Blood Trail (3 page)

The detective sat me at the kitchen table and got out a little tape recorder. Mom sat beside me with her lips pressed together, and I told it all again: Aaron had said he was scared and then wouldn't tell me why; he'd asked me to call and somebody had picked up and then the answering machine and then Nathan had said Aaron wasn't home. After a while Mom gave a sigh like she felt better and offered the detective a cup of coffee. He said no thanks, but was my sister around to verify what she knew?

The brat was up in her room, probably yakking with her preppy friends. Mom called her and she barefooted downstairs with her own precious cordless phone still in her hand. She looked like she'd been crying, yet enjoying the excitement. When she met the detective, she got big-eyed. He took her into the living room to talk with her. Mom went along.

I sat at the kitchen table trying not to look at the windows. Too dark. I'd never minded nighttime before, but that night I didn't like the darkness outside pressing the glass like it wanted in. I wanted to go somewhere but I didn't know where, or what to do, so I just sat there.

I could hear every word they said in the other room. “So your brother seemed upset?” the detective asked after the brat told him what time I'd come home, judging by what was on TV at the time, and what time she thought it was when I tried to phone Aaron.

“He acted majorly freaked.”

“In what way—”

But the brat interrupted, all fluttery. “Is it true that somebody stabbed Aaron in the
face
?”

“I can't say, miss. I need the names—”

“They say it's a serial murderer. A psycho killer.”

“Who says?”

“My friends.”

“Do they know something I don't?” I could hear a teacher tone in his voice.

“No, I guess not, but—”

“Just rumors, miss. We don't know—”

“But is it true there was blood all over everything?”

I clenched my fists. Mom said, “Jamy, stop it.”

The phone rang, and I got up and answered it.

“Jeremy!” It was a neighbor lady. “Mrs. Ledbetter says there's a police officer at your house asking questions. Is that true?”

I should have asked her what she needed a cop for, but I didn't know what to say. I felt so sick I mumbled, “ 'Scuse me,” and hung up. Right away the phone rang again. It was like I had sunstroke or something, I felt so bad. I braced my hands on top of the table, stood there half bent over, and let the damn phone ring. Mom came out, looked at me, and took the phone off the hook without answering it. I heard the front door close as the detective left.

Jamy came in and said, “There's people in the front yard, and the TV van just pulled up.”

“Good Lord,” Mom said.

“What's the matter with Butthead?”

“Jamy, go to your room,” Mom said, real sharp.

“Good grief, all I did was ask—”

“Go.”

Starting to feel a little better, I eased into a chair.

“Something to eat?” Mom asked. “Pizza?”

Jamy called down the stairs, “Mom, is the phone off the hook?”

“Yes, and now it's unplugged.” She reached over and yanked the jack out of the wall. “Go to bed!”

“No!” Jamy yelled with panic in her voice. There was a silence while her fear hung in the air. Then she called more softly, “Can I sleep with you tonight?”

Somebody knocked at the door. Mom told Jamy, “Yes, I guess so,” as she crossed the living room to look through the peephole. She turned away. “Don't answer. It's just reporters.” She called up the stairs to Jamy, “Honey, I don't think anybody around here's going to get much sleep tonight.”

“Can I come down?”

“Yes, if you leave your brother alone.” Knock, knock, knock at the door. Ignoring it, Mom came back to me. “Something to eat, Jeremy?”

My gut felt as hollow as my sister's head, yet I couldn't have swallowed a bite if you paid me. “Can't,” I said.

Her voice got softer. “You want to talk about it?”

I shook my head and stood up.

“Where are you going?”

“Out for a walk.” Damn the stupid darkness.

“No.”

I needed to get out of there so bad that for a minute I really hated her. My whole body clenched like a fist. “Mom, I—”

“Honey, I know, but you can't go out. We don't know what's out there.”

“Except reporters,” Jamy said.

She was supposed to leave me alone. I wanted to hit her. I wanted to hit something, kill something, kill whoever had killed Aaron, and the worst of it was, like Mom said, he was out there somewhere, and I didn't know where, and yeah, I was scared. I mean, I was Aaron's best friend—would I be next?

I was Aaron's best friend—shouldn't I do something?

Like what?

Damn it all to hell, I didn't know, and I needed to walk, run, shout, scream, throw something, smash something, bash something right that minute. I turned and lunged down the basement steps, slamming the door behind me.

I didn't even turn on a light at first, just blundered around down there, panting and hitting and flinging things. I threw a fit like a brat kid. I punched holes in cardboard boxes, heaved piles of newspapers into the air, swore until my voice started to break, and then I shut up because I was not going to cry, damn it I was not going to cry. I just fought with the dark.

After a while I wore myself out and just lay in a pile of newspaper, breathing hard and staring into nothing but blackness.

The door at the top of the stairs opened and light shot down. “Jeremy?”

“Let me alone, Mom.”

“Are you all right?”

“Compared to what?”

I guess she could tell I was alive. The door closed.

Later I got up, flicked on a light, and looked at the mess I'd made. Jeez.

It was late but I knew I couldn't sleep. I couldn't think what else to do so I started to clean up.

After a while the door at the top of the stairs opened and Mom came down, still dressed. She didn't say a word, just started helping me.

“I'll get it,” I said.

“I know,” she said, but she kept picking up newspapers. She stacked them and tied them up as carefully as if she were wrapping Christmas presents, taking her time. And then, I couldn't believe this, here came Jamy in sweats and slippers, and she started picking up, too, quiet, like Mom.

After we got the mess cleared away, I got out the shop vac and Mom got a broom and Jamy got a dust cloth. All that night we hardly said a word, and we cleaned that basement till you could have held a reception there.

chapter four

What with no sleep, in the morning I was kind of floating, spaced out and limp enough so I could eat, even though I still didn't really feel hungry. I was working my way through a bowl of Frosted Flakes at the kitchen table, with Mom sipping coffee across from me, when the brat headed for the living room and I heard the TV click on. The morning news anchor was saying, “… and a murder stuns Pinto River.”

I yelled, “Jamy, turn it off!”

“No way.”

“Listen, frog face—”

“Booger, deal with it.” But her voice was quiet, and I shut up, because Booger was what Aaron called me. I mean, other people did, too, but he was the one who started it. Fourth grade. He caught me picking my nose, a big green one, and he grabbed my wrist and flicked my hand and the booger flew up and hung on the ceiling over my desk. I was never so embarrassed in my life, and I just about hated him. I mean, in a movie they couldn't have done it better. Everybody who was in that class still remembered.

Except Aaron. He was dead.

Oh, my God. What was I going to do without him? I mean, I'm nothing. Two ears, two eyes, nose in the middle of my face. Average looks, average grades, I'm so average it hurts. I'm Jeremy Nobody. But just because Aaron was my friend, that made me somebody.

“… Pinto River's first murder since 1976,” the announcer was saying.

“Good grief,” Mom said, “that was before you were born. Man shot his girlfriend.” She wasn't really talking to me, just remembering. “Turned himself in,” she said, and she went to watch the news with Jamy. I stayed where I was, trying to finish my cereal, listening.

“… youthful victim. Aaron Gingrich, seventeen, a popular student and starting halfback on Pinto River Area High School's championship-winning football team, was found dead in his home yesterday …”

Maybe Dad would give me a call, I thought. He knew Aaron was my best friend. And even if he didn't watch the news he would have heard all about the murder at his hangout, the Tipple Tavern, since the cops all hung there too. Or he'd hear about it at the courthouse where he worked. I hoped he'd call.

“There's Jeremy,” Jamy said. “Hey, Jeremy,” she called, “you're on TV.”

“Shut up!” I guess they were showing the house and the crowd, and I never wanted less to see myself on TV.

The news kept blabbing. Cause of death was “multiple stab wounds to the neck.” Around that point I gave up on my cereal and tried not to listen anymore, but I still heard. They said that Cecily had found Aaron's body. She'd been at a friend's house—“That's us!” Jamy squealed like it made her famous—and, upon returning home, had found her brother lying dead approximately ten feet inside the front door, in the living room. They said Nathan, who had been upstairs sleeping, had come down when he heard his sister screaming, then phoned 911. They said both Cecily and Nathan were in shock and under a doctor's care. The family was in seclusion with relatives. Nothing appeared to be missing from the Gingrich home, and there was no sign of forced entry.

Pinto River had beefed up police patrols, and the school system, due to begin classes next week, was opening its doors early to students in need of help dealing with the tragedy. Trained counselors would be on hand.…

When they started talking about the weather, hot with thunderstorms, Mom came back into the kitchen and poured herself more coffee. “I'm taking off work,” she said, which was something; Mom never took off work. The quarry just about can't run without her. But she said, “I'm worthless today. I'm going to bed. So is Jamy. Jeremy, are you going to try to get some sleep?”

I shook my head. Didn't want to go to bed till I was sure I'd be out like a light, not lying there with Aaron on my mind and wondering if maybe I was next. Anyway, being falling-down tired kind of helped. I couldn't think much or feel much.

Mom stared at me. “What are you doing, then?”

“You're not going to believe this.” Because it was, like, optional.

“What?”

“I'm going to school.”

The high school lobby was crowded and freaky quiet. Mostly kids my age, seniors, and they should have been yelling and tossing Super Balls around and girls should have been prancing and squealing and giggling and guys should have been grinning and punching each other in the shoulder, but they all stood talking softly like old people in church. When I walked in, they even stopped talking. Everybody looked at me. Then a girl named Morgan kind of choked out, “Booger, hi,” and ran to me and hugged me, and all my friends crowded around. Two other girls hugged me. My feelings came back to life, and I hurt bad.

“Hey, Boog.” A couple of the guys reached over to whack my back. I couldn't say anything.

“My mom says you're in the morning paper, man,” one of the guys said. I looked at him, and he explained. “Last known person to see him alive.”

“Great,” I said, “just wonderful,” and I turned away. Wandered to the middle of the lobby and stood there with freaky, quiet talk all around me.

“… couldn't sleep. Like, whoever did it, he's out there somewhere.”

“… my stepfather went out and bought a gun …”

“Who would want to kill Aaron? I mean …”

“… if there was somebody in there and he walked in on them … but why …”

“… got to be a psycho who came in from the interstate or something.”

“… blood all over the place. They say his head was almost cut off.”

“… thinks Nathan did it.”

I went cold. And I guess I wasn't the only one, because there was this frozen silence. Then Morgan added, “I didn't say he did it! I just said my mom thinks he did.”

Some guy growled, “Your mom's a stupid bitch, then.”

“Thank you. I'll tell her you said so.”

A bunch of kids started talking at once, mostly saying Nathan couldn't have done it. Like, it had to be a stranger, not somebody we knew. But one of the guys on the debate team was loudest. “Anyone who thinks Nathan did it ought to be hung by the ears!”

Morgan said, “Everybody's entitled to their opinion. What if Nathan, like, lost it—”

Like listening to a stranger I heard myself say, “For God's sake, Morgan, Aaron was strong as a Mack truck, and Nathan was smaller. Is, I mean. He weighs less. Why would Aaron let him—”

“I don't know!” Morgan glared back at me like she was about to cry. “I don't know what happened, I'm just saying—”

“Why don't you just shut up?” I turned away.

“Hey, Jeremy,” some girl called, “we're going to get some flowers. Want to come?”

It wasn't like I'd walked all the way to school to talk to some shrink. I did it because I wanted to be with my friends and the other kids. So sure, no problem, I went along with a bunch of girls to the farm market and helped pay for about six kinds of flowers and then we all went to Aaron's place. I sat in the middle of the backseat feeling really weird as we drove into my development. The girls were busy making the flowers into a bouquet for each of us. Fine, good, whatever. Girls were good at this kind of thing, and I was not. I wasn't worth a damn at anything. I could have saved Aaron, and I should have, and now he was dead and I didn't know what to do.