Safe by Mark Zubro

Author:Mark Zubro [Zubro, Mark]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: gay romance
Publisher: MLR Press LLC
Published: 2014-03-22T04:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

Thursday 3:05 P.M.

After school I was supposed to go to the police station to look at pictures to see if I recognized any of the guys from the night before. Since Jack and I were pretty banged up and sore, we’d agreed to skip our workout.

Just before I left, I decided to stop in the school newspaper office for a moment. As I got near, Mr. Ashcroft and Mr. Trumble walked out the door and came in my direction. Trumble kept himself a step behind the administrator. The moderator of the paper kept wringing his hands together and saying, “It won’t be a problem, Mr. Ashcroft.”

In the office I asked Darlene what wouldn’t be a problem.

She said, “We aren’t printing anything about the cops questioning kids, and we aren’t running anything about Kyle, not even an obit. Your article is history. That’s what Ashcroft was here to decree.”

Bert burst into the room. “You!” He pointed at me. “How dare you?”

“How dare I what?” I asked.

“I’m a suspect in a murder case because of you,” Bert said.

“What happened?” Darlene asked.

“The cops want to know who was out in the orange groves the night Kyle was killed.” He pointed at me again. “I can’t deny it because of you.” He lurched around the tiny room, trying to pace and let off steam.

Darlene walked right up to him, forcing him to stop moving. Her nose was two inches from his face. “Did you kill him?”

“No!”

Darlene backed away from him a couple steps.

Bert started stomping around again. “Don’t be stupid. I barely knew the kid. If anything, I was indifferent to him. I didn’t care if he existed.” Bert stopped his angry pacing in front of me. “But I found out an interesting bit of news.” His tone and facial expression indicated something nasty was coming. “Guess who sat next to me in the line of kids waiting to be interrogated?”

I shrugged.

“Jack McVeen.”

Jack wouldn’t confide in this creep. What could this asshole know?

“Jack’s not too happy with you. You’ve stirred up all this trouble about Kyle. Seems Jack’s pretty worried about his dad finding out about his drinking.”

I asked, “Who told the police Jack was out in the orange groves drinking?”

Bert sneered. “Well, we kind of came to the conclusion it was you who blabbed to the cops. I told him you ratted on me. I won’t have a lot of problems with my dad. He understands me, or he’s rich enough that if he has to, he can hire a team of lawyers or whatever to protect me, but old Jack is worried about his dad, and he and I think you told on him.”

“I didn’t tell on Jack.”

“Well, Jack was pretty mad,” Bert said. “He called you a number of names, most of which were on the order of ‘faggot’ and ‘queer’. He seemed to think they were pretty appropriate, and I’ve wondered why you were so worried about Kyle’s death, and now I think I know why. You must be gay too.

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