Deeper Than the Dead

11

Tommy hadn’t slept very much at all. Every time he had started to fall asleep, he had jerked himself awake, afraid of the dreams he knew would come. But every time his father or mother would come to check on him—which they did several times—he would pretend to be sound asleep.

He had gotten up as soon as it started getting light outside and started the homework he hadn’t done the night before. He didn’t know what the day would bring. Maybe he would be taken to a doctor or a psychiatrist, or maybe the police would take him in for questioning. The thing he most wanted to do was go to school and carry on as if the day before had never happened. As if.

Now he sat in the school office, waiting, his mother on one side, his father on the other. The secretaries kept looking over at him, then exchanging glances. He felt like a freak in the circus. Murder Boy.

He sighed and shifted on his chair. His father put his hand on his shoulder and gave a little squeeze. His mother got up and went to the counter to ask the secretary how long it would be.

“Are you nervous?” his father asked.

Tommy shrugged.

“All you have to do is tell the detective what happened and what you saw.”

Tommy said nothing. He stared at the doorway that led into the hall where the principal’s office and the conference room were, willing Wendy to come out and give him some kind of signal.

He heard a door open, but it wasn’t Wendy who emerged from the hall. It was a dark-haired man in a coat and tie, and he looked right at Tommy, then at his dad.

“Dr. Crane?”

“Yes,” his father said, rising.

His mother turned away from the secretary and stepped forward with her hand outstretched and her smile wide. “Janet Crane.”

“I’m Detective Mendez.” The detective greeted his parents only briefly, then focused on Tommy, bending over and offering his hand. “Hey, Tommy. How you doin’?”

Tommy shrugged and slid off his chair, sticking his hands in his pants pockets. Adults always thought they could impress kids by pretending to treat them like they weren’t kids.

“Tommy,” his mother said. “Manners.”

“I’m okay,” Tommy said. He was fine for having fallen on a dead woman.

They all went down the hall to the conference room, where Miss Navarre was waiting, trying not to look anxious. Pale with dark smudges under her eyes, she smiled at him like she was willing him to be brave.

“Did you get any sleep last night, Tommy?” Miss Navarre asked as they all took seats at the big table.

“He slept through the night,” his mother announced. “I gave him an antihistamine before bed. To help him relax.”

Detective Mendez raised an eyebrow but didn’t look at Tommy’s mother. He was messing with a tape recorder and shuffling through some papers.

“Tommy has allergies,” his mother went on. “He has a prescription. It’s nothing he hasn’t taken before.”

The detective spoke to the cassette recorder, telling it who was in the room.

“Dr. Crane. What kind of a doctor are you?”

“I’m a dentist. Tommy has a pediatrician, of course.”

Mendez pursed his lips and went, “Hmmm.”

Tommy’s mother frowned, displeased. She thought the detective was disapproving of her. Tommy could tell by the way she narrowed her eyes and pressed her lips together.

“I spoke to his doctor last night,” she said. “I was concerned about Tommy having nightmares.”

“Tommy, did you have any nightmares?” the detective asked. “You had quite a scare yesterday.”

Tommy shook his head and scratched his left forearm where his cuts had begun to itch.

“Really? That’s impressive. I had nightmares. Miss Navarre had nightmares.”

“I was just asleep,” Tommy said, looking down at the tabletop.

“Can you tell me how it went down yesterday?”

“We were running, and we fell down a hill, and I landed by the dead lady.” Short and sweet.

“Did you see anyone else around? Any adult?”

“No.”

“Do you think the killer could have still been there?” Tommy’s mother asked, alarmed.

“I don’t know,” Mendez said. “I’m just asking.”

“He could have seen the kids,” his mother went on, her eyes widening. “And now their names will be in the press.”

Mendez flicked a glance at her. “They’re minors. No one can legally print their names without permission.”

“We’re certainly not giving permission.”

“It wouldn’t be very likely that the killer was there,” Tommy’s father said. “Right? I mean, he would have to be crazy to bury a body in the park in broad daylight.”

“Who other than a crazy person could have done this?” his mother asked.

“You’d be surprised, Mrs. Crane,” Detective Mendez said. “I’ve done a lot of research on the subject. This guy could appear as ordinary as anyone in this room. He’s not crazy in the common sense of the word. In fact, he’s probably of above-average intelligence.”

“That’s unnerving,” Tommy’s father said.

“Ted Bundy had been to law school. He was a Young Republican and people in high places believed he had a big future ahead of him. He murdered—”

Miss Navarre cleared her throat the way people do when they want someone to shut up. Mendez looked at her and she tipped her head in Tommy’s direction.

Tommy made a mental note to look up this Bundy guy in the encyclopedia.

“Is that what you think is going on here, Detective?” Tommy’s father asked. “A serial killer? What would make you think that?”

Detective Mendez looked like he’d gotten caught saying something he shouldn’t have. “It’s really too soon to say.”

“Have there been other cases the public doesn’t know about?”

“What’s a cereal killer?” Tommy asked.

Miss Navarre looked really annoyed now when she looked at the detective. Detective Mendez turned his attention back toward Tommy.

“Tommy, can you describe to me what you saw, anything unusual you might have noticed at the scene?”

“Well, the dead lady,” Tommy said. Duh.

“Anything else?”

Tommy shrugged again, then tugged down on the sleeves of his striped rugby shirt and rubbed his arm. “The dead lady. And there was a dog. He was guarding her. He was black and white.”

“Did he have a collar?”

Tommy looked up at the ceiling, trying to remember. “Mmmmm. . . maybe . . . I’m not sure.”

“Did you touch anything around the dead lady?”

He shook his head emphatically. “No way.”

“Did anybody else touch anything?”

Tommy looked at the tabletop again, considering the wisdom of ratting out Dennis Farman. It didn’t seem like the thing to do if he wanted to stay in one piece.

“Tommy?”

Miss Navarre. He looked up at her and knew she knew he was stalling. She said a lot with her eyes. He didn’t want to let her down, what with being kind of in love with her and all.

“Uh . . . I didn’t touch anything. And I know Wendy didn’t touch anything.” Maybe if he left it at that . . .

Miss Navarre turned then to his parents. “Will Tommy be staying in school today?”

Tommy looked up at his father, willing him to say he could stay. His mother had talked about a psychiatrist. He had seen psychiatrists on television, and Lori Baylor had gone to one after her mother died of breast cancer. From what Tommy had been able to discern, all they ever did was make people lie down on a couch and talk about their feelings. Tommy had nothing to say on that subject. His feelings were not anybody else’s business.

“Principal Garnett tells us you’ve had some training in child psychology,” Tommy’s father said.

“Yes. Some,” Miss Navarre said. “Wendy Morgan is staying, if that helps in your decision-making.”

Tommy bugged his eyes out at his father. Please, please, please, please. He liked school. School was where he was happiest—except for when he was playing baseball or watching baseball. School was normal. At school he didn’t have to be watching adults and trying to figure out what they were thinking and how it would affect him.

“But you don’t have a degree,” Tommy’s mother said.

“No, I don’t.”

“And the school isn’t going to provide someone who has.”

“It doesn’t look that way.”

“And how will you handle the situation, Miss Navarre?” his mother asked, already expecting an unsatisfactory answer.

“We’ll talk about what happened with the class,” Miss Navarre said. “I think the best thing we can do is be open and honest with the kids.”

“Talking about serial killers?” Tommy’s mother said, giving Miss Navarre her Cold Eye as Tommy called it. “You think that’s appropriate, Miss Navarre?”

“No,” Miss Navarre said, raising her chin a little. “But talking about what happened to their classmates, talking about what’s going to happen next, talking about how a police investigation works, turning a negative experience into an opportunity to learn—all seems very appropriate. Don’t you agree, Mrs. Crane?”

Tommy’s mother sighed impatiently. “I think everyone on the school board is going to get a call about Mr. Garnett’s poor decision not to call in a professional.”

“That’s your prerogative,” Miss Navarre said. “In the meantime, I’ll do the best I can.”

“That’s not exactly reassuring.”

“I want to stay,” Tommy blurted out. Now he got the Cold Eye. It might have been better for him if he had ratted out Dennis Farman and kept his mouth shut about this. Oh well. It was too late now. “Please, Mom.”

His father spoke up then. “Let’s see how it goes. I like your ideas, Miss Navarre. I know you have the kids’ best interest at heart.”

“I do.”

Tommy’s mother stood up abruptly, checking her watch.”Are we finished, Detective?” she asked. “I have an appointment I have to get to.”

Detective Mendez and Miss Navarre looked at Tommy’s mother, a little surprised. Tommy wasn’t surprised. His mother was mad and she was cutting them off, dismissing them. She was done here and on to other, more important things. She didn’t like anything to disrupt her schedule.

Detective Mendez said, “You’re free to go.”

Tommy’s mother turned and walked out. His father put his hand on Tommy’s shoulder and looked down at him. “You’re sure you’re okay with staying, Sport?”

Tommy nodded. He was sure. Especially now. The last thing he wanted was to be stuck with his mother in one of her moods.

His father patted him on the shoulder and stood up.

“Miss Navarre, thank you for your efforts. If there’s anything I can do to help, please call.” He turned to Detective Mendez. “Good luck with your investigation, Detective. It sounds like you might have your work cut out for you, if this guy is what you think he is.”

“They’re never so clever that they don’t get caught eventually,” Mendez said.

“And if they are,” Tommy’s father said, “I guess we never know it, do we?”

He handed his business cards to Mendez and to Miss Navarre, squeezed Tommy’s shoulder one last time, and walked out.

Tommy breathed a sigh and rubbed absently at his arm. “Can we go back to class now, Miss Navarre? I just want everything to be normal.”

“Sure, Tommy,” she said. “Let’s go do something normal.”

Of course, Tommy knew nothing would ever feel quite normal again, but he could certainly pretend.