by Carl Hiaasen
“Certainly. Right away.” The headmaster was relieved to be rid of the Carsons (who departed, grousing), but he was worried about this new visit from the sheriff’s detective. It probably wasn’t a social call.
Once Jason Marshall entered the office, he got directly to the point. “I’m here to arrest Duane Scrod Jr.,” he said.
“For the fire in the swamp?”
The detective nodded soberly.
Dr. Dressler’s spirits sank as he envisioned the awful headline: TRUMAN STUDENT BUSTED FOR ARSON.
Because he was still a minor, Duane Scrod Jr. could not be openly named by the authorities, although it hardly mattered. The news that anyone enrolled at Truman was being charged with such a serious crime would bring horrible publicity, and Dr. Dressler anticipated a strong reaction from the school’s board of trustees, not to mention some of the wealthy donors.
“The fire department called about an hour ago,” Jason Marshall said. “It sounds like they’ve got all the evidence they need.”
Dr. Dressler didn’t bother asking for details. Given the boy’s history of setting fires, the headmaster had no doubt that Duane Scrod Jr. was guilty. Obviously there was a good reason why the other students called him Smoke.
“It’s only twenty minutes until school’s dismissed,” Dr. Dressler said. “Can’t we wait?”
The detective said, “No, let’s get it over with.”
Dr. Dressler checked the schedule and saw that Duane Scrod Jr. was in Mr. Riccio’s English seminar.
“It’s probably better if you stay here,” the headmaster told Jason Marshall, who agreed.
The classroom was on the other side of the campus, and Dr. Dressler hurried to get there. Duane Scrod Jr. showed little emotion when the headmaster tapped on the door and summoned him outside.
Halfway to the administration building, the boy finally asked why he’d been called out of class.
“We’ve got a problem, Duane,” said Dr. Dressler.
“Whaddya mean?”
“A man from the sheriff’s department wants to speak with you.”
“Again? How come?”
“Is your father home? Because you’ll probably want to give him a call later.”
“When hell freezes over,” the boy said.
The Truman School had a strict rule against cussing, but Dr. Dressler let it slide. Duane Scrod Jr. was a large person, and the headmaster didn’t want to rile him. He knew that the detective was far more experienced at handling such situations.
Jason Marshall, it turned out, was waiting with a set of handcuffs.
“No way,” muttered Duane Scrod Jr. when he realized what was happening.
“I’m sorry, son,” the detective said. “Turn around, please.”
The boy didn’t move. He sighed heavily and rolled his eyes toward the ceiling. “This is so wrong,” he said.
Dr. Dressler was now extremely nervous. Nobody had ever been arrested in his office before. “Duane, please do what Detective Marshall says.”
Slowly, very slowly, the boy turned around.
Thank goodness, thought the headmaster.
Then, just as Jason Marshall stepped forward to snap on the handcuffs, Duane Scrod Jr. bolted out the door.
“Hey!” shouted the detective, charging after him. “Stop!”
Dr. Dressler stood there alone, dumbfounded and flustered. He felt like he was in an episode of Cops.
The headmaster looked out the window in time to see Duane Scrod Jr. sprinting toward the athletic field. For such a stocky kid he was very quick, and he steadily widened the gap between himself and the detective. Dr. Dressler wondered why nobody had ever talked Duane Scrod Jr. into playing for the Truman football team, which was in dire need of a fullback.
A lacrosse squad was practicing at the west end of the field, and Duane Scrod Jr. made a beeline for one of the players. Even from a distance, Dr. Dressler easily identified the student as Nick Waters because of the bulky sling contraption that he wore on his right shoulder.
The headmaster watched in puzzlement as Duane Scrod Jr. pulled Nick aside and spoke to him briefly. Then the boy again dashed away, jumping a chain-link fence and vanishing into a deep stand of pine trees. Detective Jason Marshall ran far behind, waving and hollering.
Dr. Dressler didn’t think that Duane Scrod Jr. had any friends at the Truman School, so he wondered why the kid had singled out Nick Waters to speak to—and what message could have been so important as to prompt him to interrupt his escape.
Had Dr. Dressler been able to hear every word that Duane Scrod Jr. said on the practice field, he might have reserved his opinion about the arson in the Black Vine Swamp.
The first thing that the boy called Smoke told Nick Waters was: “Your biology book’s in my locker. The combination is 5-3-5.”
And the second thing he said was: “I didn’t do that fire, man. I’m innocent.”
SEVENTEEN
When Nick got home from school, he saw his father in the backyard throwing baseballs left-handed into the pitching net. Nick dropped his blazer on a chair, yanked off his necktie, and ran outside.
“How’s your … you know …” He pointed at his dad’s bandaged shoulder.
“My stump, you mean.” His father smiled ruefully. “Actually, it’s more like a stump of a stump.”
Nick thought: At least he hasn’t lost his sense of humor.
His dad said, “The infection’s almost gone, but I’d be lying if I said I felt like a million bucks.”
“Then you should take it easy.”
“No, sir.” Capt. Gregory Waters grabbed another ball from a bucket by his feet. “Take off your sling, Nicky, and we’ll play some catch.”
Nick knew it was useless to argue. “Throw it here,” he said.
“Unstrap your right arm and go get your glove.”
“Come on, Dad, just throw it.”
“Suit yourself.” His dad wound up and pitched. The ball made a smack when it landed in Nick’s bare hand—and it stung.
“Whoa!” Nick whistled and shook his fingers. “That’s pretty good.”
“I’m gettin’ there,” his father said.
Nick tossed back the ball, which went straight enough, though not terribly hard. He still felt awkward throwing with the wrong arm.
“Dad, how long have you been out here practicing?”
“Four hours and change.”
“Geez, you’re not tired?”
Greg Waters laughed. “Are you kidding? I’m whipped,” he said, “but it’s the best way to build up my strength and get some muscle memory.”
His next pitch was low and off the mark. Nick scooped it off the grass, took a big step, and hurled it back—five feet over his father’s head.
Greg Waters chuckled and said, “Even when I had two arms I couldn’t jump that high.”
Nick retrieved the baseball from a bed of geraniums and jogged back to the other end of the yard.
“Who’s your favorite lefty of all time?” he asked his dad on the next throw.
“Steve Carlton of the Phillies, way before your time. But you should’ve seen his fastball.”
“Better than Johan Santana’s?”
“Ask me again when Johan is in the Hall of Fame.” He zipped another one back at Nick, who didn’t mind the sting. It was exciting to see his dad throwing so hard and so accurately from what was once his weak side.
“So, Nicky, what’s the hot news at Truman?”
Nick had planned to tell his parents about Smoke at dinner. They would have heard about it eventually anyway.
“Libby’s dad came to arrest a kid at school, only the kid ran off into the woods and got away,” Nick said.
Greg Waters stopped in the middle of his pitching motion. He lowered his arm but hung on to the ball.
“What was he being arrested for?”
“That fire in the swamp that I told you about, the day we went on the field trip,” Nick said. “But here’s the thing, Dad—I don’t thi
nk he did it.”
“How do you know?”
The back door opened and Nick’s mom came outside wearing a first-baseman’s mitt as big as a ham. She pounded a fist into the pocket and called out to Nick’s dad: “Come on, soldier boy, let’s see what you’ve got!”
Greg Waters grinned and hurled the ball, which she snagged easily and threw underhanded—but with plenty of juice—to Nick. His mother hadn’t played softball since college, but she still had an excellent arm.
“How long have you been home?” Nick asked her.
“About thirty seconds. I saw you two rookies out here in the yard and figured you needed some backup or else you were gonna break out some windows on Mrs. Storter’s house.”
“Not me!” Nick’s father said, pretending to be insulted. “Nicky’s the wild one.”
For half an hour they played three-way catch in a breezy, pleasant silence, just as they used to do before Greg Waters had been sent to Iraq. To Nick it seemed unreal that not even two weeks had passed since his dad had been seriously wounded—yet he was already back home, slinging the base-ball! It was like a miracle, Nick thought.
Then again, his father was no ordinary patient.
Greg Waters said, “Nick, tell your mom what happened at school today.”
“Oh, I already know about it. Gilda Carson text-messaged every parent in the phone book,” said Nick’s mother. “That boy who ran from the police is the same one who stopped over last night to borrow Nick’s biology book.”
“Really? Nicky didn’t mention that.” Greg Waters looked concerned, but he kept on throwing.
“His name is Duane Scrod Jr.,” Nick’s mother said. “His dad did a stretch in jail for arson, so I guess the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree—”
“Mom, he didn’t do it,” Nick cut in firmly.
“What makes you so sure?”
“He told me so,” Nick said. “While he was running away from Detective Marshall, he stopped me at lacrosse practice and said he was innocent. Why would he bother to do that if it wasn’t true?”
Nick’s mother tossed him the baseball. “People do lie, Nicky, especially when they’re in trouble.”
“But I believe him! You guys didn’t see the look in his eyes, but I did.” Nick heaved the ball to his dad, who bobbled it and then dropped it on the grass. Obviously he was distracted by what he was hearing.
Nick’s mom said, “Tell your father what the other kids call Duane Jr.”
“Aw, it’s just a nickname,” Nick protested.
“Let’s hear it,” said his dad.
“Smoke,” Nick said quietly, knowing it would be harder than ever to convince his parents that Duane Scrod Jr. was innocent.
“Smoke?” Greg Waters picked up the baseball and turned it over and over in his hand. “Let me guess why they call him Smoke.”
“Because that’s what he likes to be called. Nobody knows why,” Nick said. Then he added: “Okay, the police said he set two fires a long time ago—but that doesn’t automatically mean he did this one.”
Nick assumed that his mother had already learned about Smoke’s previous arsons from Mrs. Carson, who’d probably gotten the information from Graham.
“Nicky, this doesn’t sound good,” his father said.
“But what happened in the past shouldn’t matter—if he didn’t start this fire, he shouldn’t be arrested for it,” Nick said. “That’s not right, Dad.”
Nick’s mother walked over and put an arm around him, her softball mitt resting behind his back on the lump that was his wrapped-up right arm. She said, “According to Mrs. Carson, they’ve got real strong evidence that Duane Jr. did it.”
“Like what?”
“She didn’t say in the message. But she made it sound solid.”
Nick pulled away and sat down in a patio chair. “Well, I don’t believe that. Anyway, you’re supposed to be innocent till proven guilty, right?”
If Smoke was lying to me on the lacrosse field, Nick thought, then that kid is the world’s greatest actor.
“Did the police catch him?” he asked.
“Not yet,” his mom said. “I’d better go start dinner. We can talk about this later.”
Capt. Gregory Waters sat down, flexing the fingers in his left hand. He looked sore and exhausted. “Maybe tomorrow I’ll try the fly rod,” he said.
Nick found himself staring at the empty right sleeve of his father’s shirt—getting used to the sight of him without one arm would take time. His dad even joked about how “lopsided” he appeared in the mirror.
“Can I ask you something about the war?” Nick said.
“Sure.”
“That man who died when the rocket hit your Humvee—you said he was like a brother to you.”
“It’s true. He was,” Nick’s father said.
“How long did you know him before then?”
Greg Waters thought for a moment. “Two weeks. Maybe three.”
“That’s not a very long time,” Nick said.
“Well, sometimes you make a connection right away.”
“And not just because you’re, like, in battle together?”
“No, the same thing would happen when I played ball in the minors,” said Nick’s dad. “You’d start talking to a new player the first day of spring training, and right away you knew he was okay. And then some other guy would walk up, and in two seconds you could tell he was a complete ass.”
“I know what you mean,” Nick said. “It’s like a weird radar.”
“Yeah, sort of.”
Nick stood up. “I need to make a phone call before dinner.”
His father said, “This boy that the police are hunting for—is he a friend of yours?”
“That’s a good question,” said Nick. “I think maybe he is.”
After setting the table for his mom, Nick went to his bedroom, shut the door, and called Libby Marshall on her cell. She was out walking her dog, Sam.
“No, they didn’t catch him yet,” she said, anticipating Nick’s question. “But they will. And my dad is so not amused—he pulled a hamstring while he was chasing him!”
Nick had to be careful what he said to Libby. It was natural for her to believe that Smoke was guilty, because that’s what her father surely told her.
Libby said, “He’s still on probation for torching that billboard on the interstate, so they can lock him up until his next trial, my dad says. Six months, maybe longer.”
No wonder he ran away, Nick thought. “Are they still out there looking for him?”
“Nah. He’s not, like, a serial killer or something,” Libby said. “They’ll bust him as soon as he goes home. Dad says that’s where they usually find juvenile fugitives.”
“But what if he doesn’t show up?”
“Right, Nick. Where else is he gonna go?”
Nick thought: I wish I knew.
“Why are they so sure he did it?” Nick was hoping that Libby’s father had mentioned something about the mysterious new evidence.
And luckily, he had.
“Somebody found Smoke’s book bag near the place where the fire was started,” Libby said. “Guess what was in it—a portable torch, just like the arsonist used! He’s toast, Nick. Case closed.”
“His book bag from school? The camo one?”
“Hang on a second,” Libby said. “Sam, no! Bad dog! BAD DOG!”
While she hollered at her pet, Nick held the phone away from his ear. It didn’t make sense that Smoke’s backpack had suddenly turned up at the Black Vine Swamp.
When Libby came back on the line, she was out of breath. “Sorry, Nick, I gotta go. Sam’s cornered a humongous ol’ tomcat and it’s about to scratch his nose off …. No! Bad boy! I said NO!!!”
Nick hung up and immediately called Marta.
“What are you doing first thing tomorrow?” he asked.
“Sleeping,” she replied. “It’s Saturday, remember?”
“We’re going on a bike ride.”
“I don’t think so, Nick.”
“Be ready at eight.”
“Get serious,” said Marta. “I plan to be snoring like a polar bear at eight o’clock in the morning.”
“No, this is important. I’ll explain everything when I see you.”
“Don’t you dare take me back to Mrs. Starch’s house! I don’t want to end up with glass eyeballs and a tag around my neck, like all those other dead animals.”
Nick said, “Don’t worry. That’s not where we’re going.”
The next morning, as Duane Scrod Sr. crept into the kitchen to get some sunflower seeds for Nadine, he heard a knock at the front door and then a voice calling, “Duane? Are you there?”
It sounded too young to be an FBI man, but Duane Scrod Sr. wasn’t taking any chances. He scrambled back to the music room and barricaded himself inside. His macaw, who was famished, peevishly latched on to one of his earlobes, yet Duane Scrod Sr. gritted his teeth and remained silent in spite of the pain.
He didn’t want to go back to jail, although he realized that the odds were stacked against him. Attacking that tax man wasn’t the brightest move he’d ever made, and he figured it was only a matter of time before his house was surrounded by heavily armed agents of the U.S. government.
Earlier in the day, Duane Scrod Sr. had hidden from another stranger, a man who had knocked repeatedly and identified himself as a sheriff’s deputy searching for Junior. Duane Sr. had snatched Nadine from her cage and run to cower under a quilt in the music room.
“Duane, open up! It’s me—Nick Waters,” the new visitor shouted.
Then a girl’s voice said, “I told you so. He’s not even here.”
It occurred to Duane Scrod Sr. that the persons on the porch might actually be looking for his son, but he quickly dismissed the idea. Except for one or two Miccosukee Indians, Junior didn’t have any friends his own age.
No, thought Duane Scrod Sr., this must be a trap. The FBI could be extremely sneaky.
As soon as the voices outside stopped, Nadine let go of Duane Scrod Sr.’s ear. After a few minutes he cautiously approached the small spinet piano that was blocking the music room door and prepared to push it aside.
“Ich habe Hunger!” Nadine complained. “J’ai faim!”
