All for One (29 page)

Most in the class thought he looked like he’d lost a fight. A few knew better.

Mary’s right hand had been almost to her heart when he entered. Now it collapsed into a loose fist, bunching the sweater in the small valley between her breasts.

“I’ll just stand back there,” Dooley told her. His words were edged with a razor sharp certitude that spoke a silent challenge:
And you just try and stop me.
He was here, alive, bloodied but breathing, and he wanted them all to know it. Wanted them to know that he was going nowhere.

As he walked to the back of the room he looked at the body of the class. All the shocked little faces washed away to blurry splotches of color that could have been crafted by a kindergartner with crayons. All but six.

He gave them each a portion of his attention, but settled on Joey and kept his eyes focused there until
el presidente
turned away.
Fuck you
, Dooley thought.

It felt good to be angry at a child. He had a reservoir of that animus saved up.

When their unexpected visitor had found his spot at the back of the class, Mary recomposed herself, cleared her throat, and flattened her hand over her heart. The students followed her lead and shifted their eyes from Dooley to the flag. “Michael...”

His position allowed Michael a view of the flag and, if he so desired, the hot stare sweeping over him and his friends. He breathed hard once and brought his right hand back up. His legs felt hot and light. “Ready...begin.”

“I pledge allegiance to the flag

of the United States of America...”

Their chorus was perfect, Dooley thought, twenty five voices on the cusp of change reciting as one. As one.

“And to the republic for which it stands,

one nation, under God...”

Joey looked back over his shoulder at Dooley.

Then PJ did.

And Jeff.

Bryce.

Michael’s eyes shifted from the flag.

And, just a few seats from Dooley, Elena added her gaze.

Their eyes on him, his sweeping among theirs, and their mouths moving in unison, saying the word.

“Indivisible....”

And then turning away, time seemingly slowing to a crawl as their collective voice reverberated over and over in Dooley’s head.

Indivisible.... Indivisible... Indivisible...

Dooley’s lips came together. Silence locked them.

“With liberty and justice for all.”

The last line mocked Dooley.

He left room 18 with a mix of confused, spiteful, and worried eyes trailing him.

Past the stoop he walked over the spot where Guy Edmond had died, blacker now than the ground around it.

*  *  *

The inspector from the Washington State Patrol stood beneath the remnants of Dooley’s Blazer and pointed to a fitting near the claw-like brake calipers with the blunt end of a screwdriver. “Right there.”

Dooley and Joel came close as the inspector moved a shop light to better illuminate the spot.

“Two nuts,” the inspector said. “You loosen one just enough and you can bleed air from the system. Normal procedure if you’re replacing a master cylinder, say.” He reached up and pinched the top nut between his powerful thumb and forefinger and wiggled it in both directions. “Loose like this and more than air is going to come out after a few pumps on the pedal. All four wheels had this done to them. And your emergency brake was done a number on, too.”

Dooley walked to the back end of his wrecked car and touched a gouge in the bottom of the gas tank.

The inspector nodded, his face brightening. “You’re one lucky fella. Part of that log truck’s front rim musta done that when it disintegrated. A hair more through that metal and it’s barbecue time.” His hands flew demonstrably apart. “WHOOSH!”

“I didn’t get a brake warning,” Dooley told the inspector.

“Fixed. The sensor was jammed into the full position with a pencil.”

“They got under his hood?” Joel asked.

“It’s not hard,” the inspector said. “A little time in a garage or in prison with some guys doing time for grand theft auto is all someone needs.”

Joel and Dooley looked to each other at the same time.

“I wonder if Michael Prentiss is as handy with a wrench as daddy is,” Dooley said.

“We wonders together,” Joel concurred with the retiring detective, who was running hot and cold toward him like a tap with mismatched faucets.

*  *  *

Caroline Hool put the basket of laundry on top of the dryer and pinched at the worry lines gouging her forehead. They had set into her brow as the county sheriff’s deputies left. As she slowly closed the door behind them, smiling pleasantly. Confidently.

Lying with her smile.

Now, with her two youngest occupied with a Disney video, with her oldest still at school and her husband busy at work, Caroline stood alone in the laundry room of her happy home and tried to convince herself that her son was not a criminal. That he...

That he...

(‘
He’s not
really
your son
,’ some awful inner voice taunted her. ‘
Not
of
your loins, so to speak
.’)

(‘HE IS MY SON!’
the bigger part of her being screamed back. ‘
MY SON! MY SON! DO YOU HEAR ME? HE IS MY SON!)’

...was not a murderer.

Her eyes went slowly closed.

It was impossible. Absolutely impossible.

But...

‘You drove these five children to Holly Village last night, Mrs. Hool, is that correct?’

She had looked at the photos the deputies brought. Joey, PJ, Michael, Jeff, and her son. Her Bryce.

‘Yes, I did, but...’

‘And, Mrs. Hool, were you with them the entire time you were in Holly Village?’

‘No, I wasn’t. They’re eleven years old, and children that age hate to be babied. You can underst—’

The deputies had looked knowingly at each other right then.

‘Thank you, Mrs. Hool. I’m sure we’ll be in touch.’

Caroline Hool’s hand slid from her brow to cover her mouth, and her eyes opened, the brown orbs at the centers drowning in the expanded sea of white.

“This can’t be true,” she muttered into her hand.

She thought of the story hidden under her teddy.

“Bryce...”

A cold mound of dread spilled down her throat, stalling the next breath her lungs were expecting. When she did breathe, the air fell loud into her chest. The back of her throat began to tingle and her eyes grew warm.

She sniffled against her hand and told herself to
stop it!
He was her son, for God’s sake. Not that. Not what those men were implying. Not what that stranger, that detective was outright suggesting. No. He was not that. He could not be. She and her husband had raised him right. Had taught him to do what was right. To not hide from responsibility. To accept responsibility for mistakes. It was how they both had been brought up, and they each thought they had turned out to be pretty decent people. And that was all they wanted from and for their children. The girls were young, but they were learning to live right. To be true to themselves. To work hard and be honest. Just like...

...your big brother, girls. He does his chores.

How many times had she used that line? For chores, or when caught fighting, or when getting into the mischief that little children would.
Your big brother wouldn’t act like that...

Caroline Hool sniffed deeply now, bolstering herself with a breath and blinking a few times to drive the tears down. They obliged, and very soon after that she actually put on a smile. Not very real at first, but it would grow. It certainly would when she realized just how silly she’d been to think that her son...

Bryce? Yeah, right.

...was a criminal.

The curve to her mouth grew as she opened the lid of the washer and started to pull the children’s clothes from the basket. A warm load. Jeans, some socks, and sweatshirts that not so long ago had been relegated to the bottoms of drawers in anticipation of cold weather to come. That it had come this soon, well...

“No bleach,” Caroline Hool said softly to herself, not knowing exactly why as she dropped two identical pairs of tiny denim overalls into the washer. She checked the pockets first, of course. With her husband it was tissue, or an occasional fiver or tenner. With the girls it was glitzy hair clips embedded with faux plastic jewels. In Bryce’s case it was likely some forgotten paper. Maybe a story folded and...

She moved past that thought and turned the machine on. Warm water began to spout into its perforated tub as she continued through the clothes. Done with pockets now. Socks were next. Then sweatshirts. The girls’ cute little ones tumbled in first, red, blue, green. All the simple solid colors that made washing a breeze. Then Bryce’s. A blue one. A gray one. And a heavy black one. A...black...

It was the one he had worn last night, Caroline Hool saw as she held the garment by the shoulders. Part of his ninja costume. Clean and hardly worse for wear. Except for the...

...sleeve.

Her eyes stumbled to the spot, even more whites showing now than earlier.

No, the sleeve was not clean.

Her head pulled back as if the top her son had worn was throwing a painful heat, like the lava that gurgled through cracks in the ground on its upward journey from the earth’s secret core. Tipped back, a grimace twisting her natural prettiness to something bitter and ugly, her hands squeezing to fists around the sweatshirt’s shoulders, bunching the deep black material, and her eyes still fixed on the sleeve. The left sleeve. Near the cuff. (
He’d rolled his cuffs up after trick-or-treating. They were rolled up when he got back to the car with his friends.
) Just above the cuff.

“No,” Caroline Hool said, almost moaning.

‘The brakes on that car were tampered with, Mrs. Hool. That’s a fact.’

She forced her head back toward the sweatshirt and brought the sleeve close to her face. She sniffed it, the spot that was smudged and grimy, and the tears she had so recently suppressed began to flow now, trickling over her lower lids and down her cheeks.

It smelled. It smelled just like her husband’s hands after he’d been working on the car. Under the hood. In all that grease.

“Oh, God, Bryce,” she said, weeping as quietly as she could manage now. “What have you done?”

She buried her face against the chest of the shirt and sobbed.

*  *  *

Hunk of plaster or not, Jeff Bernstein put a kick in his step and raced through the school’s front gate five minutes after the bell. The way was clear. No one stayed after school by choice. No one but him, this day.

He puffed hard as he cut across the slick lawn, his feet digging for and finding traction. The last of the stragglers were ahead on the sidewalk, and that meant he had to hurry. Had to hurry if he wanted to catch up. And he had to catch up. He had to find Joey.

He dodged the few kids in his way and made the corner, turning hard and crossing the street with hardly a look. Far ahead he thought he saw something familiar. That sagging backpack that always hung a little too low. (
Is that fashion, or what, Travers? ‘Cause it looks like you’re carrying rocks.
) Jeff reached down deep and shifted into high gear. Misty breaths steamed from his nose as if he were a thoroughbred in a race. Or a zebra running from a lion. Or just someone scared, and getting more scared as each and every day passed.

This is really unfuckingbelievable
, a very calm voice said in his head, and Jeff had the urge to shout back
NO SHIT, SHERLOCK!
but didn’t. That would have wasted breath. Breath he needed, because he was sure now. It was Joey up ahead. Almost to the corner.

Closer now, Jeff got, still doing the occasional zig onto someone’s lawn and zag back onto the sidewalk. Closer. Closer.

Close enough!

“Travers!” Jeff yelled, using an appreciable amount of the air that his lungs were begging for. The misdirected breath resulted in the desired volume, but it also jabbed a cold blade into his side and sent a sudden ache zipping up the backs of his legs.

He slowed almost to stumbling, and might have gone all the way down if Joey hadn’t heard him and stopped.

Jeff’s heavy stride pounded the pavement the last few yards to where his friend now stood, waiting.

“Jesus, Jeff, what is it?” Joey asked, but the class secretary had doubled over by the time he reached him and now was bent at the middle, his good hand on one knee, his breathing coming and going in wet coughs. “Are you gonna barf?”

Jeff saw Joey’s sneakers step back and shook his head at the sidewalk. A few unknown feet neared from the direction he’d come, slowed for an obvious look, then continued on. “Just let me catch my breath.”

After a moment Jeff stood upright, his face red, the chest beneath his jacket pumping the material out with each gulp of air. “I’m okay now.”

“What were you running for? With that cast and all? You could have gone down on your face.”

“I had to catch you,” Jeff said in a mild pant now. He looked around, making sure they were alone, and said, “There was another note.”

Joey seemed to deflate a bit toward his friend.

“I told Miss Austin I wanted to go through the box early, and I looked in, and there was just one piece of paper in there.” Jeff reached into his pocket and pulled out the note.

Joey took it and unfolded it.

“It’s the same writing,” Jeff said, talking nearly normal now.

Joey nodded. It was the same writing as the other one. And the same as the writing Guy had put on Jeff’s cast. And, like the other note, it was a message. A taunt. A threat.

I know what you did last night.

Twenty Five

Mary never called Dr. Cleary.

She tried, right after school, not long after one of her students had raced to catch another, stopping at a gas station phone booth on Roman Boulevard before starting the climb up Cougar Mountain, pulling her calling card from her wallet and the slip of paper with the doctor’s number on it. The same number she swore she’d written a half a dozen times in the previous forty eight hours, on scraps of note paper that seemed to vanish into thin air. This one, though, she’d held onto, and had had it out between shaking fingers. She even took the receiver in hand, holding the black handset low against her face, the dial tone humming at the blush in her cheeks. She held the number up, had even dialed the 1 and the 8-1-5, and then it had happened.