Aftershock by Andrew Vachss Read Free Book Online

out in the deep woods, giving Alfred Hitchcock a proper burial. Simple and dignified, the way he would have wanted it.
    I thought that was the last of it. I’d pulled the perimeter inso tight that I was sure my Dolly was safe, even from another kid like Jerrald. It wasn’t until I followed her upstairs that night that I learned how wrong I was.
    I found Dolly sitting at the huge slab of butcher block she had fixed up like a kitchen table.
    The lights were on.
    Rascal ran over to me, like he’d been waiting days for the little strip of rawhide he always scored whenever I came out of my workshop.
    As I handed over his prize, I checked Dolly’s hands. They were still free enough to use any of the signals I’d taught her; but all she did was pick up a cup of that herbal tea she likes, and take a sip. I sat across from her.
    “I’m sorry, Dell. I’m probably just shook up. From the phone call,” she said, pointing at the cell sitting on the tabletop.
    “Don’t worry about it. I wasn’t doing anything important. Just killing time.”
    She gave me a look. “MaryLou’s in jail,” she said. If you didn’t know Dolly, you’d think she was telling me about some little thing, just making conversation. But I could hear the threads tightening inside the calm of her voice.
    Battlefield calm. Like when she was moving between beds in a field hospital, talking to the wounded men. All professionally sweet and cheerful, even though they’d just gotten a radio signal that “hostiles” were only a few klicks away. And on the move.
    I made my mouth twitch, just enough to tell her that I didn’t know who she was talking about.
    “Oh, Dell! You remember her. The real tall girl with pale-blue eyes. Always wears her hair in a long ponytail. She was going to collegein the fall; I don’t remember exactly where. On a softball scholarship. She’s a really good pitcher. That’s why they call her Mighty Mary. Because she throws so hard. She had more strikeouts—”
    I shook my head to cut her off. Whoever this girl was, she hadn’t been one of those who came into my den sometimes. I never look close at those girls, even the ones that stay with Dolly all the time they’re here, but I’d have remembered the one she’d just described. Anyway, I needed Dolly to get to whatever this big trouble was. Was Dolly just being herself, looking after another kid? Or was she in it deeper than that?
    Dolly read my thoughts. Easy enough for her to do, I guess. My walls are thick and high, but Dolly’s always been inside them, wearing them like some other woman would a mink coat.
    “Yesterday was the last day of school. MaryLou was walking down the hall when, all of a sudden, she pulled a pistol out of her backpack and started shooting.”
    “How many?”
    Dolly knew what I was asking. “One dead,” she said. “Two others wounded, neither of them near critical. I guess it’s a good thing she only had six bullets.”
    “Six bullets or six shots?”
    “I don’t know. All Kendra—she’s the girl who called—all Kendra said was that MaryLou shot Cameron Taft. Then she fired a few more times and just threw down her gun.”
    “Did the cops come in shooting?”
    “Why would they do that? Kendra said MaryLou was just sitting on the floor, like she’d finished her homework and was taking a break. She was the only one in the hall. Everyone else was in the classrooms, hiding under the desks or whatever. Kendra said 911 probably got a hundred cell-phone calls.”
    “What else?”
    “Nothing else. All I know is, the police came and took her away. To jail, I mean.”
    “Straight to jail?”
    “Dell, I don’t understand. Where would they stop along the way?”
    “At the hospital.”
    “You mean if—? Wait! I already told you, the police didn’t do any shooting.”
    “Okay.”
    “Okay? What do you mean, ‘okay’? MaryLou killed a boy. And we don’t know why.”
    “I mean: ‘Okay, you’re not involved,’ Dolly. That’s all. You