gone.
Disappeared.
Vanished.
Geez.
I’d thought Boo was spooky because he’d been so quiet around other adults, but that was nothing compared to how spooky he was when dealing with students. Those kids hadn’t even stopped to breathe when he told them to leave. When I asked kids to quit loitering, they handed me a pile of excuses about why they were there and who gave them permission, even when I knew they were lying to me. Instead of compliance, I got stories, disrespect, and defiance.
The Bonecrusher got results.
Forget about getting Boo on my lunchroom shift.
I wanted him as my personal valet.
Then again, I now knew that the Bonecrusher didn’t like liars, and I had no doubt that even though a lot of students couldn’t recognize their own stupidity if it slapped them in the face—sometimes repeatedly—every one of Savage High School’s population could clearly hear the take-no-prisoners tone in Boo Metternick’s voice. I guessed that wrestling steers on his father’s farm in Spinit taught the young Boo a thing or two about asserting himself.
Imagine that—the world-famous Bonecrusher hailed from a dot on the map out in Stevens County.
The same Stevens County where a new wind farm was proposed that would insure Boo’s parents’ retirement, unless a sketchy consultant lied his way into stopping the deal.
I stopped in my tracks.
Stevens County was the site of the wind farm that Red said Sonny was fighting, and Alan said Sonny was supporting.
So which side had Sonny been on?
A more troubling question pushed that one aside in my head.
Was Sonny a consultant for the energy company?
The consultant that Boo accused of lying?
When I’d heard about Sonny’s involvement in the project, I’d assumed he was acting as an environmental advocate, since that was the role he’d always played in the previous projects. To me, that implied that Sonny was against the construction of a wind farm, and Red’s comment had seemed to support that.
But Alan’s announcement had corrected that misconception: these days, both the opponents and proponents of an energy project called in assistance from environmental experts to support their side of the debate. To meet government guidelines, the development companies had to prepare and submit studies to the public utilities commission of how the proposed project would impact local species, along with plans to manage the natural area responsibly. Those studies were the work of environmental specialists.
Likewise, those groups opposing a project prepared their own studies, also produced by experts in conservation research. Just as in any case where two perspectives are represented, commissions often heard two different stories about the same topic. With any luck, the studies all came to the same conclusion, but often enough, it seemed, the two versions sat squarely on opposite sides of the fence. When that happened, the feathers began to fly, just as they had in the Goodhue County situation, with each side accusing the other of fabricating, or omitting, important information.
If Sonny had joined the payroll of an energy company as its environmental consultant, I wanted to believe that he’d be as committed to conservation as he’d always been as an independent concerned citizen. But if Boo had his facts straight, the consultant in the Stevens County project was deliberately misleading the energy company in the attempt to benefit his relative.
The consultant was a liar and a cheat.
Which, I unhappily recalled, was the very thing that Prudence Delite had said about her husband.
Her murdered husband.
Chapter Ten
I dodged around Rick and launched the ball toward the basket. It hit the rim and bounced back towards me, but Boo jumped up and snagged the ball out of the air. He dribbled it back out beyond the top of the key with Rick hot on his heels. A moment later, Boo had turned and shot the ball in a perfect arc that sent it straight through the basket with
Disappeared.
Vanished.
Geez.
I’d thought Boo was spooky because he’d been so quiet around other adults, but that was nothing compared to how spooky he was when dealing with students. Those kids hadn’t even stopped to breathe when he told them to leave. When I asked kids to quit loitering, they handed me a pile of excuses about why they were there and who gave them permission, even when I knew they were lying to me. Instead of compliance, I got stories, disrespect, and defiance.
The Bonecrusher got results.
Forget about getting Boo on my lunchroom shift.
I wanted him as my personal valet.
Then again, I now knew that the Bonecrusher didn’t like liars, and I had no doubt that even though a lot of students couldn’t recognize their own stupidity if it slapped them in the face—sometimes repeatedly—every one of Savage High School’s population could clearly hear the take-no-prisoners tone in Boo Metternick’s voice. I guessed that wrestling steers on his father’s farm in Spinit taught the young Boo a thing or two about asserting himself.
Imagine that—the world-famous Bonecrusher hailed from a dot on the map out in Stevens County.
The same Stevens County where a new wind farm was proposed that would insure Boo’s parents’ retirement, unless a sketchy consultant lied his way into stopping the deal.
I stopped in my tracks.
Stevens County was the site of the wind farm that Red said Sonny was fighting, and Alan said Sonny was supporting.
So which side had Sonny been on?
A more troubling question pushed that one aside in my head.
Was Sonny a consultant for the energy company?
The consultant that Boo accused of lying?
When I’d heard about Sonny’s involvement in the project, I’d assumed he was acting as an environmental advocate, since that was the role he’d always played in the previous projects. To me, that implied that Sonny was against the construction of a wind farm, and Red’s comment had seemed to support that.
But Alan’s announcement had corrected that misconception: these days, both the opponents and proponents of an energy project called in assistance from environmental experts to support their side of the debate. To meet government guidelines, the development companies had to prepare and submit studies to the public utilities commission of how the proposed project would impact local species, along with plans to manage the natural area responsibly. Those studies were the work of environmental specialists.
Likewise, those groups opposing a project prepared their own studies, also produced by experts in conservation research. Just as in any case where two perspectives are represented, commissions often heard two different stories about the same topic. With any luck, the studies all came to the same conclusion, but often enough, it seemed, the two versions sat squarely on opposite sides of the fence. When that happened, the feathers began to fly, just as they had in the Goodhue County situation, with each side accusing the other of fabricating, or omitting, important information.
If Sonny had joined the payroll of an energy company as its environmental consultant, I wanted to believe that he’d be as committed to conservation as he’d always been as an independent concerned citizen. But if Boo had his facts straight, the consultant in the Stevens County project was deliberately misleading the energy company in the attempt to benefit his relative.
The consultant was a liar and a cheat.
Which, I unhappily recalled, was the very thing that Prudence Delite had said about her husband.
Her murdered husband.
Chapter Ten
I dodged around Rick and launched the ball toward the basket. It hit the rim and bounced back towards me, but Boo jumped up and snagged the ball out of the air. He dribbled it back out beyond the top of the key with Rick hot on his heels. A moment later, Boo had turned and shot the ball in a perfect arc that sent it straight through the basket with
Similar Books
