of us back toward the car.

But when we got there, she didn't get in. She made Jamy get in, but she stopped me, and her eyes had that look like when my dad left.

Very softly she asked, “Jeremy, how did you know?”

I didn't feel like I knew anything, and all of a sudden I wanted to cry. I could barely talk. “Mom, not now.”

“Yes, now!” Then her tone changed. “Honey, tell me. Please. You know we have to call the police. Are you going to need a lawyer?”

I shook my head. Damn, I wasn't going to cry. I made my voice hard. “Just call them. Never mind. I'll tell them myself. I'm going back.” I turned away.

“Jeremy, no!”

I gave her a look over my shoulder. “Mom, I've got to be there.”

We stared at each other.

“Just take Jamy home,” I said.

“Don't talk to the police yet. Don't talk to anybody,” she ordered. “Jeremy, promise.”

“Okay.”

She got into the car and took Jamy home and left me.

Running back to Aaron's house, I saw that Mrs. Gingrich was there, looking as white as her nurse uniform, standing with Mr. Gingrich, both of them looking lost even though they were right in front of their own house. Aaron's parents. I felt my insides go all clotted in my chest. I ran up to the yellow police tape, jumped it like a hurdle, and trotted up the yard.

Mr. Gingrich looked at me and said, “Son, how you doing?” like he barely knew what he was saying, like he might offer me a Popsicle or something, the way he always did when I went into his store. But Mrs. Gingrich choked out, “Oh, Jeremy,” and kind of toppled toward me. The look on her face—I'd never seen her look like that, not even the time Aaron and I were poking around in the woodpile and Aaron got bit by a timber rattler. Then, when the doctors said he was going to be okay, she had cried and kidded around. Trust Aaron to find a rattlesnake in the backyard.

But now it was no joke and she wasn't crying. I think it was so bad, she couldn't cry.

I put my arms around her and said, “I'm sorry,” which sounds really stupid but I didn't know what else to say. “I'm sorry.”

She didn't make a sound or say a word, just held on to me like she was drowning, with her head on my shoulder. She nodded to show she'd heard me. I felt the movement against my collarbone. Maybe she couldn't talk.

Aardy and a couple of cops came out of the garage; they'd been talking with her in there, maybe? Somebody had given her a fistful of white Kleenex. Then a state cop came out of the house with his hand on the back of Nathan's neck, kind of guiding him along the sidewalk. Nathan's face looked flat white like a paper mask, and the stains on his shirt were red turning into purple and brown. He didn't look at me. I caught a glimpse of him, then turned my head away like I hadn't seen him.

The state trooper said to the Gingriches, “Come with me, folks,” and Mrs. Gingrich let go of me. Herding Nathan and his parents toward the driveway, the cop jerked his head at me and gave me a look that told me to get lost. He motioned the Gingriches into his cruiser.

I went back to my place in the crowd and watched him drive the Gingriches away.

I stood in front of Aaron's house for hours. Afterward, Mom said she never should have let me stay, but I'm glad she did. It would have been even worse otherwise, imagining things. This way, I saw.

I saw the detectives drive up and walk in with their big black equipment cases. And the photographer. And the coroner. The plainclothes cops wore suit jackets, and the coroner wore a dress like she was going to church. And a droopy hat over her gray poodle curls. And thick nylons. Like, industrial-strength stockings. I guess they had to be thick for kneeling beside bodies.

I saw the sun shine lower and lower over the mountains. Shining, warm, when it should have gone cold and black. When it should have rained blood or something. I saw the coroner come out of the house again with her dress rumpled and her nylons wrinkled and her face sagging in deep lines. I saw the sky turn rosy colors and the sun go cherry red, sinking. I saw the photographer leave. It got so everything seemed like a creepy dream. I couldn't think who I was anymore or what I was doing there.

Finally, after dark, I saw the medics take Aaron out.

His body, I mean. They rolled it out on a gurney and loaded it onto the ambulance. They had it covered with a sheet, of course. But even though it had been hours, blood stained the cloth, looking black in the streetlamp light.

The ambulance rolled away, slow, no siren, no lights. Silent as a ghost.

The people who were left in the crowd turned away and went home, just as quiet. I stayed.

A couple of the uniformed township police stood at the bottom of the driveway talking to each other in hushed voices. I walked over to them, and they both swung their heads toward me and stared, as blank as the night.

I told them, “I've got to talk to somebody.”

chapter three

One of the detectives took me home in his unmarked car with a laptop computer built into the console. He ran me on the computer and told me I didn't have any criminal history or any outstanding warrants. He was half joking, trying to lighten things up, but I couldn't smile. Maybe the look on my face was the same as the look on my mom's face when we walked in. I don't know. Probably, because Mom's face matched all the others I'd been seeing, stretched and pale like a drumhead.

The detective introduced himself and told Mom, “I want to take his statement in your presence, because he's a minor.”

She looked at me. I told her, “It's okay.” It wasn't okay, really. I felt like a murderer who couldn't wait to confess. I felt as bad as if I'd killed Aaron myself.

“I want you to talk with a lawyer first,” Mom said.

“Mom, I already told him everything. He just needs to write it down.”

The truth was, I'd told him everything except who Aaron had said he was afraid of. I wasn't going to snitch on Nathan, because he couldn't have done it. I mean, I'd known him as long as I'd known Aaron. When we were kids, we all played snow forts together, hunted fossils together in the abandoned strip mines, went camping and told ghost stories together. I remembered the time Nathan put a dead toad in my sleeping bag. I remembered getting in trouble with him and Aaron just about every Halloween for soaping windows and stuff. Okay, Nathan hadn't been hanging with us for the last couple of years, but all the same, I knew Nathan couldn't have done it. I just knew, like knowing which way is up.