by Peg Kehret
The truck hit a chuckhole in the street. T.J. bounced, hitting his head on the dashboard.
He wondered what time it was. There was a clock on the dashboard of the truck but it didn’t work. Open House at school didn’t last long so his parents should be getting home soon. Any minute now, they would discover that he and Grandma Ruth were missing. Maybe they already had. Maybe the Open House got over early. His parents might already be looking for him.
He hoped they would call the neighbors first. They might think he had gone over to the Crowleys’ house to collect his pay and stayed to visit awhile, to hear about their trip. Maybe, when nobody answered at the Crowleys’, his parents would go over there. They would see Salt and Pepper out in the pasture and know something was wrong.
Maybe by now his parents had found the message in the dirt. Even if they didn’t find the message, they might look in the barn, because the kittens were part of T.J.’s job. Or they might hear Grandma Ruth singing.
As soon as his parents opened the barn door and saw Grandma Ruth, they would know T.J. was in trouble. They knew that T.J. would never leave Grandma Ruth there by herself. If his parents found Grandma Ruth in the barn, they would call the police immediately. The cops were probably hunting for him already.
The parents at the Open House talked more about the robbery and murder than they did about their childrens’ progress in school. Everyone was horrified that such a violent crime had happened in their neighborhood.
“We need to organize a Crime Watch program,” someone said. “If we don’t, this kind of thing is going to occur more and more often.”
Several people decided to meet at Denny’s after the Open House, to discuss ways to keep the neighborhood safe. The Stensons were invited to attend.
“We told T.J. we’d be home right after the Open House,” Mrs. Stenson said.
“I’ll call him,” Mr. Stenson said, “and let him know we’ll be late.”
Mr. Stenson went to the pay phone in the hallway near the school office. There was no answer.
“Maybe we should go straight home,” Mrs. Stenson said, “just to be sure everything is all right.”
“T.J. probably has the volume on his stereo turned up again and can’t hear the telephone,” Mr. Stenson said. “I don’t know how he can stand to have it so loud. I’ve told him he’ll ruin his hearing.”
“Sounds like my son,” said one of the other parents.
“He only does it when we’re gone,” Mrs. Stenson said, “and Mother doesn’t mind. She doesn’t seem to notice that it’s full volume. Her hearing isn’t as sharp as it used to be.”
Mr. and Mrs. Ackerley, Craig’s parents, came by on their way to their car. “Are you folks coming to the meeting at Denny’s?” Mr. Ackerley asked.
“I’m a bit nervous about T.J. and his grandmother,” Mrs. Stenson said.
“I know what you mean. We left our two boys by themselves tonight, too, but that’s all the more reason to help start a Crime Watch program. With a good neighborhood plan in effect, there would be less cause for nervousness.”
“You’re absolutely right,” Mr. Stenson said. “Come on, Amelia.”
When the Stensons arrived at the restaurant, the other parents were speculating about where the bank robber might have gone. Mrs. Stenson went to the phone at the front of the restaurant and dialed home again. She let it ring ten times before she hung up.
When she joined her husband and the others, Mr. Stenson gave her a questioning look.
“Still no answer,” she said.
“Remember the day we tried to call him from the airport, when the plane we were meeting was so late?” Mr. Stenson said. “We called and called and there was never any answer and we were sure something was wrong. When we finally got home, he was right there in the den, listening to his music. He didn’t hear the phone. He didn’t hear us come in the door.”
Mrs. Stenson nodded. She had been so certain that other time that T.J. was sick or injured, and so relieved when he was perfectly all right. No doubt it would be the same tonight; T.J. had his stereo volume cranked up to High and would be surprised to learn that they had tried to call him.
“That pecan pie sounds too good to resist,” Mr. Stenson told the waitress. “I’ll have it warm, with ice cream.”
“I’ll have the same,” Mrs. Stenson said.
Chapter Five
One hundred miles east of Pine Ridge, in a service station near the freeway, Mr. and Mrs. Crowley, T.J.’s neighbors, listened while a mechanic explained what was wrong with their car.
“How long will it take you to fix it?” Mr. Crowley asked.
“Not long. An hour or two.”
“Good. We’ll go get a bite to eat and come back.”
“Better not come until after breakfast tomorrow,” the mechanic said. “It won’t take me long to fix it, but I can’t get the part I need until morning.”
Mr. Crowley looked at his wife and sighed. “We’d better find a motel,” he said.
“I’ll have to call T.J. again,” Mrs. Crowley said. “He’ll need to feed the animals tomorrow morning, too.” She put the call on her credit card and let it ring a long time before she hung up.
“We can try again after we eat,” Mr. Crowley said.
T.J. rode in silence, hoping to hear sirens at any moment. By now, he thought, Mom and Dad are home. Maybe the Crowleys are home, too. They’ve found Grandma Ruth and called the police and every cop in the state is searching for me.
Soon a squad car will pull us over. Soon Brody will see blue lights flashing in his rearview mirror and hear the shrill scream of the highway patrol car’s siren. Soon this nightmarish ride will end.
He listened and listened but he heard only the rattling of the old blue truck.
Grandma Ruth sang “Holy, Holy, Holy” three times. She sang “The Old Rugged Cross” twice. She sang “Nearer My God To Thee.”
She was going to sing “Holy, Holy, Holy” again but her throat was getting scratchy. She needed a cup of tea or a drink of water.
She looked around the empty barn. She wondered why David didn’t come. Or had he been here and left? Was he waiting for her at home? She couldn’t remember.
Putting her hat on the floor, she lay down on the hay to rest. Before long, she shivered. It was cold in this church and she couldn’t think why she was here. The preacher had left long ago. She decided to go home and fix herself a bowl of nice, hot vegetable soup. That would take the chill from her bones.
Grandma Ruth stood, stretched, and walked to the door of the barn. She had to use both hands and push with all her strength to make the door slide open. She stepped outside, surprised to see that it was dark out. She had better hurry. Edward would be home from work and wondering why there was no dinner on the table. Her husband was a patient man, but he did like his meals served on time. She closed the door carefully behind her and set off down the road.
Pound, pound, pound.
T.J. heard a dull, steady noise.
The truck was idling again. Another red light, no doubt. T.J. moved his neck from side to side, trying to work the kinks out.
Pound, pound, pound. He strained his ears, trying to figure out what the throbbing sound was. Pound, pound.
A stereo! The pounding noise was the bass notes of a stereo. Every nerve in T.J.’s body was instantly alert, as if he had just been plugged into an energy socket. If there was music nearby, there had to be people. Kids, probably, walking along with a boom box. Or another car, with the radio volume turned up so high that the bass notes carried right through the closed windows of the truck.
The noise seemed to come from his left. T.J. sat up, looking quickly in that direction. Through the window on the driver’s side, he saw the source of the music. A minivan was stopped beside the truck, waiting to make a left turn. The driver of the minivan nodded his head and snapped his fingers in time to the music. He didn’t look toward T.J. and the truck.
“Get back down,” Brody said.
&nb
sp; T.J. ducked down again. His mind sped faster than a downhill skier in the Olympic Games. He could jump out. He could hitchhike to a telephone and call the police.
But what if Brody whipped the gun out of his pocket the second T.J. opened the door? What if he fired one, fatal shot before T.J. ever had a chance to ask the minivan driver for help?
I’ll have to move fast, T.J. decided. He inched his head up just far enough to see the traffic light turn yellow.
He jumped out of the truck, slammed the door behind him, and, crouching low, ran around the back of the truck. As he went past the back of the minivan, he banged on the rear window.
The music was louder now, a heavy rock beat that swirled in the air around T.J.’s head. The minivan driver swayed in time to the beat.
T.J., still crouching so he was out of Brody’s sight, reached up and thumped on the driver’s window.
The light turned green.
T.J. stood up. “Help!” he cried. “Let me in.” He tried to open the door but it was locked.
The blue pickup drove away.
The startled minivan driver peered through his window at T.J.
T.J. banged again.
“Hey, man!” the driver said. “Knock it off.”
“Help!” T.J. said. “I need help.”
The driver reached toward the dash and turned a knob. The music stopped. He rolled his window down an inch.
“Give me a ride,” T.J. pleaded. “I need to get to a phone, to call the cops.”
“Where’d you come from, kid? What you doin’ out here all alone at night?”
“Can’t I tell you after you let me in? I can talk while you drive.”
“I’m not lettin’ some stranger in my car without a good reason. What do you think I am, crazy?”
“You saw that blue pickup that was next to you?”
The driver nodded.
“That guy robbed a bank today and killed the teller. He was hiding in my neighbor’s barn and I found him and he made me go with him. I jumped out just now, while he was stopped at the red light. He’ll probably be back for me any minute. Please! Let me come with you.”
The driver stared at T.J. for a moment. His eyes were narrow, as if he were thinking about what T.J. had said.
“What bank?” he asked.
“Pine Ridge Bank. He still has the gun in his pocket.”
The man shook his head. “You’re pretty young to be involved in some kind of scam,” he said.
“This isn’t a scam. I need help!”
“Sorry, kid,” the driver said. “I just listened to the news and you weren’t kidnapped by any bank robber.”
“It wouldn’t be on the radio yet about me being kidnapped,” T.J. said. “It just happened a little while ago.”
The man pointed a finger at T.J. “I don’t know what you’re tryin’ to pull, kid, but you aren’t pullin’ it on me.”
He cranked the window back up. He reached for the radio knob and the rock music came back, full volume. The minivan took off. It turned left, accelerating quickly.
“Wait!” T.J. shouted. He ran after the van, into the middle of the intersection, but it was clear that the driver wasn’t going to stop.
Why didn’t the man believe him?
He couldn’t stand there and wonder why. He had to get away, in case Brody came back, looking for him.
T.J. ran to his right and started down the sidewalk. At least, he thought, I got away from the murderer in the pickup. I may not know where I am but wherever it is, it’s better than being in that truck. Another car is certain to come along soon. They don’t have traffic lights in areas where there isn’t any traffic. Or I’ll come to another phone booth, one that works.
He jogged along, past a used bookstore, a yarn shop, and a child-care center, all of which were closed. He’d gone less than a block when he heard a vehicle approaching from behind him. He looked over his shoulder as he ran but he was looking directly into the headlights and couldn’t tell what kind of vehicle it was.
Should he dart alongside one of the buildings and hide, in case it was Brody? Or should he take a chance that it was someone else, someone who could help him?
Maybe the minivan driver had thought it over and had a change of heart. Maybe he realized that T.J. didn’t look like the sort of person who would be involved in a scam so he went around the block and came back. Maybe it was a different car altogether, with a driver who would help him.
There was a big chestnut tree on the boulevard just ahead. T.J. ducked behind it. If the headlights belonged to the old blue truck, he was hidden. If it was some other vehicle, he could jump out and yell for help as it went past.
When the headlights were almost even with the tree, T.J. peeked around the front of the tree and prepared to leap out. As the lights passed, T.J. saw that they belonged to a white sedan. He jumped from behind the tree, waving his arms and shouting.
“Stop!” T.J. yelled. “I need help!”
The car never even slowed down. He could tell there were three passengers, in addition to the driver, but not a single one of them turned to look back at him. They didn’t see him running along the sidewalk after them. They were so busy talking to each other that they didn’t hear him yelling.
He couldn’t possibly run fast enough to catch the car. Panting, he slowed to a walk.
Minutes later, he saw headlights approaching again. This time, he decided not to wait until the vehicle was past before he yelled for help.
When the headlights were half a block away, T.J. ran to the curb and tried to get the driver’s attention. The headlights came faster.
T.J. stepped off the curb, waving his arms over his head like signal flags. “Stop!” he yelled. “Stop!”
The old blue pickup stopped.
Brody got out.
T.J. turned and ran.
“Hold it right there.” Brody’s voice was steady. Menacing.
T.J. stopped. No matter how much he wanted to escape, he couldn’t risk his life. There was no truck and no minivan to hide behind now. Earlier, when he ran to the phone booth, Brody didn’t shoot but that time, he was caught off guard. That time, T.J. had been zigzagging across the dark parking lot before Brody could get out of the truck and aim the gun.
This time, Brody was only a few feet away, just as the bank clerk was only a few feet away when she was killed. If Brody shot the bank clerk for no reason except that she could identify him, he might do the same with T.J.
“Get back in the truck.”
T.J. still didn’t see the gun but Brody had his right hand in his pocket again. T.J. wondered if the bank clerk saw the gun before it went off. He tried to remember exactly what the TV newsman had said. Did the witnesses describe a weapon or only the sequence of events? He couldn’t remember and right then, it really didn’t matter. T.J. did as he was told.
“Head down.”
T.J. put his forehead on his knees but he kept his head turned so he could watch Brody.
Brody didn’t drive off right away. He sat there and looked at T.J., as if wondering what to do with him. Finally, he spoke. “What did the guy in the van say?”
“He didn’t believe me when I said I needed help. He thought it was some kind of scam.”
Brody nodded his head. “It figures.”
“Why did you drive off?”
“I couldn’t be sure what that driver would do. I left, in case he helped you, and I came back, in case he didn’t.”
“Well, he didn’t.”
“Nobody ever helps.”
“I want to go home. My parents will be worried about me.”
“You can’t go home. If you went home, you would tell them about me.”
“No, I wouldn’t. I swear I wouldn’t! I wouldn’t say anything about you. I’d say I was at my friend Dane’s house and didn’t realize how late it was. They would believe me.”
Brody shook his head. “You would tell,” he said sadly, as if T.J. had already betrayed him. “You would tell all about
me and then they’d know who to look for and I would never finish my revenge.”
“But I have to go home eventually. If I don’t, the police will be looking for me. You’ll get caught sooner because I’m with you than you would on your own.”
Brody nodded. “We’ll hurry,” he said. “I’ll do as many as I can tonight.” He started the truck.
As many as he can? Brody talked as if he planned to break into more banks tonight.
“You’d move faster if you didn’t have to keep chasing after me,” T.J. said.
“I’m not going to chase you anymore.”
What does that mean? T.J. wondered. The next time I run, you’ll let me go? Or the next time I run will be the last time my legs carry me anywhere?
“If you leave again, I’ll go back to the barn and get the nutty saint. She won’t run from me.”
Chapter Six
When Grandma Ruth reached the junction where the Crowleys’ private dirt road joined the street, she stopped. This wasn’t the way she had come. She and David never walked on paved streets. They always followed the deer trails through the woods or they cut through Papa’s cornfields, with the high stalks brushing their shoulders. The only time they saw paved streets was when Papa and Mama took them into town.
A car whizzed toward her. The driver, glimpsing Grandma Ruth on the side of the road, honked the horn. Grandma Ruth stepped away from the sudden noise and shut her eyes to close out the bright lights.
When the car passed, she turned and went back toward the barn.
Before she got there, she saw a metal gate shining in the moonlight. It looked familiar. Had David brought her through that gate? No, that wasn’t David; that was T.J.
She stopped walking. T.J. Her only grandchild. She had not thought it was possible for her ever again to love anyone as much as she loved Edward, her late husband, or her daughters, Amelia and Marion. But, oh, she did love T.J. She hadn’t seen him for a long time; she wondered where he was. Was he still a small boy or had he grown up when she wasn’t looking and become a man? Children had a way of doing that. One day her Amelia was sitting on her lap, listening to stories, and the next day, or so it seemed, Amelia had a baby of her own.