Free Maggie Dove by Susan Breen

them.
    Instead Maggie crept forward, thinking that at the least she could help him if he broke his leg. He didn’t acknowledge her, but she felt he was aware of her, so purposely did he not meet her gaze. He exuded strength. The wheels made a pleasing, whirring sound.
    He began to jump.
    Maggie was not a risk taker herself, but she admired the quality in others.
    A tugboat went by; the ground shook with the power of an oncoming train. Suddenly the boy looked up and grimaced and Maggie, startled, heard Peter’s voice.
    “Come on. You know that’s illegal here.”
    The boy crossed his arms; looked like he might argue.
    “You want me to take you to the police station?” Peter yelled. “No skateboarding allowed here.”
    The boy smacked his skateboard to the ground and rolled off, the angry click ricocheting like a bullet as he left the park.
    “Are there not enough signs?” Peter asked, as he sat down alongside her. “There’s one right there. No skateboarding in the park.”
    “You were awfully harsh with him.”
    “Rules are rules.”
    Maggie was touched to see him wearing the leather jacket she’d given him so many years ago. He ran his fingers through his hair, and it looked like some loose wisps might go flying right off. “Lucky for you I wasn’t as strict as you are.”
    Strange phenomenon she’d noticed with Peter in specific, but with other bad boys in general, that they were much less patient as adults than you’d expect them to be. You’d think they’d have more sympathy. But they didn’t.
    “You spoiled me, Dove,” he said, with the grin she remembered. “I took advantage of you.”
    “Yes, you did. But I never minded. Children need to be spoiled a little.”
    “Not that one,” he said, nodding in the direction of the skateboarder. “He’ll get in trouble for sure. Goes too fast.”
    “Can’t cause that much harm on a skateboard.”
    “Tell me that after he plows into you and you wind up in the hospital with a broken hip.”
    Peter stretched his neck; she heard the crack. Time was such a strange thing. Only yesterday, it seemed, this boy had been coloring in front of her. He loved to sharpen the crayons until they turned into little stubs. Later, when he was a little older, he put air freshener on his iguanas by mistake, and killed them. How he’d cried. She thought of what Agnes had suggested about his getting into a fight with Bender. Was it possible? Anything was possible. He had a temper.
    “Everything all right with Walter Campbell?” she asked. She handed him one of the turkey sandwiches and he crammed half of it into his mouth.
    “Everything’s fine,” he mumbled.
    “Don’t say that. It makes me nervous.”
    He laughed at that, put his arm around her. “Walter Campbell has it in his head that I should have closed off your lawn as a crime scene. I should have insisted he come back from the ballet. He’s all in a lather about it. Says I’m insubordinate. And the widow’s mad because she says someone murdered her husband.”
    “Was there something wrong with the body?”
    “No, no. The preliminary autopsy was fine, and they released the body to be buried tomorrow. They just have one more test to do. They’re doing a gas chromatography.”
    “Don’t they do that for poisoning?”
    “It’s a possibility, I guess.”
    “But how could it be a possibility? I thought he died of a heart attack.”
    A train went past, a slick metallic sound. Progress, the future. She shuddered.
    “Campbell has an instinct about these things,” Peter said, chewing the second half of the sandwich more slowly. “He says he can tell something’s wrong. And why not? He’s a genius, with millions in his bank account. Why shouldn’t he spend some of the village’s money on these tests?”
    She looked at the man, but saw instead the boy, with eyes that always burned with passion. Who loved her daughter so much. Who was content to sit alongside her and read, even though he was no great