“What you saw in the marsh—it must have been awful for you, Jacqueline.” I leaned across the shiny red table, trying to land my elbows between drips of milk and syrup.
Jacqueline nodded, lifting her eyebrows, widening her eyes, as if she were being surprised all over again by a dead body in the marsh. The cheers of a game show audience rose up behind the accordion door.
“Is there anything I can do to make it easier for you to talk about what happened? Would you like to get yourself a glass of milk or some water?”
She shook her head, causing large amounts of dark, curly hair to swing back and forth. Jacqueline was the best-groomed person in the Peters-Ramos household, her black T-shirt looking clean and smoothed out, if not pressed. No food stains were visible on its rubbery neon cartoon picture of a music group I’d never heard of. I wondered if she’d dressed for this interview.
“Okay. What happened was, Cinnamon had some pups and we were trying to find them, ’cause they got separated from their mother, and we wanted to feed them. We had meat and stuff. And it was dark. We always go in the dark. Coyotes are nocturnal animals.” Jacqueline sounded like a bright student. I hoped her home environment was supportive of good study habits. “I went off on my own ’cause I saw a huge bird, maybe a vulture, although I’m not sure what they look like except for our science book, or even if there are any in Revere. Mr. Endicott gives us extra points for spotting something unusual, so I went to check.”
Jacqueline sniffed and rubbed her eyes. I stole a look at Berger. He sat back far enough from the table that he could keep his notebook hidden on his lap. I dug out a packet of tissues and put it in front of Jacqueline. The televisions blared on.
“Take your time. You’re doing really fine.”
Another loud sniff. “Okay. I was sneaking up on this bird that was maybe a vulture, but I made a noise on a loose rock or something and the bird flew away. Then I saw something right under where it was. This, like, bright blue jacket—I thought it was empty, I mean, you know, just the jacket. And when I got close it started moving, and I went over and it was—this man, really bleeding and moaning. I was going to do some CPR but we just learned it last week, and I was afraid I’d hurt him even more. And … and …”
Jacqueline broke into tears, quite out of proportion to the situation. It’s not as if she’d known Jake, I thought. Then I guessed the problem. I patted her hand.
“I’ll bet you were nervous about putting your mouth on his, too?”
She raised her shoulders and shivered. “Uh-huh. So I probably killed him.”
I glanced at the accordion door, expecting her mother to come and rescue her, but realized the television sounds would mask Jacqueline’s breakdown. I felt so sorry for the child, imagining the burden of guilt she’d been carrying, that I came up with a lie. Berger’s influence, I thought.
“Jacqueline, the doctors said the man had been so badly hurt, nothing you could have done would have helped.”
Sniff. “Really?”
“Really. This might be a lesson for you, though, to get some more training, in case you need it again.” Jacqueline gave me an I don’t think so look. “But not for a long, long time,” I said.
A smile, finally. “We’re almost through, Jacqueline. Just one or two more questions.”
“Okay.”
“Did you see anyone in the marsh? Anyone besides Mr. Endicott and your classmates?”
She shook her head.
“Did the man say anything before—did you hear anything from the man before you called for Mr. Endicott?”
“He was moaning a lot and he said something like ‘Sarta’s dead’ or ‘Satan’s dead,’ maybe, I don’t know. It was hard to tell.”
“Could it have been ‘Spartan’s dead’?” I asked.
Jacqueline shrugged. “I guess. Yeah, it could have been Spartan.”
Spartan Q. Jake’s horse.
Another dead horse?
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
Matt and I followed the hospital’s faded blue dots to the waiting room for radiation therapy. This would be our route five days a week for six weeks. We’d re-read all the literature, which predicted no ill effects until well into the treatment, if at all. We’d stocked up on bouillon and cranberry juice. No citrus or food with small seeds. Matt had circled in red an item on controlling fatigue: Let others cook for you and eat six or seven small meals a day.
“Do you really think two cannoli are what they mean by a meal?” I’d asked.
We’d both finally finished the transcript from Houston, the RPD was investigating Jake Powers’s murder, and the problem of locating his horse, dead or alive, was also theirs, I decided. I could focus on Matt. And MC, in her grief over Jake Powers’s death. And the microchip problem that had brought Nina Martin to Revere. Not too bad a workload.