The ladies tutted. I wanted to smack them all. I wanted Aunt Tildy to smack them all, or break up the group in some other way, like by telling them that in that case, they shouldn’t be talking about it in the house of the Lord. But Aunt Tildy was busy in the church kitchen, arranging doughnuts on a platter.
“Sounds to me like someone don’t want Patrick waking up,” Hannah said timidly.
The ladies nodded.
“That’s why I think it was a local boy, and a smart one at that,” the choir woman said. “One who ain’t interested in getting caught.”
“We might even know him,” Hannah said with wide eyes.
“He might go to this very church,” Dottie said. “He might be in this very room with us right now.”
Everyone glanced around, myself included. I spotted old Mrs. Lawson sipping a cup of coffee, but Tommy wasn’t with her. None of the members of the redneck posse had dragged themselves out of bed for church this morning, not that I was surprised. The congregation lacked guys in that age group, period. Still, the group of ladies tightened their circle.
The choir woman eyed the ladies, her gaze coming to rest, inexplicably, on me. A bolt of alarm shot through my bones, and with it came the recollection of her name. Obedience Burwell. She went by Biddy.
“People say you’re hunting for the perpurtrator yourself,” Biddy said. She’d learned the word from Verleen, and it didn’t set comfortably on her tongue.
“No,” I said. My chest went up and down, up and down.
Biddy stared at me. Her birthmark stared at me, a fat, blood-filled sac. “If I were you, I’d leave it.”
The ladies nodded as a single unit. A flock of hens.
“Cat!” Hannah said anxiously. “Oh my gracious, you can’t go poking around in something like this. Not when it involves criminal activity!”
“He don’t want to be found,” Dottie chimed in. She stepped closer and squeezed my shoulder. I pretended to be a statue. “And you don’t want to be the one who finds him. Believe me, hon.”
“You could get sliced up, like that window screen,” Hannah said. She blinked rapidly. “Or worse.”
Verleen said, “Now, Cat, I can’t believe you’d act as illafformed as that, getting into business that ain’t yours to get in. Surely you have more sense.”
“I do,” I said in a panicked, breathy voice.
But Verleen wasn’t done. “If you are poking around, it stops today. You hear? You leave that business to Carl and Bubba.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“That gasoline nozzle,” Hannah whispered, looking at me like I’d already gone and gotten such a thing stuck up in me.
“All right, I think we’ve said enough,” Biddy said, although I swear to God she was pleased with what she’d made. “I think we all need to be careful. A perpuhtater like that, we don’t none of us want to come face-to-face with him.”
She’d changed her pronunciation. Purple tater, I thought. Purple tater, purple tater.
“And we won’t,” Verleen said. “He’s wily enough to wipe his prints off the windowsill, he’s wily enough not to get caught.”
“Oh my,” Dottie said. “Verleen, hon, you might be bringing Carl sandwiches for a long time.”
WHEN IT WAS TIME FOR THE SERVICE, I DIDN’T file into the sanctuary with the others. Instead, I snuck into the church office. I used the slow-as-molasses computer to see if I could find out anything more about the hospital break-in.
I didn’t, but I did learn more about comas and other medical stuff. I tried to educate myself as best I could, because Patrick was not a plant, and I couldn’t believe that Hannah—who had a baby! an itty-bitty, crying, and smiling baby!—had said something so thoughtless.
Patrick probably had blisters erupting around his mouth, that was one thing I read on the medical sites I pulled up. Because of the gas fumes. And I learned a new word: hypoxia. It meant lack of oxygen, and sometimes people recovered completely from a hypoxic hit to the brain, and sometimes they didn’t.
I also found an online Toomsboro Community College student directory, and guess whose information was listed in it? Jason Connor’s, that’s whose. He was a college boy, just like I’d suspected. He opted to “share his contact information with prospective students,” so now I had his email address as well as what dorm he lived in . He was taking summer classes, I guess. Whoop-de-doo for him.
I could take the bus into town tomorrow morning and be at Braiden Hall by nine. If he was asleep, I’d wake him up. If he was in class, I’d wait outside his room. If he never showed up at all, I’d knock on every door of every dorm room until I found someone who could lead me to him.
Given what happened at the hospital, it was time for me and Jason to have a true and real conversation.
I WAS ON MY WAY TO TOOMSBORO BY EIGHT THIRTY the next morning. There weren’t many other people on the bus. A man wearing overalls, maybe going into town to do yard work. A woman wearing an ankle-length skirt, her hair in a bun. I didn’t have a clue what her story was. Was she a day care worker? A member of one of those old-fashioned basement churches where the ministers traveled from house to house and the females weren’t allowed to wear pants?
Oh, and there was one other passenger: Robert.
Yep, scrawny, hop-about Robert was heading into Toomsboro with me. He must have been hiding a couple of yards from the bus stop, because he wasn’t in sight when I got there.
Then the bus came rumbling around the bend and wheezed to a stop. Its doors sighed open, I climbed aboard, and woosh. He was like a squirrel darting out of the scrub brush, hyper and gloating as he dashed on behind me. He didn’t have to pay any fare since he was only eleven.
“Robert,” I said, exasperated. “What are you doing here?”
He grinned and tried to sit down beside me. “Goin’ on a bus ride. With you. Scooch and make room.”
I blocked him by planting one foot on the floor and pressing the other against the back of the seat in front of me.
“Aw, now, why you gotta be like that? I just want to talk to you.”
“Talk to me another time. And get off the bus.”
“Ain’t have to if I don’t wanna. I got just as much right just as you do.”
The bus driver hit the gas, and Robert stumbled backward.
“Young man, sit down,” the driver commanded.
Clinging to the seats, Robert tried to haul himself back to where I was. It was like watching a fish try to swim upstream.
“Now,” the driver growled.
Robert plunked himself down three seats behind me, on the opposite side of the aisle. He whispered, “Hey. Hey! Just talk to me, will ya?”
There was so much wrong with that boy, I didn’t know where to start. Following a girl five years older than him onto a bus? Hiding in the dang bushes so I wouldn’t spot him till it was too late? Poor kid must have been awfully lonely to go to all that trouble.
“You know I didn’t mean it, Cat,” he said. “What I called you the other night.”
I faced forward. “I know, Robert. Now leave me alone.”
“Can’t I come sit with you?”
“No.”
“Why not?”
“Because once you pick your seat, you have to stay put, or they’ll kick you off.”
“For real?”
“Safety regulation. And if they kick you off, the next time you try to get a ride, they won’t let you.”
He thought about that.
“How would they know it was me?” he said.
“Because they’d take a picture of you and tape it up where the driver sits, on every single bus. Now will you please stop bugging me?”
“Yeah. Okay. But I have a secret to tell you, remember?”
I twisted to look at him. He grinned, squirming with the pleasure of being noticed.
“Okay, Robert. Tell me your secret. I’m dying to know.”
“You don’t sound like you’re dyin’.”
“I am. Believe me.”
“It’s real good, the secret. You’re gonna be real happy when you hear it.”
“Why don’t you prove it by telling me?”
More grinning and squirming. He needed to be medicated—like that was ever going to happen.
“Robert? We’re almost to my stop, so if you’re going to tell me, tell me now.”
“If it’s your stop, it’s my stop, too,” he said.
“Um, no.”
“Yeah-huh.”
“Robert, I am here on business. You cannot bother me.”
He huffed. “Why you being so cold to me? Why’s everybody turned so cold all of a sudden, acting like I’m a kid when I’ve got chest hairs and everything?”
I snorted. I didn’t mean to, and if I could have stopped myself, I would have. It hurt his feelings.
“Fine,” he said. “I ain’t gonna tell you my secret after all, so fine.” He slammed his body against the back of his seat and sulked.
We rode like that for the next few minutes. As we approached the college, I attempted to smooth things over.
“Hey, Robert,” I said. “You ready to talk to me yet?”
He angled his body toward the bus window, presenting me with his skinny back. I saw the knobs of his spine through his threadbare T-shirt.
“Well, don’t go wandering off in Toomsboro by yourself,” I told him.
“I’m eleven years old. I can take care of myself.”
“I know, but still.” I doubted Robert would ever be able to take care of himself.
The bus rolled to a stop. The doors shushed open.
“How about this,” I said, standing up. “Meet me back here in an hour, and we’ll ride back together. Can you do that?”
“Can you do that?” Robert mimicked.
“Well, can you? It’s like . . .” I tried to think how to put it. “Like the buddy system.”
“Don’t need no buddy, especially you.”
“Well, all right, then.”
I got off the bus. He followed. I headed for the college, and he trailed behind me. He was as sneaky as a rhinoceros.
I found Braiden Hall, and miraculously, Robert didn’t enter the dorm behind me. When I glanced to check, he was gnawing his thumbnail. Perhaps he felt as intimidated by the fancy campus as I did.
“Stay,” I told him, like you’d say to a dog.
He looked caught out. Then he said, loudly, “I think I’ll sit here by this tree. I think I’ll just sit here and enjoy the morning air.”
I went inside the dorm. I found a student list stuck to a row of metal mailboxes and saw that Jason resided in room 101, so that’s where I went. I rapped on the door, trying to act braver than I felt. I banged louder.
“One sec,” a guy said groggily, and my heart jumped into my throat. There were footsteps, and then the click of a deadbolt. The door opened, and there, in the flesh, was Jason. It really was him. He was wearing loose pj pants with brown monsters all over them, and his hair was messy. He wasn’t wearing a shirt.
“Whoa,” he said. I jerked my gaze from his chest to his face. “Uh . . . whoa. What are you doing here?”
You have monsters on your pj’s, I wanted to say. And they’re cute. Cute little monsters. Who are you to be wearing pj bottoms printed with cute little monsters? I caught myself noticing his build and looked away. I wasn’t here to notice the fact that he happened to be . . . well . . . built. Good heavens.
“I need to know about Patrick,” I said. “You gonna let me in?”
“Uh, yeah, sure. I guess.” He opened the door wider. “How do you know where I live?”
“Don’t worry about that,” I said. “Would you please tell me how you know Patrick? For real?”
He didn’t answer, so I used the time to take in the details of his room: the boy smell, the posters of indie bands, the stacks of books. The one and only bed, which I sat down on. Guess he lucked out and got himself a single.
Jason scratched his bare chest, which must have made him aware of the bareness of it, because he blushed and yanked a shirt from a hanger in the closet. He slid it on and went to work on the buttons. “Seriously. Why are you here? How’d you know where to find me?”
I gave him the basics of how he shouldn’t post personal information on the online college directory if he didn’t want people reading it. While I spoke, he rolled up his sleeves. I had to pull my eyes from his tan forearms.
“Anyway, you may not be aware of this, but last night someone may or may not have tried to break into Patrick’s room in the hospital,” I said.
He blanched.
“Was it you?” I demanded.
“What? No.” He went from confused to pissed, and he said a lot of things about was I crazy? and what was wrong with me? and how could I even think something like that?
I chose not to respond. I just folded my arms over my chest.
He pulled his desk chair over near me and dropped into it. “Tell me more,” he said. “Tell me exactly what happened.”
I told him what I’d heard, and his face darkened. Then, because nothing in life was free, I returned to my question: How did he and Patrick know each other?
“From the Come ‘n’ Go,” he said, dazed. “Fuck. Who would do something like that?”
“That’s what I’m trying to find out,” I said. “What do you mean, from the Come ‘n’ Go? Did you buy beer from him?”
He dropped his head into his hands. “Sometimes. Except, no, because he wouldn’t sell to us. Um, we bought snacks. Junk food.”
“Did you give him a hard time? Call him girly names and make fun of him for being light in the loafers?” Light in the loafers, my God. I’d channeled Aunt Tildy rather than mustering the confidence to say the word gay.
Jason nodded, and I felt a stab in my chest. Maybe because I’d started to change my opinion of him after seeing him in the hospital? Maybe I wanted him not to be one of those Mario Mario jerks?
“But I don’t treat him like that anymore,” he said.
“Wow, you should be so proud.”
He stared at me, part hostile and part hurting. The hurting part must have won out, because he started talking, and he didn’t hold back. He told me that yeah, his college buddies were assholes, and yeah, so was he. But Patrick took it like a man, and Jason couldn’t help but respect him for it.
Over time, Jason started driving to Black Creek on his own, leaving his buddies at the dorm. He quit harassing Patrick. One night, he spotted one of Patrick’s philosophy books by the cash register, and it was a book Jason had read, so they talked about it for a while. It got to the point where Jason and Patrick would hang out at the Come ‘n’ Go for hours. They’d argue about philosophical issues, or they’d just shoot the breeze. Occasionally, according to Jason, Patrick wouldn’t be in the mood to talk, so Jason would leave.
“He’d act like nobody could possibly understand how hard his life was, and that got old,” Jason admitted. “But no one’s perfect. He’s a good guy.”
“I know.”
“He didn’t deserve what happened to him.”
“I know.” I looked Jason straight in the eye. “Do you know who did it? Was it one of your friends?”
“No,” he said. “The guys I hang with . . . no. They’re dumb shits, but they’re not . . . they would never . . .” He rubbed the bridge of his nose. “They drink. They smoke a little weed. They go to parties and hit on girls, and that’s all life is to them, one big kegger.”
“Were you with them that Saturday?” I asked. “What if they were partying and wanted some beer and drove to Black Creek to try and buy some? And the store was closed, and Patrick wouldn’t open it back up, and things got ugly?”
“No,” Jason said.
“Well, what if they knew from the get-go that Patrick wouldn’t sell to them, and they drove to the Come ‘n’ Go looking for a fight? Boys can be like that, you know.”
“No. Not those guys.”
“How can you be sure?”
“Be
cause all their lives, they’ve been given whatever they want,” he said, anger flashing across his face. “Because I doubt any one of them’s been in a fistfight, even. They’re soft and they’re spoiled and they don’t know the kind of ugliness we know. Okay?”
I grew silent. How did Jason know what kind of ugliness I knew or didn’t know? And since when did him and me become a “we”?
“You live in Black Creek, right?” he said. “Same as Patrick?”
I hesitated, then nodded tersely.
“Yeah, well, I’m from Hangtree.”
My eyebrows went up, because Hangtree was even more backwoods than Black Creek. Think toothless hillbillies and cousins marrying cousins and corn liquor distilled with battery acid. That was Hangtree.
“But in the library, you called me . . .” I didn’t finish. The point was, being from Hangtree meant he was even more white trash than me.
He looked ashamed. “Yeah, and like I said at the hospital, I’m sorry.”
“Actually, you didn’t.”
“Yeah, I did.”
“No, you didn’t. You said you owed me an apology, but you never gave me one.”
“I didn’t? Well, um, I’m sorry. I’m really sorry. What I said was uncool.”
“You think?” I said.
“I was in a bad place. I’d heard about Patrick, and I was so angry I couldn’t think straight. I was so angry I didn’t even go to the college computer lab, because I wanted to see what I could find out about Patrick, and I didn’t want some asshole coming over and saying, ‘Hey, bro, whatcha doing? Whoa, you reading about that faggot? What’s up with that, man?’”
His eyes were full of despair, and I had the craziest urge to hug that fool of a boy, the way a mama would hug her rascally toddler after he rammed his trike into her pot of petunias and broke the thing to bits.
It’s all right, the mama would say. Shhh, now. Quit your crying. We all mess up. It’s what we learn from our mistakes that matters.
But Jason wasn’t three. And I wasn’t his mama.