LITMIR.BIZ

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it was okay to push Sister Mary Katherine’s students around if she was the one doing the pushing.

      “We used a crowbar,” Donnie admitted finally, after a long, uncomfortable pause. “We only said we used the stick.”

      “Where is the crowbar now?” Watty asked.

      “We dropped it in the water down by the pier when we went to use the phone.”

      “And where did the crowbar come from in the first place?”

      “Our mom’s garage.”

      “And how did it get from the garage to the barrel?”

      “We took it down the hill on Sunday morning, while Mom was still asleep.”

      “Which means you already knew the barrel was there,” Watty concluded.

      This time both Donnie and Frankie nodded.

      “How?”

      “We saw the guy who dumped it,” Frankie said, speaking for the first time. “On Saturday night, we were outside.” He paused and gave Sister Mary Katherine a wary look.

      “Go on,” she ordered.

      “We had stolen some of Mom’s cigarettes,” he said. “The house next door is empty. We were hiding in the backyard, smoking, when a guy drove into the yard in a pickup with a camper shell on top of it. He drove as far as the end of the driveway. He got out of the truck and pushed something out of the back. When he rolled it out onto the ground, we could see it was a barrel.”

      “What kind of pickup?” Watty asked.

      “I don’t know,” Frankie said.

      “It was a Ford,” Donnie put in.

      “Color?”

      “It was sort of dark, but we couldn’t tell much about it because it was late at night.”

      “How late?”

      Donnie shrugged. “After midnight. That’s why you can’t tell our mom. She’d kill us if she knew we were sneaking out of the house when she thought we were in bed.”

      “And that’s why you made up the story of finding the barrel on Sunday?”

      Donnie nodded.

      Watty settled in closer, giving the two boys a hard look. “This pickup truck you saw. Had you ever seen it around before?”

      “Not that I remember.”

      “Did you see the license plate?”

      “No.”

      I’ve heard that twins often develop forms of communication that can pass between them in utter silence. I was suddenly under the impression that that was exactly what was going on here. They were both lying about something, but I couldn’t figure out what. I think Watty was getting the same message. Ditto Sister Mary Katherine.

      “God knows when you’re not telling the truth,” the good sister remarked.

      Both boys flushed beet red. “Please don’t tell our mother,” Donnie begged. “Please. We’ll be in big trouble.”

      “So when did you take the crowbar from the garage?” Watty asked.

      I closed my eyes and envisioned the house they lived in—a small 1940s vintage brick house with a detached single-car garage at the end of a narrow driveway. The house next door was an exact copy. When they were built, they were probably considered affordable housing for GIs returning from World War II.

      “Like I said. We did it in the morning, before she woke up.” Donnie was back to doing the talking for both of them. “We knew there wouldn’t be time to open the barrel before we went to church. That’s why we decided to do it later. We told Mom we wanted to see Charlotte’s Web, even though we didn’t. We got in line at the Cinerama, but as soon as she drove away, we caught a bus back to the Magnolia Bridge. That way we knew we’d have plenty of time to open the barrel before we were supposed to get home. The next showing didn’t start until four thirty.”

      “What did you think you’d find when you opened that barrel?” Watty asked.

      “Treasure,” Donnie said.

      “Money.” That was from Frankie.

      They were two similar answers, but not quite the same. Not identical, as it were, and it made me wonder why. Treasure is something you keep; money is something you spend. What neither of them had anticipated finding in the barrel was what was actually there—the horrifying naked body of a murdered young woman.

      “You said this all happened after midnight? Isn’t that kind of late for you to be out of the house and unsupervised?”

      “It was the weekend,” Donnie said. “We didn’t have to get up for school.”

      “Where was your mom?”

      Donnie glanced in Sister Mary Katherine’s direction. “She was busy,” he said.

      Remembering what Mrs. Fisk had told me, I could well imagine that the boys’ mother had been busy with something other than her sons on a Saturday night.

      “And how did you get out of the house without your mother knowing you were gone?”

      “We go out through the window in our room,” he said.

      “I was by your house the other day,” I said. “I seem to remember seeing streetlights. Are you sure it was too dark for you to see that truck? After all, if you were close enough to see the barrel get pushed over the edge of the yard, you must have been close enough to see more of the truck than you’re telling us.”

      “I already said,” Donnie insisted. “It was a Ford. And it was dark. Maybe it was black, or it could have been blue. And it was real loud.”

      “Is it possible it belonged to one of your mother’s friends?”

      “No!” Donnie said heatedly, unconsciously balling his fists. “And don’t talk about my mother.”

      Obviously my comment about his mother’s friends had come a little too close to the truth of the matter. I had no doubt that Donnie had, on occasion, resorted to blows in defense of his mother’s somewhat questionable honor. The look Sister Mary Katherine leveled at me said that this wasn’t news to her, either.

      “Is that all?” she asked. Her question was aimed at Detective Watkins, but we both nodded.

      “For the time being,” Watty replied.

      “All right then,” she said to the boys. “You may go back to your classrooms. And, Donnie,” she added. “You’d better schedule a time to see Father Hennessey.”

      “You mean, like, for confession?”

      Sister Mary Katherine nodded. “What do you think?” she replied.

      “Yes, sister,” he replied. Then, biting his lip, Donnie followed his brother from the room.

      “They may look identical,” Sister Mary Katherine observed, watching the two boys hustle from the room. “But there are definitely some differences, especially when it comes to brains. Frankie got held back last year. He’s doing fourth grade for the second time. Donnie is in fifth.”

      “And you know about their mother?” I asked.

      “Detective …”

      “Beaumont,” I supplied.

      “Detective Beaumont, we’re in the business of hating the sin and loving the sinner. Someone is paying for the boys to attend this school in the firm hope that we’re preparing them to make better choices with their lives. For all I know, what they witnessed over the weekend may well be part of God’s plan for keeping them on the right path. They did call the incident in, didn’t they?”

      “Yes.”

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