A Sudden Silence Read Online Free Page A

had gotten onto ranch property.
    "That's not a conclusion we can definitely make, Jesse," she said. "Not unless you saw it being thrown."
    "I didn't see. I just know, that's all."
    "We'd better get it over here right away in any case," she said. There was silence on the phone. "It's too bad you moved it," she added.
    "If you ask
me,
it's too bad you missed it." I was angry again. "What did you expect me to do, leave it lying there?"
    "That would probably have been best," she said mildly.
    "I handled it carefully, don't worry. I hardly touched it at all. Do you think you can get prints off it?"
    "It's possible."
    "Well, look, I don't want you coming up here. I'll bring it over," I said and hung up before she could object. It wasn't till then that it hit me. What if the guy in the black Windbreaker had been in there behind the wire looking for that shoe? What if he'd thrown it and realized afterward that there could be fingerprints there? I almost picked up the phone again to call Officer Valle back. But I just about knew what she'd say: "That's not a conclusion we can definitely make, Jesse." And she'd be right. I was grasping at straws.
    Still, I wished I'd chased after him when he loped away toward his car. If there was anything I should have known, he'd have told me. Maybe I'd never lay eyes on him again.
    But I did. Two days later at Bry's funeral. He was there.

4
    M Y FRIEND Alexander came down from Pasadena, where he's a student at Art Center. He'd signed up for summer school, and I'd known June, July, and August were going to be a bummer without him. Lonely, too. I hadn't known how lonely because I hadn't known I wouldn't have Bry either.
    The funeral was to be at 12:00 noon on Tuesday. The days till then ran together in a blur of pain ... of forgetting for a few minutes and then remembering, of sad conversations, of sympathy calls, of tears. There were a lot of "if only's." The "if only's" were almost the worst.
    Monday night the family was in the living room, worn with suffering, talking quietly about the last details for tomorrow. Grandpa wasn't there, and I figured he might be outside on the deck in the sad, lonely dark. I thought about going out to see but decided not to. There were times now when each of us needed to be alone.
    But when I went along the hallway to the bathroom, I saw a light from Bry's half-open door. Grandpa was sitting at Bry's desk. He'd found all the pieces of paper that I'd swept into the drawer and he was intently sticking one square of white cardboard to another.
    "This is a tough sucker," he said to me, turning around and shaking his head. "But it won't beat us. Bry and I have licked things this tough before."
    "Yeah." Someone had made the bed. I sat on the blue chenille cover Bry's had for ever and ever, and Grandpa turned back to the model. Tacked on the bulletin board above the desk was the cover of the model box with its picture of the finished product, CONSTRUCT YOUR OWN WORKING PAPER CLOCK, I read. 160 PIECES. HAVE A PRECISION ENGINEERED TIMEPIECE THAT ACTUALLY WORKS . So that's what it was. Pinned beside it was a cardboard sign, TIME HEALS . Underneath, in red marker, Bry had scribbled, "But not 100%." Right, Bryan. Sixteen years hadn't healed what those German measles had done to his ears. Not any percent.
    "I like this stage," Grandpa said. "You can't believe you can ever take this kind of mess and turn it into something recognizable." He'd laid the pieces out in some kind of mixed-up order. There were paper cogwheels, ladderlike strips, circles with stars in them. That irritating memory flitted suddenly into my mind again. I picked up one of the circles and turned it between my fingers. Had there been a circle of some sort on the back of that car? But when I squeezed my eyes tight shut, trying and trying to bring it back, it turned into the circle on the back of that black Windbreaker the guy had worn. No good. No good at all.
    "Do you know this girl?" Grandpa asked.
    "Which