Acre Under a Green Sky

Walking down Pine Street was fun because it was so steep you had to lean back and teeter on your toes to keep from running. If you let yourself run, sheer propulsion would send you flying past Main Street and the railroad tracks and into Collier's Creek. We were walking from the office down to Main Street and the Royal Grill beyond. My father was carrying Baby Ruth, and I was walking beside him. My shoulder ached, so I was twirling my arm like a pinwheel. Danny was lagging behind as usual. My mother would have said that Danny was, "Butterfly McQueening it!".

My father and I were still talking about Luka and the murder. I wanted to know how he knew Luka was innocent.

"Life is messy and nothing's messier than murder. A guilty man tries to clean it up. Luka didn't. Luka got it about as sloppy as it gets."

"You mean he didn't clean up the blood?"

"No. I mean he didn't paint a pretty picture of himself with clean habits and fine intentions. Everything he said about himself that night was pure Luka. And he didn't give me any long-winded alibis accounting for every second. Those things always get you in trouble, because everything always takes longer than you think. A guilty man will cram an hour's activity into the twenty minutes in question. So obvious! But Luka didn't. I believe him. And I'll bet my life Chief Mosko does, too."

"What about the knife?"

"What about it?"

"Where do you think it is?"

"I suppose the murderer has it."

"Is that what Will says?"

"No. They claim Luka disposed of it –– stashed it away somewhere. See, if that were true, Luka could be charged with first degree murder. Anyway, it implies presence of mind, planning, maybe even premeditation. The big question is motive? Who on Earth would have a motive to kill these people?"

"What if they found the knife and didn't tell you?"

"They wouldn't do that. That's against the law."

"But what if they did?"

"What advantage would that be? It doesn't make sense."

I wanted desperately to tell my father what I had overheard after breaking into Luka's house, but the truth was like a barbed fish hook in my stomach. I felt that getting the truth out would tear my insides out with it. The fear of exposure flooded my brain and made my skin tingle. I had no idea what I was afraid of. Guilt had made a nest in my shoulder and with each ache it was telling me to keep its secret or die.