third man Holly had buried within a span of eight years. Her two previous husbands had died shortly after making their huge investments as well.
As hatred towards Holly grew with the passage of each day, her only son became sucked into the whirlpool of hostility. He was ridiculed at school as the miserable,
Then, there was the issue of Robert Smallwood’s size.
And his somewhat troubling taste for horror books.
As was his wont, Robert had a dream. A really dark dream. A nightmare.
Although it was downright horrible, it wasn’t the worst he had had. In the past, he had awakened without any strength to speak, let alone cry. He had only lay there in bed-in the dark-shivering, and cold sweat had trickled down his face to his neck. He measured the intensity of each nightmare based on how much energy had been dissipated during the surreal experience-and consequently how weak he felt whenever he woke up. So, in the past, he’d had it a lot worse.
Today, he woke up full of strength, and he was screaming. Tears, not sweat, streamed down his cheeks. And there were smears of blood on his hands.
Yet, Robert was extremely terrified for another reason.
When he came awake, he wasn’t in his bed. Instead, he was sitting at the entrance to the toilet in Mr. Carter’s office.
A knife-was that a knife he had in his trembling hand? A glinting knife, partly coated with blood?
And there was Mr. Trevor Carter, lying on the floor, motionless. There was blood on his neck, the same blood on Robert’s hands and knife, perhaps.
Now, from where he sat in the lobby, his reflection on what had happened shortly after he’d stepped out of the dreamscape into Mr. Carter’s office got terminated by the Sheriff’s rising voice. Brian Stack was having a word with Holly in his office.
“This is a pretty serious case we’re dealing with, Mrs. Smallwood,” Brian told Holly, who sat with her hands in her lap. Her blue wrinkled short-sleeved top hung loosely on her scrawny shoulder. The blouse’s neck was too wide. She appeared too exhausted. “And the fact that a teen’s involved doesn’t make it any less grave.”
Holly let out a sigh, her eyes full of sorrow and paranoia.
Brian did a slight revision of his statement. “Of course, he’s a kid. And what that means is, when all is said and done, he’ll be treated as such. If he was an adult, we’d be talking differently now, but such difference would lie only in terms of his penalty, not the harm done.”
“What harm and penalty are you talking about, Sheriff Stack? Have you decided to gang up together with them to destroy me and my son?”
Brian scowled. “What made you think anyone is ganging up on you?”
“Oh, the walls have ears.”
Sitting up straight, Brian said, “And did the walls hear about me, too? About my involvement in the so-called plot against you?”
“You?” Holly said, adjusting her blouse that was sliding off her shoulder. “I just said it. You don’t need to lay it bare on the table for me to know where you stand, Sheriff. I can read between the lines. I can sense undertones.”
Brian rested his elbow on the desktop, propping his chin against his palm. He wanted to caution Holly that running her eyes through the print in-between the lines wasn’t the point in question, and that even the best of guesses, every so often, could be nothing better than an instrument of misdirection. But he held his peace, letting her pour her mind out.
“So, they say my little Rob has murdered a man-he’s done a terrible harm. And what will be his penalty?” Holly shoved to the edge of her seat, stretching her hand towards the Sheriff, as if requesting a response in form of a handout. Then, she retracted it. “Oh, don’t even bother telling me,” she said. “I know exactly what his penalty will be. He’ll be taken away from me and locked up in a teen penitentiary, waiting till the time is ripe for him to feel the vicious stings of the law.”
Brian watched her vent.
“Isn’t that so, Sheriff?”
“There’s not a thing as teen penitentiary, Mrs. Smallwood,” he said at last. “And I want you to know that this-”
“There isn’t such a thing?” Holly said with wide eyes.
“Well, there’re juvenile detention centers all across the country, if that’s what you’re-”
“Teen penitentiary, juvenile detention-where does the difference lie? In the names?” She chuckled briefly, and then collapsed on the table, her head literally bobbing up and down as she wept.
Brian said, “Holly, are you okay?” and realized immediately how dumb he sounded.
“No, I’m not okay,” Holly said in a muffled voice, sniffling. “How on earth can I be when the whole world has chosen to come crashing on me?”
Grabbing a sheaf of tissue (he was doing a good job distributing tissue today), Brian walked around the desk and handed it to her. He squeezed her shoulder gently, feeling the bones, hoping he could sooth her, that he could give her an unspoken assurance that, the situation-not he-was responsible for her being shoved into this unpleasant corner.
He walked back to his seat.
When Brian had ascertained her eyes were clear enough to focus on him, he said, “I want you to know that this has nothing to do with what anybody’s saying.”
“You stated when all is said and done, didn’t you?”
“Yes, I did. What’s your point?”
“To me, it’s already done. Decisions have been made. We’re just footling around here, killing time.”
“Not the way you look at it. I called you in to ask you a few questions that might help both of us as this case progresses.”
“Sheriff Stack, I think I have my own question,” Holly said, wiping off the residual snot from her nose. “What actually made you believe Rob killed Mr. Carter?”
Brian shook his head. “It’s not about what made me believe Rob did anything. The question is more like, what could make anyone believe that Rob didn’t do it? What could convince the Coroner’s Office, the townspeople, the Sheriff’s Department that he didn’t do it? In fact, what could convince
Holly’s jaw dropped as she listened to the Sheriff.
“And I can see what’s going through your mind right now. Yeah, you’re sitting down there and thinking,
“But you know what? I didn’t call you in to tell you how badly I want your son to be arrested. I called you in to let you know that the odds are stacked against him regardless of my own sentiment. Really stacked against him. The fact that he was the only one in the office at the time of Mr. Carter’s death, the bloody knife found in his hand, the hair. You see, all of these things-and even more-point in the direction of accusation.”
“They got his hair at the scene, too?”
“There were blood-soaked strands of hair-red hair-found at one corner of the toilet where he was sitting, as well as on the desk and the office floor. The Office of the Coroner made an educated guess the strands came from his hair.”
“Because he’s a redhead.” Holly chuckled. “They could have been from anyone’s hair. And you know that, Sheriff, don’t you?”
“Exactly,” Brian said, as if sharing Holly’s view with a profound enthusiasm. “That’s what I thought at first. And anyone would have thought so, too. But when you factor in the blood on his head and the drying wetness in the hair
