Dew Drop Dead (10 page)

“Okay, okay, my eyes are on this lock. My ears are all yours.”

Sebastian leaned against the locker next to David's and said, almost in a whisper, “I can't believe we overlooked it, it seems so obvious. If there was a lot more scribbling in that one section of the Bible, then it must mean something, right?”

David nodded absently.

“So tell me the story of the—what did you call it?”

“The
akedah.
Let me get this straight, Sebastian. We have ninety seconds until our next class, my locker is glued for life, my homework is trapped inside, and you want me to tell you a Bible story?”

“Are you listening to me? This could be really important!”

“You're right. As usual. Here, you try the lock, I'll tell the story.”

The boys changed places. “Okay,” David began, “the
akedah.
There is this old guy, see, who God puts to the test. He tells him, ‘Take your favorite son and sacrifice him.' See, in those days, people sacrificed animals as part of their religion. So this old guy, he never questions God, he just takes his son and they go up on this mountain and they gather all this wood for a burnt offering, and the son says, ‘Where's the sheep we're going to sacrifice?' And the father doesn't know what to say, so he just tells him God will provide the sheep. So they put all the wood down for a fire and the father lays his son down on the wood and pulls out a knife, and he's just about ready to slay the son when an angel of the Lord appears and says, ‘Hold it! You've proven that you love God, you don't have to sacrifice your son.' And just then a sheep appears and the old man sacrifices it instead.”

There was a loud click followed by an even
louder clanging of bells. “Your locker is open,” said Sebastian.

“Yeah, and I'm going to be late. So, Sherlock, what do you make of the story?” David knelt down to rummage through a mess of papers on the floor of his locker.

“I don't know. It's an
almost
murder. What were their names, the father and son?”

“Abraham and Isaac,” said David. His hand stopped moving, and he looked up at Sebastian. “Abraham and Isaac,” he repeated. “I can't believe I didn't make the connection before. The guy at the church is named Abraham.”

Sebastian knelt down by David's side. “Remember what Corrie told us?” he said in an excited whisper. “She asked him if he had any family, and he said something about Isaac.”

“Wow.”

“How old would you say Abraham is?”

“At the time of the
akedah?
A hundred and thirty-seven, I think.”

“Not the one in the Bible, the one at the church. He's old, too, right? Maybe forty or fifty?”

David nodded. “And the guy who was killed was twenty-six. Holy cow, Sebastian, you're not saying this guy murdered his own son, are you?”

“I don't know, but we've got to tell Alex.”

“Not now.”

“I know not now. It'll have to wait until after school.”

“I've got music practice.”

“I'll go alone then.”

“Speaking of going—”

“Yeah, I'm late, too. Did you find your homework?” Sebastian asked as the boys stood and David slammed his locker shut.

“I, uh, had it in my notebook the whole time. But don't feel bad. I needed my oboe anyway. I'll see you later.”

Sebastian looked across the hall. Miss Gerrard was already at the blackboard. “And speaking of murder,” he said, more to himself than David. Miss Gerrard was not one to excuse latenesses. He was in for it.

MISS GERRARD
tapped the board with her pointer.

“Sebastian Barth,” she said, “this is the third time I have asked you to pay attention. Are you ill?”

Sebastian shook his head and ignored the sound of his classmates' snickering. “I'm fine,” he said.

“Your definition of ‘fine' and mine are not likely to be found in the same dictionary. One more warning and I will have to ask you to stay after school. Now, if we may continue our review, please explain to us the function of the electoral college.”

Sebastian heard himself talking but his mind had narrowed in on one word Miss Gerrard had uttered: warning.

Corrie sat three seats ahead of him and one row over. He had to let her know that Abraham was not as harmless as he seemed, to urge her not to go to the church after school. Afraid she would be surrounded by a group of friends the moment class let out, he decided to pass her a note as soon as Miss Gerrard's attention was elsewhere.

“Thank you, Mr. Barth,” he heard the teacher say. “An intelligent—if distracted—dissertation. Milo Groot, how did the two-party system evolve in American politics?”

Milo sat on the far side of the room in the front seat of the row next to the windows. He was always good for a five-minute answer to a one-minute question. Now was the time.

Carefully, silently, Sebastian opened his notebook and tore out a blank sheet of paper. On it he wrote:
Corrie, Meet me after class
—
in private. It's important! S
.

He folded the sheet of paper and wrote Corrie's name on the outside. “Pass it on,” he whispered to Adam Wells as he tapped him on the shoulder.

“Is it a love note?” Adam whispered back.

Sebastian made a face and poked him hard. “Do it,” he hissed. Miss Gerrard looked up just as both boys looked down.

“What
is
it, Mr. Barth?” she said.

“I didn't say anything,” Sebastian lied.

The teacher shook her head. “My patience is like the seat of a bus driver's pants,” she said. “Worn thin.”

“Yes, Miss Gerrard.”

“Continue, Milo. You were saying . . .”

Sebastian followed the note's journey as it made its way down the row of seats in front of him. With each movement, he darted a glance across the room.

Janis Tupper leaned across the aisle separating her seat from Corrie's. “Psst,” she said.

“I'll take that, Janis,” said Miss Gerrard, walking briskly across the front of the room and snatching the piece of paper up with such abruptness it actually snapped.

“I'm afraid Corrie will be unable to keep your date, Sebastian,” the teacher said, after making a show of opening and reading the note. “You already have a date. With me.”

“But,” said Sebastian, knowing he had nothing to say after “but,” but hoping against hope that offering that much would imply he had an important reason for doing what he did.

“But you have a date with me,” said Miss Gerrard. “And I assure you, we won't be having ice cream sundaes.”

The class laughed openly at this. Sebastian hated them all for betraying him over a one-liner—and not a very clever one at that.

When the bell rang fifteen minutes later, Sebastian jumped up, hoping to reach Corrie before Miss Gerrard could stop him.

“Sit,” said the teacher.

“I have to tell Corrie something,” he said. “It's important, Miss Gerrard. Honest. It's a matter of life and death.”

Miss Gerrard smirked. “At your age,” she said,
“pimples are a matter of life and death. You and Corrie can discuss blackheads on your own time. Right now, you're still on my time. And on my time, you are going to write an essay on the First Amendment.”

“Isn't that the right to free speech?” Sebastian asked.

“Precisely,” said the teacher, missing the irony.

“Find David,” Sebastian mouthed to Corrie as he collapsed into his seat.

“What?” she mouthed back.

“Find David,” he repeated.

Corrie just shrugged. “I don't understand,” her face told him. Before he could try again, Sebastian heard Miss Gerrard say, “Goodbye, Corrie Wingate.” And Corrie, looking apologetic, stepped out and disappeared into the crowded hall.

“WAIT UP!”
David shouted.

Sebastian turned and saw his friend running down the hall toward him, his oboe case banging against his thigh.

“I thought I saw you go by the music room a minute ago,” David said, catching his breath. “What are you doing here? Did you tell Alex? What did he say? Why'd you come back to school?”

“To answer your last question first, I never left. Geronimo caught me passing a note to Corrie and made me stay after. I just got sprung.”

“You mean Alex doesn't know?”

“Not unless he figured it out for himself.” Hearing his own words, Sebastian laughed. “Gee, I never thought of that,” he said. “Maybe the police have this case solved by now—
without
us.”

“Well,” said David, “there's one way to find out.”

“Right,” Sebastian said, zipping his jacket and shoving the school door open with his shoulder. “Next stop, the Pembroke Sauna.”

* * *

“THE CHIEF isn't here,” the sergeant at the front desk said briskly. He waited to add, “He's out on a call.”

David turned to leave, but Sebastian asked, “Is he at the church?”

“I'm not at liberty to say,” the sergeant answered. He was a small man with thin lips who seemed to take pleasure in hoarding what he viewed as privileged information.

Sebastian persevered. “It's important that we find him,” he said.

The sergeant sighed. “Do you want to fill out a report?” he asked, opening a desk drawer. “What is it—your bike was stolen?”

“Nobody's bike was stolen,” Sebastian replied. “We wouldn't waste the chiefs time with something like that.”

“So what is it? You can tell me.”

“That's okay. We'll tell Alex when we find him. Thanks for all your help.”

The sergeant gave the boys an open-handed shrug, as if to say, “What can I do? I tried.”

“What a jerk,” David said outside.

“Yeah, and we're a couple of jerks, too,” said Sebastian. “Here we are trying to find Alex when we know Rebecca is at the church. Let's go tell her.”

“Do you think Corrie will be there?”

“Probably.”

“Corrie and the killer,” said David. “Hey, that's a good title.”

“This isn't the time for creative writing,” Sebastian said, grabbing David's arm and breaking into a run. “It's time to move fast.”

REBECCA WAS WAITING in the church vestibule.

“Alex is on his way over,” she told the boys. “He's getting an okay from the assistant DA to issue an arrest warrant.”

“You talked to him?” Sebastian asked.

“Does that surprise you?”

“When, just now?”

“A few minutes ago.”

“He was at the station?”

Rebecca nodded. “Why?”

Sebastian exchanged a look of disgust with David. “Never mind,” he said. “We'll tell you later.”

“Wow,” said David, “an arrest warrant. And to think we broke the case. The rock, the shirt, the Bible—”

“Is Corrie downstairs?” Sebastian asked.

“Yes. She's with her father.”

“Can we go down?”

“I'll go with you,” Rebecca said. “There's really no reason I need to wait here for Alex.”

Descending the stairs to the basement social hall, Rebecca said, “So you figured out who did it.”

It sounded to Sebastian as if they were playing a game of Clue all of a sudden instead of talking about a real live murder case.

“It's obvious, isn't it?” he said as they opened the door at the bottom of the stairs. As he looked around, the obvious no longer seemed so.

Across the room, Abraham sat listening to Corrie play her guitar. He was leaning against the wall, his eyes closed, one hand raised in the air, the index finger just touching his slightly open mouth. He looked at peace and as innocent as a sleeping child.

In another part of the room, Raymond Elveri was talking to the Reverend Wingate. In his hands he held a Bible.

Estelle Barker was reading to her children from a book Sebastian recognized from when he was little. But the words were all wrong. It dawned on him that she was making up a story to go with the pictures. Estelle Barker couldn't read. That meant, Sebastian thought, that she couldn't write either. Was it her hand that had covered the Bible David had found with that peculiar script?

David poked him. Sebastian nodded. “I know,” his eyes said, “she's wearing the shirt.”

Marcus was lying on his cot, staring at the ceiling. He wasn't reading, but he had been. Next to him was the detective magazine Sebastian had discovered at the inn.

No one had looked up when they'd quietly entered
the room. But when the door opened again, this time with greater force and preceded by the sound of heavy footsteps rushing down the stairs, everyone turned.

Police Chief Alex Theopoulos stood in the doorway, a somber expression on his face and a piece of paper in his left hand.

It was not his left hand Sebastian noticed first, however. It was the right hand, resting lightly on the handle of the gun.

“REVEREND WINGATE
, may I have a word?”

Corrie's father was clearly disturbed but not surprised by the appearance of the police chief. Sebastian figured that Rebecca must have tipped him off. The minister crossed the room as Corrie stopped her playing.

Sebastian was close enough to hear Alex whisper, “If you would ask the children and Mrs. . . .”

“Barker.”

“Yes, if you would ask them to leave with you, please.” Seeing the look on the minister's face, he added, “I'm sorry to have to do this. It's unpleasant, I know.”

Reverend Wingate shook his head. “It's not a matter of its being unpleasant,” he said. “I just feel so sorry for—” He stopped abruptly, leaving Sebastian to wonder
whom
he felt sorry for, and in a normal voice said, “Corrie, would you come with me, please? Mrs. Barker, would you bring Alyssa and Devon along?”