Blindfold (9 page)

And then there was his 4-H pin. He never wore it. But Fd stolen it off his dresser a couple of weeks before that awful night. When Dante wasn't around, which was most of the time, Fd been wearing it on my denim jacket. I just wanted something of his. Sol took it.

I never wore the jacket when Dante was around, even though I knew he wouldn't care about the pin. But he might have cared that I'd-gone into his room without his permission, since he had jillions of notebooks scattered all over the place with stupid, moony things about Christy written inside, and he'd be afraid that I had read them. Like I'd want to. Anyway, I never told him I'd taken the pin.

What must have happened was, when I swung the tire iron, the clasp on the pin pulled loose and the pin fell off. Landed on the frozen ground without making a sound. And there it stayed. Until one of the sheriffs deputies found it.

It's really not my fault that Dante scratched his initials on the back of that pin.

I did go to the courthouse for most of the trial, until my parents got so disgusted with the whole process, they refused to take me into Felicity. I had

to hitchhike in for the reading of the verdict. I had been expressly forbidden to ever hitchhike, but after you've murdered someone, you don't sweat the small stuff.

That was a terrible day, the day they pronounced Dante guilty. It was February by then, still too cold outside to open the courthouse windows. It smelled of stale sweat and cigar smoke inside. There wasn't an ounce of fresh air anywhere in that small, crowded room as the jury foreperson announced calmly and matter-of-factly, as if she were casually mentioning that it just might snow that afternoon, "Guilty. 79

The sound of it rang in my head like bells . . . ding ... Guilty ... dong ... Guilty. Ding dong, the boy is dead.

Not that I thought he'd get the death penalty; he never would, not in Greene County. But he'd be sent to prison for life and was there really a difference? Either way, Dante's life was over.

I was screaming inside. Nonononononono! This could not be happening!

But hadn't I thought the same thing as Christy fell to the ground, her skull in two pieces? Hadn't I told myself that couldn't be happening? But it happened anyway, didn't it? And she'd died, hadn't she? So ...

Dante was going to prison and it didn't really matter how I felt about it.

When the verdict was read, Dante's mother screamed. His father clutched at his chest. (Two days later, while he was just sitting in his recliner

watching the news but not really seeing it because all he was thinking about was that his only son was going to grow old in prison, Mr. Guardino had a heart attack and died right there in his chair.)

I don't know how Dante's mother survived that ghastly year.

And that wasn't the end of it. That wasn't even the worst of it, although no one but me knows what the worst of it really was.

And I don't want them to know now.

Scout was aghast. He reached out and picked up one chunk, held it in his hands. "You let someone demolish my grandfather's gavel?"

"I didn't let them, Scout. I don't even know how someone got it. It was in my backpack. I used it this morning at the hearing, and then I put it in my backpack. I know I did."

"I don't think so." Scout's tone was harsh. "If you had, it wouldn't look like scrap lumber now." He sent Maggie an accusatory look. "Jeez, I thought you'd take better care of it than this. It was an antique, Maggie!"

Maggie stared at him. "Scout! I did take care of it!" She fingered the smooth-sawn edges of the chunks in her hands. "This isn't just broken, can't you tell that? It's not like I carelessly threw it on the floor or dropped it, and it broke. Someone sawed it into all these pieces. Someone stole it out of my backpack and did this to it."

The understanding that someone had invaded her belongings, invaded her privacy, had taken something that belonged to her and destroyed it, then brought it to her house, to her home, had earlier sent a wave of dizziness washing over Maggie. She had thought, standing at the foot of the steps in the twilight, the wood pieces in her hands, that she couldn't deal with that at all. But she had dealt with it. She had collected all of the chunks, and she had gone inside, and she had rested for an hour. Then she got up, took a shower, changed into jeans and a sweater, combed her hair, stuffed the wood pieces in the pockets of her blue-and-white Bransom High

windbreaker, and left the house, just as she would have if someone hadn't violated her privacy.

Because what else could she do?

Now, as her friends tried to comprehend what she was presenting to them and what she had said about it, she lifted her head to ask, "Why would someone do this? Who would do this?"

Alex answered, "Almost anyone we've sentenced on the peer jury. That gavel was probably a symbol of our power over them, and they'd think they had reason to destroy it. They'd want to make sure you saw what they'd done, hoping it would teach you a lesson."

"James Keith takes shop," Helen volunteered. "He's in my class. He could have used a saw in there. Wouldn't have taken him more than a minute or two. Mr. Norman probably wouldn't even have noticed. No one would have."

Maggie considered that. "But the gavel was in my backpack. Unless ..."

Scout eyed her suspiciously. "Unless what?"

"Well, the way you dragged me out of there this morning," Maggie accused, "maybe it slipped out when I was skidding across the gym floor."

"Oh, right. Blame me. Why can't you just admit that you were careless?"

He really is mad that I was picked as foreperson instead of him, Maggie thought with surprise. That's why he's being so mean now. "I wasn't careless, Scout. I'm not a careless person, and you know it." She looked down at the wood in her hands, then looked up at Scout. "I guess it can't be fixed?"

"No. It can't be fixed."

"You know," Lane said, "it could have been that Alice Ann from this morning. The girl who calls herself Chantilly. She was really ticked this morning. And she takes shop, too. I've seen her going in and out of there."

"Well," Alex commented, "it's definitely a message. I guess it was meant for you, Maggie, since it was your gavel. And they brought it to your house, in broad daylight, yet." He thrust his hands in the pockets of his Bransom High athletic jacket and added, "So they know where you live."

"Shouldn't we take this to the sheriff?" Whit asked Maggie. "If the gavel really was an antique, it must have been worth something."

"Only sentimentally," Scout answered, his voice gruff. "I don't think the cops would be that interested. But if Maggie's scared because whoever did this knows where she lives and is mad at her, maybe we should talk to the sheriff." He shrugged. "I mean, whoever it was could come back, right? And then there's that business with the beam today. Maybe the two things are connected."

Maggie shuddered. "It probably was James. He was so mad this morning. And I must have dropped the gavel on my way out of the gym. He saw it, picked it up, and decided to get even, just a little bit. Maybe he got it all out of his system."

Helen shook her head. "Maggie, James left the gym before we did. He was already gone when Scout hustled you out."

Scout glared at her.

Maggie looked doubtful. "He must have come back. Maybe to yell at me or something. He found the gavel, took it to shop and turned it into alphabet blocks, then brought it to my house. Like he was saying, Nyah, nyah, nyah. That's James's style. I'm not worried."

That was almost true. It was horrible that James had come to her house. The place where she was always supposed to be safe. That, she didn't like at all. But she really did believe it was a one-shot deal. James had been furious, he'd vented that fury, and now he'd leave her alone. He wouldn't dare go beyond this one act of vandalism. He was already on shaky ground both at school and in the community. He wouldn't risk spending time in those dank, dark jail cells in the basement. The new jail cells weren't completed yet.

"I'm really sorry about the gavel," she told Scout sincerely.

He waved a hand. "I guess it wasn't your fault." He took the gavel's remnants from her and tossed them into a nearby trash can. "But we'd better keep an eye on James. Just in case ..."

"Look," Maggie said, moving out from beneath the tree, "there's a bazaar going on here, and I'm supposed to be helping. Can we just forget about James and try to have some fun before I have to go on kitchen duty at eight? I'm starving, and the smell from that barbecue cart is driving me nuts. Let's get something to eat."

And although Helen muttered, "I just don't see why your mother didn't cancel this thing after what

happened today," everyone else followed Maggie into the heart of the teeming crowd. After a moment of hesitation, Helen followed, too.

The damaged wing, Maggie noticed with relief, had been roped off. There were security guards posted at intervals along the roping, to keep children and curiosity-seekers from slipping inside. Her mother wasn't taking any chances on another disaster ruining the bazaar.

With nightfall came a cooling of temperatures accompanied by a brisk breeze. Maggie was grateful for her heavy turtleneck sweater, its color palest blue, and wondered briefly if Lane had noticed that Whit's sweater was blue, too, although a darker shade. Lane wouldn't like that.

The rapidly swelling throng filled the parking lot, examining the merchandise laid out on the dozen or so long, narrow tables lined up side by side, ordering food at one of several wooden food booths and the steaming, aromatic barbecue cart. They all seemed to be in high spirits, apparently not the least bit worried about disaster overtaking them from the building looming over them.

Word had spread that members of the peer jury had been inside at the time of the collapse. Walking alongside the tables piled high with labeled merchandise, they were besieged by questions. People wanted to know, "Are there bats down there?" and "What'd it feel like, Maggie, to be trapped in there?" No one seemed suspicious that the incident hadn't been accidental, so Maggie assumed the sheriff was keeping his opinions to himself, for now.

The questions were annoying. As if she could describe in words the terrible feeling of dread when the ceiling gave way, the fear of suffocation, that one brief moment when she'd forgotten about the coal chute and thought they might be trapped in that basement for hours. She didn't even try. Just shook her head and pressed on through the crowd. The others did the same.

Maggie found her attention drawn to Whit in spite of herself. Although he was wearing the same kind of clothes every other guy there was wearing--jeans and a denim jacket over the blue sweater -- his easy air of self-confidence made him seem older than most of Bransom High's male population. Maggie wondered if private school had done that. She also wondered why he had left. He'd said it was partly because of what was going on with the courthouses. That seemed like a silly reason to switch schools at the beginning of junior year.

Because Lane had already pressed in as close to Whit as she could get without climbing up his heels, Maggie said, a bit too sharply, "I go on kitchen duty in twenty minutes. If I'm going to get any dinner, I'd better do it now. I'm going to have to wait in line at the barbecue cart."

It seemed to Maggie that, in spite of the disaster that afternoon, everyone in town who could walk was at the bazaar. The parking lot was one shoulder-to-shoulder, noisy mass of people. Maybe because it was a Friday night, and fun was in short supply in Felicity on a weekend.

Alex was disappointed. "I was kind of hoping," he said glumly, "that what happened this afternoon might lower the turnout tonight. Then the Women of Heritage wouldn't raise enough money, and they'd have to cancel the restoration plans. Especially now that everyone knows how dangerous that building really is."

Scout added darkly, 'They're taking a big chance, if you ask me." He surveyed the noisy crowd gathering around the tables, exclaiming over the merchandise on display. "Anything bad happens here tonight, we could lose half of Felicity."

Maggie frowned. "If anything happens? Like what? We're outside, Scout, what could happen? It's not like the ground could collapse under our feet. Felicity doesn't have earthquakes."

He shrugged. "I dunno. I just have this bad feeling "

"Stop it, will you? You're giving me the creeps!" That business with the gavel must have really upset Scout. He wasn't usually morbid. Maggie's eyes moved involuntarily to the huge, old courthouse. There were lights on inside, in the kitchen wing next to the parking lot where her mother was working. But even that yellow glow shining like cats'-eyes didn't erase the bleak, forlorn look. Though everyone else seemed to be ignoring the building, Maggie was constantly aware of its presence, feeling its yellow-eyed stare between her shoulder blades even when she deliberately kept her back to it.

My friends are right, she thought, suppressing a

shudder. It should be torn down. No amount of restoration is going to bring that rotting old pile of boards back to life. It should be put to rest.

"When are they taking the statue down?" Alex asked of no one in particular. His gaze was focused on the very top of the three-story structure. He was speaking of the giant metal statue of Justice, affixed to the top of the courthouse. Blindfolded and balancing in her hands a set of scales, she had stood proudly atop the building for over sixty years, overseeing Felicity and the surrounding county. Because she was sturdy enough to withstand even the worst of storms, getting her down would be no small task.

"Next Saturday, around noon," Lane answered. She was wearing a pale green sweater and matching slacks, and looked especially pretty, her dark hair spilling over her shoulders like satin. "They have to use a crane, I heard. And the mayor is having some kind of ceremony, because the thing has been up there forever. The peer jury is invited. In fact, we're supposed to be here. Ms. Gross thought it would be 'appropriate/ Said we should be in on what she called a 'history-making event/ "