Tina was busy wiping down the counters and hadn’t heard Goodkind’s comment, but now Crystal was dying to ask what the “peculiar” thing was that Sammy had said to a cop about a missing boy. Though she didn’t dare interrupt.
Sammy stared at Goodkind for a long moment, unblinking. “I told you, I don’t know him.” He laid his head down in the crook of his arm and rolled his model car back and forth on the table.
Goodkind watched him closely. Crystal held her breath, waiting for his next question.
“Sammy,” he said slowly, “yesterday morning a woman on your route saw you running down Clark Avenue, toward Tenth Street. Not far from where Christopher Stewart was last seen.”
Sammy kept rolling the car. Tina banged the skillet around in the sink as she rinsed it out.
“The woman thought it looked like you might be running from something,” Goodkind pressed. “Or someone. Why were you running?”
Sammy stopped the rolling and lifted his head. “A dog was chasing me,” he said.
Crystal looked sharply at Sammy, but he kept his gaze on the car. This was the third version of yesterday morning she’d now heard. Why all the lying?
Just as Crystal opened her mouth to call out his changing story, there was another knock at the door. Tina dried her hands on a towel and opened the screen.
“Hi, Mr. Kovacs,” she said. “Come on in.”
“Good morning.” Mr. K entered, carrying a fat math workbook. He smiled warmly at Tina.
“We’re a popular place today,” she said. “Sebastian Kovacs, this is Officer Dale Goodkind. He’s here asking questions about the missing paperboy.”
The smile on Mr. K’s face dissolved when he saw Goodkind at the table. He clutched the math book tighter to his chest, keeping his gaze locked firmly on the floor.
“Nice to meet you,” he finally said.
“Mr. Kovacs is Sammy’s math tutor,” Tina said to Goodkind. “Someone struggles with long division.” She gave Sammy a stern side-eye.
Sammy abruptly stood. “Because I hate math, too!” he shouted, and went into the living room.
“Sammy!” Tina said. “You’re being really rude today. I’m sorry.”
“It’s fine,” Mr. K said, and hurried after Sammy.
Tina leaned against the counter and rubbed her forehead. “I hope you were done,” she said to Goodkind, lowering her voice. “He’s had a really hard year. He flunked several classes last year. That’s why I hired Mr. Kovacs to tutor him a few times a week.”
“I see.” Goodkind also spoke more quietly. “Does he always tutor Sammy here?”
“Yes. Occasionally Sammy goes to his house. He also gives piano lessons to kids in the neighborhood.”
“How do you spell his last name?”
“K-o-v-a-c-s,” Tina answered.
Goodkind wrote it down. “Married?”
“No. He lives alone.”
“Where?”
“Southlawn Drive.”
Goodkind glanced over his shoulder toward the living room. “Is he Russian or something?” He lowered his voice to match Tina’s. “The accent … the dark skin?”
“Mr. Kovacs is Hungarian,” Crystal said, irritated by the cop’s nosy questions about him. “He’s of the Roma people. They’re sometimes called gypsies in Europe, but that’s a derogatory term. He’s very smart. He was a professor when he lived in Budapest. He’s also really into bird-watching. He walks the neighborhood every morning.”
Goodkind swiveled his chair toward her, as if noticing her for the first time. “How do you know all this?”
Crystal’s cheeks flushed. She didn’t know why she’d just blabbed so much personal information about Mr. K. “I—I interviewed him for the school paper last year. And he proofreads my writing for me sometimes.”
“He’s really good with kids,” Tina said. “Though you wouldn’t know it by how Sammy’s been acting toward him lately.”
“Interesting. He walks the neighborhood every morning, you say?” Goodkind looked over his shoulder again and stared at Mr. K with an intensity that made Crystal inexplicably nervous.
This time she kept her mouth shut and looked down at Sammy’s unfinished eggs, now cold and rubbery. Her stomach soured.
Crystal read Goodkind’s final note over his shoulder: Background check on Sebastian Kovacs, tutor, Southlawn Dr.
CHAPTER 5
One day, seven hours missing
That afternoon at Southridge Mall, Crystal planted herself in front of Montgomery Ward with her red notebook and pen in hand and a memorized list of questions. Sammy sat on a nearby bench, playing with a blob of gray Silly Putty he’d bought at a toy store after getting some tip money from Tina at the salon next door. Crystal approached only the shoppers who smiled and made eye contact and found that mentioning school newspaper seemed to be the golden ticket to getting people to stop and chat. The mothers were the most forthcoming, anxious to talk about how they weren’t going to let their kids play outside unattended or allow them to walk to school alone anymore.
By two o’clock, she had a dozen pages of material and decided it was enough. She treated Sammy to a basket of waffle fries, a cheeseburger, and a Coke from the food court. They ate in silence, watching the mall carousel turn slow circles at the periphery of the tables and chairs.
Crystal sipped the Coke and watched her brother devour his burger. The marks on his arm peeked out below his sleeve.
“You lied to that cop about a dog chasing you yesterday morning,” she said.
Sammy bit off the end of a fry and looked away.
“Why do you keep telling different stories?”
“I don’t want to talk about it.”
“About what? A group of boys picking on you?”
Silence.
“Who is it? Other paperboys? You should tell me.”
Sammy stopped chewing. His eyelids fluttered and turned red-rimmed. For a moment, Crystal thought he was going to start crying.
“I don’t want to talk about it,” he repeated.
“Just tell me why they’re giving you a hard time.”
He sighed. “Maybe because I’m fat. I don’t know. Just drop it, Chrissie. It’s not a big deal.”
Crystal balled up her napkin and tossed it onto the table. He was still lying, but it was clear she wasn’t going to get the truth out of him today. She’d keep working on him. Sammy never kept secrets from her for long.
“Maybe Mom will finally let me quit the paper route because of what happened to Chris Stewart,” he said.
“I doubt it.”
“Why not?”
“She’s convinced it’s good for you and teaches you responsibility.”
He smashed a fry with his thumb, pushing the mushy innards out of the crispy sides. “It’s not good for me.”
Crystal leaned forward and laid her hand on his. “I’ll start going with you.”
Sammy perked up. “Really? You promise?”
“Yeah, I promise.”
Sammy smiled for the first time since yesterday morning and ate another fry.
Crystal crossed her arms and looked around the food court, trying not to notice a group of girls from her grade eating and talking at a nearby table. She’d recognized several kids from her high school hanging out, but they hadn’t given her a second glance, especially the boys. Not that Crystal cared. They were incredibly immature and stupid compared to Mr. K. Crystal told herself she was ignored by boys her age because she was so studious, not because of her eye condition and thick glasses, or her plain hair and cheap clothes. Her friend Somphone had once told her that high school wasn’t meant to be experienced but instead merely survived.