Blood Trail (6 page)

I didn't want to talk anymore, so I pretended I was reading. I scanned a few articles. There was an editorial about how Nathan had no criminal record and no history of mental illness and did okay in school and distinguished himself on the debate team and belonged to a nice middle-class churchgoing family, the point being that kids like me who slept in on Sunday morning looked more like a murderer than Nathan did, I guess.

Then there was an article where some guy tried to say what had happened in the Gingrich house. He said Aaron had put his bike away, then he'd no sooner walked in the door from the garage than he had come up against the killer with the knife. Then, according to the blood trail, Aaron had run to the front door, where he got stabbed some more trying to get out, and then he'd headed toward his room but he didn't make it, and then … I couldn't read about it anymore.

I switched over to another article, this one about techniques of criminal investigation and all the gadgets the Pinto River detectives had borrowed from the state police and how the black light machine could see blood even after it was wiped up. Blood could never be totally washed away, it said. Even if you scrubbed it with bleach, even if you painted over it, even after years went by, there would always be some stain, some trace of a blood trail.

I pushed the newspaper away. Mom got up for her second cup of coffee and plugged the phone back in.

It rang.

“Let the answering machine pick up,” Mom said.

We both sat there listening to the phone ring. Three rings, four. Jamy bawled down in a sleepy voice, “Would somebody
get
it?”

The machine got it, and it was a woman this time, her voice like poison. “I just want you people to know you deserve to die like that boy did. As if it ain't bad enough without you spreading lies—”

I said, “Yank it again, Mom.”

She shook her head. “The stupid woman's putting herself on tape for the police. And I do intend to call the police. We don't have to put up with this.” She said to the phone, “Keep talking, honey.”

I stood up and headed outside to get away Bad move. The minute I closed the door behind me, old Mrs. Ledbetter across the street popped out, waved, and yodeled, “Yoo-hoo, Jeremy!” I figured she wanted me to do something for her, because the only time she usually yoo-hooed me was if she wanted me to mow her lawn or whatever. I sighed, waved back, and trudged on over there.

She walked down her lawn to meet me, short and round and dressed brighter than her petunias in candy pink polyester with pink sneakers to match. “Jeremy,” she asked when I got close enough to talk to, “how are you doing?”

“Um, okay.” I was kind of surprised, because she never usually cared how I was doing. I looked at her, and she looked back at me with pale old eyes kind of naked between lids without any eyelashes.

“I realize you and Aaron were good friends,” she said.

I wondered whether she knew Aaron used to say she looked like an Easter egg. She was trying to be nice, I could tell, but I didn't want to talk. I just nodded.

“Have the police told you anything?” she asked.

Oh. Okay. Maybe Mrs. Ledbetter had feelings about what had happened but she was still basically functioning as a database, Pinto River Info Central. I shook my head and started to turn away, but she put out one of her little round paws to stop me.

“Jeremy,” she told me, “I know you're a nice boy, but some people just don't think. Have they been giving you a hard time?”

“Um, gotta go, Mrs. Ledbetter,” I muttered.

I U-turned back into the house.

Once I got the front door locked behind me I just leaned against it and closed my eyes. Mrs. Ledbetter meant to be my friend, but in my mind I could hear her on the phone right this minute, telling her buddies that she saw Jeremy Davis and he wouldn't talk and he looked awful, all upset. And they would call people they knew and tell them—what? That they heard Jeremy Davis wouldn't talk? By the time it got around town, some of them would be saying I had something to hide. Jeremy Davis looked awful? What's that mean? Grieving? Or guilty?

By the time they got done, some of them would be saying I killed Aaron myself.

Damn phones anyway. Mom was on ours talking with the cops about the threatening calls. When she was finished, and when I was sure she was in the bathroom and she wouldn't hear me, I called my father.

But he wasn't home. Story of my life. I left a message on his answering machine: “Dad, hi, this is Jeremy. Would you do me a favor? I want you to get me a gun.”

chapter eight

“Hold your head up, son,” Mom told me softly as we walked to the church door for Aaron's funeral.

Easier said than done, when I'd been getting hate calls for three days. When people who didn't even know me were saying I was a lying bastard lower than dog doo. When I was wearing a suit and I felt dressed up like a circus monkey. When there were news photographers climbing the trees to snap pictures of me. When even the stony old mountains seemed to be watching me. But screw all that. I did what Mom said. I yanked my eyes off the pavement and looked around as we reached the end of the line waiting to go in.

People looked at me, then looked away like they didn't know what to do or say. Three guys from the football team walked over to me and muttered, “Hi, Booger,” then stood beside me looking the same way.

A few people glared. “Dirty liar,” taunted a girl's voice from the crowd.

“None of that, miss,” growled one of the cops at the door. There were uniformed police everywhere. Crowd control, I guess. School had started today, but seniors had the day off to attend Aaron's funeral. Nearly everybody in my class was there, and it seemed like nearly everybody in Pinto River was there, too. To show sympathy for the family? Or to gawk at them and at me?

The guys from the team kind of drifted away.

“… should be ashamed to show his face,” muttered a man's voice in the crowd.

“In this country it's innocent until proved guilty,” said some woman quietly, and I couldn't tell whether she was talking about me or Nathan.

That was what really freaked me. Most people, the ones keeping their distance, I couldn't tell what they were really thinking. Like, were they just embarrassed? Or trying to stay in good with the Gingriches? Or did they really despise me? All around me and especially behind me I heard people mumbling to each other—about me?

I felt a big warm hand on my shoulder, turned around, and there was Coach from school. “Jeremy,” he said, “how you doing, son?”

All of a sudden I got choked up and couldn't answer. But my sister was standing there and she said, “He's being a total boogerhead.”

Coach smiled. “Good.” He said to my mom, “Okay if I sit with you folks?”

“Jeremy.” Another voice, a girl's, and there stood Morgan, looking at me kind of puzzled. “What made you change your mind?”

Oh. Jeez. I was the one who had yelled at
her
to shut up about Nathan. I told her, “I'm not sure I even have a mind. Listen, I'm sorry—”

“Forget it.” All of a sudden she gave me a hug, then headed away.

“That's Jeremy Davis,” whispered a voice behind me. “What's
he
doing here?” I didn't turn around.

Once we finally got inside, it was dim and crowded and way quiet. Hushed. All those people making barely a sound. That silence made me feel like I couldn't get enough air. Or maybe it was the too-sweet smell from an avalanche of flowers up front.

Around the casket.

Other than zillions of flowers, and candles burning to keep him company, Aaron was lying there all by himself in the closed casket. There hadn't been any viewing. No chance to say good-bye, but no need to see Aaron all hacked up, either. I imagined him the way I remembered him, round-faced and shiny-eyed, lying in that glorified polyurethane-and-wood box with gold doodads. It probably had puffy satin lining, too. He would have laughed at it.

Just inside the door, a man turned to me and shook my hand; it was the bright-eyed little detective who'd busted the truth out of me. “How are you doing these days?”

“Like you said,” I told him. Maybe he'd heard. A couple days ago the cops were letting the Gingriches get some stuff out of their house, and I'd tried to talk with Mrs. Gingrich, but she'd slammed the door in my face. Jamy had gotten the same treatment when she'd tried to ask how Aardy was doing.

I told the detective, “You called it. Getting worse by the day.”

“Yeah, but then it'll get better again. Hang in.”

Gray-suited undertaker guys were packing people in, but all the pews were crammed butt to butt now. Aaron would have made some kind of joke about that, too, people cheek to cheek but not slow-dancing.… My eyes fogged up. Damn, where was Aaron now when I needed him? Dumb clown, why did he have to go and get killed? I felt like I was never going to laugh anymore, without Aaron around.

I could see Mrs. Ledbetter up front—she must have claimed her seat practically at dawn. Mom and Jamy and I didn't get to sit down. We stood against the back wall, and Coach stood with us, even though most of the guys from the football team had kind of clustered along one side.

After a while the Gingrich family filed in from someplace behind the altar and sat in their own pew up front. Mrs. Gingrich, Nathan, Mr. Gingrich, and four older people, Aaron's grandparents. All of them in dark clothes.

“Where's
Aardy
?” My stupid sister sounded loud even though she was whispering.

“Shhh.” Mom whispered much more softly. “Maybe she's too upset.…”

I could understand that. I mean, Aardy had found Aaron's body. Maybe the doctor had put her on sedatives so she'd sleep for a month. What surprised me was to see that Nathan and Aaron's father had flown in from Minnesota. Right there he was, sitting down beside Nathan, on the other side from Mrs. Gingrich. He'd hardly ever bothered to come see his sons when they were both alive.

Then the minister came in, wearing black robes and stood behind the pulpit to start the service. The church got dead quiet.

“The Lord giveth, and the Lord taketh away. Blessed be the name of the Lord.”

Didn't make any sense to me. I tuned out, staring at the back of Nathan's neck. His face when he came in hadn't showed me a thing except white and tight. I wondered whether he was getting any more sleep than I was. I knew from camping with him that he wasn't a real sound sleeper.…

He'd said he was napping when Aaron was killed? Since when did Nathan nap? He motored like a revvedup engine all the time.

Okay, maybe even Nathan napped once in a while. But … I didn't know what getting stabbed to death was like, but Aaron … Aaron must have made some noise.…

No. Damn it, no, this was no damn time to think about it. I tried to listen to the sermon, and I noticed the preacher was sweating. Even from the back of the church I could see his pink face shining. I guess it was a rough service. He said that all things happen in accordance with God's purpose, which sounded kind of lame. Same when he said Aaron was happy in heaven—I wondered if the Gingrich family was buying that any more than I was. Maybe they believed, but I knew Aaron shouldn't have died, damn it, especially not that way. God would comfort the Gingrich family? Lame. But when the preacher said we should all pray for justice, there was kind of a murmur in the church, and some deep-voiced man said, “Amen.”

Was that what Aaron's family wanted? Was that what I wanted? Justice?

Not if it meant …

No. I wanted to stop thinking about it. Thinking wasn't going to bring Aaron back.

Mostly I just wanted it to be over.

The service ended, eventually. The family left the same way they'd come in. One of Aaron's grandparents sobbed, a raw, embarrassing noise that sounded very loud in the silence. Mrs. Gingrich hid her face in her hands. Mr. Gingrich just looked fierce, even though there were tears on his cheeks. Nathan looked the same as when he came in.

Nobody said anything as we all filed out. I kept my head up. If anybody was giving me the evil eye, screw them. I was starting to get pissed off. Somebody had killed Aaron, and that person should pay, not me.

Out front, one of the gray-suited undertakers stopped us and asked whether we were going to the cemetery. Mom said, “No.”

I said, “Mom, I want to.”

She turned, and I was surprised to see how tired and wet-eyed she looked. “Jeremy I don't think—”

“He was my best friend, Mom!”

Coach said, “I can take him, Mrs. Davis.”

So I got to stand beside Coach and watch six members of the football team carry Aaron's casket out. I felt kind of grateful that I wasn't a pallbearer but mostly bummed that the Gingriches hadn't asked me. I should have been there for Aaron.

People piled into cars for the procession. It was a long, slow drive to the cemetery, winding between the hills in Coach's Jeep Cherokee with one of those little purple
FUNERAL
flags waving from the fender. Long, slow, and silent. Coach said something about football. I said, “I think I'm going to have to quit.”

“Get out of this car.” He was trying to joke, but I didn't say anything, so he said, “Jeremy, don't quit yet. Don't make any decision right now. Things will get better.”

Yeah. Right.

Not anytime soon, that was for sure. I hate cemeteries. All the stupid heavy headstones, stupid flowers and trees, stupid sunshine when it should have been raining. I stood under the stupid tent beside Aaron's open grave, looking down into that raw hole in the clay and shale, and when I lifted my eyes, Mr. Gingrich scowled at me over his son's casket.

The minister said some more stuff. Ashes to ashes, dust to dust. Aaron's stepfather and mother dropped a little dirt on the casket. Nathan did, too. I faced him about five yards away, but he didn't look at me. His face still looked just the same, like a ceramic Nathan mask.