The Body of Christopher Creed (10 page)

I was clueless. "You ever do a break-in before?"

"Yeah. Lots of times."

"So, how do you do it?" I wondered why he was waiting for me to think it up, knowing I was all wet.

"Usually we wait until dark and get all drunk. And then we just try it. I probably broke into twenty places. After a while I just stopped doing it. Last year, probably."

"How come?" I asked.

"Because I always got caught." He kept laughing.

"
Always?
"

"Always. I had bad luck. Once, it was a trailer and the windows were real small. I got stuck on the way in. Cops had to wedge me out with a crowbar before they could charge me."

I looked at him with my jaw hanging. "Seems like if you tried it twenty times, you would get a little bit good at it."

He shrugged. "Maybe I didn't really want the stuff. Maybe I was just trying to raise some hell. Make some kind of a point. I don't know. All I know is I didn't want that stuff as bad as I want this diary, or whatever it is."

"Why do you want this so bad?" I hunted for something that made sense behind this insane-looking determination of his. He pulled a cigarette out of his jean jacket pocket and lit it with a lighter. He inhaled really deep, then exhaled.

"I got called into the principal's office on Thursday for cutting out at lunchtime. In my car. Proctor seen me."

He took another drag on the cigarette. It was no secret that he tried to cut out at lunchtime every day in his car. Half the time the proctor didn't even bother writing him up anymore. It wasn't worth the slip, because Bo never learned his lesson.

"Anyway, I was in there after school when Ames made the first call about Creed to the cop station. I could hear him from his inner office. He said, 'I have this e-mail here. Could be a runaway, could be a suicide. I need you to come down here.' Of course, my ears perked up.
Suicide?
This could be way interesting. Then I hear him tell Chief Bowen it was sent from the library. I stick around long enough to realize Ames is, like, hanging by his balls over this, and he ain't gonna even remember to give me no detention, okay?? Next morning, me and Ali sneak up to the library. There was nobody too interested in the terminal yet, because they still figured he just ran off. But we were jumpy, looking up that note, because we were together and didn't want to get seen, start a lot of talk. We found it pretty quick, but instead of wasting time there reading it, we moved it onto a floppy and figured we would read it at Ali's later, which we did. After school we looked at the note at Ali's house. We closed the file, and she gives me the disk, god knows why. It was just one of those things. I took it. Stuck it in my locker the other day with this other pile of shit from my car."

He flicked the cigarette and stared across to the house next to Creed's. I looked where he was looking and thought I saw a curtain flicker but didn't focus on it. This story was too interesting.

"Mrs. Creed had started in that it was some boon, and they killed her kid in the Pine Barrens," he went on. "I don't know why—probably because I messed Creed up so bad last year with that bleachers thing—but Ames broke down, hauled me into his office yesterday and asked me where I was Thursday after school. I mean, for the first half hour after school, I was sitting in his office watching him sweat bullets. He wanted to know where I was before that. I actually had gone to class for once, so that was good. Alibi. Then the cops want to know where I was
after
that. I was laughing at them, you know, "
After
that? Ames already had the good-bye note
after
that.' But since there's no body, there's no saying
when
he died. I was all, 'Shit, man, what do you think? I holed him up in my trunk, alive, then sent an e-mail from the library? Then went to get my detention slip, then went back and finished him off?' Does that make sense, Adams?"

"No." I laughed, feeling nervous. Seemed like the cops were really reaching.

"Anyway, I was afraid to tell them where I was
after
Ames's office. I told them I was alone."

"Where were you?" I asked.

"With Ali. We were out in the woods."

I thought of Leandra's little spiel about them hooking up in the woods. Bo's eyes got kind of far off and concerned, but I wouldn't say he looked all proud, like he had scored.

"I been trying to get her to tell me about what's been going on with Albert," he went on. "She never wanted to say that part. But we'd go out there walking and she'd dump a whole lot of stuff on me that had been bothering her. I figure, so what if she don't make it to cheerleading? Bunch of stuck-up PMS babes. It ain't like they're gonna do anything for her. They ain't gonna hear this kind of shit very well."

"Yeah," I agreed. Their imaginations couldn't fathom anything beyond Ali doing the nasty out there.

"Anyway, I was scared to tell Ames I was with Ali. It seemed like if he was trying to pin Creed on me, he might end up dragging her in and pinning it on her, too, if he found out I was with her. So when I said I was alone, the cops asked to search my locker. I said, 'Bite me. You can search my locker from now till doomsday, fools.' I totally forgot about the goddamn disk. Now they have the computer disk and a bunch of my other stuff. Any minute now they're gonna stick the disk in some hard drive and see what's on it. They're gonna see that Creed's suicide note was in my possession. You think they're gonna believe our story? No way, man. They're gonna think I had that note all along. I wrote it, killed him, sent it from the library to cover my ass, the whole insane thing."

I stood there dumbfounded, trying to think if I ever heard a worse bad-luck story in my life. "Basically, me and my friends did something worse than what you and Ali did," I muttered. "We broke in electronically, and you just ... put it on a disk. Holy shit."

"You seen the note?" he asked.

I nodded. "Yeah. We hacked in. It's weird, but Alex said there was no longer a copy in the library's outbox."

He laughed. "Yeah. It's on Ali's disk. So how did you bums—"

"Ames's copy. The recipient's mailbox."

He looked at me with huge eyes. "Oh my god. You guys can dream up thieving that would never cross my mind. And to think I'm the one with the reputation. Sweet Jesus."

It seemed weird that we were just more sophisticated about our thieving.

"How could they think anyone else could write that note?" I asked. "Chris is in honors. It's kind of a flowery, well-spelled note. Don't you think they'll realize that?"

I was trying to find a nice way to say that no boon could have written that note. He didn't seem too bothered by my meaning. He shrugged, dragging hard on the cigarette.

"If they knew about me and Ali, they might say Ali wrote it. She's in honors, and she's known him her whole life. See, that's another reason I don't want people knowing about Ali and me right now."

"But since she's in honors and she's known as a good kid, maybe she would make them believe you," I argued.

"She's just the girl I'm fucking right now, that's how they'll see her. It'll look bad for her, rather than good for me. Especially after she's been down with so many guys. That sort of thing don't look so good. You want to know what's the funniest thing?"

"What?"

"I ain't been with Ali. Not even one time." He must have noticed my look of total disbelief, because he laughed. "Truth. I ain't playing with you."

"Well ... why's she with everybody but—" I stumbled.

"But not me?" He flicked the cigarette butt into the gutter and exhaled a huge blast of smoke. "I got this thirteen-year-old sister, Darla. Something's up with her—I don't know what—but she turned thirteen and I couldn't keep her off her back to save my life. I threatened her; I told her I'd beat the shit out of her next time I caught her with some boon. One day I pinned her neck to the wall. She'd been with Billy Everett, Dallas's little brother. He's already got one kid, and he's only thirteen. I said to her, 'Darla, why you so determined to make yourself a mama?' You know what she says to me? She says, 'I just like to feel crazy.' I wasn't thinking, you know. I told her, 'I'll show you crazy,' and almost knocked her head clear through the refrigerator. But later I got to thinking, what does she mean by 'I just like to feel crazy'? I don't know, man. I don't understand it. But some girls just like to be wicked on themselves. Makes them feel alive or something, to hear people laughing at them, hear these guys all passing around the gory details. When I first started hearing about Ali in the locker room and all—it was before I ever talked to her. But I remember thinking,
Damn, she sounds like Darla.
"

He pulled a fresh cigarette out of his jacket pocket and stared, like he couldn't decide whether to light it or not. Finally he stuck it behind his ear. "I could have Ali five minutes from now, don't think I couldn't. I just don't want her taking out her problems on me, using me because she's messed up. That ain't what I want from her. You know what I'm saying?"

"Yeah," I said, though my head felt empty. These were deep, dark problems, and I didn't have anything to say back. But I was getting the message about one thing. Bo Richardson had a good-guy streak that was just as wide as, probably wider than, his bad-guy streak. I didn't know too many guys who wouldn't jump on AH if they had the chance, and why she was doing it wouldn't create the least problem for them. I bet he looked out for the younger kids at home, too, because of the way he treated Greg and sounded off at his own sister.

I sighed and watched the Creeds' house, and it was starting to strike me, the greatness of the person Mrs. Creed was trying to hang. So many people would suffer if she hung Bo. I thought of her up there in her neatly trimmed house with the matching bedrooms, screwing up two more kids. With all the people depending on Bo, she might as well just screw up the whole town. It seemed so completely unfair. I wanted to puke.

"Okay," I muttered. "We've got to get that diary. We need a plan."

"Like what?" For somebody so streetwise in some ways, Bo was incredibly stupid in others. Me think up a plan, yeah right, because I watched Alex hack into a mailbox. But then something clicked in my brain.

"Here's a plan. I saw it in an old Hitchcock movie once. This guy and his girlfriend wanted to search a killer's apartment, but the killer was in there. So the guy calls the killer on the phone. He tells him to come to this certain bar and to bring cash. The killer leaves the apartment, all scared that somebody's on to him. The girl swings across and searches the guy's apartment while he's going to the bar to be blackmailed. Of course, there was nobody at the bar when he got there. But it gave them enough time to search."

My eyes went to Richardson, who was staring at me in disbelief. "Goddamn, you
are
cool. Ali was right about you—"

I was not cool, I was pissing myself. But I knew I couldn't cope with it if I just let this thing come down on Bo.

"I'll do the break-in," he offered. "That's a higher offense if we get caught. I already got some other stuff with the cops, so it don't matter. But I promise I won't get caught this time. You make the call."

I turned slowly to go back into Ali's, wondering how he could make that promise when he'd been caught twenty other times. He grabbed me by the shoulder and shoved me in the direction of the street. "Phone booth, asshole. They can trace those calls."

"Oh yeah," I muttered, and when I grinned, the corners of my mouth were shaking. He must have noticed, because he looked sympathetic and swatted my hair absently.

"Look, just be cool. Think of what you're going to say. As soon as they leave, I'll break in. I'll be in and out so fast, those little kids won't even have time to jump out of bed."

I turned numbly and started walking the three blocks to where I knew the nearest phone booth was, and tried not to think about what we were about to do. There was no point in making myself crazy over it. I tried to focus on what I would say. How I would disguise my voice. It was hard, like trying to turn into somebody else.

The nearest pay phone was at the ball field, hooked onto the side of the refreshment stand, which was dark and deserted, and had been since summer. I didn't know the Creeds' phone number and had to dial Information for it. My fingers were shaking totally, but it was an easy number—too easy to forget. Standing there in the darkness of the wide-open field, I could hear the wind whip up, making these
whoosh!
noises that made me feel alone. The two streetlights, about a hundred yards off, looked like spotlights on a vacant stage. I could feel the hair on my arms rising, and I turned slowly away from the street lamps, searching through the blackness. That feeling I'd gotten in my basement was with me again. That feeling like somebody was watching me.

Somebody with ten thousand eyes.
Watching me, patiently watching me. It's Creed, dead but still living somehow,
crawling the woods with some army of Lenapes, to get me to do his bidding. Nobody's holding him for ransom. He's holding me. He's dead
...
He wants revenge...

I picked up the phone just to keep a grip on reality. Mrs. Creed needed to come out here and meet the bloody other side. I put the quarter in and said "Up yours" to my life.

A woman's voice answered the phone. I recognized her "Hello."

I made this gravelly voice and spat out a speech that sounded like and felt like somebody else. "I have some information about your son. If you want it, do
not
call the police. Just bring your husband and come to the ball field. Do it
now.
"

Reality was setting in major. I was actually talking to another person who could feel hurt, feel pain, feel terror. Maybe what I was saying could kill a kid's mom. I didn't have a clue.

I stood there gripping that phone like my fingers had turned to concrete.

"Now you listen to me," she finally hissed out. "Do you know I was a pilot in the United States Navy? Did you know I have friends in very, very high places? I will hunt you down, you coward. You will wish you had never been born. Nobody rakes my Christopher. Nobody takes one of my babies and gets away with it."