Spirit Seeker

by Joan Lowery Nixon

  As she stopped for breath, Dad stepped in. “Did you see Cody return?”

  “No,” she answered, “but awhile later I remembered I hadn’t watered the hanging plant on my front porch, and with all this heat, well, I couldn’t let it go another day, so I got my watering can and went outside.”

  “What time was this?”

  “During the nine o’clock commercials. I’d switched to Channel 2.”

  “Did you see Cody at this time?”

  “Yes, I did. Isn’t that what I said?”

  I could hear the tension rise in Dad’s voice. He was sure—so sure the murderer had to be Cody. I leaned against the rough boards, feeling a little sick to my stomach, listening because I had to.

  “What was he doing?”

  “Getting into his car. While I was on the porch, he drove away.”

  “Where was it parked?”

  “On the street.”

  “Not on the driveway?”

  “No. On the street.”

  “Are you sure it was Cody you saw and not someone else?”

  “I guess I ought to know Cody when I see him. Besides, there’s a streetlight right there, so I could see him clearly. His car too. I’m familiar with Cody’s car.”

  “Did the loud music coming from the Garnetts’ house disturb you?”

  Mrs. Marsh cocked her head like a sparrow as she thought. “Loud music. Yes, I heard the loud music. I hear it often. You know, with a teenage boy in the neighborhood … I mean, all the teenagers seem to be partially deaf when it comes to music and have to turn the volume way up and …”

  “So you heard the music the second time Cody drove away.”

  “Wait. I didn’t say that. I told you I heard the music, but was it when I saw Cody or was it later? I can’t remember.”

  “Is there anything else you can tell us?”

  Mrs. Marsh hesitated. “Uh … no. I didn’t like the program on Channel 2, so I decided to read in bed. I didn’t see the mur—uh, anyone else arrive at the Garnetts’ house.” Her voice brightened as she added, “I heard that Mr. Arlington saw the murderer run across his yard and into the Rollinses’ yard! You know what that means, don’t you?”

  Before Dad could answer, she nodded knowingly and said, “I bet he was running toward his car, which was probably parked on the street behind us. It wasn’t parked in or near the Garnetts’ house, or I would have seen it. So it couldn’t have been just a random burglary. Somebody deliberately planned to murder the Garnetts and—”

  Carlin interrupted this time, saying, “Thank you, Mrs. Marsh. Here’s my card. If you think of anythin’ else we should know, please call this number.”

  Anything else? I groaned inside and watched Mrs. Marsh push through the gate and hurry across the street, where I knew she’d find an immediate audience in the other onlookers.

  Suddenly I heard Cody’s voice, high-pitched and nervous. “I heard what Mrs. Marsh told you, and it’s not what you think.”

  “Are you denying that you left your house, returned, then left again?” Dad asked.

  “I’m not denying it. I was halfway to Conroe when I remembered I’d forgotten the key to the lake house, so I came back for it.”

  “Why didn’t you tell me that in the beginning?”

  “Because of the way it looked. I came back, I got the key, and I left. That’s all that happened.”

  “Do you know the mileage from your parents’ house in Houston to their house at Lake Conroe?”

  “Mileage?” Cody hesitated. “It’s around forty-five miles, maybe forty-eight. It takes anywhere from an hour and twenty minutes to two hours to drive it, depending on traffic.”

  “How long did it take you last night?” Dad asked.

  Cody sighed. “I’m not sure. I guess I was about forty minutes out when I remembered the key. Something like that.”

  “Accordin’ to the way I figure,” Bill Carlin drawled, “that means about forty goin’ out plus forty comin’ mback. You left home at seven-thirty, so it looks like you got back here around eight-forty. Does that sound right to you?”

  “I guess,” Cody said. “But I wasn’t home long. I picked up the house key and left right away.”

  “According to what you told me earlier, you decided not to stay at your lake house.”

  “That’s right. I didn’t. The air-conditioning wasn’t working, so I took a sleeping bag outside on the deck.”

  “The police tried to contact you. They checked your lake house and couldn’t find you.”

  “I—I left probably just before they got there. I couldn’t sleep. I had a lot on my mind. So I drove around the lake and parked in a quiet spot in the woods. I dozed off. When I woke up this morning, it was around five o’clock, so I drove back toward Houston.”

  “Did you stop anywhere?”

  “Stop?”

  “Did you buy gas, get something to eat? Is there anyone who might remember you being there?”

  “I didn’t need gas, but I did stop for doughnuts and coffee.”

  “Can you tell me where?”

  “Somewhere … I don’t know … I don’t remember. There are lots of those little places off the highway.” Cody’s voice trembled as he added, “I know what you’re thinking, but you’ve got to believe me! I didn’t murder my parents!”

  Chapter Four

  Bill Carlin opened the gate. Cody followed him with Dad right behind. Dad saw me standing there, but he chose to ignore me.

  “Cody,” Bill drawled, “you got any relatives around here you can call on? A grandma, or an aunt and uncle? Any near kin?”

  Cody’s eyes were still wide and fearful, but Bill’s question seemed to steady him, and a little color came back into his face. “My dad has … had no living relatives, but my mom’s brother lives in Memorial, near Dairy Ashford.”

  “Name?”

  “Oh.… Uncle … Frank … uh … Frank Baker.”

  “Well, you give me his phone number, and we’ll get ahold of him and ask him to come on downtown to headquarters and meet us there.”

  “You’re taking Cody to headquarters? You can’t arrest Cody!” I shouted. “It’s not fair! I—you have to be fair!”

  Bill shook his head slowly as he said to Dad, “Jake, you sure got a jumpy kid there.” Then he turned to me and said, “Holly, nobody’s talkin’ about arrestin’ anybody. There are a lot of questions to ask and answer. Cody wants us to catch whoever did this, and he’s going to help us out.”

  As Bill went back into the house to make the call, Dad shot Cody the kind of look that used to make me cringe with guilt when I’d sneaked a cookie before dinner or forgotten a homework assignment. “Cody will help if he’ll carefully think over exactly what happened and tell us the entire story—not just the parts that seem convenient.”

  Cody stared down at his feet. “I’m sorry. I was scared. It all sounded …” He took a deep breath and looked up, right at me. “I’ll tell you the truth. I promise. Just please believe me.”

  “I believe you,” I said.

  Dad turned his gaze on me, and I thought I saw a glimmer of sympathy in his eyes. I certainly hoped so. “Just for the record, Holly,” he said, “you’re not going with us.”

  “Cody needs me.”

  “Cody has his uncle.”

  Cody’s uncle. I’d never met him, but recently, while I was at Cody’s for dinner, I had overheard his mom talking to his father.

  “Frank called again today,” she’d said with a voice that sounded somewhat disgusted, and Mr. Garnett muttered something I couldn’t hear.

  “I know, I know,” she had said. “I told him you didn’t want to hear about it, but you know Frank.”

  Cody had mentioned that his mom and Uncle Frank got along fine most of the time, but lately Frank was a topic that really bugged her.

  “Frank looks down his nose at some of my dad’s business deals,” Cody’d said, “and Mom thinks he ought to mind his own business. But then Dad gets mad at Mom for telling Fra
nk anything about them in the first place.”

  “What kind of deals is your father involved in?” I’d asked, realizing too late I shouldn’t be so nosy.

  Instead of telling me to mind my own business, as he had every right to do, Cody’d shrugged. “Dad invests in a lot of things. I don’t really know many details.” Cody had held out his hands and glanced around their elegant living room. “You can see that he does pretty well. I think it bugs Uncle Frank that Dad ignores his advice but keeps raking it in. Uncle Frank doesn’t have as much as we do. At least it doesn’t seem that he does.”

  Now I was worried. “Will your uncle come? Will he help you?” I asked Cody.

  “I think so,” Cody said. “He’s my uncle, and he’s always been friendly to me.”

  I glanced toward the street at the TV crews, who were shifting in Cody’s direction, the neighborhood sightseers, and the yards of yellow police tape that ringed the Garnetts’ property, and shivered. “Cody has to have a place to stay. He can’t come back here, Dad,” I said.

  Dad clamped a reassuring hand on my shoulder. “We’ll take care of Cody,” he told me.

  “I’m sure I can stay with my uncle,” Cody said. “Don’t worry, Holly. I didn’t do anything wrong, so I’ll be okay.”

  “Call me,” I told him. “You said you needed a friend. I’m your friend. I’m here.”

  Cody shot a quick, almost fearful glance at Dad before he answered, “Thanks, Holly.”

  A plainclothes detective I didn’t know came through the gate from the backyard. He held out a plastic bag to Dad. Inside the bag lay a black-and-white bone-handled knife that was smeared with dirt. “The top inch of the handle was protruding from the dirt under an oleander bush near the back fence,” the detective said.

  He didn’t need to say what they were obviously thinking—that they’d found the murder weapon.

  “That’s one of our kitchen knives,” Cody said. He stared at it as though he were hypnotized.

  Bill returned, glanced at the knife, and nodded with satisfaction. “Almost too easy,” he said to Dad, but he turned to Cody and his voice softened. “Your uncle’s gonna meet us downtown,” he said. “He was badly shook up, but he insists you’re a good kid, Cody, and you couldn’t have done it.”

  Cody looked as though he’d start crying again, so Dad hustled him off to his police car, and I didn’t even get a chance to say goodbye.

  I wandered to Mom’s car, but just stood there as though I didn’t know what to do next. I kept trying to think, but my thoughts were jumbled. Cody didn’t kill his parents. I knew he didn’t. But I didn’t know anything about investigating a crime, so how was I going to prove Cody’s innocence?

  “Ah. You’re wearing amber.”

  Startled, I quickly looked around and saw a slightly built, dark-haired woman with skin the shade of Mom’s real pearls. Her eyes were even darker than her hair, and they gave me the strange feeling that they were as deep as bottomless lakes. Her lips turned up in a smile.

  “Amber?” I repeated. I had no idea what she was talking about.

  “In your hair. Your barrette. It’s real amber.”

  “Uh … yes,” I said. As though I had to make sure, I reached up and touched the amber barrette with my fingertips. To my surprise, the stone pulsed with heat. Quickly I pulled my hand away and stared at my fingers.

  “The barrette was a gift. My last birthday. From my mother,” I babbled.

  The woman gazed at me steadily for a moment. “You don’t need to be afraid. I saw that you could feel the powers.”

  “Afraid?” I held my hands tightly together as all of what she had said began to register. “What … what powers?” I asked.

  “Do you know about or understand the magical properties of amber?”

  I took a step away. This woman made me nervous. “No—” I said, as she interrupted.

  “Amber,” she said calmly, “is a form of tree resin that was buried within the earth millions of years ago. It has absorbed the earth’s energies and holds the earth’s secrets. Those who wear amber have not chosen it; the amber has chosen them.”

  Even though what she was saying made me feel creepy, I couldn’t resist asking, “Why?”

  “Amber has mystical properties, and it calls to those who are sensitive enough to see and understand things in a dimension closed to most humans.”

  Slivers of ice prickled my backbone. I didn’t need to hear this weird stuff. Not then. Not ever.

  “I—I’ve got to go,” I stammered. I pulled open the car door and jumped inside, slamming it with one hand as I turned on the ignition with the other. Cautiously I reached up to touch the amber stone in my barrette. It was smooth and barely warm. “I was standing in the sun,” I told myself, and sighed with relief. “It was only the heat of the sun.”

  “If you need me—” the woman called, but I took off in a hurry and didn’t hear the rest.

  Why would I need her? For what? “She must be the neighborhood nut,” I said aloud and tried to laugh, but the laugh didn’t come. Instead, I kept remembering her dark eyes, and for just an instant I wished I had stayed to hear what she had tried to tell me.

  Saturday. 9:30 A.M. When I arrived home, I found Mom at the kitchen table, dressed in what she calls her “Saturday sloppies”—loose sweat pants, a baggy T-shirt, and sandals—but her strawberry blond hair was neatly brushed, and her skin glowed under a light cover of makeup. The Saturday morning editions of both the Post and The Chronicle were scattered over the table, along with toast crumbs, a dab of peach jam, and a pot of coffee.

  The moment I came into the kitchen, Mom jumped to her feet, nearly upsetting her chair, and wrapped her arms around me.

  “I’m sorry I took your car without asking,” I said. “I had to be there when Cody came home.”

  “He’s safe? He’s all right?”

  “Yes, and he needs me, Mom.”

  Mom murmured against my right ear, “It’s okay, Holly. I understand. I’m not surprised that you insisted on being there when a friend needed you. I can’t imagine you doing anything less.”

  I wasn’t going to discuss the long-ago story of Paula. I just hugged Mom.

  Mom moved back, holding me at arm’s length as she studied my face. “Is Cody handling this all right? I know he’s an only child, but are there any other relatives? Is there someone who can help him?”

  I nodded. “He told me once that his father’s parents died before he was born, and his mother’s parents died when he was young, but he has an uncle who lives in Houston.”

  “Thank goodness.”

  Mom took a seat at the kitchen table and motioned toward the chair across from her. I could see the relief on her face dissolve and shift into a kind of watchful worry. “Holly,” she said, “I need to know something about Cody.”

  Immediately I grew defensive. “Mom! Don’t you believe him either?”

  “You got the red-headed temperament from me.” Her mouth twisted into a wry smile before she said, “Take it easy. I’m not accusing Cody of anything. In fact, because it means so much to you, I want to believe him. But I must know more about him. I know you’ve been friends for the last few years, and I’ve met his parents, but I don’t really know much about what he’s like, or what kind of a young man he’s grown into, now that he’s in high school.”

  I forced myself to calm down. Mom was right. I suppose I’d feel the same way in her place. “Cody gets good grades, and he’s got a terrific sense of humor, and we like a lot of the same things.”

  “How about his friends? What do you think of them?”

  “There are three guys he hangs out with, and they’re okay, but I don’t know any of them very well. They weren’t in my classes when we were younger.”

  I realized, as soon as the words were out, that wasn’t a very smart thing to say, but Mom didn’t pick up on it. She thought a moment, then asked, “Exactly how much do you like Cody?”

  My face grew hot. “Mom,” I complained, �
�talking about how much you like a guy is girl talk. It’s not the kind of thing you discuss with your mother.”

  “Then why don’t you pretend I’m Sara?”

  I took a good, long look at Mom and said, “I can’t.”

  Mom got up, poured herself a cup of coffee, and sat down again. She took a careful sip of the coffee and asked, “Is it puppy love, Holly?”

  I scowled. “See? That’s what I mean. There’s no such thing as ‘puppy love.’ Teenagers have feelings too. If you care about a guy, it’s real. Sometimes it’s great, and sometimes it hurts. The feelings are there, and it’s not something for grown-ups to put down. Don’t you remember when you were a teenager? Wasn’t there some guy you liked? Can’t you remember how it felt?”

  Mom thought a moment, and when she spoke, her voice was sad. “That was a long, long time ago.”

  “There’s ‘in love’ and there’s ‘in like,’ ” I said. “I like Cody a lot, Mom. I have ever since we were kids. It’s not love yet. It’s still ‘in like,’ but I care a lot about him. Someday … well, who knows? Someday I may fall in love with him. Right now … right now he needs me.”

  “Thank you. You gave me an honest answer,” Mom said. “Now I have something else to ask you.” Her eyes never left my face. Even when she took a sip of coffee, she peered at me over the rim of the cup.

  Finally she put down the cup and asked, “You heard what your father had to say about the crime, and you’ve talked to Cody. Do you honestly, truthfully, one hundred percent believe that he had nothing to do with the murders of his parents?”

  I hesitated, then instantly regretted it. I hadn’t immediately defended Paula when I’d had the chance, but of course then I’d been a witness and only needed a second to reply. “Yes,” I answered firmly, my voice so loud that it filled the kitchen. “Cody had nothing to do with the murders.”

  “Then I’ll go along with your decision,” Mom said. “All I ask is that you use good judgment in what you do.”

  “Thanks, Mom,” I said.

  She sighed. “I don’t know what’s happened to our world. Over and over, in the newspapers and on television news we read and hear about robberies that turn to murder—but we don’t believe it could happen to anyone we know.”