The Silence of Murder by Dandi Daley Mackall

Author:Dandi Daley Mackall [Mackall, Dandi Daley]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
ISBN: 978-0-375-89981-2
Publisher: Random House Children's Books
Published: 2011-10-11T04:00:00+00:00

21

“I can’t believe we’re doing this,” T.J. mutters for the thirteenth time as he watches me try to work the lock to Coach’s office. “We are so getting out of here after this.”

“Fine. I want to leave as much as you do.”

“I doubt it.”

I don’t have a bobby pin or a credit card, like people use to open locks in movies, but I have a horseshoe nail I found on the stable floor. It’s flat and thin enough to poke into the lock and twist. Finally, the lock clicks. “I did it!” The knob turns, and I’m in.

“Great,” T.J. says. “Now what?”

“Now we search.”

“Search for what?”

“Clues,” I answer, stepping inside. “A divorce letter or a journal would be great. Maybe some hate notes from his wife. I don’t know.” The police must have searched Coach’s office, but it doesn’t look ransacked. I’m guessing Sheriff Wells didn’t waste his time looking into anything or anybody, except Jeremy. The only two pieces of furniture in the room, besides several chairs, are a big desk and a tall metal filing cabinet. “You take the files, and I’ll take the desk. Deal?”

“Are you sure we shouldn’t be wearing gloves?” T.J. asks, stepping over a pile of trash on the floor. “What about our fingerprints?”

“Nobody cares about our fingerprints. They’re done with this office.”

T.J. mumbles something, but I can’t make it out.

Coach’s desk looks like it hasn’t been touched in months. Even the papers on it are dusty. Mouse droppings form a trail across the glass-slab surface of the desk. There’s a framed photograph of Coach and his wife on their wedding day. I pick it up and dust it off. “They don’t look that happy to me,” I observe. “And it’s their wedding day.”

“I’ll bet she was hard to live with,” T.J. mutters.

“How come?”

“You didn’t have her for English. Trust me. She was hard to take for fifty minutes a day. I can’t imagine having her twenty-four/seven.”

I shine the light on the faces in the wedding picture. Their expressions are relaxed rather than excited. “Comfortable. That’s what I’d call them. Not in love, but comfortable.”

I set down the photograph. Just above the desk are two pieces of paper pinned to the wall. Color wheels. Right away, I know they’re Jeremy’s. I would have sworn on a stack of Bibles that nobody except Rita and me ever got one of Jer’s drawings. He must have liked Coach a lot. This extra loss for Jeremy makes my throat burn—as if my brother hadn’t already lost enough.

The file cabinet rattles. “Man, look at this!” T.J. calls.

“What?” I start to go over and see.

“This whole drawer is filled with baseball trophies.”

I return to the desk. In the middle drawer, I find a photograph of Jeremy sitting on Sugar and another one of Jer grinning in his Panther uniform. It might have been taken the first day Coach let him suit up. Coach must have taken it himself. Looking at it makes me sad. I put it back.

“Find something?” T.

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