A mile or two away, to the north, were the rows of small whitewashed houses where the river rats lived, and beyond them was the bridge, crawling with police cars. On the other side of the river, close to the bridge, an ambulance was just arriving on the scene. Policemen were in boats; several were in full scuba gear. The situation looked tense, almost frantic, as sirens wailed, policemen darted about, and the helicopters hovered low, watching everything.
Something had been found.
The boys sat on the cliff for a long time and said little. The search, or rescue, or removal, or whatever it was called, was proceeding slowly. Each of them had the same thought-that they were watching an actual crime scene in which the victim was their friend April Finnemore, and that she’d been harmed in some terrible way and left at the edge of the river. She was apparently dead, since there was no urgency in getting her out of the water and to a hospital. More police cars arrived, more chaos.
Finally, Chase said, to no one in particular, “Do you think it’s April?”
To which Woody abruptly responded, “Who else would it be? It’s not every day that a dead body floats into town.”
“You don’t know who it is or what it is,” Aaron said. He usually found some way to disagree with Woody, who had quick opinions about almost everything.
Theo’s cell phone buzzed in his pocket. He glanced at it-Mrs. Boone on her office line. “It’s my mom,” he said nervously, then answered his phone.
“Hi, Mom.”
On the other end, his mother said, “Theo, where are you?”
“Just left the soccer game,” he said, wincing at his friends. It wasn’t a complete fib, but it was also pretty far from the truth.
“Well, it appears as though the police have found a body in the river, on the other side, near the bridge,” she said. One of the helicopters, red and yellow with Channel 5 painted boldly on the sides, was obviously sending a live feed back to the station, and the entire town was probably watching.
“Has it been identified?” Theo asked.
“No, not yet. But it can’t be good news, Theo.”
“This is awful.”
“When are you coming to the office?”
“I’ll be there in twenty minutes.”
“Okay, Theo. Please be careful.”
The ambulance was moving away from the river, then onto the bridge, where a line of police cars formed an escort. The procession picked up speed over the river, with the helicopters trailing behind.
“Let’s go,” Theo said, and the boys slowly climbed up the cliff and left on their bikes.
Boone amp; Boone had a large law library on its first floor, near the front, close to where Elsa worked, keeping an eye on everything. The library was Theo’s favorite room in the building. He loved its rows of thick, important books, its large leather chairs, and its long mahogany conference table. It was used for all sorts of big meetings-depositions, settlement talks, and, for Mrs. Boone, pretrial preparation. She occasionally went to trial in divorce cases. Mr. Boone did not. He was a real estate lawyer who seldom left his upstairs office. He did, though, need the library from time to time to close real estate deals.
They were waiting for Theo in the library. A large flat-screen television was on with the local news, and his parents and Elsa were watching. His mother hugged him when he walked in, then Elsa hugged him, too. He took a seat near the television, his mother on one side, Elsa on the other, both patting his knees as if he had just been rescued from near death. The news report was all about the discovery of a body and its transport to the city morgue where authorities were now doing all sorts of important stuff. The reporter wasn’t sure what was happening in the morgue, and she was unable to find a witness willing to talk, so she just prattled on the way they normally do.
Theo wanted to tell everyone that he’d had a bird’s-eye view down at the river, but such a statement would make things complicated.
The reporter said the police were working with inspectors from the state crime lab and hoped to know more within a few hours.
“That poor girl,” Elsa said, and not for the first time.
“Why do you say that?” Theo asked.
“I beg your pardon.”
“You don’t know it’s a girl. You don’t know it’s April. We don’t know anything, right?”
The adults glanced at each other. Both women continued patting Theo’s knees.
“Theo’s right,” Mr. Boone said, but only to comfort his son.
They flashed a picture of Jack Leeper for the one hundredth time, and gave his background. When it became apparent there was nothing new at the moment, the story grew old. Mr. Boone drifted away. Mrs. Boone had a client waiting in the lobby. Elsa needed to answer the phone.
Theo eventually made his way to his office at the rear of the building. Judge followed, and Theo spent a lot of time rubbing his dog’s head and talking to him. It made both of them feel better. Theo put his feet on his desk and looked around his small office. He focused on the wall where his favorite sketch always made him smile. It was an elaborate pencil drawing of young Theodore Boone, Attorney, in court wearing a suit and tie, with a gavel flying by his head and the jurors roaring with laughter. The caption screamed, “Overruled!” At the bottom right- hand corner, the artist had scribbled her name, April Finnemore. The drawing had been a gift for Theo’s birthday the year before.
Was her career over before it started? Was April dead, a sweet thirteen-year-old kid brutally abducted and killed because there was no one to take care of her? Theo’s hands were shaking and his mouth was dry. He closed and locked his door, then walked to the drawing and gently touched her name. His eyes were moist, then he began crying. He dropped to the floor and cried for a long time. Judge settled in next to him, watching him sadly.
Chapter 9
An hour passed and darkness settled in. Theo sat at his small desk, a card table equipped with lawyerly things-a daily planner, a small digital clock, a fake fountain pen set, his own nameplate carved in wood. Before him was an open Algebra textbook. He’d been staring at it for a long time, unable to read the words or turn the pages. His notebook was open, too, and the page was blank.
He could think of nothing but April, and the horror of watching from a distance as the police fished her body from the backwaters of the Yancey River. He had not actually seen a body, but he’d seen the police and scuba divers surround something and work frantically to remove it. Obviously, it was a body. A dead person. Why else would the police be there, doing what they were doing? There had been no other missing persons in Strattenburg in the past week, or the past year, for that matter. The list had only one name on it, and Theo was convinced that April was dead. Abducted and murdered and thrown in the water by Jack Leeper.
Theo couldn’t wait for Leeper’s trial. He hoped it would happen soon, just a few blocks away in the county courthouse. He would watch every moment of it, even if he had to skip school. Maybe he would be called as a witness. He wasn’t sure what he would say on the witness stand, but he would say whatever it took to nail Leeper, to get him convicted and sent away forever. It would be a great moment-Theo being called as a witness, walking into the packed courtroom, placing his hand on the Bible, swearing to tell the truth, taking his seat in the witness box, smiling up at Judge Henry Gantry, glancing confidently at the curious faces of the jurors, taking in the large audience, then glaring at the hideous face of Jack Leeper, staring him down in open court, fearless. The more Theo thought about this scene, the more he liked it. There was a good chance Theo was the last person to talk to April before she was abducted. He could testify that she was frightened, and, surprisingly, alone. Entry! That would be the issue. How did the attacker get into the house? Perhaps only Theo knew that she had locked all the doors and windows and even jammed chairs under doorknobs because she was so frightened. So, since there were no signs of a break-in, she knew the identity of her abductor. She knew Jack Leeper. Somehow he’d been able to
