The Cereal Murders Read Online Free PDF

wooden cabinets painted a buttery yellow, before replying. "I don't know much about what was going on in the senior class, or in the school as a whole, for that matter. Julian and Macguire went back out to check for a pulse when I was on the phone with the 911 operator. I don't know if Julian, Macguire, Keith, anybody, were friends."
     
     
"Know if they were enemies?"
     
     
"Well." I involuntarily thought of Julian's recitation of the class rank. He hadn't talked about any nastiness to the competition. I refused to speculate. "I don't know," I said firmly."
     
     
The deputy stalked into the kitchen. Snow clung to his boots and clothing. Ignoring me, he said to Schulz, "We got drag marks to the gatehouse, where whoever it was got the sled. They haven't finished with the photos, but it's going to be a couple hours. You got a kid having a hard time down the hall."
     
     
Schulz nodded just perceptibly and the deputy withdrew.
     
     
"Goldy," Schulz said, "I want to talk to Julian with you there. Then I'll deal with Macguire Perkins. Tell me if this headmaster is as much of a moron as he looks."
     
     
"More so."
     
     
"Great."
     
     
Julian was sitting in the front room. His eyes were closed, his head bent back against the sofa cushions. With his Adam's apple pointed at the ceiling, he had a look of extraordinary vulnerability. When we entered, he coughed and rubbed his eyes. His face was still gray; his spiky blond hair gave him an unearthly look. He had found a knit throw that he had pulled tightly around his compact body. Schulz motioned for me to go on over by him.
     
     
I moved quietly to a chair beside the couch, then reached out to pat Julian's arm. He turned and gave me a morose look.
     
     
"Tell me what happened," Schulz began without preamble.
     
     
Wearily, Julian recounted how the dinner had ended. Everyone had been putting on their coats and talking. He had stayed afterward to see if a girl he knew, who sort of interested him, he said with lowered eyes, would like a ride home. She had airily replied that she was going home with Keith.
     
     
"I said, 'Oh, moving up in the world, are we?' but she wasn't listening." Julian's nose wrinkled. "Ever since I told her I'd rather be a chef than a neurosurgeon, she's acted like I'm a leper."
     
     
Schulz asked mildly, "Keith was going to be a neurosurgeon?"
     
     
"Oh, no," said Julian. "Did I say that? I must have been confused...."
     
     
We waited while Julian coughed and shook his head quickly, like a dog shaking off water.
     
     
"Do you want to do this later, Julian?" asked Schulz. "Although it'd be helpful if you could reconstruct the events' for me now."
     
     
"No, that's okay." Julian's voice was so low, I had to lean forward to hear it.
     
     
Schulz pulled out his notebook. "Let's go back. Before the girl. We have a dinner party for eighty people and a kid ends up dead. Goldy said the party was about college or something. How's that?"
     
     
Julian shrugged. "I think it's supposed to help people feel okay about going to college."
     
     
"In what way?"
     
     
"Oh, you know, like everybody's going through the same process. Have to figure out what you want, have to look around for the right place, have to get all your papers and stuff together. Pressure, pressure, pressure. Have to write your essays. Be tested." He groaned. "SATs are Saturday. We had 'em last year, but this is the big one. These are the scores the colleges look at. The teachers always say it doesn't matter, it doesn't matter, which makes you know that it matters. It matters, man." There was a savagery in his voice I had never heard before.
     
     
"Was Keith Andrews nervous about all this? First big step to becoming a neurosurgeon?"
     
     
Julian shook his head. "Nah." He paused. "At least he didn't seem to be. We called him Saint Andrews."
     
     
"Saint Andrews? Why?"
     
     
A hint of frown wrinkled Julian's cheek. "Well. Keith didn't really want to be a doctor. He