Spare Change (Wyattsville #1)(30)

When the crime scene detectives arrived, they tromped back and forth through the house, checking every piece of overturned furniture, marking spots where the tiniest droplet of blood had fallen, looking in every crack and corner for some smidgen of evidence as to what had taken place and taking picture after picture. Mahoney and Cobb continued to question Ethan Allen. “Your mama or daddy have enemies?” Mahoney asked, “Anybody who might want to do them harm?”

“Your daddy owe anybody money?” Cobb, who was himself itching to make detective, added. “How about your mama?”

“Why you asking me?” Ethan Allen said, “I’m a kid. I don’t know nothing!”

“That new tractor, where’d your daddy get the money for such an expensive thing?”

“How about your mama and daddy, did they get along?”

As they pummeled him with question after question, Ethan Allen’s resolve grew stronger; his answers switched over to nothing more than a shrug or shake of the head. The boy knew how it would go—one whisper of what Scooter Cobb had done, then he’d be the one punished. Lies, they’d say, made up stories; and off he’d go to reform school. No sir, that wasn’t gonna happen. They could drag him from the house, strip him buck naked and hang him up by his thumbs, but he’d never admit he knew the truth of what went on.

Late in the afternoon, as he stood on the front porch and watched the two men from the coroner’s office carry off his mama, Ethan Allen felt the crack in his heart pushing open again. Never before had anything hurt as much as this, not all the forgotten birthdays in the world, not a bushel basket of broken promises, not even his daddy smacking him clear across the room. At least then he had somebody; now he was alone, more alone than anybody else on earth. A string of tears rolled down the boy’s face as he watched the truck disappear down the driveway. “You just had to tell him, didn’t you, Mama?” he sobbed, “You just had to tell Daddy we was going to New York.”

“What’s that about New York?” Mahoney, who had come up behind the boy, asked.

“It ain’t nothing,” Ethan answered. “Mama and me was gonna go there on vacation, but I guess we ain’t gonna go now.”

“You got folks in New York?”

“Nope. We was just going for vacation.”

“What about relatives? Is there somebody who can take you in?”

Ethan Allen shook his head. For nearly four hours he’d managed to say almost nothing at all, certainly nothing of any significance. He wasn’t about to start blabbing now. The less they knew, the better. Start talking and they’d try to worm the truth out of you, he was wise to that game. “Don’t let the cat out of the bag,” was one of the last things Susanna said, and it was advice to live by.

“Nobody?” Mahoney said solemnly.

“I don’t need nobody.”

“You’ll have to go somewhere.”

“I’m staying here.”

Mahoney wrapped his arm around the boy’s shoulder. “I’m afraid we can’t let you do that, son. You’ve got to be in the care of an adult.”

Ethan Allen didn’t answer right away; he just stood there watching the road like he expected his mama to come walking back. “I got a Grandpa,” he finally said, “He’ll come stay with me.”

“I thought you said you didn’t have any kin.”

“I meant any kin other than Grandpa.” He was starting to sweat again.

Mahoney, who’d raised five youngsters of his own, gave a knowing smile. “Why don’t you give me your grandpa’s telephone number,” he said, “that way, I can give him a call and make sure he’s coming.”

“Grandpa don’t talk to no strangers.”

“Oh, he don’t huh? Well, that’s too bad, because you can’t stay here unless I’m certain you got somebody to look after you. The law don’t allow little kids to be living alone.”

“You don’t believe me?” Ethan Allen challenged, “You think I’m lying?”

“Hard to say. Anyway, it’s against the law for me to leave you out here without somebody to watch over you. So, if you don’t give me your grandpa’s telephone number, I’ve got no choice but to take you out to the children’s home until we can locate a relative.” Mahoney draped a kindly arm around Ethan’s shoulder and smiled in an easy sort of way. “That’s not what either of us want son, so how about helping out here?”

The truth was Ethan didn’t have a telephone number. The only thing he’d ever known of his grandfather was the name and return address he’d seen written on the back of an envelope. Every year he’d receive a birthday card with a dollar bill folded inside—no message other than the words Love, Grandpa. A number of times the boy had asked Susanna why a Grandpa who bothered to send a dollar didn’t come to visit. “It’s the fault of your daddy,” she’d answered, with no further explanation. Apparently words couldn’t account for why Benjamin’s own kin wanted nothing to do with him.

For a brief moment Ethan Allen considered telling Detective Mahoney that Charles Doyle was his grandpa’s name, but luckily he remembered how truth-giving could backfire on you and he kept his lips locked. Ethan knew that the littlest things could spin out of control; his mama was proof of it. She’d still be alive if she hadn’t flared up and told Benjamin the truth about going to New York. Un-uh, he thought, the less said, the better.