He turned down his music, as if he expected to have a conversation or something.
I kept looking out the window, my heart pounding with nerves.
“I was surprised when Candace told me who I was delivering to,” he said. “Guess I didn’t realize you’d never learned to drive.”
I didn’t say anything, so he went on.
“How come you didn’t? I got my license the day of my sixteenth birthday. I couldn’t wait, man. I mean, it’s not like you can’t walk wherever you want to go in Saw Pole, but just the idea of it, you know? The freedom. The idea I could drive to California if I wanted to . . . of course, I’ve never had the money to do anything like that, but . . .”
I stared out the window.
“Am I talking too much?”
“Yes.”
“No one’s ever answered that honestly before,” he said. “Hey. I always wanted to ask you . . .”
I looked at him then and cringed. I could only imagine the kinds of things -people wanted to ask about me and my dad.
His face fell. “Never mind.”
We drove in a silence for a beat.
He drummed on the steering wheel to the music on the radio. “So did all your relatives roll into town for the funeral? You have a houseful?” He squeezed his eyes closed briefly. “And I’m going to shut up now. Sorry. Didn’t mean to be nosy.”
I kept my eyes on the right shoulder, looking for the little green Mile 211 sign.
“Stop,” I said when I saw it.
“I will. I tend to talk too—-”
“No. I mean pull over and stop the truck.”
He braked to a stop. “Wow. This is unprecedented. I promise I’ll shut up. You don’t have to get out.”
“Can you wait here?” I asked.
“Um, yeah?”
I jumped out of the truck and ran down into the ditch. I breathed a sigh of relief. The camouflage I’d arranged the day before on my walk had done its work. I brushed it away and lugged my bundle out of the ditch, and hoisted it into the bed of the truck. Then I got back in the cab.
Dekker looked through the back window and then at me. He blinked. “Is that a suitcase?”
“Yes,” I said.
He shrugged and put the pickup in gear. “Okay.” He continued drumming on the steering wheel.
We drove on, and I could feel Dekker’s curiosity eating him up, his desire to talk dissolving his insides. It was kind of weird. I needed to focus so I let it go. He drove for five minutes before he spoke again.
“Where are we going?”
“Mr. Dooley’s office,” I said.
“The attorney?”
“Yeah.”
“Okay. That’s cool. Awesome. It’s kind of great when I can get away from the grocery store because no one else our age works there. You’re, like, twenty--one, right? It’s all old ladies. I’m only working there until I can get enough money together to go back to K--State. -People probably told you I flunked out, right? But I actually ran out of money, so . . .”
Who was he talking to? What -“people” would have told me anything about him?
He rolled his eyes. “Sorry,” he said. “You make me nervous.”
“No, I don’t,” I said. He couldn’t possibly know about my knife or Baby Glock, so what about me made him nervous?
He did a double take, a little smile on his lips. “No, you definitely do. You’re just . . . I don’t know. It’s not you. It’s me.”
He shut up when we hit the city limit and I started scanning the streets for the red Dodge.
Dekker watched me. “So drop you off, or . . .”
“Could you wait for me?” I asked. “I’ll only be a few minutes.”
“Yeah. Sure. No problem.”
He parked and I got out. I reached into the truck bed, unzipped the side pocket of the suitcase and removed a collapsible bag. I glanced up and down Main Street twice. It was deserted. I walked to the door of Mr. Dooley’s office, which was unlocked. I was actually kind of disappointed; I wouldn’t get to use the key he kept hidden under the windowsill.
I poked my head in the door and called out, “Hello? Mr. Dooley?”
No answer. It was straight--up noon, so as I’d hoped, he was gone, probably to lunch at the Cozy Corner. I went inside and closed the door behind me.
I ran into the inner office. On the desktop were piles of loose papers and stacks of file folders, and I despaired of finding mine. Where was it? I lifted several, afraid to upset the delicate balance of the folders, and finally I saw it.
I grabbed the folder, flopped it on top of everything else and opened it. There was the envelope. I shoved it into my bag, closed up the file, and put it back where it had been. As I ran through the outer office toward the stairs, a shadow darkened the front shades. I waited for Mr. Dooley to come in, but the shadow passed on by.