turned toward the van, “Looks like you’ve got it,” I said. The man who had offered to help stood where he had been stopped in his tracks by Stephen’s dismissive remark.
“Come here, Caldwell,” Stephen repeated.
Even an easygoing guy like me has his limits, and I began to wonder if there is a proper etiquette for kicking the butt of a guy in a wheelchair. Would I have to sit down before punching him in the nose, or could I stroll right over and smack him? He was, after all, “almost seventeen,” his mother had said. I’m fourteen. More than two years older—that has to compensate for the wheelchair, don’t you think?
“Caldwell, come over here and give me a hand.”
“Thought you didn’t need a hand,” I said with a glance toward the man in the bulky sport coat.
“Come here,” Stephen ordered.
I started toward him thinking, Maybe if I keep my right hand behind my back and punch him with my left.
“Don’t need help getting into the van,” said Stephen. “You’re going to help me with something else.”
Not “Please, help me.” Not “Will you help me?” Not “I could use your help.” He said, “You’re going to help me.”
As I approached Stephen, the man in the sport coat took a couple of steps toward us. Perhaps he sensed that I wanted to punch Stephen A. Warrensburg. Perhaps he wanted to join me.
“You boys okay?” he asked.
“Fine,” said Stephen.
I looked at the man and nodded. For an instant he seemed familiar. He stared me straight in the eye and said, “See you around.”
“Caldwell,” Stephen pulled my attention back to himself.
By this time he was motoring his wheelchair onto the ramp. “One of those Space Cadets killed my father and put me in this chair,” he said. “You’re going to help me find out who did it.”
I said, “I was in the room when you made your announcement, remember? I guess that puts me on your suspect list.”
“We both know you didn’t do it,” he said. “That’s why you can help.”
“Yeah, well, there were six others in that room. One was my dad; I know he didn’t do it. One was your own mother. I’m guessing she didn’t do it. And the rest were lifelong friends of your dad. That eliminates everybody, except . . . Oh . . . Oh, that’s right. You were there, too. Guess that puts you at the top of the list.”
“You’re lucky I need your help,” he said, “or I’d come over there right now and kick your butt.”
“I’ll come to you,” I said. “Do you want me to sit down? Do I have to tie one hand behind my back?”
Stephen extended his left hand and clicked his remote control as if he were trying to mute me or change my channel.
That low whirr filled the air as the ramp began to rise up from the ground, taking Stephen with it. When the ramp became parallel with the floor of the van, it retreated into the van.
“Caldwell, you don’t understand the greater truth,” he said. “Something happened at that observatory the night my dad died. I don’t know what it was, but I’m going to find out, and you’re going to help me.”
With that he clicked his remote and the van door closed between us.
Got to hand it to him. He’s got the dramatic effect working.
7
The trip back up to our cabins was quiet. I imagined they all wanted to talk about the night’s events; they just didn’t want to talk in front of me. Once in the cabin, things didn’t get any more talkative between Dad and me. We minimized our verbal contact as we got ready for bed and sleep that would never come. I could hear my dad tossing and turning on the bed. I knew he could hear my tossing and turning on the sofa when in the single-digit hours of the night he said, “Stephen’s father was killed in a car wreck.”
“I know,” I replied.
“It was a one-car accident, and there were only two people in the car,” Dad continued, “Raymond Warrensburg and Stephen Warrensburg.”
“I know,” I repeated.
“Yes, but what you don’t know is that the wreck happened on this mountain,” said Dad.
I didn’t know that.
“It was January a year and a half ago. Late night or early morning depending on how you look at it. Maybe two or three AM. Ray and Stephen had been up here at the observatory. They were on their way back home. Back down the mountain. Back down that winding narrow road we took to get up here.”
I didn’t know that either, and it made me wonder about the selection of Huntsville for this year’s Space Cadet get-together. “Did that have anything to do with Dr. Warrensburg choosing this mountain for your meeting?” I asked.
“Actually,” said my dad, “Angie wanted to go to Chicago. She has a colleague at the University of Chicago she wanted us to meet. And frankly, the rest of us were looking forward to Chicago, too.”
So why are you here? I started to ask. I didn’t ask. I knew the answer.
“I guess,” Dad said, “now we know why Stephen begged her to bring the Space Cadets to Huntsville.”
The moon had been full two or three nights before. It still had enough strength to find its way through the humid Alabama night and sneak into the cabin through a breach in the curtains. I watched its subtle light fill a crack in the wood floor.
“Dad,” I asked, “why did you and the others agree to come here?”
“Obviously,” he replied, “we didn’t know we were going to be murder suspects.”
Then he laughed.
And so did I.
The laugh felt good. It took the tension out of the room, out of the night.
“Murder suspects.” When he said it out loud it sounded like the joke that it was.
“I don’t know,” I said, “Huntsville might not be so bad. The barbeque was good, and I’d love to see the Saturn V and the Ares rockets.”
“I think you’ll get a kick out of the observatory, too. Last time I was here it was kind of cold. There was even a little snow on the ground up here on the mountain.”
Last time?
“You’ve been here before?”
“Sure,” said my dad, “several
