The Silence of Murder (22 page)

He takes the time to walk me home first. When we’re a block away, he asks, “You okay?”

“I’m pretty confused … but I’m not going to do anything stupid, if that’s what you mean.” I squeeze his hand, loving the feel of his fingers wrapped around my palm. “Thanks for finding me, Chase.”

“My pleasure.” He stops in front of my house. “And don’t worry about T.J. He’s a big boy. He can take care of himself. You’ve got enough on your mind with Jeremy. He’s the one who needs you now. And he’s lucky to have you.” He leans down and kisses me goodbye. “Call me if you need me.”

A glow from inside the house spills over the lawn. It flashes on and off as the TV images change. I guess we didn’t break the television. There’s no sign of Rita, but her car is here. The last thing I want to do is talk to her.

So I do something I haven’t done in way too long. I dig out the lawn mower. It starts on the first try, although I don’t know how much gas I’ve got.

Mowing our lawn is tough going because of the weeds. But once I make a clean swipe the length of the front yard, it feels great looking back and seeing what I’ve done. Maybe that’s why I like mowing. That, plus the fact that it gives me time to think. Mostly, my thoughts keep bouncing back to the way my hand felt in Chase’s, the way his finger felt on my lip, the way his lips felt on mine. I can almost feel him here with me as I walk back and forth across the grass, bringing order to the chaos of our lawn.

Then, just like that, my mind flashes back to T.J. outside the antiques store. His hair is wild, his eyes too deep into his skull, like somebody pitched them there too hard. I don’t want this image of T.J. in my head. I try to picture him in his Panther jersey at a ball game. I can see Jer in his uniform and T.J. in his, but I don’t have a single memory of Jeremy and T.J. together. Why is that? T.J.’s never been mean or rude to Jer, like some of the guys were. But he and Jeremy have never been friends either. I accepted that. Maybe I shouldn’t have.

My mind spirals down to Jeremy, and a whole tangled ball of nerve endings shoots through my brain.
Jeremy
. I miss him. I miss walking into his room and plopping onto his bed so I could tell him everything about my day at school while he placed one of his jars on a shelf. I miss “talking” with Jeremy. He’d write his calligraphy almost as fast as I could talk. Sometimes we’d sit outside, each of us with a notebook, and we’d write miniletters to each other, exchanging them, then writing again. My handwriting always looked like somebody was elbowing me, but Jeremy’s was perfect, each letter a piece of art.

I haven’t seen a note from Jeremy in weeks. They let me visit him in jail twice, with a plate of glass between us and two phones, which didn’t help much because Jeremy wouldn’t pick his up. I tried writing notes and holding them to the glass window: “Jer, pick up the phone!” “Are you OK?” “Write me!” Jeremy smiled at me and touched the glass with both hands. But he wouldn’t write.

By the time I finish mowing, it’s pretty dark, but I go ahead and weed anyway. My eyes are used to the dark. I’ve caught Rita peeking out from the living room window a couple of times and from the back door once. I act like I don’t see her.

I’m almost finished outside when the front door opens and Rita steps out. She’s wearing too-tight blue jeans and a peasant blouse tugged down over both shoulders.

She stops when she gets to me. I’m kneeling by the sidewalk, and I brace myself for Rita’s attack. But she gazes around the yard and says, “It looks real nice, don’t it, Hope? Real, real nice.”

I stare after her, still waiting for the punch line. It doesn’t come.

When I go inside, my arms and shoulders cry out for a long, hot bubble bath. I start the water, then remember to close the shades and curtains. I’m struggling with the living room curtains when I catch sight of something white across the street. It’s the pickup truck.

How long has it been there? Was someone watching me while I mowed? I shiver, thinking about it, picturing it. What if they were waiting for Rita to leave?

Fast as I can, I lock the doors. Then I edge toward the window and peer out.

Nothing moves.

No cars drive by.

If the pickup is still there, I can’t see it. But I didn’t imagine that truck.

I hear the bathtub water running and dash in to shut it off before it overflows.

911
. I need to dial 911. I race through the living room looking for my cell. I don’t know what I did with it. I don’t have time to look.

Heart pounding, I run to the house phone. I reach for it, and the phone rings. I jump back.

Ring
!
Ring
!
Ring
!

I watch as my arm stretches down and my fingers wrap around the receiver. I lift it to my ear, but I don’t speak. I don’t breathe.

Someone’s there. There’s a rustling noise. I think I hear an engine, a car. Then he—or she—says, “I’m watching you.” The voice is calm, firm, as sexless as it is faceless.

“Who are—?”

“Quit poking around where you don’t belong. Leave … it … alone.” The line goes dead.

I stand there, receiver to my ear, until it buzzes. I drop the phone back onto the holder.

Almost instantly, it rings again. I stare at it.

Ring, ring, ring
. It won’t quit.

I jerk the phone off its hook. “Stop it! Stop calling here! You leave
me
alone!”

“Hope? What’s wrong? Did they call again?”

It’s Chase. I burst into tears.

“Hope, is Rita there with you?”

I shake my head. “No.”

“Hang on. I’ll be right over.” There’s a click, then nothing but the scream of the dial tone.

I curl up on the couch
, pulling the afghan blanket around me. And I wait. Pipes creak. The fridge roars. Branches scratch the roof. Each noise is louder than the one before.

Outside, I hear a car drive up. A car door slam. Footsteps running up the walk. A knock. A banging at the door. It gets louder and louder.

“Hope! It’s me! Open up!”

I fling the blanket to the floor and rush to the door. The lock won’t turn. My hands are shaking. Finally, I yank the door open and throw myself into Chase’s arms.

Without a word, he picks me up and carries me to the couch. He has to go back to the door and lock it.

“Chase?” I call.

“I’m here.” He kneels beside the couch and wraps me in the blanket. “You’re shivering.” He rubs the blanket, warming my arms and legs. “Tell me what happened.”

“The truck was outside.” I start to sit up. “It might still be there!”

He eases me back down. “It’s okay. I didn’t see it out there. Go on.”

“The phone … rang. They said to stop poking around, or something like that.” I can’t finish because that scratchy, breathless voice is in my head, telling me to let it go or leave it alone.

Chase sits on the couch and holds my head in his lap. He strokes my hair, and I wonder if this is what children feel like when their parents take care of them when they’re sick or frightened. I think it might be.

“Hope?” His voice is as soothing as his fingers on my hairline. “Talk to me. Tell me again what the caller said.”

I tell him. It’s easier now. I’m safe.

When I finish, Chase lets out a breath, like he’s been holding it during my account. “Did the person on the phone sound like a man?”

“Yes. At least, I think so. I guess it could have been a woman. It didn’t even sound human. But I thought it was a man.”

“It’s got to be the same person who’s stalking you,” Chase says, “the guy in that pickup. I wish I’d seen him.”

“You believe me, don’t you?”

“Of course I believe you,” he answers quickly. “I’d just like to be able to tell my dad that I saw it too, with my own eyes.”

“I knew he didn’t believe me.”

“I’m not sure he would have believed me either, to tell the truth. I doubt if he even sent that patrol car over here to watch out for you.”

A shiver passes through me, shaking my whole body.

“You need something hot to drink.” He stands up, gently
settling my head on the arm of the couch. “Do you have any tea without caffeine?”

“I don’t know.” Since the trial, I haven’t gone to the grocery store regularly. I haven’t felt much like eating. My clothes are baggy, and I haven’t even cared. I start to get up to search the cupboards for tea bags.

Chase eases me back onto the couch and tucks the blanket around me. “Stay where you are, and that’s an order.”

I listen to cupboards open and close while my mind tries to fight off the images racing through my head—blood, bats, a dark figure behind the wheel of a white pickup. The pictures won’t stop until Chase comes back into the room.

“Here. Hot chocolate.” He sets a steaming mug on the coffee table, but not before finding a coaster.

“We have hot chocolate?” I inhale the warmth. I’m so cold, even though I know it’s hot outside.

“But no marshmallows.” He helps roll me to a sitting-up position. I’m still wrapped in the blanket, swaddled. I wriggle my hands out and reach for the cup, but a stabbing pain knifes the top of my head and forces me to sit back.

“What’s the matter?” Chase asks.

“It’s okay. I think I’m getting a migraine.” This time, I’m pretty sure it’s coming. I haven’t had a real one in a couple of months, but this sure feels like the beginning of the bad.

“Can you take anything for it? Can I get you something?”

I try to smile at him. “You didn’t see any aspirin in the cupboard, did you?”

“I’ve got aspirin. Wait here.” He races out of the house and is back in seconds. “Dad always keeps some in the glove
compartment.” He opens the little plastic bottle and taps two pills into my palm. Then he caps the bottle and shoves it into his pocket.

I know these won’t do any good, but they can’t hurt. Chase brings me a glass of water from the kitchen and watches me swallow the pills. Then he hands me the mug of hot chocolate and sits beside me.

I take a sip of the chocolate because he went to all that trouble, but if this is a real migraine, I shouldn’t put anything into my stomach because it will come right back up sooner or later. Still, it feels great to hold heat in my clammy hands. “Nobody has ever taken care of me like this.” Steam from the cup floats away with my breath.

“Seriously?”

“Seriously.”

He puts his arm around me. “Then that’s a shame because you deserve to be taken care of.”

We sit like this, and Chase talks to me about his dad, his mom, and his life in Boston. I listen, tuned in to the sound of his voice more than the words. I have to close my eyes because the light digs into my skull like an invisible hatchet. My hair follicles prickle. The roots are needles sticking into my scalp. And yet, I have never felt more at home in my own home than I do right now.

When I wake up, I’m on the couch, the blanket tucked around me and a pillow under my head. There’s a note on the pillow. I have to squint to read it. My eyes are still blurry from the headache.

I need him. But I don’t call. Instead, I go back to sleep and dream of him.

I don’t know how much time has passed when I wake up to the door slamming. I sit up so fast that my head takes a minute to catch up with the rest of me.

Rita bursts through the room, a cloud of smoke floating in with her. “What are you doing up? Did you sleep out here?”

“Rita, somebody was outside.” Light filters in. It’s morning.

“What?” She drops some things in the kitchen and drifts back into the room.

I shed the blanket. “And I got another one of those phone calls. Only this time—”

“Just hang up. I told you that’s how you handle prank calls. Hang up hard.” She yawns. “I’m going to bed. Are you going to court today?”

It’s no use talking to her. She doesn’t believe me. But Chase does. And that’s all I need now. “Yeah, Rita. I’m going to court.”

Raymond has good news when Chase and I get to the courthouse. He’s been granted his subpoena for Caroline Johnson to appear before the court—just like T.J. said would happen. I wish T.J. could hear it too. I text him the news. He doesn’t text me back.

It will take a couple of days to make it happen, but Caroline
Johnson will have to sit in the same seat I did and answer Raymond’s questions, whether she wants to or not.

In the meantime, Raymond puts everybody who ever liked my brother on the stand to testify as character witnesses. As I listen to their accounts of Jeremy, I hope Jer is taking in all the kind words people are saying about him, from the woman at the IGA and the post office person to the first teacher Jeremy had here.

Chase and I sit through every testimony for the next three days. I can’t stop looking for T.J., expecting him to walk through the courtroom doors and take his seat with us. But he doesn’t show. It’s like he’s disappeared, like he was never there in the first place.

We still sit toward the back, surrounded by reporters. People greet Chase as if they’ve known him all their lives, but only a few speak to me.

On the day I’m sure Caroline Johnson will show up, she doesn’t, and Raymond has to call more character witnesses. He even recalls Sarah McCray, the woman who found Coach dead. Chase and I watch her take the stand, and I feel a dull thud on the side of my head. I close my eyes and touch the spot, hoping the migraine isn’t coming back.

“You okay?” Chase whispers.

“I think I’m getting a headache.”

He digs into his backpack. The security people searched it by hand before letting us come in. Chase brings out his little bottle of aspirin. “I brought it just in case,” he says. He shakes out two pills and hands them to me. “Here. Can you take them without water?”

I never have, but I toss them into my mouth and swallow. They scratch going down.

Raymond has Mrs. McCray identify herself again. After thanking her for returning to court, he begins the real questions. “Mrs. McCray, do you like Jeremy Long, the defendant?”

Mrs. McCray smiles at Jer. I watch my brother’s feet kick the floor, faster and faster. He doesn’t look at Mrs. McCray. “I’ve always liked Jeremy very much. He is such a polite, sweet boy.”