Dead Silence

by Norah McClintock

  “Yeah,” I said. So what if I was? And who was this guy, anyway?

  “I saw you on the news.” Not only had I made it into the newspaper after Sal’s funeral, but I’d turned up on the TV news, too. Rebecca had seen me. She told me about it. “I’m Gil Anderson,” the man said. He reached into his pocket for a business card, which he handed to me. “I work for the community newspaper,” he said.

  I glanced at the card. I knew the paper he meant. It was a weekly that covered stuff like local soccer tournaments and fundraisers at the hospital, and came stuffed with sale flyers. The newspaper office was down the street from school.

  “I’m also a freelance journalist,” he said.

  I handed the business card back to him.

  “I’ve been following the murder of Sal San Miguel,” he said. “I’m doing a piece on youth violence and what can be done to stop it, and I’d love to interview you. You were his best friend, weren’t you?” He was talking fast, like he was afraid I’d take off before he finished what he had to say. Well, he had that right. I got a good grip on the box and started to walk up the street.

  “Wait,” Gil Anderson said. He ran around in front of me and walked backward, peering into my eyes while he talked. “I’m sure you have a lot to say. I’m sure—”

  “I don’t want to talk to any more reporters,” I said.

  “I understand how you feel,” he said. I wished people would stop saying that to me. “It’s one of the hardest things about my job—trying to talk to people after they’ve been struck by tragedy. Think about it. It doesn’t have to be now. It can be any time. I can come by your house, if you want. Where do you live?” When I just looked at him, he said, “We can meet anywhere you want. I know you have something to say about what happened. I just want to include your point of view. Here, take my card.” He dropped the business card into the box. “Think about it, and if you feel like it, call me. I wrote my cell phone number on the back. That’s the best way to reach me.”

  I kept walking. For a minute, I thought he was going to follow me and keep trying to convince me. But he didn’t. He finally left me alone. When I looked back over my shoulder, I saw him going into the school. Probably he was going to harass some other kids who might have known Sal. Well, good luck.

  I took Sal’s box up to my room and dropped it onto my bed. I picked up one of his binders and started to flip through it. Boy, he’s always been neat—way neater than me. He had nice handwriting, too. You could actually read it. Vin and I used to tease him about it all the time. We …

  My eyes started to tear up just thinking about the things we used to do. No wonder his mom didn’t want Sal’s locker things right away. She had all his other stuff at home—all those things to remind her.

  I shoved the box into my closet and went back downstairs. There was a message from Riel saying that he wouldn’t be home for supper after all. Susan was working. I could have heated up some leftovers or made myself a sandwich, but I didn’t. Instead, I headed over to the McDonald’s where Sal used to work. I stood outside for a few minutes, looking at the place and remembering.

  “Mike?”

  I turned. A girl was coming around the side of the building. It was Tulla.

  “You coming inside?” she said.

  I hesitated. Maybe this wasn’t such a good idea.

  “Come on,” Tulla said. “I’ll get you a pop. Coke, no ice, right?” She took my hand, pulled me inside, and led me up to the counter. The place was quiet—there were a couple of kids about my age at a table on one side of the restaurant and four old guys drinking coffee at a table on the other side, and that was it. “Another fifteen minutes and the place will be jammed with the supper rush,” Tulla said. She went behind the counter, grabbed a cup, and started to fill it with Coke. “It’s not the same around here without Sal,” she said.

  While she got my drink, I looked around. There was a framed photograph on the wall. A little metal tag attached to the bottom of it read Community Spirit Champions.

  “It’s from all the money the store raised for charity last year, before I was here,” Tulla said, nodding at the photo. “This store beat out every other McDonald’s in the city. Mr. Torrence likes to show off that picture even though he had nothing to do with it. He says it shows people that we have a heart. But if you ask me, what it really shows is how much turnover there is here. Sal’s the only person from then who’s still working here.” She realized what she’d said, and her face turned red. “You know what I mean,” she said.

  I ordered a burger and fries, and while I waited, I took another look at the picture. I only recognized two people—Sal and the girl who was standing right beside him. I remembered her from the ripped picture in Sal’s room.

  “Who is that?” I said, pointing to her.

  “I have no idea,” Tulla said. “That was way before my time.” She put my burger and fries on a tray. When I reached for my wallet, she said, “It’s on the house.”

  I thanked her, carried my tray to a table, and sat down to eat. Before Sal started working here, Vin and Sal and I used to come to this McDonald’s all the time for pop and fries and Big Macs and just to horse around and have fun. Then Sal got a job here, and I used to come in all the time, and he’d come and say hi or sit with me on his break. It got so I couldn’t walk past the place without thinking of Sal. It was going to be a long time before I ever came back.

  I was practically running by the time I got to work. In about two minutes I had to be on the floor, and I still had to sign in. I ran around the back to the employee entrance and saw Alex talking to Bailey. Whatever Bailey was saying, he had a serious expression on his face. I wondered if he was giving Alex a hard time. But Alex didn’t look like he was being bothered. He just shook his head and said something and went inside.

  I had to pass Bailey to get into the store. I kept my eyes straight ahead so that I didn’t have to look at him. Seeing Teddy’s friends was just as bad as seeing Teddy.

  Bailey walked past me without saying a word.

  About an hour into my shift, I was stocking the potato chip aisle when I looked up and saw Staci. She was with a man who was pushing a shopping cart. Staci was walking beside him, talking to him. She nodded when she saw me, but she didn’t come over to talk to me. I didn’t blame her. I didn’t really know her, and we had already talked about the only thing we had in common. The man she was with—I guessed he was her father—grabbed a couple of bags of chips and threw them into the cart. Then he pushed the cart past me. Staci followed him. I was on my way to the stockroom a few minutes later to get a skid of pop when I saw her again, over in the meat section, close to where Alex was setting up a display of the canned chili that was on special. At least, that’s what he was supposed to be doing. What he was actually doing was watching Staci. She glanced over at him and flashed a big, friendly smile. Alex’s whole face turned red, like he’d been caught doing something bad. He spun around so fast that he banged into the display he had been working on and knocked the whole thing over. Cans of chili crashed to the floor and rolled everywhere. One of them came to a stop at Mr. Geordi’s feet. Mr. Geordi bent down, picked it up, and gave Alex an exasperated look. But Alex didn’t notice because he had heard the same thing I’d heard—laughter—and he turned toward it. It was Staci. I don’t think she meant to laugh. I think it was just an automatic reflex—you know, how you laugh when you see something unexpected, like someone slipping on the ice and trying not to fall. She stopped as soon as she saw the look on Alex’s face. She hurried over to him and started picking up cans.

  “I’m sorry, Alex,” she said. “I hope I didn’t hurt your feelings.”

  Mr. Geordi picked his way through the cans to where Staci was standing. “That’s all right, miss,” he said. He took the cans she had picked up. “We’ll take care of this.”

  “But I don’t—” Staci began.

  “We’ll take care of it,” Mr. Geordi said firmly.

  Staci hesitated. “I’m sorry I
laughed, Alex,” she said again before she went to find her father.

  As soon as she was gone, Mr. Geordi started telling Alex that he should be watching what he was doing, what would happen if some old lady tripped on one of those cans and fell and broke her hip, the store could be sued, did he understand what that meant? He was trying not to get mad, but if you ask me, he sounded like he was fed up with Alex always making mistakes. If Mr. Geordi had been in charge of the store, I don’t think there would have been any special program to hire people with disabilities. If Mr. Geordi wanted to do something for disabled people, he probably would have just made a donation to a charity.

  Alex’s face got even redder as he stood there listening to Mr. Geordi.

  “You, Mike,” Mr. Geordi hollered, snapping his fingers at me. “Get over here and help clean this up before someone gets hurt.” The way he said it made me feel that he thought I was somehow responsible.

  I started picking up cans and stacking them again.

  “You, too, Alex,” Mr. Geordi said.

  Alex bent down to retrieve a couple of cans, but when he went to add them to the display I was rebuilding, he stepped too close. His foot caught one corner of the base and the whole display collapsed again, sending more cans rolling all over the floor. Mr. Geordi swore. For a minute I thought he was going to fire Alex. But, no, he did even worse. He stood there with his arms crossed over his chest and watched every move that Alex made, which, of course, rattled Alex even more. I scrambled to get the display rebuilt, praying the whole time that Alex wouldn’t knock it over again.

  When we had finally finished, Mr. Geordi scowled at Alex and barked at me to get back to work.

  Right. You’re welcome.

  At break time, I went into the storeroom and sat on a packing crate to eat a bun that I’d bought from the bakery section and stuffed with sliced meat that I’d bought at the deli counter. I had just bitten into it when Alex came in with a brown paper bag that I guess he’d brought from home. When he saw me, he turned and headed for the door. Jeez, I had helped him out—I was always helping him out—and all of a sudden he was acting like I was the last person he wanted to have lunch with.

  “Come on, sit down,” I said. I shifted over on the crate.

  He hesitated. He seemed to be really thinking about it. But he finally dropped down beside me, opened his bag, and pulled out what looked like a peanut butter and jam sandwich on good old regular sliced white bread. Riel never bought white bread, ever. I watched as Alex took a bite. I couldn’t remember the last time I had had a plain (non organic) peanut butter sandwich on plain, “no good for you” white bread. It seemed like a whole lifetime ago.

  I took a bite of my own sandwich. Riel never bought deli meat, either. He said it was poison. But, boy, did it ever taste good.

  “She really has you all shook up, huh?” I said.

  “Who?”

  “Staci. I saw the way you looked at her.”

  Alex hung his head. “She laughed at me.”

  “She didn’t mean to. It was just that it was kind of funny to see that display collapse like that. Even I thought it was funny, Alex, but that doesn’t mean I was laughing at you. Besides, Staci apologized, didn’t she?”

  He looked doubtful.

  “She wanted to help you pick everything up, Alex. She would have, too, if Mr. Geordi hadn’t stopped her.”

  “You really think she wanted to help?” He sounded like he couldn’t believe it.

  “Yeah. She seems nice.” Maybe Rebecca was right. Maybe Staci had finally opened her eyes one day, seen what a jerk Teddy was, and decided she wanted something different in her life. Maybe that’s why she dumped him.

  “She liked that other guy, the one that died.”

  “They just tutored together, that’s all. And, anyway, he was like me. He already had a girlfriend.”

  “He did?”

  “Yeah. He liked Staci as a friend, that’s all.”

  “But Teddy said—” He stopped suddenly and looked down at the floor.

  “What did Teddy say?”

  He didn’t answer.

  “You heard Teddy that day in the hall at school, didn’t you, Alex? You heard him threaten Sal, didn’t you?”

  Alex shook his head, but he didn’t look at me.

  “You heard Teddy tell Sal to keep away from Staci, didn’t you, Alex?” He still wouldn’t answer. “Did you tell the police that?”

  He looked scared when I mentioned the police. I wondered if Teddy had seen Alex in the hall the day he threatened Sal. I wondered if he had sent Bailey to the store to tell Alex to keep his mouth shut.

  “Teddy was wrong about Sal and Staci,” I said. “They were just friends. You shouldn’t believe anything Teddy or any of his friends say. You shouldn’t protect them, either.”

  “I’m not protecting them.” But he still wouldn’t look at me. I was pretty sure he was hiding something.

  “They’re a bunch of jerks, Alex. Their idea of a good time is to hassle people. They were hassling Staci just before Sal was killed.”

  Finally he met my eyes. “What do you mean?”

  “They were making fun of her because she tutors. They were making fun of the kids she tutors. That’s why Sal went over to help her. Because they were making fun of the kids she tutors, and Staci got mad at them, and things started to get rough.”

  “Staci tutors me sometimes,” Alex said in a soft voice.

  “Yeah, well, then I guess that Teddy and Bailey and the rest of them were making fun of you, Alex. So if you’re protecting them or—”

  “Bailey would never make fun of me,” he said.

  “Right,” I said. “Bailey’s your friend.”

  “He’s not my friend,” Alex said. “But—”

  “If he’s not your friend, then what did he want outside?” I said. “I saw him talking to you before work.”

  “Bailey would never make fun of me,” he said again.

  “He was out there when it happened, Alex. He was out on the sidewalk the day Sal was killed. He was one of the ones who was hassling Staci.”

  “No, he wasn’t.”

  “Yes, he was.”

  “I don’t believe you.”

  “It’s what people are saying, Alex.”

  “People say a lot of things.”

  “I’m talking about people I know, Alex.”

  “You don’t know anything. You weren’t there.”

  “Neither were you. At least, that’s what you told me.

  But Bailey was there. So was Staci. You can ask her, if you don’t believe me. You can ask her what they were saying.”

  “Bailey would never make fun of people,” Alex insisted. “He’s not like that. He’s not.” He gripped his sandwich so hard while he talked that it got all squished. Then he threw it against the wall. His face turned red again, but with rage this time. He stood up and turned to face me. He was breathing hard, and his whole body was tensed. I was pretty sure he was going to hit me. Jeez, he was pretty worked up over a guy he’d just told me wasn’t his friend.

  “Hey, Alex, relax,” I said, trying to keep my voice low and calm. “I’m sorry, okay? Maybe you’re right. I mean, I hardly know Bailey. I was just saying what I heard. But you’re right. Sometimes people say dumb things. I’m sorry. Okay?”

  He kept right on staring at me, but his breathing slowly went back to normal.

  “Okay,” he said. He sat down beside me again and opened the brown paper bag his sandwich had been in. He pulled an apple out of it and looked at it. Then he looked at the squished sandwich lying on the ground near the wall. He sighed and bit into the apple.

  “You really think she wanted to help me?” he said while he chewed.

  “Yeah,” I told him. “I do. I think if anyone would stick up for you, it would be Staci.”

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  I couldn’t believe it was Friday again, more than one whole week since Sal had been killed, and unless someone was planning to surprise me wit
h some news when I got downstairs for breakfast, the cops still didn’t know who had done it.

  You would have thought that after all this time I’d be used to the idea of Sal being gone. You would have thought I’d be used to the idea of not seeing him when I got to school. But I wasn’t. If anything, it was getting harder and harder to make myself get out of bed in the morning, get dressed, and drag myself to school. Even when Rebecca walked with me, which she couldn’t every day because of band practice and because she had gone out for volleyball again this year. I couldn’t stand the idea that I might be sitting in a classroom or walking down the hall or standing out on the playing field and that the person next to me or across the room from me or walking past me might be the person who had knifed Sal in the chest. Just the thought of that made me want to punch my fist into a wall. I thought of all the people that the cops must have talked to—that Dave Jones must have talked to—and so far nothing had happened. Whoever had done it was still out there somewhere, walking around, and the cops were none the wiser. I didn’t want to go to school.

  But I had to.

  There was no way Riel would let me stay home. There was no way I could even make myself ask him. And even if I did, he would probably just tell me to suck it up, it’s too bad what happened, it’s a genuine tragedy, but life goes on. He’d be nice about it. He’d probably do the same thing Rebecca had done. He’d probably tell me I should talk to someone. But that person would probably tell me what I didn’t want to hear: life goes on. It always goes on. So I didn’t even ask.

  Riel looked up from his newspaper when I walked into the kitchen.

  “Mr. Gianneris called me at work yesterday,” he said. “He says some reporter went to the school office yesterday and asked a lot of questions about you.”

  “It must be the guy who bumped into me after school yesterday,” I said. “He’s working on an article on youth violence. He wanted to interview me.”

  Riel put down his newspaper.