“I’ll explain when we get there.”
2. Along the Schuylkill
Lynch and Gomez hadn’t given the chase and capture of poor Eddie Williams a second thought. A one-legged man wearing a snowshoe could have overtaken the tweaked-out meth head in Eddie’s mug shot.
“Okay, amigo. I’m here but I’m not sure why.”
“This is a river bank. I thought there’d be rocks.”
“By the way, I didn’t feel like a friggin’ idiot carrying a bathroom scale across my complex, in case you were wondering.”
“We need two-and-a-half-pound rocks, about a dozen of them. Best if they don’t have sharp edges too, so you don’t cut your hand.”
“Awesome … still don’t know what’s going on.”
Lynch had always wanted to reenact a crime scene. Cops did it all the time in the movies and on TV. It was one of the things a “uni” envisioned when tossing around the idea of becoming a detective. In Potterford, the opportunity rarely (in Lynch’s case, never) arose.
But Julie, filling her role as the perfect muse, got Lynch thinking. In high school, before the drugs took hold, Eddie Williams was an athlete. He was middle linebacker for the football team and ran the hurdles in track. Yes, he was in bad shape the night he put a bullet in a cedar pole fence, but when adrenaline gets pumping, instincts kick in. In a dead sprint, tweaked or not, Eddie would have been fast, most certainly faster than any member of Generation Us.
“What do we need rocks for?”
“A loaded 9-millimeter weighs about two and a half pounds. Guns are expensive. Rocks are free.”
“I repeat, what do we need rocks for?”
Lynch shielded his eyes from the sun as he espied a patch of rocky shoreline less than a hundred yards away. He walked and talked.
“Eddie Williams slowed down that night, and I want to know why.”
Gomez shrugged and followed.
“Alright, I’m game. It’s not like we have a day’s worth of paperwork waiting for us at the station or anything.”
“You are being uncharacteristically sarcastic today. You know that?”
“Dude, I cut my workout short to put smooth rocks on a bathroom scale. If there was ever a time for sarcasm…”
By mid-morning, the two detectives were back behind the Fellowship Church of Ellisport. They were both still on a high from the day before. It was a strange, manic sort of high born of the conflict between feeling good about themselves and having witnessed the decimation of a family. They spoke naught of it.
Using the police report as a reference, they positioned themselves. Lynch pretended to load an imaginary van, while hoodie-clad Ernie emerged from poor Eddie’s hiding place, wielding a smooth two-and-a-half pound rock.
“Hand over your shit, fatso!”
“Okay, okay, meth head freak. Take it easy.”
Lynch stomped to signal the moment Pastor Devlin opened the door. Gomez pointed the rock at the bullet hole, doing his best to let the action take place via reactionary momentum rather than controlled muscle movement. The result was a comedic spasm that left Lynch doubled over with laughter.
“Wait, wait, wait, Ernie, wait!”
“What? You didn’t dig that?”
“Start over! Without the seizure or whatever that was.”
Gomez was laughing too.
“From where?”
“Right before Devlin walks out.”
“Got it.”
Gomez pointed. Lynch stomped. Gomez skipped the theatrics and aimed with an added sound effect.
“Bang! What would you do next?”
“I’d duck and cover. You?”
“I’d look to see what I hit. Once I realize I only hit the fence, I’d haul ass.”
“Sounds good. Do it again…same place.”
Point, stomp, aim, bang.
“Hijo de putaaaaaaaa!!!”
And Gomez was off like a shot with Lynch twenty feet behind. When he passed the spot where Chaz saw Eddie toss the gun, Ernie underhanded the rock across his body right-to-left, sending it into the Schuylkill River. When he passed the spot where Eddie was tackled, Lynch was still a good distance back, so they stopped. They were both out of breath, Lynch more so than his partner. Gomez spoke.
“So, what did that prove?”
“I don’t know. What was going through your head while you were running?”
“I didn’t want you to catch me.”
Lynch caught his breath.
“Let’s do it again.”
Gomez started walking.
“Fine with me, Usain.”
They ran the act twice more. The first time yielded identical results. The second time, Gomez first put his head down and spun around several times to make himself dizzy. It disoriented him as planned, but Lynch was still unable to catch him.
“This isn’t working, amigo.”
“No, it’s not. What are the variables?”
Gomez held up the rock.
“This isn’t a gun. I’m not high on meth, and you don’t weigh 200 pounds.”
Lynch, still winded, braced himself on the cedar pole fence, and thought out loud.
“So…guns. Water pistols?”
“Too light.”
“We can fill them with something. They’ll be close.”
“I guess I should get some meth and smoke up then?”
“What do meth heads do? Do they sweat?”
“Anyone who’s nervous sweats.”
“Cool. Let’s go to Wal-Mart.”
A pack of eight water pistols cost a cool $4.99 plus tax, which the detectives didn’t bother to expense. They returned to their staging area to find the church’s front door ajar, as well as most of the first-floor windows.
Lynch spoke.
“Looks like Pastor Dani’s here.”
He slapped the bag of pistols into his partner’s chest.
“Take these apart.”
“Where the hell are you going?”
“Just being courteous. I’ll be right back.”
The location of Ellisport Fellowship made structural expansion of the building impossible, so the church had to do what they could with the space they had. The sanctuary was something to behold…real James Bond stuff. The default setting was for Sunday services, but push a button, and the pulpit would disappear into the stage, the floor would retract, ceiling panels would open, hoops and backboards would descend, and…presto change-o...the youth group had a place to play basketball. Press another button, and the congregation had a movie theater; press another, and they had a concert hall for the Battle of the Bands. Only the chairs appeared to require manual set-up, and even they were stacked on motorized dollies.
The coolest fixture in the room, though, was the professional-grade sound console along the back wall. Lynch’s eyes and ears were drawn to it instantly.
To him,
