Gran glanced at her watch.“It’s two o’clock now. Which means he died around one. What time did you go to bed, Scott?”
Scott was rubbing his face, while Scarlett had taken his sister inside, so she wouldn’t have to be confronted with the turmoil that followed these terrible events.
“Um… must have been before midnight. Eleven thirty, eleven forty-five, I think.”
Chase now arrived, followed by Odelia, and when Odelia saw the dead boy’s body, she grimaced. “Todd Bond,” she said immediately.
And as Gran brought Chase and Odelia up to date, Dooley and I, along with Brutus and Harriet, decided to head inside, and see if the Walcotts had any pets that could tell us what happened.
Unfortunately for us they didn’t. No dogs, no cats—not even a goldfish.
“Odd,” said Dooley as we headed up the stairs. “Most families have at least one pet.”
“Yeah, not everybody likes pets,” I said. All was quiet upstairs, as the activity was now focused outside and in the downstairs kitchen, where Scarlett had made Layla Walcott some hot tea to drink. We came upon what was presumably the bedroom of Scott, and saw that a second bed had been slept in. “Looks like Scott and Todd were bunking,” I said as we studied the room, which was a big mess.
Nothing immediately drew our attention, though, and so we moved to the other rooms on the second floor: one was clearly a girl’s bedroom, and a third room was the parents’ room, which was neat and tidy, the bed not slept in.
“Looks like the parents aren’t home,” I said.
Which would explain why Todd was staying there and nobody knew about it.
“So Tilton Bond was right,” said Dooley, “when he told Odelia that Todd was probably staying with a friend.”
“Yeah, but that still begs the question: how did he drown?”
“Maybe he couldn’t swim, and he got drunk and stumbled into the pool?” Dooley suggested. “It happens a lot.”
“It does happen a lot,” I agreed.
“About the baby, Max,” said Dooley, giving me an anxious look. “What are you…”
“Trust me, Dooley, I’m not going to do anything to stop Odelia from having a baby. In fact I’m absolutely convinced that if Odelia and Chase do have a baby, they won’t kick us out, like Harriet and Brutus seem to think, but will make other arrangements.”
“What arrangements?”
“I don’t know. Maybe we’ll all have to go and stay with Gran for a while?”
“That wouldn’t be so bad.”
“No, it wouldn’t.” I gave my friend an encouraging smile. “I’m glad to see you’re taking the news so well, Dooley.”
And he was. Once upon a time he’d been the one to get all in a tizzy over the news that Odelia might be having a baby.
“If there’s one thing I’ve learned, Max, it is that Odelia is very fond of us, and so is Chase, so I don’t think she’d ever kick us out, whatever Harriet and Brutus think.”
“No, you’re absolutely right. They wouldn’t kick us out. Baby or no baby. And for what it’s worth—I don’t think there even is a baby. Otherwise Odelia would have told us.”
We had returned to the bedroom Scott had shared with Todd, and Dooley sighed.“Poor kid.”
“And poor Rosa. Not only did she lose a husband, now she’s losing a son.”
Footsteps sounded on the stairs, and moments later Chase arrived, along with Odelia, and followed by Scott. Scott showed them the bedroom, and said,“Todd often stayed over, so when he called me and asked if he could spend the weekend, I figured his mom knew.”
“He didn’t mention that he hadn’t told her?” Odelia asked.
“No, he didn’t. Though he did look tense when he arrived.”
“Tense, how?” asked Chase.
“Well, Todd has never been the life and soul of the party. He’s always been this serious kid, you know. But now he was even more quiet than usual.”
“Did he tell you why?”
“He said he’d had a fight with his stepdad. But that wasn’t so unusual. Todd and his stepdad didn’t get along very well.”
“They often fought?”
“Yeah, they did. Todd didn’t like it when his stepdad laid down the rules. He wouldn’t accept that from a man who wasn’t his dad.”
“What did they fight about?” asked Chase.
“The usual,” said Scott. “Todd wanted to go to a concert, and Tilton had told him he couldn’t go since his grades weren’t good enough. They had some kind of arrangement that when he was doing well in school, he could go out on the weekends, but not on a school night. But this concert was on a school night, so Todd had hoped to get special permission, just this once, but Tilton put his foot down, and said that he couldn’t go.”
“He wasn’t doing well in school?”
“No, lately his grades had slipped.”
“And why was that, do you know?”
“He seemed preoccupied.”
“About what?”
“He didn’t tell me. I asked, but he said it had something to do with his family.”
“But he wouldn’t say more?”
“No, he wouldn’t. I just figured it was his stepdad.”
“Those fights they had.”
“Yeah. I was surprised that he was allowed to stay out all weekend, though, especially since last weekend he’d been grounded.”
“What for?”
“Bad grades, I thought. Both Tilton and Rosa were very strict about that kind of stuff.”
“How did Todd end up in your pool, Scott?” asked Odelia.
“I don’t know, I swear.”
“Did you have a party?” asked Chase.
“No, absolutely not. We were going to have a party tomorrow night, and I’d already invited some friends, but tonight was just a regular night.”
“What did you do?”
“Nothing special. We just hung out by the pool.”
“How much did Todd have to drink?”
“Not much. A couple of beers, maybe. We cooked together, then had dinner out by the pool, then just hung out for a while.” When he saw that Chase didn’t believe him, he said, emphatically, “I’m telling the truth, sir. You can ask Layla. We just hung out and then we played some video games, watched some television, then went to bed.”
“But not Todd.”
“No, like I already told that old lady, he wanted to stay up, said he wasn’t tired, and wanted to sit out by the pool for a while.” He shrugged. “I just figured that he needed to clear his mind, you know—with everything that was going on between him and Tilton.”
“Did you use any drugs, Scott?” asked Chase. “And remember that we will find out.”
“No, drugs, sir.” When Chase gave him a hard stare, he relented. “Maybe a little weed.”
“So can you explain to me how Todd ended up dead in your pool, Scott?”
“I swear I don’t know, sir.”
“He was a good swimmer?”
“Yes, he was.”
“Did he ever talk to you about his real dad?” asked Odelia, trying a different tack.
“His real dad? No, ma’am, he didn’t. Well, just to say that he was out of the picture, and had been a real scumbag for leaving him and his mom like that.”
“But he never told you he was in touch with him or anything?”
“Or that he wanted to look him up?” asked Chase.
“No, sir. He never mentioned anything like that. Not to me, anyway.” He hesitated, then shook his head decidedly. “When I went to bed he was fine—just fine. So I have absolutely no idea what happened. Not a clue.”
Chapter 20
Even though it was the middle of the night, we made our way to the Bonds, to inform them of the death of their son. It was a task that couldn’t be put off until the morning. It was also a task that no one likes to perform, but it had to be done, and so we rode in the car with Chase and Odelia and stood by as they rang the doorbell and waited patiently until Mrs. Bond and her husband appeared, looking sleepy and not a little bit rattled.