It occurred to me that maybe Rasmussen hadn’t been watching us. Maybe he’d been waiting for us to leave, because right before he fell asleep last night he remembered this shoe with the little butterfly on the heel that he had left behind when he’d murdered and molested Sara. He’d come back for it. The laces were still tied. And the blood spots made a kind of connect-the-dots pattern.
“It’s definitely Sara’s,” I said, inspecting it.
“How do you know that?” Troo asked.
“Whose else could it be?”
“Aw, c’mon. It could be anybody’s. Like…” She couldn’t think of anybody’s name so instead she just stood up and flicked the willow leaves off her shorts. “It’s probably just mud anyways.”
I was sure we needed to call the police. But that would mean Rasmussen would show up, and wouldn’t that be just hunky-dory for him? Here I was, the girl who he was trying to murder and molest, poking at the bloody shoe he’d been looking for. It would be a two-fer for him.
Then I had an idea. Me, not Troo, who usually had the ideas since she was so outgoing and a genius. I put the shoe down next to the lagoon bank, setting it upright so it looked real sharp, like the ones up in Shuster’s window. Then I walked to the firebox and said, “I’m gonna pull this thing.”
The wind changed direction and the sweet smell of chocolate chip cookies came floating in on the breeze, which was making little swirls on top of the lagoon. Troo closed her eyes and breathed in the smell and said, “You better not. Remember how mad they got the last time?”
I’d pulled this exact same fire handle last summer right around this time. And boy, were those firemen steamed when they found out there was no fire. I’d done it cuz Mary Lane said she’d give me a dime if I would and, after all, she was our best friend.
“I’m gonna pull it so somebody finds this shoe,” I said. “It’s a clue. Like in Cinderella. Ready?”
I yanked the little black handle down and Troo grabbed her Kroger bag and we took off across the street and hid behind a garage. About three minutes later the sirens were wailing down Lisbon. We watched as the firemen jumped off the truck and looked around for the smoke. Then one of the guys took his fireman’s hat off and threw it on the ground and said loud enough for us to hear, “Those goddamn kids. That’s the third time this month.” But just like I planned, he saw the shoe next to the lagoon and then called over another short fireman, who picked it up, and they got back into the truck and drove off. For a second there, I thought the fatter one saw us and I picked up Troo’s hand to hightail it out of there.
Now somebody had that shoe who might think it could be Sara’s, and thank goodness that somebody was not Sally O’Malley. That was a big relief because I had enough other things to worry about. Like staying two steps ahead of Rasmussen.
We took the shortcut home through the Von Knappens’ backyard, and when we turned the corner to head down Vliet Street I saw something that I wished I hadn’t. Right then I knew I had a lot more to worry about than I’d originally thought. In fact, I knew right then that Troo and me were, like Hall said all the time now, “Up the Shit Creek without a paddle.”
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
A squad car was parked right in front of our house. Rasmussen was sitting on the steps closest to the street. His stork legs were stretched out, his elbows on the step above him. Behind him, Mrs. Goldman, the landlady who lived downstairs from us, was peeking out her lace curtains, probably checking to see what all the commotion was about.
The cop had two soda bottles in his hands. “Hello, girls,” he said politely.
I didn’t say anything but Troo said, “Hi, Officer Rasmussen,” as she eyed those Cokes. The hair around her forehead had gotten curlier than usual and she smelled from the walk home the way she did when she got real sweaty, which was sort of like your hand did if you held a nickel in it too long.
Rasmussen patted the step next to him. After Troo sat down, he handed her the soda and she guzzled the entire bottle down. Rasmussen smiled at me and said, “Well, what have the two of you been up to today?” He waggled the other Coke in front of me. I shook my head no, so he gave it to Troo, who burped real loud for an almost ten-year-old and then drank that one down, too.
“Cat got your tongue, Sally?” Rasmussen was dressed all in his heavy blue cop uniform. I watched as a bead of sweat crawled from beneath his hat and skimmed over that vein in his temple.
Troo said, “We been over to the zoo.”
If I’d had something other than a piece of Dubble Bubble in my stomach, I would have thrown up. How could my own sister speak to him?
“The zoo, huh?” Rasmussen said. “Well, if my memory doesn’t fail me, the zoo is close to the lagoon, isn’t it?”
I dared not take my eyes off of this Frankenstein monster with very big dimples sitting on our front steps.
“Sally? That’s right, isn’t it?” he asked. “The lagoon is just across from the zoo?”
What a faker. He knew we’d been over there. He’d been watching us.
“And how was Sampson today?” Rasmussen asked.
Troo said, “We didn’t go see Sampson.”
“Don’t get around much anymore,” I said before I could stop myself.
Rasmussen stopped smiling. “What was that?”
“Don’t pay too much attention to her, Officer. Sally imagines things. Like don’t get around much anymore.” Troo giggled. “She thinks that’s what Sampson is singing to himself all the time.”
Rasmussen laughed loudly and it was such a good one, a little like the way a bowling ball sounds when it goes down an alley.
“Oh, so you have an imagination then, Sally?” he said. “That’s a good thing. My sister Carol has an imagination and she ended up writing books.”
Mother thought my imagination was a bad thing and that always made me feel real hopeless because if I coulda changed it for her, I woulda.
Mrs. Goldman was still in her window, watching. Thank God Almighty. If I had to grab for his gun and shoot Rasmussen, Mrs. Goldman would hide me in her attic just like the Anne Frank girl in that book she gave me last summer for helping her and Mr. Goldman out with their garden.
Rasmussen turned to see what I was looking at and then tipped his hat at Mrs. Goldman, who let the curtain slide back. When we were working together earlier that morning pulling weeds, I’d almost told our landlady that Rasmussen was after me since she didn’t seem to like cops all that much and sometimes she called them the Gestapo. Now, I wished I’d told her.
Rasmussen pointed to the step below him. “Why not take a load off, Sally?”
I took a step back.
He looked at me kinda funny and said, “Somebody pulled the fire alarm over near the lagoon a little while ago. Fire Chief Bailey told me he thought he saw two girls hiding behind the Wahlstroms’ garage.”
He’d murdered Junie Piaskowski at the end of last summer. He’d probably murdered Sara. And I knew how he’d gotten away with it. Because Troo was right, Rasmussen acted nice. He even volunteered up at the school’s paper drive that we had every year to raise money for the missionaries. He was strong, too. I remembered how he picked up the load of papers I’d brought up to school in my Radio Flyer and swung them up onto the scale like it was nothing to him. And how he’d said, “Congratulations, Sally. You’re the big winner for the day.” Then he handed me a quarter and a free pass to the fish fry that we had every Friday night in the school cafeteria even though I didn’t have half as much paper as Willie O’Hara, who was so good at collecting things.
“Sally?”
I looked over at Troo.
“Are you having a little flight of imagination?” She was getting herself worked up like she’d gotten drunk on that Coke. She was also giving me that smile where just one corner of her mouth went up. It was a bad smile. A teaser’s smile. “Officer Rasmussen wants to know if you pulled the fire alarm.”