Last Summer Boys(79)

“No sir. Well, a shape, maybe. But it was gone quick.”

He jots something down in his book. The officer with him folds his arms.

Ma asks them if they’d like a cup of coffee. The officer says yes. Detective Ingleside says no.

“But you and your brother saw the boy Caleb later that evening, is that correct?”

“Yes sir.”

“Across the creek?”

I nod.

“What was he doing?”

“Running.”

“Running where?”

“I don’t know. My dog was with him. He was trying to shepherd him away from that fire. Butch is like that. He’s always looking after people.”

Detective Ingleside don’t seem to pay any attention to my talk about Butch. He goes back to asking questions about Caleb. “Your brother swam across the creek to try to get Caleb to come back with him. Caleb resisted. They began to fight. You swam over to help your brother. And you pulled Caleb into the creek with you?”

I nod again.

“But you never saw him after that?”

I shake my head.

Detective Ingleside looks at Dad. He leans in and folds his hands over the corner of the table and looks at me with gray eyes.

“And you’re sure you didn’t see him after that?” he asks. “Maybe swimming downstream in the creek? Maybe crawling out on your bank with you and then running off?”

I shake my head. “No sir.”

He looks at Dad again.

“Jack doesn’t lie, Detective,” says Dad.

He looks back at me.

“Son, this is important. We have strong reason to believe that boy Caleb killed his father. Murdered him, you understand? Now, we know Caleb had it rough from his old man. We know he took a lot of wallops from him, and more than he ought. But that’s no excuse for killing. Now, Caleb may be a friend of yours, but that doesn’t make it okay to lie—”

“Caleb Madliner ain’t no friend of mine!” I explode. “And I’m not lying! I pulled him off that bank and he disappeared into the creek, and that’s a fact! And what makes you so sure Mrs. Madliner didn’t kill her husband, anyway?”

Ma comes in with the coffee then. Hearing my words, she starts and spills some down her front.

Ingleside looks at me and frowns.

“Mrs. Madliner is an invalid. She’s wheelchair bound, partly because of her time with Mr. Madliner. We believe he hit her too. At any rate, the woman can’t walk. It’s highly unlikely she—”

But now it’s my turn to cut him off. “She can too walk! I saw her do it! All us boys did. Midnight at the Ticking Tomb, we saw her. Right after Frankie laid down over Hiltch’s grave to summon his widow witch. She came and we thought she was the witch. She cried over a grave and then she walked off, same as you or me!”

My father sits utterly still, watching me with a face as smooth as water.

But Ingleside sits back in his chair. Beside him the officer takes the coffee cup from Ma and sips it. Ingleside looks at him, and he looks back.

Ma says to the policemen, “I think he’s a little worked up now.”

“I am not worked up!” I insist. “These people don’t believe me, but I’m telling the truth!”

Detective Ingleside puts his notebook away. “If we can talk to the other son now, Mr. Elliot.”

“Of course,” Dad tells him, though his eyes are still on me.

Ma reaches for me. “Come on, John Thomas.”

“Tell them to go and ask Mrs. Madliner!” I cry. “Go find her! Bring her back from the hospital and ask her! She can walk. I’m telling you, she can walk!”

Detective Ingleside smiles thinly and dips his close-shaven head. “I’m sure she can, son.”





That night we eat pizza for dinner in the dining room, surrounded by tall, dark cabinets filled with pale porcelain plates. The table is long and could sit nearly three times as many people as we’ve got.

“Found two places in town to look at,” Dad says over his crust. “Your mother and I will drive in and take a look tomorrow morning.”

Will puts his fork down. Pete chews slowly. I got no appetite. My slice of pizza grows cold on my plate, little pools of oil drying into shiny pieces on the cheese, like wax from a candle.

“How long will we have to stay there?” Pete asks.

“What do you care?” I ask. “You’re leaving in a few days anyhow.”

Ma sets down her fork. “John Thomas, you apologize to your brother at once. At once.”

I frown. I look at Pete. “I’m sorry.”

He looks down. “It’s fine, Jack.”





Dad finds me after dinner, in the hall upstairs.

“Jack.”

“I already told Pete I was sorry,” I tell him. “I know he feels like he has to go. For you. For Grandpa Elliot too. To make you both proud.”

Dad is a silent, dark shape in the hallway. “I want to ask you about Elmira Madliner.”

That stops me.

“You said you saw her walking.”

“At the cemetery. Walking just as plain as you or me. And looking at graves.”

I cannot see my father’s face in the dark, but I feel the change come over it. A sense of pity. There in old Mr. Halleck’s house, I get the feeling that Dad has guessed all along that she could walk.