“Listen,” the whisper said, placing a foot on my neck and pressing down hard.
As my face pressed deep into the carpet of our hallway, a dumb thought flashed through my head. I was glad I had vacuumed recently as part of my weekly chores. Were these the kinds of useless things that went through people’s heads as they were about to die?
“Drop the questions,” the whisper commanded. “Leave this thing alone, or your father will have a funeral to attend. Yours.”
The foot pressed harder against my neck.
“Got it?”
“Ummmph,” I said.
“Got it?” The foot eased off my neck.
“Got it,” I said.
“Remember,” the voice whispered, “we can find you anywhere. Anytime. You tell your dad, so he knows it too.”
Without warning, the foot lifted off my neck. I heard a slight thud as something dropped onto the carpet beside me. And I heard a burst of footsteps as the stranger with the harsh whisper ran down the hallway.
Before I could even roll over, the front door opened and slammed shut, and he disappeared into the rain.
My heart was pounding so hard I wasn’t sure if I could trust my ears. Was I really alone?
Finally I pushed myself to my knees.
The first thing I saw was a broom on the floor.
I’d been suckered. There had been no gun, only the end of a broom handle.
I needed to find some way to cut the shoelace and free my wrists. I walked into the kitchen, bending and twisting my neck to get some relief from the face mashing I had just endured.
With my elbow, I turned on the overhead light. That’s when I saw that the kitchen had been trashed. Drawers had been pulled out. Cupboard doors stood open. Knives and forks lay all over the floor. Cereal boxes had been cut open, with cereal spilling in all directions.
And that wasn’t the worst of it.
After cutting my wrists loose with a knife I found on the floor, I discovered the rest of the house was just as bad.
chapter seventeen
I called Sheriff Mackenzie first. Then Ike Bothwell.
Both got to the house at about the same time. Sheriff Mackenzie wore a rain slicker and carried a big flashlight. Ike showed up with water dripping from his cowboy hat.
I just told them someone had broken into the house. I didn’t tell them about getting tied up by the man with the harsh whisper. Sheriff Mackenzie asked me and Ike to wait in the front hallway while he searched the house for clues. What surprised me as he walked away was that I did not hear big clunking footsteps. For a man so huge, he walked softly.
“What happened to your finger?” Ike asked me, pointing to the splint on my pinkie.
“Long story,” I said. “Real long story.”
Ike shook his head with sympathy. “You haven’t had a very good run lately.”
He didn’t need to remind me. I’d been adding it up myself. Mom in the hospital, Dad in jail, me cut from the team, a badly bruised and splinted hand, an odd threat on the answering machine, not to mention a gun/broom handle in the back and a trashed house.
“Life’s been better,” I said. The only person I wanted feeling sorry for me was me.
I heard the back door open and close. I guessed it was Sheriff Mackenzie checking things out.
“Ike,” I said, “when Doc splinted my finger, he told me a little about what Dad used to be like.”
I’d hardly listened to Doc at the time because I’d been thinking about the car and how it had been at the dealership the day of the accident. But since then I’d been wondering about some of the other things Doc had said: There’s a lot about your dad you don’t know...If you find out where he’s coming from, you’ll be able to understand him...
“Doc told me Dad had a real temper when he was my age,” I said. “That he got into fights and stuff. I can hardly believe that.”
I thought about Doc’s words: Anytime you understand a person, it’s a lot easier to be friends...If your dad wants you to know about his past, that will be his decision, not mine.
“And Doc hinted about something Dad did. It kind of seemed like something bad that Dad’s been hiding from me.”
Ike kept his eyes on me for a long time before he spoke.
“Jack,” Ike said, “my own father passed on about ten years ago. Let me just say I was happy we had become more than father and son. We were friends. Good friends. And after what I was like in my teens, I feel blessed that our relationship ended that way. When I was your age, I thought I knew everything. My father was just a stuffy rule-making drill sergeant. It was so bad, I nearly ran away from home and joined the navy.”
“And?” I asked.
Ike shrugged. “One of those things that are way bigger than you realize at the time happened. I was wrapping up all these loose ends before I took off—you see, I had it planned. I had some books to return to the library, and the librarian said something in passing about my dad. I discovered she had been his girlfriend back when they were in high school. I was surprised to think about my dad in that way—that he’d once been a kid like me who worried about girls and pimples and doing stupid things. It got me to thinking about him as a person. Which got me to trying to think of things from his point of view. You know, how he saw me as a son, instead of just how I saw him as a father. It helped.”
Ike shrugged again. “It wasn’t like we instantly became friends, but I stopped making it so hard for us, and soon enough, we discovered how important we were to each other.”
I nodded. “But what did Dad do when he was my age? I mean, what was Doc talking about?”
“Did you hear a single word I said?” Ike asked. “Or were you worrying so much about yourself that my story about the high school librarian didn’t sink in?”
I looked at the floor. I guess I wanted the big story, not the little story.
“Jack,” Ike said, “it’s not important what your dad did or did not do. It’s important that you think of him as more than a rule-making father.”
Ike grinned, catching how serious he’d gotten. “‘Course, I don’t blame you for being curious. But if your dad hasn’t told you, I’m not going to. You’ll have to ask him.”
Before I could say anything else, Sheriff Mackenzie returned.
“All I found,” he said, “was a trampled flower bed beneath a window, like somebody was looking inside to make sure the house was empty. But with this rain, it’s just mud. The footprints are useless.”
The big man scratched his head. “So at this point,” he said, “all I can tell you is the obvious. Whoever was here was looking for something. Any idea what?”
“None,” I said.
“Did you see anyone?” the sheriff asked.
I thought about the whispered threat to make things worse for my dad if I told anyone about the intruder. But I didn’t want to lie either.
“Whatever I tell you,” I said, “ we need to keep secret.”
I explained why. Then I explained what had happened, even about the phone call that sent me to the 7-Eleven. Then I pulled the two pieces of muddy shoelace from my back pocket. The shoelace I’d cut off my wrists.
Sheriff Mackenzie talked as he walked to the front door. “Obviously someone wanted you out of the house, Jack. When you drove up in the rainstorm, he couldn’t hear the car. You’re lucky you didn’t get hurt. Sometimes people who walk in on robberies do. But the fact that he had to use a broom handle showed he wasn’t armed.
“This could have been someone simply looking for valuables, except for two things. Most people don’t look for valuables in the kitchen by ripping apart cereal boxes. From the mess he made, I’d bet this guy was angry he couldn’t find what he wanted.”
Sheriff Mackenzie shone his flashlight at the lock on the door and at the doorframe itself. “And the second thing is this: no scratches or anything like that around the lock, or on the back door. And all the windows were latched on the inside. What this tells me is that someone got in here u
sing a key, or he is an extremely professional burglar. And we don’t have those in Turner. So it must have been someone who has access to the house or someone sent in from out of town. Either possibility raises big questions.”
The phone rang, interrupting Sheriff Mackenzie.
I answered within three rings. It was Judy Bothwell, Ike’s wife.
“I need to speak to Ike,” she said. Her voice sounded higher pitched than usual. Like she was scared.
I carried the cordless phone back to where the men stood and handed the phone to Ike.
He listened carefully, and then he said good-bye. He handed the phone back to me.
“Sheriff,” Ike said, “looks like you have more business tonight. That was Judy. She just got a call from the security guy who stops by the dealership several times every night.”
“Yes?” Sheriff Mackenzie asked.
“Looks like someone tore a few things apart inside the dealership.”
“Does he think you were robbed?” Sheriff Mackenzie asked.
“No,” Ike said, “mainly it looks like someone tore apart Jack Senior’s office.”
Jack Senior. Dad.
Ike pressed his lips together grimly. “My guess is that someone was looking for the same thing he couldn’t find here.”
chapter eighteen
I didn’t want to go to the basketball game on Friday night. And I did want to go. In the end, I decided to listen to it on the radio—I decided I didn’t want people pointing me out as the kid whose Dad was in jail or wondering why I wasn’t playing.
I listened to it in the spare bedroom at Tom’s house. I was staying there because Sheriff Mackenzie had suggested it would be safer than staying home alone.
So I sat in the corner of a room on the upper floor of a house down the street from my own. I felt very alone. Just me and the tinny voice from the cheap radio on the shelf over a narrow single bed.
“Well, folks,” the announcer was saying, “the Titans are going into tonight’s game without the help of one of their key players, Jack Spencer. Rumors fill the stands as to exactly why he’s off the team. I mean, Spencer was the one player who could turn a game around, and tonight the Titans are going to really miss him. Lots of folks are wondering why the coach let this kid go.”
In the background, I heard the usual crowd noises. The noises that would swallow me up and get my blood going if I were on the gym floor, throwing baskets to warm up before the game.
“For those of you who have been on the planet Mars,” the announcer said, “this has not been a good month for Jack Spencer. It started with a car accident that put his mother in the hospital, followed by the total shock to the community when his father was arrested and charged with embezzlement; this young man has faced some difficult times. When we asked Coach Buckley why Spencer was dropped from the team, Buckley’s only comment was that it was an internal matter. Whatever that means. But it has led some folks to wonder—”
I snapped the radio off. I already knew what some folks were wondering. Whether I had anything to do with my dad’s alleged illegal activities. Whether, somehow, I had helped him during my summer job at the dealership.
I sat on the edge of the bed and buried my face in my hands.
This was so unfair. I didn’t deserve to be sitting here, in someone else’s home without my family.
My mom was a good person. My dad was a good person. I wasn’t bad. We went to church. We helped charities. Shouldn’t this bad stuff happen to people who lied and cheated and tried to hurt other people?
I mean, why would a good God allow bad things to happen to good people? We were on his side, not against him.
I started to get that feeling that had made me pound a locker.
I was getting mad.
I backed up and thought for a second. And I realized I was mad at God. I mean, people wonder about him all the time, whether he really exists and what that means. Well, I was almost ready to decide he wasn’t out there. Or if he was, he really wasn’t paying attention. And if he wasn’t paying attention to me, why should I pay attention to him?
I sat there on the edge of the bed, getting madder and madder.
Then I started to think about my dad. You can only see God if you look for him in the things he has made. Kind of like you can see artists in their paintings.
My dad, though, I saw every day.
And he didn’t seem to be paying much attention to me either. At least not the kind of attention I wanted. Had he taken the effort to get me a gift for no apparent reason like he had for Tom? Had he ever just patted me on the back? Had he ever told me I was good at something? No. He just told me how to be better. Dad’s job was to be the policeman of my life. And there he was, in jail himself.
These thoughts got me pretty worked up. I began to pace back and forth in the small room.
I felt like a caged animal, ready to explode.
I put on my shoes and went into Tom’s bedroom and grabbed his basketball.
In the driveway, I shot basket after basket, trying to get rid of my anger. It helped that I had to concentrate harder to shoot with my off hand, thanks to my splint.
But the anger stayed with me.
After an hour of shooting baskets, I started to feel pretty good about how many shots went in, even without my best shooting hand. Then I decided to head back up to the spare bedroom. I wanted to be in bed before Tom and his parents got back from the basketball game, so I wouldn’t have to talk about it.
The anger stayed with me in the dark as I stretched out on the narrow bed.
It stayed with me as I fell asleep, tossing and turning. It probably stayed with me as I slept, because I had horrible dreams about a giant cuckoo clock. The wooden bird inside kept jumping out and laughing at me. I threw a basketball at it, but the bird just jumped back inside the clock, and the basketball bounced harmlessly away.
Then, in my dream, the cuckoo bird got loose and started to fly. It chased me around and around a tiny jail cell, flapping at my head.
I woke up with a start.
And I realized the cuckoo bird in my dream had been trying to tell me something.
chapter nineteen
I knocked quietly on Tom’s bedroom door.
No answer.
I knocked a little louder but not too loud. I didn’t want to wake up his parents.
I heard a groan from his room.
I pushed the door open.
“Tommy-wommy,” I whispered, “wakey, wakey. Time for bottle and burp.”
“Mom?” Tom croaked, still half asleep.
“No,” I said. I snapped on the light. “Forget the bottle and burp. I need to see something.”
Tom’s bed was against the far wall beside a life-size Michael Jordan poster. His floor was littered with clothes. I looked at Tom. His hair twisted in all directions. There was a red line on his cheek, where his face had pressed into his pillow, and drool on the side of his chin. At the other end of the bed, his feet stuck out from under the blankets.
I crossed the bedroom, stepping carefully to avoid Tom’s dirty socks.
His eyes finally opened and focused as I stood staring at him.
“Ack!” he said. “I’m having a nightmare!”
“Where’s your cuckoo clock?” I said.
He rubbed his eyes. He squinted at me. He squinted at his alarm clock. He squinted back at me.
“Quarter to five in the morning and you want to see a cuckoo clock?”
“Yes,” I said.
“Paint a bunch of numbers on your face and look in the mirror,” he said. He pulled the blankets over his head. “Then you’ll see a cuckoo that looks like a clock. Go away.”
“I’m serious,” I said. “Where is it?”
“I can’t hear you,” he said, jamming his pillow over his head. “I can’t hear you.”
I pulled his closet door open. More clothes spilled out. I grabbed a tennis racket from the top shelf to poke around in the clothes.
“What’s thi
s?” I said. “A big stuffed Barney doll?”
“Yeah, right,” Tom said. “Nice try.”
“Help me, Tom,” I said. “Or I’ll tell everyone at school I found a big Barney doll in your closet. And I’ll tell them it was wearing Batman underwear.”
He groaned again. “That’s low. Real low.”
“Only because I’m desperate,” I said. “Where is it?”
“Under my bed,” he answered.
“Under your bed?”
He was sitting up now, wearing a Mickey Mouse T-shirt that I decided to remain silent about.
“Under my bed. I was saving it to give to my mom on her next birthday.”
He caught my frown. “Give me a break,” he said. “What am I going to do with a cuckoo clock? Besides, your dad never comes over here—he’ll never see where it is. It’s not like he and I are friends or anything.”
“Exactly,” I said. I was already on my knees, fishing under the bed with my left hand. I was afraid of what I might touch. “Which is why I want to look at the clock.”
My hand bumped against a box. I pulled it out. I opened it and lifted out the cuckoo clock. It was about the size of a toaster.
“What do you mean, ‘exactly’?” Tom asked.
“He had to have some reason for sending it to you,” I said. “But not because you’re friends. So, what? It’s just too strange.”
I held the clock above my head and looked at its bottom. Four screws—one in each corner—held the bottom in place.
I glanced over at Tom and his twisted red-brown hair. “Well,” I said, “maybe the cuckoo part isn’t so strange.”
“Ha, ha,” Tom said.
I ignored him as I looked through the mess on top of his dresser. I found what I needed: a penknife. I began to unscrew the bottom of the clock.
“Hey! What are you doing?” he asked. “That’s a perfectly good clock. And my mother’s birthday is less than two weeks away...”
“Someone is looking for something Dad had,” I said, working on the next screw.
“Like what?”
“Like something they didn’t find at our house or in his office. And maybe he knew someone would come looking for whatever it is.”
Titan Clash Page 6