After Obsession Part 24

The pressure lessens a little. Onawa's way of letting me know I'm right.

I continue to breathe. Out ... in ...

"What can I do?" I ask without words. It is just a thought I send outward, toward the eyes.

Onawa looks away from me at the same moment that I feel a gentle heat in my chest. I follow the cougar's gaze and see a vague line of people standing nearby. The line fades in the distance. I feel a kins.h.i.+p with these people I do not recognize. The warm feeling in my chest grows as I look at them. One by one, they turn to look at me, and I see that they all have my face.

"Are they ... my ancestors?"

Onawa turns her attention back to me and the line of people retreats into the darkness.

"Aimee?" I ask.

A fire appears above Onawa's head. The fire is Aimee's hair, though. I know this. There is a woman tending the fire. The woman looks like Aimee.

"Her mom?"

Onawa doesn't answer.

"Who is the River Man?" I ask.

The fire and woman break apart and fade away. The air presses around me again, but now it is cold and smells like a stagnant river. There is a feeling, something that can only be evil-ancient, nameless evil. I feel panicked, suffocated, and suddenly afraid. Then the feeling is gone.

I tell myself to breathe.

In ... out ... in ...

The smell of incense comes to me. There's a sound. Not music. Something else. Onawa's glowing green eyes dim. I grope for focus.

"Don't leave me."

Out ... in ...

"Alan Whitedeer Parson! Listen to me!"

Onawa's eyes blink once, twice, and are gone. There is only the smell of sage and the sound of silence. I open my eyes. The room is filled with electric light. My windows are squares of darkness behind my angry mother.

"What the h.e.l.l are you doing?" she demands.

"Meditating. Did you turn off the music?"

"That chanting? Yes, I turned it off. What is all over your face and chest?"

"Paint."

"Wipe it off. There is a cop downstairs. He wants to talk to you." The anger flickers for a second. "What's going on, Alan?"

"A cop?"

"Put some clothes on and come downstairs." She has wood shavings in her hair and she smells like oil and sawdust. Her face is pale, and her eyes show more fear than anger now.

"Okay." She starts to walk away, around me and toward the door. "Mom?" She turns back. "I don't know why the cop is here. I promise ... Unless it's about my fight at school ..."

She nods her head once and leaves the room, closing the door.

I get up, and the movement is anything but graceful. My knees are stiff and my legs want to cramp. I put my hands on the edge of my bed and stretch my legs behind me. My cell phone is on the bedspread. The red light is blinking; I have messages. I pick it up and check. Six messages, all from Aimee. I check the most recent one.

PLEASE CALL ASAP!!!.

I have missed calls, too. From Aimee. Something is wrong.

Mom is downstairs with a police officer who wants to see me.

I pull on some sweatpants and a black Rob Zombie s.h.i.+rt. It isn't until I walk past the mirror on my dresser that I remember the facepaint. I step into the bathroom to scrub off the paint that can be seen on my face and neck, then go downstairs. Mom and the cop, a pot-bellied blond guy with a pair of chins and a buzz cut, sit at the dining room table. Aunt Lisa isn't around.

"There he is," Mom says. "I'm sorry he made you wait."

"That's okay," the cop says as he gets to his feet. He's a few inches shorter than me but outweighs me by at least a hundred pounds. He extends a meaty, sweaty hand, and I shake it as he says, "I'm Deputy McKinney, Alan. Can I ask you a few questions?"

"What about?" I ask.

"Sit down, Alan," Mom insists. The cop settles back into his chair, and I think of a turkey squatting on a nest. I sit across from Mom, facing the deputy.

"You were in a fight today at school, weren't you?" he asks.

"Yeah, I guess. It wasn't much of a fight. Three guys jumped me in a bathroom. I only got one hit in before the teachers broke it up."

"It looks like they worked you over pretty good."

"It looks worse than it feels," I tell him.

"You know the boys who did it?"

"Sort of. I mean, we've only been in Maine since Sat.u.r.day. I know two of them from cla.s.ses, and Blake is in cross-country with me. He's my girlfriend's ex."

"That's Blake Stanley?"

"Yeah."

"The other two boys? Do you know their names?"

"Chris and Noah, I think. I don't know their last names."

"Have you seen them since you left school today?"

"No."

"Are you sure?"

"Yeah."

"You were suspended for the fight?"

"If you know about the fight, you know I was."

"Alan," Mom warns. "Answer him."

"Yes, I was suspended. Three days." I look at Mom while I say it.

"What about the other boys?"

"I don't know. Everson said three days was the required suspension for fighting. I a.s.sume that's what they got."

"Did you come right home after you were suspended?"

I swallow and can't look at Mom. I focus on a small mole on McKinney's temple instead. "No. I went to Craft Barn and Bergerman's Lumber and to the hospital first."

Mom gives a frustrated sigh. "I told you to come straight home."

"I had things to do."

"Alan, can you prove your whereabouts between about one PM and four PM?" the deputy asks.

"Why?"

He ignores my question and repeats his own. "Can you prove you were at Craft Barn and the lumberyard and the hospital?"

"I don't know. I guess. I have receipts."

"I'd like to see them."

"They're upstairs. You want me to get them?"

"Please."

I try to act calm and uncaring and cool, but my heart pounds harder than my feet as I throw myself up the stairs and into my room. I grab my jeans off the floor and fish out the two receipts from a hip pocket, then go back downstairs. I hand them to the cop as I sit down and watch him study them.

"Sage, and what's this?" he asks. Sweetgra.s.s shows up as "Sweetgss" on the receipt.

"Sweetgra.s.s."

"The weed? Why'd you buy that?"

"An Indian thing," Mom says. "His father was an Indian and Alan tries to be."

"I am half Navajo," I say, and don't care that I sound defiant. "I burn the sage and sweetgra.s.s like incense."

"I see," Deputy McKinney says, but it's obvious he doesn't. He looks at the lumber receipt. "Tarps and ... granite?"

"Yes."

"What are those for?"

d.a.m.n. I do not want to go here. Mom will blow a gasket. Maybe not now, not in front of the cop, but later.

"More Indian stuff ?" he asks.

"Yeah. For a sweat lodge."

"Sweat lodge?"

"It's like a sauna in a tent," I say.

"Oh." He looks at the two receipts for another minute, then puts them aside. "The receipts put you at the stores at about one thirty and a quarter after two this afternoon. You say you went to the hospital?"

"My cousin's there. She's a patient."

The deputy looks to Mom, who nods confirmation. "Courtney Tucker, my niece."

The cop nods. "She's okay?"

I wait for Mom to answer, wondering if they've gotten word about Courtney's recovery. "She seems much better, from what I heard just before you got here," she says.

"I'm glad to hear it," McKinney says. "Your cousin can confirm that you were there?" I nod. "Anyone else?"

"Aimee."

"Aimee Avery?"

"Yeah. I met her there. She was already in the room with Courtney."

"Anyone else? Did you talk to any nurses or doctors, maybe a receptionist?"

"Nope. Well, actually there was a nurse standing there when I got off the elevator. What's this all about?"

The deputy takes a deep breath and looks at his thick index finger as he draws circles on the white tablecloth. "We pulled Chris Paquette out of the Union River late this afternoon. He's dead. Noah Chandler was there, too. He's in the hospital now. Hypothermia and shock. He can't talk to us yet."

I stare at the cop for a long time. His gaze is on his finger, but I know he's watching my reaction in his peripheral vision. This is crazy. "You think ... what? I drowned Chris?"

"What time did you leave the hospital?"

"I don't know. A little after three."

"Where did you go then?"

"I took Aimee home, then came here. I've been upstairs in my room since then."

"What have you been doing up there?"