The Summer We Lost Alice Read Online Free PDF Page B

go," I say. I expect her to glare at me and say, "No, let's get closer." But she's shaken up, too. She doesn't know what to make of this, of seeing the sheriff in his uniform sitting in a heap, crying like there's no tomorrow.
    She doesn't say a word, but she shoves past me and we creep away until it seems like we're in the clear. Then we get to our feet and run like the dickens back to where Uncle Billy is still asleep, his back to a willow, dreaming some dream that makes him smile.
    * * *
    We fish until midnight. We catch a few fish but throw most of them back because they're too small. "Everybody gets to make a few mistakes when they're young," says Uncle Billy. "If they keep biting the hook after they've got a few years on them, it's their own fault."
    We pack up and head home with a couple of fish big enough to have known better inside a foam ice chest. We don't say anything to Uncle Billy about seeing the sheriff. I don't know how it would have gotten us into trouble but you never know.
    "Generally speaking," Alice says (I don't know any other kid who says "generally speaking"), "when you see a grownup do something you don't understand, it's best to keep your mouth shut about it. Maybe it'll turn out to be nothing at all. But if it's something and you saw it, whoa boy, look out!"
    Aunt Flo is still awake when we get home. We can see her shadow on the curtains in the front window as we drive up. I guess she hears the car in the driveway because her face, all pinched and worried, appears in the window. I don't understand the look on her face, like we were getting back from hunting tigers and we're lucky to have gotten back alive, and not just fishing. She peers out at us from behind the curtain like a nosy neighbor. I hear Boo inside the house, barking like mad. Pretty soon Aunt Flo opens the door and Boo is all over us, barking and jumping on us so much that it's hard to get to the front door.
    Aunt Flo hurries us inside like it was about to rain poison. She chatters, fussing over us and asking me how I liked fishing and exclaiming over the fish we caught. That is so unlike Aunt Flo, even though I hardly know her, that it unsettles me. Alice notices, too, but she knows what it means, apparently, when her mother talks too fast about nothing in particular. I figure she'll clue me in when the time is right.
    "Bring those fish into the kitchen and help me clean them, Bill," she says.
    "What, now?" says Uncle Billy. His face looks like she'd just told him to paint himself purple.
    "Now," says Aunt Flo. "You kids run upstairs to bed."
    We start upstairs. Aunt Flo and Uncle Billy disappear into the kitchen with Boo on their heels, his nose following the cooler of fish. Alice halts halfway up. She gestures for me to be quiet. We tiptoe back down the stairs and take up positions just outside the kitchen door.
    "Did they find her body?" Uncle Billy says.
    Alice silently mouths the name "Perla Ingram" to me.
    "Just her Girl Scout uniform, at the truck stop. All of her clothes. Just lying there in a heap."
    "That poor girl, after all she went through. I don't know why fate picks on some people like that."
    "It was no chance accident, Billy. Whoever molested that girl wanted to shut her up."
    "It doesn't make any sense, Flo. She hasn't said a word about it for a month. Everybody all over her, poking and prodding, and still not a word. I don't know why she'd start now. That psychiatrist said she probably didn't even remember. She's got it blocked out."
    "Memories come back, over time," says Aunt Flo. "A man who'd do that to a young girl, he wouldn't think twice about killing her, just on the chance that she'd speak out one day."
    "Well, she's with the Lord now, Mama."
    "It's a damn shame, that's what it is. If this was the city they'd have caught him a month ago and thrown him in prison. Sheriff Morse ... hff ! You might as well put the cat on the case. Or old Boo."
    "He's only human, Flo. He does what he can. Cases like these go on