“Helpless!” Weezy spoke through clenched teeth. “I hatebeing helpless!”
So did Jack, but he figured every obstacle had a way around it. You just had to find it. No such thing as an insurmountable object, just people who gave
up too soon.
Just then, a sheriff’s patrol car turned off the highway and cruised into town. Jack recognized Tim behind the wheel.
“Hey, Weez, want to report a theft?”
“No way. He could be a Lodger for al we know. And even if he’s not, you can bet someone above him is. Don’t waste your breath. Besides, we weren’t
supposed to have something from a crime scene in the first place.”
She had a point. But Jack wanted to ask Tim something, so he flagged him down.
“Hey, Tim,” he said as the car stopped.
“Hey, Jack. What’s up?”
“Lot of commotion in the Barrens last night.”
Tim frowned. “First I’ve heard about it.”
“Yeah. Couple of helicopters with searchlights hanging over the trees. I could be wrong, but it looked like they were concentrating on that place where
we found that body.”
“Helicopters? Probably from Lakehurst.”
“Didn’t look like it. These were black.” He motioned to Weezy who was hanging back by her bike. “Weezy saw them too, didn’t you, Weez?”
She nodded but said nothing and moved no closer.
“And then,” he added, “I saw some cop cars driving into the Pines—three state police cruisers.”
That last part wasn’t exactly true. The troopers had probably entered the Barrens without going through Johnson, but Jack hadseen them in there.
Tim’s frowned deepened. “Staties? The sheriff never mentioned any activity out here.”
Jack faked a relieved sigh. “Wel , then, I guess everything’s okay. But you know how it is. People see al that commotion and they start worrying about
some sort of escaped convict hiding out in the Pines.”
Tim shook his head. “No worry there. No escapees running around. But I’m going to look into this. The state’s supposed to coordinate with the sheriff
when they run an operation in the county.”
“Yeah, okay, whatever,” Jack said, trying to look uninterested. “Just wondering.”
As Tim cruised away Jack saw him pick up the hand-piece of his police radio and start talking.
Exactly what he’d hoped he’d do.
When he reached Weezy, she said, “I don’t know if that was such a good idea. What if he starts asking the wrong people and they want to know where
he got his information? When they hear it’s two kids, a boy and a girl, they may come looking.”
He shrugged. “I woke up worrying about that, but now I don’t think it’s a problem. If they want to keep that operation a secret, the last thing they’l do is
come into town and cause a scene. We’re just ‘dumb piney kids,’ remember? So who’s going to listen to us anyway, right?”
“I suppose.” She hunched her shoulders as if feeling a chil . “I just wonder where we’d be right now if we hadn’t got away.”
“I suppose.” She hunched her shoulders as if feeling a chil . “I just wonder where we’d be right now if we hadn’t got away.”
Jack decided not to wonder. That kind of thinking did nothing but crowd the brain with useless thoughts that went nowhere and accomplished nothing.
He preferred to think about their next step and what it could be. Then he remembered something he’d seen Thursday night.
He turned to Weezy. “How do you feel about going for a swim?”
10
They rode to Quaker Lake. Along the way Jack told Weezy about seeing Mr.
Brussard throw something in on Thursday night.
She smiled. “Which Hardy Boy do you think you are—Joe or Frank?” This Hardy Boy thing was getting annoying.
“Why does everybody have to say that?”
“Everybody?”
“Okay, just two—you and my father. But when you consider I’ve only told two
people about what I overheard, two out of two makes a hundred percent.” “Wel , what do you expect? Sneaking around, eavesdropping from bathrooms,
spying on a suspected murderer through a window”—her grin
broadened—”looking for clues.If that’s not a Hardy Boy wannabe, I don’t know
what is.”
She giggled. Weezy never giggled. A nice sound. But she was getting on his
nerves.
“Okay. Fine. Swel —”
“See! You even say ‘swel ’! Nobody says swel anymore—except maybe a Hardy
Boy.”
Maybe he’d been reading too many of those old pulp magazines, but he didn’t
think so.
“Lots of people say ‘swel .’”
She laughed. “Next you’l be cal ing Steve your ‘chum’!”
Jack felt a sudden heaviness. “Yeah … Steve.”
Her grin faded. “Have you done anything about him?”
“Not yet. There’s been a lotgoing on.”
“No argument there. Way too much going on.”
They arrived at the lake and angled their bikes toward the boat area. Not a dock
by any stretch. More like a patch of sandy soil where Mark Mul iner left four old canoes for rent. The charge was three dol ars an hour, and renters left
their payment in the coffee can sitting on the bank next to the NoSwimming sign.
Mark lived up in Sooy’s Boot but left canoes with the same setup here and there
in various smal Pine towns. He’d stop by every evening in his truck
and empty the can.
Jack had heard there’d been some sort of trouble last fal when two guys from
Trenton sneaked into town, loaded the canoes into a pickup, and took off. One of the bad things about a town as smal as Johnson was that everybody
knew everybody else’s business. But the good thing was that people tended to watch out for each other.
Some insomniac on Quakerton Road had been sitting by a window that night and
saw an unfamiliar truck go by loaded with canoes. She cal ed
someone who cal ed Mark. Soon Matthew, Mark, Luke, John, Peter, and Paul Mul
iner—their mother was real y into the New Testament, apparently—piled into a truck of their own. The story went that they intercepted the thieves on
Carranza Road near Tabernacle. What happened after that nobody knew, or nobody was saying, but next morning the canoes were back at their usual spot.
Never a mention of the fate of the Trenton guys, and nobody asked. Piney justice tended to be swift, severe, and silent.
Weezy shielded her eyes as she stared at the canoers already on the lake.
“When you talked about swimming, I assumed you meant here.”
“Uh-huh.”
“You’re going to go diving for whatever Steve’s father threw in.” “Uh-huh.”
“You’l never find it.”
“Don’t be so sure. I have a pretty good idea where it landed. The water’s clear
and not very deep. I think it’s worth a shot.”
“You’re not the type to go looking for trouble. Wouldn’t it be better to do this at
night?”
“But then I wouldn’t be able to see.”
“Oh, right.” She pointed to the blocklike Lodge squatting on the far corner of the
opposite bank. “Yeah, you’l be able to see, but so wil they. If they’re
watching, they’l cal the fuzz.”
The Lodge owned the pond. They let people boat on it, even fish in it—someone
had stocked it with smal -mouth bass—but absolutely no swimming.
Jack had never understood why. But then, the Lodge never explained what it
did. It didn’t have to.
“I think I have a way around that. But I need your he
lp.”
“If it involves swimming, forget it. I’m not going in that lake.”
“Don’t worry. I’l be the only one getting wet. I’m going to paddle one of these
canoes to the other side of the bridge. You’re going to fol ow along the bank. When I get to the right spot, I’m going to become a show-off.” “That’s it?”
“You’l see.”
He pul ed three dol ars from his wal et and dropped it in the coffee can, then
handed Weezy his wal et.
“Here. Keep this dry for me.”
Then he kicked off his Vans. He was glad he was wearing cutoffs, so he didn’t
have to rol up his jeans. He dragged the canoe into the water, hopped in, and began to paddle.
Weezy pedaled along the bank, looking confused. “What am I supposed to do?” “Easy!” he shouted. “Just look beautiful!”
Even from here he could see her blush. Immediately he wondered if he should
have said it. She might take it the wrong way. A guy could say one thing and a girl would hear something else.
Weezy wasn’t beautiful by most standards. Unless she changed dramatical y over
the next couple of years, she probably wasn’t going to have a gaggle
of guys fol owing her down the street. But she wasn’t bad-looking. She easily
could be cute or even attractive if she gave it half a try. He didn’t mean she should become a bowhead or anything like that, not that she ever would. But
Weezy considered herself a plain Jane, maybe even something of a bowwow—she’d never told him so but he could sense it—and so she never made
that try. Or maybe she just didn’t care. Maybe she was going to wait until she came across a Cure fan looking for a girl who reminded him of Robert Smith. “Easier said than done,” she replied in a barely audible voice.
“Nah! Just think beautiful!”
Ouch. That was bad—super hokey. He wished he hadn’t brought this up. But if
nothing else, it made him look like he was out here just having fun.
He guided the canoe under the bridge and into the south half of the dumbbel
-shaped lake. His was the only canoe on this end. To his right on the west bank he saw the big oak near where Mr. Brussard had stood when he threw
whatever he’d thrown. Jack guesstimated it had landed about thirty feet out. He backpaddled the canoe to stop it at the spot. Then he checked for Weezy on
the shore. She’d leaned her bike against the big oak and stood
watching him with her hands on her hips. She wore a Now-what?expression. Okay, Jack thought. Time to take the plunge.
Careful y he rose to his feet. The canoe began rocking with the shift in weight.
When he’d gained his balance he waved to her.
“Hey, Weezy! Look! No hands!”
“And no brains!” she replied.
Can’t argue with that, he thought. Or am I just crazy?
Maybe he was. This was certainly a crazy stunt. Weezy was right about his
chances of finding whatever it was. Slim to none, even if he knew what he was looking for, and he didn’t.
But he had to give it a try.
He pretended to lose his balance, windmil ing his arms, which increased the
canoe’s rocking until—
“Whoa!”
Taking a deep breath, he fel /dove off the canoe into the water. The
temperature was a shock. He’d known it was fed by a cold spring, but not
this
cold.
Fighting the urge to start swimming for the warm shore, he stroked toward the bottom for a look.
The water wasn’t crystal clear but enough light filtered through to reveal the muddy bottom. He stayed a few feet above it, stroking gently so as not to stir
up the muck. He saw some beer cans, dead tree branches, a sneaker, and some unidentifiable lumps al coated with green-brown ick. They looked like
they’d been here a long time. Something down here for only a few days should stick out like Weezy at an Air Supply concert.
He kept stroking. He’d always been able to hold his breath for a long time. Knowing it was only a short distance to the surface, he pushed it to the max
before kicking back toward air.
Nothing … he’d found nothing. On his next dive he’d search a little farther out from shore.
A shadow passed over him. He looked up and saw someone else in the water, swimming along the surface.
Who? Too big for Weezy.
As his head broke the surface he felt an arm go around his neck.
“Gotcha!” said a voice close behind him.
Jack panicked when he recognized it: Steve’s father!
He heard a high-pitched scream from somewhere as he began struggling to get free.
“Don’t fight me, Jack. I’m stronger than you.”
Jack knew that, but didn’t stop his struggles. The kil er was going to drown him to make sure he never found what he’d thrown in here.
11
“Be calm, Jack,” said the voice, close to his ear. “Relax. I’ve got you. You’re safe.”
Safe?
He must mean his secret wil be safe.
Jack took a deep breath, preparing for when Mr. Brussard forced him under. He could almost hear him later:
Itriedmybesttosavehimbutjust
couldn’t.
But instead of pul ing him down, the arm slipped from his neck to across his chest. And then he felt himself being pul ed along the surface. He craned
his neck and saw that Mr. Brussard was using a cross-chest carry to move him toward shore. Jack had learned this one in his lifesaver course last
summer.
He thinks he’s saving me.
“I’m okay, Mr. Brussard. I can swim.”
He stopped stroking. “You can?”
He released him and Jack treaded water as he turned to face him.
“Yeah. I … I just fel off the boat.”
“But you didn’t come up. I thought …” He laughed. “You mean I got soaked for nothing?”
“Wel , I wouldn’t say for nothing.”
“Poor choice of words. Let’s get to shore. It’s cold in here.”
“You go ahead. I’ve got to get the boat.”
“I’l help you.”
Together they stroked out to the canoe. Then, each grabbing a side, they swam it ashore.
As they stood panting on the bank, Mr. B said, “Wel , I’ve got to say I didn’t have this in mind when I walked over to the Lodge this morning.”
Jack felt like a fool. “I’m sorry.”
He shrugged. “It livened up an otherwise dul Saturday.” He pushed back his wet hair. “I don’t know about you, but I’m heading home for some dry
clothes. Boy, that water’s cold.” He clapped Jack on the shoulder. “Next time you’re in a canoe, don’t act like a jerk, okay?”
As he walked off, Jack said, “Thanks, Mr. B.”
He stopped and turned. “Thanks? You said you could swim.”
“I can. But you didn’t know that. Thanks for trying to save me.”
He smiled. “Hey, Steve needs you. If something happened to you, he’d never finish that computer.”
As he stood and watched Mr. Brussard walk away, Weezy ran over.
“Do you believethat?” she said.
Jack shook his head. “He tried to save my life.”
“Some cold-blooded murderer he is,” she whispered.
Jack turned to her. “I don’t get it. What happened?”
“I was watching where you’d ‘fal en’ in when I heard a splash on the other side.” She pointed toward the Lodge. “I saw a pair of shoes on the bank there
and someone swimming like mad toward you. I didn’t know who he was until he grabbed you.”
“I heard a scream. Was that you?”
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