Chapter 11
Friday morning. After a crazy night of dreams, nightmares, frequent naps, insomnia, voices, and visions, Theo finally gave up and rolled out of bed at 6:30. As he sat on the edge of his bed and pondered what dreadful news the day would bring, he caught the unmistakable aroma of sausage drifting up from the kitchen. His mother prepared pancakes and sausage on those rare occasions when she thought her son and sometimes her husband needed a boost in the morning. But Theo wasn’t hungry. He had no appetite and doubted if he would find one anytime soon. Judge, who slept under the bed, poked his head out and looked up at Theo. Both looked tired and sleepy.
“Sorry if I kept you awake, Judge,” Theo said.
Judge accepted the apology.
“But then, you have the rest of the day to do nothing but sleep.”
Judge seemed to agree.
Theo was tempted to flip open his laptop and check the local news, but he really didn’t want to. Then he thought about grabbing the remote and turning on the television. Another bad idea. Instead, he took a long shower, got dressed, loaded his backpack, and was about to head downstairs when his cell phone rang. It was his uncle Ike.
“Hello,” Theo said, somewhat surprised that Ike was awake at such an early hour. He was not known as a morning person.
“Theo, it’s Ike. Good morning.”
“Good morning, Ike.” Though Ike was in his early sixties, he insisted that Theo call him simply Ike. None of that uncle stuff. Ike was a complicated person.
“What time are you headed to school?”
“Half an hour or so.”
“You have time to run by and have a chat? I have some very interesting gossip that no one knows.”
Theo was required by family ritual to stop by Ike’s office every Monday afternoon. The visits usually lasted about thirty minutes and were not always pleasant. Ike liked to quiz Theo about his grades and his schoolwork and his future and so on, which was tedious. Ike was quick with a lecture. His own children were grown and lived far away, and Theo was his only nephew. He could not imagine why Ike wanted to see him so early on a Friday morning.
“Sure,” Theo said.
“Hurry up, and don’t tell anyone.”
“You got it, Ike.” Theo closed his phone and thought, How odd. But he had no time to dwell on it. And, his brain was already overloaded. Judge, no doubt because of the sausage, was scratching at the door.
Woods Boone had breakfast five days a week at the same table in the same downtown diner with the same group of friends at the same time, 7:00. Because of this, Theo rarely saw his father in the morning. Theo received a peck on the cheek from his mother, who was still in her robe, as they exchanged good morning and compared how they slept. Marcella, when she wasn’t tied up in court, spent the early part of each Friday morning getting worked on. Hair, nails, toes. As a professional, she was serious about her appearance. Her husband was not quite as concerned about his.
“No news on April,” Mrs. Boone said. The small television next to the microwave was not on.
“What does that mean?” Theo asked as he took a seat. Judge was standing next to the stove, as close to the sausage as he could possibly get.
“It means nothing, at least for now,” she said as she placed a plate in front of Theo. A stack of small round pancakes, three links of sausage. She poured him a glass of milk.
“Thanks, Mom. This is awesome. What about Judge?”
“Of course,” she said as she placed a small plate in front of the dog. Pancakes and sausage, too.
“Dig in.” She took her seat and looked at the large breakfast sitting in front of her son. She sipped her coffee. Theo had no choice but to eat like he was starving. After a few bites, he said, “Delicious, Mom.”
“Thought you might need something extra this morning.”
“Thanks.”
After a pause in which she watched him closely, she said, “Theo, are you all right? I mean, I know this is just awful, but how are you handling it?”
It was easier to chew than to talk. Theo had no answer. How do you describe your emotions when a close friend is abducted and probably tossed in a river? How do you express your sadness when that friend was a neglected kid from a strange family with nutty parents, a kid who didn’t have much of a chance?
Theo kept chewing. When he had to say something, he sort of grunted, “I’m okay, Mom.” It was not the truth, but at the moment it was all he could manage.
“Do you want to talk about it?”
Ah, the perfect question. Theo shook his head and said, “No, I do not. That just makes it worse.”
She smiled and said, “Okay, I understand.”
Fifteen minutes later, Theo hopped on his bike, rubbed Judge’s head, and said good-bye, then flew down the Boones’ driveway and onto Mallard Lane.
Long before Theo was born, Ike Boone had been a lawyer. He had founded the firm with Theo’s parents. The three lawyers worked well together and prospered, until Ike did something wrong. Something bad. Whatever Ike did, it was not discussed in Theo’s presence. Naturally curious, and raised by two lawyers, Theo had been pecking away at Ike’s mysterious downfall for several years, but he had learned little. His father rebuffed all nosiness with a brusque, “We’ll discuss it when you get older.” His mother usually said something like, “Your father will explain it one day.”
Theo knew only the basics: (1) Ike had once been a smart and successful tax lawyer; (2) then he went to prison for several years; (3) he was disbarred and can never be a lawyer again; (4) while he was in prison, his wife divorced him and left Strattenburg with their three children; (5) the children, Theo’s first cousins, were much older than Theo and he’d never met them; and (6) relations between Ike and Theo’s parents were not that good.
Ike eked out a living as a tax accountant for small businesses and a few other clients. He lived alone in a tiny apartment. He liked to think of himself as a misfit, even a rebel against the establishment. He wore weird clothes, long, gray hair pulled into a ponytail, sandals (even in cold weather), and usually had the Grateful Dead or Bob Dylan playing on the cheap stereo in his office. He worked above a Greek deli, in a wonderfully shabby old room with rows of untouched books on the shelves.
Theo bounced up the stairs, knocked on the door as he pushed it open, and strolled into Ike’s office as if he owned the place. Ike was at his desk, one even more cluttered than his brother Woods’s, and he was sipping coffee from a tall paper cup. “Mornin’, Theo,” he said like a real grump.
“Hey, Ike.” Theo fell into a rickety wooden chair by the desk. “What’s up?”
Ike leaned forward on his elbows. His eyes were red and puffy. Over the years, Theo had heard snippets of gossip about Ike’s drinking, and he assumed that was one reason his uncle got off to a slow start each morning.
“I guess you’re worried about your friend, the Finnemore girl,” Ike said.
Theo nodded.
“Well stop worrying. It ain’t her. The body they pulled from the river appears to be that of a man, not a girl. They’re not sure. DNA will confirm in a day or two, but the person is, or was, five feet six inches tall. Your friend was about five one, right?”
“I guess.”
“The body is extremely decomposed, which suggests that it spent more than a few days in the water. Your friend was snatched late Tuesday night or early Wednesday morning. If her kidnapper tossed her in the river shortly after that, the body would not be as decomposed as this one. It’s a mess, with a lot of missing parts. Probably been in the water for a week or so.”
