knocked the wind out of her.
Repressing a tear for the boy’s sake, she grabbed Robert’s hand, and they started to walk home. “I guess the bus is for another route-not ours. But we can walk home, can’t we?”
“Yes, mom. I love walking.” Robert looked up at his mother with pleading eyes. “Are we going to pick some berries on our way home?”
“Maybe,” Holly said.
They had walked perhaps fifty meters when Robert said, “Mom?”
“Yes?”
“Why did the man go away?”
“What man?”
“The bus driver. He didn’t stop for us. Is he mad at me, mom?” He looked up at her again.
“No one is mad at you.” Holly didn’t meet her son’s gaze, or slow her pace. She moved on, a thousand thoughts racing through her brain.
“Why didn’t he stop for us, then?”
“I think the bus isn’t going our way. Must have been a different route.”
“It’s the same one we ride home everyday. I even know the man driving the bus,” Robert pressed on. “Is he mad at you, mom?”
She stopped then. “Hey, what made you think anyone is mad at me-or at you, for that matter?”
“I don’t know.” There was a tiny stone perched on top of a bigger one on the ground, right in front of him. Robert kicked it hard, so hard he jerked forward and almost yanked himself off Holly’s grip. His gray pants shimmied in the process. “But I wanna know why, mom. Please, could you tell me?”
“Robert, I do
Robert recoiled a little.
She pulled him towards her. “All right, listen. I’m sorry I flew off the handle. But don’t you worry about the bus driver, about what he did or didn’t do. What’s important is that we’re heading home now, where there’s a lot of cheese and cookies to feast on.”
Robert smiled.
“And you like walking, don’t you?”
“I love it.” The smile on his face had put on some weight. “And I love picking berries, too.”
As they advanced home, Holly wondered how diverse-and greatly polarized-their thought patterns were. As far as she was concerned, the world was a ginormous eye-riddled ball, evil in its entirety. And it rolled after her every second, keeping track of everything she did, and poised to condemn each of her steps. To Robert, however, the enemies could be put behind at Our Lady of Peace Junior High, and they could lunch on wood shavings for all he cared. Whenever he was alone with Holly, all the ills of the world received adequate cures. It became a better place again.
A better place where his worries and frights of the Carters and Murphys of this world became but history.
The world of bliss.
Of chocolate and cookies and cheese.
Robert laughed at various jokes told by his mother, but later threw a tantrum, because Holly wouldn’t let him pick berries.
Chapter 6
Monday, August 17
On the fifth day of Carter’s murder, Sheriff Stack visited Mrs. Wilson.
And Brad Conner on successive occasions. It was about eight-thirty in the morning. Our Lady of Peace was yet to open.
“It’s not uncommon that people begin to recollect the details of an incident after some time has elapsed, Mrs. Wilson,” Brian said. “Has anything drifted back to your memory from the last week’s incident?” There was a plate of apple cake on the table in front of him.
“Well, nothing has returned, because nothing left in the first place. There’s nothing different than what I stated from the outset when I was interrogated. Didn’t see a bird,” Mrs. Wilson said. She perched on the edge of her seat, palms wrapped around her coffee mug as though trying to draw warmth from it. “Have you pressed Ed Gibson further for information?”
Ed was the security guard at the Junior High. He had claimed vehemently that he didn’t see any strange visitor come into the school premises, and that such would have been impossible, anyway, since he was doing a thorough watch of the entire school. His report reeked of discrepancy. He’d been in custody since Trevor Carter’s murder.
“Yes,” Brian said. “He’s running a different version of his story now. He wasn’t telling the truth before.”
“Doesn’t come as a surprise at all. I’ve been suspicious of him all along. The way he acts and looks… oh, boy-it tells me something’s crooked about that man.”
Brian cleared his throat. “Well, just for clarification-he certainly didn’t bend the story to cover up his murderous act or anything like that, but rather to conceal his irresponsibility at work. He later confessed that an old bum was roaming the vicinity of the school earlier that morning. A bum by the name Jeremiah Blair.”
Mrs. Wilson laughed. “JB?” she said. “JB’s been roaming the vicinity every single day for the past ten years that I’ve been teaching at the school. Plus he could barely hold his own in a fight with a ten-year-old girl. He’s so wasted it’s a miracle he hasn’t kicked the bucket all these years. So, what’s Ed insinuating?”
“Well, I suppose not a lot. Perhaps he was just trying to atone for his sin, the sin of keeping information back. Trying to come clean at last. Adequate interrogation has already exonerated Jeremiah, even though he came
Mrs. Wilson sipped her coffee. “I agree with you on that, Sheriff. That’s still pretty cunning, not telling it all.”
“Yes, it is.” Brian forked a big chunk of apple cake into his mouth.
“I don’t mean to pry, Sheriff,” Mrs. Wilson said, “but I was wondering if there’s any development on Robert’s reports so far.”
Brian tried to work on the cake in his mouth as fast as he could in order to create an unimpeded passage for air. His voice still sounded throaty when he spoke. “As a matter of fact, yes. The strands of hair collected at the scene belonged to Robert. The final DNA reports of the blood samples is still underway. Might not have the concluding part till Thursday or Friday-unless a miracle occurs. Tardiness, you see, is the chief bane of small-town investigation.”
“Ah, I see,” Mrs. Wilson said, and suddenly digressed, yapping about Trevor Carter. Brian let her, seizing that opportunity to finish his cake as he listened. “God, I still feel sick each time I picture Mr. Carter lying on the floor with blood on his neck. And that innocent smile of his. Oh, he guarded it so much he had to carry it to the grave with him. Just couldn’t leave it behind and let some scumbags trample on it. That was Mr. Carter for you-always exhaustive in whatever he did. And needless to say he remained his happy self, even to the very morning of his death. He wasn’t at all like the commander-in-chief of the grumpy people.”
All along, Brian was nodding and nodding as he chewed and savored and swallowed. “And who’s that?” he said at last, pushing the empty dessert plate aside.
“Donnie Murphy, of course. He’s one of a kind.”
