I hardly knew her. Why was she calling me? What could be so important?
“Is it about Sal?” I said.
“Please come,” she said. “You know those new houses they’re building down near where the racetrack used to be? I’m down there.”
That was where Teddy and his friends liked to hang out. What was she doing there? What was going on?
She told me exactly where she would be waiting. “Will you come?” she said.
I said okay. But I had a weird feeling about it. Why couldn’t she just talk to me over the phone? And why was she down where they were building those houses? So many kids fooled around down there—not just Teddy and his friends—that the developer whose site it was had hired extra security guards. If I went down there and got into trouble with a security guard, Riel would never let me hear the end of it. But I knew Staci wouldn’t have called me unless it was something important—something about Sal.
Staci was exactly where she had told me she would be.
“Come on,” she said when she saw me. She took off down an unpaved street. There were houses on both sides, but they weren’t ready to live in yet. None of them had windows or doors. A couple had roofs, but the roofs weren’t shingled yet. They were mostly just shells of houses, and some of them weren’t even that.
“Where are we going?” I said.
She didn’t answer. Instead, she waved for me to keep following her, so I did.
She ducked between two just-started houses and kept going until she reached the house behind them. This one had a roof on it and windows, but no brick on the outside yet and no doors. Staci walked right in.
“Hey,” I said. I could hear Riel’s voice in my head: That’s trespassing, Mike, and trespassing is against the law.
It was dark inside. I couldn’t see anything. Staci took one of my hands.
“This way,” she whispered. She led me deeper into the house. My eyes started to adjust. We were headed for stairs that led down to the basement. “There’s no railing,” she said. “So be careful.”
I followed her cautiously down the stairs. When I got about halfway down, I saw a light.
“It’s okay, Alex,” Staci said. “It’s me. Mike’s here with me.”
Alex? What was going on?
Once I got to the bottom of the stairs, I saw Alex huddled in the corner of the basement, which was just one big open space with cinder-block walls and a concrete floor. His left leg was twitching, and he was holding a flashlight, which he shone in my eyes, blinding me.
“Hey!” I said.
The beam danced away from my face. Staci had taken the flashlight from Alex. She stood it on its end so that it lit the place up enough for us to see each other. I looked at her.
“What’s going on?” I said.
“Alex called me,” she said. “I know he likes you. He says you’ve helped him a lot at work. And I know you live with Mr. Riel. I had him for history last year. He seems like a good guy. So I thought maybe you could talk to Alex and then maybe talk to Mr. Riel. I thought he might know what to do.”
“About what?” I said.
“Alex is scared.”
I looked at him. He was still crouched down in the corner, like he was trying to make himself melt right into the cinder blocks.
“What are you scared of, Alex?”
“My aunt called the police,” Alex said. “She thinks I killed that guy.”
“You mean Sal?”
He nodded. I glanced at Staci. She just shook her head.
“Why would your aunt think that, Alex?” I said. But I was starting to feel cold all over, and not just from the night. I remembered how angry Alex had been when he’d seen me talking to Staci. Maybe he’d seen Sal with her. Maybe that had made him angry, too. He hadn’t known until I told him that Sal already had a girlfriend. What if … ?
“She read something in the paper,” Alex said. “She thinks I did it.”
“Read something in the paper?” He must have meant that article directed at parents. “But what would make her think you did it?”
“She found my clothes. She saw all that blood. She was screaming at me, What have you done, Alex? She called the police.”
I stared at him.
“His aunt tried to lock him in the basement until the police got there,” Staci said. “But he got away from her. He ran. He called me. He said he needed help. He was crying.”
My head was spinning. I felt like I couldn’t breathe. Was he really saying what I thought he was saying?
“There was blood on your clothes?” I said.
Alex nodded. He looked miserable.
“Whose blood?”
“That guy who died.”
Now my head felt like it was going to explode.
“Your clothes had Sal’s blood on them?” I said slowly, forcing myself to stay as calm as I could, which wasn’t very calm. “How did Sal’s blood get on your clothes?”
“When I went into the alley, I saw him lying there,” Alex said. “There was blood everywhere—”
“You said you were in school when it happened,” I said. “You said you didn’t even go outside. Now you’re saying you were in that alley?”
He hung his head.
“I was in the hall at school. I looked out the window, and I saw Staci,” he said. “I wondered what she was doing, where she was going.” He glanced at her and looked embarrassed. “Sometimes if I see she’s going to the mall, I go, too,” he said softly.
I looked at Staci. She looked embarrassed too.
“Then what did you do, Alex?” I said. I was shaking all over now.
“When I got outside, I saw she was with that guy.”
“With Sal, you mean?”
He nodded. “He had his arm around her.”
“Is that why you did it?” I said. “Because Staci was with Sal and he had his arm around her?” I remembered him saying that Bailey sometimes had to stop him when he lost his temper because when he was angry, he got into trouble. I had wondered what kind of trouble he meant. “Were you jealous? Is that it, Alex?”
“No,” he said. “He said something to her. Then she ran back across the street into the school. She ran right past me, and I saw that she was crying. I was mad at him for making her cry. I wanted to tell him not to do that.”
“You thought he hurt her, is that it?” I said. “Is that why you killed him?”
“I didn’t kill him!”
He jumped to his feet. I braced myself. I remembered how angry he had been at the store when he didn’t want to believe what I had said about Bailey.
“I thought he did something to make her cry,” Alex said. “So I wanted to talk to him. I saw him go into the alley so I ran across the street and followed him. When I got there, he was lying on the ground. His eyes were open—”
No. No.
“—and he was trying to say something. So I knelt down and there was all this blood coming out of him—”
No.
“You were going to hurt him, weren’t you, Alex? He pulled a knife, is that it?” Alex looked a lot stronger than Sal. “You stabbed him with it, didn’t you? You killed him.”
“No,” Alex said. “I knelt down. I was trying to hear what he was saying—”
“Sal,” I said. “His name was Sal.”
“I tried to hear what he was saying, but he stopped talking. Then Bailey told me—”
Bailey?
“Bailey was there?”
“He came into the alley and saw me. When he saw the blood, he told me to go home right away. He said to try and not let anyone see me. He said I should change and get rid of my clothes. So I did. I was afraid to put them in the garbage because of the raccoons.”
The raccoons? I glanced at Staci.
“Raccoons get in the garbage sometimes,” she said. “They spill everything all over the place.”
“So I hid them in the basement,” Alex said. “I hid them good, but my aunt found them.”
“Running
away like that and hiding clothes with blood all over them—people who haven’t done anything wrong don’t do things like that, Alex,” I said.
“I didn’t do anything wrong. There was blood on my clothes because I knelt down to hear what he was saying. I told Bailey that. I didn’t hurt him. It must have been that man.”
“What man?”
“I don’t know,” Alex said.
“You don’t know?” I was practically yelling at him now. “You just said there was a man.”
“When I went in the alley, I saw a man running away. I ran around the corner and that guy … Sal … was lying on the ground.”
“What man?” I said again.
“Just a man,” Alex said. “I didn’t see his face. I only saw his back. He had black hair. And he was wearing a dark jacket with a red stripe across it. He—”
I froze. I held up my hand so that Alex would stop talking. I grabbed the flashlight and shut it off.
“Hey,” Staci protested.
“I heard a car,” I whispered. “Maybe it’s a security guard.”
We sat in the darkness in silence. I heard foot steps outside. Then I heard them above us. Some one was in the house.
“Alex?” a voice called. “Alex, are you in here?”
“Bailey!” Alex called. Relief flooded his face. “Bailey, I’m down here.”
“Come on up, Alex,” Bailey said. “It’s dark in here. I can’t see. Come up here so we can talk.”
Alex started up the stairs.
I heard more footsteps overhead.
Bailey wasn’t alone.
“Come on,” I said to Staci. We made our way to the stairs. Alex reached the top before I put a foot on the first step. I heard him yell. Then I heard someone say, “Alex Farmington, you are under arrest for the murder of Salvatore San Miguel …”
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
I had faced a loaded gun once before, but that didn’t make it less scary this time. When I climbed up out of the basement, I saw that the unfinished house was filled with cops. I guess they were surprised to see Staci and me because they reacted by pointing their guns at us. I raised my hands, fast.
“Mike,” a voice said. It was Dave Jones. “What are you doing here?” He glanced at Staci. He didn’t ask her for her name, but I guess he didn’t have to. She had told me that she’d spoken to the police about the day Sal died. She’d probably spoken to Dave.
Bailey was there, too, with a woman who I guessed was his mother. They were escorted out of the house. Dave waved over another plainclothes cop to take Staci aside and talk to her.
“Mike?” Dave said again. He was waiting for my answer. So I told him that Staci had called me. “You’re going to have to make a statement, Mike,” Dave said. I said okay. I also said that I wanted to call Riel. I was afraid he’d get home before I did and that he’d wonder where I was. Riel didn’t like to wonder about things like that.
Riel was waiting at the police station when I got there. He stayed with me while I told Dave everything that Alex had told me.
“Alex says Sal had already been stabbed when he got to him,” I said. “He says he saw a man running out of the alley.” I gave him the description that Alex had given me. “Do you think it’s true?” I said. “Do you think the man he saw is the one who killed Sal?”
Dave looked at Riel. He didn’t answer. He thanked me for coming in and talking to him.
“What do you think?” I asked Riel on the way home. “Do you think Alex did it?”
“I don’t know enough about it to have an opinion, Mike,” Riel said. “But I’m sure Dave will sort it out.”
For the next few minutes, neither of us spoke. I kept thinking about what Alex had said. I had a picture of it in my mind
“Alex said that when he found Sal, Sal was trying to say something.” That was bothering me. “What do you think it was?”
Riel didn’t answer, I guess because there was no way he could. But I couldn’t stop thinking about it.
There was a buzz in the hallways at school the next day. Everyone was talking about Alex. Teddy was at his locker when I got to mine. We looked at each other, but neither of us said anything. When I went to the cafeteria at lunchtime, I noticed that Bailey wasn’t at Teddy’s table the way he usually was. I thought maybe he had stayed home from school, but, no, I spotted him outside. He was sitting on the bleachers. Annie was with him. I hesitated. I told myself that I should leave him alone, that it didn’t make any difference anymore. But I couldn’t make myself stay away.
Annie spotted me first. She touched Bailey’s arm, and he glanced at me. He didn’t move, not even when I climbed up to two rows below him. He looked tired. I wondered how long the police had kept him. I wondered if they had charged him with anything. I sure hoped so. After all, he had seen Alex in the alley with Sal. He had seen the blood on his clothes. He had told Alex to get out of there and to get rid of the clothes he’d been wearing. Even if he hadn’t told the police that, I had. I bet Staci had, too. Or maybe he had made some kind of deal. He must have been the one who told the cops where Alex might have run to. How else did they know where to find him? And he had got Alex to come up out of the basement so that the cops didn’t have to go down there to get him. Maybe Bailey had agreed to do those things in exchange for not being charged with anything.
I climbed up another row until I was standing right below him. He didn’t look at me. Instead, he stood up and started to walk away. That did it. I climbed over the row that separated us and grabbed his arm. He tried to shake me off, but I held tight. He glowered at me.
“Alex said Sal was alive when you went into the alley,” I said. “He was alive, and there were cops and an ambulance right down the street. But instead of calling them, you wasted your time telling Alex to get out of there.”
Bailey tried again to jerk free of me.
“Maybe if you had called for help, he would still be alive,” I said. “Did you ever think of that?”
Bailey’s face was all red and twisted. I thought he was going to cry. Annie made her way over to where we were standing. She took his hand.
“He thinks about it all the time,” she said quietly.
Bailey tried again to get free of me. This time I dropped my arm.
“Talk to him, Bailey,” Annie said. “Maybe it’ll help.”
Bailey stared down at his feet. He was so still that it looked like he wasn’t even breathing. Finally he said, “I wish I’d never even looked in that direction.” Annie squeezed his hand. “But I did. He was walking away with Staci …” He was talking about Sal now. “And there was this big bang, and everybody turned to see what had happened. But I looked the other way. I saw Alex run out of school. He looked mad, and he was staring right at Sal. Sal must have seen him coming, because he ducked into the alley. Alex ran across the street. When I saw him go into the alley, I thought—” He let out a long, shaky sigh.
“You thought what?” I said.
“Tell him,” Annie said gently. “Tell him what you told the police.”
What was she talking about?
Bailey kept looking at his feet.
“The week before it happened, Bailey saw Alex try to hurt Sal,” Annie said.
“What? What do you mean?” I looked at Bailey.
Bailey raised his head.
“I was on my way to my locker, and I saw Sal and Staci come out of a classroom together,” he said. “It was late. I had to stay behind because I messed up another math quiz and Mr. Tran wouldn’t leave me alone about it. He said if I didn’t get extra help, I was only going to get further and further behind. Anyway, I saw Sal and Staci. They were talking and laughing. They looked like they were having a good time. They were walking toward the stairs. Then I saw Alex. He was standing near the stairs, and he was watching them. He looked really upset. He has this thing for Staci. She tutors him. He talks about her all the time. It really bugged him, seeing her talking to Sal and the two of them laughing like that. Then they stopped walking an
d Staci kissed Sal on the cheek, you know, how girls do sometimes. It doesn’t necessarily mean anything. Then she went down a different hall, and Sal started down the stairs. I knew Alex was upset, but I didn’t think he would—” He broke off and shook his head.
“You didn’t think he would what?” I said.
“Alex pushed Sal down the stairs,” Annie said.
I stared at her.
“Alex acts like a little kid sometimes,” Bailey said. “But he’s strong. He can really hurt you if he wants to. He pushed Sal down the stairs. Then he ran down the stairs after him. I was afraid he was going to hit Sal or something. So I went after him. Sal had fallen all the way down to the landing. I ran down to where he was, grabbed Alex, and told him to get out of there. I had to tell him a couple of times because he wasn’t listening to me at first. He was looking at Sal.”
I couldn’t believe that something like that had happened and Sal had never even mentioned it to me.
“Then I helped Sal up,” Bailey said. “He was really shook up. He couldn’t believe that Alex had pushed him. He said he wasn’t hurt, but I saw his hands were shaking. I asked him if he was going to report Alex. I knew if he did, Ms. Rather or Mr. Gianneris would tell my mom.”
Sal could have been seriously hurt. And what if Bailey hadn’t come along when he did? What might have happened?
“If my mom had found out what Alex did, it would have been the last straw,” Bailey said. “Alex’s mom was my dad’s sister. My parents are divorced. When Alex’s mom died, Alex was supposed to go and live with my dad. But my dad is working on this big project in Singapore. My mom agreed to let Alex live with us until my dad comes back. But Alex keeps messing up, and my mom told him she’s losing her patience. I was scared that if she found out what Alex did, she’d tell him he couldn’t live with us anymore, and then what would happen to him?”
“What did Sal say?” I said, even though I was sure I already knew the answer.
“I told him I would talk to Alex. I told him I’d make sure Alex never did anything like that again. And he said okay, he wouldn’t say anything. But he was still shaking when he walked the rest of the way down the stairs. You should have seen how tightly he was holding the railing.”
#5 Dead Silence (Mike & Riel Mysteries) Page 14