Read Online The Long Sleep by Caroline Crane - Free Book Online Page B

week?”
    “This week,” I said, “I have an eyewitness
account of what happened to Hank.”
    “Who’s the eyewitness?”
    She didn’t know? I thought the whole school
knew. Some of them did, but maybe Cindy didn’t care all that
much.
    “I am,” I said. “He needed a ride home and we
were getting into my car.”
    Her eyes widened. “How do you know they
weren’t aiming at you?”
    “Why would they?” I hoped my face didn’t
betray my own questions about that.
    It already struck me that it might have been because of me. Because I was with another guy and Evan was
more likely to shoot the guy than me.
    But Evan was in New Hampshire. Glyn said
so.
    “Why would they shoot Hank?” she
countered.
    This was getting sticky. I’d wondered about
Cindy herself, but no way could I even hint at that. I hoped I was
being subtle when I said, “It’s possible someone didn’t like his
idea for that series. Some people can get rabid on certain
issues.”
    “You mean me.”
    I wasn’t subtle enough.
    “Cindy, you were here. How could you
be out there at the same time?”
    She seemed okay with that, but it didn’t say
anything about motive. No one pursued that angle, although Ron
Sullivan turned around and chuckled at her.
    “I don’t even own a gun,” she told him
icily.
    “Anybody can borrow one,” he said.
    I rapped on the desk with what I could find.
It happened to be a pencil and didn’t make any noise. “Let’s not
get personal,” I said. “We’re all working together on this and we
have to have it ready to print. Who usually takes care of that,
with the layout and stuff?”
    “Hank,” several of them said.
    Oh, great. A rudderless ship. Maybe we ought
to let it sink, but I liked the things we planned. And I’d been
working hard on the right-to-die series. I thought it was
important, especially the part about having an advance directive.
Even Cindy’s new gossip column was amusing. Pure fluff, but she did
it well.
    “Does anybody know how to do layout?” I hated
to admit that I didn’t, but layout was a special skill. The typing
I could handle. “Ron? What about you?”
    He wiggled his eyebrows. Everything I said he
took as a come-on.
    Finally we got it settled. I would type up
the individual articles and email them to Ron. He would take care
of the layout and the artwork, inserting photos and some of his
funny little cartoon drawings.
    As we left the classroom, Mr. Geyer put his
hand on my shoulder. “I’ve been thinking,” he said. “We might want
to go easy on the Lakeside girl. Paula. Her family lives in this
area and it could be upsetting to have it all dredged up
again.”
    I hadn’t thought of that, and wasn’t sure I
agreed. “She was going to be the easiest to do because she is local,” I said. “I can get stuff from Lakeside and I
won’t bother her family. It’s not going to be a long article. I
won’t need a lot. Mostly the first installment will be about Hank,
then her, and then a brief summary of the other cases coming
up.”
    “Hmm.” He removed his hand. “As long as you
can manage it without going too deeply.”
    He and Hank didn’t seem to be on the same
wavelength. Hank was going for depth, but I knew Mr. Geyer hadn’t
been wild about the idea and Hank was out of it now. Besides, we
didn’t have a lot of space for much depth in our eight-page
paper.
    We were going to need a photo of Hank. He was
a senior, but the ones for the yearbook hadn’t been taken yet. I
asked a few people if they had pictures, and they didn’t. The only
thing I could do was try his family.
    I had never met them. I hoped they wouldn’t
hold it against me that he was shot in my car. They didn’t know
about Evan. Ben and Cree were the only ones at school who knew and
I trusted them to keep quiet.
    I learned that Hank lived in what used to be
the separate village of Northbridge. Now it was all pretty much the
same thing but still a way off. No wonder he hadn’t wanted to miss
his bus.