The Whispers

by Greg Howard

  I haven’t seen Sister Grimes since the last all-day singin’ and dinner on the ground at the North Creek Church of God. I overheard her saying something about my mama that day. I never told anyone, and honestly right now I can’t remember exactly what it was she said, but I remember thinking it was horrible at the time. I haven’t forgiven Sister Grimes for gossiping about Mama. Jesus says we’re supposed to forgive, but I don’t think I ever will, so I hope Jesus isn’t sitting around waiting to hear from me on that.

  I stand there holding my basket in front of me and staring at her. I’ve heard that it makes adults uncomfortable when children respond to them with a silent, blank stare. And that it’s rude. And creepy. I don’t care. I want Sister Grimes to be uncomfortable and creeped out. And I want to be rude to her because of what she said about Mama. If only I could remember what it was.

  My plan works. She finally gives up waiting for me to say something and just rolls her eyes a little as she passes me. “Well, tell your father I asked about him.”

  Yeah. That’s not going to happen.

  I give her the creepy kid stare until she disappears around the corner, just in case she looks back. She doesn’t. I continue my shopping and get all the way to the end of the snack aisle before I find myself at the ammo counter in back and face-to-face with Redneck Superhero Dylan Mathews. I stop dead in my tracks and stand there staring at his face. And not just because it’s Dylan Mathews’s face—which is usually a good enough reason alone to stare at it—but also because his upper lip is busted. It’s swollen with a little dried blood caked on it. Who in the world would have the guts to bust Dylan Mathews’s lip?

  “Dylan,” I kind of blurt out, like he may have forgotten his own name and needs reminding.

  He looks at me wide-eyed, as if I caught him doing something illegal. But I can’t stop staring at his fat lip. That is until the purple-and-brown bruise on the right side of his jaw catches my attention. Holy crap. I think it, but I don’t dare say it.

  Mr. Killen glances at Dylan and then flashes me an annoyed look. “Finding everything you need, Riley?”

  Dylan looks down, not able to hold my gaze for some reason. I want to ask him what happened to his face, but Mr. Killen’s one raised eyebrow warns me not to and I don’t want to be nosy like a gossip would.

  “Crisco,” I finally say. “Grandma needs Crisco.” My mouth is suddenly bone-dry and the words come out sounding like scraps of sandpaper.

  “The big tub?” Mr. Killen asks.

  I nod, still staring at the bruise on the side of Dylan’s face. Mr. Killen walks out from behind the ammo counter with a sigh, I assume to go get the Crisco because I can’t seem to move my feet from this spot to go get it myself. I wonder if Gene Grimes and his supercharged puberty mutant posse jumped Dylan in retaliation for him taking up for me. But Dylan wasn’t at school today, so I don’t know when that would have happened. He rests his hands on the counter. They’re shaking a little. He still hasn’t said hello to me, which is strange. Dylan always says hello to me, or at least he waves.

  Two boxes of shotgun shells sit on the counter in front of him. He stares at them as if he’s silently briefing them on their mission, like Detective Chase Cooper would instruct his team before he leads them through the door of the perp’s hideout.

  “You going hunting?” I manage to get out.

  He glances over at me. “Something like that.”

  I want so badly to know what happened to his face—who did that to him, and was it the reason he wasn’t in school today. But the strange combination of rage and fear in his eyes rattles me away from the subject.

  “Why ain’t you in school?” he asks.

  “Early dismissal,” I say.

  He nods a little like he remembers now. I guess his family isn’t going away this weekend after all, or he would’ve known that.

  “Me and Gary are going camping,” I say, for lack of anything better.

  He nods once and looks down at the boxes of shells again. “That’s what you said on the bus.”

  “Oh. Yeah, right.”

  I glance around and spot Mr. Killen waving a tub of lard at me. Sister Grimes watches me from the dairy case like a gossip would.

  “If that’s all, Riley, I can check you out up front,” Mr. Killen says, his voice louder than needed for the amount of space between us. “I’ll be right with you, Dylan.”

  Dylan nods over his shoulder at Mr. Killen.

  “We’re going north of the tree line behind your dad’s cornfield,” I say. “So don’t shoot us out there.”

  My lame joke doesn’t go over any better than it did on the bus. Dylan doesn’t laugh. He doesn’t even smile. So I just wave at him and turn to leave.

  “Be careful out there, Riley.” His voice is small and tight behind me like a little kid’s—not a superhero’s.

  I look over my shoulder, but he’s standing with his back to me. I guess it wasn’t an invitation to keep talking to him. Even though he can’t see me, I nod and leave him there alone with his dark thoughts, his bruises, and his shotgun shells.

  12

  COP WORD OF THE DAY

  Fat Bald Detective blows his nose again. He tries to stifle the noise, but it sounds like he just blew half his brains out—and believe me, Frank can’t afford to lose any brains. I look away as he turns to grab another tissue. My gaze lands on a couple of framed certificates hanging on the wall. They look official enough, I reckon. One is probably a high school diploma. Frank probably did finish high school, but I doubt the other one is for college. Frank’s not smart enough for college. Maybe it’s his certificate of completion for his online detective course. Or a commendation.

  A commendation is like a pat on the back, but on paper.

  Like, Frank could’ve received a commendation for trying really hard, but being a total disappointment as a detective.

  I can’t stop squirming in my seat on his Fritos-smelling couch. I’m nervous because I was just here. I wonder why Frank wanted to see me again so soon. Did he somehow find out about the ring? Or about Kenny from Kentucky? But how could he? No, that can’t be it. Maybe he heard I was discussing the case at school again. Or he somehow knows I have a solid lead that I’m not sharing with him. Is that obstruction of justice? Not that he would believe me anyway.

  Hey ya, Frank. Just thought you should know that there are magical creatures in the woods who talk to me and they know where my mama is. So thanks for all you’ve done (cough, cough—not), but I got this now.

  No, that probably wouldn’t go over so well. After a couple of minutes waiting for him to finish spreading his germs all over the place, he spins around in his chair to face me. He casually wipes his hand on his pants leg like he’s brushing away lint or something.

  We both know it isn’t lint, Frank.

  “Sorry about that,” Frank says. “Allergies.”

  I wonder what Frank is allergic to. Probably dieting and solving cases.

  “Thanks for coming in again so soon, Riley. I just wanted to follow up on something from our last talk.”

  Frank thinks if he calls our meetings talks and not interrogations, which is what they are, that I’ll relax enough to slip up. He has a little notebook and a pen resting in his lap this time—finally. I wouldn’t have to keep coming down here and repeating myself if he’d been taking notes all along. We could have saved the taxpayers a boatload of money. I sit there and don’t say anything. Just wait for him to go on. Why should I help him do his job? He needs all the practice he can get.

  “You asked me if we’d found their car,” Frank says and then stares me down with that annoying plastic smile of his. “Their car.”

  I stare back at him for a silent moment, my mind racing, retracing every word I said the last time I was here. “I did?”

  My voice is scratchy and I kind of stutter out the words. Even I think I s
ound guilty. Beads of sweat instantly form around the collar of my shirt. My heart starts thumping Frank a message using Morse code or something. I don’t know Morse code, so I don’t know what my heart is trying to tell Frank. Maybe my heart thinks I’m hiding something too and is ratting me out. My heart could be Frank’s CI—a criminal informant. But that would mean my heart is a criminal. And a blabbermouth. Sounds about right.

  “Yes, you did,” he says, casually crossing his legs knee over knee. That’s what they do on the cop shows on TV when they think they’re getting somewhere with their interrogation of the perp. They sit back and casually cross their legs like they’ve figured something out and have you cornered. Or at least that’s what they want you to think. Detective Chase Cooper does it all the time. It’s usually a trap.

  “It’s just that you’ve never mentioned there being more than one person who took your mother.”

  “I didn’t say for sure that—that someone took her,” I say, stammering a little. I don’t know why he’s rattling me this way. I don’t know anything. “I said I don’t remember. I just assume someone did. What else could have happened to her?”

  He’d better not say that she left of her own free will, or I might just turn into the murderous lunatic everyone seems to think I am.

  “So the last time we spoke, why did you give the impression that there may have been more than one . . . culprit?”

  He says the word culprit like it’s a new one for him. They use that word all the time on the cop shows on TV. Maybe Frank’s mama got him a cop-word-of-the-day desk calendar since I last saw him. But I’m starting to get super nervous. I wonder if it shows. I try to stay calm and keep my face blank.

  Stick to your story, I tell myself. Stick to your story and everything will be fine.

  I take a deep breath, lean forward, and give Frank that same hard look that Dylan gave Gene Grimes at recess yesterday. “Are you charging me with a crime, Detective?”

  Frank raises his eyebrows and smiles. “Detective? What happened to just Frank? No need to get so defensive all of a sudden, Riley. I’m your friend. I’m trying to help you.”

  That’s how they get you. Make you think they’re on your side to get you talking. Maybe Frank’s trying the old good cop/bad cop routine and he’s playing the part of the good cop. A scarier detective will probably bust into the room any minute now and start screaming in my face. But I’m not playing along.

  “Help me how?” I say, feeling annoyed. “By trying to trick me into saying something I don’t mean? Incriminate myself? Trying to entrap me? Shouldn’t my daddy be here for this? Or my lawyer?”

  Entrap and incriminate are also words they use a lot on the cop shows on TV. But I can see by the confused look on Frank’s face that he probably hasn’t gotten to the entrap or incriminate days on his cop-word-of-the-day desk calendar yet. And I don’t even have a lawyer, but it may be time to get one. I wonder how much they cost and if Grandma and Grandpa would slip me enough fives and tens to pay for one.

  “Okay, Riley. Take it easy.” Frank leans forward, patting my knee. “You said you didn’t want your father in here for our talks. You insisted, actually. And I’m only repeating what you said for clarification so I can help you remember more about that day.”

  I can see it in Frank’s Mr. Potato Head smile. He still thinks I know more than I’m telling. This might be how police brutality starts, because I have an uncontrollable urge to slap him right across his fleshy face. But then he’d probably throw me in one of those holding cells, unplug the camera, and rough me up with his bad-cop partner. Then I’d miss my chance to find the Whispers tonight. And Mama. And to clear myself. Better dial it back a notch so I can get the heck out of here in one piece.

  “Sorry, Frank,” I say, making my tone friendlier. “I was just confused again. I might have said their white car last time, but if I did, I don’t remember why. Probably just a slip of the tongue.”

  Frank nods and scribbles something in his shiny new notebook.

  “What are you writing?” I ask, sounding way guiltier than I mean to.

  Frank looks up with a satisfied smile stretching across his face. He holds up the notebook and flips it around so I can see what he wrote.

  WHITE car.

  My heart, the snitch, starts sending Frank another secret Morse code message at lightning speed. Did I say white? I did. I said white. What the heck is wrong with me? This is all Kenny from Kentucky’s fault. Something told me I should stay away from that kid.

  “That’s very good, Riley,” Frank says. “See, you remember more than you think you do. You’ve never mentioned the color of the car before. Now you say it was white. This is good. We’re making progress. I bet you’ll remember even more soon.”

  He looks so pleased with himself and I just want to vomit. Does Frank think that I know who took Mama? Or that I was somehow in on it? That I helped those guys get away or something? Why the heck would I ever do that?

  The world’s worst police detective should go flip through his cop-word-of-the-day desk calendar and learn another police term he obviously doesn’t understand.

  Motive.

  Because I don’t have one.

  * * *

  “Mama, what’s a motive?”

  Mama stuffs a handful of popcorn in her mouth and passes me the bowl. CID: Chicago just went to commercial and left Detective Chase Cooper searching for a motive for a suspect.

  “Well, let’s see,” Mama says after chewing most of the popcorn in her mouth. A few pieces spill out the sides, but I know she’s doing that on purpose to make me laugh. It always works. “A motive is the reason why people do what they do.”

  “Use it in a sentence, Mama,” I say, even though Detective Chase Cooper has used the word like a hundred times in this episode. I just want to see more popcorn spill out of her mouth.

  She tosses back another big handful and squints at the ceiling as she chews loudly. “My motive for sending your daddy and brother to the movies tonight was so that I could spend time with Button, getting caught up on our favorite show.”

  Popcorn goes everywhere because she said every word with her mouth open real wide. We both laugh so hard that she chokes a little and an unpopped kernel shoots out of her nose. Then we really go crazy laughing.

  Best. Motive. Ever.

  13

  BLACK PANTHER VS. CAPTAIN AMERICA

  The house is quiet when I get home. Danny got out of school early today too, but he’s probably over at one of his high school friends’ houses smoking the devil’s weed if Grandma’s suspicions are correct. He’s been extra secretive and shifty the last few months. Daddy isn’t home from work either, so there’s no one to see me off on my quest to find Mama. But they just think I’m going over to Gary’s house, so my departure is no big deal to them. If they only knew.

  I throw everything into my Black Panther backpack—a change of clothes, all the snacks I got from Mr. Killen’s store, the matches, extra socks, my flashlight. I go over to the dresser and freeze when I spot the Ziploc bag with Mama’s wedding ring sitting on top of it. Just sitting there out in the open in front of God and everybody. I stare at it a second, giving my brain time to catch up with my eyeballs. I know I put the ring in the bottom drawer under my heavy winter sweater this morning. I would never leave it lying out like this. At least I’m pretty sure I put it away. It’s part of my morning routine.

  I pick up the Ziploc bag and stare at the ring inside, confused. The hair on the back of my neck prickles to attention. I spin around because it feels like someone is watching me. The room is empty, but the window is open a few inches. I thought I closed it before I left for school this morning. I walk over, push it down all the way, and lock it. Maybe someone was trying to steal Mama’s ring and I walked in on them and scared them away. But that doesn’t make any sense because nobody knows I have it, much less where I hide it. The Whisp
ers would know, though. They know everything. All the secrets of the universe—including where I hide Mama’s ring. I wonder if they’re trying to tell me something. Maybe they want me to bring the ring. Maybe the ring is like Cinderella’s slipper. Like I have to take it with me and have Mama try it on so the Whispers know she’s mine before they’ll let me bring her home.

  I shake my head. Maybe I am losing it after all. But Mama always says that it’s better to be safe than sorry, so I stuff the Ziploc bag down into the left front pocket of my jeans just in case I’m not totally crazy.

  Before I leave my room, I rip cavernous off my word-of-the-day desk calendar, tape it on the wall near the floor, and check out tomorrow’s word since I won’t be here.

  Winsome.

  I study the exact dictionary meaning and tuck it back in my brain for use in a good sentence later.

  Before I head out the back door, I spot something on the kitchen table. A note and a ten-dollar bill. I walk over, pick up the scrap of paper, and read it.

  Pitch in if Gary’s mom buys a pizza or something.

  Love,

  Dad

  I stare at the note. Mostly at the word love. I know it must have been hard for him to write that. But he probably thought it would have looked bad not to write it, or if he wrote something like sincerely or best wishes, or nothing at all. He really didn’t have a choice. I’m sure he thought about it, though. Why else would he sign it Dad instead of Daddy, which is the only thing I’ve ever called him?

  I grab the ten-dollar bill and the note and stuff them into my pocket. There’s just one last thing to get before I leave. I head over to Grandma’s house and tell Tucker to wait on the back porch while I slip through the kitchen door. I don’t really have a good plan. I just hope Grandma and Grandpa are napping in front of the TV like they usually do this time every day before the evening news comes on. I hear voices in the den and peek around the corner. Some old black-and-white Western movie plays on the TV. Grandpa has watched every black-and-white Western movie in the history of black-and-white Western movies. Grandma snores softly on the couch and Grandpa’s in his recliner fading in and out. He’ll never hear me, though, and Grandma can sleep through anything other than a turkey timer.