Thirteenth Child (13 page)

Ten minutes before closing time they heard the deep, muffled growl of a powerful car pulling up. Kate had just had time to register it as a police car when the door opened and Constable Downey walked in, closely followed by his partner. Ignoring Kate, he strode over to where Mike was standing beside Stacy, helping her clear a table.

“You Mike Bridges?” the constable asked.

Mike paled. He looked around quickly, casting his eyes from side to side as if considering making a run for it.

“Are you Mike Bridges?” Constable Downey repeated.

“Mike? What’s going on?” Stacy’s eyes were wide—startled.

“Yes.” Mike forced the word out. He stayed where he was, but threw one arm out instinctively in front of Stacy.

“We’d like you to come with us down to the station, if you would, sir.” Constable Downey’s words were measured and polite.

“What for?”

“Just to answer a few questions.”

“And if I don’t want to go?” The words were belligerent, but they rang hollow.

“We don’t want any trouble now,” the constable said calmly. “It will just be for a while. Clear up a few things for us.”

“You can ask me anything you want right here!”

“Listen, kid—” the second officer made as if to grab Mike’s arm. Constable Downey moved in between, forestalling him. He sent the younger officer a warning glance.

“Mike, what
is
it?” Stacy had turned as white as Mike.

“Constable Downey, what grounds do you have? What makes you think …?” Angie started out bravely, but floundered. Her words petered out.

The constable turned to Kate. “I’ve got a real suspicion you know more than you’ve told us, Kate. I’d like to talk to you again tomorrow, and
I suggest you do some serious thinking tonight.”

Kate couldn’t answer. How had they known Mike was back? Then the answer hit her. Mercy and Jerry, of course.

Mike turned to Stacy. His eyes were desperate.

“It’s okay. Everything’s going to be okay. Don’t worry. Something happened here—I was going to tell you later. But I haven’t done anything. Honest! I’ll be back in a couple of hours. I haven’t done anything, Stacy!” he repeated, then he turned back to Constable Downey.

“Okay,” he said. “I’ll go with you.” He brushed off the second officer’s hand as the man tried to grip his elbow, and strode past him. At the door he stopped and shot Kate a glance. His face was carefully blank, but his eyes held a mute appeal. She knew what he was asking.

The door slammed behind them. There was a sudden, unbelieving silence, then Stacy screamed.

“No!” She made a dash after them. “They can’t! They can’t take him!”

Angie caught her.

“Stacy! Stop!”

“But they’re taking him to jail! What are they going to do with him?”

“They’re not taking him to jail. They’re just going to ask him some questions. Sit down, Stacy. Remember the baby! You’re going to hurt yourself!”

“But why? What’s going on?”

“Something happened. Just before he left.” Angie was talking feverishly, trying to make Stacy sit down, but Stacy pulled away from her.

“What
happened?”

Angie looked helplessly at Kate, but Kate just shook her head. She was frozen inside and out. Incapable of thought, let alone speech.

“A girl,” Angie said finally. “Melanie Davis. She was … she was murdered.”

“Murdered!
And they think Mike did it? Why?”

“There were some robberies too. Just after Mike came here. Melanie saw the robber once. He was disguised, but they think she might have recognized him.” Angie looked at Kate again, frantic for help.

“Mike wouldn’t do that. He
couldn’t
do that!” Stacy turned to Kate. “You know him. You know he wouldn’t hurt anybody. He told me about you. Said you were a really great person. Said you’d helped him a lot. You know he wouldn’t rob a store or hurt anybody,
don’t you?”

The image of Mike, sick and hungry, flashed into Kate’s mind. And he
had
had a knife. He’d admitted it.

Kate stared back at Stacy. Then she turned away and escaped through the swinging door into the kitchen.

She stayed there, staring at the wall, while she heard Angie calming Stacy down. Finally, she heard Angie take Stacy out. She heard Angie
come back, heard sounds of crockery rattling.

“I’m going to take Stacy a cup of hot chocolate and sit with her for a while.” Angie’s head poked through the door. “Are you okay?”

“Yes.”

A pause, as if Angie wanted to ask something further, then her head disappeared. Kate heard the snack-bar door slam.

Angie had probably forgotten to put the CLOSED sign up. The last thing they needed was for somebody else to come in now. Woodenly, Kate got up and went into the snack bar. Sure enough, the sign hadn’t been switched. She headed for the door.

A clap of thunder shocked through the air. At the same moment, Kate heard the wind howl and a lashing of rain hit the windows. The door crashed open before she could reach it.

A helmeted figure strode in, drops of water beading and glistening off the blackness of his leather motorcycle jacket.

Kate froze in terror. The figure tore his helmet off.

“Barney!” Relief flooded through her. Her knees suddenly melted and she reached out to a table for support. “Oh, Barn! You don’t know how good it is to see you ….” Her words trailed off. Barney’s face was distorted—savage.

“He’s back, isn’t he?”

“Barney—what’s wrong?”

“That guy—Mike. I just heard. He’s back. And the police have arrested him.”

“They’ve just taken him in for questioning. They said—”

“Why didn’t he stay away?” Barney rushed forward and grabbed Kate by the arms. “Why
didn’t he just vanish? As long as they couldn’t find him, everything was fine!”

“Barney, what are you talking about? Let me go! You’re hurting me, Barney!”

He shook her, then threw her aside so violently she stumbled and almost fell. Kate looked at him unbelievingly. Barney?

He paced across the room.

“It wasn’t my fault. It was an accident. As long as nobody else got caught for it, it was okay. It was an accident, Kate!”

Kate felt as if her heart were trying to burst out of her chest. Her mouth went dry.

“You went for a ride on my motorcycle with me, didn’t you?” Barney exploded. “You didn’t want to go, but when you did, you liked it, didn’t you? You said you did.”

She shook her head, helplessly. The motorcycle? What did that have to do with all this?

“It’s so great, Kate, that motorcycle. Isn’t it? You said so yourself. I knew, if I had that … things would change, Kate. No more Barney the nerd. Anybody who owned that would have power, Kate, wouldn’t he? Girls wouldn’t laugh at him then, would they?”

“Barney.” It was the barest of whispers. “What are you saying?”

“And I had to do terrible things to get it, Kate.” Barney paced back. “It’s not easy to rob a store. It’s scary. Your heart runs away with you, you’re sure you’re going to get caught. It takes
guts to do that, Kate. My dad says I don’t have guts.” Incredibly, he laughed. “What would he say about that if he knew? What would he say about
that?
I even hurt somebody. I didn’t mean to, but I did.”

Kate reached behind her for a chair, put it between her and Barney.

“Your dad,” he went on, slashing at the air with his fist as if slashing at an invisible enemy. “Your dad—sure he gets drunk. He hits your mom, he even hit you. I wish my dad would hit me. I could hit back then, same as I did with your dad. But your dad, it’s the booze makes him do that. He really does love you. You know that. My dad—he hates me.”

“No, Barn….”

“Yes!
All my life. Everything I’ve ever done. It’s always wrong, or dumb, or stupid. You even said so yourself. ‘Don’t be dumb, Barn,’ you said. ‘Don’t be stupid.’ That’s just what I am and he never lets me forget it. But I got away with those robberies, didn’t I? And Melanie. Nobody suspects me. What would he say if he knew that?”

“Barney….” This wasn’t possible. It couldn’t be happening.

He flung himself toward her and she cringed back.

“And my mom! Whenever he starts in on me she leaps in and goes at him. But it’s not really for my sake. She just wants to hurt him. She goes at him and he gets back at her and pretty
soon the two of them are saying the worst things they can to each other. It’s like they hate each other so much they’re trying to kill each other with words. And they’ve both forgotten me. They couldn’t care less about me.”

“Barney, that’s not true. That can’t be true….” Kate faced him, turning with him as he started his frantic prowling around the room again.

Barney stopped as suddenly as if he’d run into a wall. He turned back toward Kate. His face looked as if it were falling apart.

“I waited for her. I knew when she finished work. I just wanted to offer her a ride home.” His voice began to rise. “That was all—just one ride! Why wouldn’t she want to ride on that motorcycle—even if it was only with me? How could she say no? But she did. She laughed at me. Said I looked like a fool riding around on it. Said everybody was laughing at me. I’d pretended there was something wrong with the wheel and I was fixing it. You know? Like, to have an excuse for stopping there. I was pretending to tighten a lug nut and I had this wrench in my hand. When she laughed…. Kate, you’ve got to believe me. I didn’t mean to do it!”

“Barney, stop. Please. Stop.” Kate felt as if every drop of blood had drained out of her body. She clutched onto the chair in front of her. “Don’t say anything more, Barney, please. Don’t tell me….”

“I have to, Kate. I have to! She laughed at me! And something just seemed to go off inside of
me. Like it did when your dad hit you. All I’d done. All I’d gone through. Just for her.” Barney was holding Kate with his eyes now. She couldn’t turn away, couldn’t even drop her eyes from his.

“Then she laughed again. ‘Who do you think you are, you loser?’ she said. And I just—hit her. I didn’t even remember I had the wrench in my hand. She fell. She didn’t move.”

“Why didn’t you go for help?” Kate made a huge effort to get the words out.

“I tried to pick her up. I didn’t know what to do. I thought maybe she was just hurt, but she was dead, Kate. She was dead!”

“How could you know for sure?”

“There was so much blood. She wasn’t breathing. You can tell, Kate.” He sobbed. Tears streamed down his face. “I looked around. There was nobody there. Nobody had seen what happened. I panicked. I dragged her behind some bushes, then I just took off. When I got home Mom and Dad were out. I had blood on my jacket. Blood on my hands. I washed it all off…. I washed the wrench. Even put it back in my tool kit. It’s still there.” Suddenly he seemed to crumple. Kate let out her breath with a gasp and took a step toward him, but he caught himself and stood, swaying. He made no move to wipe the tears away.

“We’ve got to call the police, Barney.” Kate spoke the words carefully, each one separate from the others.

“No. I can’t do that.”

“Tell them what you told me. It was an accident. You didn’t mean to do it.”

“But I killed her. She’s not going to come back. She’s gone. I
killed her, Kate.”

Thunder rumbled. Lightning flashed almost immediately. The lights in the snack bar flickered, then steadied. Barney fumbled in his jacket pocket and brought out an envelope. He held it out to Kate. One part of her mind registered the fact that he was holding it in his left hand. Of course. Barney was left-handed too. She’d known that. Known it all along.

“When I heard that guy had come back … when I realized he’d be blamed…. I didn’t like him—hated the way he always hung around you. You were
my
friend. But I couldn’t let him be blamed. I wrote it all down. Just like it happened. Just like one of your stories, Kate, except this one’s true. You take it. You give it to the police.”

Kate reached out for it. Her hand shook wildly, but she moved slowly, deliberately. “We’ll take it together, Barn.”

“No. For once in my life I’m not going to be stupid. For once in my life I’m going to do the right thing.”

Before she could move, he charged over to the door and out. His motorcycle roared.

Kate stared after him, confused, her mind numb with shock. Where could he run to? He’d
left his helmet…. Then she understood. She tore out the door after him.

“No!” she screamed. The wind ripped the cry away. “Barney, wait!” It was too late. The red taillight blinked away from her into the darkness.

Catch him. Stop him. The keys to the pickup—Angie had them. She’d been using it that afternoon and Kate had seen her drop them in her pocket when she returned. Kate raced for the garage. She hammered at the door.

“Mom!” She felt her knuckles bruise, but she hammered harder. It was only an instant, but it seemed like an eternity before the upstairs window opened and Angie’s head appeared.

“Kate, what’s happened? What’s wrong?”

“It’s Barney!” The rain streamed down onto her face. She cupped her hands around her mouth. “Come down, Mom,” she shouted. “Bring the keys to the pickup. We’ve got to go after him.”

Angie was down and out the door almost immediately. Kate caught a glimpse of Stacy’s pale face in the window, then she ran toward the truck, her mother following close behind.

“Barney was here,” Kate gasped as they slid into the cab in a welter of water and Angie shoved the key into the ignition. The pickup started with a cough, and Angie threw it into gear. “He killed Melanie! He told me.”

Angie swiveled her head toward Kate; the truck skidded dangerously on the wet gravel.

“Barney?”

“Yes.
And I’m afraid…. I don’t know what he’s going to do. He’s on his motorcycle. We’ve got to catch up to him!”

Angie swerved out of the station, skidding again as she hit the pavement. She swore under her breath.

The rain was coming down so hard that the windshield blurred after each pass of the wipers. Kate leaned forward, peering into the blackness beyond, willing the taillight of Barney’s motorcycle to swim into view.

“Hurry, Mom. Go faster.”