“Well, maybe she can’t bear to leave the happy memories behind or something.”
“That’s pretty ro-man-tic for a kid your age.”
“Yeah, well, I watch a lot of television.”
“Not enough, I guess, or you’d ask how the insurance company felt.”
I was smarting over the way she’d smirked over romantic, so I snapped back, “I didn’t think it was necessary. Obviously the insurance company would be totally bent out of shape.”
“You bet your suntan, they were. They figure the sailor boy’s hiding out some place. They even asked us to be on the lookout, but I say, she’s a neighbor, right? So who cares about the reward?” She grasped my arm and pulled me close. When she spoke, her voice had turned to what was probably the closest to a whisper she could get. “Now, what’s all this about feeding Popeye?”
“Nothing,” I said, hastily. “I had it wrong. I had everything all wrong.”
As I bicycled home, I tried to figure it out. Mrs. Fletching said she didn’t care about the reward, but you didn’t have to be Magnum, P.I., to know she was lying. How big a reward, I wondered.
I could get it myself, probably, if I worked it right. I was pretty sure if I asked questions, Mrs. Bonner would answer. After all, hadn’t she said I was her friend?
On the other hand, the idea of trying to worm information out of a friend made me feel sort of dirty. Besides, I couldn’t see how someone like her could be any kind of a crook. She was too far up in the clouds.
The whole next week I argued back and forth with myself. I couldn’t talk with Mom about it. I hadn’t even told, her about the big tips, partly because I had put them aside for her Christmas present but mostly because she might make me give them back if she knew.
“I have just come from the bank,” Mrs. Bonner said the following Friday when I stopped by to collect. Her makeup was smeared and her eyes reflected red from the afternoon sun.
She’s been crying, I thought, suddenly remembering how Mom had held me close and we had both cried together back when I was four and being very scared after Dad died.
I wished I could make Mrs. Bonner feel better like Mom had done for me, but I guess the reward was still on my mind, too, because instead of saying something nice, I did just the opposite.
“Oh,” I said, “did you get money for Popeye?”
“Popeye!” She bit her lip. “Don’t be cruel.”
“Gosh, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to ask. I... I, well, the words just popped out.”
“Yes. Yes, I see.” Her soft hand was on my shoulder. “I was wrong to lose my temper. After all, you are our friend — just about our only friend these days.”
She wiped her eyes and took a deep breath. All at once she seemed very calm, like people do when they’ve made a decision. Bending down, she looked straight into my eyes.
“But not Popeye,” she said, her voice so stiff and cold it was like she had put an ice pick right through me, clear down to my toes. “Not him. The murderer.”
I felt my mouth drop open. Insurance fraud was one thing, but if it was murder, then I had almost a duty to ask questions.
“But he’s dead,” I said. “What does it matter now?”
“Everything matters. Murderers should be punished. You agree don’t you?”
“Well, sure, Mrs. Bonner, But how can he be punished, I mean, well—” It was the opening I needed. “Unless he’s still alive.”
She shook her head. “I’m not supposed to tell.”
Suddenly she turned. The door slammed shut behind her.
As I went down her walk, stopping as always to pat the gray granite dog, I thought it over. In effect, she had told me Popeye was still alive, but so what? Everybody knew that, including Mrs. Fletching and the insurance company. What they didn’t know about was the murder.
Of course, the fact of the matter was I didn’t know much about it myself.
It wasn’t till I was half asleep in bed that night that I remembered Mrs. Bonner hadn’t paid me for the paper. Lucky break, I thought, glad to have an excuse to go over there again the next afternoon.
This time, however, I’d have my can of dog food, and I’d ask her what kind the dog liked best, and that would get her talking. Yeah, this time I’d really get some information.
Or was it wrong to be so sneaky?
Twisting in my bed, I pulled the sheets up tight, and shut my eyes. First I’d think about the reward, and how nice it would be to buy a new bike and maybe a boom box for the beach, but just when I’d get feeling pretty snazzy about the whole thing, I’d remember how Mrs. Bonner was so sweet and soft and pretty, and how she said I was her friend. The last thing in the world I wanted to do was to hurt her.
When I went back the next day, she answered the door in her pink bathrobe again.
“Oh, Howie,” she said. “I didn’t pay you, and I didn’t know whether to call or just wait till next week.”
“Yes, ma’am, Mrs. Bonner,” I said, hitching back and forth from one foot to another. She was a lot easier to talk to when she wasn’t wearing that bathrobe.
“Come in for a moment,” she said, “while I get my purse.”
I gulped. My throat felt dry. “Yes, ma’am, Mrs. Bonner,” I repeated, although it really wasn’t necessary as I was already following her inside. The air conditioning hit me like a blast of cold arctic air.
“Wait here,” she said. “I’ll be right back.”
I was standing in a long hallway. Mrs. Bonner had disappeared through a half opened door at the far end of the hall.
I stood there hitching back and forth, and looking into the living room which was, if possible, even pinker than the stucco outside. The furniture and the rugs were both white. It was a very ladylike room. I was wondering if the dog had been allowed in there, and if so had she given it a bath every day, when all at once I heard her cry out, as if in pain.
Quickly I ran down the hall. “What’s wrong, Mrs. Bonner?” I yelled. “Are you okay?”
The room at the end of the hall was the kitchen. She was leaning against the stove, hugging herself, her arms so tight that her whole body quivered.
“Help me,” she said. Her words were stiff and shaky. “Please help me.”
There was a knife rack over the stove, and all at once I remembered all that suicide prevention stuff we get at school these days.
“Don’t do it, Mrs. Bonner,” I blurted. “You mustn’t even think such a thing. You can get another dog. I saw one the other day, red it was, just like yours. Is that his picture there on the refrigerator? My, he must have been a nice dog. For God’s sake, Mrs. Bonner, please. I mean, what do you want me to do?”
I wanted to say more, but I was out of breath. My heart was pounding so hard I thought she could probably hear it.
Only she didn’t, I guess. She was staring all glassy-eyed at the knives like they were the answer to all her prayers.
Say something, Howie, I told myself. Don’t just stand there with your mouth opening and shutting like some dumb goldfish.
And then I realized I was saying something. There were words coming out.
“You cut that out right now, Mrs. Bonner,” I heard myself say. Even at the time, it seemed a poor choice of words, but I went on anyway. “I mean, I don’t have time for this kind of nonsense. I just came by for my money.”
Maybe it was because I sounded so much like my mom does when my little sister and I get in a fight. Or maybe she’d just been putting on an act. Anyway, something I said got her attention because a moment later she gave her head a quick jerk and opened her eyes.
“Yes, of course,” she said. “That would be stupid. Justice, that’s what we need. You’ll help me, won’t you?”