Thursday, December 2, 2010

Colored Heat-Chapter 28

Chapter Twenty-Eight


                I had lunch with my grandmother that Saturday for the first time since she had gone to the hospital.  After lunch, she went to bed for her early afternoon rest and I said I was going out.  She didn’t ask where.
                I drove past the bank clock, and the thermometer read 101 degrees.  The sun was high in the sky, almost at the highest point of the day.  I had rolled all of the Chevy’s windows down and it still wasn’t helping.  I had the vents open and the blower on high, but all it seemed to do was send hot air my way.
                I pulled into the parking lot of the 7-11 and saw right away that Sally Ann’s car wasn’t there.  I parked and went inside, and the older man I’d seen before was behind the counter.  “Where’s Sally Ann?” I asked him.
                “Not on today,” he told me.  “Don’t rightly know where she’d be.”
                I thanked him and left.  I didn’t want to go to the police station, so I headed for her house.  Her station wagon was parked at the curb in front, and I parked right behind it.  I went up on the porch and rapped on the screen door.  Once again, everything was open and the fans were on high.  Her mother answered the door.  “Yes, Carey, she’s upstairs.  I’ll tell her you’re here.”  I declined going inside due to the heat and chose instead to try  to find a shady spot on the porch.  I settled for the swing, which swung back into a bit of shade if I angled it just right.
                A few minutes later, Sally Ann came down and out the screen door.  “Hi, Carey,” she said.  She looked a little unhappy, and I think she was surprised to see me.  “Where were you last night?” she asked, standing with her back to the porch rail.  “I tried to call you all evening.  I was worried about you.”
                I looked at her, then I turned and looked over my shoulder toward the front door.  “Is your father around?” I asked quietly.
                “No, he’s out fishing on the lake today.  Why?”
                “’Cause I don’t want him to hear what I’m going to tell you,” I said.  She looked at me with interest, and sat down on the swing, not too close to me.
        “I went to Peter Crane’s house last night,” I began.
                “You did what?” she said, her voice raising on the last word.
                “I said I went to Peter Crane’s house.  I checked it out pretty thoroughly.”
        “How did you get in?”
        “Well,” I hesitated.
        “Don’t tell me you broke in,” she said.
        “Okay, I won’t tell you.”
                “Oh, Carey, you can’t do that.  My dad will be furious!  How will I ever explain this to him?”  She shook her head and looked away from me, across the front yard toward the street.  “Did anyone see you?”
                “No,” I said, “at least I don’t think so.”  I smiled, trying to ease the tension between us.  “I was pretty careful.”
        “I sure hope so,” she said, and relaxed a little bit.
                I told her about my search of the Crane house the night before and what I had found.  “Didn’t it make you feel strange to be there?” she asked me.  “With him having died there the night before?”
                I told her that I hadn’t really thought about it that much, and I realized that was true.  While I admit I didn’t want to go near the bathroom, it occurred to me that when I was in Hattie Crane’s room, I wasn’t thinking about the murder at all.  I was so excited by what I was doing that I wasn’t scared or nervous.  I thought at that moment that maybe detective or police work was what I wanted to do with my life.  Of course, I didn’t know where it would lead me or how far, but now, looking back, I think that that night at the Crane house was the first time I understood my vocation.
                I explained to Sally Ann about the photograph and the slip of paper, and I told her what my grandmother had told me.  She hadn’t been asking me much as I talked, and when I finished, she shook her head and looked at me with those green eyes that had first caught my attention less than a week before.
                “Carey,” she said, brushing back a wisp of red hair from her face, “we’ve got to tell dad.”
        “No!” I blurted out.
                She was instantly on the defensive.  “You’re getting in over your head, Carey.  You shouldn’t have gone there last night and now you’re going to get yourself into trouble.
                I tried to interrupt.  “Sally,” I began, but she didn’t let me finish.
                “Listen to me, Carey Lovett.  I care about what happens to you and I don’t want you to get hurt.  Now let me see if I can get in touch with dad at the lake.” She stood up and I stood up with her.
        “Sally, don’t do it.  I have to do this by myself.”
                She shook her head and turned to go inside the house.  I stood my ground next to the porch swing for a moment, then skipped down the steps and ran down the path toward my car.
                “Carey!”  she yelled behind me.  “Wait!”
I didn’t turn around.  I ran around the back of the car and pulled open the door.  I glanced up at the porch
and saw Sally Ann standing there, watching me silently, halfway in and halfway out of the house.  I didn’t say
anything or look back as I got in the car and drove off.

No comments:

Post a Comment