December Park(106)

“Seriously,” the man said. He turned and looked at the house. If we were to run for it, now would be our chance. “This place should be torn down. It’s asking for trouble.”

Just as I was about to break into a sprint, I realized who the man was: Mr. Mattingly, my English teacher. Something like relief washed over me. I must have uttered a pathetic little mewl, too, because Mr. Mattingly turned back to me.

“Hey, Mr. Mattingly,” I said.

He laughed. “Didn’t recognize me, huh?”

“Not at first, no.”

“You kids think that after the school year’s through, all the teachers are packed away in crates filled with Styrofoam peanuts,” he said not unkindly.

It wasn’t that at all. Rather, it had been the inability to fully recognize someone when they were out of their usual place—in Mr. Mattingly’s case, the classroom.

“Forget it,” he said. “No hard feelings. But seriously—you guys shouldn’t hang around this place. Know what I’m saying?”

I nodded like an imbecile. “We were just leaving.”

“How come you’re out here?” Peter said.

“I’m looking for my dog.” The abrupt change in his tone was unmistakable.

“You want us to help you find him?” Peter said.

“That isn’t necessary,” said Mr. Mattingly.

“It’s no big deal. What’s his name?”

When I realized I was holding my breath, I released it in a shuddery exhalation.

“Brindle,” Mr. Mattingly finally said. “And he’s a she.” He glanced at the road, then back at us. “We were out for a walk when she saw a rabbit run by. She can’t resist a good chase.”

“If—,” Peter began.

But he was cut off as a black-and-white cocker spaniel bounded toward Mr. Mattingly through the grass. Mr. Mattingly hunkered down and rubbed the dog’s face.

The dog barked twice, then cut through the grass and came over to Peter, where it proceeded to sniff at Peter’s sneakers.

“Hey, pooch,” Peter said, bending down to stroke the dog’s back.

“Do you live around here?” I asked Mr. Mattingly.

Mr. Mattingly pointed in the direction of the gridded little neighborhood beyond the Butterfield farmhouse. “Back there. It’s just my wife and me,” he said. I must have been staring at him too intensely, since he laughed, possibly to break the tension, and added, “Yeah, I know. Students don’t think of teachers as having wives or husbands, either, right?”

“Right,” I said flatly.

“Well,” Mr. Mattingly said, crouching back down in the grass. He patted his thighs. “Come on, Brindle. Let’s head home.”

The cocker spaniel darted between Peter’s feet and scampered over to Mr. Mattingly.

Mr. Mattingly removed a leash from the rear pocket of his pants and hooked it to the dog’s collar. When he stood up, he smiled. “I guess I’ll see you guys around. Have a good summer.”

“See you,” I said and watched him walk across the empty lot.

“That guy’s your teacher?”

I nodded.

“What do you think he was doing out here?”

“I don’t know, man.”

“You don’t think . . . ?” Peter let the unfinished thought hang in the air.

When Michael had listed Mr. Mattingly’s name among the suspects, it had struck me as a ridiculous and far-fetched assumption. Now I wondered why I had thought so . . .

Static burst through the walkie-talkie. It was garbled nonsense.

Peter plucked it off his belt and keyed the Talk button. “We didn’t make out a word of that. Repeat. Over.”

We waited but the static burst did not repeat.

“Maybe they didn’t hear us,” I suggested. “We might be too far away.”

“Let’s head back,” Peter said, clipping the radio on his belt. He went over to his bike and pulled it out of the weeds.

I grabbed my bike, too. As I climbed on, I glanced toward the road where Mr. Mattingly and his dog walked in the direction of the Shallows.





We were riding down McKinsey when the walkie-talkie came alive again.

Peter brought the radio to his mouth. “Is that you, Scotty? You’re breaking up, man. Repeat. Over.”

“. . . to the woods,” Scott’s voice crackled over the radio.

“Go to the woods?” Peter said into the radio. “We’ll be there in a bit. Over.”

“Don’t,” Scott’s voice returned, and the word was crisp and clear. “Don’t . . . woods . . .”

“Don’t go to the woods?” Peter asked me.

“That’s what it sounded like,” I said.

Peter brought the handheld up to his face again. “Hello? Guys? We can hardly understand you.”

Scott’s static-laden voice answered: “. . . dezvous . . .”

“Rendezvous,” Peter translated. “He wants us to meet at the rendezvous point instead of the woods.”

“Where’s the rendezvous point?” I asked. After all this time, I had forgotten. “Is it the tree by the baseball field?”

“No,” he said, clipping the walkie-talkie to his belt loop. He arched his back, lifting his butt off the seat, and pedaled faster. “The underpass.”