Shades of Simon Gray

by Joyce McDonald

  Up ahead, a dark shadow seemed to rise out of the damp earth in front of the bronze plaque. The shadow shifted, grew filmier in the glare of Simon’s headlights, but he could see it had a form—the shape of a man.

  Simon’s breath caught in his throat. He was so startled by the shifting figure in front of him, he didn’t realize he was still flying along at fifty miles an hour. And when he did notice, it was too late. In his panic his foot slammed down on the gas pedal instead of the brake. The car’s engine roared in response. The Honda hydroplaned over the slick surface, going so fast Simon thought the car had sprouted wings. His fear was replaced with a sense of wonder, a sense of absolute freedom. He felt himself being lifted right into the air. Like a drop of water evaporating, he was out of the river. Yes!

  The sirens didn’t wake Danny Giannetti because he hadn’t yet gone to bed. He sat on the porch roof outside his bedroom window, watching in wonder as, below, thousands of peepers converged on the front lawn. If he lay on his stomach and leaned carefully over the edge, his fingers clamped on the rusting gutter guards, he could see the frogs on the steps, on the porch railing, on the pillars. Their green bodies, almost black in the moonlight, were dark splotches on the white paint.

  His first thought, when the emergency siren sounded, was that the town had declared war on the frogs. He half expected to see fire trucks tear down the street, firefighters blasting holes in the blanket of frogs with their hoses, half expected a cavalcade of police cars, with sharpshooter cops hanging from the windows, firing nonstop as peepers sprang into the air, looking like clay pigeons as they leaped for their lives. But the emergency siren stopped. And the distant moan of police car and ambulance sirens didn’t seem to be coming anywhere near Maple Avenue, where Danny lay on the porch roof, listening carefully.

  Once in a while, if you paid close attention, Bellehaven might give up one of its secrets. Somewhere in town behind one of these closed doors, maybe a life-and-death emergency was unfolding. Or maybe a crime, a robbery, or even a murder. Danny was hopeful, beside himself with anticipation.

  Sometimes, as in moments like this, he liked to think about his own small contribution to the town’s hoard of secrets. He savored what he and only a few of his close friends knew, rolled it around in his mind like a smooth stone he couldn’t stop rubbing between his thumb and fingers. In two and a half months he would graduate from high school. In the fall he would go to Dartmouth. So far, he had been accepted by almost every university he had applied to, and all because of Simon Gray and “the project.”

  The next day he had a test in English on Hemingway’s The Old Man and the Sea. He was pleased with himself because for once he’d actually read the assigned book. He hadn’t expected to. And with “the project,” he certainly didn’t need to. But somehow he’d gotten caught up in the old man’s struggle to hold on to that stupid fish. Danny wanted him to win. The last thing he’d expected was for the trophy to be chewed to bare bones by sharks, nothing worth keeping, at least to Danny’s way of thinking. Nothing left you could hold up and say, “See, this is what I caught. A marlin the size of Canada.” But the fishermen in the old man’s village seemed to think bringing home a bunch of bones was some big accomplishment.

  Suckers, Danny thought, smiling to himself. They just didn’t get it.

  Danny, however, had it all figured out. You didn’t actually have to play the game, you just had to know how to win it.

  He turned on his back and slipped his hands behind his head. The stars were muted by the ground light, but he could still make out the North Star. Polaris. Never had he felt more sure his life was on course. The next day he would ace the test in English, as he had aced every test so far that year, and the two years before. He knew this because a copy of the test was, right that very minute, sitting in the top drawer of his desk.

  The wood frame of the basement window scraped across Devin McCafferty’s back as she slid through the narrow opening like a rabbit wiggling its way down into its warren. A piece of splintered wood from the frame snagged a strand of her dark red hair. She tugged at it while simultaneously trying to shake off the tiny frogs that were landing on her bare legs with soft thumps that both tickled and gave her the creeps. Her efforts were futile. There were too many of them. The soles of her sandals were sticky with their blood.

  She flattened her palms on the top of an old oak dresser, one her mother had picked up at a yard sale two years earlier, intending to refinish it for Devin’s basement bedroom but never quite getting around to it.

  Devin’s feet were almost through the window when the emergency siren wailed into the night. Her heart nearly stopped.

  She sat on top of the dresser, holding her breath. She listened for the sounds of her family overhead, listened to hear if the sirens had awakened them, which they surely had. If she looked out the window, Kyle would probably still be standing beneath the grape arbor her father had built the past summer. If Kyle had any sense, he would hightail it out of there before her parents looked out the window to see what all the excitement was about and happened to spot him, standing there, his mouth smeared with the residue of Devin’s Purple Passion lipstick.

  She shifted her weight and with the bottom of her T-shirt wiped a clean spot on the grimy window. Kyle was gone.

  Devin drew a long breath, eased herself down to the floor, and pulled back the curtain that separated her small space from the rest of the musty basement with its washer and dryer, stacked lawn furniture cushions, her father’s workbench, scattered toys, and shelves crammed with clutter.

  Her hand shook as she reached for the lamp switch. She couldn’t be sure if the trembling and the frantic beating of her heart were the result of the siren, the fear of being caught, or Kyle’s kisses. She decided it was most likely all three and doubted she would get much sleep that night.

  She flicked on the light, which sat on the table next to her bed. Not a table, really, but a plastic milk crate turned on its end and covered with a flowered tablecloth. She kicked off her sandals and slipped out of her shorts and T-shirt. For once she welcomed the cool dampness of the basement. Outside, the air was so steamy it was like trying to breathe under water.

  For the next few minutes she didn’t move a muscle, just listened. Overhead all was quiet. She could hardly believe her luck.

  When she was an only child of three, her parents had bought this small Cape Cod on Meadowlark Drive, right at the edge of town before you went up over a hill and found yourself in the middle of dairy farm country, surrounded by cornfields and cows. On muggy spring nights like this one, the smell of fertilizer hung in the air and made you gag. And you had to choose between the stench or closing your window and sweltering to death.

  For years her mother kept calling the Cape Cod their starter home, even after Devin’s brothers and sisters were born. But instead of moving, her father finished off the attic so the four boys could have a room of their own. Devin shared her cramped room with her two sisters. When her father built another room off the downstairs, Devin, who was by then fourteen, thought she might actually have a room of her own. And it had almost happened. But then Granddad McCafferty had a stroke and he and Devin’s grandmother came to live with them, taking the new room. That was when Devin realized this was how it was going to be until the day she moved out. So she went to work converting one small corner of the basement into her own private space.

  No one, least of all her parents, called it a starter home anymore. It was just plain home, a place with scarcely enough air for everyone to take a breath at the same time.

  Three years before, she had begun her countdown to freedom. Every day she crossed off another square on her calendar with a red felt-tip pen. In the fall she would go to either Cornell or Middlebury, although she hadn’t heard from either yet. She would live in a dorm and maybe even get an apartment of her own eventually. A whole apartment all to herself. Three years earlier she wouldn’t have dreamed of getting into a good school. The best she could have hoped for
was the local community college.

  But all that had changed. Thanks to Simon Gray.

  Kyle Byrnes barely noticed the wave of frogs washing over his feet or the blood staining the soles of his sneakers, any more than he paid attention to the blaring emergency siren as he walked down Meadowlark Drive toward his house, three blocks away. He had other concerns. Not Devin, although the warmth of her lips on his still lingered. No, this was something else entirely, something that threatened them both.

  On Thursday afternoon he had overheard Dr. Schroder, the principal of Bellehaven High, telling George McCabe, the computer science teacher, that she thought someone might be hacking into the school’s computer network.

  Kyle had come to the computer lab to do some extra-credit work and had found the door closed. Ordinarily he would have walked right in. But as his fingers touched the knob, he thought he heard Principal Schroder’s voice. She sounded upset.

  Fortunately no one was in the hallway. Kyle edged closer to the door, staying long enough to hear how a copy of an English test had turned up in Angela Beckett’s printer that morning. Angela Beckett was Dr. Schroder’s administrative assistant. Apparently the test had been intended for another destination, another printer. George McCabe had sounded unconcerned, claiming the test probably belonged to Abel Dodge, the English teacher. “Abel sent it to the wrong printer, that’s all,” he assured Dr. Schroder. But the principal had countered with “I already talked to Abel. He has no idea how that test ended up in Angela’s printer. And I might add, he’s quite upset about it.”

  Dr. Schroder thought they should notify the local police, but George McCabe, who also served as the school’s systems administrator, seemed to downplay the whole thing, saying it sounded like a tempest in a teapot to him. He said he would check the log on the server to see if there was anything suspicious. But Kyle could tell that Principal Schroder wanted more. “If it’s a hacker,” she told him, “it’s a criminal offense. This is a police matter.”

  “I doubt it’s a hacker,” George McCabe told her. “It sounds like one of the students got hold of Abel’s password.”

  “Which is a breach of security,” Principal Schroder said.

  It was clear to Kyle that it would be only a matter of time before there was an investigation. He’d called Simon the moment he got home from school and the two of them had met down by the river, near the boat ramp. The only thing Simon said, when Kyle finished his story, was “Well, I guess it’s over.” He had looked relieved, which irritated Kyle.

  It wasn’t over. Not by a long shot. Kyle wasn’t about to let any of them get caught. Friday morning he and Simon skipped first period and began damage control. Simon started by removing an incriminating program he had installed in one of the library’s computers, then moved on to the others. They had acted fast. Simon missed most of his morning classes but told Kyle he was pretty sure no one would be able to trace what they’d been up to.

  So far, Kyle hadn’t said a word to Devin or Danny. He didn’t want to alarm them. They might panic and do something stupid, like blurt out everything to their parents. Especially Devin. She had a tendency to overreact. He couldn’t risk that. Besides, if something came up, Simon would handle it. That was what Kyle was thinking when he turned the corner onto Edgewood Avenue and saw the whirling lights blinking on the tree branches like red strobes.

  Two police cars and an ambulance were already at the scene. A crowd of people—some in bathrobes, some half dressed—stood a few yards away, kept at a distance by the police.

  As Kyle neared the site of the accident, drawn like the others by morbid curiosity, he saw that a car had smashed into the Liberty Tree. He came up beside a bald man with a grizzly beard, who wore only a pair of khaki shorts.

  “Looks bad,” the man said, folding his arms across his hairy belly. He did not take his eyes from the car. When Kyle followed the man’s gaze, his breath caught in his throat. He recognized the car. It was Simon Gray’s Honda. He was certain of it. The passenger side of the front end was crushed like an aluminum can.

  He pushed forward, ignoring the police officer’s warnings. “I know him,” Kyle shouted at the cop. “I know that kid.”

  The police officer dismissed Kyle’s outburst with a few nods, calmly gripped Kyle’s upper arm, and steered him back into the crowd, just as the paramedics lifted the gurney into the back of the ambulance. Simon’s face was covered with blood; the white sheets on the gurney were soaked in red.

  Kyle couldn’t believe what he was seeing. This was Simon. This was someone he knew. “Is he dead?” Kyle grabbed the cop’s shoulder.

  The police officer patted Kyle’s hand, then gently lifted it off. “Your friend’s still alive,” he said. “Unconscious, but there’s still a pulse.” He shook his head and nodded toward the crushed Honda. “That’s one hell of a lucky kid, I’d say.”

  Kyle’s mouth was so dry he could barely swallow. The scent of Simon’s blood seemed to be hovering in the air. Kyle could almost taste it.

  It wasn’t until after the ambulance headed down Edgewood that Kyle realized his situation. Anything that Simon had left undone, any evidence left behind, any tracks they hadn’t covered, would be Kyle’s responsibility. And he had no idea what to do next.

  A FEW HOURS PAST SUNRISE A MURDER OF CROWS, thousands of them, blackened the skies of Bellehaven, swooping overhead in ominous waves, barking their deafening caws. They covered the roads like fresh asphalt, devouring the dead frogs. They blanketed stream banks, their sharp beaks plucking shrieking peepers from beneath rocks.

  People stood at their windows, terrified to go outside. Mothers unpacked their children’s lunches and told them to go back to bed. They weren’t about to risk sending them into this black blizzard.

  When the phone call came, in the midst of all this chaos, Danny Giannetti was in the shower, filling the room with steam, losing himself in a mist so thick he couldn’t see his hand rubbing the bar of soap along his other arm. He had no idea Bellehaven was under siege.

  The rap of knuckles against the bathroom door startled him. The bar of soap thudded to the bottom of the tub.

  “Phone,” his sister, Marni, yelled, jiggling the knob to see if the door was locked. She stood barefoot with her head bent close to the door, listening as she zipped up her jeans. She was two years older than Danny and had a full-time job as a mechanic at the Gulf station in town. A fine line of stubborn grease was always ground into her cuticles.

  “Take a message,” Danny yelled.

  “I’m not your damn secretary,” Marni screamed back, then headed down the hall to finish getting dressed.

  The sliding glass door on the shower thumped against the wall as he slammed it open, wrapped a towel around his waist, and still dripping, padded down the hallway, leaving wet footprints on the carpet.

  “Yeah?” Danny barked into the phone.

  “He smeared his Honda all over the Hanging Tree.”

  The voice belonged to Kyle Byrnes. Danny knew the voice as well as his own, had known it since kindergarten.

  “Who?”

  “Gray.”

  There was a moment of silence as Danny balanced the phone between his chin and his shoulder while he tightened the towel before it could slide from his hips. “What are you talking about?”

  “The accident last night. I saw it.”

  When Danny didn’t respond, Kyle’s tone sharpened. “Did you hear what I said?”

  “You saw it?”

  “Yeah, on my way home from Devin’s.”

  “Are you sure it was Gray?”

  “It was Gray. I saw them loading him into the ambulance.”

  “Is he dead?”

  “I don’t know. I don’t think so. Listen, we’ve—”

  “Drunk? Was he drunk, do you think?” Danny was having trouble focusing. Simon must have walked past that tree on his way home from school every day since kindergarten, must have driven by it a hundred times since he’d gotten his license two months earlier
. Everybody in town knew that the road curved around the Hanging Tree. And for those unfamiliar with the area, there were yellow signs with black arrows to guide them around the danger zone. Nobody in their right mind could possibly run into it.

  “Simon Gray drunk? You’re kidding, right?”

  “Then why?”

  “Who knows.” Kyle paused to take a breath. “We’ve got ourselves a little problem.”

  “You mean Simon?”

  “Something else.”

  “Yeah? What’s that?”

  “Not on the phone,” Kyle said.

  “Is this about the project?”

  “Later.”

  Danny was starting to get nervous. It wasn’t like Kyle to be so cryptic. “Right. Later.” Danny slammed the phone into the cradle. The news about Simon had left him badly shaken. He flattened his palms against the wall in front of him for balance.

  When he got back to his room, his head felt so light he thought he might keel over. He told himself it was probably because of the hot steam in the shower. He flopped on the bed, lying on his back, and waited for the whirlpool in his head to wind down while his heart continued to bang against his chest. According to the digital clock on the nightstand, it was almost seven-thirty. He had fifteen minutes to get to school before the last bell. He couldn’t afford any black marks on his record right now. The previous Thursday, after an agonizingly long wait, he had received his acceptance letter from Dartmouth, and his feet hadn’t touched the ground since. Not until now. Not until Kyle’s phone call.

  He closed his eyes and waited for the pounding in his chest to slow down. What if Simon died? What if he had left behind any evidence?

  No, not Simon. Not a chance.

  Had it been only a year since he and Kyle Byrnes first cornered Simon in the cafeteria as he was dropping off his tray?