by Jan Dunlap
Imagine that—the world-famous Bonecrusher hailed from a dot on the map out in Stevens County.
The same Stevens County where a new wind farm was proposed that would insure Boo’s parents’ retirement, unless a sketchy consultant lied his way into stopping the deal.
I stopped in my tracks.
Stevens County was the site of the wind farm that Red said Sonny was fighting, and Alan said Sonny was supporting.
So which side had Sonny been on?
A more troubling question pushed that one aside in my head.
Was Sonny a consultant for the energy company?
The consultant that Boo accused of lying?
When I’d heard about Sonny’s involvement in the project, I’d assumed he was acting as an environmental advocate, since that was the role he’d always played in the previous projects. To me, that implied that Sonny was against the construction of a wind farm, and Red’s comment had seemed to support that.
But Alan’s announcement had corrected that misconception: these days, both the opponents and proponents of an energy project called in assistance from environmental experts to support their side of the debate. To meet government guidelines, the development companies had to prepare and submit studies to the public utilities commission of how the proposed project would impact local species, along with plans to manage the natural area responsibly. Those studies were the work of environmental specialists.
Likewise, those groups opposing a project prepared their own studies, also produced by experts in conservation research. Just as in any case where two perspectives are represented, commissions often heard two different stories about the same topic. With any luck, the studies all came to the same conclusion, but often enough, it seemed, the two versions sat squarely on opposite sides of the fence. When that happened, the feathers began to fly, just as they had in the Goodhue County situation, with each side accusing the other of fabricating, or omitting, important information.
If Sonny had joined the payroll of an energy company as its environmental consultant, I wanted to believe that he’d be as committed to conservation as he’d always been as an independent concerned citizen. But if Boo had his facts straight, the consultant in the Stevens County project was deliberately misleading the energy company in the attempt to benefit his relative.
The consultant was a liar and a cheat.
Which, I unhappily recalled, was the very thing that Prudence Delite had said about her husband.
Her murdered husband.
Chapter Ten
I dodged around Rick and launched the ball toward the basket. It hit the rim and bounced back towards me, but Boo jumped up and snagged the ball out of the air. He dribbled it back out beyond the top of the key with Rick hot on his heels. A moment later, Boo had turned and shot the ball in a perfect arc that sent it straight through the basket with barely a swoosh of the netting.
“Pretty,” I told Boo. “I bet your high school coach loved seeing you make that shot.”
Boo grinned. “Yeah. Every time I did it, he just about cried.”
It was early Wednesday morning in the Savage High School gym, and Boo had joined Rick and me once again for our weekly before-school-hours pick-up game.
“So when is that lightweight brother-in-law of yours going to get back in the game with us?” Rick asked, the basketball cradled on his hip. “It’s not like he’s the one who gave birth. I can’t imagine he’s not up to playing basketball yet.”
“The operative word there is ‘up,’ Rick,” I told him. “Alan takes the midnight shift with Baby Lou most nights so Lily can have a break and get some sleep. Then by the time he gets back to bed, he’s only got a few hours before he needs to be in the classroom. Getting up early for basketball isn’t rating very high on his list of priorities right now.”
“Like I said, he’s a lightweight.”
“I want to see you say that to him when he does get back on the court, Stud. He will clean your clock.”
“He’s that good?” Boo asked, a trace of a challenge in his voice.
I looked over at the muscular frame of our new physics teacher. Boo had his hands clasped together on the top of his head, his triceps bulging like thick ropes between his shoulders and his elbows. If you painted him green, he could be the Hulk for Halloween.
Which reminded me that I was still up in the air about a costume for the faculty party.
I’d only had the one idea so far—the buzz saw-carrying hockey-masked serial killer—but with the murder case of an old friend gaping wide open, I just couldn’t generate any enthusiasm for it.
“Alan Thunderhawk would give anyone a serious run for the money,” I assured our secret celebrity. “He would, that is, when he’s on top of his game,” I amended. “Fatherhood has made some inroads into that at the moment.”
“I’ll say,” Rick added. “These days, Alan looks more like something the cat dragged in, instead of the hotshot collegiate athlete he used to be.”
He turned to Boo. “Where’d you go to college?”
The big guy shrugged. “Out east. I didn’t play basketball, though. I was a wrestler.”
Well, duh.
With a move so quick I hardly saw it, Boo snatched the basketball from Rick and sent it flying towards the backboard.
It dropped through the hoop in a perfect basket.
“Are you guys going to Stevens County just for the day?” Boo asked.
Rick watched the ball bounce and then roll in his direction.
“Man, you are both fast and accurate,” he said to Boo, clearly impressed with the Bonecrusher’s court performance. “Remind me to be on your team when Alan gets back and we start playing two-man basketball.” Rick turned to me. “We will crush you, Bob.”
“Yeah, right,” I said. “You and the Bonecrusher.”
Rick’s eyes darted in Boo’s direction, then back to me. He crossed his arms over his chest and smiled. “I didn’t say that.”
I rolled my eyes. “You didn’t have to. I’m not totally without my own resources, you know.”
Boo said nothing while he scooped the basketball up from the floor with his big hands.
“That’s the plan,” I finally answered Boo. “Rick and I want to try to sight a Ferruginous Hawk that’s been hanging around up there this week. We’re hoping to find it on Thursday, but this particular species of hawk is notorious for being here today, gone tomorrow. It may well be out of the state by now.”
He spun the ball on the tip of his finger.
“Could I ride along with you guys? I’d like to get up there to see my dad and find out what’s going on with the wind farm plans.” He popped the ball up and back into his hands. “If you could just drop me off in Morris, that would be great, if it’s not too much trouble for you. I’m sure I can catch a ride out to the farm from there. And then I could be back in town in time to catch you on the way back.”
I glanced at Rick, who nodded in agreement.
“Sure,” I told Boo. “You direct me to your dad’s farm, and we’ll drop you off right there. But we need to be back in Savage by six o’clock, since Stud has a big date lined up.”
“Let me guess,” Boo said. “Gina Knorsen?”
“News travels fast,” I observed.
“Not all news,” Boo pointed out. “I don’t think anyone else on the faculty knows yet that she’s being investigated in connection with the murder at the Landscape Arboretum over the weekend.”
Rick’s face went hard. “What do you know about that?”
“Not much,” the Bonecrusher admitted. “I ran into one of your police buddies in the parking lot after school yesterday. He was talking into his cell phone, and he didn’t hear me coming up behind him.”
“You’re joking,” Rick said. “No way a police officer wouldn’t hear you coming up behind him.”
“Just like you saw me coming when I stole the ball from you before my last basket?”
I jabbed a finger into Rick’s shoulder.
&n
bsp; “Got you there, Stud. Not only is our new physics master silent, but he’s invisible, too. He’s Boo the Ghost.”
Shoot. Another great idea for Boo for the faculty party. I might as well be his costume designer at this rate.
Boo laughed.
Rick didn’t.
“You need to not say anything about Gina or this investigation to anyone,” he warned Boo, his voice cop-serious. “She doesn’t have anything to do with that murder, and she sure doesn’t need anyone asking her questions about it.”
Boo took a step closer to Rick, his voice softer, but just as serious.
“I know that,” he said. “Gina Knorsen wouldn’t hurt a fly. She might have picked up a few combat skills from teaching in the rough part of town, but the woman’s a sweetheart.”
He leveled his gaze at Rick.
“You’re not the only one she’s impressed, you know.”
I felt the testosterone level in the gym suddenly spike.
Great. Our new Family and Consumer Science teacher had clearly caught the eye of more than one male on the staff. If Rick and Boo started circling each other on the gym floor, I was going to have to call security.
How was that going to work?
Rick was security.
He was Savage High’s very own school police officer. Calling him to break up this fight would be downright awkward, if not physically impossible.
Before I could make that observation, however, Boo held up the basketball in one palm. “Have we got time for another five minutes of play?”
“You bet,” Rick said, simultaneously batting the ball from Boo’s hand and heading back towards the basket at a run.
Boo took off after him. Just as Rick stopped to shoot, though, the Bonecrusher, unable to stop his forward momentum, plowed into Rick from behind, sending him sprawling face-first across the gym floor. Boo tripped into a heap beside him.
For a moment, neither of them moved.
A groan came from Rick.
Another groan came from Boo.
“I think I just got hit by a semi,” Rick said, his voice muffled by the floor. “Am I roadkill?”
I walked over to where he was spread out on the floor.
“You will be if you don’t get up,” I told him. “The first-period gym class plays volleyball in here. I’ve seen some of them in action. They’re merciless. They don’t care who they have to step on … or over.”
Boo lifted himself up to a sitting position. Blood ran out of his nose and down his chin. He grabbed a handful of his jersey and held it up to his nose to stop the bleeding.
“I am so sorry,” he told Rick through the cloth covering his nose and mouth. “I didn’t see you’d stopped until I hit you. I’m not very good at stopping once I get going.”
Rick rolled over onto his side, squeezed his eyes shut, and let loose with a string of profanity. A grimace of pain accompanied his words.
“That bad, huh?” I asked him. “You want me to just shoot you and put you out of your misery, Stud?”
“Shoot him first,” Rick replied, gritting his teeth and nodding toward Boo. “I think he broke my ankle.”
“He’s probably going to arrest you as soon as we get him vertical,” I warned Boo, “though I’m not sure what the charge will be. Hmm, let’s see … charging? Unnecessary roughness? Sheer stupidity on his part?”
“It’s going to be for publicly humiliating me,” Rick informed us. He sat up slowly and probed his ankle with his fingers, wincing all the while. “Although stupidity might take precedence. My mind says I’m eighteen, and my body just laughs.”
“You really think it’s broken?” Boo said, wiping off the last bit of blood from below his nose.
“Nah,” Rick told him. “A bad sprain for sure, though. I’m going to have to stop in at the ER and get it wrapped. I’ll probably have to stay off of it today and maybe tomorrow. Keep it elevated.”
He turned to me. “I don’t think I’m going after that hawk tomorrow, Bob. It’s all yours.”
“I’ll take pictures,” I assured him.
“You’re still going to Stevens County?” Boo asked.
I nodded. “The Ferruginous Hawk waits for no man,” I said. “It’s tomorrow morning or not at all. You still want a ride?”
“You bet. Unless you happen to get yourself injured before then, too. In which case, I’ll pass.”
“I’m not planning on it,” I told him.
“Like I really planned this,” Rick groused from the floor. “Will you guys help me up, or are you going to chitchat all morning?”
Boo and I both reached a hand to Rick and helped him up off the floor. As soon as he touched his left foot to the floor, he choked out a few more choice words. He shifted his weight to his right foot and gingerly drew his left foot up so only the toe of his sneaker tapped the floor for balance. I grabbed his upper left arm to give him more support as he hobbled to the locker room door.
“I guess I won’t be taking Gina dancing tomorrow night, either,” he complained. “Could I have any lousier timing?”
I looked over at Boo to tell him what time in the morning to expect me, but the words caught on my tongue.
I could have sworn he was trying not to grin.
Chapter Eleven
The rest of the day was uneventful. I helped three seniors finish completing multiple college applications, referred two juniors to our chemical dependency counselor, advised one sophomore to quit mimicking his math teacher—especially since said math teacher had angrily herded said sophomore into my office after hearing himself being mimicked in the hallway between classes—and found a partridge in a pear tree.
No, wait. Wrong season.
It wasn’t a partridge. Or a pear tree, either.
It wasn’t Christmas yet. It was almost Halloween.
It was Mr. Lenzen, waiting outside my office at the end of the day.
Trick or treat?
Believe me, it wasn’t going to be a treat, I was sure.
“I understand you were involved in a rather gruesome discovery at the Minnesota Landscape Arboretum this past weekend,” our assistant principal began, carefully brushing some lint from his immaculate suit jacket sleeves.
“Yes, I was,” I admitted.
Since I was clearly busted—thank you, Rick—I decided to make the most of it.
“The blood wasn’t even dry yet. And the ripped out guts—have you ever smelled torn flesh and bloated—”
“Mr. White!”
Mr. Lenzen, his face visibly paling, stopped me in mid-sentence. I gave him my most innocent expression.
“What?”
He pulled a pressed handkerchief from his back trouser pocket and delicately blotted away the beads of perspiration that had appeared above his upper lip. “I assure you, I don’t need the details.”
“I’m sure you don’t,” I agreed, “especially since I’m also sure that Officer Cook already beat me to it.”
“Officer Cook?”
“Officer Cook. You know—our school police officer who gladly rats me out every time I so much as jaywalk.”
He gave me a stern stare. “You jaywalk, too?”
I was getting nowhere fast, when all I really wanted was to go home.
“Mr. Lenzen,” I said. “Was there something you needed?”
“To be perfectly frank, I think I need some antacid. Between you and Ms. Knorsen, my ulcer is going to land me in the hospital.”
“What about Gina?” I asked, not wanting to let him know what I knew before I knew what he knew.
Mr. Lenzen sighed dramatically. “You’ll have to ask her, Mr. White. I don’t carry tales about our faculty members.”
That’s right. I’d forgotten. Mr. Lenzen was the president of the Savage Secrets Club.
I expected him to whip out a detention pass at any moment. Instead, he brushed more lint from his sleeve.
“Although I expect you’ll have a hard time asking her anything right now,” he noted. “She just left the
building in the back seat of a patrol car.”
“Why would Rick put her in the back seat?” I blurted out. “I thought they were dating.”
Mr. Lenzen gave me a smug look.
“It wasn’t Officer Cook’s squad car,” he said. “I believe it was the same police detective who stopped in yesterday.”
“Gina’s seeing another cop?”
“I wouldn’t know anything about that, Mr. White,” he primly sniffed, “and, quite frankly, I’d rather not know about it. What Ms. Knorsen does on her own time is none of my business. Unless it impacts her teaching in the classroom,” he qualified, “which is, at this moment, no longer a concern.”
He checked his wristwatch. “As of twenty minutes ago, Ms. Knorsen has been suspended from her teaching duties until further notice.”
“Because she left in a patrol car?”
And then I realized what Mr. Lenzen was trying to not tell me.
Gina had been arrested.
Rick was going to be a mess.
“Thank goodness we have fall break tomorrow,” Mr. Lenzen continued. “Please don’t do anything … controversial … over the weekend, Mr. White. I don’t want to have to add a second suspension to our staff.”
“Got it,” I absently replied, still focused on what Rick’s reaction to Gina’s arrest might be like. “No bodies and no headlines.”
“Exactly.” Satisfaction filled Mr. Lenzen’s voice. “Now, if you’ll excuse me, I need to get back to my office to line up a substitute for Ms. Knorsen for next week. I hate to leave these things till the last minute.”
I watched him walk away, wondering how soon I’d hear from Rick.
“Earth to Mr. White.”
I blinked and turned my head to the left. Sara Schiller was sitting at one of the tables out in the counseling department reception area. A bag of flour stood on the table in front of her.