The Dead Man in Indian Creek (3 page)

"Just pray it's not another skunk," I yelled from the bank.

Parker glanced at me. His face was pale and he was tugging hard at Otis. "It's no skunk," he whispered, stumbling backward in his haste to get out of the water.

"Well, what is it?" I peered over Parker's shoulder. At first all I saw was a bundle of rags, old clothes or something caught in the roots by the bank. Then I saw a shoe. And a hand sort of waving at me under the water. But the worst part was the face. It looked like a rock, white and bumpy, hair streaming away like weeds, mouth and eyes open, staring right at me.

I think I screamed when I realized what it was. Then Parker and I were dragging Otis away from the dead man, slipping and stumbling as we tried to get out of the creek and up the hill to Fulton Farm Road.

B
Y THE TIME
we reached the road, I was too out of breath to say anything, but it didn't matter because Parker and Otis kept on going like they were planning to run all the way to town. I tried to keep up with them, but after a while I gasped out, "Wait, Parker, wait."

He slowed down and looked back at me. Then he sighed and stood still while I huffed and puffed toward him. My side ached and my legs felt like noodles and I wanted to fling myself down in the weeds and lie there for the rest of the day. But I knew if I closed my eyes I'd see that face looking up at me from under the water.

"What are we going to do?" I asked.

"Tell the police," Parker said. "That guy was
murdered,
I saw the bullet hole in his forehead." He glanced over his shoulder, but the road was empty behind us.

"Murdered?" Every single hair on my whole body shot straight up. If Parker was right, the killer might still be here, hiding in the woods on either side of the road, watching us, pointing his gun, his finger about to squeeze the trigger.

The same thought must have occurred to Parker because he started running, and so did Otis and I.

"Have you ever seen a dead man before?" Parker asked when we slowed down again to rest.

"Just my grandfather," I said, "but he was in a coffin at Grant's Funeral Home with flowers all around him and his eyes closed. You know, just lying there like he was asleep or something." I saw that face under the water with its eyes open and its hair streaming out, and I felt a little sick, like maybe I shouldn't have eaten those Twinkies.

"That's different, though. Seeing a person laid out all formal." Parker shook his head. "This guy looked like something in a movie, didn't he?"

I nodded, thinking of all the dead people I'd seen in movies. "He looked lots worse," I said.

"There was something familiar about him," Parker mused as we jogged along. "I know him from somewhere, I'm sure of it."

"Not me," I said. I was certain the dead man and his killer were strangers passing through, people who'd turned off the Interstate and had nothing to do with my town or me. After all, when was the last time anybody had been murdered in Woodcroft? It wasn't the kind of place where people killed each other. No, whoever the killer was, he'd be a million miles away by now and no danger to me.

"What do you think Evans was doing on the bridge?" Parker asked.

I'd forgotten all about Evans. "What do you mean?"

"Maybe he dumped that guy in the creek."

"You think George Evans killed him?" As much as I was beginning to dislike him, I couldn't imagine Evans murdering somebody. He wasn't the violent type.

"Maybe," Parker said. "You can bet he wasn't on the bridge just to see the sunrise."

"But why would he do it?"

Parker shrugged. By now we were at the edge of town, right at the top of the hill in front of the old Watkins house. Looking down Fulton Farm Road from here, you could see both the Methodist and the Baptist churches and most of Main Street, including the police station and the Olde Mill Antique Shoppe right on the corner of Windsor Road. The town had that early Sunday morning stillness. Too early for church, no stores open, nobody about.

"Are you telling the police we saw Evans?" I asked Parker.

He nodded and called Otis back from the cat he'd spotted on the Watkins' porch. Sprinting ahead of me, Parker and Otis tore down Fulton Farm Road toward the police station. By then I was so tired and my stomach felt so upset from running I didn't care whether he got there first or not. In some ways, I would have liked to go home and leave everything to Parker. Let him talk to the police, let him be interviewed, let him be the hero. I was sick of the whole thing.

***

When I caught up with Parker at the police station, though, he was standing on the steps waiting for me. He looked almost as nervous as I felt.

"What are we going to do with Otis?" I asked Parker, stalling for time. "We can't take him inside and we don't have his leash." I shifted my weight back and forth from one foot to the other and watched Otis sniffing a parking meter.

Parker grabbed Otis by the collar and dragged him through the door. "When they hear what we have to tell them," he said, "they won't make a fuss about a dog."

So even though the sign on the door said, "No Pets," Otis began making himself at home, sniffing and scratching his fleas. The policeman on desk duty was Sergeant Williams, the one who came to school every fall and talked to us about drugs and bicycle safety and stuff like that.

"Can't you kids read?" He put down a Styrofoam coffee cup and scowled at Otis. "Get that dog out of here."

"There's a dead man in Indian Creek," Parker said. His voice came out squeaky and high. "We saw him while we were camping."

"Is this some kind of joke?" Sergeant Williams stood up. His belly hung over his gun belt and he needed a shave. He didn't look nearly as friendly as he did at school.

"Me and my friend were hiking up the creek when we saw him. He's under the bridge on Fulton Farm Road." Parker met Williams's frown head-on, not giving an inch.

The policeman's head swiveled toward me. "You saw the body too?"

I nodded, too scared to say anything. The face was back again, staring at me from its dead eyes, its mouth open, its hair swirling, its hand waving. I could feel my stomach churning and I forced myself to swallow hard. "Don't let me throw up," I prayed silently, "please don't let me throw up."

Williams sighed. "You're sure? It couldn't have just been some old clothes or something?"

Parker shook his head. "It was a dead man," he insisted. "He was in the water, but I saw his face. It was, it was..."

For the first time, Parker faltered. He looked at me, and, despite all my efforts, I threw up my Twinkies, right there in the middle of the police station.

Williams pressed a buzzer under his desk, and a cop in the office behind a glass window opened a door and stuck his head out. "What's up?"

"Get a mop, Scruggs," Williams said. "Then send a car out to Fulton Farm Road. These boys claim there's a dead man in Indian Creek under the bridge."

While Scruggs cleaned up the mess I'd made, Williams took us into an office and got our names and addresses and ages. Then he asked us to tell him exactly where we'd camped and when we'd started walking up the creek and what we'd seen.

"Well, the first thing we saw was Mr. Evans," Parker said.

"Mr. Evans?" Williams paused, pencil poised.

"George Evans. He runs the Olde Mill Antique Shoppe on the corner of Windsor Road." Parker leaned toward the policeman as if he were trying to read what he was writing. "He was on the bridge, just standing there."

"Did he see you?"

"I don't know. We were pretty far away."

"How can you be sure it was him?"

Parker showed Williams his binoculars. "We were searching for a blue heron I've seen on that part of the creek," he said. "Then Otis started barking. I looked up, and I saw Evans on the bridge."

"Otis?"

"My dog." Parker nudged Otis with his foot and the dog thumped the floor with his tail.

Williams sighed. "Then what happened?"

"I pulled Otis back in the bushes with us and Mr. Evans got in his car and drove away. Then we walked on up the creek and Otis ran ahead. He started barking again, and when I caught up with him he had ahold of the dead man's shirt, kind of tugging at it. At first, I thought it was just rags, you know? But then I saw his face."

"And where were you all this time?" Williams looked at me a little reluctantly. He was probably afraid I'd throw up again.

"Armentrout was behind me," Parker answered. "By the time he caught up, I'd pulled Otis off the guy."

"But you did see the body," Williams said to me.

I nodded.

"And you agree it was a dead man."

I nodded again. "Yes, sir," I said.

The policeman tapped his pencil thoughtfully on his desk. "Had you ever seen the man before?"

I shook my head. "No, sir."

"He looked kind of familiar to me," Parker put in.

Before Williams could ask Parker anything else, the door buzzed and another policeman came in. "Can I speak to you in private, sir?" he asked.

Leaving Parker and me sitting by his desk, Sergeant Williams followed the other cop into another office. Through the glass window we watched them talking.

"I wish I could read lips," Parker whispered.

But since we couldn't, we just sat there and waited for Williams to come back. When he did, he wasn't smiling. He sat down and looked at us.

"Well, boys, it looks like you were right. There was a dead man in the creek, just where you said he'd be."

"Who was he?" Parker asked.

Williams shook his head. "No identification." He scratched his nose and gave Parker a speculative look. "Didn't you say he looked familiar to you?"

Parker nodded. "But I don't know why."

Williams stood up. "Well, if you think of anything, come see me." He shook Parker's hand, then mine. "Thanks for reporting the body. If you hadn't seen him, it might have been a while before anybody came across him, now that fishing season's over and deer season hasn't started."

"He was murdered, wasn't he?" Parker asked. "Shot between the eyes, right?"

"That's not for me to say." Williams gave Parker a small card with his name on it and told him again to try to remember where he'd seen the man.

"What about Mr. Evans?" Parker wanted to know. "Are you going to bring him in for questioning?"

Sergeant Williams pulled a pipe out of his desk drawer and busied himself lighting it. As he escorted us out of his office, he said, "Take my advice, Parker Pettengill, and let the police handle this."

O
FFICER
S
CRUGGS,
the same policeman who'd cleaned up the mess I'd made, was waiting for us on the sidewalk outside the station. "Get in the car, boys," he said. "I'll take you home."

Parker, Otis, and I climbed in the backseat of the squad car. It took us a while to get Otis settled; riding in cars always excites him, and I could see Officer Scruggs frowning at us in the rearview mirror. I had a feeling he wasn't too happy about the way his Sunday was going.

"Aren't you going to turn on the siren or the lights?" Parker asked as Scruggs pulled away from the curb.

"This isn't an emergency, sonny." Scruggs didn't even glance at us. He just headed down Main Street toward Windsor Road, looking straight ahead.

"That guy was shot, wasn't he?" Parker leaned forward and gripped the back of Scruggs's seat. "I saw the bullet hole."

"I'm not at liberty to discuss the case with you." Scruggs turned the corner so fast Parker fell back against Otis who said "whuff" loudly enough to merit a look in the rearview mirror.

"Have you ever shot anybody?" Parker asked Scruggs.

The policeman didn't answer, but I could see he was getting mad. Maybe Parker noticed, too, because he pressed his face against the car window and stared at the houses on Windsor Road as if he'd never seen them before. I think he was hoping somebody would notice him in the police car but everybody must have been sleeping or something. The only person we passed was old Miss Perkins. She was walking her little dog Tootsie, and she didn't even look up when Otis banged his muzzle against the window and barked.

When Officer Scruggs pulled up in front of my house, Parker and Otis followed me out of the car. "What kind of gun is that?" Parker was staring at the pistol Scruggs wore. "How many bullets are in it?"

As usual, Scruggs said nothing. Maybe he was the silent type, like Clint Eastwood in those Dirty Harry movies. Or maybe he just didn't like Parker and me.

When Mom opened the door, she looked like she was going to faint right there in front of us. She must have thought we'd been arrested or something, but Officer Scruggs soon set her straight.

After he was sure Mom and Dad understood what had happened, he led Parker and Otis back to his car. It was his duty to talk to Pam, I heard him tell Parker as he opened the rear door and Otis jumped happily inside.

Well, after they left, you can imagine the scene in my house. Mom was crying and hugging me, saying she'd never let me go camping in the woods again, and Dad was trying to blame the whole thing on Parker.

"I always knew that boy would get you into trouble," he kept saying. "He's never been anything but a bad influence on you." Then he was off, remembering every awful thing Parker and I had done since we first met in kindergarden.

"Oh, Donald," Mom finally said, just as Dad was remembering the time Parker dared me to jump off the high dive before I'd learned to swim.

"Matthew could have drowned," Dad said.

"Parker didn't know I couldn't swim," I said, "and, besides, the lifeguard was right there, wasn't he?"

Luckily for me Charity appeared at that moment and demanded to know what was going on. "Did I see a police car out front?" she asked. "Is Matthew going to jail?"

While Charity made a pest of herself trying to get some answers to her questions, Mom and Dad forgot me for a while and argued about my camping equipment and my bike instead. Mom was all for leaving them at Indian Creek forever.

"No one in this family is going anywhere near that place," she said. "Who knows where the murderer is. He could still be lurking about, just waiting to strike again."