Deviant (26 page)

What is he talking about? Danny wondered to himself.

“After last night's vicious attack on our school, I was in despair,” Mr. Lebkuchen continued. “I thought of what we had made here. I thought of what we had lost. Two years ago this place was an empty shell. Look what we have done in so short a time. And now this? All this negative publicity, just when we were on the verge of becoming noticed nationally. Oh, I lamented and I despaired. And then I realized that these thoughts were selfish. I thought about the poor girl Jessie Walker who lost her pet while she and her family were out having fun at the movies, and I prayed, I prayed for her and for her family and I put my trust in God. I put my trust in God and I laid down by the Rivers of Babylon and I wept. And let me tell you, children, I am not someone who believes, as some do, that the age of miracles is past. Oh no. Satan's power is strong, as we have seen, but the power of the Lord is stronger by far. I went to sleep last night and this morning I was awakened by a phone call.

“I picked up the phone and it was Sheriff Rossi. He told me that they had caught the man who had done this terrible crime. They had caught him and he was already in custody. He was a—I am sorry to use these words, children, but I feel I must let you know the truth—crack cocaine addict from Colorado Springs. He had taken drugs and he was high on crack cocaine and methamphetamines. He had been speeding on I-70. He attempted to escape from the police, but thanks to the brave efforts of the men and women in our law-enforcement community he was pulled over near Castle
Rock and arrested. The police found …” Mr. Lebkuchen's voice faltered for a moment. “Sheriff Rossi told me that as well as drugs the State Police found Satanist paraphernalia in his car. Taken into police custody and prompted about the Satanic outrage on our school, he confessed to killing Jessie Walker's cat last night and said that he had been prompted to do it by fellow Satanists over the Internet.

“Students, teachers, and ancillary workers of CJHCS, I cannot tell you how relieved I am that we can put these tragic events behind us. We can put them behind us and move on to a new tomorrow. Yes. A new tomorrow. And so, as I said at the beginning of my remarks, ‘it is not right that in the house of the muses there be lament.'”

Mr. Lebkuchen coughed and grinned again.

“There will be no lament! We will take today off and resume classes on Monday, as if these terrible events had never occurred.”

A murmuring went through the assembly.

“Yes, you heard me correctly. Today will be a holiday! We are in the process of calling your parents right now, and school buses are being laid on to take you home!”

Mr. Lebkuchen nodded to a teacher named Mr. Scott, who began dividing the kids up into those who could walk home and those who needed a bus. Everyone else began talking, and in the spirit of the holiday Mr. Lebkuchen did not instruct anyone to stop them.

“Oh my goodness, that's so awesome. I was almost going to cancel Denver tonight,” Tony said to Danny excitedly.

Danny was still trying to take everything in. They had caught the cat killer? They had a holiday?

“What?” he replied.

“I said it's great news! Now we can go to Denver.”

“Denver?”

“Are you listening to me? I said I was almost gonna cancel Denver tonight,” Tony repeated.

Danny looked clueless, so Tony further explained, “Denver.
The Lion King
. Remember?”

“Oh yeah. Why did you want to cancel?”

“I was almost going to cancel because of the guy you saw, and I didn't want to leave Snowflake in the house by himself.” She coughed, hesitated, and went on. “You know, Dad said that there are still some seats left. Do you want to come? You have to have a suit and tie. We all sort of have to dress up.”

Danny did not have a suit and tie and Juanita hadn't had time to drag him to Mass, otherwise he would have had to get one.

“Uh, no thanks, not exactly my scene,” Danny said with a distaste that was maybe laid on a little too thick.

His reply was not the answer Tony had been expecting. She shook her head. “You know what your problem is, Danny Lopez?”

“I'd love you to tell me,” Danny said.

“You're way too cool for school. You know? You're stuck here with us in Colorado. You're not in Las Vegas anymore. You should join in once in a while.”

I joined your stupid group, I go to your stupid meetings, Danny thought, but before he could say anything Tom punched him quite hard on the shoulder. “We got him,” Tom said, grinning. “We got him.”

“Well,
we
didn't,” Danny said.

“Sure we did. We kept the screws on tight. And we got him. Look, you guys wanna come? I'm going to talk to the reporter, I'll hit him with my theory about the pentagram and all that.”

“Olivia's theory,” Danny said.

“Oh yeah, 'course,” Tom mumbled.

“No, you go,” Tony said.

“OK,” Tom said, and walked off.

Students Danny had never heard talking before were saying hi and chatting and laughing. Everyone's mood was relaxed, relieved, festive, like they'd just been released from ninety days in solitary.

Hector walked over to them. “Hey, Danny. Look, I'm sorry, Tony, I don't think I can come. My mom's been feeling sick this morning and with Dad in Portland, I'm kind of the man of the house,” he said.

“You can't come?” Tony said, disappointed.

“No, I don't think I can,” Hector said.

“Oh, well, I'm sorry about that,” Tony replied.

“I'll still pay for my ticket. The church won't lose any money,” Hector said.

“Oh, don't worry about it, I'm just sorry you're going to miss out.”

Hector offered Danny his hand. “Hey, man, no hard feelings, OK?”

Hard feelings about what? Danny wondered, shaking his hand.

“Yeah, that's the spirit,” Hector replied cheerfully. “Well, I gotta go, guys. See you Monday.”

“I better get my board,” Danny said, and began making his way through the throng of kids heading for the school buses.

He went to his locker, got his skateboard and, as a gesture of defiance, laid it on the floor and skated the corridor.

“Danny Lopez?” a voice said.

“Dammit!” he muttered, turned, and of course it was Mr. Lebkuchen.

“And where do you think you're going, young man?” Mr. Lebkuchen asked.

“Home,” Danny said.

Mr. Lebkuchen shook his head. “You still have detention, young man. Did you forget about that?”

“Detention?” Danny said, but something was happening to Mr. Lebkuchen's face.

It was turning red.

He was suppressing a laugh.

“Ha-ha, don't look so worried. I'm joking! I'm joking. Of course you can go home with everyone else. Have a great weekend. You'll have to make up the detention on Monday morning, though. And no skateboarding on school grounds!”

“Yes sir,” Danny said, not at all amused by Mr. Lebkuchen's attempt at humor but relieved to have gotten off so lightly.

“What did you think of Basho?” Mr. Lebkuchen asked.

“Oh, I've been saving it,” Danny said.

“Excellent. Got me through some hard times when I was younger—not just the poems, but nature itself. Our Americans aren't bad either; you should try Thoreau. In fact, I might put him on the curriculum. Have you read Thoreau?”

“Not really, no.”

“Well, OK, we'll see. All right, off you go, have a good weekend.”

“I will, sir.”

When Danny got outside, Tony was chatting with a girl he didn't know.

“Excuse me,” Danny said to the girls and then, turning to Tony, “Can I talk to you for a second?”

“Sure,” Tony said happily.

He led her to the overhang at the bike sheds.

“What is it?” Tony asked.

“I don't know about all this. It doesn't feel right. This guy they caught, the whole thing … it's too easy,” Danny said.

“He was a druggie. Druggies do stupid things.”

Danny shook his head. “There's more to it than that.”

“Like what?”

“Like … I don't know. Lebkuchen told me he was dying,
for one thing. Does that seem weird to you?” Danny asked, immediately feeling bad about betraying the poor man's trust.

“He said that?”

“Yeah.”

“Lebkuchen's dying?”

“Yeah.”

Tony looked very dubious. “Of what?”

“Cancer, it sounds like.”

“Why did he tell you?”

“Because he likes me. You know what? I shouldn't have said anything. What a jerk I am.”

“We go to the same dentist. I've seen him close-up in the waiting room. He seems fine,” Tony protested.

“Yeah, well, that's what he said.”

“Are you sure he wasn't kidding?”

“Pretty sure.”

“I hope it's nothing contagious. Anyway, what's that got to do with anything?”

Danny shook his head. “I don't know.”

“Tony! Tony!” someone called from across the playground.

“I have to go,” Tony said. “You'll think about the show?”

“Sure.”

“Bye.”

“Bye.”

Tony walked off and Danny carried Sunflower across the yard. As he reached the school gates Charlie intercepted
him. He also was grinning and happy. Clearly the cat thing had been hanging over everyone like a bad spell. “Dan the man,” Charlie said.

“Hey,” Danny said suspiciously.

“You want to come to
The Lion King
? We've got three extra concessions. Todd can't go now; obviously Jessie's not going; and last night Hector tells me he can't come, so we've got the tickets,” Charlie said. “Whaddya say?”

“I don't have a suit … and really, I just don't want to go.”

“Bygones be bygones. Come on, dude. You want laughs? It's got laughs. You want excitement? It's got excitement. You want aloof, interplanetary robot sex? Well, it doesn't have that, actually, but it's pretty good. I saw it on Broadway.”

Danny smiled in a way that he hoped was friendly. “Thanks for the offer, Charlie. Can I get a rain check? Another time, maybe the movies or something, I really would like to.”

“OK, man, I guess I'll see you Monday, OK?”

“OK,” Danny said, and kicked his board hard to get away from all the good-natured people being nice to him.

He was a good ten meters away before he stopped and skated back to Charlie.

“What did you say about Hector?” Danny asked.

“Hector says he can't come,” Charlie said.

“No. You said he told you last night he couldn't come,” Danny said.

Charlie shrugged. “Yeah, he did. Why?”

“He told Tony his mom got sick this morning.”

“Oh yeah? Well, she's eight months pregnant. Maybe she got sick last night and this morning. I don't know. Look, you wanna come? We've got the whole theater. Have you been to Denver yet?”

“No. And thanks, but no.”

“OK. Give me a call if you change your mind. Have you got a pen? Wait, you're just opposite Tony's house? If you change your mind, tell her dad; he's in charge.”

“I will, thanks,” Danny said.

Charlie went over to some of the other kids to try to sell them tickets, and Danny really could have escaped this time but by then Tom was done with the reporter at the gate. He grabbed Danny's arm in that annoying, pawing way of his. “I think I'm going to be in the paper—probably guaranteed it when I told him I was Tom Sloane,
the
Tom Sloane, the governor's son. Gives them an angle. Didn't mention you or Olivia, though. Forgot, sorry,” he said.

You're not the governor's son, you're the lieutenant governor's son—the
ex–
lieutenant governor's son, Danny thought, but kept these reflections to himself.

“So what are you going to do for the rest of the day?” Tom said, grinning.

“I don't know, go home, skateboard, I don't know.”

“You skateboard? Really? Oh yeah, 'course you do. Hey, you should take up snowboarding,” Tom said.

“Everybody says that.”

“You should.”

“Yeah. Maybe. Look, I better go. See ya Monday.”

But both boys just stood there. Both knew there was something more to say. Finally Danny shook his head slowly and muttered, “I don't know.”

“What?” Tom asked.

“I just don't know,” Danny said. “Does this make any sense to you?”

“What? The cat killer?”

“Yeah. The cat killer. A crack addict? Are you kidding me?”

Tom shrugged. “What's wrong with that?”

“How did he hack the database? How did he know who had a cat? A crack addict's not hacking a database.”

“He got help on the Internet. Lebkuchen said that.”

“No, no, that doesn't work for me. And anyway, it's more than that. You're bound to have played Dungeons and Dragons, right?” Danny said.

Tom's cheeks colored. “Uh, not really, just a little bit, I guess. Just a little. I had this twelfth-level Cleric once, could raise the dead, that was pretty cool … and of course in Expedition to the Barrier Peaks—”

“OK,” Danny interrupted. “So you remember the alignments? Good/Evil, Lawful/Chaotic?”

“Yes,” Tom admitted.

“A crack addict is someone who's Chaotic Evil, crazy, off the wall, totally out for themselves. This was not the crime of a crack addict. The person who did all these killings was smart—very smart—cool under pressure … in other words, Lawful Evil.”

“What are you saying? You think they got the wrong guy? He just confessed for no reason?” Tom asked, squinting into the sun and doing his little fidgety dance.

“People confess to things they didn't do all the time,” Danny said.

“Do they?”

“Sure.”