Blindfold (4 page)

The third case was also a girl. Tall, thin, and bony, dressed entirely in shiny black leather, crew-cut hair dyed black, lips flaming red, the accused slid into her seat and slumped down in her chair, impatiently tapping the heels of her black boots on the hardwood floor as her name was announced. "Chantilly Beckwith."

Helen laughed. "Chantilly? As if. Her real name

is Alice Ann Beckwith. I went to grade school with her. She had blonde hair then and was real shy and quiet, just like me."

Alice Ann, a.k.a. "Chantilly" Beckwith had been accused of beating up another girl. Maggie was shocked by the crime. The closest they'd been to violent crime so far was the tossing of a frog out of a biology classroom window. And that had supposedly been a rescue mission, intent on saving the poor creature.

Like James Keith, Alice Ann did not take well to her punishment, which was a recommendation of suspension, the strongest the peer jury had to offer. The jury couldn't actually suspend anyone, but the administration would take their recommendation under advisement. In the meantime, Alice Ann still had her real court trial to deal with. The victim's parents had pressed charges. Alice Ann was not a happy camper when she stomped from the room. The expression on her face was similar to James Keith's, and a few of the words she directed at Maggie as she stomped from the gym were from the same vocabulary.

As Maggie stuffed the gavel into her backpack, Whit said, "Looks like you've got a few people ready to hang you in the town square. Maybe I should walk you to your first class. That Keith guy could be hanging around out in the hall, waiting for you."

"Hey, man, don't sweat it!" Scout interrupted, coming up behind them and reaching down to lift the backpack. "She's okay, man. Vll see that she's

okay." To an embarrassed Maggie, he said, "Come on, let's go. Well be late." And before she could protest, his hand was firmly on her left elbow and he was propelling her from the room.

"What's the matter with you?" she hissed. "Stop it! That was really rude, Scout."

When she managed to swivel her head to look over her shoulder, she saw Helen and Lane approaching a bewildered-looking Thomas Whittier, and heard Lane say, "Hi. I'm Lane Bridgewater and this is my friend, Helen Morgan. Anything you need to know about Bransom High? We'd be happy to give you the grand tour."

Scout was moving so rapidly across the gym floor, Maggie couldn't hear what the new boy said in return. Probably something like, "Hey, why not? You are totally gorgeous and you don't have a pushy boy attached to your elbow. Lead the way."

James was not waiting outside in the hall. There was no sign of him. Alice Ann, too, was nowhere to be seen.

But like Whit, Maggie was convinced she hadn't seen the last of either one.

it would make him. I didn't want him mad at me, even though I hardly ever saw him anymore. Three's a crowd, that was the message the two of them sent me repeatedly. I didn't fight it. What good would it have done?

Mrs. Guardino warned Dante, over and over again. She told him to stay away from Christy. 'That girl will bring you down, you mark my words," she said. "Might as well stick a knife in your own heart, save her the trouble."

I knew Dante wasn't listening.

He wasn't. He finally stopped talking about Christy at home, but I knew he was still seeing her. Everyone in the county knew. When Dante's parents did find out, there was constant fighting in their house, his mother pleading with him to, "Leave that girl alone!" Dante shouting back that his parents should butt out and let him live his own life.

I hated all of it. They'd been such a nice, ordinary, happy family until then. That was one of the reasons I spent so much time at their place. It felt like being around one of those families on television, where everybody talks things out calmly. Not like at my house.

As for Dante and Christy, at first it was all really rosy. They were nuts about each other and even I had to admit, although I hated to, that they looked really good together. Mr. and Ms. Teenage America.

But then they started fighting, which I could have predicted. I knew her so well. She was just beginning to realize how much power she had when

it came to boys, and she wasn't ready to tie herself down to any one boy, not even one as cute and smart and popular as Dante.

The trouble was, he didn't want anyone else, only her. Her constant flirting with other guys made him nuts. They started fighting all the time, and everywhere. A lot of the arguments were public, and they never seemed to notice that there were tons of people around.

So, when Christy's body was found, lying underneath an old pickup truck on the Guardino property, her head smashed like a pumpkin, Dante was arrested.

I couldn't believe it at first. Dante hadn't done anything wrong. He could never have raised a hand to Christy. He loved her too much.

But no one knew that.

Except for the person who had done something wrong. Something really wrong. Something horrible.

Something they could never, ever take back.

Maggie stared at him. "Sharing? Fm not a box of cookies, Scout. People don't share other people. And you are not my social secretary." She had never thought of herself and Scout as a "couple." Although she was aware that other people might. She had kissed him. And she'd liked it. Scout happened to be a great kisser. But they had never discussed seeing only each other. She wasn't interested in seeing only Scout. She didn't know who else she did want to see. No one in particular. She just didn't want to become Scout's property, which now seemed to be very much what he had in mind.

He had never acted like this before. Why was it suddenly so important to him to wrap and tag her as his?

"Don't tell me what to do, Scout," she said quietly but firmly. "You're not my keeper. And if that's a problem for you, then maybe we shouldn't spend so much time together."

Scout's deep blue eyes narrowed. "It's because of him, isn't it?" He flicked a hand over one shoulder, toward the gym. "Well, don't worry about that guy, because if I know Lane, and I do, she's already staked her claim. So you can forget it, Maggie. Three's a crowd, right? Three has always been a crowd."

Maggie didn't answer him. She knew he wasn't talking about Lane and Whit and Maggie creating a triangle. He was talking about Whit and Maggie and himself. Warning her away from Whit. Scout was warning her? What was wrong with him?

US

"Lane already has a boyfriend," Maggie said angrily.

Seeing the look in her eyes, Scout's face eased, and he forced a smile. "Hey, I'm sorry. Look, it's just. . . well, you know . . . we're starting a whole new year of school and we've got SATs ahead of us and now we've got this crazy business of emptying out the old courthouse. That's going to take time away from football practice and Coach is going to be ticked and my mom's really going off the deep end. I've been under a lot of stress lately."

Maggie hated that expression. "Under a lot of stress." People used it all the time, to excuse rotten behavior and bad manners. Who wasn't under stress? Life was stressful, period. Since when was that a good excuse for acting like a jerk? When she was feeling stressed-out, she ate chocolate doughnuts. The only damage that caused was to her waistline. It didn't hurt anybody else.

Still, Scout had had a hard time since his parents' divorce. "Are we clear about who's in charge of my life?" she asked, not ready to forgive Scout's heavy-handedness.

"I guess." He didn't sound convinced, but Maggie could see that he wasn't willing to argue.

He looked so downcast, she took pity on him and reached out to take his hand. She was about to say something cheerful like, "Relax, Scout, I'm not the love of your life," when the new boy, along with Helen, Lane, and Alex, emerged from the gym. They were all talking animatedly, but Whit did look up as they entered the hall, and his dark eyes foU

cused on Maggie's hand in Scout's. He nodded, as if to say, That's what I thought, and then quickly turned his attention back to Lane.

As the trio approached Maggie and Scout, she heard Whit say, "So, if we're going to be moving stuff from the old courthouse to the new one next week, maybe we could go scope out the place this afternoon. I need to see what we're up against."

"What a great idea!" Lane responded quickly. "American history fascinates me. Personally, I think that eyesore should be torn down. But since it hasn't been, exploring it might be fun."

Maggie almost laughed aloud. The only American's history Lane Bridgewater was interested in was Thomas Whittier's. Hadn't her boyfriend ever told her three was a crowd? Apparently not.

"Good, we can all go," Maggie heard herself saying. "I have to take some renovation plans over there for my mother." She pulled the sheaf of papers from her backpack, waving them in the air.

"Count me in," Scout enjoined. He hadn't let go of Maggie's hand. "I still want it torn down, but if it's not gonna be, it'll be fun to see what it looks like before Maggie's mom and friends work their magic on it, turning it into a tourist attraction."

Maggie was surprised when Alex agreed to go, too. He'd avoided going near the old courthouse ever since his father, who had worked there for twenty years, died.

He was all for tearing the building down. When they talked about it, he had said, 'Those beams have to be rotted through. They'll pour a fortune

into that building, dressing it up with paint and paneling and new flooring, and then one day the whole thing will collapse anyway. It's stupid. Scout's right. A rec center would be just the thing. Even a parking garage for the new courthouse would make more sense."

But she suspected his attitude had more to do with what had happened to his father than with the building itself.

Although Maggie hadn't been inside the courthouse in a long time, she discovered that afternoon that with the evacuation process already begun, it was even more depressing than she'd remembered. So empty and desolate, as if it had already been abandoned.

They spent less than an hour exploring the upper floors, where there was little activity and few people. Only the larger pieces of furniture remained in many of the offices. Their footsteps echoed hollowly on the bare, worn, wooden floors, and their voices rang out in the staircases. "It's kind of like a haunted house already," Helen murmured nervously, and no one disagreed.

Maggie handed the renovation papers to a lone clerk on the second floor. Most of the staff was at the new courthouse, putting the finishing touches on their new offices. It wouldn't be long, Maggie was told by the clerk, before the peer jury would be put to work toting small supplies and books through the alleyway from the old building to the new. Moving vans would carry off the heavier things. Then the ancient, once-proud building

would stand empty after almost a century and a half.

They moved from floor to floor, past deserted offices with peeling wallpaper and high ceilings with water stains, through wide but dim corridors, and up and down wide, curving, wooden staircases whose railings shook and whose treads creaked ominously beneath their feet.

Finished with the upper floors, Alex, who seemed surprisingly at home in the old courthouse, talked them into exploring the basement. Helen protested, but finally gave in because she was unwilling to remain upstairs alone.

When they opened the door to the cellarway, Maggie, repelled by the strong, musty smell, took a step backward, and narrowly missed bumping into James Keith, just entering the building. Alice Ann "Chantilly" Beckwith was with him, as were two other friends, both as sullen-looking as James.

"Oops, sorry!" Maggie apologizied. "I didn't see you."

"Like that's a surprise," the girl snarled. But to Maggie's relief, the four kept walking.

"She's here for her pretrial hearing," Lane said knowingly. "Phew," she said as she entered the enclosed, narrow stairway, "it stinks! Reminds me of the farm. That's practically the only thing I remember about the farm ... all those disgusting smells. I don't like being reminded of the farm." But she began descending the shaky, wooden staircase anyway.

The others followed silently, heads bent against

the sloping ceiling, their feet feeling carefully for the next step.

Maggie was suddenly overwhelmed with the feeling that they were making a terrible mistake. Something about the basement -- the smell? The darkness? -- seemed to be warning them to stay away.

She opened her mouth to voice the feeling, but before any sound could come out, she was at the foot of the stairs, and it was too late.

The white limestone ceiling was so low, they had to walk with their heads down. Periodically, they had to step to one side to avoid floor-to-ceiling beams positioned in the middle of the corridors. Dank, dark water ran down the sides of the white walls, and scurrying noises sounded within them. There was no light at all and no one had thought to bring a flashlight. They had to feel their way.

Maggie was never sure exactly how she became separated from the others, but once they had passed through the jail cell corridor she could no longer even make out Lane's white yachting cap. And the depressing atmosphere of that corridor, where prisoners must have felt they'd been buried alive, however briefly, had stricken all of them silent, so she hadn't even voices to guide her. It was impossible to see anything, even her own feet.

The corridors twisted and turned in a dizzying maze. It had been so long since she'd been down here, she couldn't remember which passageway led where. She had never become lost as a child, playing in the basement, alone or with friends. But it all seemed different now.

However it happened, the moment came when she found herself bumping into the small, arched doorway that led to the coal bin. On an impulse, she decided to take a look around inside. The bin hadn't been used in years, not since the gas furnace had been installed upstairs. But she'd had fun as a child, crawling in through the little window at ground level, to slide down the metal coal chute and play with the round, hard, black nuggets of coal still nearly filling the bin.