Dead Silence

by Norah McClintock

  “So when I saw Alex run into the alley behind Sal, I was worried,” Bailey said. “I mean, Sal had just been walking down the street with Staci. He had his arm around her. Alex must have seen that. He must have got mad again. So I ran into the alley after him and—” His head twitched back and forth, like he was seeing everything he was describing but he still couldn’t believe it. “He was on his knees beside Sal. There was blood all over his clothes. So I told him to get out of there. He had a sweatshirt in his backpack, and I made him put it on. It covered most of the blood. Then I made him get out of there. And I got out of there, too. I’m sorry. I’m sorry.”

  My hands were curled into fists. I wanted to punch him. I wanted to do it over and over again. But was he any more to blame than I was? It came back at me again. It washed right over me and left me shivering—if I hadn’t told Rebecca that I had forgotten her book at home, I would have been with Sal. We would have gone downtown so he could take his driver’s license test. Everything would have been different.

  Annie was still holding his hand.

  “I was doing what everyone else was doing,” she said in a quiet voice. “I was looking in the other direction to see what had happened. Then I noticed that Bailey wasn’t there anymore. I turned around and saw him come out of the alley. His face was white. I knew right away something was wrong. Then that woman came screaming out of the alley. So I went to see what had happened. Bailey followed me. Then he went over to where the knife was lying and it looked like he was going to pick it up—”

  “I didn’t see it the first time I was in there,” Bailey said. “I wasn’t thinking. When I saw it, I wanted to get rid of it.”

  “I told him not to touch it,” Annie said. “I told him the woman had probably seen it. And by then some other kids had come into the alley, so I covered it with my scarf, you know, so no one would do anything stupid. And I called 911. I forgot about that woman who had been running to where the cops were. I wasn’t thinking straight because …” She glanced at Bailey. There were tears in her eyes now.

  “It’s okay,” Bailey said, squeezing her hand. “You might as well tell him.”

  “I wasn’t thinking straight because at first I thought Bailey had something to do with it. So I asked him, and he told me he didn’t. And I believed him. I knew Teddy didn’t like Sal, but Bailey …” Her voice trailed off again.

  “I didn’t have anything against him,” Bailey said. “He was okay.”

  “He panicked when he saw Sal lying there, that’s all. He said he was afraid if the cops found out he’d gone into the alley before that woman found Sal, they would think he did it, you know, because of what had just happened out on the street. That’s why he didn’t do anything when he came out of the alley the first time. So I didn’t tell the police that I’d seen Bailey go in there. I didn’t tell them I saw him reaching for the knife. I mean, I called 911 even though that woman went running down the street to the police. I wasn’t thinking straight, so I could see that maybe Bailey wasn’t thinking straight, either.” Tears trickled down her cheeks. Bailey put his arm around her and held her tightly. “I knew something was wrong, though. I knew he was hiding something. But he wouldn’t even talk to me about it.”

  “Is that why you were fighting at Teddy’s party?” I said.

  “I knew there was something he wasn’t telling me,” Annie said.

  “I asked her to believe me, and at first she did,” Bailey said. “Then she said she wasn’t sure, and that really scared me. If she didn’t believe me and if she went to the cops, then for sure they wouldn’t believe me, either.”

  She squeezed his hand this time.

  “I asked Alex if he’d got rid of the clothes,” Bailey said. “But I couldn’t stop thinking about that knife. I was afraid they’d want to fingerprint everyone in the school or something.”

  I didn’t tell him what I knew about the knife.

  “Then I started thinking maybe I should go to the cops. But he’s my cousin and …”

  “The accident Alex was in,” Annie said softly. “Bailey was driving the tractor. He shouldn’t have been, but he was.”

  There were tears in Bailey’s eyes.

  “Did you tell Alex to say it was some man who did it?” I said.

  Bailey shook his head. “He tried to tell me there was some man in the alley, but …”

  “But what?” I said.

  “Alex is like a little kid sometimes. He gets into trouble and he tries to blame someone else.”

  “You didn’t believe him?” I said.

  “He hit a kid in Regina,” Bailey said. “With a piece of pipe. The kid was lucky he didn’t lose an eye. Alex said he didn’t do it, even though someone besides the guy saw him. He said it must have been someone else.”

  Oh.

  “There was blood all over him,” Bailey said. He looked miserable. “He’s not bad. He really isn’t. If you’d known him before the accident …”

  Annie slipped an arm around his waist.

  “They let me talk to him last night after they arrested him,” Bailey said. “I told him he should do the right thing. I told him he had no choice. He should tell them what happened between him and Sal. I told him he should tell them he did it and that he was sorry. I said it would be better for everyone if he did that.”

  We stood there in silence for a few moments. Then I turned and made my way down the bleachers and went back into the school. I don’t remember anything about any of my classes the rest of that day. Now that I knew what had happened, I didn’t feel the way I thought I would. I thought I’d be happy it was all over. I thought I’d be jumping up and down. But I wasn’t happy. Not even close. I kept thinking how stupid it was—Sal killed over a misunderstanding, because Alex thought that Sal was interested in Staci. I thought, too, how it could have been different if I hadn’t left him that note.

  After school I walked around for a while. I ended up at Vin’s house. Vin looked surprised when he opened the door. No wonder—I was crying.

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  “I heard they arrested someone,” Vin said. His mother was in the kitchen when I got to the house. She had called hello to me, but Vin hurried me up the stairs before she could see my face. We went to his room. I was sitting on Vin’s bed. He was sitting on a chair. “So that’s good, right, Mike?”

  “Yeah,” I said. “It turns out it was this kid from my school. He pushed Sal down the stairs the week before. I think Sal was really afraid of him.” But that still bothered me. I thought we had been close. Had I been wrong about that? “Sal never said a word to me about it. A guy pushed him down the stairs, and he never mentioned it.”

  “Well, you know Sal. He never complained.”

  “I know. But you’d think that if he was scared enough to start carrying a knife, he would say something to somebody about it.”

  “Sal was carrying a knife?” Vin said. He stared at me, astonished. I remembered that I had told him the cops had asked me if Sal had a weapon. But at the time, even I hadn’t known what kind of weapon they were talking about.

  I had promised Riel I wouldn’t say anything about the knife. But that was before the cops had arrested Alex. I didn’t see what difference it would make now. It was case closed. So I told Vin about the knife that Annie had seen and that the cops were pretty sure that Sal had been stabbed to death with his own knife. I described it to him. He turned pale.

  “What’s the matter?” I said.

  “It had a skull and crossbones and three sixes on it?” he said.

  I nodded. “And an X.”

  He stood up slowly.

  “What’s the matter, Vin?”

  “It’s got to be a coincidence,” Vin said.

  “What’s got to be a coincidence?”

  “Did Annie say what the X looked like?”

  “What do you mean, what it looked like? It looked like an X.”

  “Did she say if the X was painted on or scratched on, anything like that?”

&nbs
p; “She said it looked like the X had been scratched into the handle. Why? Do you recognize the knife? Did you see him with it?”

  He was shaking his head. “I’ll be right back,” he said.

  He disappeared from the room. I heard him go down the stairs. A few minutes later, he came back and sat down on the chair again. His face was white. He stared at the floor for a few moments before looking up at me.

  “What’s going on, Vin?”

  “Remember I said that my mom confiscated my knife?”

  “Yeah.”

  “I just asked her. It wasn’t her.”

  I got a weird, creepy feeling all over. “What are you talking about, Vin?”

  “She says she didn’t even know I had a knife. She’s pretty steamed about it now that she knows. But she didn’t take it.”

  Vin’s knife was gone, and his mother hadn’t taken it. My eyes met Vin’s.

  “Are you saying that Sal took your knife?”

  “Either that or it’s a huge coincidence. That knife Annie saw sounds just like mine. I scratched that X on the handle myself. I’d be able to tell if it was mine for sure it I saw it.”

  Now I was shaking my head.

  “Sal knew I had it, Mike. I was fooling around with it that first time he came over. We were up here talking, and I was fooling around with it. Then my mom knocked on the door. She’d made us something to eat and was bringing it up. I put the knife in one of my drawers. I knew if my mom saw it, she’d go ballistic. A week or so later, I noticed it was gone. I figured she must have found it when she was cleaning my room. Man, I spent the next couple of days waiting for the roof to cave in. I thought she was going to ream me out for sure. But she didn’t say a word. It turns out she didn’t say anything because she didn’t find it. She didn’t know until two minutes ago that I even had it. Sal must have taken it.” For a moment I thought he was going to cry. “Jeez, Mike, Sal was killed with my knife. If only I never had it. If only …”

  I knew exactly how he felt.

  We both just sat there, staring into space and thinking what we could have done differently.

  Finally, I said, “I sure wish I’d known how scared he was of Alex.”

  “Yeah. If that kid was giving him a hard time for that long, you’d think he would have said something. Maybe he didn’t think it would do any good. He said something about restraining orders when he was here.”

  “Restraining orders?”

  “Yeah. That time he was over here. He was telling me this story about something he read in the paper. Something about a woman whose husband used to beat her up all the time. She got a restraining order, but it didn’t do any good. Apparently the guy still went after her and killed her. Sal was all worked up about it, you know, about how sometimes there was nothing the cops could do until it was too late.”

  “When was this?” I said.

  “That time he came over here. A few months ago. In the summer. I wish he would have said something.”

  So did I.

  “You think I should tell the cops it was my knife?” Vin said.

  “I don’t know.”

  Vin was silent for another few moments. Then he said, “Maybe you could talk to Riel about it, see what he says. It’s okay with me. Whatever’s right.”

  I told him I would do that.

  I was up in my room later, waiting for Riel to come home. The minute I heard him come through the door, I went downstairs. I waited until he had kissed Susan hello, and then I followed him through to the kitchen. He got himself something to eat and sat down at the table. I sat across from him and told him what Bailey had said. He listened carefully.

  “So it looks like Alex really did it,” I said. “I worked with him. I helped him. And he lied to me.”

  Then, because it seemed like the right thing to do, I told Riel what I had found out from Vin.

  He didn’t say what I thought he would. He didn’t yell at me for talking about the knife with Vin. He didn’t say that maybe if Vin hadn’t had a knife, it never would have happened. Instead, he said, “I’ll tell Dave what you told me.” Then he said, “Tell Vin he did the right thing by speaking up, though.”

  I said I would.

  It wasn’t until I was in bed that it hit me.

  I went downstairs again.

  Riel was watching the news. Susan was curled up on the couch beside him. Her head was resting on his shoulder.

  “I have to make a phone call,” I said.

  “It’s pretty late, Mike.”

  “I have to call Vin. It’s important.”

  I could tell he wasn’t happy about that. Maybe he was worried that I was going to start hanging out with Vin again. But he didn’t try to stop me.

  I went into the kitchen, made the call, and apologized to Vin’s mom when she answered.

  “It’s okay, Mike,” she said. “I’m still up. Hang on. I’ll get him for you.”

  “What’s up?” Vin said a few moments later.

  “When was the last time Sal was at your house?” I said.

  “I told you. A few months ago. In the summer.”

  “When, exactly?”

  “I don’t know. I think it was the beginning of July. Yeah. It was right after the long weekend. I remember because my mom made these stupid cupcakes with red maple leafs on them. That’s what she brought up for us when Sal was here.”

  “Did you see him after that?”

  “Yeah, sure,” Vin said. “A couple of times.”

  “Did he come to your house?”

  “No. One time I went over to the McDonald’s where he works. And one time he came over to my school and we went to that place I took you to—that restaurant near the library. I introduced him to Linzey.”

  “But he didn’t go to your house again?”

  “No. Why?”

  “You’re sure?”

  “Yeah, I’m sure. What’s up, Mike?”

  “I’ll tell you when I figure it out,” I said.

  I went back into the living room. I guess Riel read the expression on my face.

  “Problem?” he said.

  “If that knife really is Vin’s, then I don’t think Sal took it because he was afraid of Alex,” I said. “He couldn’t have. He didn’t know Alex yet. Alex didn’t move here until a couple of days before school started. Vin’s knife went missing a few months ago, at the beginning of July.”

  Riel frowned. “He must have had some reason for taking it,” he said.

  “But what reason? Sal isn’t one of those guys who carries a knife around to look tough.” The kind of guy Vin used to be.

  “Mike is right. He was such a sweet kid,” Susan said. “Maybe he took it to make sure Vin didn’t get into trouble.”

  “Maybe …” I said. Alex had told me he’d seen someone running out of the alley when he found Sal. What if he hadn’t been lying to Bailey? I thought. What if he had been telling the truth? What if someone else had stabbed Sal? What if it was that person Sal was afraid of? What if he had taken Vin’s knife because of that person? But what person? And why would Sal have been so scared that he thought he needed a knife? It didn’t make sense.

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  I woke up feeling like I’d hadn’t slept all night, which was more or less true. I’d tossed and turned, and I swear I saw every hour click by on the clock on my bedside table.

  Sal had taken Vin’s knife. He hadn’t told anyone. What if he really had taken it to protect himself? Wouldn’t he have said something to someone? I mean, if you’re that scared, would you really keep it to yourself? And I was his friend. We had known each other for years. Why hadn’t he talked to me?

  I was on my way to school when it finally occurred to me that just because he hadn’t told me, that didn’t mean he hadn’t told anyone. There was someone else Sal used to tell things to—things that he didn’t tell me.

  I had a spare right before lunch. I headed up to the park on the other side of the railroad tracks. There were two high schools up there, o
ne on the east side of the park and one on the west side. I went to the one at the west side, and I waited. When the lunch bell rang, kids started to pour out of the place. There were three different exits that emptied onto the street, and I kept scanning all of them. But there was no guarantee she was even going to come out of school. Maybe she was going to meet up with her friends in the cafeteria.

  Then I spotted her.

  Imogen.

  She had transferred schools at the end of the school year. Rebecca had told me it was because Sal broke up with her. She said Imogen really liked Sal and she didn’t think she could stand being in the same school as him if she couldn’t go out with him. Rebecca said that Imogen told her that the worst thing would be if Sal started going out with someone else and Imogen had to see them together in class or in the hall or in the cafeteria. I knew what she meant. I didn’t think I’d be able to stand seeing Rebecca with another guy.

  Imogen was with two other girls. She stopped walking when she saw me. For a moment I thought she was going to turn around and march right back into school so she wouldn’t have to look at my face. But she didn’t. She pulled herself up straight, like she was trying to show me she wasn’t afraid, and she walked right up to me.

  “What do you want, Mike?” she said.

  “I need to talk to you. About Sal.”

  As soon as I said his name, her expression changed from snotty to sad.

  “I heard they arrested the guy who did it,” she said.

  “Did you see Sal in July, Imogen?”

  “Yeah. I went to that big picnic on the July first weekend,” she said. “You know, the one that radio station puts on.”

  I knew it. It attracted mobs of people.

  “I ran into Sal there and—” She shrugged. “When I saw him, I was ready to turn and run in the other direction. He was so mad at me when he found out what I did to you.” She meant when he found out she had called the cops on me about that convenience store robbery. “But he said hi and we started talking and … it was like we never broke up.”