Hoot (11 page)

“And they all took off?”

“Yes, sir.” Officer Delinko was trying to be as professional as possible. Perhaps someday he would apply to become an FBI agent, and Mr. Eberhardt could put in a good word for him.

“And how many bicycles?” Mr. Eberhardt was asking.

“Just one. It's in the car if you want to take a look.”

Roy's parents followed the policeman out to the driveway, where he opened the Crown Victoria's trunk.

“See?” Officer Delinko motioned toward the stolen bicycle, which was a blue beach-cruiser model.

“I don't recognize it,” said Mr. Eberhardt. “How about you, Lizzy?”

Roy's mother swallowed hard. It looked like the same bike ridden by Roy's new friend, Beatrice, when she'd accompanied him home from school.

Before Mrs. Eberhardt could collect her thoughts, Officer Delinko said, “Oh, I almost forgot. How about this?” He reached into a pocket and took out what appeared to be a torn-off shirt sleeve.

“You found that with the bicycle?” Mr. Eberhardt asked.

“Nearby.” Officer Delinko was fudging a little bit. The construction site actually was several blocks from where he'd spotted the kids.

“Does it look familiar?” he asked the Eberhardts, holding up the ragged strip of fabric.

“Not to me,” Roy's father replied. “Lizzy?”

Mrs. Eberhardt appeared relieved. “Well, it's definitely not Roy's,” she informed Officer Delinko. “He doesn't own any green clothes.”

“What color shirt was the boy wearing when he ran off?” Mr. Eberhardt asked.

“I couldn't tell,” the patrolman admitted. “He was too far away.”

They heard the phone ring, and Roy's mother hurried inside to answer it.

Officer Delinko leaned closer to Roy's father and said: “I apologize for bothering you folks with this.”

“Like you were saying, it's all part of the job.” Mr. Eberhardt remained polite, even though he knew the policeman wasn't telling him everything about the green rag.

“Speaking of jobs,” Officer Delinko said, “you remember the other night when I brought Roy home with his flat tire?”

“Of course.”

“In all that nasty weather.”

“Yes, I remember,” said Mr. Eberhardt impatiently.

“Did he happen to mention anything about you writing up a letter for me?”

“What kind of a letter?”

“To our police chief,” Officer Delinko said. “No biggie—just a note for the permanent file, saying you folks appreciated me helping out your boy. Something along those lines.”

“And this ‘note' should be sent to the chief?”

“Or to the captain. Even my sergeant would be okay. Roy didn't ask you?”

“Not that I recall,” said Mr. Eberhardt.

“Well, you know how kids are. He probably forgot.”

“What's your sergeant's name? I'll see what I can do.” Roy's father made no effort to conceal his lack of enthusiasm. He was running out of tolerance for the pushy young cop.

“Thanks a million,” Officer Delinko said, pumping Mr. Eberhardt's hand. “Every little bit helps when you're trying to get ahead. And something like this, coming from a federal agent such as yourself—”

But he didn't get the chance to give his sergeant's name to Mr. Eberhardt, for at that very moment Mrs. Eberhardt burst out the front door carrying a purse in one hand and a jangling set of car keys in the other.

“Lizzy, what's the matter?” Mr. Eberhardt called out. “Who was that on the phone?”

“The emergency room!” she cried breathlessly. “Roy's been hurt!”

TWELVE

Roy was exhausted. It seemed like a hundred years ago that Dana Matherson had tried to strangle him inside the janitor's closet, but it had happened only that afternoon.

“Thanks. Now we're even,” Beatrice Leep said.

“Maybe,” said Roy.

They were waiting in the emergency room of the Coconut Cove Medical Center, which was more of a large clinic than a hospital. It was here they'd brought Beatrice's stepbrother after carrying him upright for almost a mile, each of them bracing one of his shoulders.

“He's going to be all right,” Roy said.

For a moment, he thought Beatrice was about to cry. He reached over and squeezed her hand, which was noticeably larger than his own.

“He's a tough little cockroach,” Beatrice said with a sniffle. “He'll be okay.”

A woman dressed in baby-blue scrubs and wearing a stethoscope approached them. She introduced herself as Dr. Gonzalez.

“Tell me exactly what happened to Roy,” she said.

Beatrice and the real Roy exchanged anxious glances. Her stepbrother had forbidden them from giving his name to the hospital, for fear that his mother would be notified. The boy got so agitated that Roy hadn't argued. When the emergency room clerk asked Beatrice for her stepbrother's name, address, and phone number, Roy impulsively had stepped forward and blurted his own. It had seemed like the quickest way to get Mullet Fingers into a hospital bed.

Roy knew he was also getting himself in trouble. Beatrice Leep knew it, too. That's why she had thanked him.

“My brother got bit by a dog,” she told Dr. Gonzalez.

“Several,” Roy added.

“What kind of dogs?” the doctor asked.

“Big ones.”

“How did it happen?”

Here Roy let Beatrice take over the story, as she was more experienced at fibbing to adults.

“They nailed him at soccer practice,” she said. “He came runnin' home all chewed up, so we brought him here as fast as we could.”

“Hmm,” said Dr. Gonzalez with a slight frown.

“What—don't you believe me?” Beatrice's indignation sounded genuine. Roy was impressed.

But the doctor was a cool one, too. “Oh, I believe your stepbrother was attacked by dogs,” she said. “I just don't believe it happened today.”

Beatrice stiffened. Roy knew he had to come up with something, fast.

“The wounds on his arm aren't fresh,” Dr. Gonzalez explained. “Judging by how far the infection has progressed, I'd estimate he was bitten eighteen to twenty-four hours ago.”

Beatrice looked flustered. Roy didn't wait for her to recover.

“Yeah, eighteen hours. That sounds about right,” he said to the doctor.

“I don't understand.”

“See, he passed out right after he got bit,” Roy said. “It wasn't until the next day he finally woke up, and that's when he came running home. Then Beatrice called me and asked if I'd help get him to the hospital.”

Dr. Gonzalez fixed Roy with a stern gaze, though there was an edge of amusement in her voice.

“What's your name, son?”

Roy gulped. She'd caught him off guard.

“Tex,” he answered weakly.

Beatrice nudged him with her elbow, as if to say: That's the best you can do?

The doctor crossed her arms. “So,
Tex,
let's get this straight. Your friend Roy is mauled at the soccer field by several huge dogs. Nobody tries to help him, and he remains unconscious all night and most of the next day. All of a sudden he wakes up and jogs home. Is that right?”

“Yup.” Roy bowed his head. He was a pathetic liar, and he knew it.

Dr. Gonzalez turned her steely attention to Beatrice. “Why was it left for you to bring your stepbrother here? Where are your parents?”

“Working,” Beatrice replied.

“Didn't you call and tell them there was a medical emergency?”

“They crew on a crab boat. No phone.”

Not bad, Roy thought. The doctor, however, wasn't buying it.

“It's hard to understand,” she said to Beatrice, “how your stepbrother could go missing for so long and nobody in the family got concerned enough to call the police.”

“Sometimes he runs away from home,” Beatrice said quietly, “and he doesn't come back for a while.”

It was the closest thing to a true answer that she'd given and, ironically, it was the one that made Dr. Gonzalez back off.

“I'm going to go check on Roy now,” she told them. “In the meantime, you two might want to polish up your story.”

“How's he doing, anyway?” Beatrice asked.

“Better. He got a tetanus shot, and now we're loading him with antibiotics and pain medication. It's strong stuff, so he's pretty sleepy.”

“Can we see him?”

“Not right now.”

As soon as the doctor had gone, Roy and Beatrice hurried outside, where it was safer to talk. Roy sat down on the steps of the emergency room; Beatrice remained standing.

“This isn't gonna work, cowgirl. Once they figure out he's not you ...”

“It's a problem,” Roy agreed: the understatement of the year.

“And if Lonna hears about this, you know he'll end up in juvie detention,” Beatrice said gloomily, “until she finds a new military school. Probably someplace far-off, like Guam, where he can't run away.”

Roy didn't understand how a mother could kick her own child out of her life, but he knew such tragic things occurred. He'd heard of fathers who acted the same way. It was depressing to think about.

“We'll come up with something,” he promised Beatrice.

“Know what, Tex? You're okay.” She pinched his cheek and went bounding down the steps.

“Hey, where you going?” he called after her.

“Fix dinner for my dad. I do it every night.”

“You're kidding, right? You're not really leaving me here alone.”

“Sorry,” Beatrice said. “Dad'll freak if I don't show up. He can't make toast without burning off his fingertips.”

“Couldn't Lonna cook his dinner this one time?”

“Nope. She tends bar at the Elk's Lodge.” Beatrice gave Roy a brisk little wave. “I'll be back as soon as I can. Don't let 'em operate or nuthin' on my brother.”

“Wait!” Roy jumped to his feet. “Tell me his realname. It's the least you can do, after everything that's happened.”

“Sorry, cowgirl, but I can't. I made him a blood promise a long time ago.”

“Please?”

“If he wants you to know,” Beatrice said, “he'll tell you himself.” Then she ran off, her footsteps fading into the night.

Roy trudged back into the emergency room. He knew his mother would be getting worried, so he asked the desk clerk if he could borrow the phone. It rang a half dozen times on the other end before the Eberhardts' answering machine picked up. Roy left a message saying he'd be home as soon as he and Beatrice finished cleaning up the mess from the science project.

Alone in the waiting area, Roy dug through a stack of magazines until he found an issue of
Outdoor Life
that had an article about fishing for cutthroat trout in the Rocky Mountains. The best thing about the story was the photographs—anglers wading knee-deep in blue Western rivers lined with tall cottonwoods, rows of snowy mountain crags visible in the distance.

Roy was feeling pretty homesick for Montana when he heard the approach of a siren outside. He decided it was an excellent time to go find a Coke machine, even though he only had two dimes in his pocket.

The truth was, Roy didn't want to be in the emergency room to see what the siren was all about. He wasn't prepared to see them wheel in somebody who'd been injured in a serious wreck, somebody who might even be dying.

Other kids could be really curious about that gory stuff, but not Roy. Once, when he was seven years old and his family lived near Milwaukee, a drunken hunter drove a snowmobile full-speed into an old birch tree. The accident happened only a hundred yards from a slope where Roy and his father were sledding.

Mr. Eberhardt had run up the hill to try to help, with Roy huffing close behind. When they'd reached the tree, they realized there was nothing they could do. The dead man was soaked with blood and twisted at odd angles, like a broken G.I. Joe doll. Roy knew he would never forget what he saw, and he never wanted to see anything like it again.

Consequently, he had no intention of hanging around the emergency room for the arrival of a new emergency. He slipped through a side door and wandered through the hospital for about fifteen minutes until a nurse intercepted him.

“I think I'm lost,” Roy said, doing his best to appear confused.

“You most definitely are.”

The nurse steered him down a back corridor to the emergency room, where Roy was relieved to find no chaos or carnage. The place was as quiet as he'd left it.

Puzzled, Roy went to the window and checked outside. There was no ambulance in the delivery zone, only a Coconut Cove police cruiser. Maybe it was nothing, he thought, and returned to his magazine.

Soon afterward, Roy heard voices from behind the double doors that led to the area where Mullet Fingers was being treated. A loud discussion was taking place in the patient ward, and Roy strained to make out what was being said.

One voice in particular rose above the rest, and Roy was distressed to recognize it. He sat there in nervous misery, trying to decide what to do next. Then he heard another familiar voice, and he knew there was only one choice.

He walked to the double doors and pushed them open.

“Hey, Mom! Dad!” he shouted. “I'm right here!”

 

Officer Delinko had insisted on giving the Eberhardts a ride to the hospital. It was the decent thing to do—and also a prime opportunity to score points with Roy's father.

The patrolman hoped that Mr. Eberhardt's son wasn't involved in the continuing mischief at the pancake-house construction site. What a sticky situation that would be!

On the drive to the hospital, Roy's parents sat in the backseat and spoke quietly between themselves. His mother said she couldn't imagine how Roy had got bitten by a dog while he was working on a science project. “Maybe it had something to do with all that hamburger meat,” she speculated.

“Hamburger?” said Roy's father. “What kind of school project uses hamburger?”

In the rearview mirror, Officer Delinko could see Mr. Eberhardt put an arm around his wife's shoulders. Her eyes were moist and she was biting her lower lip. Mr. Eberhardt appeared as tightly wound as a clock spring.

When they got to the emergency room, the desk clerk declared that Roy was sleeping and couldn't be disturbed. The Eberhardts tried to reason with him but the clerk wouldn't budge.

“We're his parents,” Mr. Eberhardt said evenly, “and we intend to see him right away.”

“Sir, don't make me call a supervisor.”

“I don't care if you call the Wizard of Oz,” said Mr. Eberhardt. “We're going in.”

The clerk trailed them through the swinging double doors. “You can't do this!” he objected, scooting ahead of the Eberhardts and blocking the hallway to the patient ward.

Officer Delinko edged forward, assuming that the sight of a police uniform would soften the fellow's attitude. He was mistaken.

“Absolutely no visitors. It says right here on the doctor's notes.” The clerk solemnly waved a clipboard. “I'm afraid you'll have to go back to the waiting room. That means you, too, Officer.”

Officer Delinko shrank away. Not the Eberhardts.

“Listen, that's our son lying in there,” Roy's mother reminded the clerk. “
You
called
us,
remember? You told us to come!”

“Yes, and you may see Roy as soon as the doctor says it's allowed.”

“Then page the doctor.
Now.
” Mr. Eberhardt's tone of voice remained level, but the volume had gotten much louder. “Pick up the phone and dial. If you've forgotten how, we'll be happy to show you.”

“The doctor's on a break. She'll be back in twenty-five minutes,” the clerk said tersely.

“Then she can find us right here,” Mr. Eberhardt said, “visiting our injured son. Now, if you don't move out of the way, I'm going to drop-kick you all the way to Chokoloskee. Understand?”

The clerk went pale. “I'm r-r-reporting you to my s-s-su-supervisor.”

“That's a dandy idea.” Mr. Eberhardt brushed past and started down the hall, guiding his wife by the elbow.

“Hold it right there!” snapped a firm female voice behind them.

The Eberhardts stopped and turned. Emerging from a door marked
STAFF ONLY
was a woman wearing baby-blue scrubs and a stethoscope.

“I'm Dr. Gonzalez. Where do you think you're going?”

“To see our son,” replied Mrs. Eberhardt.

“I tried to stop them,” the desk clerk piped up.

“You're Roy's parents?” the doctor asked the Eberhardts.

“We are.” Roy's father noticed Dr. Gonzalez eyeing them with an odd curiosity.

“Pardon me if this is out of line,” she said, “but you sure don't look like you work on a crab boat.”

“What on earth are you talking about?” Roy's mother said. “Is everybody at this hospital a total wacko?”

“There must be some mistake,” Officer Delinko interjected. “Mr. Eberhardt is a federal law-enforcement agent.”

Dr. Gonzalez sighed. “We'll sort this out later. Come on, let's go peek in on your boy.”

The emergency-patient ward had six beds, five of which were unoccupied. The sixth bed had a white privacy curtain drawn around it.

“We've got him on I.V. antibiotics and he's doing pretty well,” Dr. Gonzalez said in a low voice, “but unless we find those dogs, he'll need a series of rabies injections. Those are no fun.”