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As we talked about our personal lunatic, I realized that I still hadn’t fully accepted what Grant had said to the jurors when he told them that the scope of the Sci-Tron bombing was way beyond the abilities of a ninth-grade science teacher.
So had he really done it?
If so, how?
And how had he managed to annihilate Red Dog Parisi at trial?
We’d never really known Connor Grant. He’d been investigated by the FBI. By DHS. And still, what we knew about the science teacher could cover the face of a three-inch-square Post-it note.
Joe and I had barely touched our sandwiches and chips. He said, “All done?”
“I’ll get it, Joe,” I said, referring to the remains of our lunch.
He said, absolutely deadpan, “Allow me.”
And then the best and most amazing thing happened. Joe got out of his wheelchair and onto his feet as if nothing had ever been wrong with him. He walked. He emptied the remains of our lunch into the trash, stowed the trays in the receptacle, and then he spun around and did a little dance.
Julie flew up out of the pool like a June bug and yelled, “Daddy!” Joe opened his arms and she ran toward him, chirping, “Daddy dance.”
They danced. He twirled her under his arm. They made up their own moves. From first step to last, the prancing and twirling went on for only a minute. But it was the cutest damned minute of my life.
CHAPTER 74
NEDDIE WAS STILL hurting like crazy from when that giant son of a bitch had blocked him, making him fall and hit his head on the pavement. His head was still radiating with pain.
He had no intention of letting anyone know.
He went through the whole weekend being Nutty Neddie, playing cards and doing stoopid Neddie tricks, but he was sore in more ways than one.
When he’d been leaving the grown-up football player on Union Street, he’d seen a man jump out of a car at the light and head over to the dead or dying man.
Had the man from the car seen his face? Well, shit, didn’t matter. Neddie had gotten clean away.
Now it was after dinner in Ward Six-Six-Six and just before lights-out. Neddie, Mikey, Quarter to Ten, Fred Mouse, and Oscar were going to trade stories.
Oscar was in the bathroom when Mikey leaned over to where Neddie was settling into his bunk and dropped a bombshell.
He said, “I told Dr. Hoover a story about you, Neddie. A true one.”
Neddie was zapped with a jolt of fear like a lightning strike that ran up his spine to the back of his head, then branched out to his fingertips. He felt dizzy. He tried to focus on Mikey.
“What story?” he managed to ask.
Neddie hoped that Mikey would say that he had told Hoover a Johnston Correctional story; Johnston was fact—published, documented, condemned. No harm could come to Neddie over a Johnston story. But—reality check, Neddie. Mikey hadn’t told Hoover about Johnston. Hoover knew all about Johnston.
Mikey said, “I told Dr. Hoover that you go flying at night and stay out until almost morning.”
Mikey was smart enough to read Neddie’s face and see trouble coming. He started backing up, until he was between two lockers across from the be
ds. A split second later Neddie sprang off the side of the bed, his shadow rising up against the wall like a bodyguard three times his height.
Neddie closed in. Mikey peed himself.
“Why’d you do that, Mikey? What did you do that for?”
“Don’t hurt me,” he squealed. “Don’t hurt me, Neddie.”
Neddie slapped a locker door. Kicked it. Then, as Mikey went into a crouch, Neddie grabbed his hair with one hand, gripped his jaw with the other, forcibly extracting him from his hiding place, then ran him headfirst into a wall. As he fell to the floor, Mikey loosed one long, undulating wail.
