Deviant (16 page)

Saturday. Indigo sky. White surf. Golden sand. Danny was dreaming about the beach at Santa Monica. Bodysurfing with his cousins. Laughing, rolling with the breakers, cradled by the even swell.

“Maybe we should go,” a voice said.

“Uh, yeah.”

Danny woke but he kept his eyes closed. He knew the score.
She
was in his room again and she'd brought someone with her this time. This outrageous behavior really had to end. Maybe he should tell Walt to buy a shotgun. Walt, though, was some kind of peacenik—opposed to guns. Maybe he should just tell his mother to lock the doors at night.

Two
people in his bedroom. Danny was angry, but
underneath the anger there was another current of emotion he was struggling to identify. What was that? Happiness? No, not quite. What then?

Relief.

Yeah, that was it.

He couldn't get really worked up at this repeated home invasion, because if she'd come over to his house, didn't that also mean she'd forgiven him for Starbucks?

“He breathes funny,” the stranger said. A boy.

“That's not him making that noise, that's Jeffrey,” Tony said.

“Who's Jeffrey?”

“The cat.”

“Oh.”

Danny now identified a third emotion underneath the anger and the relief.

That emotion was a kind of resentment. He thought, Why should Tony have been ticked off at him anyway? What exactly had he been doing wrong? Talking to two girls from their school? Talking to two girls who were obviously into him. What right did Tony have to be annoyed about that? They weren't boyfriend and girlfriend. They were just neighbors. Not even good neighbors. Tony's dad had tried to kill him, for heaven's sake. That wasn't very friendly.

“Let's wait downstairs, seems a shame to wake him. I could nap on the sofa, I was up late myself.”

Danny identified the male voice as Tom's.

He heard them pad out of his room and go downstairs.

He opened his eyes and glared at Jeffrey.

“Fine watch-cat you are. I thought you were a tough street kitty; you've gotten soft.”

As if on cue, Jeffrey rolled across the bed, stretching his claws and baring his fanglike yellow chops.

Danny smiled at him and rubbed his belly.

“Sorry, Jeff, I didn't mean it. It just takes a while to get used to a new place.”

In Vegas, Jeffrey had brought many dead offerings to the back door of the Lopez house: dormice, field mice, rats, a pigeon, and once, most impressively of all, a rattlesnake. For the first few days in Colorado, Jeffrey had refused to leave the upper floor. The previous night, however, he had proudly brought a dead vole through the newly installed cat flap—something that had horrified Juanita and secretly pleased both Danny and Walt, who'd exchanged a knowing look.

“Tough old geezer,” Walt had said, and now Danny repeated it in Jeffrey's ear: “Tough old geezer, ain't ya?”

Danny changed out of his racecar PJs and pulled on blue jeans, his red Converse high-tops, and his Raiders T-shirt.

He went downstairs and affected surprise when he saw Tony and Tom having Frosted Flakes at the breakfast table. Walt was standing there by the kettle with his nightshirt open to the navel, revealing his gray, hairy chest and blotchy corpselike skin.

It was disgusting and embarrassing.

“Morning,” Tony said.

“Hi,” Danny replied nonchalantly.

“Hey, Danny,” Tom said.

“Hey,” Danny replied, lifting a finger with rehearsed sangfroid.

“Danny, whatcha want for breakfast? I offered them eggs, but your friends are just having cereal,” Walt said.

“Wise choice,” Danny muttered.

“What?”

“I'll have cereal, too,” Danny said. “Where's Mom?”

“She's sleeping in. I'm bringing her breakfast in bed. End of her first workweek and all that, you know, old chap?”

When there was company around, Walt's nervous tics included a pseudo English or perhaps upper-class Bostonian accent. It was very tedious. Danny was sure that his real father would have been appalled by it.

“You wouldn't mind helping yourself to some Frosted Flakes while I bring this up to her, would you, Danny?”

“Sure,” Danny said, and poured the flakes into a bowl.

It was only after he'd eaten several spoonfuls and drank a glass of orange juice that he pretended to become interested in Tom and Tony's appearance in his house.

“So, what brings you two out here? Easy ride for you, Tony, but bit of a drag for you, Tom.”

“Easy for me; I've got an electric bike. Ever see one of those? Don't need to wear a helmet or get a license. And besides, I know all the shortcuts.”

“Don't tell Walt about that. He's got an electric car; he'll bore you to tears with it,” Danny said.

“Electric car? That red thing? Oh God, it's not the Tesla, is it?” Tom said excitedly.

Danny sighed inwardly. He'd be the first to admit that he was geekish, but Tom was some kind of supergeek.

“It is the Tesla,” Tony said.

“That is made of awesome!” Tom replied.

“Not to me,” Danny muttered.

“Tesla Motors is on fire right now, and we're practically living in Teslaville, and we've got a Tesla coil in our school, so come on! And electric cars are the future,” Tom said.

Hector had used that phrase the day before—a Tesla coil.

“What exactly is a Tesla coil?” Danny asked.

“It's a big sort of thing that does stuff,” Tony said, which didn't really explain an awful lot.

“You'll see it in science class,” Tom said, and looked at them significantly. “Maybe it's time to get down to business?”

“Yeah, why are you guys here?” Danny wondered.

“You haven't heard?” Tony said.

“Heard what?”

“You know Sarah Kolpek, 7A?”

“No.”

“She lives on Alameda. About twenty houses from here. They were out for the night, and when they came home they found her cat, Coco, hanging from the tree outside her house,” Tony said.

A chill went down Danny's spine. He looked at Jeffrey. Twenty houses from here?

“Hanging?” Danny asked.

“Hanging,” Tom said.

For some reason Danny thought of Hector, the son of the state executioner, but Hector had an alibi for at least part of the day, after school.

“What time did it go missing?” he asked.

“No one's sure, but they found it about five this morning on a chestnut tree at the front of the house,” Tony said.

“The
front
of the house?” Danny said.

“Yes, what difference does that make?” Tom asked.

“Our killer's getting pretty bold,” Danny said. “I take it no one's blaming this on a coyote?”

Tom shook his head and looked embarrassed. “No, I was wrong about that, wasn't I?”

“Not a coyote, not a fox, not a wolf,” Tony said.

“So how did you hear about it?” Danny asked.

“I was up at six this morning. I heard the story on the news, texted Tom, told him what you told me last night, and he came right over,” Tony muttered.

Danny was confused. “Wait a minute. What did I tell you last night?”

“That your friend Bob Randall was an expert and he could break open the whole cat-killing case for us.”

Danny nodded. “Oh yeah, that. I forgot about that. Yeah, he's got a PhD in criminal psych.”

“Can we go see him today?” Tony said anxiously.

“I'd like to talk to this guy, too,” Tom said, and he was fidgeting and drumming his fingers, which Danny knew would eventually drive him up the wall.

“Uh, I don't think so. It's a Saturday. It is a Saturday, right?”

“Yes,” Tony said impatiently.

“No … maybe after school on Monday or something,” Danny said.

Tony pulled open the living room curtains, flooding the room with light and making Danny wince. “No,” she announced. “We have to do it today. Something's changed. Something's happened. ‘Bold,' you said. Yes, he's gotten bolder and the interval between the killings has dropped. First weeks, now days,” Tony said forcefully.

“This Bob sounds like a pretty interesting dude,” Tom said.

Danny shook his head. It would mean asking Walt to take them, and the last thing he wanted to do was involve Walt.

“It's a Saturday. I don't think we can go to the prison on a Saturday,” Danny said.

“All we can do is ask. When your parents come down, we'll ask them. They can only say no.”

Danny nodded reluctantly. “OK, we'll see. Look, I need to take a shower.”

“I'll say,” Tony said, and winked to show that she was only kidding.

After finishing his cereal, Danny went into the bathroom to have a shower. When he came out, having changed into jeans and a gray hoodie, everyone was eating some kind of cake.

“Sit down,” Juanita said. “Look what Walt got us.”

“Have some cake,” Walt said.

Danny shook his head. “I just brushed my teeth,” he said, but he sat at the table anyway.

“What's the occasion?” Danny asked, staring at a large carrot cake.

“Your mother's first full week at her new job. Some of my chaps made it for her,” Walt said.

Danny regarded the carrot cake with suspicion. “This was made by convicts?”

Walt shook his head. “We don't call them that. They're really a very nice bunch of people,” Walt said.

“Did you check if there were any poisoners in there?” Danny asked.

Tom paled and looked suspiciously at the bit of cake, frozen on the fork in front of him.

Tony laughed and swallowed the big piece in her mouth. “Actually, that's why we came over here,” she said.

“Oh?” Walt said.

“Yes, Danny tells us that your foreman, Bob Randall, is an expert in criminal psychology, and we were wondering if he had any insight into the cat killings that have been going on around here.”

“What cat killings?” Juanita asked.

“You want to go and see Bob?” Walt asked.

“This morning, if possible,” Tom said.

“Hmm, I don't know,” Walt said, looking at Juanita. “We promised that we'd take a trip up to the casino.”

Danny's mother put down her fork. “What cat killings?”

Tony filled her in and explained that they wanted to look into it because nobody else was taking it seriously.

“What about the local police?” Juanita asked.

Tony scoffed. “Sarah Kolpek's mother told my mother that Sheriff Rossi thinks it was some kind of freak accident.”

“You told your mother to call Sarah's mother without consulting me? I mean … us?” Tom said, clearly miffed and looking at Danny for support.

“
Could
it have been a freak accident?” Juanita asked.

Tony shrugged. “I guess … maybe … I don't know. That's why we need to talk to Bob. Danny says he's the big expert.”

Juanita looked at the three kids and suppressed a tight smile. It was certainly rather morbid that they were taking an interest in a cat that had died, and it was definitely strange that they wanted to interview a prisoner, but Danny didn't make friends that easily and these children seemed to be his friends. And they weren't “the bad crowd”—quite the reverse. Tony was intelligent, polite, nice. And Tom, although a little odder, was the same.

“I want you to call up your parents and get permission, and if they say it's OK, then we'll all go. What do you think, Walt?” Juanita said.

Walt shook his head. “Honey, I know you had your heart set on showing us the casino.”

“We can do both. Ask your parents if it's OK and we'll do both!” Juanita said brightly.

“Great,” Tony said.

“Yeah, sure,” Tom said.

Tom called his mother, who didn't appear to mind at all and merely asked if it was some kind of school project for Mr. Lebkuchen, to which Tom replied that it wasn't—not really.