“Annie Berg’s working tonight,” I say. “Newie and I told her we’d walk her home.”
Father Tim smiles in that creepy-ass way that gives me the willies. “That’s nice of you,” he says as he shuts his car door. “And they say chivalry is dead.”“What about you, Father?” asks Newie. “You’re out pretty late, yourself.”
“Me?” says Father Tim. “Once you get to be a certain age, you don’t sleep much anymore.”
Yeah, I think to myself. Like a freaking bat.
“Besides,” he says. “I have a sweet tooth tonight. I’m hoping I can find something here to cure what ails me. Maybe ice cream or some pastries.”
“Sugar’s bad for you,” says Newie.
“There are a lot of things that are bad for you, Mr. Anderson,” says creepy Father Tim as he raises one eyebrow. “How’s your father and that girlfriend of his? The . . . the talented one?”
I can feel the Father’s words punch Newie full in the gut. It takes him a second to recover. Newie stretches out his long arms and cracks his knuckles. “They’re a couple of regular lovebirds, Father,” he says.
“Ah,” says creepy Father Tim. “It’s nice to hear that. These are troubling times. The chief deserves a little slice of Heaven.” The Father smiles at the two of us as we sit there on the plastic table, most likely waiting for us to squirm—even a little. I’ve always known Father Tim likes that kind of power, but I won’t give him the satisfaction. Neither will Newie. After an uncomfortably long time, he says, “Goodnight,” and leaves us to slither into the BD Mart.
Once he’s out of earshot, Newie chuckles and shakes his head. “What a freak,” he says.
I don’t disagree.
A few minutes later, Father Tim comes back out holding a box.
“Apple pie,” he says and licks his sharp teeth. “That’ll do the trick.” He opens his door and is about to get into his car when he stares directly at me and says, “It’s good to know that gentlemen still walk young ladies home at night. You’re such a good boy, Jackson.”
I flinch at his words. I wish I hadn’t heard them before, but it seems that everyone has had the same impression of me over the past few days.
My face gets hot. “Goodnight, Father,” I say. Newie only lifts his hand a little. We watch as the big black sedan pulls out of the parking lot and disappears into the night.
“The dude’s a vampire,” says Newie.
“Or something,” I say.
Annie comes out about twenty after eleven looking a little flustered. She sits down next to me, and I drape my arm around her.
“Well, that sucked,” she says.
“No kidding,” says Newie. “That’s why they call it work.”
“Yeah,” she says. “That Julie’s a bitch.”
“Wow,” says Newie. “Someone’s got a potty mouth.”
“I know,” says Annie. “I’m sorry. I don’t have my head on straight. Everything seems so weird.”
I don’t know if I’m scared or relieved that Annie feels the same way as I do. Things are really weird.
Uber weird.
Freaking weird.
“I keep thinking about those letters in the trees this afternoon,” she says. “What kind of person does that?”
I shrug. I don’t feel like rehashing the whole thing again, and I certainly don’t want to crawl inside the mind of a murderer. People who leave little mementos at their crime scenes are crazy.
Crazy—just like Becky.
Besides, Annie needs to forget about all this weirdness for a while. She has work to think about, and her new little hobby to get under control—stat—but Newie opens up his big mouth and says, “We saw some strange guy out on the railroad tracks earlier.”
Annie leans forward, her eyes wide. “What do you mean, ‘strange’?”
He shrugs. “Some weirdo.”
“Who was it?” she asks.
“We don’t know,” I tell her. “We didn’t catch a good look. We were both a little buzzed and got all freaked out because, well, it’s autumn.”
Annie shakes her head. “Who walks around the woods in Apple alone at night?”
“Someone with a death wish,” says Newie ominously. “Or someone doing the killing.”
“Shut up, Newie,” I say to him, although I’m thinking roughly the same thing.
“Or stupid idiots getting baked,” she says and smirks at both of us. “I hope you saved some of that joint for me.”
I reach into my pocket and pull it out. Most of it’s still there. “It’s really strong,” I say. “We both only took a couple hits.”
“Strong’s good,” Annie says. She takes it from me as we leave the BD Mart with Julie Dopkin still inside.
None of us think anything about leaving her there by herself.
Why would we?
32
IT’S AT LEAST A half hour walk to Annie’s house from the BD Mart. We could cut across the top of the hill, but that means walking behind a lot of backyards, a little stretch of woods, and still ending up at the top of High Garden.
None of us want to walk through the cemetery tonight.
We each share a few more hits off the joint, and it burns down quickly. By the time I snuff it out there’s only a quarter of it left. I give it to Annie and smile. I figure she needs it more than me or Newie. She pockets it and entangles my fingers in hers.
It’s so natural being Jacksannie that I don’t notice right off that Newie’s being extra quiet. I suppose it sucks to be a third wheel, but I don’t think that’s what’s causing the silent act. I think there’s something more going on at home than he’s letting on. We all have our demons—me, maybe literally—but Newie has something altogether different.
We walk down Main Street, each lost in our own thoughts. No doubt Annie’s thinking about what kind of animal she may find when she gets home and praying he’s not too bad tonight. Newie’s probably fantasizing about Mary Jane, which is just so wrong on so many levels.
As for me, my thoughts are still on Becky.
Everything’s so different with her lately. I suppose things are always different when it comes to Becky, but she seems extra ramped up, like something is about to explode, and all I need to do is find the lit fuse and put it out to keep it from happening.
It’s not that Becky’s my responsibility, but either the joint we smoked or the hard reality of my situation is making it abundantly clear that no one is going to take over for me if I stop worrying about everyone.
While I’m having my little self-imposed pity-party, a cop car speeds by going toward the far side of town. Its lights are flashing red and blue, but there’s no siren. It can’t be Newie’s dad, because the chief’s out with Mary Jane tonight.
Still, we all stop—and just when we start to think we’re being way too paranoid, the cop car slows down and does a U-turn in the middle of the street. It heads back in our direction.
“Fuck,” says Newie. “I’m really high.”
“Well, snap out of it quick. Every cop in town knows who you are.”
“You’ll be fine,” says Annie, but it comes out of her mouth so lilting and ethereal that she sounds more stoned than not.
“This sucks,” he says.
The cruiser slows down on the other side of the street and stops. The door opens, and someone gets out of the car, looks both ways, and strides across the pavement toward us.
Before whoever it is even has a chance to speak, Newie blurts out, “Why are the lights on? Is there something going on?”
“I don’t know, you piece of shit. You tell me.” A booming voice shatters the night. It is Newie’s dad after all.
Fuck.
Fuck. Fuck. Fuck.
I’m so stoned I see two of the chief instead of one—
two giants who are going to grind me into dust.
“Ugh . . . ugh . . .” babbles Newie, but that’s all he can manage. He shrinks into that little boy again, like he always does when he’s around his father. Before we know it, the giant monster-cop is on us. With one great, sweeping arc he backhands Newie across the face with such force that Newie falls to the ground with a thud.
Annie yelps and clings to me, her nails digging into my arm.
“What the fuck are you doing, Newton?” the chief bellows. “Mary Jane and I come home early, and you’re not even in the house? No note, no nothing?”
I almost let out a sigh of relief. This is a “break-your-curfew” smackdown, not something way worse.
Newie doesn’t say anything. He’s stoned, and his father’s a freaking lunatic.
“Mr. Anderson . . .” I begin, but he cuts me off.
“Shut up, Jackson. This is between me and my son.” The chief reaches his calloused, mammoth hand down, grabs Newie by the hair, and drags him to his feet. I’m scared for my friend. I feel like there’s something I should be able to do, but there’s not. There’s just the chief and Newie, and Annie and I are so insignificant at that moment, we might as well not even be there.
“Well?” he roars with his hand still curled in Newie’s black mop. “What the fuck do you have to say for yourself?”
All of a sudden, the chief stops short. His nostrils flare, and I think some sort of invisible flame shoots out of his eyes. He knows we got stoned. He can smell it. I’m sure of it—and now we’re truly screwed.
From some well of courage deep down inside himself, Newie gets up the balls to push his father’s hand away. “Get off of me, you fucking asshole,” he barks at him.
I’m stunned. I’m beyond stunned. You never say words like that to your parents. You can go to Hell for saying words like that to them—the fire and brimstone Hell that creepy Father Tim preaches about. The seven-level Hell that my dad prays to avoid.
What’s even worse is that Newie sounds exactly like his father, and knowing that’s your future is a torturous Hell all its own.
It’s deathly quiet on the sidewalk.
Chief Anderson takes a step closer and bends down so he’s right in Newie’s face. “You touch me again, and I’ll break your fucking arm, you little turd,” he hisses as spittle flies from his mouth.
“Go ahead, big man,” whispers Newie. “It wouldn’t be the first time.”
I close my eyes. All I can remember is when Newie broke his wrist in the winter of eighth grade.
It was a week before Christmas. The two of us were stoked about the various hills in town we were going to conquer with our sleds over winter break. Then one morning he was sick and didn’t come to school. The next day, he showed up with a big cast on his right arm, signed by a couple of the nurses who put it on.
His face was banged up a little, too. He told everyone that he was being stupid and fell down the stairs at his house. It was totally understandable because they’re really steep. Still, every time someone came up to him that day and signed his cast, and he had to retell the story of what happened, his words sounded plastic—like he had to grit his teeth to convince himself that what he was saying was the truth.
We didn’t get to conquer any of the hills in town over that winter vacation because Newie had to heal, and when he did heal, he was quiet for a long time—almost an echo of himself.
As we stand on the sidewalk—me, Annie, Newie, and the chief—with the memory of his broken wrist flooding into my baked brain, I realize a simple truth about my best friend and his father.
It’s something I don’t want to know, but now it will always be there at the edge of my brain—just another thing I’m going to have to worry about.
“Um,” I say, trying to diffuse the tension, which is dark and thick. “Annie has to get home.” Newie and the chief keep staring at each other for a long time. The chief’s hands are squarely on his hips, and his eyes are blazing. Newie’s not budging, probably for the first time ever.
Finally the chief spits and says, “The three of you, get in my car.” I don’t know if that means he’s going to bring us in for being high or what. I suppose he can only assume we’re stoned because of the smell, unless he searches Annie and finds the roach I gave her.
“Wh . . . Why?” Annie squeaks.
He glares at her and at me. “I’m driving you all home,” he growls and lumbers back across the street.
Newie lowers his head, deflates his chest, and follows his father. Annie and I follow after them, afraid to get into the cruiser with Chief Anderson, and afraid not to.
33
I HEAR THE SIREN at 6:15 the next morning. It’s only for a moment, then it trails away and disappears, and I think that I’m still dreaming.
I lie in bed with my eyes closed, going over what happened last night, replaying everything in my head. We got into the back of the chief’s cruiser, and he drove Annie home, not saying a word as she got out of the car. He glared at her as she murmured a “thank you,” before quietly letting herself into her house. The lights in the shabby windows were dark, and I remember hoping that her father was passed out drunk.
The chief turned the cruiser around and drove us back home, not even stopping in front of my house to let me out. He pulled into his own driveway, parked, pulled the keys out of the ignition, and got out of the car.
It was scary seeing him so quiet.
“Are you going to be okay, man?” I whispered to Newie, but he didn’t say anything—just like his dad. I got out of the car, mumbled something that I don’t remember, and walked across the street to my house.
The kitchen light was on when I came in.
My father was sitting at the table, his leg up on one of the chairs with an ice pack on his ankle. I stood in the shadows, wondering if I could be stealthy enough to creep down the bedroom hallway and slide into my bedroom without him noticing.
“I told you not to go out tonight,” he said without turning around to look at me.
“We walked Annie home,” I said. “Me and Newie. We talked about it at dinner.” I couldn’t pull my eyes away from the ice pack. I couldn’t stop thinking about the figure limping down the tracks.
He took a deep breath, noisy and surreal. “You have no respect for your father,” he said. “Not one lick.” I didn’t want to argue with him. Besides, he was right. I didn’t.
“Becky needs to be in a hospital,” I blurt out. There were a million things that could have come out of my mouth, but that’s the one that bubbled to the surface first.
“Don’t you tell me where your sister should be. She’s safe right where she is.”
“No, she’s not.” I think it was the lingering weed that was talking, not me.
He turned around and snared me in his gaze. His eyes were bloodshot, and his skin was almost gray. Each day in our house seemed to age him a year. “When was the last time you prayed, Jackson? When was the last time you talked to God?”
I didn’t know what to say. I didn’t know how to tell him that I didn’t believe in his God. “In church,” I said. “This past Sunday.” I licked my lips, refusing to look away from him. “What’s wrong with your leg?”
“Nothing,” he muttered. “I slipped on the stairs out on the porch.”
He turned away from me, just as I was sure my heart was going to beat right through my chest.
“She’s sick,” I said, but he shot his palm in the air, lightning fast, forcing me into silence. There was no point in talking. There was only my father, a sprained ankle, and the memory of the figure on the tracks.
A minute later, I was undressed and lying in my bed with my head still in a pot-fog and my mind in a knot of confusion.
At some point, I drifted off to sleep without even brushing my teeth. The next thing I knew, th
e siren was waking me up way too early on a Saturday morning.
My phone dings, and there’s a text from Newie.
There’s another murder.
I don’t think he expects me to answer right away, but I’m already up. The siren was Chief Anderson’s cruiser as he sped down Vanguard Lane and headed off toward the center of town.
How?
Newie doesn’t answer, so I wait. It’s starting to get light outside, and I can already tell it’s going to be one of those dullish days where the fall colors are muted, and everyone acts like it’s already winter, though the snow is still months away.
I look down at the little screen on my phone, waiting for it to bleep with a response from Newie. Finally, I text him again. How?
His message comes back quickly. Tenzar’s it says. Nothing more.
A murder at Tenzar’s? How can that be? How the hell can someone get murdered in a supermarket? Aren’t there tons of people around? I pull myself free of my sheets and sit on the side of my bed. A mossy fur has grown on my tongue overnight, and it tastes terrible. As I smack my dried lips together, I remember the joint and wonder how bad Newie got brutalized when he was finally alone with his dad.
I stand but immediately fall back down on the hard mattress with my head pounding. A minute later, I stand again and steady myself against the edge of the bed. I need to brush my teeth. They feel like felt against my tongue, and I want to wash the memory of last night away. I open my door and cross the hall to the little bathroom that Becky and I once shared, but now is basically mine. I pull my toothbrush out of the right-hand drawer, notice that the bristles have started to split and fray, and make a mental note that I have to get a new brush. No one else is going to buy it for me.
Besides, rotten teeth are a common sight in town. They mark the fact that you’re Apple born and bred.
As I stand there, staring at myself in the mirror, my thoughts wander to Becky. I wonder why she was so cold last night. I hope there isn’t something wrong with the boiler, or worse, that we have to get more oil. Everyone knows that the price of oil’s going up, and between what my dad pulls in from the farmer’s co-op and what he shells out for medication and food and stuff, I hope he doesn’t come to me and hint around that I have to get a job—like Annie.
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