A Sudden Silence (4 page)

He'd run again. Why?

My grandmother leaned on Aunt Lila's arm. "Time to go, Jesse," she said. "But, oh! It's hard to leave Bry behind."

"I know, Gran. Awfully hard." We walked together to where the limo waited and I kept telling Gran not to look back, but that was hard, too. Even as we stood by the car people lined up to hug us and whisper sympathy.

Officer Valle came and shook our hands. "We've had no word yet from the lab," she told me quietly. "I'll let you know."

I nodded.

"I'm very sorry about your brother," she said. "I've seen so many lives wasted, so much death, but I never get used to it. It's supposed to get easier, Jesse, with time."

"That's what they tell me. Time heals. By the way, did you notice the guy in the black Windbreaker?" I asked.

"I noticed him. I noticed everybody. I noticed when he left, too."

"I have a bad feeling about him. An instinct. But I guess bad feelings and instincts don't count for much in your business."

She adjusted the scarf at the neck of her jacket. "I wouldn't say that, Jesse." She nodded and was gone.

I knew Alexander was waiting to say something to me and I thought he was the person standing behind me. But when I turned, still half watching Officer Valle, it was Chloe.

"Hi, Jesse."

"Hi."

She put her hand on my arm. "I don't even know what to say. Bry was a great guy."

"Yes."

Her face twisted up. "Everything seems so ... so inadequate. I wanted to yell and scream and ... and just wail. You know, the way women do in some other countries, throwing themselves on the ground and howling? I think it would have helped. We're all so calm and civilized."

"I know. I keep thinking if I could find that driver..."

We stood, looking at each other, understanding.

"I've thought of something we could do," Chloe said. "We could make posters asking if anyone saw anything. The kind they do for missing kids."

"My grandfather and my father are offering a ten-thousand-dollar reward," I said and Chloe nodded. "Good. But we should do the posters, too. The more publicity the better. I've got stacks of markers and paints."

"You want us to work together?"

"I thought it would be a good idea."

"Well..." I didn't want to work with her, or see her again. I didn't want to finish the clock for her. Bry's girl. Hadn't I done enough to Bry? Hadn't I let that car hit him? I was looking over her head at the broad, smooth grass with its sunken-in copper plates and little bouquets of flowers. So neat. So tidy. You'd never believe this place was full of dead people.

"Look," Chloe said. "I'm going to do this anyway. I can get somebody else to help me. Any of Bry's friends would do it with me. I just figured since you're his brother, you'd want it to be you. No sweat. Forget it. I can handle it." The dark blue, dark-lashed eyes were definitely not friendly.

I could feel myself weakening. What harm could it do just to work on this with her? It was for Bry after all. "How many do you plan on making?" I asked.

"Twenty or so. I thought we'd put them up all the way from South Laguna to Corona Del Mar. Newport. We might even need more."

My mother was calling softly from the car. "Hello, Chloe. Thank you for coming." And then, "Jesse. We're waiting."

"You'll come?" Chloe asked. "Tomorrow?"

"What time?"

"Ten."

"My relatives don't leave till eleven."

"The afternoon then?"

"OK."

Well, I told myself as we drove away, I'd
tried
to get out of seeing her again.

T
HERE WASN'T
room in the car for all of us to go to the airport next morning, so Mom and Dad went. It was hard to say good-bye to Gran and Grandpa. Harder still to be alone in the trailer for the first time since Bry's death. I've been alone here hundreds of times. But the place was never this empty.

As soon as I'd washed up the breakfast dishes and set them to drain I was ready to get out of here. I checked the clock. In a couple of hours I'd be heading for Chloe's. For now I'd go up and say good-bye to Alexander. He'd be leaving this afternoon, and there was something I'd thought of that he could do.

The morning was gray and foggy the way it often is till the sun burns through around noon. I grabbed my red parka off the coat tree that stands by our front door and there, underneath, was Bry's old brown one. I stood, looking at it, feeling my throat close up, wondering if I should move it or leave it alone. No one had openly taken Bry's things from the living room, but they'd all disappeared. His flip-flops, which he usually kicked off under the chair. His new
Surfer
magazine. Grandma and Grandpa had given him a subscription for that and
Popular Mechanics
for Christmas. One of the little computer games he played and was so good at had mysteriously vanished from the coffee table. I suspected Aunt Lila. But she'd missed the jacket. I lifted it down and held it against my face, feeling the hurt come all over again. There was probably no end to this hurt.

In his room I slid open his closet door and hung up the jacket. The closet smelled of Bry, a mixture of old gym socks and the cologne I'd given him because it brought me out in a rash. His dirty-clothes basket was on the closet floor, full to overflowing. I looked at it for a minute and then set it outside the closet. I'd do these up in the laundry room with mine sometime. Not today, or tomorrow, or the next day, but sometime when I could handle it. I was just about to slide the door closed again when I saw the picture of Chloe inside, Scotch-taped to the wall. She was wearing a bright blue swimsuit, the kind that's cut higher than high on the sides. The picture was full length and she had one arm around a surfboard, its nose stuck in the sand. She was pushing back her wet black hair as she laughed at the camera. Surely her eyes weren't really that blue. It must have been a reflection of the swimsuit.

I closed the door and stood staring at the smooth, blank wood. "Bry's girl," I said out loud to the empty room that had belonged to my dead brother.

I walked across to the desk. The paper clock pieces were organized in some kind of way. Stuck on the box front was a yellow-lined stickum sheet. On it, in Grandpas writing, it said, "Jesse ... lets get this finished."

"I don't think so, Grandpa," I said.

Outside, the Hegeman's cat, Stumpy, came to rub himself against my legs. I picked him up and carried him with me part of the way up the hill to Alexander's. There was some comfort in the warmth of him, the loud cat purrs.

The geraniums that grow wild on the sides of the park road sparkled with mist and spiders' webs. Beyond the wire, on the ranch property, two brown cows grazed. It all looked so peaceful, but I didn't feel any peace.

Alexander's mother greeted me with the pitying look I'd been getting from everyone since Bry was killed. I know they mean well, but I wish they'd quit it. If I smile bravely I feel fake. The only honest thing to do is burst into tears and that starts everything off all over again.

"Alexander's packing, Jesse," she said. "How's your mother?"

Everyone asks me that, too. They don't ask about Dad. I guess dads are supposed to be stronger or tougher or less caring, but it isn't true.

"They're both holding up pretty well," I said.

I told Alexander that I wanted him to make me a kind of police sketch and why, and he stopped packing right away and went to his drafting table. Alex has a real architect-type setup in his room, with a high stool and a clip-on lamp. Their trailer isn't as big as ours, but there is just Alex and his mom, and their two bedrooms are spader than our three. Alexander wants to be a commercial artist and I guess he will be. He's good enough and creative enough, and he got into one of the best schools in the state. He pinned a sheet of drawing paper on the slanted desktop, sat on the stool, and said, "OK, Jesse. Talk to me."

"The guy had a kind of long face and a long chin. His hair was straight and about down to his collar. Dark brown. I think it was parted on the..." I closed my eyes, visualizing. "In the middle."

I waited while Alexander's pencil moved, the head and hair taking shape as if by magic.

"No, there were sideburns. I'm pretty sure. The squared-off kind."

Little by little we reconstructed the guy in the black jacket.

"Too bad you didn't see him in the churchyard." I smudged the sideburns with my thumb to make them spread out more.

"I wasn't looking at anybody in the churchyard," Alexander said quietly. "Are these eyes right?"

"They're good. But the nose should be longer, pointier." When we were finished Alex held the drawing at arm's length. "What do you think?"

"I think anybody who knew him would recognize him, that's for sure."

Alexander rolled the drawing and snapped a rubber band around it. "Where are you going to ask about him?"

"Everywhere I can think of. Chloe and I are going to ... I mean, Chloe said she and I should..." I stopped. Why was her name so hard for me to say? Why was Alexander looking at me so carefully?

"You're talking about Chloe Eichler?"

"Yes. She was a friend of Bry's. We're putting up posters. I thought I could show this at the same time and ask if anyone knows him."

"Isn't that almost libel?" Alexander lined up his colored pins along the top of his board.

"I won't be suggesting anything. I'll just..."

"Better not show the picture in the same places, Jesse. That might make it guilt by association."

I stared at him. "Who are you? Some hotshot lawyer?"

Alexander grinned. "No, I just watch reruns of 'Law & Order.'" He spun around on the stool. "Want to go walk on the beach? I won't be home again for a while."

I stole a quick glance at the clock. Still time, before Chloe's. Then I stole a quick glance at Alexander. Did my face change when I thought her name? If it did, he hadn't noticed.

It was still damp and gray outside. On the way past our trailer I ran in and left the drawing on my bed. My parents weren't home yet. The plane for Minnesota was probably late again. I pictured the five of them standing around the airport, worn out, with nothing left to say except a few last "if only's."

I closed the trailer door behind me and ran to where Alexander waited.

The beach tunnel was dank and musty. I kept my eyes down, watching my feet scuff along so I wouldn't have to see those happy, white-painted names on the wall.

"You know, the chances of that guy being the hit-and-run driver are infinitesimal," Alexander said.

"I know. But infinitesimal is better than nothing. Right?" I'd told Alexander about the shoe. "If I can find him, if I can get his prints somehow, if the police can get prints off the shoe, if they match." I heard all those "ifs." "Anyway, it's worth a try," I said. "He's all I've got."

Someone was calling, the old voice cracking and high-pitched, "Boys! Boys!"

"Sowbug," Alexander said. "What in heck has he done to himself?"

Sowbug came staggering over the sand, disturbing a gathering of cold-looking gulls and sandpipers. Somebody had done a heavy job of makeup on his face, probably when he was stretched out on the sand, dead asleep. His lips were slick red, eyeliner ringed his eyes like a raccoon's, his eyelids were bright green, a lopsided scarlet spot glowed on each cheek. On his upper lip a black, curling mustache had been painted over the gray stubble.

"You boys got any money?" Sowbug scratched at his arms under the torn red sleeves of his flannel shirt.

"What do you need, Bug?" Alexander fished in his jeans pockets. Alexander is always nice to Sowbug. Nicer than I am.

"A five?" Sowbug asked hopefully, and Alexander laughed. "Are you kidding? I've got seventy-five cents and that's it."

Sowbug's hand shot out and grabbed the silver.

"You got any, sonny?" He blinked up at me out of his red-rimmed, black-ringed, bleary eyes.

"I got nothing." I patted my pockets to show I meant it. And even if I had, I decided, I wouldn't have given it to him. I'd given before. We all have, from time to time. But now I felt like snatching Alexander's seventy-five cents back. For more booze? That's what he'd buy. We treated Sowbug OK. He was somebody to tolerate and be cool about. A bunch of us had even hidden him once under a bundle of towels and sat on him while the beach patrol was checking. We'd saved him from a for sure three days in the lockup. No more. I was through with drunks. Even nondriving drunks.

Sowbug held a trembly hand to his face. "Say, ain't you ... Ain't it your brother...?" Still mumbling, he began staggering backward.

"God!" I said. "Even Sowbug knows."

"Bug," Alexander called. "You'd better wash off your face if you're going up to Safeway to spend that cash, or you're going to get a lot of attention."

Sowbug was still walking backward, holding his hands out in front of him as if to ward us off. "I didn't see nothin' and I don't know nothin'," he said in his shaky whine of a voice.

My heart began to race. "Wait! Sowbug!"

He had turned and was shuffling toward the tunnel as fast as he could, but I caught him in a few strides.

"You were sleeping here that night, weren't you, Sowbug? The night my brother was killed?"

"Naw, I wasn't."

"You were here. You're always here."

"No, I'm not." He stared at me with indignation. "I got a place. A place of my own. I don't sleep here. It's against the law."

"Please, Sowbug," I said. "Please, if you saw something tell me. Nobody's going to bust you for being here. I promise." I had a grip on his arm. It was like holding a stick that would snap if I squeezed.

"How could I see anything? I told you. I wasn't here." I guess I was squeezing too hard now. "C'mon, boy," he whined. "Let go of me."

"What did you see?"

He pulled against me and I was shaking him, not hard, but maybe it would have gotten hard if Alexander hadn't grabbed me and pried my fingers off.

"Are you crazy, Jesse? What are you hurting the old guy for? He doesn't know anything."

I was panting as if I'd run a marathon. "He was here."