Something Stirs, page 16
He wouldn’t, she told herself; please, God, don’t let him.
The road dipped, the incline not as steep or as long as it was farther north. She slowed. Tears suddenly drenched her cheeks. She stopped and pulled over, climbed shakily out.
No, God, please.
There were lights at the bottom as she hugged herself, saw people crowding onto the sidewalk, breath smoking in the streetlight, voices sharp in the night air. She used the street instead. Two cruisers down there at least, and an ambulance van with its blunt nose pointing toward the water. Cops were all over the place, flashlights streaking across the snow and through the bare black branches, walkie-talkies hissing, two of them setting up sawhorse barriers on Bank Road; one white-jacketed attendant was opening the van’s rear doors.
From well off to her left a crackling of gunfire that stopped as quickly as it had begun.
One of the spectators cried out.
She didn’t dare think. She didn’t dare want to know why Dale had heard something and she hadn’t heard a thing.
She kept to the center, praying, sniffing hard, and didn’t know when Katie came up beside her and grabbed her arm and hung on. Crying. Unable to talk.
Twenty feet up from the intersection another barrier was set in place just as the girls reached it. People moved in from the sidewalks. The police refused to answer their questions. One of them, however, kept his hand on the butt of his holstered revolver.
Laine gnawed on her lower lip. “How do you know?” she finally managed to ask.
Katie sniffed and looked up at the sky, down at the blacktop, blinking rapidly. “I was walking, y’know? I couldn’t stay in the house, Gram was being a pain, and suddenly all this starts coming down. Some guy was there, the little guy Scott knows? The black guy? Anyway, the cops chased him away, I heard them talking after he left.”
Laine grabbed her shoulders. “You sure … Joey?”
“God, I think so.”
Laine gripped the sawhorse as hard as she could, staring at the activity below, stoking the courage to slip under and run down there. She couldn’t just stay here. She couldn’t stand around and not know.
People came up behind them, beside them, some with cameras, most asking questions no one could answer.
And then it was quiet.
Katie sobbed once and grabbed Laine’s hand. Attendants hurried a stretcher out of the trees, a cop walking behind, a walkie-talkie to his lips and a shotgun braced against his hip. Someone lay on the stretcher, but she couldn’t see who it was because the face had been covered; all she could see was the blood.
“I’m going to throw up,” she whispered. “Please, God, don’t let me throw up.”
Katie gripped her hand harder. Her tears had stopped, a packet of tissues in her other hand.
The ambulance doors closed.
“Look!” Katie said, leaning close, tugging her arm. “Hey, there’s Scott. He’s coming this way.”
The police made no move to leave.
Katie tugged again, and Laine didn’t resist as her friend led her toward the sidewalk. Her legs had become rubber, her throat sandpaper, her eyes nearly blinds—all she could see was Scott Byrns moving through the crowd, ignoring those who spoke to him, one hand jammed into a hip pocket, the other hand at his side, gripping a long piece of wood.
Katie waved.
“No,” Laine pleaded.
Katie stood her by a tree and told her not to move. That was all right. She couldn’t move if she wanted to. She knew. By the look on Scottie’s face, she knew. He’d been crying. Or was about to.
When Katie stopped him, spoke urgently to him, and he swung his face in her direction, Laine didn’t care that the strength left her legs, didn’t care when they rushed over and propped her up under the arms. She said something about her mother’s car, and didn’t care when they brought her to it and put her in the back seat. Katie slid in beside her.
“The keys, Laine,” he said tonelessly after sliding in behind the wheel.
“Can you drive?” Katie asked
“No,” he said, “I’m going to push it all the way home.”
Dale heard, she thought in the midst of a black fog; oh my god, did Dale really hear and I let Joey die?
“Laine, the keys?”
Katie found them in her pocket and handed them over, and he backed all the way to the end of the street, as she told him how she’d come to be out tonight.
She couldn’t look at his face.
Katie said, “Was it … I heard it was Joey.”
No, Laine thought, and closed her eyes tightly; don’t answer, please don’t answer.
He didn’t, but a long year later, Katie grunted as if someone had punched her in the stomach and her lungs wouldn’t work and her voice wouldn’t work and she barely heard him say they’d have to talk later, probably tomorrow, something about the street people, something about … but no … Jesus, no, it wasn’t suicide.
After that, he said nothing.
After that, Laine heard nothing but the sound of her own razor-edge sobbing, the ambulance crying away into the night, the sudden memory of gunfire that made her eyes snap open.
“Scott, I heard guns—”
“He wasn’t shot.”
“Oh god.”
Then who was? she thought; who were they shooting at?
She wanted to scream; all she could do was whimper.
Scott let the two girls weep, feed on each other’s grief, while he drove to the Freelin house as fast as he dared, as fast as he was able. He checked the streets in case he spotted Blade, but Murtaugh was gone.
Had been since Scott had stumbled onto Bank Road and there had been all the activity. There was no one now. Not even another car.
Once at Laine’s house, he explained to her folks what had happened and walked away, declining the offer of a lift home. When Dr. Freelin came after him, coatless, shivering, insisting he couldn’t walk all the way to South End tonight, not after what happened, Scott told him it was all right. Really. He needed time. Time alone.
Dr. Freelin, pale even in the dark, glanced back at the house. “She’s going to be hysterical all night.”
“Maybe you should take her to the hospital.”
“No.” He took off his glasses and rubbed his eyes. “No, I can take care of her.” A squint at Scott. “I don’t like this, you know. Walking home alone. Maybe I should call your mother.”
Scott turned away and did his best not to limp. “You’d better get back to Laine,” he said over his shoulder.
He wanted to walk.
He had to walk.
He hadn’t seen the body, but after searching futilely for Blade, he had seen Detective Jorgen stumbling out of the trees, shaking his head and coughing into a soiled handkerchief pressed against his mouth. He didn’t move, only waited, until the policeman spotted him and walked over as yet another cruiser shrieked to a halt and its occupants piled out with revolvers and shotguns drawn.
A weary frown: “What the hell are you doing here?”
“I heard a scream.”
“Yeah.” Jorgen rubbed his face with both hands, dusted clots of snow flecked with grass from his coat.
“Yeah.” Someone called from the riverbank. “Go home, son. There’s nothing you can do here.”
Scott reached for his arm. “Who was it?”
Jorgen stared at him for so long, Scott almost lost his temper.
Until: “Your buddy. Joey. Joey Costello.”
The scream was there, the denial, the rage, but the detective defused it by walking away.
Just walking away.
Scott felt the burning in his leg, the throbbing at his temples, but he didn’t turn around, didn’t go back. The night had turned colder, and the cold felt good, it kept him moving, kept him from thinking too much about the body on the stretcher and all that blood staining the sheet, kept him from thinking too much about the ambulance lights staining the snow, the faces, the houses that faced the river, kept him from noticing the car pacing him at the curb until it honked, and he started to run. Couldn’t run. Knowing he was going to die. Knowing that the monster who had killed two of his best friends was here … now … and he was alone in the dark.
“Scott!”
He began to cry.
Not for Joey, not for Eddie, not Slap.
He cried because he couldn’t run, not really; he cried because he wasn’t like the rest of the world and it just wasn’t goddamn fair; he cried because his mother practically in the middle of the street finally snagged him in her arms and held him to her breast, caressing his hair, rocking him, cooing to him, and finally leading him to the car. He cried because she didn’t say she was sorry, that it was a terrible tragedy, that if there was anything she could do, all he had to do was ask.
He cried because she said, “Scott, what’s going on?”
Chapter Eighteen
In all his dreams he had both legs, and both legs were strong, and since they were strong he could run.
But not fast enough.
Chapter Nineteen
It was the sedative, he supposed, that had dragged him into unwilling sleep. His mother had called a doctor, and the doctor had called the all-night drugstore, and she had picked up the prescription—with him in the car because he wasn’t about to be left alone—and he had taken the two pills, sitting at the kitchen table, his mother leaning against the sink and watching him.
Watching him.
Watching him when he woke up, sweating, drying his face with a sweet-smelling towel.
Watching him as she massaged his leg down to the stump, shaking her head whenever he winced at the pain that had burrowed deep into his muscles and wouldn’t go away, not even after he’d taken a long hot bath. Watching him when he came downstairs, using only one crutch, and dropped into his chair at the kitchen table. Groggy, feeling not quite lined up with the rest of the world.
“I’m not going to start falling apart, Mom,” he said at last, lips twitching in a sort of a grin.
“I’m concerned.”
“I know. But I’m okay. Really.”
Her expression told him she thought he was lying through his teeth, that he couldn’t possibly be okay, not after last night. She didn’t argue, however. She made brunch—it was almost noon—and left the room on a feigned and sudden errand when he stared at her— jeez, mom, I’m not going to cut my throat on the butter knife, either—until she couldn’t watch him anymore.
He ate toast and cereal, drank milk and wished for coffee, looked down in astonishment when his spoon scraped across the bottom of the bowl and he realized he was done. He hadn’t tasted a thing. He yawned, stretched, shook his head in a vain attempt to clear it of the cobwebs left behind by the medication. Yawned again.
When the telephone rang, he started, sat back, tried to make sense of his mother’s conversation in the living room, but she spoke too softly and he scowled, thumped the chair around and looked through the window in the back door.
Graylight.
Snowlight.
There must be clouds, maybe another storm on the way.
Swell. Great.
Joey’s dead.
He felt as if he’d been clubbed across the back of the head, the cobwebs abruptly gone, clear memory restored. He grunted, quickly covered his mouth with a hand and closed his eyes, leaning over, gripping the table, forcing himself to breathe slowly and deeply until his stomach decided it wouldn’t empty itself. He coughed, choked, coughed, and leaned back heavily, head back, gaze on the ceiling and not seeing a thing.
“Oh god.”
Tracing a line in the plaster until it reminded him of the river.
Sitting up, pushing bowl and glass aside and settling his elbows on the table, clasped hands across his brow.
“Man.”
The questions refused to line up in any rational order. They just came as he stared at the tabletop and shook his head: What did Murtaugh hear? Who were the cops shooting at? Why was Joey down by the river? Why did Katie lie about being out last night? What were the cops shooting at? Why did Joey die?
How did Laine—
She heard.
No.
Katie heard.
No.
He looked around the kitchen, seeing it all, seeing nothing.
Blade heard.
No.
It’s the medicine, he thought; the medicine is making me nuts. You can’t hear somebody dying when you’re blocks away. You can’t hear it. You can’t.
They had.
A sudden need to do something made him grab the crutch from the floor beside him. Once up, he started for the living room, stopped, and went to the back door. The snow in the tiny back yard was broken here and there by bird tracks, cat tracks, a scuffed line of footprints where his mother had gone to the back fence to shake the heavy snow off the branches of a sapling before they snapped. A haze distorted the air just enough to be discomforting. Preview of a storm. If he were outside, he knew he’d be able to feel it, almost taste it.
He turned when his mother came back, raised an eyebrow with a question he didn’t answer.
“It’s been ringing all morning,” she said, tossing the dish towel onto the counter. “That detective wants to talk to you, Katie has called three times, and some damn reporters.” She shook her head in disgust, then lifted her hands. “They’re talking about drugs, Scott. They’re talking about the Pack’s enemies, gang wars—”
He laughed.
It wasn’t the least bit funny, but he couldn’t help the laughing, and couldn’t stop it, not even when she hurried over and brought him back to his chair. Tears. Hiccups. Drinking a glass of water so fast he began to choke, and waved off her attempt to pound him on the back. And when he had calmed down, he assured her, almost resentfully, that no, there were no drugs, and no, there were no rival gangs, and no, he didn’t think some maniac had it in for the Pack because Slap Zubronsky was dead too and all he did was draw pictures.
“There’s no connection,” she said, dismissing Slap by turning her back.
Yes, there is, he thought.
“There is,” he said. “I don’t know how, Mom, but there is.”
And then: “Mom, how did Joey die?”
She grabbed up the towel and twisted it in her hands.
“Mom? Was it like Eddie?”
She nodded. “Maybe worse.”
Swallowing didn’t rid his mouth of the acid.
“Detective Jorgen didn’t give me the details.” She turned around. “But he did tell me you were there last night. Why?”
Because, he wanted to tell her, Blade Murtaugh heard the screaming.
Because, he did tell her, he’d been at the bookstore, heard the sirens, and followed them. He told her about Katie and Laine, and she told him that Dr. Freelin had called, which is why she had been there with the car.
The telephone rang.
“I’m going to take that damn thing off the hook,” she said, striding out of the room, the towel once more thrown aside. Less than a minute later, he heard the receiver slam into its cradle, heard a string of curses that amazed him, and heard something that sounded remarkably like his mother kicking a chair.
“Mom?” He hurried into the hall, stood at the living room entrance and saw her in the middle of the floor, fists at her sides, cheeks flushed. “Mom?”
“That,” she said, barely moving her lips, “was Mr. Thomas Relbeth. He wanted to know … he had the nerve to ask if you were okay and if you were going to come to work today.” A deep breath. It didn’t seem to help. “He said it was important. Fridays are always important.”
Scott almost laughed again. “He’s just hyper, Mom, don’t worry about it. He’s got some chain guys trying to buy the store, that’s all. Don’t sweat it.” His smile didn’t crack her glare. “So what did you tell him?”
“I told him where he could put his goddamn overpriced store, that’s what I told him!”
Oh, nice, he thought; get me fired, why not, Mom.
He saw her distress then, and realized that she was frightened. For him. Maybe even for the other kids, but especially for him. It made him soften his expression, shrug an apology for the unspoken scolding.
When she suggested he lie down again, he took it without dissent. He needed to think, and that would be impossible as long as she kept hovering over him, mother bird, and asking him how he felt.
The telephone rang, and he said, “My turn,” with a grin.
“Scott?” It was Fern. “Jesus, Scott, what are we going to do?”
They talked for nearly an hour, dissecting the previous night step by step, crying openly, crying inside, talking about the murder as though there was, truly, a homicidal lunatic running around Foxriver. The police seemed to think so. Fern said that Tang had told her there were more cops on the road than it seemed the town had. Tang herself was holed up in her room, vowing not to come out until the century was over.
Neither of them had heard from Laine, though, and repeated attempts to call Katie had met with her grandmother, who didn’t, Fern said bitterly, want to admit Katie even lived there. Barnaby had hung up on her, and Pancho wasn’t answering.
“It’s not a psycho,” he said at the end.
“Then who is it, Scott?” She sounded weary, not hysterical.
“I don’t know.”
“Great. Then who does?”
“I don’t know that either.”
A pause, and he could hear his mother in the kitchen.
“Okay.” She didn’t sound convinced. “So, do me a favor?”
“Sure.”
“Don’t go out today?”
He shrugged. An easy promise to keep; he wasn’t feeling good enough to face the world anyway. “No problem.” He sensed a relieved smile then when she hung up, and after he put the receiver back he pushed himself to the center of the couch and stared out the window. The street was quiet. A few cars now and then. A passing cruiser that made him shiver. A gang of little kids sweeping down the sidewalk on the other side, pelting each other with snowballs, shrieking, disappearing, their voices hanging, and quickly gone. The cruiser again.
