Swallowing Stones (20 page)

“How soon till dinner?” Jenna asked, sticking her head into the kitchen, where her mother was washing chicken parts.

Her mother glanced up at the clock. “An hour, maybe. Depends on how long it takes to grill these.” She held up a dripping wet chicken breast. “Why?”

“I’m going over to Andrea’s. Okay?”

Without waiting for an answer, she headed out the sliding glass door and cut across the backyard to Andrea’s house, although she had no intention of stopping there. Once she was on Andrea’s street, Jenna began to run. Joe Sadowski lived on the other side of town. That was over a mile. And she had only an hour before she had to be home.

t
hirty-three Maple Avenue. Jenna looked across the street at the modest ranch house. Much of the blue paint had been scraped away, and one side had already been repainted a pale yellow.

She leaned against one of the large maple trees that lined the street, watching the front door. She was hoping to get a glimpse of Joe Sadowski, although she had no idea what he looked like or what she would do if he suddenly came through the door.

Just then a boy rounded the corner, walking fast. At first she wondered if it was Joe; then she realized with a shock that it was Michael MacKenzie. He took off running across the Sadowskis’ lawn. But for one brief moment he slowed his pace and looked across the street. She wondered if he had seen her. If he had, he gave no indication. He simply bounded up the front steps and rang the doorbell.

Jenna stepped behind the large maple. Her heart was thumping wildly. What was Michael MacKenzie doing at Joe Sadowski’s house? She knew they were both seventeen and going to be seniors. But were they also friends?

She peeked around the tree to see what was happening. She felt ridiculous, as if she were playing some childish spy game. But she didn’t care. She had to know what was going on. She watched as another boy, who she decided was Joe Sadowski, came to the door. At first she couldn’t see him very well. But then he smacked the door open and stomped down the front steps, with Michael right behind him, and headed for the back of the house.

It was happening. She was staring right into the face of her father’s murderer. Jenna could see that he was furious about something. He looked, she thought with a shudder, as if he could kill someone. And in that moment she realized she had seen his face before. She recognized the rolled-up bandanna he wore tied around his head. This was the boy who had been harassing Amy Ruggerio at Judd Passarello’s party.

Jenna pulled back behind the tree to avoid being seen, then hid there until the two boys were out of sight. Michael, Amy, Joe … did they all know each other? She rested her forehead against the tree and closed her eyes. So what if they did? Did that really surprise her? After all, Briarwood was a small town; lives invariably collided, jostling other lives.

She was thoroughly disgusted with herself. She wasn’t doing a thing, just standing there, staring, her thick lashes spiked with tears. She thought of her violent outburst at the beach, of Andrea’s shock, of her conviction that she could confront her father’s murderer and then, without remorse, point a gun in his face and fire. That had been a fantasy. This person, this boy across the street from her, was real. She knew now that no matter how much pain he had caused her, no matter how much she hated him, she would never be able to pull that trigger.

j
enna peeled the skin from a chicken leg and picked at the meat. The last thing she felt like doing was eating. Haunted by the images of Joe Sadowski and Michael MacKenzie, all she wanted was to get to the bottom of things. She wondered what Michael MacKenzie had been doing at Joe’s. What, if anything, was his part in all this?

Her mother sat across the kitchen table from her, grinding coarse pepper onto her salad. She seemed equally preoccupied. She had barely said a word since Jenna had returned. Jenna suspected she had the investigation on her mind, too.

Jenna thought of calling Andrea to tell her what she’d found out, but realized that linking Michael MacKenzie with her father’s murderer—if that was who Joe Sadowski was—would just upset her friend. There was no point in telling Andrea, not until Jenna had something concrete, anyway.

“What’s going to happen to the boy who shot Dad?” she said.

“I don’t know.” Her mother was staring off into space, her eyes focused on some imaginary place over Jenna’s head. “I don’t want to see his life ruined. I mean, I realize what happened was an accident. And there’s been enough pain already, don’t you think? He’s going to have to live with this for the rest of his life. I just want to know what happened. That’s all. For my own peace of mind.”

“Will he go to prison?”

“We don’t even know if the boy they took in for questioning is the same person who fired the shot,” her mother reminded her.

“But if he is?”

“Then I guess that will depend on whether it ever comes
to trial. They’ll probably present it to a grand jury,” her mother said. “When they have enough evidence.”

“If they ever find any evidence.”

“Well, if they do, and if he’s found guilty, his sentence will depend on the judge. It could be suspended. Or he might have to do community service.” Her mother paused. “Or he could go to prison.”

Jenna wiped the barbecue sauce from her sticky fingers onto her napkin. Wasn’t that what she wanted? To have this boy behind bars? She stared down at her half-eaten dinner. No matter what, if he’d killed her father, he was going to have to pay for what he’d done. “I think I’ll go work a few math problems,” Jenna told her mother, getting up from the table.

“Math problems? In the summer?”

Jenna shrugged. “School starts in a few days.” It wasn’t much of a reason, but she didn’t feel like explaining that she sometimes used math problems to calm her thoughts.

A cool September breeze played with the pages of her algebra book as she lay in the hammock by the pool. The days were growing shorter, and already the sun had disappeared behind the treetops. Balancing the book on her raised knees, one arm pressed across the page to keep it from turning, she began to work on the first problem. She was counting on math to distract her from thinking about Joe Sadowski. But that wasn’t happening. In fact, the questions that ran through her mind were more insistent than ever. For whenever she pictured Joe, she also saw Amy. And she found the connection disturbing.

Jenna stared down at a complex algebra problem without actually seeing it. Then it came to her. There was one common link in all this confusion, one person who just might have some answers for her: Amy Ruggerio.

t
he afternoon the police came for Joe, Michael, as usual, was on duty at the pool. He would be relieved when the Labor Day weekend was over and he no longer had to come here. Because the word was out. The bullet that had killed Charlie Ward had come from the MacKenzies’ backyard on the day of Michael’s party. The police were questioning everyone who had been there.

For three days now, people had been coming up to Michael while he was supposed to be watching the swimmers, wanting to know if he knew who had fired that fatal shot. But no one dared to come right out and ask him if he had done it. He felt as if everyone were watching him, waiting for him to make a false move. His lifeguard stand was beginning to feel more and more like the witness stand in a courtroom trial.

Even worse, he found he could no longer sit on his stand, watching those in his charge, without his eyes coming to rest on the people whose lives he had in some way managed to screw up. Darcy came to the pool sometimes but usually stayed huddled in the middle of her group, refusing to look at him.

Amy showed up once in a while, on unbearably hot days
when the air was so heavy that it was difficult to breathe. But she hadn’t been there since the car accident two days earlier.

If he closed his eyes, he could still see the police shoving Joe into the back of their cruiser. The scene was as vivid as if it were happening all over again that very minute. The emergency squad had arrived right after that, and the medics had ushered Amy, who kept insisting she was fine, into the back of the ambulance.

Michael had waited, giving the police all the information they required, accepting the ticket for careless driving as his due. Then he took Joe’s car and followed Amy to the emergency room. But since no one would allow him in to see her, there was nothing to do but sit in the waiting room until she was discharged.

After what had seemed like the longest hour of his life, Michael saw Pappy coming toward him. He had managed to get a ride with a neighbor and had just come from seeing Amy.

“She’s fine,” he announced when he saw Michael. “A few minor cuts is all. I’m going to take her home.”

Michael was relieved to hear that she was okay. “Can I see her?”

Pappy scratched at his goatee. “Probably not a good idea right now.”

He had tried to call later that night, but Pappy had answered the phone. He explained that Amy had gone to bed early and he didn’t want to wake her.

Michael scanned the pool without really seeing anyone. He couldn’t concentrate. What if this latest fiasco had dealt the final blow to his relationship with Amy? Just when he’d thought she might give him another chance.

He shifted uncomfortably in his seat, then reached for the
sunblock to put on his nose. When he glanced up again, he spotted Jenna Ward sitting on the edge of the pool, talking with her dark-haired friend, the one she had wanted to introduce him to on the night of Judd Passarello’s party. Michael still dreaded starting the new school year, still wondered how he was ever going to face Jenna in the halls. But he had grown accustomed to seeing her during the summer and had convinced himself that he could do it. He would do whatever it took just to keep going, because he didn’t have a choice.

So when he came home that evening and Josh practically knocked him over at the back door with the news about Joe, Michael just stared him right in the eye and asked him if dinner was ready.

Josh took a step back, his mouth open. “Did you hear me? Joe’s in jail,” he repeated. “See, I was right! He’s the killer.”

Michael held his fist only a few inches from Josh’s nose. “He’s no killer, you little dork. So shut your stupid face.” He unclenched his hand and let it drop to his side. “Got it?”

“Got it,” Josh said, blinking wildly, just as Karen MacKenzie came through the back door with an armload of groceries.

She looked from Michael to Josh, then frowned. “Is something wrong?”

“They caught the killer,” Josh said, not daring to look at his brother.

Karen MacKenzie sighed and brushed her damp hair away from her forehead. “They only took Joe in for questioning,” she told him. “He wasn’t arrested.”

“But everybody’s pretty sure he did it,” Josh said, growing excited again.

His mother set the bag of groceries on the kitchen counter and began to empty it. “It’s wrong to just assume someone’s
guilty,” she told Josh. “The police are only trying to get to the bottom of this. They’re questioning a lot of people.” She shifted her glance to Michael.

He noticed how drawn and tired her face looked. There were dark smudges beneath her eyes. It occurred to him that maybe she hadn’t been getting much sleep since Healey and Boyle had found that casing in the backyard. And why should she? No matter how any of this turned out, his mother knew the rifle had been fired from her backyard while she had been overseeing the party. For the first time Michael realized that his parents probably held themselves responsible for Charlie Ward’s death.

His mother was watching him. Michael felt a tingling in the tips of his fingers. He wondered if she suspected something. But she only said, “Joe’s going to be fine. I called his mother from work as soon as I heard. He should be home by now. Why don’t you give him a call?”

Michael said he’d do that—although he had absolutely no intention of calling Joe—and then headed straight for his room. He needed someplace to think. He couldn’t believe Healey and Boyle had talked to all forty of his friends already. He had thought it would take weeks. Or were they just questioning Joe the way they were everyone else? Maybe this was simply part of the investigation. But he knew better. Friends of his at the pool, who had been at his party, had told him the police had come to their homes, asked a few questions, and that was it. This was different. The police had taken Joe down to the station. He was definitely a major suspect.

Michael couldn’t stop thinking about him. He wondered how Joe had handled things, or if he had told the cops anything. Maybe they had broken him down, gotten a confession out of him. For all he knew, they might come knocking on
Michael’s own door any minute with a warrant for his arrest. He finally decided that he couldn’t just sit there hiding in his room. He had to know what had happened.

He headed back downstairs. “I’m going over to Joe’s,” he called into the kitchen as he pushed open the front screen door. “I’ll be back in time for dinner.”

He knew he could have called Joe, but he was afraid the police might have tapped his phone. He was probably being paranoid, but he didn’t want to take any chances.

A few minutes later, as he hurried across Joe’s front lawn, something caught Michael’s attention. He barely glanced across the street, preoccupied with what he was going to say to Joe. But in that single moment he thought he saw Jenna Ward standing by a tree. Badly shaken, he climbed the front steps of Joe’s house and rang the bell. Then he sneaked a furtive look over his shoulder. No one was across the street.
Man
,
you really
are
paranoid
, he thought.

His mother had been right; Joe was home. When he came to the front door, he just stood there, staring at Michael. Finally he said, “You sure you want to be seen with a hardened criminal?”

Michael winced. “I thought they just took you in for questioning. They didn’t actually arrest you, did they?”

“You’re right. They didn’t.” Joe sneered. “Does that make you feel better?”