Make them Cry (10 page)

“I just heard someone,” Anton said under his breath.

“Stop it.” Peter let out a skittish laugh and nudged Anton. “You’re creeping me out.”

“I’m pretty creeped out myself. I don’t like this at all.” With the flashlight, he swept a beam across the cluster of trees and bushes. Shadows seemed to dance in every nook. “All right, who’s there?” Anton called. “Cut the bullshit.”

No response, just the rustling sound.

“I don’t think there’s anyone—”

“Oh, Jesus,” Anton murmured. The beacon of light seemed to catch something past the first row of trees. Peter thought he saw it, too, or maybe his eyes were playing tricks on him.

“Stay here,” Anton said.

“Wait! No!”

But Anton took off.

Peter stood paralyzed for a moment. His heart was racing. He watched Anton dart past some trees, then disappear in the thicket. The flashlight went out. Peter could hear the twigs snapping beneath Anton’s feet. He seemed to be slowing down. Or was he just getting farther and farther away?

“Anton?” he called at last.

No answer.

Peter glanced down at the ground and spotted a thick, broken section of a tree branch. He swiped it off the forest floor. It was bulky and awkward to carry, but nearly the size of a baseball bat. Peter figured he could defend himself with it.

“Anton? Where are you?” he called again, a slight tremor in his voice. He listened for another minute, but there was nothing. Then it suddenly occurred to him:
It’s a prank
. He hadn’t actually seen or heard anything. Anton was pulling his leg, having a little fun.

But it wasn’t funny.

“Hey, Anton, I get the joke,” he announced loudly. “I know you can hear me. Why don’t you answer?”

Again, no response. Peter tightened his grip on the makeshift club. All at once, Anton’s voice broke the stillness.

“Oh, Jesus,
no, don’t
—”

Then there was a heavy thud. Peter’s whole body stiffened. He wanted to run, but couldn’t move. He couldn’t even breathe. He listened to the twigs snapping underfoot.

“Anton, quit kidding around!” he cried. “It’s not funny!”

The footsteps seemed to be coming closer. Peter wasn’t sure which way to run. His eyes brimmed with tears. He was certain he would die in these lonely, dark woods.

Then he heard the laughter, a low snickering. It was Anton. He emerged from the shadows, holding the flashlight up, directly under his face. It gave him a demonic look. “Sucker!” He grinned. “You fell for it!”

Peter quickly wiped his tears away. “Fuck you,” he said. “You’re not funny.”

“Oh, c’mon, lighten up.”

Peter shook his head. “No, that was a shitty thing to do.”

“God, can’t you take a joke? I thought after all that seriousness, we could use a laugh.” Anton tried to put his arm around him, but Peter pulled away. “Hey, c’mon, sport. I know what you need. The hot springs will help you mellow out.”

“No,” Peter heard himself saying. “I don’t want to go there. I can’t trust you now. I just want to get out of these fucking woods and go home.”

Anton stared at him in the darkness for a moment, then he sighed. “Suit yourself, Pete.” He brushed past him, then shined his flashlight on the trees, looking for markings to the trail back.

Peter let Anton lead the way. Neither of them uttered a word for the next ninety minutes. The moon reflecting off Lake Leroy made it easier to navigate as they came closer to the end of the trail.

“Those locks of hair in the cough-drop box,” Peter said, finally. “Were those a joke, too?”

Anton didn’t answer him right away. He kept walking, the flashlight beam aimed straight ahead. “No, they weren’t a joke,” Anton said at last. He stopped and turned to Peter. “You’re the only person I’ve ever shown that to. Listen, are you still pissed off?”

Peter frowned. “Well, what do you think? You scared the crap out of me.”

“I’m sorry, Pete. I figured we’d both get a laugh out of it.” Anton nudged him, then held out his arms. “C’mon, what do you say? Are we friends again?”

Peter hesitated, then he hugged Anton. “I thought you’d been killed,” he said quietly. “Someone is out there killing people. He drowned Johnny. I thought he’d murdered you.”

“Jesus, Pete. I’m really sorry,” Anton muttered. “I wasn’t thinking.”

They continued down the trail. Peter walked alongside him. He still couldn’t quite let go of his anger—and his fear.

“I was going to wait until I had more information, but maybe I should tell you now,” Anton said. “Then you won’t be so mad at me anymore.”

“Tell me what?” Peter asked, not sure he was really interested.

“I think I have a good lead toward our killer, Pete. I think he must have borrowed that VW bug from someone else when he went after you, because this guy has his own car.”

“Who?”

“Let me tell you tomorrow when I’ll know more,” Anton said. “I’ve been waiting for an E-mail to confirm something. In the morning, I’ll have to do a little fancy footwork, maybe even some breaking and entering. You shouldn’t be involved. I don’t want to get you in trouble.”

“Can’t you give me a hint who it is?” Peter asked.

“I’ll tell you tomorrow. Meet me up on the roof of St. Clement’s around noon. You remember, I showed you how to get up there.”

Peter gave him a skeptical look. “If you really have a suspect in mind, you should at least give me one tiny little hint about him.”

“All right,” Anton said soberly. “Take it as advice, too. He can get at you very easily, Pete. Don’t wander around alone unless it’s to come see me. While you’re in your room, keep the door bolted. If you need to use the can late at night, make a lot of noise in the hall. Wake people up. Make sure someone else is always around—and knows where you are. You don’t want to be caught alone anywhere in that building.”

“I’m doing that already,” Peter admitted. But Anton’s warning still frightened him.

The two of them continued to walk in silence. They passed by the area some of the guys now called Costello Bay. Peter could see the lights of St. Bartholomew Hall in the distance.

Jack rowed across the lake in one of the faculty dinghies. It was an overcast Sunday morning. The surface of Lake Leroy rippled with the slight breeze. Once docked on the upperclassman side, he’d have about a fifteen-minute walk to the hair salon.

He secured the boat to the pier. He had a few moments, so he leaned against a pole and took out his little green notebook. He flipped through a few pages, then stopped and stared at something he’d scribbled down while in the library this week:

He wondered if he could add Jonie Soretto to that list:
three teeth missing—burned in a fire/accident?
Or was he looking for a connection that didn’t exist? Three freak accidents and a suicide, is that all they were?

Jack kept staring at those names—and how these young people had died. He heard the dock’s floorboards creak and he turned.

“Hello, Jack.” It was Father Garcia. He wore his clerical garb and—despite the overcast skies—a pair of designer sunglasses. He took a drag from his cigarette. “I was just about to paddle over and pay you a visit.”

Jack quickly shoved the little notebook back into his pants pocket.

Garcia gave him one of his charm-boy smiles. “Looks like you saved me a trip. What makes you a refugee from St. Bart’s this morning?”

Jack shrugged. “Just shopping for some supplies.”

“I understand you said a prayer over a girl who burned to death in her apartment yesterday. It was on this side of the lake.”

“That’s right,” Jack said.

“Did you just happen to be passing by the scene, or were you acquainted with her?”

Jack hesitated. “I knew her. She’d been seeing John Costello.”

“I was afraid it would be something like that.”

Garcia let out a long sigh. “Your young friend certainly got around, didn’t he? How long have you known about this girl?”

“I found out about her a couple of days after John was killed. She came to me yesterday, very frightened. She wanted to tell me something about Johnny, and asked me to meet her at her apartment. She was already dead when I got there.”

Garcia seemed to be glaring at him from behind the sunglasses. “Why didn’t you report any of this to me yesterday?”

“Because you would have told me to let it go,” Jack answered steadily. “No disrespect, Tom, but every time I uncover an unpleasant truth about this case, you want to bury it. I think someone killed John Costello. This girl knew about it, and she was killed, too.” Jack shook his head. “I can’t just ignore that. But you’re going to tell me to leave it be. In fact, you’re going to
order
me to leave it be. Am I right?”

Garcia flicked his cigarette into the lake. “You can count on it, Jack. Think of the big picture here, and the cost of your truth. How would you like to tell the Costello woman that her sweet baby brother was having sex with a group of older seminarians? Are you prepared to shatter her memories of him? That’s all she has left of the boy. And would you like to see the reputation of this school go down the toilet? Because that’s what’s going to happen when it gets out about John Costello’s sexual proclivities. And there’s his association with you, Jack. Wholesome as it was, there’s room for speculation and innuendo. If that isn’t bad enough, half this town has you shacked up with his sister at the Lakeside Inn.”

“I told you before that nothing happened—”

“I don’t care. You’re still a public relations nightmare for the school. Now there’s this business with the girl. In addition to John Costello’s homosexual activities, he was also involved with this woman, who was older than him and a drug user.”

“How do you know she took drugs?” Jack asked quietly.

“The police told me. They told me about you praying over the body, too. As for your crazy theory that she was murdered, the police said that the fire appears to have been caused by her—and her alone. And I know about the teeth, Jack. They think she tripped and knocked them loose, then pulled them out herself. She was all doped up at the time. She probably didn’t know what she was doing.”

Jack frowned. “I don’t believe that.”

“It doesn’t matter what you believe. You didn’t see the inside of the apartment, and you didn’t examine her corpse. But the police did. And they’re calling it an accident. So are we.”

Garcia took off his sunglasses and gave him an ominous look. “I told you last time, no more warnings. Leave it be, Jack. That’s an order. Leave it be—and go with God.”

Even with Father Garcia holding him up, Jack would be early meeting Maggie. He strolled along a narrow road by the lake and stared at the backs of the squat houses along the way.

Jack wondered where they would send him after booting him out of Our Lady of Sorrows. And indeed they would boot him out.

He couldn’t abide by Garcia’s orders and just
leave it be
. Besides, he didn’t trust Garcia. In fact, so far, Tom Garcia was the closest thing he had to a suspect in these murders. If nothing else, his deliberate cover-up of certain facts surrounding these deaths bordered on criminal.

But Father Garcia was right regarding one thing. Jack couldn’t keep Maggie forever in the dark about her little brother’s varied sexual activities. That was one reason he’d gone along with Garcia’s mandate to cease all contact with Maggie. He couldn’t keep lying to her. Besides that, he was starting to fall for her. One sad look on that beautiful face of hers, or a hug at Johnny’s funeral, and he’d have thrown away his priest’s collar. He needed some distance from her.

Yet here he was now, on his way to meet her. As he started up the block, Jack recognized Maggie’s car, parked across from the Curl Up and Dye hair salon. She’d arrived early, too.

The car was empty. Jack glanced over at the darkened beauty-shop window. They hadn’t opened yet. But next door, the Coffee Buzz was doing business. He spotted Maggie at a table by the window.

Through the glass, she stared back at him and slowly set down her coffee mug.

Jack gave her a hesitant wave.

She smiled, then waved him inside.

“Guess we’re both early,” Jack said, stepping up to her table. She wore jeans and a lavender pullover that complemented her red hair and creamy pale skin. The hair was swept back in a ponytail. He’d forgotten how beautiful she was.

Awkwardly, he reached out to shake her hand. “It’s good to see you again, Maggie.”

She held on to his hand a moment longer than necessary. “You, too, Jack.”

He sat down across from her. “You look really nice,” he heard himself say. He sounded so lame.

“Well, thanks,” she said with a little shrug. “You’re here early.”

“I figured I might catch them before they open the shop.”

“
If
they open the shop today. You never know. They might stay closed, because of Jonie. That thought hit me on the way up here.” She sipped her coffee. “Something else occurred to me. Jonie’s the third person I know who has died within the last month, all of them from unnatural causes. Maybe losing Johnny so suddenly has me aware of things like that, but it’s definitely strange.”

“Who else has died besides Johnny and Jonie?”

Maggie shrugged. “I didn’t know her very well. Her name was Lucy Ballatore. She was a waitress at this restaurant where I go for takeout. About three weeks ago, they found her near a railroad yard. She’d been murdered, stabbed in the throat. She handled my order at the restaurant the last night she was seen alive. I’ll never forget, as I was leaving, I noticed this guy wearing a clown mask, sitting alone in his car in the parking lot. Sounds kind of funny now, but at the time, it scared the hell out of me. I told the police about him, but they must not have thought it was very important, because they never called me back.”

“You say she was stabbed in the throat?” Jack whispered.