Unspeakable Things(70)

She glanced at her mom and then me. Her mom said something to her, and then Lynn ran up to us. “Let me help you with that.”

“Thank you,” Mom said. Her expression was strained.

“Angie,” she said when we reached the picnic table, “how are you?”

“I’m well, thank you. And you?” Mrs. Strahan wore a white sundress with blue trim and three gold buttons on each shoulder. Her white sandals matched perfectly.

“I’m well,” Mom said.

They began unpacking, making small talk. It was stilted at first, but as Lynn and I walked toward the playground, I saw Mom begin to relax. Maybe that’s how I’d get her to leave Dad. She’d see how nice it could be to hang out with normal people.

“You want to go swimming?” I asked Lynn. “Or should we wait until Barb and Heidi get here?”

Lynn tossed me an are you for real look. “I don’t think Heidi or Barb are coming.”

I planted a fake smile on my face. “It was short notice.”

“It’s not that,” Lynn said. “Didn’t you hear Gabriel is missing?”

“Yeah,” I said.

“You should have canceled your party. That’s what my mom said.”

I was suddenly so angry that I could kick a tree. “Why’d you come?”

Lynn shrugged and hopped on the merry-go-round. “Because you came to mine.”

We played some more, quietly, doing stupid toddler stuff like swinging and sliding, our mood gloomy. If you could hold a funeral on a pea rock playground, that’s what this felt like.

“If we’re not going to swim, we might as well eat,” I finally said.

“Okay.”

We began trudging back toward the picnic table. There was so much food. It’d be embarrassing to eat with only four of us. I was trying to figure out a way to escape my own birthday party when I spotted a car that looked like Heidi’s drive up. Heidi’s mom stepped out and jogged down the hill toward the picnic table. Her face was all wound up, like sweatpants after they’d gotten their string caught in the dryer wheel.

“Heidi came after all!” I said, exulted. But the excitement died because Heidi was nowhere to be seen, and since when do moms run? Lynn and I reached the picnic table at the same time as Heidi’s mom.

“They caught him!” Heidi’s mom cried, winded. “They caught the man who took Gabriel!”

I skidded to a stop, my heart soaring. Gabriel!

Mom and Mrs. Strahan jumped to their feet. Mrs. Strahan spoke. “The molester? They caught him? Did they find Gabriel? Is he alive?”

Heidi’s mom was leaning over at the waist, her right hand pressed into the bare skin above her knee, her left waving in the air to let us know she needed to catch her breath. “They caught the pervert staring in Becky Anderson’s backyard window, and they think he’s the same man who took Gabriel.”

“Who was it?” Mom asked.

“Arnold Fierro.”

Mom grabbed the side of the picnic table. Mrs. Strahan had to help her sit down.

“The Shaklee salesman?” Mrs. Strahan asked, fanning Mom.

“That’s the one. He claimed he was stopping by on a sales call, but he was caught with his face up against that poor girl’s window, his hand in his pants.”

Lynn and I exchanged a look. The Peeping Tom!

“What about Gabriel?” Mrs. Strahan repeated, asking the question that was on all our minds.

“No word on him, but it’s only a matter of time. They’re questioning Arnold at the police station as we speak.”

I should have been elated, and I was glad, believe you me.

Only my gut was telling me the police had the wrong guy, at least when it came to who was attacking the boys. I didn’t know Arnold Fierro, but he for sure wasn’t Sergeant Bauer.

But I ate my birthday cake, and I opened my one present—my very own Magic 8 Ball, still new and in the box—and I helped Mom pack up, and I wondered why I felt so uneasy when I should probably be happy. Mom talked a mile a minute on the ride home, and she never did that. She was so relieved.

I wondered if she’d worried, like me, that Sergeant Bauer had been the one molesting boys, along with Dad’s help.

I nodded at everything she said.

I didn’t tell her it was all wrong, Gabriel wasn’t safe, the predator was still out there, even when we drove past our mailbox, crested the rise in our yard, and spotted the police cruiser snug in our driveway.





CHAPTER 46

I didn’t recognize the officer talking to Sephie and Dad. His car said STATE TROOPER. Dad had his arm around Sephie, the picture of a protective father.

“There they are!” Sephie pointed toward me and Mom as we got out of the van, unnecessarily, I thought.

I stopped shy of the police car, on high alert. The officer held his hand out to me. “Hello. I’m Officer Kent. You’re Peggy and Cassandra?”

I didn’t take his hand, but Mom did.

“Is this about Gabriel?” The words thudded against my teeth.

The officer glanced warily at Dad. “In a way.”

“He wants to know what we know about Mr. Godlin,” Dad said.

Officer Kent tried not to look at my neck scar while he talked. “As I was just telling your father and sister, we’re checking out any leads we have in the disappearance of Gabriel Wellstone. Gary Godlin is a person of interest. Have any of you seen anything unusual happening over there?”