I shook my head. "No, sir."
"He looked kind of familiar to me," Parker put in.
Before Williams could ask Parker anything else, the door buzzed and another policeman came in. "Can I speak to you in private, sir?" he asked.
Leaving Parker and me sitting by his desk, Sergeant Williams followed the other cop into another office. Through the glass window we watched them talking.
"I wish I could read lips," Parker whispered.
But since we couldn't, we just sat there and waited for Williams to come back. When he did, he wasn't smiling. He sat down and looked at us.
"Well, boys, it looks like you were right. There was a dead man in the creek, just where you said he'd be."
"Who was he?" Parker asked.
Williams shook his head. "No identification." He scratched his nose and gave Parker a speculative look. "Didn't you say he looked familiar to you?"
Parker nodded. "But I don't know why."
Williams stood up. "Well, if you think of anything, come see me." He shook Parker's hand, then mine. "Thanks for reporting the body. If you hadn't seen him, it might have been a while before anybody came across him, now that fishing season's over and deer season hasn't started."
"He was murdered, wasn't he?" Parker asked. "Shot between the eyes, right?"
"That's not for me to say." Williams gave Parker a small card with his name on it and told him again to try to remember where he'd seen the man.
"What about Mr. Evans?" Parker wanted to know. "Are you going to bring him in for questioning?"
Sergeant Williams pulled a pipe out of his desk drawer and busied himself lighting it. As he escorted us out of his office, he said, "Take my advice, Parker Pettengill, and let the police handle this."
5
OFFICER SCRUGGS, the same policeman who'd cleaned up the mess I'd made, was waiting for us on the sidewalk outside the station. "Get in the car, boys," he said. "I'll take you home."
Parker, Otis, and I climbed in the backseat of the squad car. It took us a while to get Otis settled; riding in cars always excites him, and I could see Officer Scruggs frowning at us in the rearview mirror. I had a feeling he wasn't too happy about the way his Sunday was going.
"Aren't you going to turn on the siren or the lights?" Parker asked as Scruggs pulled away from the curb.
"This isn't an emergency, sonny." Scruggs didn't even glance at us. He just headed down Main Street toward Windsor Road, looking straight ahead.
"That guy was shot, wasn't he?" Parker leaned forward and gripped the back of Scruggs's seat. "I saw the bullet hole."
"I'm not at liberty to discuss the case with you." Scruggs turned the corner so fast Parker fell back against Otis who said "whuff" loudly enough to merit a look in the rearview mirror.
"Have you ever shot anybody?" Parker asked Scruggs.
The policeman didn't answer, but I could see he was getting mad. Maybe Parker noticed, too, because he pressed his face against the car window and stared at the houses on Windsor Road as if he'd never seen them before. I think he was hoping somebody would notice him in the police car but everybody must have been sleeping or something. The only person we passed was old Miss Perkins. She was walking her little dog Tootsie, and she didn't even look up when Otis banged his muzzle against the window and barked.
When Officer Scruggs pulled up in front of my house, Parker and Otis followed me out of the car. "What kind of gun is that?" Parker was staring at the pistol Scruggs wore. "How many bullets are in it?"
As usual, Scruggs said nothing. Maybe he was the silent type, like Clint Eastwood in those Dirty Harry movies. Or maybe he just didn't like Parker and me.
When Mom opened the door, she looked like she was going to faint right there in front of us. She must have thought we'd been arrested or something, but Officer Scruggs soon set her straight.
After he was sure Mom and Dad understood what had happened, he led Parker and Otis back to his car. It was his duty to talk to Pam, I heard him tell Parker as he opened the rear door and Otis jumped happily inside.
Well, after they left, you can imagine the scene in my house. Mom was crying and hugging me, saying she'd never let me go camping in the woods again, and Dad was trying to blame the whole thing on Parker.
"I always knew that boy would get you into trouble," he kept saying. "He's never been anything but a bad influence on you." Then he was off, remembering every awful thing Parker and I had done since we first met in kindergarden.
"Oh, Donald," Mom finally said, just as Dad was remembering the time Parker dared me to jump off the high dive before I'd learned to swim.
"Matthew could have drowned," Dad said.
"Parker didn't know I couldn't swim," I said, "and, besides, the lifeguard was right there, wasn't he?"
Luckily for me Charity appeared at that moment and demanded to know what was going on. "Did I see a police car out front?" she asked. "Is Matthew going to jail?"
While Charity made a pest of herself trying to get some answers to her questions, Mom and Dad forgot me for a while and argued about my camping equipment and my bike instead. Mom was all for leaving them at Indian Creek forever.
"No one in this family is going anywhere near that place," she said. "Who knows where the murderer is. He could still be lurking about, just waiting to strike again."
But Dad wouldn't listen to her. He hopped in the station wagon and drove out there all by himself, gathered up everything, even Parker's stuff, and brought it back home.
By the time Dad returned, we had another visitor, a reporter from the Woodcroft Sentinel. Accompanied by Parker and Otis, Julius Fisk appeared at the door, laden with cameras, a tape recorder, and notebooks. He was trying to persuade Mom to let us go out to Indian Creek for some pictures.
"It's perfectly safe," he told Mom. "The police are all over the place, doing their scene-of-the-crime routine. I just want a few shots of the boys pointing at the creek. A little human interest, nothing more."
Although I wasn't at all excited about going to Indian Creek, Dad thought it was a good idea. "Matthew should see the police in action," he told Mom. "It will be reassuring for him to realize how quickly things return to normal."
So, thanks to Dad, I found myself sharing the backseat of Julius Fisk's small car with Otis while Parker rode up front, pointing things out to Fisk and filling him in on all the details of our morning.
"And then Armentrout threw up," Parker concluded. "You never saw such a mess."
As he described the scene, I scowled at the back of Parker's head and slumped a little lower in the seat. I just didn't see why he had to tell Fisk that. With my luck, the entire account would be in the paper for everyone to read and laugh at. Some friend, I thought.
We got to Indian Creek just as the rescue squad was carrying the dead man up the hill in one of those orange plastic body carriers you see sometimes on the evening news. As they slid the man into the ambulance, I wondered who he was and if anybody was worrying about him. It seemed so awful to end your life like that.
After Fisk had taken a few pictures of the rescue squad, he made Parker and me show him exactly where we found the body. The water was dark and still beneath a gloomy sky, and it scared me to go under the bridge again. Fisk kept firing questions at Parker and me. "How did the dead man look? Could you really see the bullet hole? Were you scared? Did you see anybody else? Did you notice anything suspicious? Do you plan to camp here again?" And on and on. His voice bounced off the bridge and echoed in my ears till I felt dizzy.
Although Parker was excited and eager to talk, he didn't say a word about Evans. Since I thought the creep's presence on the bridge was just a coincidence, I didn't mention him either. In fact, I kind of faded into the background and let Parker take over. He always was better at talking to people than I was.
By the time Julius Fisk drove us home it was almost five o'clock and I hadn't had anything to eat since the horrible Twinkies. I was tired and I was hungry, and all I wanted to do was hav
e dinner and go to bed.
***
Later, Mom came in to say good night. "Is everything okay, Matt?" she asked. "That reporter didn't upset you, did he?"
I shook my head. "The whole thing was just kind of scary, that's all," I said. "A dead man, you know, really dead. Shot in the head. I never in my whole life expected to see anything like that."
Mom patted my hand. "Certainly not here in Woodcroft." She folded her arms across her chest and shivered a little.
I looked around my room. My model airplanes dangled from the ceiling, moving a bit in a draft from the window, and the glow from my fish tank illuminated a poster of Sylvester Stallone in his Rambo getup. Somewhere out there in the darkness beyond my windows was a murderer, and I wasn't going to feel safe again until he was in jail.
As Mom stood up, I grabbed her hand to stop her from leaving. "George Evans was on the bridge. Parker and I saw him just before we found the body."
"What could George have been doing there?" Mom sounded puzzled.
"Parker thinks he killed that man and threw him into the creek."
Mom stared at me. "For heaven's sake, Matthew, that's the silliest thing I've ever heard. George is a very nice person."
I sat straight up, almost too shocked to speak. "You think Evans is nice?"
"Matthew, what's gotten into you? George has been very generous to this town. Why, he donated several hundred dollars to the high school band when he heard they needed new uniforms, and he also contributed a great deal to the fund drive for the new library. I can't believe Parker would say such a terrible thing."
"If Evans didn't have anything to do with the dead man, what was he doing on the bridge?"
"I'm sure there's an explanation, Matt," Mom said.
"He could have been jogging or just walking, who knows? You and Parker were both there too-do you think anyone suspects you?" She laughed and gave me a little hug.
Then she drew back and thought a moment. "Isn't Pam dating George?"
"How did you know?"
"Woodcroft is a small town," Mom said. "It's common knowledge he's taking her out."
"Well, so what if he is? What's that got to do with anything?"
"You know how Parker feels about his mother." Mom patted my hand. "Don't you think he might be a little jealous?"
When I didn't answer, she added, "In other words, Parker could be trying to make George look bad, honey. Just bear that in mind, and don't let your imagination run away with you." She gave me a quick kiss. "Now you get some sleep," she said. 'Tin sure you need it."
As Mom closed the door behind her, I slid down in bed and wondered about what she'd said. Was that the explanation? Parker was jealous of Evans?
But there was more to it, wasn't there? We'd seen Evans on the bridge–or had we? After all, the morning had been foggy. Maybe Parker had just thought it was Evans. True, the car had sounded like the MG, but it could have been some other car with a bad muffler.
While I tried hard to remember every detail of the man's appearance on the bridge, a branch scratched against my window, making a sound like a bony hand knocking on the glass. Once again, I saw the dead man's face under the water, his hair floating around his head like weeds. Pulling the covers up to my chin, I rolled over and shut my eyes. I wasn't going to think about Evans or the dead man or anything else. I was going to fall asleep and forget it all.
6
LATER THAT NIGHT I woke up moaning from a nightmare. Parker and I were at the creek again, but this time the dead man got up from the water, all dripping and horrible, and started chasing us. It was one of those dreams where you try to scream but you can only go "Uh uh," and you try to run but you can only hobble.
Lying there with my heart thumping, I thought I heard somebody creeping up the stairs-the dead man maybe, or Evans-and I was too scared to move. I just watched the door and wished I'd locked it. Then a breeze billowed the curtains, and I thought Evans was trying to climb through my window. Telling myself to grow up, I squeezed my eyes shut, but the dead man kept flashing in front of me, staring at me with those awful eyes.
Turning over on my stomach I pressed my face into my pillow. If only Parker and I had never gone camping at Indian Creek.
***
Monday morning, I picked up the Woodcroft Sentinel and almost lost my appetite for breakfast. The murder was on the front page, along with a picture of Parker pointing at the place where we'd found the dead man. I was standing beside him looking fat and sad, and Otis was in the background. Julius Fisk had garbled everything Parker and I told him, so we sounded kind of stupid in print. To make it even worse, he put in a detailed description of me throwing up in the police station, just as I had feared he would. As a result, Parker came out the hero, while I was the comic relief.
The only thing I learned from the article was that Parker was right. The man really had been shot in the head with a small caliber bullet. But nobody knew who he was or where he came from. The police suspected he had been killed somewhere else and dumped in Indian Creek. In fact, Sergeant Williams was quoted as saying it looked like a drug war execution.
"Drugs," Mom said. "Can you imagine? That's the kind of thing that happens in Washington or Baltimore, not in a nice little town like this."
I shoveled some cereal in my mouth and tried to choke it down. There were a lot of things Mom didn't know about Woodcroft, I thought. If I was the kind of kid who wanted drugs, I knew a dozen places to get them.
"What's the matter, Matthew?" Mom watched me shove my cereal aside, half eaten. "Don't you feel well?"
I tried to convince her I was too upset about the dead man to go to school, but I ended up slogging to Letitia B. Arbuckle Junior High through a cold drizzle. The wind was blowing a bunch of ragged clouds across the sky, and wads of leaves eddied around in the air and slapped down on the sidewalk, all wet and slimy.
It was the dreariest day of the year, and when I met Parker on the corner, he looked just as miserable as I felt. The rain had plastered his hair against his skull, and his eyes were shadowed. I had a feeling he hadn't slept any better than I had.
"Do you think everybody at school saw the paper?" I asked him.
Parker nodded. "We'll be famous," he said, but he didn't sound particularly excited.
"They'll all know I threw up. Why did you have to tell Fisk about it?"
"I didn't think he'd put it in the article," Parker said.
I sighed. Not too far ahead of us, I saw Jennifer Irwin and her friends, Linda Greene and Melissa Woltzman. Jamming my hands in my back pockets like Parker, I slowed down. If there was one person I hoped hadn't read the article it was Jennifer. I've been half in love with her since she kissed me in third grade; unfortunately, she's never done it again, but I keep hoping. Who wouldn't?
Parker didn't seem to notice how slowly I was walking. Head bent, he was thinking his own thoughts, so I was free to admire Jennifer's long blond braid swinging just below her waist and the way she tilted her head when she talked and the sound of her laugh floating back to me.
Much as I would have liked to catch up with Jennifer and see her smile, I let the distance between us grow. For one thing, I never had the nerve to say more than "hi" to her, and after I'd said that I'd have to walk on past her. Then, instead of me seeing her back, she'd see mine.
But even worse, if she'd read the paper, she'd probably have a million questions about the dead man, and it would be Parker she'd be talking to, not me. And worst of all, she might tease me about my performance in the police station. If Jennifer didn't, I knew Linda and Melissa would. Especially Linda-she's the kind of girl who just loves to make a fool out of you.
So I dawdled along until Parker finally noticed our snaillike pace. By then we were only a block away from school, and Jennifer, Melissa, and Linda were waiting on the corner ahead of us for two other girls in our class.
"We're going to be late, Armentrout," he said.
"What do you want? Detention with Miklowitz?"
; Parker hurried ahead and caught up with the girls as they started to cross the street. Just as I thought, he was immediately surrounded and bombarded with questions about the dead man. Like a rock star being interviewed by his fans, Parker turned from one to the other, giving each of them a few details. Until Linda asked me about throwing up, nobody even looked at me. Then, of course, they all started laughing and making fun of me.
All except Jennifer. "If I saw a dead man I'd throw up too," she said. "Just like Matt."
After that, I didn't care what Linda said or did. Ignoring her, I pushed my way through the crowds in the hall, stuffed my jacket into my locker, and went to homeroom on my own little cloud.
All day I had to tell the story of the dead man over and over again. Even to my teachers. By the end of sixth period, I was sick of Indian Creek and eager to go home and forget about it.
When I met Parker in the hall, he said, "Let's get out of here." I could tell he was just as tired of being a celebrity as I was.
"Why don't we go to the quarry and work on our fort?" I suggested. The clouds had blown away, and the sun was shining again. Out in the woods, we'd be all alone. No questions to answer, no more teasing about throwing up, no more worries about the dead man.
***
We went home long enough to pick up our bikes and Otis. Then we rode about two miles out of town to Bluestone Quarry. It was abandoned years ago, sometime before World War II, so it's way back in the woods and full of water now. There are "No Trespassing" signs posted along the road, but everybody swims in it anyway, even though it's real murky and cold as ice. Kids say it's bottomless. If you drown in it, they say, your body will never be found.
You can imagine what my parents would do if they knew Parker and I started building a fort there last summer. To hear them talk, you'd think a kid drowned in the quarry every day. Once in a while, maybe every ten years or so, somebody does drown, but Parker and I are very careful. And we always bring Otis with us for a little extra protection.
Actually the worst thing about the quarry isn't the water. Parker and I are pretty sure teenagers do drugs and stuff in the woods. Sometimes we find charred logs where they've had fires and beer cans and whiskey bottles lying around. The rocks are covered with the names of weird rock bands and drug sayings, sprayed on with black paint.