Shadowmaker (16 page)

“Well, he hasn’t.”

“What if he does?”

I had to change the subject. “Are you going?”

“Laura told Julie that Stan told Marcus he was going to ask me.” Tammy went on, explaining the chain of gossip.

Everyone at school seemed to be in a good mood—even B.J. News got around fast that the night before, a fight had taken place between two carnival workers down in Harlingen. One had shot the other and was being held on murder charges. Since it was the same carnival that had been in Kluney, Sheriff Granger was crowing about being right. “It’s out-of-towners causin’ all the trouble,” he’d told the local radio reporter, who expressed the opinion that now everyone in Kluney could relax.

But what about Lana Jean?
I thought.

By the time I got home the weather was even worse, and by five o’clock a drippy fog had crept in from the sea. The phone rang, and I knew before answering that it was Mom.

Her voice was high-pitched with worry as she said, “Katie, I’ve been sitting in Austin for a couple of hours while the pilot waited to see if the weather would clear up. Now he tells me that the coast is fogged in, and he can’t fly back to Hunterville until the fog lifts sometime tomorrow morning.”

I didn’t like the news any more than she did, but I said, “Don’t worry about me, Mom. I’ll be okay.”

“I shouldn’t have come,” she said. “I had no business leaving you there alone, especially after …”

I had to interrupt. What she said was scaring me. “Mom, hold on! You had no way of knowing we’d get fogged in.
And it’s silly to worry about what might happen. Nothing’s going to happen. I promise.”

Obviously, Mom wasn’t counting on empty promises. “I’ve been thinking, Katie,” she said. “Can you ask Tammy to spend the night with you? Or go to her house?”

An immense feeling of relief swept through me. “Sure,” I said. “No problem, Mom.”

“Good,” she said, and I could hear her begin to relax. “Write down this number in case you need to get in touch with me. I’ll be at the Sheraton.”

I did as she said, and as soon as she finished asking me a million times if I’d be all right I said good night, hung up the phone, and immediately called Tammy.

It was Tammy’s mother I spoke to, not Tammy, who had gone to visit her aunt for the weekend.

“I’ll tell her you called,” Mrs. Ludd said. “She’ll be back Sunday evening.”

I thanked Mrs. Ludd and hung up, nervously staring out the windows at the white soup that pushed against the glass. I telephoned Julie, who was sick with a twenty-four-hour virus, and two other girls who often ended up at our lunch table, but they were baby-sitting.

“It’s crazy to be scared,” I said aloud, trying to talk myself into a better frame of mind. It was a known fact that the full moon, not fog, brought out the weirdos. And on such a damp, miserable night, wouldn’t even the weirdos want to stay indoors like everybody else? Sure they would.

After I’d turned on all the lights in the house, I heated a can of soup and ate it with a stack of crackers. On a full stomach, the situation looked much better. It was Friday
night, however, and I didn’t want to do homework. I tried a couple of shows on television, but didn’t like either of them. I was going to call Mom, just to talk to someone, but I didn’t want to worry her.

I was just beginning to feel desperate, and was going to write in my journal, when I remembered the pages from Lana Jean’s journal. I don’t know why, but I felt a compulsion to read them. I settled on the living room sofa and began reading from where I’d once given up.

Everything Lana Jean had written was about Travis—the people he talked to and even things he’d said, when she’d been close enough to overhear. If she’d told Travis even half of what she’d written about him, I could see why he’d want to destroy these pages.

Since Travis was usually with his friends, B.J., Duke, and Delmar, Lana Jean had a few comments about them too. She thought B.J. was as mean and bossy as his father, if not more so; Duke was a show-off, always trying to impress all the girls; and Delmar didn’t think for himself, content to do everything the others told him to do.

“They made up a club called Blitz,” she wrote, “and nobody else can be in it, and they can’t be in it either unless they follow all the rules, which go one, two, three, four, five, getting harder all the time, and if you don’t you’re out, which is all I heard.”

I could see why Mrs. Walgren had bailed out. I read that paragraph over three times and still couldn’t quite figure out what Lana Jean was writing about.

I was into the next page, reading about what Travis had eaten for lunch, when I realized the rottweiler was barking
furiously, with the other two dogs backing him up. I became totally alert. There was a squeak as our gate was opened and slow, steady footfalls padded along the walkway.

Frantically, I lifted a cushion from the sofa and hid Lana Jean’s papers under it. I tiptoed into the kitchen, opened one of the drawers, pulled out Mom’s largest butcher knife, and then waited. My heart was banging in my chest as I heard the footsteps stop outside our kitchen door.

A loud knock on the door made me jump.

“Who’s there?” I asked in a whisper. I cleared my throat and shouted this time, “Who’s there?”

“It’s me, Katie … Travis,” came the answer.

Grunting with relief, I tossed the knife back inside the drawer and ran to the door, surprised but eager. I unlocked the door and let him in.

Travis wiped his damp forehead with the back of one arm. “That fog is awful,” he said.

“How did you drive in it?” I asked him.

“I didn’t.” He pulled off a windbreaker and dropped it over the back of a chair. “Actually, I don’t live too far from here, so I walked.” He looked around. “Where’s your mom?”

“In Austin. She flew there this morning, but couldn’t get back because of the fog.” I couldn’t help it. I let out another sigh of relief. “I’m awfully glad you’re here, Travis.”

He put his hands on my shoulders and studied my face. “You were scared, weren’t you?”

“A little. You know the things that have happened, and I keep thinking about what you said about someone wanting
us out of here and maybe coming back for something he’d left.”

“I was just guessing, trying to answer your questions. I’m sorry now I said anything. I didn’t mean to scare you, Katie.”

“I was reading when I realized that the dogs were barking, so I knew someone was coming, and then I heard footsteps on the walk and—”

His lips felt so intense, my knees wobbled as I returned his kiss.

Finally, he pulled back and looked into my eyes. “I’ll stay as long as you want me to, Katie. I’ll stay all night, if that’s what you want.”

“No,” I said, too loudly, too quickly. Trying to breathe normally I told Travis, “Since Mom’s not here, you really shouldn’t be here either. She’s got strict rules.”

“Even when she’s not here?”

“Especially when she’s not here. I have rules too.”

He smiled. “I came to see you in all this fog, and you’re going to throw me out without even offering me something to eat?”

“There are no rules regarding the kitchen,” I said, returning his smile. “What would you like? We’ve got a fudge pie in the freezer and a few oatmeal cookies left, or I could make you a ham sandwich. You name it.”

We poked through the refrigerator, then agreed on the fudge pie, which was frozen so solid we had to hack our way into it.

When we’d finished demolishing our slices, laughing and wiping fudge smears from each other’s face, Travis took
my hand and said, “Don’t you think you can trust me enough to tell me?”

“Tell you what?”

“Where Lana Jean’s journal is.”

I wasn’t sure why his obsession with her journal bothered me so much. Even so, my first impulse was to hand it over to him—all those embarrassing, detailed pages. I realized he might destroy it, but the fact remained that it was still Lana Jean’s property, which she’d entrusted to me. If I told him this, I’d be in for an argument I probably wouldn’t win, so I tried to look blank. “Isn’t the journal at her house?”

“It is not there,” he said. “I went to see, and even helped her mom look for it.” He paused and his eyes were so dark and serious I couldn’t read them. “I think Lana Jane gave those pages to you.”

I didn’t want to out-and-out lie to Travis. What could I say?

At that moment the dogs set up another frantic warning, and I heard a car stop in front of our house.

“Someone’s coming,” I said. The heavy tread of footsteps echoed along the walkway.

“I see what you mean about the dogs being your warning system.” As Travis got up and strode to the door, throwing it open, I followed.

Sheriff Granger paused only to give Travis a questioning look as he stomped into the kitchen, shaking beads of water from his jacket and cap. “Your mama called me,” he told me. “She told me you were supposed to go to a friend’s, but
then was afraid the fog was too thick for you to get there. This is not the friend she mentioned.”

As he glanced from me to Travis, I said, “Travis came by a few minutes ago, doing just what you’re doing, making sure I was all right. I’d appreciate it if you’d give him a lift home. He walked here.”

“Okay by me,” he said, “but I have somethin’ to say before I go. I didn’t tell your mama because I didn’t want to add to her worries. Just afore the fog set in, Lana Jean Willis’s body was found out in the woods.”

“Her body?” I whispered.

“Yeah. Boyd Morris’s old hound got to nosin’ around a clearing near the highway and next thing Boyd knew was he saw a hand stickin’ up through the leaves. Shook him up pretty bad, but he came and got me.”

I wasn’t sure if I’d closed my eyes or if the room had suddenly grown dark. I tried taking deep breaths, but my lungs couldn’t seem to handle them.

Travis rested a firm hand on my shoulder, but his voice quavered as he asked the sheriff, “Are you sure who it was?”

“Real sure. Mrs. Willis already identified the body.”

“How was she killed?” Travis asked.

“Strangled. We’ll need the county medical examiner to confirm, but he’s pretty certain from the bruises on her neck.”

I sat on the nearest chair, dropping my head between my knees, and it helped. The buzzing and flickering lights dissolved, and I could think clearly again.

“Are you okay, Katie?” Travis asked. “You aren’t going to faint or anything?”

“I’m all right,” I said, and gratefully leaned against him.

“I notified the Houston police,” the sheriff told us. “That murderer-rapist they’re lookin’ for—it had to be him.”

“For a minute I forgot,” I said bitterly. “You don’t have any crimes in Kluney.” My anger growing, I said, “Lana Jean shouldn’t have been killed! She shouldn’t! Why do you blame everyone outside of Kluney for crimes that happen inside Kluney?”

His face reddened. “What crimes we get usually come from outside.”

“Of course,” I snapped, and counted them on my fingers. “One, shoplifting; two, burglaries; three—”

“Katie! Stop it!” Travis said. He gave me an odd look, then turned to the sheriff and began to apologize for me. “She’s in shock. She didn’t mean what she said.”

I wanted to shout, “I did too!” but I realized that Mom would have done just what Travis was doing, and I said, “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have been rude.”

Sheriff Granger walked to the door and held it open for Travis. “If you need anythin’, you’ve got the number of the station. Just give a call. They’ll get me on the radio.”

Radio … another unanswered question.
“Could I ask you a question, Sheriff Granger? That radio we found here at our house … Did you ever discover who it belonged to?”

“Miz Jocie Baker,” he said. “But don’t go suspectin’ her of breakin’ into your house. Eighty years old and wouldn’t hurt a fly. That radio was on the list of things that got stolen when her house was burglarized last month.”

“Do you have any idea how it got into
our
house?”

“No,” he said, “and it’s the least of my worries right now.”

“Katie shouldn’t be alone—” Travis began, but I firmly shook my head.

“I am fine. Honest.” I wasn’t pretending. I needed to be alone, because I had an awful lot to think about. “I’ll call my mother at her hotel. She’ll appreciate that both of you came to check on me. Thanks. Good night.”

A
s I sat alone on the couch, I started to think. Whoever had burglarized Mrs. Baker’s house, and was interrupted burglarizing ours, hadn’t been leaving us any gifts or souvenirs. The radio had been here, and he was taking it away. Had he stashed the things he’d stolen in this old house, thinking that no one would bother to search it? Was he the one who had tried to scare us away, and when we hadn’t left, had come back to collect his loot? Was our burglary just a cover-up?

At first it made sense, but then it began to get fuzzy. Mom and I had cleaned every inch of the house from top to bottom. If anything had been hidden away, we would have found it.

From top to bottom?

I walked into the hallway and glanced up at the rectangular
door fitted into the ceiling. Then I remembered that when we were getting this house ready to live in I’d asked Mom if we should clean the attic, and she said there was no need to clean up there.

I reached up and tugged at the short length of rope that hung from the rectangle and pulled down the folding stairs that led up into the attic. Was there a light switch up there? I had no idea. I got a flashlight, tried not to think about mice and cockroaches, and carefully climbed the stairs.

The moment my head poked above the attic floor I swept my light around in every direction. Ugh! I’d been right about mouse droppings. The attic, which stank from dust and mildew, was filthy.

I sneezed, raising a cloud of dust, and quickly climbed up the rest of the stairs. There were footprints … lots of footprints. Mom’s uncle Jim hadn’t made these footprints, because they were far too new. And so was the small television set at one side of the small space and the microwave next to it. Just as I’d suspected, this is where the thief had stashed the things he’d stolen. Mom and I had interrupted him before he’d been able to get them all out of our house.