“So,” Steadwell said, folding his hands on the top of Slider’s desk. “Let me ask you a few questions. I know that you were heard saying that you’d like to kill Joe Thorson yourself.”
Grant looked at his toes. He bit his lip. He was so mad, he couldn’t speak. All he could do was nod his head.
“Why? Can you tell me why you wanted him dead?”
Grant lifted his head to look Steadwell in the eye. “Yes.” He sat back in the chair.
“So go on.”
The stone felt like lava, erupting, and Grant spewed out the story. “His son Little Joe is my best friend. Big Joe beat him up. He’d come to school with black eyes and bruises. And his mother, Mrs. Thorson, would have black eyes and have to hide her face. And he bothered me. He followed me around, bothering me.”
“Bothering you?”
“Yeah. He’d just show up wherever I went. Like he was following me around.” He took a bit breath and went on. “And the worst is that Frank and I were up on the Lutheran church pulling nails out of the steeple, to take down the Christmas lights, and Frank dropped a hammer. Little Joe went down to get it, to bring it up to us, and Big Joe wouldn’t let him help us. Big Joe threw the hammer at me. Up on the roof. Like I said, I’m a pitcher, and the hammer claw hit my elbow. It broke my bone and ripped a tendon, and I had to have an operation, and a cast, and it just about wrecked my elbow, and I want to pitch in the big leagues, and now I might not be able to unless I get the power back, so I hated him. I did. I guess I still do, even if he’s dead, but he’s Little Joe’s dad, so I sure didn’t kill him.” Grant looked down again. “I hated him, but that doesn’t mean I’m glad he’s dead.” And in spite of hating Steadwell, it felt good to let spew out the whole story.
Steadwell watched him. Only Steadwell’s eyes moved.
After a whole silent minute, Grant said, “Can I go now?” He scooched to the front of the chair, ready to bolt.
“Can you answer a few more questions?”
Grant shrugged. “Do I have a choice?”
Steadwell smiled. Grant still didn’t like his smile. “What about your friend Frank?”
“Frank? What about him?” Grant sank back into the chair.
“He was heard to threaten Joe Thorson, too. Again, several witnesses. After—” Steadwell looked at his notes. “After a baseball game.”
“Yeah, well, he—Big Joe—hit Frank—knocked him out, actually—after a baseball game. All we were doing was carrying Little Joe on our shoulders—because he made a triple play and won the game! You ever heard of a triple play? And Big Joe came and yanked Little Joe down and said he was too big for his britches—and when Frank tried to stop Big Joe, he smacked Frank and knocked him out in the dirt. Frank—”
“Frank what?”
“Frank has kind of a temper. He sort of doesn’t always think before he does stuff.” Grant told him about Frank on the water tower, and Big Joe, worthless, at the bottom in a heap.
Steadwell had been sitting, listening, arms crossed on Slider’s desk. Now he moved, and wrote in a notebook. And nodded. “Anything else?”
“About what?”
“Frank. Linking Frank to Big Joe. Think he did it?”
“Frank? You kidding? Frank’s too—” Grant bit his lip. He was going to say, too much of a chicken, but he didn’t. He thought about Frank’s white face, and Frank not being able to look at the houses or stand the smell when they all went investigating the stink of what turned out to be Big Joe’s rotting body. He remembered how Frank said he had to “help” at home, which Grant knew was a lie. He hadn’t seen Frank since they found Big Joe’s body, come to think of it.
And the new linoleum that nobody could afford, except somebody like Frank’s dad. The weight of the stone in Grant’s midsection multiplied.
Grant said, “Whoever did must’ve put down the new linoleum in the Thorson’s kitchen. Frank wouldn’t know how to do that . . . or think of it. He’s not . . . careful enough.” That sounded awful. Like he was saying Frank could have done it. Truth was, he was afraid of that. Terrified, actually. But he didn’t want to say that out loud.
“How did you know about the linoleum—that it was new? I heard you’re the one who noticed it.”
“I’ve been in Little Joe’s house. Plenty of times. He’s my best friend. I knew it wasn’t there before and I knew where the cellar was. Plus, we had to pull it up to find where the smell was coming from. The linoleum was over the cellar. And there was Big Joe’s body.”
Steadwell nodded, wrote some more. “Anything else that I should know? Anything at all?”
Grant shook his head.
“Anybody else threaten Big Joe that you heard?”
“Plenty of people. But nobody who would seriously do it. He just made everybody mad.”
“Everybody? Like who?”
Grant sighed. “Besides my dad and me and Frank? Grumpy, I guess. And Little Joe.”
Steadwell’s eyebrows went up. “Thorson’s son?”
Grant thought about Little Joe, how angry he was at his dad, how he’d said, “If I knew I could get away with it, and I wouldn’t get sent to prison forever and ever and leave my mom all alone with the little kids, I’d kill my dad. I would, Grant. Sometimes I downright hate him.”
Grant looked at Steadwell. “Yes, Thorson’s son. But he—he’s a really good kid. And he’s my best friend.” The stone in his stomach grew even bigger.
Steadwell nodded. “Okay, then.” He shut his notebook. “You can go. We might need you again. You okay with that?”
Grant stood up. “I don’t have a choice, do I?”
Steadwell gave him a tight-lipped smile. “No, I guess you don’t.”
Grant went outside and dragged his feet all the way home.
Thirty-Eight
Slider
Slider hadn’t come home yet at dinnertime. Grant didn’t feel like talking, but Shirley chattered non-stop about who maybe killed Big Joe.
“Frank? Grant, you think Frank could have done it? He does such stupid stuff without thinking. If he got mad enough, would he do it? You think he could’ve? I heard what he said after your game, when Big Joe knocked him out.”
“I don’t think so,” Grant responded. But the dread in his stomach had only grown all afternoon and evening. “But truth is, I don’t know.”
Shirley and Mamie looked at him. “Really?” Shirley said.
Grant just shook his head and refused to say anymore about it.
They tried wheedling Mamie into letting them stay up until Slider got home, but she wouldn’t hear of it. “We have no idea when he’ll get back. You can’t wait up all night. Get on to bed. I’ll have him come say goodnight when he gets home.”
“Promise?” Shirley said.
“You have my word, young lady. You don’t need a promise. Get to bed.”
Dark fell late over the Dakota plains. The big, wide sky trapped the sunlight long after the sun had gone down. Grant lay reading, wishing he could get sleepy, but he couldn’t. He finished Halliburton’s The Glorious Adventure and set it down on the peach crate made into a table beside his bed, and turned out his lamp.
Grant crawled out of bed and knelt at the window, taking in the night sky. When he leaned his face against the screen, he spotted the Pleiades and Orion and Hercules and Perseus and Andromeda, as his dad had taught him. The same stars shone over Greece, where the Greeks had named constellations after their heroes. He wondered if he would ever cross the ocean or travel the Aegean Sea like Richard Halliburton.
He wondered when his dad would get home. His dad was a little like Odysseus, he decided. And he was Telemachus, the son, trying to defend his family’s honor until his father returned. Telemachus helped kill the men who tried to take his father’s place. Grant held up his hands as if he were holding a rifle, aiming it at the blue light on top of the water tower, thinking of aiming at Steadman’s head. He shook his head, knowing he’d never, ever shoot at a public light of any kind, ever again.
>
What would it feel like to pull a trigger and know somebody would bang be dead, gone, nothingness, black, gone forever, poof. Or in heaven, if the church stuff was true, but heaven didn’t seem like somewhere Big Joe would get to go if the church descriptions were accurate. It also didn’t seem fair that Big Joe would have to burn in hell for all eternity, either. That seemed wrong. He was mean and nasty and selfish, but he seemed like a pretty miserable person. Didn’t seem right to have to be miserable for all eternity, too. God couldn’t be that mean, could He?
* * *
He wondered how Frank felt about everything. It was scary, thinking how Frank had been so skittish about the smell that day they found the body, and how Frank kept looking at the houses, all nervous, and worst, how he hadn’t seen Frank since they found Big Joe’s body.
Frank. Could he have done it? If Frank got mad enough, Grant could imagine him shooting Big Joe. And Frank’s dad had enough money to buy linoleum. If Frank came home in a panic that he’d shot Big Joe, his dad would probably cover up the crime with new linoleum. Frank could do such stupid stuff, but he wouldn’t really shoot Big Joe, would he? Could he? The worry stone in Grant’s stomach got heavier. Was it possible?
Who else?
The worst dread in his stomach was when he thought about his dad. He’d seen his dad capable of being violent. The memory of Big Joe’s burning pants and flesh on the tire fire at Grumpy’s was the most unsettling thing Grant had ever felt. Worse than the pain of the hammer on his elbow. Different than the fury he felt for what Big Joe did to him and to Little Joe and Mrs. Thorson. Scared because of what his dad was capable of. It hurt his guts. His dad couldn’t . . . could he? Of course not. Everything, even the violent things Slider did, were just. With good reason. No, he couldn’t think that about his dad.
And he was right when he told Steadman that his dad wouldn’t hide anything. He was honest. Honest, honest, honest. And he certainly wouldn’t have pretended not to know where the body was if he had done it. That was impossible. Impossible. He wished Steadman would believe him.
He wished his dad would get home.
What if his dad found Mrs. Thorson and Little Joe, delivered them to the courthouse, and that awful Mr. Steadman arrested Slider on the spot? What if Slider were in jail right now?
Who else could have killed Big Joe?
Of course Little Joe was a possibility. Little Joe hated his dad, and he certainly had motive and opportunity. But the new linoleum? Mary Thorson couldn’t afford linoleum. They couldn’t even afford meat for Christmas. And if they were going to shoot Big Joe, why not take off on vacation and shoot Big Joe when he got out of the car somewhere, shove him into the lake or off a bridge or something? It seemed too obvious to put him in the basement. But then again . . . what if they defended themselves and couldn’t move the body, couldn’t lift that big hulk of a man’s body into the trunk of the car . . . so they shoved him into the cellar? And left on vacation without him? It was awful to consider.
Awful. But it made the most sense.
Who else?
Grumpy. Grant thought about when Grumpy had refused to take Big Joe’s grocery money. Grumpy didn’t let anybody drink on credit. If he refused to give Big Joe a drink, Big Joe could have gotten violent. He’d practically jumped over the bar to grab Grumpy that night. Grumpy would never kill Big Joe, though, would he? Never. But what if Grumpy had to defend himself? What if Big Joe almost killed him? Lots of people could have killed Big Joe out of self-defense.
Grant rocked back on his heels and got up. He stuck his head out his bedroom door and listened. Silence. Maybe he could sneak out and go talk to Grumpy. And check the jail while he was out sneaking around.
He pulled his pants and shirt on. He carried his shoes and socks and moved down the stairs, one at a time, barefoot.
“Grant O’Grady!” The loud whisper behind him almost sent him tumbling down the stairs head over heels.
He caught himself in time and turned. “Shirley! What are you doing out of bed?”
“Me?” she whispered. “I’m not goin’ anywhere. You’re the one should be answering that question.”
Grant tiptoed back up the stairs and motioned Shirley into her room. “Don’t tell, okay?” He plunked down on her bed and so did she.
“Don’t tell what?”
“I think I’m going to sneak out and talk to Grumpy. See if he has any ideas. Another thing . . . that Mr. Steadman guy from the FBI . . . he thinks Dad might be guilty ’cause he took off and disappeared, so I thought—”
“He’s just getting the Thorsons!”
“I know that. And you know that, but Steadman doesn’t trust anybody. Dad’s one of his suspects. And Frank. And me.”
“You didn’t, did you? Kill Big Joe, I mean?”
Grant punched her softly in the arm.
“Ouch. Okay, okay. So where else are you going besides Grumpy’s?”
“To check the jail. I’m afraid Dad showed up with the Thorsons, and Steadman threw him in jail to keep him.”
“Do you think it’s safe to be out at night? Somebody out there is a killer.”
Grant looked at her in the faint moonlight trickling in from her east window. “I think it’s as safe as it ever was. I don’t think there’s a murderer on the loose. I think somebody killed Big Joe for a reason. Lots of people had reasons to.”
“Let me come with you.”
Grant sighed. “Naw. It’s hard enough to sneak alone. Two people are twice the risk. And Mom would have our hides for sneaking out. She about had a fit that you went to Grumpy’s once before.”
“I don’t care. I hate being a girl.”
Grant bit his lip. This was one time he actually wouldn’t mind his little sister’s company.
“Come on, Grant. If you don’t let me come, I’ll never let you fly with me when I get to be a lady pilot.”
“Are you still on about that?”
“Every bit as much as you are on about being a major league pitcher.”
“Okay. Get dressed. Fast. And quiet.”
Shirley jumped up and almost hugged Grant, but she stopped herself.
“I’ll wait in the hall.”
Grant and Shirley made it to the front door without a single creak of the stairs or floor. The front door was latched and undoing it made a metallic click. Grant froze, but then pulled it open, and they scurried out before Mamie could get out of bed.
“Run!” Grant whispered. “Meet you at the road.” He pushed the door shut and sprinted after Shirley. They ran down the road and around the corner toward Main Street, out of sight of their house before they slowed to a trot.
“Think she heard us?” Shirley asked.
“I hope not.”
“What time is it?” Shirley asked.
Grant looked up at the Big Dipper in the north sky. “Um, I don’t know. Must be after eleven. Maybe midnight.”
Shirley grinned at him. “I’ve never been out this late before.”
“If we get caught, you know Mamie will skin me alive.”
“I’ll tell her it’s my fault,” Shirley said. “That I made you let me come.”
When they turned onto Main Street, two cars were parked near Grumpy’s and the rest of the road was dead dark between street lights.
The door creaked like always, and the lamplight hovered around the bar like always. Grumpy looked up like always, but when he saw the kids, he looked startled. “Look what the midnight cat drug in. What on earth are you O’Gradys doing out at this hour? Does Mamie know you’re out?”
“No,” Grant said. “She doesn’t. But we can’t sleep, so we sneaked out to come see you.”
Grumpy nodded to two stools. Shirley couldn’t wipe the grin off her face as she skootched her skirt up to climb onto the barstool.
Lawrence Messner, Askil Snortland, and Ole Bjelland all turned from their beers to face Grant and Shirley. Ole lifted his beer mug toward Grant. Grant smiled back at Orland’s dad.
“What can I
do you two young’uns for?” Grumpy said. “Before Mamie shows up here and rips me up one side and down the other for harboring underage fugitives?”
“We aren’t fugitives,” Grant said. “Just worried.”
“And you, young lady,” Grumpy said, “won’t you be in a pack of trouble for being in the tavern with your brother again? I heard Mamie was none too pleased about the last time.”
“I made Grant let me come,” she said. “No matter what Mamie says, I told him if he didn’t let me come, that when I’m a lady pilot, I’ll never let him fly with me.
“A lady pilot!” Ole Bjelland whistled.
“You figuring to be the next Amelia Earhart? You want to go down in the ocean, too?” Askil Snortland said.
“Yes, I am,” Shirley said, sitting straighter. “But I won’t go down. I’ll make it all the way around the world.”
Lawrence Messner snorted a laugh.
“Well,” Grumpy said, maybe you’ll fly your brother around, and maybe he’ll be the first major leaguer to fly to his games instead of taking the train.”
“That’ll be the day!” Lawrence Messner guffawed. “A plane. A lady pilot.” He shook his head and turned his back.
Shirley glared at his back.
“Don’t pay him no mind.” Grumpy set two foaming mugs of root beer in front of them. “On the house. If any girl can fly a plane, I reckon it would be the daughter of Slider and Mamie O’Grady. Now. What can I do for you two?”
“Thanks, Grumpy. Did the FBI guy talk to you yet?” Grant asked.
Grumpy nodded.
“He thinks maybe Dad did it! Or me. Or Frank.”
“Well. I wouldn’t put it past any of you.” Then he grinned. “I’m kidding. I know better. Well, maybe not about Frank. That rapscallion—”
“I know!” Grant said. “I’m scared for Frank. And Dad’s not home yet, and that Steadman guy thinks Dad skipped the country ’cause maybe he’s guilty. Doesn’t believe us that he just went to get the Thorson family.”
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