The Dead Man in Indian Creek Read Online Free PDF Page A

he?"
    Luckily for me Charity appeared at that moment and demanded to know what was going on. "Did I see a police car out front?" she asked. "Is Matthew going to jail?"
    While Charity made a pest of herself trying to get some answers to her questions, Mom and Dad forgot me for a while and argued about my camping equipment and my bike instead. Mom was all for leaving them at Indian Creek forever.
    "No one in this family is going anywhere near that place," she said. "Who knows where the murderer is. He could still be lurking about, just waiting to strike again."
    But Dad wouldn't listen to her. He hopped in the station wagon and drove out there all by himself, gathered up everything, even Parker's stuff, and brought it back home.
    By the time Dad returned, we had another visitor, a reporter from the
Woodcroft Sentinel.
Accompanied by Parker and Otis, Julius Fisk appeared at the door, laden with cameras, a tape recorder, and notebooks. He was trying to persuade Mom to let us go out to Indian Creek for some pictures.
    "It's perfectly safe," he told Mom. "The police are all over the place, doing their scene-of-the-crime routine. I just want a few shots of the boys pointing at the creek. A little human interest, nothing more."
    Although I wasn't at all excited about going to Indian Creek, Dad thought it was a good idea. "Matthew should see the police in action," he told Mom. "It will be reassuring for him to realize how quickly things return to normal."
    So, thanks to Dad, I found myself sharing the backseat of Julius Fisk's small car with Otis while Parker rode up front, pointing things out to Fisk and filling him in on all the details of our morning.
    "And then Armentrout threw up," Parker concluded. "You never saw such a mess."
    As he described the scene, I scowled at the back of Parker's head and slumped a little lower in the seat. I just didn't see why he had to tell Fisk that. With my luck, the entire account would be in the paper for everyone to read and laugh at. Some friend, I thought.
    We got to Indian Creek just as the rescue squad was carrying the dead man up the hill in one of those orange plastic body carriers you see sometimes on the evening news. As they slid the man into the ambulance, I wondered who he was and if anybody was worrying about him. It seemed so awful to end your life like that.
    After Fisk had taken a few pictures of the rescue squad, he made Parker and me show him exactly where we found the body. The water was dark and still beneath a gloomy sky, and it scared me to go under the bridge again. Fisk kept firing questions at Parker and me. "How did the dead man look? Could you really see the bullet hole? Were you scared? Did you see anybody else? Did you notice anything suspicious? Do you plan to camp here again?" And on and on. His voice bounced off the bridge and echoed in my ears till I felt dizzy.
    Although Parker was excited and eager to talk, he didn't say a word about Evans. Since I thought the creep's presence on the bridge was just a coincidence, I didn't mention him either. In fact, I kind of faded into the background and let Parker take over. He always was better at talking to people than I was.
    By the time Julius Fisk drove us home it was almost five o'clock and I hadn't had anything to eat since the horrible Twinkies. I was tired and I was hungry, and all I wanted to do was have dinner and go to bed.
    ***
    Later, Mom came in to say good night. "Is everything okay, Matt?" she asked. "That reporter didn't upset you, did he?"
    I shook my head. "The whole thing was just kind of scary, that's all," I said. "A dead man, you know, really dead. Shot in the head. I never in my whole life expected to see anything like that."
    Mom patted my hand. "Certainly not here in Woodcroft." She folded her arms across her chest and shivered a little.
    I looked around my room. My model airplanes dangled from the ceiling, moving a bit in a draft from the window, and the glow from my fish tank illuminated a poster