Secret, Silent Screams

by Joan Lowery Nixon

  “Okay,” Marti said. and let out a long sigh. “Ill be in your office after school tomorrow.”

  “Thank you,” Miss Dillard told her. “I know this is hard for you, and I really do appreciate your help.”

  As Marti hung up the phone her mother called from the foot of the stairs, “Marti? Are you off the telephone yet?”

  Marti went into the upper hall and leaded over the railing. She looked at her watch, amazed at the time. “I didn't know how late it was. I haven't started dinner yet.”

  “Don't worry about it. We've sent out for pizza. You've been on the phone so long, a couple of calls came for you on our line. Kim, for one. Were you supposed to go there for dinner?”

  “Oh, no! I forgot about Kim.” Marti groaned.

  “Well, there's another call waiting right now. Better pick up the phone in our bedroom. It's someone named Karen Prescott. She said that she'd been trying to get you, but your line has been busy. She's on the phone now. Marti?”

  But Marti was already running down the hall to her parents’ room. She snatched up the receiver and said, “Karen? I'm sorry I was on the phone for so long.”

  “It's all right,” Karen said. “I stayed late tonight, and I'm ready to drive back to Houston, which is why I tried your parents’ number. Before I leave the office, I want to give you some information.”

  “About what?”

  “Just listen. It's about Thad Miller. Two weeks ago he was released on parole from the juvenile detention center.”

  Marti gripped the phone so tightly that her knuckles ached. “Where is he now?”

  “That's the problem,” Karen told her. “At this moment, I don't know.”

  CHAPTER • 8

  For a few minutes after their conversation had ended, Marti stood by her parents. bed, staring down at the telephone. Her stomach churned and fury rose in hot waves, burning her chest, scalding her cheeks, She stomped to her own room, looked up the Millers’ phone number again, and dialed. Emmet answefed.

  “Where's your brother?” Marti demanded.

  “What are you talking about?”

  “Don't play dumb. A police officer just told me that Thad was released from the detention center two weeks ago.”

  There was a moment of silence before Emmet asked, “How come the police told you that? What have you got to do with anything?”

  “I told the police that Barry didn't commit suicide.”

  “Yeah. After what you said in assembly, I guess you would.”

  With embarrassment Marti remembered the scene she had made. “Barry was murdered. I know it.”

  “So you said. That's real dumb. Going to the police was even dumber. They aren't going to help you.”

  “Then youhelp me. Tell me where Thad is.”

  Emmet chuckled-, and the sound was so smug and mocking that Marti shuddered. “If you think you can stick Thad with anything, you're crazy. Thad's with Mom and Dad. They took him to a place near Austin. He's going to live with one of our uncles on his cattle ranch. He's got an alibi—has he ever!—for anything you might dream up.”

  Marti couldn't help feeling disturbed, no matter what Emmet had told her. “You're sure of this, Emmet?”

  “You asked me a question. I answered it. Stop bugging me,” he said, and slammed down the phone.

  I don't believe him,Marti thought. He's lying to protect his brother.The more she thought about it, the more she was sure. There was something odd in Emmet's voice that snaked through the hostility and smugness. Emmet knew more than he had told her. Emmet was hiding something.

  Marti dialed Tony's number. Still busy.

  She called Kim. “I'm sorry,” Marti said the moment Kim answered. “I got busy. I forgot I was coming over. I forgot everything.”

  “Were you talking to Dr. Emery all that time?”

  “No,” Marti said, “but other things came up. “Can I fill you in later? Please?”

  As soon as Kim reluctantly agreed, Marti said a quick good-bye, snatched up her shoulder bag and car keys, and ran down the stairs. “Gould I borrow the-car?” she called into the dew, where her parents were watching a situation comedy on television. She could hear bursts of canned laughter from theset.

  “Don't you want some pizza?” her father called.

  Her mother shouted, ‘It's after eight o'clock. Where are you going?”

  “To Tony's house. I won't be long. I've just got to pick up something, And I'm not hungry. Really.”

  Martf could hear a low murmur of voices as hear parents talked to each other. “It's better that she's out and busy than up in her room brooding,” she heard her father say. Her mother murmured something, which was drowned out by another loud burst off television laughter. Then her father called, “Take the car, Marti, but ddntt stay out too late.”

  For an instant Marti felt a little dizzy with the strange feeling that none of them were real; that her parents weren't in the den, and she wasn't in the hall, and only their computerized voices were bouncing back and forth through an empty house, being mixed and matched with the canned laughter from the television set by ghostly hands on ghostly dials.

  But what she had to do was real. Very real.

  Marti drove to Tony's house and rang the bell. His mother opened the door and greeted Marti warmly.

  “I tried to call first, but the line was busy,” Marti explained.

  “I'm afraid that's my fault,” Mrs. Lopez told her. “I'm trying to line up a committee for our annual Prevent Child Abuse fund raiser. You wouldn't believe how many calls it takes!”

  “Has Charlie been here?”

  “No,” Mrs. Lopez said, “but he did phone Tony a few minutes ago, and I guess he'd had the same trouble trying to get through that you had.” She laughed. “Well, most of the time it's teenagers hogging the phone. Mothers have a right to take a turn once in a while too.”

  Marti smiled. “Where is Tony?”

  “He's in the library,” his mother said, The telephone rang and she turned toward the sound, saying over her shoulder, “I hope that's Helen Schaefler, returning my call. You know where the library is, Marti. Ydu might lend Tony a hand. The last time I saw him, he was looking through all the things in those covered cabinets, trying to find his photo album.”

  Marti ran down the hall and burst into the paneled library, startling Tony, who was seated cross-legged on the floor, his album on his lap, a stack of photographs scattered on the rug near him. He wasn't wearing a shirt, so his well-developed chest and arm muscles gleamed in the lamplight. Tony was the strongest of the Cuatros, Marti knew, and the scowl he turned on her was menacing.

  “What are you doing here?” he snapped.

  He made a dive for the loose photographs, but Marti was faster. She scooped up most of them and whirled out of his reach. “Here they are. The Cuatros,” she said, thumbing through them.

  “Give those back!” Tony demanded as he scrambled to his feet.

  Marti held the photographs behind her and quickly backed to the open doorway. “What did Charlie tell you to do with these, pictures?” she asked.

  “They're my pictures. I have a right to do whatever I want with them.”

  Marti heard footsteps, and from the corner of her eye saw Mrs. Lopez coming to join them. Marti raised her voice. “You're going to destroy these, aren't you?”

  “So what if I am? It's none of your business.” Tony moved toward her. “Give them to me.”

  “No” Marti cried out in pain as he grabbed her arm “These are pictures of Barry! If you don't want them, why can't I have them?”

  Tony's eyes narrowed. “What's the big act for? I know why you—”

  But his mother hurried forward and put an arm around Marti's shoulders. “For goodness. sake. what are you doing, Tony? Let go of Marti. You're hurting her!”

  Tony guiltily dropped Marti's arm and backed away. “It's nothing, Mom. Don't look like that. We were just— just kidding around.”

  “That didn't look like kidding around to
me,” she said. “One of you teU me. What's this all about?”

  Marti held out the photographs to Mrs. Lopez. She rubbed her arm, which still hurt where Tony had gripped it. “These are pictures of the Cuatros. Barry is in them. Tony took them out of his album because he's going to throw them away, but. I want them. I don't want these pictures of Barry to be destroyed.”

  Mrs. Lopez frowned at her son. “I certainly don't blame you, Marti And I don't understand Tony at all. Why in the world would you want to destroy these photographs?”

  “I dunno, Mom,” Tony mumbled. “It made me feel awful to look at them. I guess I just didn't want them around.”

  Mri. Lopez scanned through the photographs. When she finished there were tears in her eyes. “Such fine boys. But such a tragedy. So much sadness. Two of them—” She handed the photographs to Marti and stepped into the room, putting her arms around Tony. “Son,” she said softly, “I can understand how much pain you must feel when you look at these pictures, but if Marti wants them and you don't, then there's ho reason you shouldn't give them to her. Is there?”

  “I guess not,” Tony said, but he glared at Marti over his mother's shoulder.

  “Thank you, Mrs. Lopez. Thank you, Tony,” Marti said meekly, and hurried from the house before Tony could come up with a way to get his hands on those photographs.

  When Maiti entered her own house, she called out, “I'm home,” and two voices answered at the same time, “That's nice, dear,” and “Okay, hon.”

  “Oh, by the way,” her mother added, “Charlie telephoned. I told him you'd call him back the minute you got home.”

  Marti gripped the knob on the post at the foot of the stairs. “I don't want to talk to Charlie right now, Mom. If he calls back, tell him I'll see him tomorrow. Okay?”

  She took the stairs at a gallop, shut her bedroom door, and spread out the two dozen or so photographs on her desk under the bright lamp. Aching with loneliness, she stared at Barry in the photographs, not wanting to look at anyone or anything else. 41 miss you,” she whispered, and tears filled her eyes.

  She forced herself to tear her thoughts away from Barry and to study the photos intently; but she could find nothing. There were pictures of the guys in bathing suits at Surfside, at school, and around Tony's red sports car—Barry in his ever present beat-up Astros baseball cap. There was even an oversized school photo of the Cuatros in the Western desperado costumes they had worn two years ago for that crazy talent-show act they'd dreamed up, She was in three of the pictures, Emmet in one. In a few, other kids in school had posed with them. A handful of the photos inducted only three of th# Guatros, with one probably taking the photo-graph; but most of the photos showed the four Guatros together, and she looked at thdse with the most care.

  Nothing.

  The phone rang, but she ignored it.

  Marti shoved back her chair and tried to think. What was she looking for? What could there be in one or more of thete pictures that someone didn't want her— or anyone else—to see?

  The telephone rang again persistently, but the moment the caller bad hung up Marti took the receiver off its stand. She did not want to talk to Charlie.

  One by one, Marti picked up the photographs again, studying each with care, going over all the details. Here was a shot taken at the beach. Thad was holding a surfboard. Behind them, unaware of the camera, strolled two girls in bikinis. As the photo was taken, Charlie had turned, looking over his shoulder at the girls. Were these girls significant in any way? She shook her head. Just to Charlie.

  Next photo. The group around Tony's car. Anything important here? Tony was in the driver's seat, hands on the wheel, Barry leaping on the hood, a big grin on his face, his Astros cap pulled down over his eyes. Again, Marti shook her head.

  By the time she reached the last picture she was exhausted, but she went through the same routine. Here were the four in their desperado costumes. Thad in a white felt Western hat with a wide brim. Thad was holding a kid's stick horse. Tony was leaning on Charlie.

  Barry was wearing a black Stetson, his left arm across his chest, a gun in his hand.

  A gun in his hand?

  She squinted at the handgun he was holding across his chest, his finger on the trigger. She guessed the barrel to be about six inches long. Surely it was a toy gun. It had to be. But there was something about its size and shape that made her wonder.

  “Mom!” she called as she reached the top of the stairs and hung over the railing, “Where's that magnifying glass you bought so you could read the Houston city maps?”

  “In the top drawer of my desk,” Mom shouted back.

  “Thanks!” Marti ran downstairs to the room, which had been outfitted with twin desks for her parents—a spillover office for work that had to be continued at home—and rummaged in the top drawer of her mother's desk until she found the magnifying glass. Clutching it, she raced back up the stairs to her own desk.

  Marti slowly moved the glass upward and downward over the picture of the gun, studying it carefully. She tried to remember the bulky cap pistols with their shiny chrome barrels and the fat black plastic water pistols—the toy guns. None of them had the slender sleekness of the gun in Barry's hand. No. She was sure that he had been holding a real gun.

  Shaken, she dropped the magnifying glass on the desk and leaned back in her chair. Barry with a gun? Is this what Charlie and Tony were trying to keep from her?

  “Oh, Barry!” She moaned, then whispered, “I thought you told me nearly everything. Why didn't you tell me you owned a gun?”

  The answer popped into her head: Maybe it wasn't Batry's gun.

  “Then whose was it?” she asked.

  The Cuatros know.

  Marti wrapped her arms tightly around herself, hugging her shoulders, and looked out at the starless black void that had swallowed Barry's house. She'd telephone Karen and tell her what she had found. Karen would know what do do next.

  A deep voice answered the phonre, and Marti was taken aback. “I-I-maybe I have the wrong number. That is, I-I wanted to speak to Karen Prescott.”

  “You've got the right number,” the voice said. “Hang on. She'll be with you in a minute.”

  When Karen answered Marti began apologizing. “I guess I shouldn't have called so late. I didn't mean to interrupt you.”

  “It's not that late,” Karen said. “And I know you wouldn't call if it weren't important. What's on your mind?”

  Marti told her about the photograph and what she had gone through to get it.

  “The photo may or may not have any significance,” Karen said, “but it's probably a good idea to get it out of your hands.”

  “Do you want me to take it to you? Right now?”

  “No. I'll call the station and get whoever's on duty to pick it up. Just put the picture in an envelope with my name on it, seal it, and stand by. An officer will be at your house in a few minutes. I'll take a look at it when I get to the station tomorrow.”

  “Okay,” Marti said.

  As soon as she had hung up, she did as Karen told her, tucked the small envelope in her shirt pocket, and ran downstairs. “Marti,” her mother said as they came face-to-feee at the foot of the stairs, “I thought you were in bed.”

  “I had some stuff to do,” Marti told her.

  “It's late, and you have school tomorrow.”

  “I'll be upstairs in just a couple of minutes. I promise.”

  Her father turned out the last downstairs light and joined them, giving Marti a fond smile. “I remember when I was young. I could think of a dozen things to do rather than go to bed,” he said.

  The doorbell rang so suddenly that the three of them started, her mother giving a little gasp.

  “Oh, no,” Marti groaned. She'd been hoping to avoid this by watching for the officer and handing him the envelope with no one the wiser. Now there'd be explanations for hours.

  Her father turned on the outside light and opened the door. To Marti's surprise, Charlie and Tony stood
there.

  “I know it's late,” Charlie said before either of her parents could say a word, “but we need to talk to Marti. Could we come in?”

  Marti's mother pointedly looked at her watch, but her father held the door open wide and said, “Come in, boys. You're always welcome here. Come in, come in.”

  “We won't be long,” Tony mumbled. His glance shifted from the floor to the wall and to a place over their heads. He didn't meet her father's eyes.

  No one but Marti seemed to notice.

  “We'll say good night,” her father told them, and began to climb the stairs.

  “Remember, it's already late,” her mother chided, but smiled to soften the message, and followed her husband up the stairs.

  Marti led Tony and Charlie into the nearest room— the living room—and turned on one of the floor lamps. She positioned herself by the window, where she could see the street.

  For a moment Tony and Charlie stood next to each other, looking uncomfortable, neither of them speaking.

  “Which one of you trashed Barry's room and stole the pictures from his album?” Marti asked, her voice bitter.

  “You think we did it?” Tony muttered. He dropped into the nearest chair and slumped, his chin on his chest.

  “We wouldn't do a thing like that” Charlie told her. “You should know that, Marti.”

  “Then who did it?”

  They both looked right into her eyes, “We don't know,” Charlie said. “We wish we did.”

  She didn't know whether to believe them or not, and it disturbed her to think that they might be lying to her. “Then what's all this stuff you're doing about hiding the photographs, trying to destroy them before anybody sees them?”

  Tony looked at Charlie, and Charlie said, “We have our reasons, Marti, give Tony back the pictures you took.”

  “You'll have to do better than that,” Marti said. She saw headlights from a car and watched from the corner of her eye as it pulled up in froM of her house. It was a marked patrol car.