dragging your lovely wife into this.'
The door closed.
Norm was on his feet, ready to charge, when a restraining hand gripped his shoulder and pulled him back. There was no one there, but he felt it just the same, and began trembling when he realized how close he had come to throttling the man. He bit down on his lower lip, to feel the pain, to shock himself back, and when he did he muttered, 'It isn't fair. It just is not fair.''
Then he cleared his throat loudly, and decided he wasn't going to bring any work home, the hell with the reports. He smiled, stood, and plucked his coat from the small closet on the far side of the room. Habit took him out the private door directly into the corridor, where he turned right and headed for the main entrance. And when he pushed out onto the concrete plaza and saw Gabby taking the flag down from the pole, he paused for a moment as if part of a ceremony, gave the custodian a two-fingered salute, and started walking.
Adam Hedley's car sped past.
Norman watched it, praying the chemistry teacher wouldn't spot him, stop, and demand to know if anything had been done about the windbreaker found caught on his hedge yesterday. The jacket Don had claimed he'd lost two days ago.
'I have not called the police,' Hedley had told him piously that morning. 'The school certainly has enough trouble these days with that maniac on the loose. Not to mention the horrid scandal it would cause at the celebrations this week.'
'I appreciate that, Adam,' he'd replied, too stunned by the evidence in hand to say anything more.
'I'm sure you do.' Hedley had shaken his hand then, and had held it just a second too long. 'I only want your assurance that you will take care of this, Norman. It wouldn't do to have it get out. It would be rather disastrous, wouldn't you think?'
Norman had agreed mutely. He knew exactly what the man meant, what Falcone could do with something like this-that the principal couldn't even manage his own son, and the teachers were expected to manage an entire school of kids like him.
He knew. And he still refused to believe, despite the jacket, that Don had done such a stupid thing.
But there was the vial in his top drawer, and the coat, and there was Don's recent, increasingly odd behavior.
Maybe, he thought, I'll have a word with him tonight.
And maybe not. Maybe tomorrow.
He thought: rope-give him enough rope and he'll hang himself and I won't have to be the accuser.
'Jesus,' he muttered, 'you're a bastard, Boyd.'
But he didn't change his mind.
When he reached his corner, he paused and glanced over his shoulder. The street was empty, the sun dropping rapidly and filling the spaces under the trees with twilight. A look to his house, then, hidden back there under the trees and shadows, and it struck him with a twinge of guilt that he didn't want to go home. If Joyce wasn't there, waiting to talk, Don would be, hiding in his room.
He had seen the boy only twice during the day; once in the corridors before lunch, looking like hell and walking like a zombie, and then again just before the final bell, heading for his locker. Norman had almost called him into the office, but changed his mind when he saw Fleet Robinson stop, whisper something into his ear, and slap his back heartily. Don had turned and grinned, nodded once, and moved on. But he still looked like hell, and it wasn't just that damnable black eye; it was the way he looked at people-blankly, as if he were little more than a shell, his body making the rounds through habit. It was the way he had been most of yesterday, according to Joyce. He still smarted from the boy's backtalk and wasn't about to yield just yet. The kid had to learn that breaking the rules meant taking the consequences.
And if he had anything to do with that nonsense at Hedley's, he was going to pay much more than he thought.
A breeze kicked at the leaves piling up in the gutter, and he hurried, hands deep in his coat pockets, head down, skin feeling damp. As he passed the Snowden home, Chris backed out of the driveway in her car, the top down in spite of the weather; she smiled and waved when he looked up at the sound of the racing engine. He mouthed a hello, she winked and drove away, and he stood there a moment, watching her hair fight with the wind.
She wants to go to bed with you, old fella.
He swallowed, looked quickly side to side before realizing the leering voice he had heard was his own, and silent.
But it was true, no question about it. He had been in the business long enough to know the difference between a harmless flirtation and one designed to produce better grades. Chris was definitely the willing type, and as calculating as any he had ever met. He hastened, then, to pat himself on the back for not once having fallen into the ultimate trap. Returning a flirtation was nothing; it was painless, and no one much cared. And it was a kick to do it knowing full well he wasn't about to grant an A just because the girl had a fine figure or a lovely smile or a pair of eyes that made him restless at night.
This, on the other hand, could be serious. He suspected that if she didn't get him compromised on the mattress, she would somehow find a way to compromise him by implication. Either way, he was going to have to be careful with that one.
A laugh, bright and genuine, put a bounce in his step as he headed for the front door. Calculated or not, it was still nice to know he wasn't considered too disgustingly old for her to make the effort. In a backhanded way it was rather flattering.
A second laugh, that was strangled when he stepped over a puddle on the walk and turned around sharply.
The water lying on the sagging brick was clear and unrippled, and along one edge was a shadow that was neither the tree in the yard nor the eaves nor himself crossing over.
He stared at it, drawing out a hand to hold the coat's collar closed around his neck.
The shadow didn't move.
It suggested something much larger, much darker, than he had first imagined, but when he examined the street, the sidewalk, the yard, the stoop behind him, he saw nothing.
The shadow was still there, and when he kicked at the water to rough it and scatter it onto the grass, it remained unmoved.
'Jesus,' he said.
It grew larger.
Darker.
He stamped a foot into the puddle and watched the shadow slip over his toes.
The shoe yanked back and he looked up quickly, then sighed his relief aloud. A cloud. It was a black patch of cloud in the overcast made unnervingly substantial by the failing light below. Nothing more, Norman, nothing more.
He had his hand on the doorknob then when he heard the noise behind him.
Soft. Hollow. Slightly uneven, stones dropping lightly onto a damp hollow log.
It was coming up the walk.
He did not turn around. Deliberately he turned the knob, pushed open the door and stepped inside. He closed it behind him without looking over his shoulder and stood in the empty foyer for several long seconds before taking off his coat.
He was listening while a silent whisper irrationally insisted the cloud hadn't made that shadow.
A shuffling, and Don appeared at the top of the stairs.
A muffled hollow sound, and something thudded heavily against the door at his back, just before the door slammed open.
FIVE
Joyce scowled as she pushed inside, grocery sacks unwieldy in her arms and her purse starting to slip maddeningly off her shoulder. But instead of the stinging, remark that came to mind, she blinked when she saw the look on her husband's face. He was pale, and moving away from her as if she were a corpse newly risen from the
