Weekend - By Christopher Pike Page 0,48

set it down on the table in between us where there were several beers. Maybe she picked my beer back up, maybe it was another beer. Who knows? I sure don't."

Fear had sharpened her memory. Shani suddenly recalled a vital point. "The beer you gave her had the insecticide in it," she said reluctantly.

Sol stared at her, amazed. "How do you know?"

"I remember when you first gave her the beer, how it was darker. At the time, I thought one of you had put whisky in it."

"Why didn't you tell,the police this?" Park asked, regarding Sol suspiciously.

"I had forgotten." She banged her feet together. They were going numb, like her hands. She wondered what it would be like to die from snake venom. In movies, the victim always screamed horribly. Would the snakes just bite her, or would they chew on her afterwards? She had to stop thinking like this.

"What do you have to say about that?" Park asked Sol.

"Nothing. If Shani remembers that the beer was darker, I believe her. Look, none of this is new. The police jumped all over me on this same point. If I had wanted to poison somebody, I wouldn't have done it out loud in front of everybody."

Park was not convinced. "A subtle way to hide one's guilt is to make oneself so obviously guilty that no one would think that you were dumb enough to have committed the crime."

"That's a bunch of bullshit," Sol said angrily. "What's got into you, Park? You know me. I would never have hurt Robin."

"Yeah, I know you, sure," Park sneered. "I know you're no angel in a leather jacket. What about the drugs you push?"

"What?I get loaded - like you - but I don't deal."

"What about the junk you bought in Tijuana?"

"What about it?"

"Was it, by chance, ether for PCP?"

"What's that?"

"Yeah, you never heard of PCP," Park said sarcastically.

"I know what PCP is. What'sether?"

"A highly explosive chemical to put people asleep,and used in the manufacture of Angel Dust." Park shook his head in disgust. "It's explosive enough to have wasted the garage and Bert. Let me hear you deny that that's what you were carrying!"

"I do!"

"Wait a minute. What's going on here?" Lena asked. "What did you have in your van, Sol?"

"Nothing! Fireworks."

"Fireworks?" Park winced.

"Like sparklers and cones and things like that?" Shani asked.

"Not exactly," Sol admitted reluctantly. "I had... M80s."

"What are those?" Flynn asked.

"You don't know?" Park said. "There isn't a kid who's grown up in Southern California that hasn't lit off at least one M80. They're like a firecracker, except thicker, with dynamite inside instead of gun powder.

How much did you buy, Sol?"

"A lot. I could sell them to this guy in L.A. for three times what I paid for them."

"How much?"

"I bought three hundred."

"That's a lot," Shani said.

"Three hundred pounds," Sol added.

"Three hundredpounds ," Park said, pronouncing each word distinctly. "At least we know now where the garage went. Why didn't you tell us?"

Sol shrugged. "I've been to jail. I figured I couldn't help Bert by going back. And I wasn't the one who lit - "

The snake lid shook. The voice spoke. "Don't stray. We must have the truth of that night."

"Give us more time!" Park called quickly. Sol's revelation had taken him aback. Apparently the belief that Sol was a pusher had greatly prejudiced his point of view. "Sorry, Sol," he said. "I'm in such a hurry to get to the bathroom, I'll accuse anybody."

"You're going to make a crappy lawyer," Sol scowled.

"We're back where we started," Angie said.

"But we have established that the beer Sol gave Robin had the poison in it," Park said. "We've got to trace that beer back. Where did you get it, Sol?"

He was shaking his head."These are the same questions all over. I'll give you the same answer I gave the cops: I don't remember. I was so wasted that night."

"So was I," Park said.

"Why don't you try a different approach?" Flynn said. "Since you've been unable to trace the beer back, why don't you trace itforward . Start at a reasonable point during the party and reconstruct what happened from then on. It doesn't sound like you did that with the police. It might help jar a few memories, and maybe the beer will show up earlier."

"It couldn't hurt," Park said. "But it's probably going to get confusing. Where should we start?"

"After Lena and Robin arrived," Shani suggested. "I was phasing in and out all night, but I remember Kerry and Lena fighting."

A rattlesnake