Edenville Owls

Chapter 24

I had to find out what was going on between Tupper and Miss Delaney. The only way I could think of was to listen in on them when they were together. And the only way I could think of to do that was to find a place in Miss Delaney’s house where I could get in and hide and listen to them. It had to be a place I could get to easily. I’d have to see him go in and then sneak fast into the listening place.

I spent several winter afternoons looking at the house. Old Lady Coughlin was the town librarian. So when Miss Delaney was in school and Old Lady Coughlin was in the library, there should be nobody at their house. There wasn’t. Except weekends. I had to get in to get the lay of the land in there. I couldn’t do it on a weekend. I would have to skip school. The entrance to the second floor, where Miss Delaney lived, was separate from the entrance to Old Lady Coughlin’s. So the dog wouldn’t be a problem. He might yap, but so what.

I went to school on Tuesday morning, made sure Miss Delaney was there, pretended to go to the boy’s room, and skipped out the side door with my book bag. The library didn’t open until an hour after school started, and Edenville was too small a town for a school-age kid to get away with hanging around on the street. I went up to St. Ignacio’s and hung around there. It was like a branch church, and it was always open. But Father Al was only there on Friday, Saturday, and Sunday. I figured if I got caught skipping school to sit in the church, how much trouble could I get in?

I liked it in the empty church. The Mass on Sundays was boring. But when it was empty and I was in there alone, I liked the way the sunlight came through the stained-glass windows. I liked the silence, and the hint of incense, and the statues of the Virgin by the altar. I didn’t much like the crucifix above the altar. It seemed kind of gruesome to me. But it was part of the whole church thing.

I was doing bad things... skipping school, breaking into Miss Delaney’s house, spying on people... But I was doing them for a good reason. I was trying to save Miss Delaney... Miss Delaney said she didn’t want me to save her. But she needed to be saved from that guy. Oswald Tupper was creepy. And there was nobody else to help her... Sometimes I wished I hadn’t been looking out the window that day when I saw them for the first time... It was kind of fun, though. I wondered what Father Al would say.

When it was time, I went out of the church and walked down past the library. Being outside, walking around on a school day, I felt like I was naked in public. As I went past the library, I could see Old Lady Coughlin at the desk. I went on to her house and walked straight up to Miss Delaney’s door like I was supposed to be there. I tried the door. It was locked. I looked in the keyhole. I could see the key inside. I took a newspaper page from my book bag and spread it flat and slipped it under the door. Then I took my jackknife and put it in the keyhole and pushed the key from the hole. I heard it land on the floor inside the door. I put my jackknife away and crouched down and carefully pulled the newspaper out from under the door. There was the key, just like it was supposed to be. I’d read about a guy breaking in by doing that trick in Black Mask Magazine. I was thrilled that it worked.

I unlocked Miss Delaney’s door and went in. I could feel my heart. I could hear it. The sound filled my head. I was breathing hard. The guy in Black Mask hadn’t been scared. But I was in Miss Delaney’s house. What if I found something awful? What if I got caught? I went up the stairs and into her kitchen. Everything was neat and clean. There was a coffee cup and a saucer with toast crumbs on it in the sink. I went slowly through the house. Downstairs the dog was barking. I looked in her bedroom. I felt embarrassed. But it was just a bedroom. Everybody had them. I thought about her undressing to go to bed. My throat seemed to close. I felt like I couldn’t swallow. I looked in the living room and in the dining room. She must have used the dining room table as a desk. There were papers and stuff on it, in neat piles. I didn’t touch them. I went back to the kitchen. I went back out the kitchen door to the stairs, and up the stairs to the attic. The attic was unfinished. There was a window at either end. There wasn’t any floor, but there were boards laid down that you could walk on. In one corner there were a couple of suitcases and a few cardboard boxes. The rest of the attic was empty. I could still hear the dog barking on the first floor. The space between the rafters was full of insulation, but in several places the insulation was pulled aside and I could see some wires going into a metal box, probably for ceiling lights. I crouched down and put my ear close to one of the boxes. I could hear the dog really well. I stood up and went to the back window. I looked out at the roof of the second-story porch. To the left was one of the big old trees that grew near the house. I nodded to myself. Just like that vacant house we’d snuck into. I tried the window. It was locked. I unlocked it and tried again. It opened easily. I closed it again and left it open just a crack. Then I went back down the stairs and locked the back door and left the key in the lock. I went back up to Miss Delaney’s apartment and went down the front stairs and came to the front door, which had one of those locks that locks behind you when you shut it. I had my book bag. I had the piece of newspaper in the book bag. I had my jackknife. I took a breath and opened the front door and went out.