Blackwater (7 page)

I stared at him. “If you stay? You mean forever?”

“Sh!” Alex said.

Someone was in the bathroom next door. I pulled off my jacket and threw it toward the chair. It slid onto the floor. I kicked off my sneakers. If Mom or Dad knew I’d been out, they’d wonder why. They’d think I was moping and be even more worried about me. Oh no! The
flip-flop and the note were in the pocket. Mom would pick up the jacket. She’s a picker upper, always. I was reaching for it when she came in. I stopped in mid stride. She was wearing her blue bathrobe and her hair hung straight and long down her back. “Brodie! You’re dressed already. And Alex, you’re awake too.” She came across, tilted my chin up with her finger. “Your head’s looking pretty good. How does it feel?”

“OK,” I said.

“Mrs. Doc’s coming today, remember? And Raoul too.” She was picking up the jacket, holding it by the collar, shaking it out, heading for the closet. The flip-flop stayed in the pocket but the piece of folded paper fell on the rug.

Before I could move, Alex leaped out of bed and got it.

Mom turned back toward us.

“Well, since you’re both awake, how about breakfast?”

“Great.” Alex’s hand with the paper was motionless behind his back.

“Your dad’s getting up, too.”

As soon as she’d gone, I took the paper from Alex, smoothed it out and set it on the dresser.

“I think I should just give Raoul this and then do what he says.”

Alex laid his hand flat on the paper. “Listen. You needn’t bother telling anybody now that it was your fault. It’s too late. Besides, I’ve been thinking. That person on the other side of the river couldn’t have seen you do anything. You never got out of the water. You were never on the rock. Only somebody on this side could have seen you. And the only one on this side was me. All that other person could have seen was the two of them falling off. That’s all. Relax.” He lifted his hand off the paper. “And anyway, I’m still betting that Otis wrote this. There may be some woman that saw something. But I’m betting on Otis for everything else. He’s getting back at you. And I have an idea. Look at this paper. It would be an easy match if we found the right notebook. And I’m telling you, the first place we should look is in Otis McCandless’ house. We’ll go over there. You can be talking to his mother or something and I’ll get past her and find Otis’ room. I can do it. I’m good at sneaking around, spying, stuff like that. We used to case houses all the time. Shoot, I might even find Otis up in that
room, hiding under the bed.” He punched my arm and I realized that this was a kind of game to Alex. He liked the excitement of it.

I put my face so close to him that I could see the sleep guck in the corners of his eyes. “Get this, Alex. I know you’re trying to help me and you think we’re brothers and all that. But we’re not going to creep into Otis’ house. We’re not. His mother has had enough.” I thought of her this morning on the beach.
Thank you for trying to save my son
, she’d said. I squinched my eyes shut. “So forget about the plan. OK?”

Alex held his hands in front of him. “OK, OK, I’ve forgotten. Stay cool!” I folded the note and slid it under the pile of
Sports Illustrated
s.

Dad came in then and we all went downstairs together. I remembered I hadn’t told Alex about Pauline’s flip-flop. He wouldn’t have cared that much anyway. He never knew her.

Mom was stirring batter for waffles.

“I thought you just opened a frozen package and put them in the toaster,” Alex said. “That’s what I do.”

Mom smiled. “Well, that’s easier and probably just as good. But I’m a creature of habit.”

In the living room Dad was playing back the messages on the answering machine. When I heard a voice I recognized, I stopped pouring juice, the glass only half filled.

“Best from the
Gainsville Gazette
here,” the voice said. “Remember I said I’d be over tomorrow morning to talk to Brodie and Alex? I won’t need to bother them after all.” There were sounds in the background, voices, another phone ringing. “There’s a new lead I have to get to. But I’d like to keep the door open to talk to the boys later, maybe the day after tomorrow. OK?” There was a beep as he hung up.

“Well, the day’s getting better,” Mom said. “I’m glad he’s not coming. But what do you imagine this is about a new lead?”

I managed to fill up the juice glass and set it down without spilling it.

“Oh!” Mom turned, the spatula in her hand. She raised her voice. “David? You don’t think that means that Otis has been found?” She clutched at her chest with her other hand as if she were hurting.

“I think they’d have let us know if it was that,” Dad said. “I’ll give Raoul a call in a minute
and see what’s going on.”

The machine beeped to announce another message. It was Pauline’s dad. I recognized his voice even though it shook and quivered. “Reverend?”

Mom and Alex and I stood in the kitchen, listening in silence.

“I’m sorry to call so late,” Mr. Genero said. “But Pauline’s mom and I, well, we’ve been discussing things and we’d like you to give us a call as soon as you can. We’re still at the hospital. There are matters …” He stopped and I thought I heard a sob. “Oh and thanks for visiting Janice today. The words you said really helped.”

“Poor man,” Mom whispered. “It’s so unbearable for them.”

Alex lined the silverware up carefully on the table.

When Dad came in, he said, “I imagine Paul Genero’s calling about the funeral.” He ran a hand over his face. “It always troubles me the practical things people have to think about when their hearts are breaking.”

The kitchen was warm with the comforting smell of waffles. This morning Mom had sliced
bananas into them, and the waffles were gold colored and crispy and just as perfect as they could be.

I took a bite, tried to swallow, choked. “I can’t.”

“Well, just drink your juice, honey,” Mom said softly, and her hand came across the table and brushed mine.

Today was going to be awful…terrible. I didn’t think I could get through it. I wanted to put my head down on the table and bawl. I watched Alex take another waffle and fill each little square carefully with syrup…. “These are awesome,” he told Mom. “A million times better than the frozen ones.”

Mom smiled. “Thanks, Alex.”

Mrs. Doc came before we’d finished. Mom poured her a cup of coffee, and she said she wouldn’t turn down a banana waffle either. She examined the cut on my head. “I’ll take these stitches out in a couple more days. Have you heard that Mrs. Rand saw everything that happened to Pauline and Otis?” she asked.

Mrs. Rand. I knew who she was. Her son, Trey, used to go to our school. He was older than
John and me. He’d moved to Fresno last year to live with his grandmother and go to some trade school down there.

Mrs. Doc Watson put more sugar into her coffee. “I think those poor families need to talk to anyone who saw anything. It helps them to close the door and get on with their lives.”

“You haven’t heard what she saw?” Alex asked.

“No, but it will get out soon enough. There aren’t any secrets in a small town, Alex.”

There are secrets in this one, I thought.

But Mrs. Doc was right about one thing. We did find out soon enough what Mrs. Rand saw. In Rivertown news travels fast.

It seemed Mrs. Rand had seen Pauline and Otis on the Toadstool. Otis was messing around with the girl. Mrs. Rand said he was in front of her, holding her. Actually, Mrs. Rand thought he might have been trying to unhook the top of her bikini. Not to speak badly about someone who might be dead, but Otis McCandless did have a certain reputation as far as girls were concerned. Everybody knew that. And one of the reasons she and her husband sent Trey away was because of
the bad influence Otis McCandless was having on him. Mrs. Rand said the girl sounded really upset and she was screaming at Otis to leave her alone, and she was struggling, and he slipped and fell backward into the river. He had his arms tight around her by then and she went, too. Mrs. Rand said she heard Pauline scream “Help!” just once. “ ‘Help’ was the last word that young girl screamed. Her last word on this earth. But there was nobody to help her,” Mrs. Rand said. “Nobody at all.”

D
ad decided to go up to the hospital in person to see Pauline’s parents.

“I’ll go too,” Mom told him. “You boys will be OK by yourselves?”

“Sure,” Alex said.

I nodded. I had a lot of thinking and worrying to do. No way could I let Mrs. Rand’s version of the story stay. It was all wrong, putting the blame for the whole thing on Otis…Otis who was dead…maybe.

As soon as they were gone, Alex asked, “Where does this Mrs. Rand live?”

“Why? What are you going to do?”

Alex grinned. “Nothin’. Why do you always think I’m going to do something?”

“Oh, right! That’s pretty dumb of me. I know
you’re not the kind of guy to do anything.”

“I should be going over there to thank her for you,” Alex said. “She sure got you off the hook.”

“I don’t want off this way.”

“What does it matter? Otis is dead.”

“I thought you’d decided he wasn’t?”

“Well, if he isn’t, he’d better not come back to this town. Nobody’s going to welcome him with open arms.”

I went to the window. Birds were lined up, perfectly spaced on the telephone wire. Roses glowed in Mom’s garden.

“Hey,” Alex said. “You’re freaking out again! This is the best thing that ever happened for you. Would you like it more if this Mrs. Rand was running around saying she saw you? Get real, Brodie!”

The birds flared up into the sky, wheeled together like ballet dancers, took off. Their wings were silver underneath. I’d made Otis die and I’d made people dislike him more, too. How could there still be birds? And roses?

Behind me Alex yawned a great gasp of a yawn. “Well, where does she live? I thought I’d book on over there and get in on the excitement.
The newspaper guys will be there. Maybe even TV. Want to come?”

“No.” The thought of people stopping me, talking, telling me what a great thing I’d tried to do yesterday made my stomach turn the way it had at breakfast. Maybe I’d never be able to leave the house again. “She lives over on Strandtown Road. I don’t know which house.”

“I’ll find it. Can I take your bike?”

“OK.”

“They’ll probably get me one if I’m going to stay around, you know. Uncle David and Aunt Jenny I mean.”

“Don’t count on it,” I said.

“You think they wouldn’t buy me one?”

“I think you might not be staying around.”

Alex gave me a sharp look. “Don’t count on that, buddy,” he said.

He left the garage door open after he took off, and I went outside to close it. Bobby Steig was just leaving for work.

“Hi, Brodie!” he called. “I’ll be over tonight. Miser Moore, that’s my manager, sent you a gift certificate for two hero sandwiches. Hero…get it?”

“Yeah.”

Bobby grinned. “I go, ‘Two, Mr. Moore? That’s, like, awfully generous,’ and The Miser goes, ‘He might want to bring a friend.’”

“Well, tell your boss thanks,” I said. A week ago I’d have thought about bringing Pauline—after the movies.

Bobby rubbed his car hood with his elbow. “Paw prints,” he said. “And they’re like glue. I don’t even try to get them off anymore.”

I stood in the sunshine listening to the river. A song was running through my head. Not one of Dad’s lonesome cowboy tunes but an old Beatles song. “Yesterday.” My dad does sing it sometimes, even though it’s not western. It has that sad wail to it.

“Yesterday, all my troubles seemed so far away.”
I’d have to make myself get over this teary stuff every time I thought about what had happened. Tears weren’t going to help.

I went inside. The phone rang, but I let the machine pick it up. Upstairs I lay on my bed, trying to let the quiet soothe me, watching the shadow patterns on the wall. But my mind was like a TV with the picture slipping. One scene
after another, no focus, just sliding and sliding and sliding past my closed eyes. Was it the same person who left the towels yesterday and the note this morning? It had to be. No way was it Mrs. Rand. Could it possibly be Otis, the way Alex thought? I looked across at Alex’s bed. He’d made it carefully before he left, straightened the cover, plumped the pillows. Mom hates beds not made. Alex knows that. Alex is always kissing up to her. That would be his bed from now on, if he got what he wanted. I’d have to share my room, listen to him grinding and gnashing every night for the rest of my life. And worse. He’d always know my secret.

I sat up. Wait a minute. When I’d come up here, after finding the note, Alex was sleeping like a baby. Not a sound from him. Not a gnash or a grind. Strange. I’d never heard him be quiet when he slept. Maybe he’d been awake, and faking it. Why? Could he have been the one who left the note? Easy enough to do. I was gone. Write it. Slip downstairs.

I sat still as a lizard, every muscle tensed.

My ring binder!

I jumped off the bed.

My notebook was there on my desk in plain sight, plastered over with Star Trek stickers. There were pieces of torn paper stuck in a lot of the rings. But I rip stuff out often. I got the “TELL” note from under the pile of magazines and went page by page, trying to match the edges the way Alex had said we should do with Otis. There was no match. I closed the notebook, relieved. Anyway, why would Alex do such a thing? I knew why. So he could be my buddy. So he could be my one true friend. So we could be brothers. So I’d want him to stay. But Alex hadn’t written the note. I didn’t think so. But I’d be watching him.

I lay down on the bed and picked up a magazine. Mom and Dad would be talking to Mr. and Mrs. Genero now, about the funeral. The lines on the magazine ran into each other.

I got up again, got Pauline’s flip-flop from my pocket and carried it downstairs.

The phone rang. My grandmother’s voice on the machine. “I’m just calling to see how Brodie is.” Impossible to pick up that phone and talk to
her. Too hard. Too awful. I’d never be able to tell her. I stood there and I knew there was no use thinking about telling anymore. I wasn’t going to. I’d keep this inside me forever.