Blood Trail by Nancy Springer Read Free Book Online Page B

were people in Pinto River whose whole profession in life was to find out who did what and then tell anyone who hadn’t already heard. Everybody was going to know it was me.
    I didn’t want to talk anymore, so I pretended I was reading. I scanned a few articles. There was an editorial about how Nathan had no criminal record and no history of mental illness and did okay in school and distinguished himself on the debate team and belonged to a nice middle-class churchgoing family, the point being that kids like me who slept in on Sunday morning looked more like a murderer than Nathan did, I guess.
    Then there was an article where some guy tried to say what had happened in the Gingrich house. He said Aaron had put his bike away, then he’d no sooner walked in the door from the garage than he had come up against the killer with the knife. Then, according to the blood trail, Aaron had run to the front door, where he got stabbed some more trying to get out, and then he’d headed toward his room but he didn’t make it, and then … I couldn’t read about it anymore.
    I switched over to another article, this one about techniques of criminal investigation and all the gadgets the Pinto River detectives had borrowed from the state police and how the black light machine could see blood even after it was wiped up. Blood could never be totally washed away, it said. Even if you scrubbed it with bleach, even if you painted over it, even after years went by, there would always be some stain, some trace of a blood trail.
    I pushed the newspaper away. Mom got up for her second cup of coffee and plugged the phone back in.
    It rang.
    â€œLet the answering machine pick up,” Mom said.
    We both sat there listening to the phone ring. Three rings, four. Jamy bawled down in a sleepy voice, “Would somebody get it?”
    The machine got it, and it was a woman this time, her voice like poison. “I just want you people to know you deserve to die like that boy did. As if it ain’t bad enough without you spreading lies—”
    I said, “Yank it again, Mom.”
    She shook her head. “The stupid woman’s putting herself on tape for the police. And I do intend to call the police. We don’t have to put up with this.” She said to the phone, “Keep talking, honey.”
    I stood up and headed outside to get away Bad move. The minute I closed the door behind me, old Mrs. Ledbetter across the street popped out, waved, and yodeled, “Yoo-hoo, Jeremy!” I figured she wanted me to do something for her, because the only time she usually yoo-hooed me was if she wanted me to mow her lawn or whatever. I sighed, waved back, and trudged on over there.
    She walked down her lawn to meet me, short and round and dressed brighter than her petunias in candy pink polyester with pink sneakers to match. “Jeremy,” she asked when I got close enough to talk to, “how are you doing?”
    â€œUm, okay.” I was kind of surprised, because she never usually cared how I was doing. I looked at her, and she looked back at me with pale old eyes kind of naked between lids without any eyelashes.
    â€œI realize you and Aaron were good friends,” she said.
    I wondered whether she knew Aaron used to say she looked like an Easter egg. She was trying to be nice, I could tell, but I didn’t want to talk. I just nodded.
    â€œHave the police told you anything?” she asked.
    Oh. Okay. Maybe Mrs. Ledbetter had feelings about what had happened but she was still basically functioning as a database, Pinto River Info Central. I shook my head and started to turn away, but she put out one of her little round paws to stop me.
    â€œJeremy,” she told me, “I know you’re a nice boy, but some people just don’t think. Have they been giving you a hard time?”
    â€œUm, gotta go, Mrs. Ledbetter,” I muttered.
    I U-turned back into the house.
    Once I got the front door