The Silver Star(60)

Kids continued to give Liz a hard time, but then the judge set a date in March for the trial, and it became clear to everyone in town that the case wasn’t going to go away. That was when we realized we had a lot more to worry about than bony-nosed Lisa Saunders and her girlfriends.

Piles of garbage started appearing on the lawn and driveway at Mayfield. We’d get up in the morning, and it would be strewn all over the place—used Pampers, empty bottles of RC and cans of SpaghettiOs, plastic bags, shredded paper, and those cylindrical Pringles containers. All that stuff practically had Maddox’s name on it.

One day, on our way to the bus stop, Maddox’s black Le Mans appeared out of nowhere. Maddox was behind the wheel, hunched forward like a racecar driver. He gunned the car toward Liz and me, swerving so close that we had to jump into the ditch to keep from getting hit. We felt the whoosh of air as the car passed. I picked up a rock and hurled it after him, but the Le Mans sped off and the rock missed.

After that, it seemed like Maddox cruised around looking for us almost every day, trying to run us off the road when he saw us walking home or riding our bikes into town. It got to the point where, whenever I went outside, I listened for the roar of the Le Mans. I started carrying around a pocketful of rocks, and I did give the car at least one good dent, but most of the time Maddox got away too quickly for me to score a hit.

We didn’t tell Uncle Tinsley. We never seriously considered going to the police, either, since we wouldn’t be able to prove anything, and so far, filing complaints against Maddox had only caused trouble. But Maddox’s campaign was having an effect on Liz. She was terrified and didn’t want to leave the house. She also started talking more and more about the voices and how they were warning her that Maddox was hiding behind every bush and tree.

I kept telling Liz—and myself—that the voices were temporary and would go away once Maddox got convicted and sent to prison. It was now December, with the trial three months away, and I was worried sick that Liz might fall apart by then. That made me wonder if we should drop the case. But if we pulled out now, Maddox would know he had terrorized us into giving up. We’d have to leave town, since I couldn’t imagine riding my bike around Byler knowing I might run into the man and he’d give me that smile bullies give the people they push around. And leaving town wouldn’t solve anything. Maddox would haunt Liz, and that might make the voices get worse.

I decided there was only one thing to do. I couldn’t wait for the trial. I had to kill Jerry Maddox.





CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE


I didn’t have a car to mow Maddox down, so I had to strategize. There was a ridge behind the Maddox house with a lot of boulders and big rocks. I’d noticed one in particular when I was working for the Maddoxes, and I’d thought at the time that if it ever rolled down, it might do some serious damage. It might even kill someone. So I decided to roll it down myself.

I would hide on the ridge until Maddox came out to the back porch, which he did every day to check the thermometer and put the stuff from his paper shredder into the trash cans, and then I’d send that rock barreling down the hill and crush him like a bug.

After school the next day, I rode the red Schwinn into Byler, left it at the library bike stand, and cut through the yard of one of Maddox’s neighbors to the ridge behind his house. I scrambled up through the scrub pines to the rock, which was about as big as an armchair and had one side covered with lichen. I pushed on the rock to see how loose it was, and that was when I discovered I couldn’t budge the thing. It must have weighed a ton.

I needed a partner.


Liz wasn’t cut out for this type of assignment, and asking Uncle Tinsley was out of the question. The only person I could turn to was Joe Wyatt. I’d already told him all about Maddox’s harassment campaign, of course, and so at school the next day, I explained my plan and asked if he’d be willing to help out.

“When do we do it, cuz?” he asked.

I told him how big and heavy the rock was. Joe didn’t make such good grades in school, but he was really smart when it came to doing things, and he told me what we needed to do was lever the rock into motion. His dad, he said, had a tamping bar that would do the job.

The next day, Joe met me at the library, carrying the heavy iron bar. We circled up into the woods behind Maddox’s house, and I showed Joe the rock. He worked the tamping bar under it, but it wouldn’t budge, so he got a smaller rock that he used as a fulcrum, and with both of us pulling down on the long end of the bar, we worked the big rock forward.

“This’ll do it,” Joe said.