Blindfold (19 page)

Other people mumbled agreement.

But something was nagging at Maggie, and as she led her friends to the van to follow the ambulance to the hospital, she voiced her thoughts. "Someone set a trap, knowing there would be lots

of people here today, and that somebody was sure to fall in. And they couldn't have known that well had been filled in."

Thunder rolled above them, the skies opened, and it began raining lightly at first, then harder. They broke into a run. When they were settled in the van, Maggie wiped her face with her sleeve and continued, "What I don't get is, my mother had already announced that the renovation plans had been scrapped. If the cave-in and the explosion were meant to stop the remodeling, the way I thought maybe they were, why did this happen today? Isn't that overkill? What's the point?"

Whit, sitting behind her, speculated, "Maybe we were wrong. Maybe none of it was because of the renovation plans. Could be someone who just hates the old courthouse. Someone who was jailed there once, or someone who was fired."

Maggie was glad she couldn't see Alex's face. He had to be thinking of his father.

"I always thought," Whit added, "that Dante would come back here one day, to clear himself. I was always surprised that he didn't."

The sudden reference to Guardino startled all of them.

"Oh, get real," Scout said. "You think Dante did all this stuff? He's long gone. He'd be crazy to come back here. And if he was here, someone would have seen him."

"No, they wouldn't. He wouldn't dare appear in daylight. He'd be arrested first thing. He'd have to do things at night."

But Helen said, "The sheriff hasn't even said the cave-in and the explosion were deliberate."

"No, but he's certain about the well cover being deliberately sawed through," Maggie said. "So doesn't it make sense that the other things were, too?" She wondered if Whit was right. What if the violence at the courthouse didn't have anything to do with the proposed renovations? Then canceling them wouldn't do any good, would it? When things had quieted down after the cancelation was announced, it had seemed so clear that this had been the goal all along. But now... if it wasn't that, what was it? Why was someone so angry?

Maybe Whit had a point. If Dante Guardino really had been innocent, he might be that angry. Angry enough to come back to Felicity and take revenge.

Hard as that was to believe, it was even less likely that a stupid recreation center could mean so much to anyone. Ridiculous.

"At least it wasn't you who fell into that well," Alex said to Maggie. "When you came so close to becoming part of the ozone layer last week, I thought someone was after you. Maybe because you're peer jury foreperson. But I guess not. Lane's the one in the hospital now."

If it hadn't been raining, Maggie would never have seen the blue car. It was parked next to a big old station wagon that dwarfed it, hiding it from sight. But the rain had already made the roads slick, and as she braked at the parking lot's exit, the wheels skidded and the van spun sideways in

the road. Maggie found herself staring straight at the blue car that had been parked outside her house one night last week. The night of the bloody scale.

"That's Chantilly Beckwith's car," she said, staring at it through the rain. It was empty. "I didn't see her at the ceremony, did you? Or James, either."

"Maybe," Scout said, "they didn't want anyone to see them."

"Yes. Now can we please talk about something else?"

Although Maggie refused to talk about the doll, she couldn't stop the others from proposing theories about what it meant and who had sent it. Helen suspected someone they'd sentenced on the peer jury, though she didn't suggest who it might be, and Scout and Alex said James Keith and/or Chantilly Beckwith were the most likely candidates.

And they don't even know that Chantilly threatened me yesterday, Maggie thought, glad she hadn't told them. She didn't want Scout deciding to rush to her defense and confront Chantilly and her friends. That would not be so terrific.

Helen opened her mouth to begin, "Maggie, did you tell them about yester -- ?"

Guessing what was coming, Maggie took her foot off the gas pedal long enough to deliver a gentle but telling kick to Helen's left ankle, and shot her a look that even a no-brainer would have recognized to mean, "Shut up about that." Helen got it, and fell silent.

Scout might have pursued the matter if they hadn't pulled into the hospital parking lot then.

When they went inside the hospital, they saw Lane sitting on a table in an emergency room cubicle. Although there were visible bruises and scratches on her face and hands, nothing was bandaged or in a cast. Her father had gone back to work, but her mother was seated in a chair beside the table.

"You look worse than I do," Lane told Helen.

"You're not mad at me for giving the sheriff that hankie, are you? I didn't know it was yours."

Instead of answering, Helen astonished everyone by crying out, "God, I hate that stupid old courthouse! I wish it had burned to the ground last week! I wish it would disintegrate into ten thousand tiny pieces. And I wish" glaring at Maggie, "that your mother hadn't taken so long to cancel the stupid renovating."

"Well, / wish she hadn't been bullied into changing her mind, that's what I wish!" Maggie replied. "It stinks. And maybe it was all for nothing. We don't know for sure that the project is the real reason any of this stuff has happened. If it is, why is Lane sitting on this table right this very moment, when the plans have already been canceled?"

No one had an answer for her. She hadn't expected one.

Helen let out a little sound of misery. "I just don't understand how anyone could think that I would set a trap for some innocent person to fall into." Her eyes moved to Lane. "Are you really okay?"

"I guess. The doctor who was in here before said that if it was summer and I'd been wearing shorts and a tank top, I'd have been cut up really bad by that stone ledge." She held out the edges of her red sweatsuit top. "He said, and I quote, 'Being swathed in fleece saved you.'" Lane laughed. "Swathed in fleece! Yes, Helen, I'm okay. Just sore, that's all. I feel like I was bounced along a sidewalk like a rubber ball. And," she added kindly, "no one

who knows you thinks you're behind this."

"The sheriff had to ask you about the hankie," Maggie added to console Helen, "because of where Lane found it. All you have to do is tell him where you were last night, when he says it must have happened, and he'll know you didn't do it."

Helen looked even more worried. "I was home." She paused, then added, "Alone. Ms. Gross had a library board meeting." Paused again, and then said, "And I went for a run. But I did that alone, too."

Whit didn't think it mattered that Helen had no alibi. His opinion was, a lone hankie wasn't grounds for arrest. Or even further questioning, although he wasn't sure about that.

The doctor came in to tell Mrs. Bridgewater she was free to take Lane home, and made her friends leave. "There are way too many people in here. What do you think this is, your new recreation center?"

Out in the hall, Helen said plaintively, "What I want to know is, how did that hankie get into that well? Hasn't anyone besides me wondered about that?"

Yes, they all had, but no one had any useful ideas.

Maggie felt sorry for Helen. She was so pale, and seemed so worried. Being confronted by the sheriff must have scared her half to death. Helen didn't cross in the middle of the street, had never had a traffic ticket, and had never once been called to the principal's office at school. She was probably imagining those grim, dark, jail cells at the old court-

house and wondering how soon one of those doors would slam shut on her.

Impulsively, Maggie said to her, "How about staying overnight at my house? We'll toss around all the stuff that's been happening, see if we can come up with some answers. Two brains are better than one. We'll play Nancy Drew, okay? It'll be fun."

Helen glared at her. "You think I want to talk about any of this? Guess again. That's the last thing I want. I want to forget about it."

"Okay, okay." Maggie pretended to zip her lips shut. Helen really did look terrible. Like she hadn't slept in years. "Mum's the word. We'll watch a couple of videos. Comedies, I promise. We'll laugh ourselves silly. Come on, Helen, we can cheer each other up."

Helen looked reluctant, until she remembered that Ms. Gross wouldn't be home again. "She's driving into Cleveland with friends. Maybe you're right, Maggie. I don't think I want to spend another night alone. Okay, I'll come. But I don't want to even hear the word 'courthouse.'"

"I promise."

As Lane, walking more slowly and carefully than usual, left with her mother, Maggie made her promise to call later. Then she, too, left to drop Scout, Whit, and Alex at their respective cars.

"Can I call you tonight, too?" Scout asked teasingly as he left the van.

"Sure," Maggie said heartily, wondering if Whit would take the cue and repeat the question. He'd

hardly said two words to her since he'd apologized. An apology which, of course, she'd barely responded to. No wonder he wasn't speaking to her. But then, she'd had Lane on her mind. Not her fault.

All he said was, "See you guys later."

In Maggie's room, Helen, her face still strained with tension, lay on the wooden park bench Maggie had dragged home from a garage sale and covered with blue-checked cushions. Maggie stretched out on her stomach on her unmade bed. Her parents and brother were out, and the house was quiet except for the smack-smack of the rain against the windows. The smell of the popcorn she had made hung heavy in the air, and should have been appetizing. But the thought of food made her queasy.

"It was so awful," Helen said quietly. "Ghastly! The sheriff signaling to me, and all those people watching me go tell him that was my handkerchief. I felt like I was walking the plank." She let out a deep sigh. "Everyone's going to be talking about me and pointing at me in school on Monday, like I'm already wearing prison stripes and ankle chains. I'm not going, that's all. I can't. I'll tell Ms. Gross I have malaria and stay in bed all day. Maybe all year."

"Oh, yeah, that'll work," Maggie said dryly. Since she had no appetite, she stretched out an arm to hand the popcorn bowl to Helen. "That's the perfect way to get people to stop talking. Hide out in your house as if you really are guilty of something. Works every time."

Helen laughed. It wasn't much of a laugh, but it eased some of the tension in her face. "When you're right, you're right."

"Anyway," Maggie joked, glad to see Helen relax just a little, "no one's going to buy malaria. Felicity is about as far from a tropical island as you can get." Helen laughed again. Maggie hated to spoil the moment of relaxation, but she had to ask. "So, how do you think your hankie got into that well?"

Helen lay back against the bench, munching and studying the ceiling. "I told you, I don't want to discuss any of that." But in the next breath she added, "I don't know. Everyone knows I carry hankies. I'm a running joke at school for being the only teenager in the civilized world to blow my nose on linen. And a lot of people know those hankies are mono-grammed, too, because Ms. Gross monograms everything. She tells everyone that no thief will steal anything that's initialed. Who would want something with the initials M.S.G. already on it?"

"Monosodium glutamate," Maggie said, rolling over onto her back.

"What?"

"That's what M.S.G. stands for. Monosodium glutamate. You know, that stuff they put in food. It makes some people sick. Allergic reaction. We read about it in science, remember?"

Helen laughed again. "What you're saying is that Ms. Gross has the same initials as something that gives people a bad rash?"

Maggie laughed, too, and once they got going, they couldn't seem to stop. They were drained and

exhausted and tired of controlling their emotions. It felt good to laugh.

They laughed so hard, Helen had to get up and grab a handful of tissues from the box on Maggie's dresser. As she sat back down, swiping at her tearing eyes, she gasped, "Where's a good hankie when you need one?"

"In the well," Maggie answered, and they both shrieked with laughter.

When they finally settled down, Helen asked, "So, what happened between you and Whit? I know you didn't want to go into it with Lane there, since she's been panting after him since the very first second she saw him, but you can tell me." Sternly, she said, "What did you do, Maggie? He looked pretty bummed today."

Maggie explained. She had to tell someone, and Helen was her best friend.

If she had expected Helen to say, "No wonder you're mad," she was disappointed. What Helen said, looking perplexed, was, "You're mad at him because he knew Dante Guardino and Christy Miller? He already told us that, Maggie."

"No! I'm mad because he knew them a lot better than he let us think he did. And because I think he had a crush on that girl, but he wouldn't admit it."

Helen shrugged. "It's none of your business."

"That's what he said."

"Well, he's right." Helen paused, and then added, "Actually, Maggie, I might as well tell you, / knew them, too. Better than you thought I did. Christy, too. Most of the kids who came to Bransom from

out in the country knew them. It's just that no one wants to talk about it now, because who wants to admit they were friends with a convicted killer?"

Curious about the girl Whit might have been infatuated with at thirteen, Maggie asked, "What was she like?"

"Christy? A champion manipulator. She could twist people around het little finger so cleverly, you didn't even realize you'd been turned into a pretzel. And her favorite form of exercise was tossing that long, blonde hair of hers. I think one reason I keep mine short is, I don't want to be like her." More seriously, Helen added, "Christy really wasn't very nice. Being pretty went to her head. I never could understand what Dante saw in her. He was so smart. But he fell for her act, and in a big way."