by John Grisham
“Are you the leader of this gang?” Bard snapped.
Theo glanced at Woody, who’d lost all confidence and appeared frightened, as if he were about to be dragged away to jail and perhaps beaten. “I guess,” Theo answered.
“So, who asked you boys and girls to join in the search?”
“Well, sir, no one really asked us. April is our friend and we’re worried.” Theo was trying to find the right tone. He wanted to be very respectful, but at the same time he was convinced they were doing nothing wrong.
“How sweet,” Bard said, grinning at the other two officers. He was holding a flyer and he showed it to Theo. “Who printed these?” he asked.
Theo wanted to say, “Sir, it’s really none of your business who printed the flyers.” But this would only make a tense situation much worse. So he said, “We printed them at school today.”
“And this is April?” Bard said, pointing to the smiling face square in the middle of the flyer.
Theo wanted to say, “No, sir, that’s another girl’s face we’re using to make the search even more difficult by confusing everybody.”
April’s face had been all over the local news. Surely, Bard recognized her.
Theo said, simply, “Yes, sir.”
“And who gave you kids permission to tack these flyers on public property?”
“No one.”
“You know it’s a violation of city code, against the law? You know this?” Bard had been watching too many bad-cop shows on television, and he was working much too hard to try to frighten the kids.
Justin and his team made a silent entry into the fray. They rolled to a stop behind the other bikers. Eighteen kids, three policemen, and several neighbors drifting over to check on things.
At this point Theo should’ve played along and professed ignorance of the city’s laws, but he simply could not do so. He said, very respectfully, “No, sir, it’s not a violation of the city code to put flyers on poles used for telephones and electricity. I checked the law online during school today.”
It was immediately obvious that Officer Bard wasn’t sure what to say next. His bluff had been called. He glanced at his two pals, both of whom seemed to be amused and not the least bit supportive. The kids were smirking at him. It was Bard against everyone.
Theo pressed on, “The law clearly says that permits must be approved for posters and flyers dealing with politicians and people who are running for office, but not for anything else. These flyers are legal as long as they are taken down within ten days. That’s the law.”
“I don’t like your attitude, kid,” Bard shot back, puffing out his chest and actually putting a hand on his service revolver. Theo noticed the gun, but wasn’t worried about being shot. Bard was trying to play the role of a tough cop, and he was not doing a very good job.
Being the only child of two lawyers, Theo had already developed a healthy suspicion of those people who thought they had more power than others, including policemen. He had been taught to respect all adults, especially those with authority, but at the same time, his parents had instilled in him a desire to always look for the truth. When a person-adult, teenager, child-was not being honest, then it was wrong to go along with their fraud or lie.
As everyone looked at Theo and waited on his response, he swallowed hard and said, “Well, sir, there’s nothing wrong with my attitude. And, even if I had a bad attitude, it’s not against the law.”
Bard yanked a pen and a notepad from his pocket and said, “What’s your name?”
Theo thought, I gave you my name three minutes ago, but he said, “Theodore Boone.”
Bard scribbled this down in a flurry, as if whatever he was writing would one day carry great weight in a court of law. Everyone waited. Finally, one of the other officers took a few steps toward Bard and said, “Is your dad Woods Boone?” His nameplate identified him as Sneed.
Finally, Theo thought. “Yes, sir.”
“And your mother’s a lawyer, too, right?” Officer Sneed asked.
“Yes, sir.”
Bard’s shoulders slumped a few inches as he stopped scribbling on his pad. He looked puzzled, as if he was thinking, Great. This kid knows the law and I don’t, plus he’s got two parents who’ll probably sue me if I do something wrong.
Sneed tried to help him by asking a pointless question. “You kids live around here?”
Darren slowly raised his hand and said, “I live a few blocks away, over on Emmitt Street.”
The situation was sort of a standoff, with neither side sure what to do next. Sibley Taylor got off her bike and walked to a spot next to Theo. She smiled at Bard and Sneed, and said, “I don’t understand. Why can’t we work together here? April is our friend and we’re very worried. The police are looking for her. We’re looking for her. We’re not doing anything wrong. What’s the big deal?”
Bard and Sneed could think of no quick response to these simple questions with obvious answers.
In every class, there’s always the kid who speaks before he thinks, or says what the others are thinking but are afraid to say. In this search party, that kid was Aaron Helleberg, who spoke English, German, and Spanish and got himself in trouble in all three. Aaron blurted, “Shouldn’t you guys be looking for April instead of harassing us?”
Officer Bard sucked in his gut as if he’d been kicked there, and appeared ready to start shooting when Sneed jumped in. “Okay, here’s the deal. You can hand out the flyers but you can’t tack them onto city property-utility poles, bus-stop benches, things like that. It’s almost five o’clock. I want you off the streets at six. Fair enough?” He was glaring at Theo when he finished.
Theo shrugged and said, “Fair enough.” But it wasn’t fair at all. They could tack the posters onto utility poles all day long. (But not city benches.) The police did not have the authority to change the city’s laws, nor did they have the right to order the kids off the streets by 6:00 p.m.
However, at that moment a compromise was needed, and Sneed’s deal was not that bad. The search would continue, and the police could say that they kept the kids in line. Solving a dispute often requires each side to back down a little, something else Theo had learned from his parents.
The search party biked back to Truman Park where it regrouped. Four of the kids had other things to do and left. Twenty minutes after they last saw Bard and Sneed, Theo and his gang moved into a neighborhood known as Maury Hill, in the southeast part of the city, as far away from Delmont as possible. They passed out dozens of flyers, inspected a few empty buildings, chatted with curious neighbors, and quit promptly at 6:00 p.m.
Chapter 5
T he Boone family dinner schedule was as predictable as a clock on the wall. On Mondays, they ate at Robilio’s, an old Italian restaurant downtown, not far from the office. On Tuesdays, they ate soup and sandwiches at a homeless shelter where they volunteered. On Wednesdays, Mr. Boone picked up carryout Chinese from Dragon Lady, and they ate on folding trays as they watched television. On Thursdays, Mrs. Boone picked up a roasted chicken at a Turkish deli, and they ate it with hummus and pita bread. On Fridays, they ate fish at Malouf’s, a popular restaurant owned by an old Lebanese couple who yelled at each other constantly. On Saturdays, each of the three Boones took turns choosing what and where to eat. Theo usually preferred pizza and a movie. On Sundays, Mrs. Boone finally did her own cooking, which was Theo’s least favorite meal of the week, though he was too smart to say so. Marcella didn’t like to cook. She worked hard and spent long hours at the office, and simply did not enjoy rushing home and facing more work in the kitchen. Besides, there were plenty of good ethnic restaurants and delicatessens in Strattenburg, and it made much more sense to let real chefs do the cooking, at least in the opinion of Mrs. Marcella Boone. Theo didn’t mind, nor did his father. When she did cook, she expected her husband and her son to clean up afterward, and both men preferred to avoid the dishwashing.
Dinner was always at 7:00 p.m. on the dot, another clear sign of organi
zed people who hurried through each day with one eye on the clock. Theo placed his paper plate of chicken chow mein and sweet-and-sour shrimp on his TV tray and settled on the sofa. He then lowered a smaller plate onto the floor, where Judge was waiting with great anticipation. Judge loved Chinese food and expected to eat in the den with the humans. Dog food insulted him.
After a couple of bites, Mr. Boone asked, “So, Theo, any news on April?”
“No, sir. Just a lot of gossip at school.”
“That poor child,” Mrs. Boone said. “I’m sure everyone at school was worried.”
“That’s all we talked about. A total waste. I should stay home tomorrow and help with the search.”
“That’s a pretty lame effort,” Mr. Boone said.
“Did you guys talk to the police about Mrs. Finnemore and explain to them that she’s lying about being home with April? That she wasn’t home Monday or Tuesday night? That she’s a weirdo who’s taking pills and neglecting her daughter?”
Silence. The room was quiet for a few seconds, then Mrs. Boone said, “No, Theo, we did not. We discussed it and decided to wait.”
“But why?”
His father said, “Because it won’t help the police find April. We plan to wait for a day or two. It’s still being discussed.”
“You’re not eating, Theo,” his mother said.
And it was true. He had no appetite. The food seemed to stop halfway down his esophagus, where a dull throbbing pain blocked everything. “I’m not hungry,” he said.
Later, halfway through a rerun of Law amp; Order, a local newsbreak blasted out the latest. The search for April Finnemore continued, with the police still tight-lipped about it. They flashed a photo of April, then one of the MISSING posters Theo and his gang had distributed. Immediately after this, there was the same ominous mug shot of Jack Leeper, looking like a serial killer. The reporter gushed, “The police are investigating the possibility that Jack Leeper, after his escape from prison in California, returned to Strattenburg to see his pen pal, April Finnemore.”
The police are investigating a lot of things, Theo thought to himself. That doesn’t mean they’re all true. He had thought about Leeper all day, and he was certain that April would never open the door for such a creep. He had told himself over and over that the kidnapping theory could be nothing but one big coincidence: Leeper escaped from prison, returned to Strattenburg because he lived there many years ago, and got himself caught on videotape at a convenience store at the exact same time that April decided to run away.
Theo knew April well, but he also realized there were many things about her he didn’t know. Nor did he want to. Was it possible that she would run away without a word to him? Slowly, he had begun to believe the answer was yes.
He was on the sofa under a quilt, with Judge wedged close to his chest, and at some point, both fell asleep. Theo had been awake since four thirty that morning and was sleep deprived. Physically and emotionally, he was exhausted.
Chapter 6
The eastern boundary of the city of Strattenburg was formed by a bend in the Yancey River. An old bridge, one used by both cars and trains, crossed over into the next county. The bridge was not used much because there was little reason to travel into the next county. All of Strattenburg lay west of the river, and when leaving the city almost all traffic moved in that direction. In decades past, the Yancey had been a fairly important route for timber and crops, and in Strattenburg’s early years the busy area “under the bridge” was notorious for saloons and illegal gambling halls and places for all sorts of bad behavior. When the river traffic declined, most of these places closed and the bad folks went elsewhere. However, enough stayed behind to ensure that the neighborhood would maintain its low reputation.
“Under the bridge” became simply “the bridge,” a part of town that all decent people avoided. It was a dark place, almost hidden in the daytime by the shadows of a long bluff, with few streetlights at night and little traffic. There were bars and rough places where one went only to find trouble. The homes were small shacks built on stilts to protect them from high water. The people who lived there were sometimes called “river rats,” a nickname they obviously found insulting. When they worked, they fished the Yancey and sold their catch to a cannery that produced cat and dog food. But they didn’t work much. They were an idle people, living off the river, living off welfare, feuding with each other over trivial matters, and in general, earning their reputation as quick-tempered deadbeats.
Early Thursday morning, the manhunt arrived at the bridge.
A river rat named Buster Shell spent most of Wednesday evening in his favorite bar, drinking his favorite cheap beer and playing nickel-and-dime poker. When his money was gone, he had no choice but to leave and head home to his irritable wife and his three dirty children. As he walked through the narrow, unpaved streets, he bumped into a man who was going somewhere in a hurry. They exchanged a couple of harsh words, as was the custom under the bridge, but the other man showed no interest in a fistfight, something Buster was certainly ready for.
As Buster resumed his walk, he stopped dead cold. He’d seen that face before. He’d seen it only hours earlier. It was the face of that guy the cops were searching for. What’s his name? Buster, half drunk or worse, snapped his fingers in the middle of the street as he racked his brain trying to remember.
“Leeper,” he finally said. “Jack Leeper.”
By now, most of Strattenburg knew that a reward of five thousand dollars was being offered by the police for any information leading to the arrest of Jack Leeper. Buster could almost smell the money. He looked around, but the man was long gone. However, Leeper-and there was no doubt in Buster’s mind that the man was indeed Jack Leeper-was now somewhere under the bridge. He was in Buster’s part of town, a place the police preferred to avoid, a place where the river rats made their own rules.
Within minutes, Buster had rounded up a small, well-armed posse, half a dozen men about as drunk as he was. Word was out. The rumor that the escaped convict was in the vicinity roared through the neighborhood. The river people fought constantly among themselves, but when threatened from the outside, they quickly circled the wagons.
With Buster giving orders that no one followed, the search for Leeper sputtered from the start. There was considerable conflict in terms of strategy, and since every man carried a loaded gun, the disagreements were serious. With time, though, they agreed that the one main street that led up the bluff and into town should be guarded. When that was done, Leeper’s only chance of escape was either by stealing a boat or going for a swim in the Yancey River.
Hours passed. Buster and his men went door-to-door, carefully searching under the houses, behind the shanties, inside the small stores and shops, through the thickets and underbrush. The search party grew and grew and Buster began to worry about how they might split the reward money with so many people now involved. How could he keep most of the money? It would be difficult. The payment of five thousand dollars to a bunch of river rats would ignite a small war under the bridge.
The first hint of sunlight peeked through the clouds far to the east. The search was running out of gas. Buster’s recruits were tired and losing their enthusiasm.
Miss Ethel Barber was eighty-five years old and had lived alone since her husband died years earlier. She was one of the few residents under the bridge who was missing the excitement. When she awoke at 6:00 a.m. and went to make coffee, she heard a faint noise coming from the rear door of her four-room shanty. She kept a pistol in a drawer under the toaster. She grabbed it, then flipped on a light switch. Like Buster, she came face-to-face with the man she’d seen on the local news. He was in the process of removing a screen from the small window on the door, obviously trying to break in. When Miss Ethel raised her gun, as if to shoot through the window, Jack Leeper’s jaw dropped, his eyes widened in horror, and he uttered some gasp of shock that she couldn’t quite make out. (She had lost most of her hearing anyway.) Leeper the
n ducked quickly and scrambled away. Miss Ethel grabbed her phone and called 911.
Within ten minutes, a police helicopter was hovering near the bridge and the SWAT team was moving silently through the streets.
Buster Shell was arrested for public drunkenness, unlawful possession of a firearm, and resisting arrest. He was handcuffed and taken to the city jail, his dreams of reward money dashed forever.
They soon found Leeper, in an overgrown ditch near the street that led to and from the bridge. He had circled back and was evidently trying to leave the area. Why he went there in the first place would remain a mystery.
He was spotted by the helicopter crew. The SWAT team was directed to his hiding place, and within minutes the street was filled with police cars, armed officers of all varieties, sharpshooters, bloodhounds, even an ambulance. The helicopter got lower and lower. No one wanted to miss the fun. There was a van from the television news channel, filming live coverage.
Theo was watching. He was up early because he’d been up most of the night, tossing and flipping in his bed, worrying about April. He sat at the kitchen table, toying with a bowl of cereal, watching the small screen on the counter with his parents. When the camera offered a close-up of the SWAT team dragging someone from the ditch, Theo dropped his spoon, picked up the remote, and increased the volume.
The sight of Jack Leeper was frightening. His clothes were torn and covered with mud. He had not shaved in days. His thick black hair was wild and shooting in all directions. He appeared angry and defiant, yapping at the police and even spitting at the camera. As he neared the street and was surrounded by even more officers, a reporter yelled, “Hey, Leeper! Where’s April Finnemore!?”
To which Leeper offered a nasty grin and yelled back, “You’ll never find her.”
“Is she alive?”
“You’ll never find her.”
