She sighed a silent order to lay off the self-pity, rubbed her neck again, and watched the shadows creep steadily across the road. When she looked to the foliage at the curb, and in the yards across the way, she could see a faint haze forming.

  It wasn’t humidity.

  It meant there would be a fog again tonight.

  “Do you remember,” she said in a solemn quiet voice, “when they put that second story on North High?”

  Micky groaned. “If you’re going to tell one of your stories, I don’t want to hear it.” She reached for an overhanging branch and plucked free a long twig. After fanning herself with it, she began to strip it of its leaves.

  Jo drew one knee up and rested her chin on it, hugging her shin and staring at the grass that grew at the wall’s base. “No, really. I thought everybody knew.”

  “Knew what?”

  “A guy was killed there.”

  “Oh sure, right,” Karol said, but her tone betrayed her interest.

  Jo nodded a no kidding, and lowered her voice further. “It was on the last night of construction. The outside was already done, and he was up in the new library. There wasn’t anybody else in the building, and the only light was from a little bulb on a wire over in the back corner. He had forgotten one of his tools, and he came back to get it, only the foreman hadn’t told him that there had been trouble that afternoon, putting in the windows. So there he was, trying to find his hammer, or whatever, and there was all this junk lying around. You know what I mean—pieces of ceiling tile, plaster, some aluminum strips, stuff like that. He thought he saw something shining over in the corner under the light. He went over to pick it up.”

  Micky tossed the stripped twig aside and stretched for another. Karol twisted around to face Jo, eyes wide.

  “He was in such a hurry, he didn’t pay attention to what he was doing. All he wanted to do was get out of there and get home. He tripped over a board someone had left behind. But he didn’t fall. He tried to stay on his feet, and he turned around, hopping on one foot … and backed right into the window. The glass didn’t break. But the frame was too loose. His weight knocked it out and he couldn’t grab on to anything. He fell all the way to the ground without making a sound … and broke his neck.”

  “Oh, gross,” Micky said.

  “That’s not all.”

  “What?” Karol whispered.

  “If you walk around the back of the school, late at night, sometimes you can see a tiny light moving around up there. In the library.” She paused. “It isn’t the janitor.”

  Then she looked at them, and didn’t smile.

  “It’s him, you see. The phantom worker. And he’s still looking for his hammer.”

  Karol blinked once, very slowly.

  Micky just gaped until Jo grinned and cried, “Gotcha!”

  Micky’s eyes narrowed. “I hate you.”

  “Hey,” Karol said. “Look.”

  “You’re just mad because you fell for it.” The grin became a smile. “Every time.”

  “Hey!” Karol poked Jo’s shoulder. “Look!”

  “For crying out loud,” Micky said, “what’s the big wow?”

  “Up there.” She pointed. “See?”

  Jo did, and for a moment she couldn’t move.

  The park was a large rectangle in the exact center of town, five short blocks deep and three long blocks wide, and near the corner on the north side she could see a small figure walking away from them, fading into the growing shadows as he approached the T-intersection. “It’s him, right?” Karol asked quietly.

  It had to be.

  White hat, white suit, short enough that at this distance he almost looked like a child.

  Micky slipped off the wall and leaned forward as she stared. “Wow, you’re right.” She started walking. “Hey,” Jo said, “where’re you going?”

  Micky turned, grinning as she walked backward. “I’m going to follow him, what else?” She waggled her thick eyebrows. “Spooky guys live in spooky places, right?” She spread her arms. “So, you got anything better to do?”

  Immediately Karol jumped down to join her. Jo, however, hesitated before leaving her perch. It wasn’t that she was afraid of an adventure; most of the time, the stunts they pulled and the dumb but fun things they did were her ideas.

  This was different.

  She wasn’t at all sure she wanted to know more about him.

  But the others weren’t to be denied, and she hurried after them until they were walking rapidly three abreast. They didn’t speak. An elbow’s nudge here, a touch of a hand there, was all the communication they needed.

  The man in white moved on.

  Despite her misgivings, Jo wondered where he lived. He had to have come to town fairly recently. Dressed like that, with hands like that, he would’ve been noticed, and talked about, long before now. Gossip, in Ashford, was a brushfire when it started.

  Then he swung around the corner to the left, and they instantly broke into a slow trot and reached the end of the wall together.

  He was gone.

  Micky pointed to the northside entrance of the park. “He must have gone in.”

  They raced to the ivy-laced brick pillars that marked the entrance and peered in.

  The path was empty.

  “You know,” Karol said, puzzled, “we weren’t all that far behind him.”

  Jo had been thinking the same thing. Unless the man had suddenly sprinted as soon as he’d turned the corner, there was no way he could have reached the entrance before they had reached the corner themselves.

  “Maybe he climbed over.” Micky squinted at the wall, as if she might be able to spot the place where he had scaled it. Then she looked at the houses across the street and scratched her head. “You think he lives over there?”

  “No,” Jo said without thinking.

  Nobody argued.

  “Well, for God’s sake, he’s not an ax murderer,” Micky said at last. But she made no move to enter the park.

  Jo felt a little silly. It was obvious they made pretty poor bloodhounds, and following a perfect stranger in practically broad daylight was not exactly the brightest thing they could have done. If the man had seen them and had confronted them, they would have felt like real idiots, and they could have gotten themselves into serious trouble if he’d decided to make a fuss.

  Then a woman appeared on a porch across the street, calling to someone around the back of her house. The message was clear enough, even though Jo couldn’t hear all the words. The power was back.

  Micky heard it as well. “I vote we forget it and find someplace cool.”

  Karol agreed. “Beacher’s.”

  Without waiting for Jo’s answer, they started off, chattering and giggling loudly. But they kept to the sidewalk, taking the long way around the park instead of cutting through to the boulevard. By the time they reached Parkside, with its shops and offices, they had launched into a raucous bragging session about how brave they were. It wasn’t that they were afraid of meeting the man in white—they had just decided he wasn’t interesting anymore.

  Jo grinned, suddenly slowed, and said, “God, look at that.”

  A few doors up was a clothing store, The Men’s House, and Gil Benoit had just stepped away from a large sheet of plywood fixed across the display window to the left of the recessed entrance. He held a hammer in one hand, and a red bandanna was tied around his head. His T-shirt was stained with sweat, his face gleamed, and as the girls approached, his father came out of the store and handed him a glass of water.

  “Hey, Mr. Benoit,” Micky said, “what happened?”

  Mr. Benoit, as tall and lean as his son, only scowled and stomped back inside.

  “Well, excuse me.”

  That’s when Jo noticed a dented metal bucket under the window; it was filled with broken glass and shards of wood. She was also aware that Gil was watching her, but she wouldn’t meet his gaze. He always made her nervous, for reasons she couldn’t begin to explain.

  Micky tapped his shoulder to get his attention. “So what happened?”

  Gil’s face darkened. “Billy Mannagan, that’s what happened.”

  Jo heard Karol stifle a gasp.

  “What are you talking about?”

  Gil swept a disgusted hand toward the plywood. “He comes up here not a couple of hours ago, he’s got a brick in each hand, and he …” He shook his head in disbelief. “And he threw them right through the window.

  Three

  Twenty minutes later they sat at a window table in Beacher’s, next door to the Galaxy. Though it may have been a diner once, now it was more like a restaurant. A long, narrow room in front was sufficient for several small tables and an eighteen-stool counter complete with post jukeboxes. A much larger space in back had larger tables, a longer menu, and a slightly more formal decor. But the counter room still maintained its informal atmosphere, including posters reminding everyone of the fireworks display at Ashford South Stadium next Monday, on the Fourth, and the Marine Band concert in the park the night before.

  Jo sagged in her round-back chair and closed her eyes at the cool air that blew softly over her face. “It must have been the heat,” she decided when no one spoke. “It’s been over ninety for almost a week, you know? That’s enough to drive anyone nuts.”

  She heard the swish of crushed ice as Micky stirred her soda, but when Gil said nothing, she opened one eye. His dark hair, shaved above the ears and cut long down the center and back, was still matted with perspiration, and the shirt he wore over his clean T-shirt hadn’t been buttoned. He smiled quickly when he caught her watching, and just as quickly she shut the eye again.

  “I don’t know,” he said doubtfully.

  “Two days ago,” Micky said to him, “some guy strips, then streaks everyone in the park. The radio says there’ve been a zillion fights all over town, most of them over nothing. Yesterday they picked up some woman at that video store next to the Barn, who was telling people that the owner was a cousin of the devil and hides his horns under his baseball cap. You don’t think the heat could make Billy nuts, even just for a while?”

  “Remember who we’re talking about here,” he reminded her. “This is a guy who won’t even jaywalk.”

  “Maybe Karol will find out something,” Jo suggested. “I just can’t imagine it, that’s all. Billy? That’s just too weird for words.”

  Karol had left them as soon as they had made hasty arrangements to meet in the diner when Gil’s work was finished. She claimed she had to be home by eight or suffer a week’s grounding, and no one argued. They all knew she was hopelessly in love with Billy, and that he was still too dense to realize it. It didn’t take a genius to figure out that she would probably be on the phone with him five seconds after she walked through the front door.

  Jo would have given anything to hear that conversation.

  While they were still at the store, Gil had told them the police hadn’t arrested Billy, although Mr. Benoit had wanted him strung up by his thumbs. The patrolman who had answered the call knew him pretty well, however, and though a trip to the police station was inevitable, he made it pretty clear that unless Gil’s father wanted to file criminal charges, it would be best for all concerned if arrangements for restitution were made instead, and the rest of the boy’s punishment left to his parents.

  Mr. Benoit had agreed, reluctantly, but only after Gil had talked him into it.

  “Crazy,” Gil muttered. “It’s crazy.”

  “The heat,” Micky insisted.

  Jo checked outside.

  Though it was nearly full dark, there were still plenty of people on the street, some arriving for the Galaxy’s late show, others just strolling to take advantage of the evening’s absence of sun. She knew she herself had better be leaving soon, but she couldn’t get over the idea that Billy Mannagan had turned vandal.

  There was no question about it; Micky was right. It had to be the heat; it just had to be.

  Finally, after going over the story several more times, they decided there was no sense hanging around. The walk home was quiet, and when Gil positioned himself in the middle, Micky took every opportunity to peer around his back and make faces at Jo, scowling fiercely when Jo brought up the man in the white suit.

  This, her expression told Jo, is not what you’re supposed to do when you’re walking home with a hunk.

  “And you followed this guy?” Gil said, amazed.

  “You got it,” Micky said. “Didn’t do us any good, though. The guy just kind of disappeared.”

  Gil shook his head. “You actually followed him?”

  Jo almost laughed at his continuing astonishment. “Sure. Wouldn’t you?”

  He shook his head and made a face. “Talk about the heat. You guys are nuts, man. Dumb. Really dumb. I mean, suppose he had a gun or something?”

  “Hey, lighten up,” Micky told him. “It was only a joke.”

  “Yeah, but …”

  When Jo tried to explain the fun of it, and the weirdness, he seemed to have lost interest, so she dropped it and they talked about other things, mostly Karol and Billy. She finally left them on a dark corner near their school and hurried the rest of the way home alone. Checking each shadow.

  She almost broke into a run when the fog began to gather in earnest, and she couldn’t help seeing the little man in white lurking behind every tree, hiding in every alley.

  Gram was in the kitchen when she arrived, mixing a pitcher of iced tea. April Latera was a tall woman, not stooped despite her seventy-five years, with short, curly hair she kept dyed a solid black.

  “I was getting worried,” she said when Jo dropped into a kitchen chair.

  “Just hanging out, Gram. I wasn’t in any trouble.”

  The old woman laughed. “I know that. If you got into trouble, my bones would tell me.”

  Jo rolled her eyes comically. Her grandmother’s bones did everything, apparently, from forecasting the weather a week in advance to predicting which teams would win the World Series.

  Gram placed a tall cut-glass tumbler on the table and filled it with her homemade iced tea. Bits of fresh fruit floated on top. “Well, while you were out not getting in trouble, Karol called.”

  Jo sat up quickly. “Did she say anything? I’d better call—”

  Gram’s stare kept her in her seat. “She said she was in hot water for not getting home on time and she also said she talked to Billy. Do I know him? He’s not a punk, is he?”

  Jo laughed and decided not to tell her what Billy had done. Gram had a blind spot when it came to boys. They were either punks or saints, and as far as she was concerned, there were no teenage saints in Ashford, New Jersey.

  Gram cleared her throat. “Your mother called, too. She was sorry she missed you.”

  Jo’s mood crashed instantly. Her parents had divorced two years ago, her mother moving immediately to Arizona, her father to Chicago with his girlfriend. Jo had often fled to her grandmother to get away from their battles over the last couple of years. When the question of custody had come up, the fights became even more bitter, until Gram had convinced them both that taking Jo away from her lifelong friends and her school, at least at this time, wasn’t the wisest move, no matter what the experts claimed.

  So Jo had stayed, visiting one parent or the other over long holidays, and would do so again during the month of August. The rest of the time there was Gram—a little weird, a lot old-fashioned, but seldom unfair.

  The worst part was, Jo found it increasingly hard to leave Ashford. She supposed she loved her parents in spite of everything that happened, but neither had stopped their heavy drinking, and neither had stopped sniping at the other whenever she was around. Coming home to this old place in this old town was always a great relief.

  She suspected that if it hadn’t been for Gram, and Micky and Karol, she would have lost her mind.

  The wall phone rang.

  Gram picked up her glass and headed for the living room. “It’s a boy,” she said over her shoulder. “If he’s over fifty, tell him I’m available.”

  Jo grinned as she stretched behind her for the receiver, her glum mood dispelled. Leave it to Gram, she thought, to be weird at just the right time.

  It was Billy.

  Jo didn’t know what to say, except that she had heard he was in some kind of trouble.

  Billy laughed sourly. “You could say that. And you don’t have to play games, Jo. I already talked to Karol.”

  She squirmed a little, and muttered something about being sorry and asked how his parents had reacted to the news.

  He grunted. “Well, in the first place, I’m grounded practically for life. Now my summer’s shot because I’ve got to get a job to pay for the window, and my father thinks I need to see a shrink.”

  Jo commiserated and tried to tell him that she didn’t think the grounding would last quite that long. When he doubted it, she explained her theory about the heat making people nuts, and told him what Micky had said at the diner, about all the others who had been affected by the weather.

  Billy lowered his voice. “That’s not it, Jo.”

  She felt a little uncomfortable, wondering why he wasn’t talking to Karol about this. “Okay,” she said, “then why did you do it? You have a fight with Gil or something?”

  He whispered something she couldn’t hear.

  “Hey,” she said, “louder, okay? I … oh, is someone there?”

  “Yep,” he said, falsely cheerful.

  She frowned, not liking the way he was acting. Just like the bricks, this wasn’t like him at all. Besides, what could be so important that no one else could hear? “Oh. Okay. So, uh, why did you do it?”

  This time she heard him. “He told me to,” he said. Jo glanced around the room. “He what? Who are you talking about?”

  A long pause made her think he’d broken the connection.

 

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