Chain Letter (3 page)

“Why didn’t you invite Alison to this discussion?” Kipp asked. “She wanted to come.”

“Did she?”

“Brenda told me she did. And Brenda never lies, usually.”

“Brenda’s your girlfriend,” Tony said. “Why isn’t she here?”

“She says she’s not scared, but I’m not sure I believe her. I didn’t want us to have
to have a hysterical female’s opinion to deal with.”

“Alison said Fran was the one who was most upset.”

“You don’t know Fran, she’s always upset. She wouldn’t even give Brenda the original
letter for us to study.” Kipp leaned forward and pulled a folded sheet of notebook
paper from his back pocket. “Brenda copied it down word-for-word. Do you want to read
it?”

“Alison repeated it to me twice on the phone. But let Neil read it. Then destroy it.
I don’t want copies of that blasted thing floating all over the place.”

Kipp nodded. “So answer my question: Why not have Alison here?”

Tony shrugged. “At this point, what does she know that we don’t?”

Kipp snorted. “Her liking you is no reason to be afraid of her. Look, you have no
excuse to suffer the usual adolescent insecurities over creatures of the opposite
sex. You’re built like an ox, have apple pie in your blond hair, and the flag in your
blue eyes. You’re as All-American as they make them.”

“How do you know she likes . . . oh, yeah, because Brenda told you and Brenda doesn’t
lie.” Tony scratched his All-American head and tried to look bored. Actually, he always
felt both elated and annoyed whenever he heard of Alison’s interest in him: elated
because he was attracted to her, annoyed because she was fascinated with someone who
didn’t exist. She saw only his image, the guy who could throw the perfect spiral to
the perfect spot at the perfect time. If she were to get to know the real Tony Hunt—that
shallow insecure jerk—she would be in for an awful disappointment. Besides, Neil had
a crush on Alison and he never messed with his friends’ girls. Indeed, Neil had asked
Alison out a couple of weeks ago. She had turned him down but only because she was
busy with drama rehearsals. He would have to get on Neil to try again.

“This is not the time to worry about starting a romance,” Tony added, glancing out
the window and seeing Neil Hurly limping—he had a bum knee—his way around the touch
football game, his shaggy brown hair bouncing against his old black leather jacket,
which he wore no matter what the temperature.
Neil was four years out of the back hills of Arkansas and still spoke in such a soft
drawl that one could fall asleep listening to him. They had met the first week of
their freshman year, sharing adjoining home room lockers. Tony had started the relationship;
Neil had been even more shy then than he was now. What had attracted him to the guy
had been clear to Tony from the start: Neil’s rare country boy combination of total
honesty and natural sensitivity. Usually kids who spoke their minds didn’t give a
damn, and those who did care deeply about things inevitably became neurotic and clammed
up. Neil was a gem.

“Come right in, the folks are out!” Tony called. Neil waved and disappeared under
the edge of the garage. A minute later he was opening the bedroom door.

“Hello Tony, hello Kipp,” he said pleasantly, hesitating in the doorway. On the short
side and definitely underweight, with features as soft as his personality, he was
not a striking figure. Still, his eyes, a clear warm green, and his smile, innocent
and kind, gave him a unique charm. If only he’d get a decent haircut and some new
clothes, he would be more popular.

“Pull up a chair,” Tony said, nodding to a stool in the corner. “Kipp, give him Brenda’s
copy of the letter.”

“Thank you,” Neil said, taking a seat and accepting the notebook page from Kipp. Tony
studied Neil’s face as he read the Caretaker’s orders. Neil was not as bright as Kipp
but he had an instinct for people Tony had learned to trust. He
was disappointed when Neil did not dismiss the letter with a chuckle.

“Well?” Kipp said, growing impatient.

Neil carefully refolded the paper and handed it back to Kipp. His pale complexion
seemed whiter than a couple of minutes ago. “The person who wrote this is seriously
disturbed,” he said.

Tony forced a smile. “Come on. It’s a prank, don’t you think?”

“No,” Neil said carefully. “It sounds . . . dangerous.”

Tony took a deep breath, holding it like it was his slipping hope, knowing he would
have to let go of both soon. He turned to Kipp. “You’re the scientist. Give us the
logical perspective.”

Kipp stood—perhaps for dramatic effect, he loved an audience—and began to pace between
the door and the bed. Almost as tall as Tony but thirty pounds lighter and hopelessly
uncoordinated, he moved like a giraffe. “I disagree with Neil,” he said. “I think
it’s a joke. That’s the simplest explanation and it does away with us having to search
for a motive. What probably happened is that one day one of the girls was feeling
particularly guilty and blabbed about the accident to a friend, who in turn told God
knows who about it. Somewhere along the line, the information got to someone with
a kinky sense of humor.”

“Alison was very firm that none of them had spoken about the accident to anyone outside
the group,” Tony said. “Unless Joan did, which seems unlikely.”

“Naturally they would deny it,” Kipp said. “Girls can’t be
trusted, and here I’m not excluding Brenda.” He paused, leaning against the bookcase,
thinking. “Or maybe they blabbed about it accidentally . . . Say Fran was talking
to Alison in the library about last summer and they didn’t know they were being overheard.”

“Have either of you ever discussed the accident in public?” Tony asked.

“Are you kidding?” Kipp said.

“I would be afraid to,” Neil said, glancing at the closed door. “I feel bad talking
about it now.”

“I know what you mean,” Tony said. “I’m sure the girls feel the same way. I can’t
imagine them gossiping about it with even the slightest chance of being overheard.”

“Then let’s return to one of them doing it intentionally,” Kipp said. “That medieval
urge to go to Confession could be at work here. One of the girls must have felt they
had to unburden themselves on someone unconnected with the deed.”

“I can’t help noticing how you keep blaming the girls,” Tony said. “Do you have one
in particular in mind?”

“Fran,” Kipp answered without hesitation. “She’s high-strung; she speaks without thinking.
She could have told anybody. I think a couple of us should take her aside and squeeze
the truth out of her.”

“But even if she were to admit to telling someone,” Tony said. “That doesn’t mean
that
someone
wrote this letter. Like you said, the information could have passed through several
hands.”

“We can only hope it hasn’t gone outside a tiny circle of people,” Kipp said.

“And what if this Caretaker is not joking?” Tony said. “What if he or she really would
try to hurt us?”

He had not expected an answer to that question and he didn’t get one. A minute passed
in silence, during which Tony had a vivid mental image of the expression on his parents’
faces if the truth were to come out, their shock and disappointment. More than the
others, he had been to blame. Certainly a judge would see it that way. He might be
sent to jail, and if the family of the man came forth, his parents would probably
be saddled with a heavy lawsuit. College would have to be put on the shelf for years,
and his record and image would be permanently ruined. Above all else, the incident
could not be made public knowledge.

“We’ll question Fran,” Tony said finally. “But we’ll let Brenda and Alison do it,
and no one’s going to
squeeze
her. And I don’t think we should count on a confession. Let’s look at other alternatives.
What do you say, Neil?”

Neil appeared momentarily startled by the question, as if he had been lost in his
own thoughts and had not been listening to the discussion. He fidgeted on his stool,
said hesitantly, “I think the Caretaker might be one of us.”

“You mean that one of us is playing a joke on the rest?” Kipp asked.

“Not necessarily.”

“I don’t understand,” Tony said, not sure he wanted to.

“Someone in the group might be out to hurt someone else in the group,” Neil said.
“Or maybe everyone in the group. The Caretaker could be right in front of us.”

“That’s ridiculous,” Kipp snapped. “What would be their motive? They would only be
hurting themselves by revealing the incident.”

Neil reached out his hand, indicating he wanted another look at the letter. Kipp was
quick to oblige him. Neil read it at least twice more before speaking. “The way this
is worded—the paragraph structure and all—the Caretaker seems to be separating the
revelation of the accident from the manner in which he would hurt us. He could hurt
us without telling a soul about the man.”

“How?” Tony asked.

Neil shrugged. “There’s hundreds of ways to hurt someone if you really want to.”

“But who in our group would have the motive to do so?” Kipp asked, dismissing the
possibility with his tone.

Neil gave a wry smile. “A crazy person wouldn’t need a motive.”

“It’s illogical,” Kipp said. “None of us fits the psychological profile. Now I say
we—”

“Just a second,” Tony interrupted. “The theory simplifies things in a way. We wouldn’t
have to explain how someone else came to learn about the man. Who do you think it
could be, Neil?”

“I can’t say.”

Kipp went to speak but changed his mind. There followed another lengthy pause. In
many ways, Neil’s suggestion was the most disturbing; it was always worse to be stabbed
in the back by a friend. Yet, try as he might, Tony could think of no one in the group
who could write such a letter. On the other hand, he scarcely knew Alison and Fran,
or for that matter, Joan and Brenda. He needed more information and wondered how he
could go about getting it. He also wondered why Kipp was so anxious to dismiss Neil’s
suggestion.

The warm orange light slipped off Tony’s face as the sun sunk below the city’s false
horizon of smog. In spite of the fact that he was sweating, he shivered. The day would
be gone soon and they still had no clear idea what to do about tomorrow.

“Fran is frightened,” he said. “If she doesn’t confess, let’s have her repaint the
mascot tomorrow night and then pass the letter on. This will give us a breathing space
to find more clues. You don’t mind if the Caretaker comes after you, do you, Kipp?”

“As long as it’s like Neil thinks, that he or she won’t retaliate against me for not
doing my duty by spreading the word about last summer.” Kipp took the letter back
and reread it closely. “Hmm, yes, it does seem that the phrase, ‘You will be hurt,’
is pointed toward the individual while the other threat is there to keep the group
as a whole from seeking outside help.”

“It’s like we’re in a haunted house we can’t leave,” Neil said.

A haunted house we’re afraid to leave
, Tony thought. They
could end their dilemma this minute by going to the police. But the threat of harm
seemed preferable to certain disgrace.

The phone rang. All three of them jumped. Boy, they made lousy heroes. Tony leaned
over and picked it up. “Hello?”

“What is this crap about the hourglass and our sins?” Joan demanded in her throaty
voice. In spite of the situation, Tony had to smile. Every high school needed a Joan
Zuchlensky. She separated the jerks from the phonies from the wimps. She was gorgeously
gross; her angelic face let her get away with her crude personality—at least as far
as the guys were concerned; she didn’t have many girlfriends. And her coarseness just
made her all the more attractive. Her eyes were a darting gray, her lips thick and
sexy, her hair a taunting platinum punk-cropped masterpiece. More than anything, she
looked nasty, and Tony could attest to the fact that the package could live up to
its wrapping. He had gone out with her a few times with the excuse that she was “an
interesting person,” but in reality to see if he couldn’t further his sex education.
Their last date, they had gotten into some heavy fooling around. If he hadn’t started
rehashing in his mind all the sound advice he’d read online, frustrating Joan in the
extreme, they would certainly have gone all the way. There was always next time. . . .

“I take it you heard the news,” Tony said.

“Yeah, Brenda told me all about it.” She paused and lowered her voice, and perhaps
a trace of anxiety entered her tone. “What are we going to do?”

“Fran will repaint the mascot, then we’re going to see if the ax falls on Kipp.”

“Why don’t we go after the guy?”

“As soon as we figure out who it is, we will.” What they would do with the person
if they did find him was a question Joan thankfully didn’t ask.

“As long as that mess in the desert stays secret. You know my old man’s a cop? I swear,
he’d have me locked up if he found out.”

“If the truth did come out, we could just deny it,” Tony said. That was not really
as simple as it sounded. If they were questioned by the police, their guilt, especially
Fran’s and Neil’s, would be easy to read. And the Caretaker might very well know where
they had buried the body.

Joan laughed. “And here I was getting so bored with these last few weeks of school!
It looks like they’re going to be wild.” She added, “Hey, I’ve got to go. Let’s talk
tomorrow at lunch. And let’s get together some other time, huh?”

“Sure.” Lust was not at the forefront of his mind. Whoever had said danger was an
aphrodisiac had said so in safe surroundings.

They exchanged good-byes, and Tony turned back to his companions. Kipp was meticulously
shredding his copy of the chain letter. Neil was massaging his right leg just beneath
the knee. He had injured the leg in P. E. a couple of months back and was supposed
to have arthroscopic surgery on the cartilage
sometime soon. Neil was having a lot of health problems. He had recently been diagnosed
as diabetic. He had to inject himself with insulin daily and had to monitor his diet
religiously. He said it was a hassle but no big deal.