“Including during the chase and everything?”
“Yes, sir.”
The man paused for a moment. “Did you try to get him to stop?”
“About a hundred times.”
“But he just kept going?”
Bucky nodded.
The officer asked him several questions about his home address and personal information, dutifully recording the answers without comment. Finally he looked up again. “You been friends with Shultz long?”
“No, just this semester. We’re lab partners.”
Another pause. “And he drove the whole way, you say?”
“Yeah.”
The man set down his clipboard and looked at him. “Let me just tell you something here for your own good. Now maybe it was Shultz driving and maybe it wasn’t. We’ll get statements from all four of you. But think about this: anything you want to tell me, right now’s the time to do it. Any part of somebody’s story needs changing, you can do it right now. Without penalty, so to speak. Later on things won’t be nearly so cheerful if I find out things didn’t happen exactly like you said.” His voice was even, but his eyes bore holes through Bucky.
The student gulped. “I’m telling you the truth.”
“Just so we understand each other.”
Someone knocked on the door. “Come in,” the policeman called out.
A younger officer came in and handed a handwritten note to Shelton. He raised an eyebrow and cast a glance at Bucky before handing the slip of paper back. “Thanks,” he murmured. Bucky watched as the door closed behind the departing officer.
“Well, I guess we’ve got one more little bit of trivia to explore,” the man continued. “Has to do with a pretty hefty weapon found in your van. Fully automatic. Know anything about it?”
A fresh wave of fear hit Bucky in the gut.
“That’s Jonathan’s too,” he managed, sensing how lame his responses must sound. “He kind of collects them as a hobby. Or at least his folks do.”
“He brought it?”
“Uh huh.”
“Did you know he had it along? Concealed in the car?”
“No, sir. Not until we were already on the road.” He swallowed hard. “We already had kind of a fight over it. Back last night.” Without fanfare he described the scene in the restaurant.
“But the gun was his? You didn’t even handle it or anything?”
“No, sir.”
The policeman’s face didn’t reveal any clues about his thoughts. “Well, Mr. Stone, we’re going to see how all these stories line up, you understand. And we’re going to ask you to let us fingerprint you. That’s just for starters.” He rose to his feet, towering over him. “Please wait here.”
The minutes dragged by in painful silence. Against the far wall an old clock without a second hand ticked its way toward 11:00. He breathed a prayer for the other three students. Jonathan, especially, was in serious trouble, he realized. Bucky had a deepening sense of foreboding that he was too.
More than half an hour passed before the same officer returned. “Mr. Stone, would you come with me, please?”
Bucky followed the policeman to a room in the back of the station where a female clerk carefully took ink prints of his fingers. Each swirly black stain on the white police report seemed a fresh reminder of his poor judgment.
“Thank you, Mr. Stone,” the woman said when she had finished. “You can wipe your fingers off with this.” She handed him a chemically moistened paper towel.
Several minutes later a policewoman ushered Tracy and Jill into the same room. “You folks can stay here for now,” she announced before she stepped back out into the hallway.
Bucky looked over at Tracy, not knowing whether or not they were allowed to speak to each other. He glanced around to see if there was anyone to ask, but the room was empty. “Are you guys OK?”
Jill nodded. The eyes of both girls looked red from crying.
“What did they ask you?”
“Everything,” Tracy answered. “Who was driving, whose van, the works.”
“What did you tell them?” He looked over at Jill.
“Told them the truth. What else?” The dark - haired girl shrugged.
A flicker of hope penetrated Bucky’s bleak mood. With three of them giving the same testimony, maybe they could soon extricate themselves from this jam. He breathed another prayer for Jonathan.
At 1:00 the policewoman returned and went right to her desk without addressing the three students.
Several times Bucky found himself glancing at the clock. Today’s ballgame was obviously going to happen without them, he realized. A moment later he sensed the incongruity of worrying about missing a game after the mess they were in.
Collecting his courage, he finally went over to the officer. “Excuse me, ma’am?”
She looked up at him, peering over her glasses. “Yes?”
“Is it OK if . . . I mean, are we allowed to make phone calls?”
She nodded. “Yes, I think it’s all right now.” She gestured for him to come closer. “Just stay there where I can, you know, keep an ear on it.” She managed a half smile.
Pulling his cell phone free, he dialed Lisa’s number and waited. She answered on the first ring. “Hi!” He could hear the sound of her stereo in the background. “I didn’t think you’d call me from the ballpark. When are you going to come over and see me?”
Her enthusiasm made him wince. “Listen, I’m afraid . . .” He fought back the feelings of frustration that threatened to twist at his insides again. “We’re in a lot of trouble down here.”
“Where? Bucky, what is it?”
Keeping his voice low he described the dilemma, trying to keep it brief.
“Oh, no.” She groaned. “How could you guys be so dumb?”
“Boy, I don’t know.”
“Well, what’s going to happen?”
“I don’t know,” he repeated. “They’ve had Jonathan off by himself for a couple of hours. So I’ve got no idea what’s happening.”
After a long silence, she said, “I guess all you can do is call me when you finally get out of there.” Her voice sounded like she was trying to force herself to be casual. “I just hope it’s not twenty years.”
His stomach lurched. “I know.”
Another pause. “Good luck, I guess.”
“Yeah. I’ll call you as soon as I can.” He returned to the room and sat down, staring at his shoes. Tracy leaned over and held onto his arm. “Hang in there, babe.”
“Mr. Stone?” His head jerked up. Officer Shelton, his face still an emotionless mask, stood in the doorway. “Just a few more questions, if you don’t mind.”
“Sure.” Giving Tracy a shrug, he followed Shelton down the hallway to the same room.
The man sat down without fanfare and looked over at the young student. “We did find Shultz’s fingerprints all over the gun,” he announced without fanfare. “And traces of yours as well.”
Chapter Twelve: A Decent Reputation
Bucky’s head spun. “Wha . . . what did you say?”
“Your fingerprints. Right there on the gun along with Jonathan’s.” The man sat down and stared right through him. “What do you have to say about that?”
“I . . . I don’t know what to say.” The words came out weakly. “I just . . . I didn’t touch it. I swear.” He tried hard to think. “He had it in the glove compartment and then in his backpack in the restaurant. But I never picked it up or had it.”
The man said nothing as he eyed him.
“Please. You’ve got to believe me.” Now completely confused, Bucky didn’t know what else he could say.
Officer Shelton sat for a moment without responding. At last, chewing on his lower lip with a questioning expression still on his face, he rose and went over to the other side of the room. Punching in a four - digit extension, he spoke in a low voice, covering the receiver so that Bucky couldn’t listen in.
“Yeah, you’re right,” Bu
cky heard him say at last. “Until we find that out, nobody moves.”
Hanging up the phone, he returned to Bucky. “Well, we’re not getting very far. You and the girls all say it was Jonathan driving. But . . .”
“Well, what does he say?”
The man shrugged. “Not much. Frankly, we haven’t gotten much of a story out of Mr. Shultz. The van’s his, of course. Paperwork shows that. And he admits the gun’s his too. Which he knows would be easy enough to prove. But on the rest – him driving during the getaway and all – he won’t admit or deny nothin’. That’s why we’re still sitting here.”
“So now what?”
The police officer shifted in his seat, studying him before responding. “Well, Mr. Stone, we’re just kind of in a holding pattern. The way that van was goin’ eighty-five through town, we figure it was either you or Shultz driving and not that little redhead. Probably Shultz, although the girls might be covering for you. I don’t know. Gun’s got fingerprints of both you boys. So here we sit.”
Lord, please help me! Bucky breathed another silent prayer.
“Is it OK if I call my folks?”
A nod. “All right.” The man looked at him directly. “You got a cell phone?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Okay, then. Right here where I can listen.”
Bucky nodded. “Okay.” Numbly, he punched in the number of his dad’s office and entered the necessary digits again.
A receptionist answered. “Hampton Mortgage.”
“Is Mr. Stone in?”
A pause. “He’s on another line. May I help you?”
“This is Bucky. His son.” He drew a deep breath. “I’m in kind of an emergency. Any chance you can get him?”
“Let me try.”
Some “hold” music came on the line for a moment before the receiver crackled. “Bucky? Is that you?”
The familiar voice on the other end caused a brief stirring of emotion in Bucky. “Yeah, Dad.”
“What’s wrong?”
For the second time Bucky explained the crisis.
“Oh, boy.” A brief silence. “You guys are in a mess.” Dad’s mutter held no trace of anger.
“What can we do?”
“I can fly up there right now if I need to,” Dad said. “Take a couple of hours to get a flight to Eugene, but I’ll be happy to come.”
“I don’t know,” his son stammered. “I mean, we didn’t do anything. It was all Jonathan.”
“Well, sure, I know,” Dad responded. “But you can understand how it looks to them.” His voice seemed puzzled. “But that business with the gun. You’re sure you didn’t have anything to do with it?”
“Dad, I’m positive.”
“Wait a minute.” Bucky could hear his father whispering something to one of the secretaries. “Yeah, United. Or Southwest. Let me know.”
Mr. Stone came back on. “Didn’t you tell me you and this Jonathan spent an evening doing some target shooting over at his place? When you went over there to pick up some school books or something?”
It was as if a thunderbolt had struck Bucky. “That’s right!” Suddenly his breath began to come in excited little gasps. “How could I have been so stupid to forget that?”
Covering the cell phone with his hand, he turned excitedly to the officer. “My dad just reminded me that a couple weeks ago I was over at Jonathan’s, and we shot some tin cans off the porch. With that same gun.” He spoke into the receiver again. “Hang on, Dad.”
The man shrugged slightly. “Pretty convenient story,” he responded with a hint of cynicism in his voice.
“No way! It’s my dad. You can ask him yourself!”
Officer Shelton shook his head. “We’ll check it out,” he said. “But I’m not here to get a testimonial from your dad.”
The sudden euphoria began to fade. Why wouldn’t they believe him? He returned to the phone. “Dad, let me call you back as soon as I can.”
“You want me to come up?”
Bucky took a breath. “No, not yet. Let me call you first.”
“All right, son. I’ll either be right here or at the house. I won’t go anyplace else until I hear from you.”
“Thanks.”
His father’s voice softened. “I love you.”
“Yeah, Dad. Me too.” His heart fluttered as he hung up.
Putting the cell phone back in his pocket, Bucky turned around, but the officer had left the room. “Oh, boy,” he muttered to himself, not knowing what to think. Would Jonathan corroborate the story of the target practice back at Hampton Beach? And why wasn’t he telling the police he had been doing the driving?
Fifteen agonizing minutes went by. Impatiently Bucky watched as the clock hands slowly edged toward 2:00. Finally the officer returned. “Mr. Stone, why don’t you follow me?”
His stomach still queasy with uneasiness, Bucky followed the patrolman down the hallway toward a small conference room. Jonathan sat with two other officers, and someone pointed Bucky to a seat.
“Now, look, men,” Officer Shelton said. “I really hope we can work this out. Shultz, here, isn’t talking, and until we get our stories straight, I guess we can just sit here looking at each other.”
Bucky glanced over at his friend. “What’s going on?” he managed.
“Nothing.” The other boy’s gaze carried a warning. “I just don’t think we should talk to them here until we have some kind of, you know, legal advice.”
After staring at his shoes for a moment, Bucky said, “I guess you know I already answered their questions.”
“Yeah, I figured that out.” The stocky junior shrugged. “You can say what you want, but I’m not getting into it until I hear from my folks.”
“When’s that going to be?”
Jonathan shook his head. “Can’t get hold of them. Tonight when they get home, I hope.”
“So we’re just going to sit here?”
“That’s right, Stone,” Jonathan said after an angry silence. “We’re just going to sit here. I’m not going to go making up a whole bunch of stuff just so I can get out of here.”
The last remark caught Bucky by complete surprise. “What . . . what are you talking about?”
“Nothing. Just shut up.”
Over in the doorway Bucky could see two officers engaged in a quiet conversation. All at once the tension of the long day in police custody, combined with the frustration of Jonathan’s stoic denials, brought a sickening flutter to his stomach. “I got to . . . where’s the restroom?” he managed.
Officer Shelton shot him a sympathetic look. “Down the hall, second on the left.”
“OK if I go?”
“Yeah. But leave your phone here.”
For several long minutes Bucky remained in the restroom, waiting for his twisted insides to untie themselves. The emptiness in his stomach was partly to blame for his discomfort, he realized. He lingered as long as he dared before splashing his face with cold water and returning to the room where Jonathan and the trio of officers still waited. Bucky noticed that Jill and Tracy had now been brought into the same holding area. Tracy looked over at him without speaking.
He sat next to her. “We’re missing the game,” he said, trying to force a grin.
She nodded, edging closer to him. “Looks like a little worse than that.”
Bucky noticed one of the men eyeing him. With a start, he realized how things might look to the law enforcement officers. Would they think she had been covering for him all morning?
“Bucky? Bucky Stone?” Again he glanced toward the doorway. A large man in his early sixties with silver - white hair was looking at him.
“Yes.”
“Would you come with me, please?”
Bucky felt the same little twitch of nerves as he rose to his feet and followed the officer upstairs. A large mahogany door had a sign on it: “Chief Gerald Norris.”
The man motioned him inside. “Sit down, Stone.”
Bucky obeyed, trying to hold
on to at least a measure of calm.
Chief Norris studied him. “You fellows had a bit of trouble last night, apparently. Care to tell me about it?”
Carefully the boy repeated the same story he had given to the other officers earlier in the day. The police chief listened without commenting.
When Bucky was through describing the getaway and the morning’s arrest, the man reached into his pocket and pulled out a pair of glasses. Squinting as he examined the police report on his desk, he finally looked at Bucky.
“Well, son, you know how serious a thing like this could be. Running through traffic lights, evading lawful authority, charging through town at eighty miles an hour.”
“Yes, sir.”
“On the other hand, you say you weren’t driving. Furthermore, you tried repeatedly to get Mr. Shultz to stop. Is that correct?”
A prayer in his heart, Bucky nodded.
The silver - haired law officer set down the report. “Just before I called you in here, I was on the phone with the police department down at Hampton Beach. Couple of the fellows there I know pretty well.”
Bucky felt a sudden twinge of . . . of what?
“I’ll tell you what they told me,” the chief went on. “Apparently they know you from some experience you had down there at First California Bank about a year ago. A holdup and hostage situation. And then some business with basketball and point spreads.”
The boy gulped. “Yes, sir.”
“Anyway, they told me, ‘If Mr. Stone says he wasn’t driving, then he wasn’t driving. Period, case closed, you can take it to the bank.’ Then they said this too: ‘Mr. Stone has a pretty decent reputation in this town.’ End of quote.”
His heart pounding, Bucky flushed.
The officer stood up. “Mr. Stone, you and the young ladies are free to go. I’m sorry this has been such a difficult day for you.”
The sense of relief felt like a warm bath flooding him. “Boy, I can’t tell you . . . how much I appreciate this,” he managed.
“Well, a good reputation can sometimes be worth more than, well, just about anything.” For the first time Bucky saw a trace of a smile on the police chief’s face.
Bucky took a deep breath. “What about Jonathan?”
The officer picked up the police report. “Well, we did get hold of his parents about half an hour ago,” he said. “Mr. Shultz is driving up here this evening to help his son out. Of course, your friend will be facing some difficulty, as you can understand. License revoked, etc., etc. He won’t be driving for quite some time.”
Bucky Stone: The Complete Adventure (Volumes 1-10) Page 70
