Jack_ Secret Vengeance - F. Paul Wilson [76]
“Thanks, Mister Rosen.”
“Take a couple of days already. It’s slow now, so don’t worry.”
Jack waved and returned to the street where he resumed walking with Weezy. Eddie was way ahead of them now.
After a while she said, “Mrs. Morton told us something this afternoon.”
“Who’s she?”
“Social studies. Her husband’s an EMT. He helped remove … the body. He said he had a note on him.”
A suicide note? Jack stopped and grabbed her arm.
“What did it say?”
Please, he thought. Nothing about his locker. Please!
“She said he only got a glimpse at it, but he saw the words ‘I hope you’re happy.’”
“‘Happy’? Happy about what?”
She shrugged. “If it said, he didn’t see it.”
“About him committing suicide?”
“Jack,” she said with a trace of annoyance, “I only know what she told me.” She looked at him as they started walking again. “You’re acting kind of strange.”
He knew he was, but couldn’t help it. He felt strange.
“It’s not every day that someone you know hangs himself.” Mentally he added, And you’re possibly—probably—to blame.
She only nodded.
After a while Jack said, “Did Mrs. Morton say where he … where it happened?”
“No … but I can guess.”
“Me too.” He made a snap decision. “I’m going out there. Want to come?”
She stared at him. “Are you crazy? That’s a … what … a crime scene or something. You can’t go out there.”
“Watch me.”
They could shoo him away, but he wanted a look—needed a look—at where it happened.
“And you call me morbid.”
“So you’re not coming?”
She sighed. “Of course I am.”
4
They found a sheriff’s department patrol car and two state police cruisers parked on the firebreak trail near where he and Weezy had spied on Toliver’s strange behavior.
Yellow crime-scene tape surrounded the big oak where the pine lights had performed their loop-the-loop.
His tongue felt dry as sand as he stared at the tree, wondering which branch Toliver had used, and what kind of rope, and how he’d gone about it, and what had been going through his mind the whole time up until the final …
Something flashed in the shade. Someone was taking pictures, but Jack couldn’t see what the others were doing. Two sheriff’s deputies stood outside the tape, watching. Jack recognized one of them as Tim Davis.
“Maybe we’d better go,” Weezy said in a hushed voice.
Jack shook his head. “I want to see what they’re doing.”
He led her along the rutted path for a closer look. From the new angle he saw that someone was digging a hole near the tree. He wondered why.
No one had noticed them yet. If they could find a place where they could see without being seen …
He glanced around and saw the dead zone amid the ebony spleenwort. He remembered the vague uneasiness he’d felt in there before, but it offered perfect concealment.
He nudged Weezy and pointed toward the spot. She shook her head and pointed back to the bikes. Jack took her arm and guided her toward the clearing. She came along with no protest other than an unhappy expression.
As they arrived at the edge of the dead zone, Jack noticed a disturbance in the sand near its center. He pointed it out to Weezy.
“Look,” he whispered as he spotted a line of scuff marks going toward it and coming away. “Footprints.”
“Well, that makes sense,” Weezy said. “That’s where we saw him kneeling Sunday night.”
Jack frowned. That sounded perfectly logical on the surface, but something wasn’t clicking.
He was about to step through the spleenwort when he realized what was wrong and froze. Weezy angled to move past him but he stopped her.
“What’s the matter?” she said.
“Don’t you see? It—”
“You two!”
Jack whirled around at the sound of a voice behind them and saw Deputy Tim Davis. His eyes were invisible behind his sunglasses, but the rest of his face did not look happy.
“Why is it,” Tim said, “that whenever anything strange happens, you two are never far away. What are you doing here?”
Jack said, “We were passing by and saw the cars.”
He didn’t want to tell him about following Toliver here.
“Why don