“You want to tell me what really happened, Ennis?”
“I told you. I got him a cheeseburger and then I took
him back. I don’t know what happened after that.”
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MARGARET MARON
“Yes, you do,” Bo said gently.
The boy’s brown eyes dropped before that steady
gaze and tears welled up in them.
“He liked to sit and watch the water,” he said, his
voice choked with grief. “He’d sit there for hours if I’d
let him. Just sit and hum and watch the water. I’d get us
a cheeseburger and walk down to where there was a log
to sit on and we’d eat our burgers and he’d start hum-
ming. He loved it. Was like he was watching television
or something. Once he started humming, he could sit
all day. He’d even try to fight me when it was time to
get up and go. That’s why I thought it’d be okay. Every
time we ever came, he never moved. Honest, Sheriff!”
Bo fumbled under the seat till he found a box of tis-
sues.
Ennis blew his nose but tears continued to streak
down his cheeks.
“I just ran back for some fries and I meant to come
right back, but DeeDee— I mean, a friend of mine was
there, you know? And we talked for a minute. I swear to
God I wasn’t gone fifteen minutes.”
“And he wasn’t here when you got back?”
“I couldn’t believe it. I ran upstream first to where the
underbrush clears out and I couldn’t see him, so then
I went downstream and . . . and . . . he was lying there
in the cold water. Dead. I just about died, too. I didn’t
know what to do.”
He broke down again and it was several minutes be-
fore he could continue. “I couldn’t go home and tell my
mom that I’d left him alone to let him go die like that.
She’d have told it in church, had everybody praying for
my sin like I was a stupid-ass creep. I know I should have
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HARD ROW
gone for help, but he was dead and it wasn’t going to
bring him back. It was dumb. I
figured he’d be missed real quick and then everybody’d
be out looking and I was sure he’d be found right away
but then he wasn’t and after that it was too late for me
to say I’d lied.”
Ennis pulled another handful of tissues from the box
and Bo waited till his sobs quieted into sniffles, as he
had waited out the sorrow and remorse of so many oth-
ers over the years—
