The Body of Christopher Creed (18 page)

Renee elbowed me in the gut, and I thought my whole chest had caved in.

"Renee, Jesus!" I yelled, trying to keep from slinging her into the wall.

"Maybe you don't know her mom is a major slut, Torey."

I grabbed her by the hair to keep her off Ali. That got Alex bear-hugging me from behind, which wasn't helping my aching gut.

Renee spat out, "Well, I know about her mom! My dad told me!"

An enormous hand reached from behind the wall and gripped Renee's wrist, keeping her from swinging. As Bo came walking out, Renee walked backward and he continued walking forward. He finally slung down her wrist.

He said, "God, you look funny when you're scared, Bowen. You don't get scared too often, I guess. Not with that big fat mouth of yours always flapping along in front of you."

"I'm not scared of you, you 'tard," she croaked.

He jumped forward at her, hollering, "
Rahhh!
" or something. She screeched.

I started laughing under my breath. It was funny, watching her piss herself, considering she just sent my gut halfway to hell with that elbow job.

"Why you so scared, Bowen? Let's see. Is it because I'm a boon? Or is it because you think I'm a murderer? What, you think I did Creed? And I'm coming to do you next?
Raaahhr

She screamed again and worked her way over to Alex, who said, "Maybe we should all just ... make like a tree and leaf."

"My dad's a cop." Renee breathed nervously. "Don't fuck with me."

She looked so ridiculously scared, and it was pissing me off that she could assume Bo might kill someone without even knowing him. She could be just as vicious as he could sometimes, and no one was accusing her. Bo was laughing.

"Oh! Oh yeah, right, Renee! I killed him! I—" He looked at me with these huge laughing eyes. "How did we do it, Adams? I forget."

I wanted to frame her face to remember the day Renee Bowen got scared. Who knows, maybe I still had the Digger Haines story in my head.

"We took a gun and shot him?" I asked. I felt guilty right away. I didn't really want to make fun of them. I only wanted Renee to know what it felt like to be on the receiving end.

"Oh, that's right! I forgot! I took a gun and shot him and left him for dead in the woods," Bo said. "And as for your dad, it's way funny that he should be calling Mrs. McDermott a slut. What does that make your dad?"

Ali grabbed his arm and croaked his name out with wide eyes. She had looked ready to croak since she'd hit Renee. That was so out of form for her. But now her eyes looked ready to roll back in her head.

"What are you babbling about, Richardson?" Renee muttered.

Bo ignored Ali for the moment. "I mean ...
your dad was screwing her all last year!
"

Ali let out a bloodcurdling screech and covered her face with her hands. She started sobbing and shouted, "Why did you have to tell her that! I'm never telling you anything ever again, I swear to God—"

She started to take off toward the woods, and Bo ran after her. I couldn't hear what he was saying to her, but I could hear her sobbing, "That was
stupid!
Why do you have to be so
stupid
sometimes."

I turned and looked at Renee and Alex. Somehow Alex had my macaroni-and-cheese container in his hand. I couldn't even remember how that happened. They looked stun-gunned, like somebody had given them an electric shock. From Ali's reaction, I could feel in my bones that it was true. It seemed incredible at first. My friends' dad, chief of police, fooling around on his wife. I didn't think after hearing about Ali's mom and that perv that anything could shock me. But this did a little. I remembered Chief Bowen's face from the other night at the station, when he was trying to get Ali and me to lie. He had a heartless streak. I had just never seen it so clearly before. Maybe I couldn't have handled it before, so I didn't let myself see it.

I moved a step closer to Renee, enough to make sure she heard me but not close enough so she could get a swing at me. I was worried about her revenge system and what it could do to Ali.

"Renee, whatever you do with that piece of information is your business. But remember this. Ali held on to that for a year so she wouldn't hurt you. Remember that when you get real tempted to open that big unending mouth of yours in school tomorrow."

Her neck snapped a little, and she stood there swaying, like maybe I'd given her a different way to think of things. For a few seconds.

"She's
lying
..." She got tears in her eyes and her voice cracked. "My dad wouldn't
touch
that turbo slut-bag—"

She took off down the road without finishing, and Alex followed after her. I could tell she was really upset, and I wondered if it was because she felt in her heart that her dad was capable of it. I didn't know what to think. I ran over to Bo and Ali.

"I just couldn't help it," he spewed out. "Where does she get off passing her stupid judgment on everybody around here? She's calling
your
mom a slut while
her
dad was slutting, too? How can you just lie down for that, Ali?"

"Because! She is the daughter of the police chief who would love to put you away right now! All she has to do is walk into her house and announce what you just told on him. He will find some way to get back at you! It could break up his marriage."

"Ali, would you get the weight of the goddamn world off your shoulders, please!" He shook her. "You're not everybody's doormat! You don't have to protect guilty people! You don't have to make everybody love you! You don't have to do every guy just because he's there! The whole world is
not
your problem!"

"You're going to get arrested!" she hollered back.

"That's not your problem, either!" He pushed her aside and stalked off toward the woods.

"Where are you going?" she cried.

"I'm thinking I should disappear until Chief Bowen cools off. That girl could have her dad all over me before dawn—" He came back around to us and grabbed me by both shoulders. He muttered, "Listen. Look after her, but don't let her help anybody. Don't let her protect anybody. Don't let her carry the weight of the world on her shoulders." Then he kissed her really big and ran off into the woods.

As we walked home, Ali was calm, almost cold. I figured there was no more crying left in her. I wondered where Bo would go. I really hoped he wouldn't drop into the black hole next to Creed. Ali went to sleep when we got home, or at least she pretended to. I wasn't tired anymore, and I remembered what I'd totally forgotten down at the Wawa. The last phone number.

I looked it up again in our phone book, then sat up in my bedroom, just staring at the phone. Truth was, I wanted something to distract myself from the idea of Bo out in those woods. I finally picked up the phone and dialed. I got an answering machine. It sounded like a businessman's voice. "You have reached the Karzden residence. To leave a message for Doug, Athena, or Isabella, please wait for—"

My heart jumped.
Bull's-eye.
I was so wound up I didn't know quite what to say. The beep made me try to find my voice.

"This message is for Isabella. I'm ...
uhm...
I'm a friend of Chris Creed's. We're ...
uhm...
sort of looking for him? If you could, please call me back." I left my phone number and hung up.

I lay on my bed, trying to clear my mind of so many things, but little images kept passing in front of my eyes. Bo sleeping out in the woods ... Creed's body lying dead in the woods ... Creed at a psychic's, hearing of his own death ... Creed and some sweet, innocent Margate girl down on the beach, doing whatever. I tried to dredge up some image of what she might tell me. But I couldn't get any. If I ever fell asleep, I don't remember doing it.

I tried to
ignore everything and everyone in school the next morning, but I managed to catch an earful of a few things the first three periods. First, Bo had come to school. Second, Ali was walking around with him between first and second periods, talking to him and all the boons like it was nothing. And everybody was yakking about that, though I was pretending I didn't hear. After her blowout with Renee the night before, I decided, she'd probably just reached her limit and didn't care anymore what anyone thought or said. I couldn't forget her looking so zombified as we walked back to my house from the Wawa.

Third, I heard that the cops were coming for Bo. Again. I got the word from Ali—in a note she passed me during second period—who'd heard it from a couple of teachers proctoring near the bathroom, when she took the hall pass. She didn't know what he had supposedly done now, or if the cops just wanted to question him. I prayed Renee hadn't blabbed that thing about Chief Bowen and Mrs. McDermott around her house and set her dad looking for revenge. I also hoped that computer disk was still lying dormant and no wide-awake cop had decided to stick it in a hard drive.

As the bell rang, Ali and I nearly flew out of class, then found Bo in the cafeteria, sitting down with Shawn Mathers where they usually sat.

He shrugged like it was no big deal. "Look, whatever Chief Bowen or Mrs. Creed are up to now, I made up my mind. I ain't running and hiding from that snake of a woman, and I ain't afraid of no Renee Bowen, Queen of the Mouth Patrol." He laughed. "Hey, I been arrested before. Besides, this time I got your old lady. She'll keep me out of the can, whatever it is."

I was scared he thought my mom was God or something. I heard enough talk about my mom's work, and I wasn't sure she could keep Bo out of juvenile if Chief Bowen wanted him there.

I plopped into a chair beside Shawn Mathers without really thinking, and Ali plopped down on Bo's lap. She was sitting on the edge of his leg, trying to look nonchalant, but I could see she was pretty pleased with herself.

Shawn said, "Hey. Anybody want half an egg salad? Damn, I hate when my mom makes me egg salad."

"So, what's your mother doing making your lunch?" Bo snapped at him. "You ought to be making your own lunch. How old are you, anyway?"

"Fifteen." Mathers shrugged.

"Think I bother my mom to make my lunch?" Bo went on. "I not only got to make my lunch, I got to make the little kids' lunches or they don't eat."

"So, what do you want? A medal?" Mathers asked him. "My mom
likes
making my lunch."

"Give half to Adams. He's losing weight." Bo held on to Ali with one arm, while reaching over for half of Mathers's egg salad, then dumping it in front of me. "Eat that sandwich, Adams. You look like shit."

"He thinks he's everyone's mother." Shawn nudged me, like it was some big secret. I watched him, feeling surprised at how quiet his voice was. I had never heard Mathers's voice before. He had these fierce eyebrows and that face full of zits. I always thought if I heard his voice it would sound like a barking dog or something. He had almost a sweet voice, like a little kid's. He sounded a little slow maybe. But definitely not scary or loud.

My eyes moved off him and looked around the cafeteria. I caught at least twenty sets of eyes on me and probably fifty on Ali. I picked up the sandwich and said, "Thanks," and took a major, dramatic bite out of it.

"And don't be leaving no crusts," Bo went on. "Yo, Mathers. Give him one of them Tastykakes. They got eggs and milk in them."

Mathers grabbed his lunchbag. "What am I, the good fairy Give-it-all-away?"

Bo reached around Ali and snapped the bag from him. "Yeah. His mom works, and she expects him to buy the shit around here and actually eat it. Your mom wouldn't know no job if she fell over it. Now give him one, fool."

"Where's your lunch?" Mathers asked Bo, dropping a chocolate Tastykake in front of me.

"I slept in the woods last night." He shrugged like it was nothing. "Think my old lady missed me? Not until she had to start making lunches, which she probably didn't do, anyway. Hopefully Darla did, if she managed to find her way off Billy Everett's garage couch. You hungry, Ali?"

"No," she said. But he was reaching in his pocket and pulling out a dollar.

"Go buy us french fries, huh? Maybe french fries won't kill us." Ali took the dollar and walked to the front of the cafeteria, and we watched her all the way. Everyone else was watching her, too, just about.

"Shit, man, you're inspiring me." Mathers grinned at Bo. "If this goes good for you, maybe I'll ask out Jaleigh Overton."

My eyes wandered toward some action at the door. Mrs. Creed was coming in, followed by Chief Bowen and the officer they called Tiny. Mr. Ames was with them, too, trying to grab Mrs. Creed's arm. She didn't seem to notice him. I couldn't remember the police showing up in our cafeteria, ever. Sometimes they came to the school, but always to the office.

Bo laughed a little and said, "
Ooo
, here it comes, brothers and sisters. Now just be cool. They're going for the Academy Award—"

Shawn said, "Bo, are they coming after you?"

"None other."

"What'd you do now?"

"I don't know yet. Guess we're about to find out."

I watched his eyes stick on this crowd like he was trying too hard to be fearless, but I know he was petrified under it all. He had to be. I was.

He leaned back in his seat, so when Chief Bowen came up to him, he was looking at Bo upside down.

"What am I arrested for now?" Bo asked.

"You are wanted for questioning in the alleged murder of Christopher Creed." Chief Bowen's voice echoed through the air. "We have reason to believe you are involved, responsible, or had prior knowledge—"

Murder of Christopher Creed. Murder.
My eyes shot up and caught a thousand eyes staring at us in this suddenly quiet cafeteria. Some kids far away were standing on chairs. The word
murder
kept banging through my head.

Bo was laughing, but I could hear an edge in his voice. "Oh. I murdered him. Okay." He laughed. "And how did I do that?"

"Get up, Richardson," Chief Bowen said. It didn't seem like he was going to elaborate right there.

"Does this have to do with a computer disk?" Bo asked casually.