“I’ll be okay.” I wouldn’t mind having T.J. stick around. But I don’t want him to have to walk home. “Besides, who would call back after a phone … uh, conversation … like that one, right?”
“Yeah. Okay.” T.J. squeezes my arm. “I’ll take off, then. Dad’s got to be home by now, wondering where I am.” He glances at Chase. “He’s probably called your dad to get the posse out looking for me.” He laughs at his own joke.
“That’s all we both need,” Chase says, moving toward the door.
I follow them outside. Chase stops on the step. T.J.’s already halfway to the car. “Thanks, T.J.!” I call after him. Softer, I say, “You too, Chase.” I feel like I need to say more. He’s gotten dragged into my mess all day long. But I stare up into those green eyes, and I can’t say anything.
“Jeremy’s lucky to have a sister like you,” he says.
As he walks off, I think that out of all the things he could have said, this is the best. It’s the only thing I’ve ever cared about—being a good sister to Jer.
I watch them drive away under a sliver of moon. They’re still in sight when my cell phone rings. Only a handful of people have my cell number, so I answer it.
“It’s me.” The voice belongs to T.J., but the number doesn’t. “I’m on Chase’s cell. Mine’s dead. I just wanted to make sure we’re on for driving lessons after church tomorrow.” T.J. is determined to help me get my driver’s license. He’s been giving me lessons Sunday afternoons for about a month. I’ve been doing it because it helps keep my mind off Jeremy, even if it only lasts an hour.
“I don’t know, T.J. Driving doesn’t seem that important anymore.”
“But I want to run some ideas by you. Like surveillance on Mrs. Johnson. A couple of other things too. We can talk about the case.”
I can’t say no. I’m too grateful that he’s taking Jeremy’s case seriously. It makes me feel like it’s not all up to me. “Okay. I’m not going to church, though. Can you come by for me?”
“I’ll be around about noon, okay?”
“Okay. Thanks again, T.J. See you tomorrow.” Chase’s car is still in view when I sign off. What did people do before cells?
I turn to go back inside. And that’s when I see it. An old white pickup truck, headlights off, creeps from the shadows and inches up the street. I step back as it passes my house and keeps going. At the corner, it turns right, just like Chase did. Then it speeds off, disappearing into the darkness … just like Chase.
15
While I shower and get ready for bed, I try to explain away that old white pickup. The driver might have forgotten to turn on the lights. It definitely went the same direction Chase did, but there are only two choices at that corner—straight or a right turn. It might have been going anywhere.
I know I’m being paranoid because of the crank calls, but I can’t shake the idea that somebody was following Chase and T.J.
What if they didn’t make it home? I grab my cell and hit T.J.’s number. The call goes directly to voice mail, and I remember he said his phone was dead. So I return the call from T.J. on Chase’s phone. It goes straight to voice mail too.
This isn’t good. What if the pickup ran them off the road? Think. Think! Maybe Chase is home already, and he’s turned off his ringer because he doesn’t want to wake his dad. That makes sense. I could text him. As fast as I can, I type: R U OK? Not much of a message, but I send it and wait. My stomach’s cramping as I hold my cell in both hands and stare at it.
Finally, I hear the double beep. Fine. U?
I let out a big sigh. Now I feel stupid. He probably thinks I’m flirting with him … and that I’m really bad at it. I text: Good.
I have got to stop seeing bad guys everywhere.
By the time I climb into bed, I’m tired enough for sleep to come, but it doesn’t. Twice I think I hear somebody inside the house. I call out to Rita, but nobody answers, except the old house creaking, the refrigerator roaring, and the branches scratching my bedroom window.
After double-checking the front and back doors, I get back in bed and burrow under the sheets. I close my eyes, but I can’t stop imagining things. I picture someone sneaking in through Jeremy’s window, and I can’t remember if I locked that window. But I don’t want to go check. Outside, there’s a faint rattle of an engine creeping by, but not passing, the house. It could be the white pickup. I know it’s ridiculous to think like this, but I can’t help it.
For the first time in ages, I actually wish Rita would come home.
The second I wake up, I have the feeling someone is watching me. I stumble out of bed. My window faces west, but I can tell the sun is up.
I yawn, stretch, and check the clock. It’s late, and I’ve already missed Chase running by. I wish he wouldn’t run the same time on weekends that he does weekdays.
Thinking about Chase changes my mood. It shouldn’t, not with Jeremy still in jail. But as I gaze out the window at the deserted shack across the street, images of Chase from last night flash through my mind: Chase on the edge of the couch, legs outstretched; Chase in my kitchen, spreading grape jelly and laughing about something; Chase in the middle of Jeremy’s room, staring wide-eyed at Jer’s jar collection. But his expression isn’t just gawking. There’s awe on his face. He’s truly amazed.
I walk over to my closet and open the door. The wood is splintered, the latch never worked, and the closet isn’t deep enough for most hangers. Jeans, khakis, and shorts are folded on the top shelf, along with other junk. A few shirts and T-shirts hang on kid hangers. I haven’t been shopping since before Jeremy was arrested. If he were here, we’d be going to church, and I’d wear either the khaki pants or a long, funky, crocheted black skirt that’s not at all churchy.
But I’m not going. I’ve only gone to church once since Jeremy was arrested. It felt like everyone was staring at me, even if they weren’t. I do miss it, though, especially the songs. Jeremy says God sings everywhere, but it’s easier to hear in church.
I settle on denim capris I’ve only worn once and a sleeveless white shirt with big buttons and just a tiny spot that I didn’t see until I got it home from Goodwill.
About five in the morning, I heard Rita come in. You’d have had to be dead not to hear her. She was Happy-Singing-Drunk Rita. She pounded on my bedroom door until I got up to unhook her necklace for her. She was Rita in White—white feather collar rimming a white cardigan, the tiny buttons straining to hold her in. Rita the Chatterer: “Hope, Hope, Hope,” she said, taking my face in her hands. “You’re a pretty girl. Did you know that? Don’t ever let anybody say you’re not, hear? My girl. My own little girl.”
I’m hoping she sleeps until noon. I grab my bag and ease out of my room.
“Where do you think you’re going?” Rita’s standing in the middle of the hallway. Her slip is on inside out, and her bleached hair looks like something made a nest out of it. When she eyes me up and down, her mascara-clumped lashes make tiny window shades for her bloodshot eyes. “Is it Sunday?”
I nod, hoping she’ll think I’m off to church.
Rita groans, turns her back on me, and staggers to her bedroom.
Just when I think I’ll make a clean getaway, she glances over her shoulder. “Hey. What was that old truck doing last night?”
My blood stops running through my veins and turns to ice. “What truck, Rita?”
“A white pickup parked across the street. Somebody around here buy that old thing? I don’t want carbon monoxide polluting our air.” She coughs, like it’s the truck and not the thousands of cigarettes she’s smoked. “Some pervert was sitting in there too, watching me come home.”
“Who?” I demand. “What did he look like?”
Rita frowns. “How should I know? I’m the one who asked you, remember?”
It had to be the same truck I saw follow Chase’s car.
“What’s the matter with you?” Rita scratches her belly, and her slip makes a zip, zip sound.
“Rita, I
saw that truck”—I almost say “following Chase and T.J.”—“last night, in front of our house.”
“Probably just some loser with no life watching people who have lives.” She yawns.
“And somebody kept calling here and then hanging up.”
Rita lets out a dry laugh. “Let me get this straight. You think somebody’s out to get us, right? That it? Somebody who murdered Coach and is so scared Detective Hopeless will uncover the truth that they’re … what? Parking across the street? Calling and hanging up?”
When she says it like that, it does sound pretty dumb.
She yawns again, so big that her face is nothing but an open mouth. Then she shuffles back to her bedroom.
I grab a cup of instant coffee and go outside to wait for T.J. I don’t want to think about the pickup or the phone calls. It’s August hot, and there’s no shade on the front step. I squint across the street at the empty lot, where they tore down a condemned house, leaving rubble and trash. Shards of glass catch the morning light and toss it into the air in glittering patterns of delicate color. It makes me think of Jeremy and the way he finds beauty everywhere—twigs floating in mud puddles, snowflake mountains on windowsills, crow’s-feet wrinkles at the eyes of old men, pudgy toes on babies, and dandelions, frail and feathered and ready to be blown bald.
Far off, I hear a couple of lost geese honking. Closer in, a woodpecker competes with the cry of a mourning dove. I want them to smother the breathing on the other end of the phone, to cover up the chug of the white pickup truck, and to drown out Rita’s voice in my head.
A horn honks. I stand up, expecting to see T.J.’s dad’s ’81 Chevy, but it’s the Stratus Chase drives. He gets out of the car and stands beside it. “T.J. couldn’t make it.”
I take a couple of steps toward him. “Why didn’t he call me?”
“He said your cell was off, and he was afraid to wake Rita. So he called me.”
Once again, Chase is dragged into the mixed-up life of Hope Long. I’m totally embarrassed—again—but I have to admit I don’t mind seeing Chase.
“T.J. shouldn’t have called you. I’m sorry, Chase. Thanks for letting me know, though.”
Chase meets me the rest of the way up the sidewalk. I don’t think I realized how tall he is, more than a head taller than me. I’m used to looking down at T.J., not up like this. “He had to help his dad finish some big lawn job in Ashland, I guess.”
“Well, thanks again.” I’m not sure whether to go back in or wait until he leaves.
“Anyway,” Chase says, “he felt pretty bad about you missing your driving lesson and all. So I thought maybe I could stand in for him?”
“Wait. Did T.J. put you up to this?”
Chase grins, showing straight white teeth. “No. But I got the feeling he thinks you can use all the lessons you can get. I figure this will square me with T.J. for good.”
“You must have owed him big-time.” I wait for Chase to fill in the blanks.
“Okay,” he says at last. “But don’t tell T.J. I told you. In the Lodi game last year, he didn’t just talk Coach into letting me pitch. He pretended he hurt his arm so Coach would have to put me in.”
“Why would he do that? I didn’t think you guys were that tight. It doesn’t even sound like something he’d do.”
Chase seems to be studying our cracked sidewalk. Then he says, “T.J. overheard my dad and me arguing in the locker room. Dad thought I wasn’t working hard enough and that was why I wasn’t getting to pitch. It was a pretty big blowup. T.J. walked in on it.”
Now things are starting to make more sense. T.J.’s probably never fought with his dad. He would have wanted to fix things for Chase, no matter who he was.
“It was T.J.’s idea,” Chase says. “But I went along with it. I threw a horrible couple of innings, but it got my foot in the door. He’s right. I do owe him.”
“And teaching me to drive lets you off the hook?”
He nods again. “Not just off the hook … but out of the house. To be honest, I’m grateful for an excuse to get away from my dad for a while. But listen, Hope, if you don’t want to, that’s fine. If this is, like, your and T.J.’s thing, I don’t want to get in the way of that. I make it a rule never to mess up a relationship.”
For a second, I don’t know what he means. Then I get it. “T.J. and me? We’re friends. It’s not a ‘relationship.’ Not like you mean anyway.” I laugh a little, picturing last Sunday’s driving lesson, when T.J. vowed he was quitting. “I’m a terrible driver. I wouldn’t be surprised if T.J. made up the whole story about helping his dad so he didn’t have to go through another driving lesson with me.”
“I doubt that.”
“I’m just kidding, except for the part about me being a terrible driver. I don’t think I’ve gotten any better either.” I glance at his car. It’s reflecting sunlight so bright I have to squint. Did he wash it overnight? “Even if I agreed to let you waste your time trying to teach me to drive, I couldn’t do that to your dad’s car.”
“Yeah, you could,” he says, dangling the keys in front of me. “I’ll have you driving by midday.” His smile fades. “And there’s something I want to talk to you about anyway.”
He heads for the car, and I follow him. “What?”
“Later,” he says. “It’s about the trial.”
“The trial?” I can’t believe he’s the one bringing up Jer’s trial. Good ol’ T.J. His crazy plan might be paying off already.
“What about the trial?”
“Not yet,” he says, motioning for me to get in the other side. “I promise. Drive first, talk later.”
16
When Chase and I get to the high school, we’re the only car in the parking lot. T.J. and I picked this spot because there’s nothing you can hit here, except a big tree a few yards to the east, and the school, of course, but it’s half a football field away. Good thing. My driving performance has never been worse. Chase makes me more nervous than T.J. does, even though he doesn’t scream at me.
“Give it some more gas,” Chase says, watching my feet. “Gas. That’s the one on your right.”
“Gotcha.” I press the pedal, and the car lurches forward, so I slam on the brakes with both feet.
“You really haven’t driven, like, at all, have you?” he says.
“I told you I haven’t.”
He laughs and makes me circle the lot until I’m dizzy. Then he has me change directions and drive in more circles “to unwind.”
I’m not sure how long we do this—longer than T.J. and I usually last—but eventually I’m not horrible. I can flick on the turn signal and make the car turn, and I can stop without dashing our heads through the windshield.
“Not bad,” Chase says. “Let’s take a break. Pull up under that tree on the edge of the lot.”
It’s the one shady spot in sight. “Are you sure? I could hit the tree, you know.”
“Are you kidding? I promised I’d have you driving by midday, and I never break a promise.”
I remember what he said about his dad breaking promises. Apparently, promises are big deals to him. If Rita makes a promise—to quit smoking or drinking or whatever—I don’t even pay attention.
When I pull up exactly where I’m supposed to, Chase gives me a thumbs-up. Then he reaches into the backseat and brings out a cooler. “I’m hungry. How about you?”
We set up on a wool blanket by the big tree. Chase hands me a peanut butter sandwich and an ice-cold bottle of root beer. It feels like a real picnic. Jer and I used to go on picnics when we lived in Oklahoma. I can’t remember why we stopped.
“I love root beer.” I take a deep swig from the bottle and try to think of the last time I had one.
“Told you we were alike,” he says. “I even took my shower last night instead of this morning.”
I laugh. “Doesn’t count. It was already morning when you left my house.”
“You’re right.”
While we eat our sandwiches,
we talk about schools, his and mine. He asks about Jeremy, and I tell him about the time we let them keep Jer in a hospital, on a mental ward, overnight. “It took Jer a month to get over it. Rita thought it would do him some good. I knew better, but I went along.” I fight off the images of my brother the day we brought him home—Jeremy without his energy, sitting in a heap wherever I parked him.
Chase talks about running, the “high” he gets running hard, alone.
Before I realize it, I’ve eaten my whole sandwich. “I still can’t believe you made sandwiches. What if I hadn’t come along for the lesson?”
“I’d have eaten both sandwiches,” he answers. “I needed to stay out of the house until my dad left for work. He and I can use a little distance.” He wads up his napkin and wipes his mouth.
“It’s my fault, isn’t it? Did your dad find out you were with T.J. and me last night?”
“Don’t worry about it. It’s a cop thing. He doesn’t like the idea of relatives of the defense fraternizing with relatives of the prosecution.”
“Fraternizing?” I can’t help grinning at that one. “I’m not sure I’ve ever fraternized before. Is this it?”
“Apparently so. Yes.”
I lean against the tree and let the bark dig into my shoulders. I don’t mind.
Chase pitches his trash into the cooler and leans back next to me. The tree trunk is big enough so our arms don’t touch, but I feel him there. “Okay. Let’s talk,” he says.
I know what he means. I’ve been waiting for him to tell me what he said he would, promised he would, about the trial.
“So, tell me.”
“I’ve been doing a lot of thinking about your brother’s case,” he begins. A leaf falls, spinning in front of us until it brushes the grass and tumbles to a stop. He scoots around to face me. “Okay. Hear me out on this, Hope. I think we need to keep in mind that it’s not up to us, to you, to prove who really murdered Coach.”
Disappointment begins as a slow burn in my chest, rising up through vessels and veins. I thought Chase understood. He doesn’t. Fine. I’ll do it with T.J., or I’ll do it myself. I wasn’t counting on his help anyway.
The Silence of Murder Page 10