“Jesus! What the hell are you doing here?”
The smell of mint tea just about knocked him off of his feet.
5. Declan’s Driveway
“My mom is gonna freak! Can you walk me to the door in handcuffs?”
Lynch attempted to explain to the boy that cops don’t take people home in handcuffs, but it didn’t take. He walked Declan, his skateboard, and his six pack of Red Bull to his front door, met Declan’s mother who was, as expected, in utter contrast with her son, explained to her what happened, and headed back to Gordon (Gordy) Weiss’s house. He’d left Ernie to watch the house from across the street. Nothing had happened in the few minutes it took Lynch to drive Declan home.
An hour later, they were leaving the Weiss household with little more than they had at the Sev. Gordy was an angst-ridden youth who had attended a Forever Damned concert the previous year and wound up in general seating behind a group of guys wearing black trench coats with (what he interpreted to be) satanic symbols on the backs. He thought it looked cool, so he made one for himself. End of story.
“He’s telling the truth, Detective. He’s a good boy, but he doesn’t keep a secret very well. We grounded him and made him get rid of the jacket. Besides, he’s been home all evening.”
“Apologies, Mrs. Weiss. He doesn’t need an alibi. He’s not a suspect. We didn’t mean to give that impression.”
Truly, he wasn’t. Neither his jacket symbol nor his stature matched the gunman’s. They decided to let him fester. Passive-aggression seemed to be the discipline of choice in the Weiss household. If the boy was hiding anything, guilt would get the best of him. The detectives took a courteous minute to calm the parents while Gordy went back to his room, then they left.
“Ay! Where to now, amigo?”
“Let’s head to the coffee house. I think they do open mic on Saturdays. We’re bound to encounter a decent amount of adolescent weltschmerz.”
“What the fuck are you talking about?”
They got in the car, and almost immediately something caught the corner of Ernie’s eye.
“Seriously, the kids in this town cannot all be this stupid!”
Gordy was flying up the street on his bike,…and he was wearing his trench coat. Lynch spoke.
“Wonder where he’s headed.”
“My guess is he’s going to see the rest of…”
“I know. I was speaking rhetorically.”
“Pendejo.”
They followed at what seemed like a snail’s pace for 6 miles to the overgrown grassy outskirts of Potterford. They turned on to a gravel road and shut off the car’s lights. They were amazed that the boy didn’t hear them. Little nitwit was riding with his buds in and his music cranked no doubt. They passed three farms and a weathered FOR SALE sign before…
“Now exactly what the hell is this?”
6. Near the Abandoned Meadowbrook Dairy Farm - In a Truck
About the time Declan was climbing into the back seat of Lynch’s car, a black Ford F-150 was creeping down a gravel road 6 miles away. Two men sat in the back facing each other like paratroopers. Each, in his own cartoonish way, prepared himself for handing out an ass-whoopin’. The one behind the cab’s passenger side repeatedly smacked the palm of his hand with the fat end of a baseball bat. The other nodded his head a lot and rubbed the back of his neck. The driver cranked the Skynyrd.
After passing 3 farms, their target appeared in the distance, looming under a single flood light. It was the old Meadowbrook Farm.
They stopped about 20 yards shy of the weathered FOR SALE sign that had been on the property for 9 years. The driver backed into the grass.
“Ready?”
“Hell yeah.”
All three men deployed with the fervor of the Penn State Nittany Lions, got in single-file, and broke into a jog. They took a wide curve across the abandoned hayfield, failing to notice the trampled grass in their wake.
The floodlight acted as a beacon, throwing a vertical, cone-shaped beam onto the barn’s broad side. Arcane symbols spray painted there boiled their insides as they approached. They halted just short of the light’s perimeter. Music that sounded like someone being torn apart by jackals emanated from within.
They needed to get a look inside.
There was light coming through a small hole in the barn wall about chest-high. It was in an otherwise unlit area, so it would serve well. They took position. The man on point put his eye to the hole and beheld the cloister of the Unjudged.
The scene was as one would expect. 7 members were there that night. They were all in their late teens or early twenties. There was a fire pit in the middle of the room. Two of the boys were engaged in intense conversation by an antiquated CD player. The other three boys were taking turns throwing knives at a target that was nailed to one of the barn doors. One of the two girls was an obvious attention junkie, having stripped down to her bra and Hello Kitty underwear for no apparent reason. The other was sitting next to a pile of empty pizza boxes unlocking the mysteries of the universe by staring at the fire.
It took a mere 10 minutes for the paratroopers to discover the Achilles Heel in the gang’s routine.
The room looked like a recycling center that specialized in Yuengling products. Obviously, the maid hadn’t been in that month. Those in attendance, however, were hygienic enough not to piss in the barn. For that, and that alone, they removed themselves via a door opposite the peep hole and did their business by an ancient plow in the yard.
The peeper whispered to his team but had to stop abruptly because the barn went silent. One of the knife throwers was an arrogant looking twenty-something with platinum-bleached hair. He
