He crawled through the window, closed and locked it behind him, leaped into bed, and pul ed the covers over his head.
He hated things he couldn’t explain.
“Did you hear?” Kate said, rushing into the kitchen.
Jack was just finishing the Taylor ham and egg sandwich he’d had for lunch. Mom turned from the sink. “Hear what, dear?”
“Gordon Brussard dropped dead last night.”
Mom dropped the plate she’d been fitting into the dishwasher. It didn’t break. “No!”
“Yes! And so did that man Chal is, the one who confessed to kil ing the man Jack
found. Within an hour of each other. Can you believe it?”
“No,” Mom said. “I can’t.”
Jack could. But even though he’d half expected it, he couldn’t help but feel
shock. Had he real y been on Harding Street last night? Or had he dreamed it? How could he e sure?
Kate said, “It’s true!”
“Where’d you hear al this?”
“Down at Burdett’s. I was on empty and Jeff fil ed me in while he was fil ing me
up.”
That sort of clinched the deaths. Jeff Colton, the pump jockey at Burdett’s Esso station, talked to everyone who stopped in and pumped them for
gossip. He knew everything there was to know in this end of Burlington County.
Jack said, “What are the chances of that happening? I mean, two people arrested for the same crime dropping dead at almost the same time?”
Kate shook her head. “Astronomical, I’d think. Then again …” Her voice trailed off.
“Then again what?”
“Getting arrested has got to be unbelievably stressful, whether you’re innocent or guilty. I can’t imagine that would be good for your heart. And if you had
any heart disease …” She shrugged. “I guess it’s possible. If this were
life …” Another shrug. “Just a bizarre coincidence.”
Uh-uh, Jack thought. Maybe no coincidence. Maybe a klazen.
But no way was he mentioning that. Talk about opening a can of worms.
“Poor Steve,” he said, and meant it. The thought of losing his own father … he couldn’t imagine what Steve was feeling.
He
Jack realized then that he needed something too: fresh air. He had the day off and didn’t want to spend it thinking about things he couldn’t explain.
Besides, Eddie had cal ed to announce that his grandmother had bought him the new
“I’m going out,” he said, carrying his empty plate to the dishwasher.
“Where?” Mom said.
“Weez and Eddie’s, I guess.”
Mom gave him a don’t-forget-what-I-told-you look.
Man …
Jack heard cursing as they approached the spong.
He’d hung out with Weezy and Eddie for a while, the two guys taking turns at
—it looked super on the 5200—and Weezy watching
morosely, saying little. She was stil bummed out about losing the cube and the pyramid. Somewhere along the line Jack let slip the possibility that the
mound was pre-Columbian, maybe even prehistoric.
Wel , that was al Weezy had to hear. Before he knew it she was up and out and headed for her bike. Jack tried to stop her, tel ing her what Tim had
said, but Weezy was deaf to al that. Since he couldn’t let her ride off into the Pines alone, he went with her. Even Eddie tagged along, saying something
about it being “fossilacious.” Apparently he’d equated prehistoric with dinosaurs.
