The Jealous Kind (Holland Family Saga #2) - James Lee Burke Page 0,52

the house. The yard was in full sunlight, the humidity like spun glass, the air thick with the smell of feces. Flies buzzed around the trash can. The Doberman was stretched out on the grass, inches from an empty water bowl. A piece of butcher paper streaked with a copper-colored liquid had blown against the chain-link fence.

“You think we did this?” I said.

“You wear a ten and a half?” he said.

“Shoe?”

“No, your hat size.”

“Yes, a ten-and-a-half shoe.”

“Go up the steps.”

“The Harrelsons or the Atlases are behind this.”

“The who?”

“If you talked with Jenks, he told you about them.”

“What he told me is you boys may have caused a boy to lose his eye. Now, get your ass inside.”

“I want to call my parents.”

“You don’t make the rules, boy.”

“I’m not going to cooperate with this.”

“You’re going to do as you’re told.”

The back door was open. So was the screen, slashed diagonally by a sharp knife or a box cutter. The dead bolt had been prized out of the doorjamb. Hopkins pressed his knuckle into my spine. Sweat was running down my nose; the sun was the hot yellow of an egg yolk, the heat from the concrete and St. Augustine grass a wool blanket on my skin. I could feel my wrists peeling and salt running into the cuts, when I tried to twist them inside the cuffs. Hopkins worked his knuckle into my spine again.

“You son of a bitch,” I said.

“Didn’t quite catch that.”

My nose was dripping, my eyes burning, the yard and house slipping out of focus. “I apologize.”

“Get inside,” he said.

“What for? I was playing miniature golf with a friend last night. I went from my house to work this morning. I couldn’t have done whatever it is that happened here.”

“Inside, boy. I won’t say it again.”

“I want a witness.”

“Witness to what.”

“Whatever you’re going to do.”

There was no one else in the yard. I could hear Saber and the other cops out on the driveway. Saber had either fallen or sat down and was making them drag him into the backyard. Hopkins lit a Camel and took a puff and let the smoke out slowly. He looked at his cigarette, then raised his eyes to me. “You smoke?”

“No, sir.”

“Good for you. I got to quit these things one day.”

He stiff-armed me through the door. I stumbled against the wall. “I never did anything to Mr. Krauser. You probably cost me my job. Everybody in school hates Mr. Krauser’s guts. He’s a cruel, mean-spirited shithead, and everybody knows it. I want my damn phone call.”

“You’ll get it at the jail.”

I knew that nothing I said would make any difference. He belonged to the huge army of people who believed that authority over others was an achievement and that violence was proof of a man’s bravery.

Hopkins flipped his cigarette through the ripped screen into the yard and led me into a foyer shiny with fresh paint and tracked with shoeprints. He stood on the edge of the foyer and took one of my shoes from the paper bag and squatted down and fitted it inside a print. Then he did the same with the other shoe. “Both shoes fit, wouldn’t you say?”

“What does it matter? I didn’t walk through that paint. I wasn’t here. At least not yesterday or today.”

He didn’t answer. The other cops brought Saber through the back door, one of them carrying his shoes. The cop handed the shoes to Hopkins. It took three tries before Hopkins could fit one of Saber’s shoes into a print. Then he pressed the other shoe inside another print and stood up, flexing his back. “Neither one of you were here? That’s your story?”

“Those tracks could have been put there by anyone,” Saber said.

Hopkins turned up the soles of our shoes. “How’d the same paint get on here?”

“You put it there,” Saber said. “We saw you do it.”

“That paint has been dry for hours.” He squatted down again and touched the floor and rubbed his thumb across his fingertips. “See?”

Through the back door, I saw the SPCA man wrap Krauser’s Doberman in a piece of canvas and carry it out of the yard. Hopkins walked into the weight room and turned around. “Bring those two in here. I want to see if they’re proud of their work.”

I went ahead of Saber, the paint in the foyer sticking to the bottoms of my feet. At first glance, everything in the weight room seemed to be in order. The dumbbells were racked, the weight