Footer Davis Probably Is Crazy (2 page)

Sometimes I'd rather think about anything other than my mom, like how Peavine and Angel were going to help
me search what was left of the Abrams farm. Everybody else in Bugtussle knew about the murder and fire at the Abrams farm too, even if nobody could figure out how they happened, or why.

Cissy Abrams was twelve, one year older than me. Doc was only six. I knew them a little bit, from seeing them around town and going to the farm a few times with Mom to take over some fudge at Christmas and stuff. She visited over there a lot, but she didn't usually take me, because, she said,
Sweetie, they have a few problems, and Mr. Abrams just needs a little help.

Cissy and Doc's dad, Carl Abrams, got locked in prison for selling drugs, and their mom lived down in Jackson. She didn't have custody of Cissy and Doc, because she used meth and didn't have any teeth and couldn't take care of kids in her condition. Since old Ms. Abrams died from cancer, old Mr. Abrams raised Cissy and Doc by himself on his farm, which backed up to Wynwood Heights, where I lived. He believed in homeschooling, and he mostly kept to himself and made Cissy and Doc stay home and tend to farm chores and lessons. They weren't allowed to have fun, not really, and I felt pretty bad for them.

Then, just after the first of April, nine days ago, somebody shot Mr. Abrams to death and burned the whole place to the ground.

I didn't remember much about that Friday night, except
waking up to the stench of smoke and a bunch of screaming sirens, and realizing Mom and Dad weren't in the house. I'd been about to go out looking for them when Mom came upstairs. She looked exhausted. When Dad got back from his night shift, he was all frowns and head shaking.

It's bad
, he told us. I had a thousand questions, but Mom just nodded and I knew better than to ask anything. Mom couldn't handle too much stress, and I didn't want to make her cry and have bad dreams and start talking about things that weren't real.

Later, the police said it was arson and that Cissy and Doc died in the fire. Then the Mississippi Bureau of Investigation said maybe Cissy and Doc didn't die, because nobody found any pieces of them, not even teeth, and teeth weren't supposed to burn.

It was a mystery.

“The Nitro Express.” Peavine poled along on his arm crutches and whistled. “I've always wanted to shoot that thing.”

“Firearms are dangerous,” Angel said, following behind him through the woods, reading her book as she walked the packed-dirt path. “They should be outlawed.”

I squeezed Louise's stock and pressed her hard against the strap of my backpack. “Second amendment says we can have guns,” I told her. “Don't you listen in social studies? Do they even have social studies in third grade? I can't remember.”

Angel, who really did look like an angel, with her golden curls and blue eyes and the bright, ruffly dresses she wore, kept reading her science-fiction book. The stupid thing was thicker than two bricks. Angel was only eight, but she had a thirty-year-old brain, and she talked like a politician. That's why she had no friends and she had to hang out with us. Peavine and I, we looked after Angel, because our parents expected us to, and because she grows on you after a while, kind of like a nasty toenail fungus.

“A well regulated militia, being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms, shall not be infringed,” she said. “I don't think school shootings and your mom obliterating helpless snakes count as the actions of a well-regulated militia.”

“Leave off,” Peavine warned, and Angel went back to her book.

“It's okay,” I told him, because arguing about guns and the Constitution was better than worrying about Mom and whether or not she would go to the hospital. It was better than thinking about Captain Armstrong and the clump of other neighbors standing in front of the four other houses on our cul-de-sac gaping at Mom while she tugged her shiny new barrettes back into place and argued with Dad and the ambulance driver.

Would Dad go with Mom? Would he call Peavine and Angel's mom to come to the house to look after us? Ms. Jones
always helped out. She could do that because she didn't have problems like Mom did.

My eyes darted to Peavine and then to Angel.

Must be nice, having a
real
mom.

Wow, that was mean. And I didn't believe that. Not really. My mom was a real mom, and a good one. She just got different sometimes.

I don't think school shootings and your mom obliterating helpless snakes count as the actions of a well-regulated militia. . . .

My face burned at the edges, even though pine trees shaded us as we walked. “Pit vipers aren't helpless, Angel,” I said. “If a copperhead bites you, you get sick and puke, and your foot can fall off.”

“Yeah.” Peavine's short blond hair looked almost white in the sunlight filtering through the branches. With every swing of his legs he tipped like he would fall, but he never did. He was graceful, like a dancer or an acrobat, and he filled out his black T-shirt with more muscles than most boys I knew. I was the one who always got my feet tangled and cut my knees.

“Is your mother off her medication again?” Angel asked, still reading as she walked.

I glared at the back of her head. “Not that I know of. She doesn't always tell us.”

Actually, she
never
told us. Sometimes Mom flushed her pills down the toilet or threw them away. Not long
ago, she hid a bunch in the backyard under some bushes near the pond. I found them when I was burying a squirrel the neighbor's cat killed on our doorstep. Mom was upset about that squirrel, because she fed it peanut butter and toast every morning. The medicine probably would have helped her not cry so much when it died.

“You remembered the camera, right?” Peavine asked, probably because he knew I didn't want to talk about Mom. I never wanted to talk about Mom. What could I say, anyway?

Yeah, she's nuts.

Yeah, it sucks.

Yeah, one day I might be crazier than she is.

Bleh.

“My new phone's camera is fine,” I told Peavine. “And your notebook is in the backpack, with the magnifying glass. We're set.”

“I read the clippings again,” Angel said. “Nobody had a motive to murder Mr. Abrams and take Cissy and Doc. It had to be some kind of accident.”

“Mr. Abrams got shot dead,” Peavine called over his shoulder. “How could that be an accident? And the fire was set on purpose. Police said so.”

“People get shot by mistake,” Angel said. “Fires can be set by accident too.”

I didn't argue with her, because once I tried an experiment with a magnifying glass and a bunch of newspapers,
only I used too many newspapers and the grass was really dry and the sun was bright. At least the fire department didn't charge for the visit. The fence didn't catch fire with the newspapers, and I only messed up one corner of the yard, but it took me three months of allowance and chores to pay Dad back for the dirt and sod.

Did Cissy Abrams use a magnifying glass inside her house? Was it possible to set a whole house on fire with a magnifying glass? But even if she made a mistake like I did, how did the barn burn, and who shot her grandfather?

“Makes no sense.” Angel finally closed her book because we were getting to the end of the half-mile trail from my backyard to the edge of the Abrams farm. “Cissy and Doc probably died in the fire.”

“I think somebody stole them,” Peavine said. Each time he planted his poles in the dry ground, puffs of dust scattered across his jeans, then drifted into the leaves and branches beside the path.

I couldn't smell the dust. My nose was still full of gunpowder, but I knew that scent wasn't exactly real, because of another science experiment that used coffee and didn't involve any fire departments. We learned in class that smell works by molecules, so noses can literally fill up with smells, and you can keep smelling them even if you're not around them anymore. We sniffed coffee for a while. Then the teacher took it away, and we could still smell it for a few minutes.

I wondered if Mom could still smell the gunpowder from where she shot the snake. Did she get in the ambulance? Was her shoulder really busted? Would they make her stay overnight, or maybe take her up to Memphis again, like last summer? I hated it when Mom had to be gone a long time.

“Okay,” Peavine said, swinging to a halt as the woods ended.

Angel stopped beside him, and I pulled up next to her. Across the field full of ryegrass nobody was alive to mow, burned timbers of the house and barn jutted up like black skeletons. Broken tape slithered at the corners whenever the breeze picked up. It had been bright yellow when we first saw it, and stretched tight around the crime scene. Guys in uniforms and funny suits combed over the place for hours and days while Peavine and Angel and I watched from right about where we stood now. Local police, the Mississippi Bureau of Investigation, the Federal Bureau of Investigation—everybody came and looked.

They didn't find anything except what was left of Mr. Abrams after somebody blew him away with a shotgun, but they kept a guard on the place until yesterday. The police no longer considered the Abrams case an “active investigation,” so we figured we'd finally get our chance to take a closer look.

It's not safe, Fontana
, Mom's voice whispered in my head.
There might be snakes in those ashes.

Mom thought snakes were everywhere. Snakes didn't much bother me, but now that we were at the Abrams farm, I wondered if snakes might be better than what really lay beneath the ashes. The stench of char chased away the gunpowder lodged in my nose. My stomach felt funny.

Angel coughed. “I used to like that smell. Now it makes me think of dead people.”

“There aren't any dead people,” Peavine said. “The police took the body away.”

He started forward and I went with him, but Angel hung back. “It's not like they could sweep up all the people ashes,” she called after us. “Mr. Abrams is still right here—or some of him is! And maybe Cissy and Doc, too.”

I couldn't see Peavine's face, but I figured he was rolling his eyes.

Sometimes Angel made too much sense. I hated that, but no way was I giving up a chance to touch a crime scene. Peavine wanted to be a detective one day. Since big-game hunter and felon weren't immediate options for me, I was currently thinking about taking up journalism because all artistic pursuits seemed to be out of the question, and because detectives and journalists worked together all the time. At least, on TV they did. We had already interviewed Mom about the fire, and we had plans to talk to suspects like Dad and my neighbor Captain
Armstrong, and look around for suspicious strangers too. In a crime that didn't make any sense, everybody had to be a suspect, right? I would ask the questions, and Peavine would write down the answers, since he scribbled faster than me, and detectives were always supposed to be taking notes on suspect behavior and . . .
demeanor
. That was the word.

My nerves jumped and danced like the police tape. I didn't know Cissy or Doc or Mr. Abrams as well as Mom did, so I shouldn't have been too icked out about touching their ashes.

From somewhere far off behind us, a siren wailed. The sound crawled up and down my skin like one of Bugtussle's roly-polies, and I had to rub my arms to make it stop. Mom. Either Dad and Captain Armstrong and the ambulance driver got her to go to the hospital, or they called for help and took her against her will.

I walked a little faster, getting ahead of Peavine. Skeletons and dead-people ashes were easier than Mom. There was nothing I could do about Mom,
bless her heart
. I probably couldn't do much about Cissy and Doc being disappeared either, but it didn't hurt to try at least.

From the Notebook of Detective Peavine Jones

Interview of Adele Davis, Eight Days After the Fire

Location: Television Room in Footer's House

Footer: Peavine and I want to ask you some questions about the Abrams fire, Mom. [Journalist has a pretty smile.]

Ms. Davis: I need to remember peanut butter. We're almost out, and I have to get some at the store. Peanut butter, jelly, and bread, too. I can't forget.

Footer: Mom, can we talk about the fire? Please?

Ms. Davis: Peavine, don't you think Fontana is beautiful? Her eyes are so bright and green. Write that down. [Suspect puts her fingertips under Journalist's eye, making Journalist do her eating-lemons look.] Don't you want to dress a little better, honey? Something other than those old jeans and that
T-shirt. I could get you a haircut. Wouldn't a haircut be good?

Footer: [Journalist pulls away from Suspect, scrubs her face with her palm.] Mom. The fire. Can you tell us what you remember about the night of the fire?

Ms. Davis: I know, I know. You like your nickname better. Footer. I tell everybody how Peavine came up with that when you were both three, and he couldn't talk plainly yet because of his cerebral palsy, so “Footer” was as close as he could get to your actual name. You're a good kid, Peavine, but I don't want Footer to marry you.

Footer: Mom!

Ms. Davis: [Suspect pats my head.] You're a good kid. You remind me of Fontana's father at that age. I just don't want Fontana to marry you because she should go to college and get a job, then use her degree somewhere
far away from here—maybe even to be a real journalist, instead of all this play-around stuff. She can do better than Bugtussle. I don't want her to be tied to this town.

Footer: Peavine, let's interview Dad instead.

Me: Why don't you want Footer to stay in Bugtussle, Suspect? I mean Ms. Davis?

Ms. Davis: There are too many snakes in Bugtussle. Have you seen them, Peavine? [Suspect looks anxious.]