“Wait…what?”
“They found cigarette butts at the crime scene. They’ll test your saliva from the bottle against the cigarette butts and keep searching the scene for anything that might give them a usable print to compare to yours.” Donny shook his head as if he was ticked off at himself. “I didn’t think to tell you to bring the bottle with you, but it’s not a bad thing. When the DNA comes back as not a match, I can use it in court if they decide charge you.”
Donny started the car, and I felt a cold shiver snake up my spine. His words, if they decide to charge you, replayed over and over in my mind.
Before we reached home I checked my phone. There were a dozen texts from Stubby. He’d heard about Tevon and he seemed really freaked out. I didn’t want to call him from the car, so I waited until we got home when Donny was busy answering all of Ma’s questions and telling her that I wasn’t allowed to do readings anymore.
Slipping away upstairs I called Stubs. “Ohmigod!” he said the minute he answered the phone. “He’s been murdered, Mads! Murdered!”
“I know,” I told him.
“Oh, man, oh, man, oh, man!” Stubs said, and I could imagine him pacing back and forth, running a nervous hand through his hair. “It’s all our fault, Maddie. We should’ve done something.”
I dropped my head and felt my shoulders slump. Stubs had said aloud exactly what I’d felt since hearing they’d discovered Tevon’s body. “It gets worse,” I whispered.
I heard Stubby’s sharp intake of breath, then, “What? What else?”
I filled him in on all that’d happened that morning. Stubby reacted by freaking out a whole lot more. “But you had nothing to do with it!” he practically shouted. “Mads, you have to tell them! You were trying to help Mrs. Tibbolt keep Tevon alive!”
“I don’t think they believe me, Stubs.”
Stubby was silent for a long time. “I should’ve talked to her at the diner,” he said. “Or you and I should’ve gone over to her house that night. We should’ve tried harder to get her to listen.”
“I know,” I agreed, sick with regret about not having done more to prevent Tevon’s death. “I didn’t know it would end like this. I didn’t know he’d be tortured and murdered. I thought he’d die from some freak medical thing that nobody could’ve detected.”
Again Stubby was silent for a long time. Then he said, “I’m sorry, Mads. I didn’t mean it when I said it was our fault. You tried to warn Mrs. Tibbolt, but she wouldn’t listen. None of this is your fault. I should’ve been the one to vouch for you.”
I sighed. “It’s not your fault, either, Stubs. If you’d gotten on the phone, or gone over there, she might’ve called the cops on both of us.”
“Or she might’ve listened,” Stubby countered, his voice heavy with regret. We were both quiet for a minute and then Stubs said, “What’d Donny say?”
I curled my knees up onto the chair and hugged them tight. “He says they don’t have a case, but…”
“But what?”
“I can tell he’s worried,” I whispered, more afraid of sensing that from Donny than anything else that’d happened to me that day. “He doesn’t even want me to do readings anymore. He told me flat out that I’m not allowed to tell anybody their deathdate until this thing blows over. If it blows over.”
I heard Stubby sigh. “Well, if he says there’s no case, then I’d believe him. And don’t worry, they’ll find out who really did this. And then those agents will owe you a big apology.”
I squeezed the phone and closed my eyes. It was so typical of Stubby to think positively. I thought it must be in his DNA or something, because he always found the good in everybody and in every situation. But he hadn’t seen the photograph of Tevon’s body. He hadn’t seen the hard, accusing eyes of Agent Wallace.
I could feel myself starting to get really upset again, so I tried to end the call. “Yeah, okay. Listen, I think Donny’s calling me. I gotta go.”
Stubby seemed to know I was rushing him off the phone. “You gonna be okay?”
“Sure.”
“Meet you at the diner tomorrow night?”
“Yeah. Listen, I really gotta go.”
“Okay,” he said. “Text me later.”
I nodded, but my throat had filled with emotion and I couldn’t get any more words out. After I hung up, I cried in my room for the rest of the day.
BY THE FOLLOWING TUESDAY AFTERNOON I knew it wasn’t my imagination. It started with Mrs. LeBaron (11-18-2060), my homeroom teacher. She kept glancing in my direction during the twenty minutes before classes started. And it wasn’t a nice look. It said, I know what you did, and I think you’re terrible.
I tried to shrug it off. Tevon’s murder was all over the news and it was all anybody could talk about at school, but I didn’t think anyone knew that I’d been called in by the FBI. Well, except for Stubs, and he’d never tell anyone.
But then my chemistry teacher, Mr. Pierce (3-12-2029), called me over as class was letting out and he said, “Hang in there, Maddie. In this country you’re innocent until proven guilty.” And I understood then that all the teachers knew.