by Laurèn Lee
“Yes, I came right home. I live alone right now, but I do have a security system. I think it records every time someone arms and disarms it. I’m sure you could get the time I came home from that?”
“Thank you. I think we’ll make a call to confirm,” Earl said and nodded toward Ricky. “You’ve been very helpful. Here’s my card in case you remember anything else.”
“No problem,” Tony said. “And I know none of my friends hurt her, either.”
“I appreciate the vote of confidence, but sometimes the people we know and love have a way of deceiving us,” Earl said.
Earl’s phone buzzed, and he whipped it out faster than he normally would have; he was on edge. Ricky’s phone buzzed, too.
“Thank you for your time, Tony, but we gotta go.”
“You got it, Sheriff.”
Earl and Ricky dashed to the cruiser; both their phones buzzed with messages reading “911.”
“Dispatch? This is Davis. Talk to me.”
“There’s an incident taking place at 480 Clementine. A teenage boy, fifteen, is on his roof. Parents say he’s gonna jump!”
Ricky and Earl looked to each other with a deep sense of responsibility and duty.
“We’ll be there in five,” Earl confirmed into his radio.
He turned on the sirens, and their piercing screech blared through the air. Luckily, they made it to the scene in under five minutes. Camera crews had beaten them there, though. Funny how that happens. Just as described, a boy, sobbing and rocking back and forth, stood on the edge of the roof. His toes hung over and his thin body might blow off the roof given a gust of wind.
Earl slowly got out of his cruiser and told all the television crews to back off. Other officers had just shown up, too, and they secured the perimeter. The boy’s parents begged him to come down. They told him they could talk it over, that things would get better. He ignored them and inched closer and closer to the edge with every passing second.
“Son?” Earl called out to the boy, who whipped his head in the sheriff’s direction.
“Go away!” he cried. “You can’t help me!”
“Now, listen here, boy. You see those people over there? Your folks? They love you very much. If you died, it would break their hearts. They’d never get over it.”
“I’m freeing them!”
“Freeing them? You’d break them, son,” Earl offered. “There’s no greater love than that of a parent’s affection for their child.”
“I’m a loser. I’m saving them from more years of misery.”
The boy’s parents clung to each other for life. They served as each other’s life support, and their hearts were about to stop.
“You know, life gets better. Someday, you will look back on this moment and realize how foolish you were.” .
“I’m not foolish!” he screamed and stepped closer to the edge. An audible “ohhhh” erupted from the crowd gathered behind Earl. No doubt this was the most dramatic thing the people of Stone City had ever seen. Well, maybe second dramatic. There was still a killer out there.
“What would you do if you never saw your parents again? Huh? How would you feel if your parents abandoned you?”
The boy wiped his tear-ridden cheeks and thought for a moment. “I don’t know.”
“Yes, you do. Think. How would you feel if they left you alone in this world?”
“I’d be sad,” he said barely loud enough for Earl to hear.
“Then how the hell do you think they’re going to feel if they watch their son dive to his death before their eyes? Do you think they’ll ever get over this?”
The boy looked to his parents, and his mother crumbled to her knees. “Please, Danny. Come down!”
The kid looked back to Earl, and his eyes begged for direction. Earl’s heart pounded with sadness and desperation. He wanted to save this boy more than anything in the entire world. He wanted to help him. Stone City shouldn’t have to bear the weight of another funeral so soon. Another death would cripple this town.
“What if I don’t feel better?” the boy asked hesitantly.
“Let me tell you a little secret, okay? You might never feel better. You might go your whole entire life with a burden on your back. It will never go away. But, it will get lighter. You will get stronger. Life will get easier. Time helps. Having your family close by helps, too. You gotta try, though. You gotta work your ass off. Put in the work; let time mend your heart, and you’ll survive.”
“How do you know?”
“Because I’m a survivor, too, kid.”
The boy took a heavy sigh and slowly backed up toward his bedroom window. He carefully climbed back into his room and disappeared from view. The parents sprinted inside and shrieked with glee and relief.
It didn’t happen often, but sometimes, Earl had the chance to be a hero.
Twelve
Kit entered the second grade, and much to the dismay of his mother and father, his teachers all recommended they enroll him in a speech therapy program. Although Kit felt embarrassed at the idea of needing extra help, part of him felt relieved. He wondered if he’d be able to get rid of his stutter once and for all.
He still hadn’t made any friends at school. His only friend was his baby sister. She didn’t care about his stutter, mostly because she could barely talk herself. In a strange sense, they were equals.
“Hey, Stuttering Sam,” one classmate called out as Kit walked through the school’s front doors. As always, he ignored the bully and walked on. He quickly learned how to let the insults slide off him. He put up a wall inside himself to block out the harshness of his classmates.
Kit went to his homeroom, sat patiently and waited for his teacher to take attendance. He’d been one of the first kids inside the room as most others socialized in the hallways with their friends. Slowly, once the kids trickled inside, they found seats as far away from Kit as possible until all the seats around Kit remained empty.
Once his teacher came inside and prepared for roll-call, she pursed her lips at the scene before her. “What is this?” she called out.
The kids snickered and murmured about Kit having lice and cooties.
“Enough!” the teacher’s voice rang out. “Fill in the seats up here. I can’t have all of you in the back.”
Audible groans erupted from the boys and girls in the class, but a few took the empty seats by Kit to appease their teacher.
Kit ignored the whole debacle and instead doodled pictures and cartoons in his binder.
One kid peeked over and asked what he was drawing. Kit violently closed his binder and he covered it with his folded arms.
“What are you hiding, freak?” the boy asked.
“Silence!” the teacher demanded as she took attendance.
Once the bell rang, which signaled the children to walk toward their first period class, Kit stood to go to speech therapy. Before he had a chance to pick up his books and binder, the boy next to him snatched it and flipped through the pages.
“Na-na-na-no!” Kit cried.
The boy found the page Kit had been working on and shrieked in disgust upon looking at the drawings.
“What the hell?!” the boy cried and dropped the binder as though it were on fire. All the kids looked at Kit like he had horns growing out of his head. What had he sketched to cause such a reaction? A few of the other boys rushed over to the binder on the floor before Kit could pick it up and shrieked, too.
On the ground, open for the entire class to see, were drawings of birds, rabbits, and kittens being stabbed with a cartoon knife. Kit had been a remarkable sketch artist despite being only eight years old. Another girl started to cry and ran out of the classroom like the boy before her.
Kit pushed the lingering kids away and grabbed his notebook. His cheeks reddened, and his fists clenched angrily. He never wanted anyone to see his drawings, and now nearly his entire class had witnessed his “artwork.”
He stalked to speech therapy class and focused all his energy
on pushing away the sadness and embarrassment he felt. Dangerous thoughts crossed his mind, most of which involved wondering what it’d be like if it were his classmates being stabbed with knives in his notebook instead of the animals. He could still hear their laughter and shrill cries of disgust. How had he been so stupid to doodle in class where others could see his work? He’d never make that mistake again, and if anyone ever brought it up, he thought about making his drawings a reality.
Thirteen
After the incident with the boy, Earl was glad to take a break from the spotlight and track down the other two men from The Stolen Leaf. However, after speaking with them, he realized they both had clean alibis. One showed the GPS records in his car, which proved he drove home and stayed home the night of Jackie’s murder. The other one had gone to work that night for the graveyard shift. His boss confirmed he clocked in and stayed his entire shift until he clocked out at eight in the morning. By the time he left work, Jackie had already been dead for several hours. He’d never cleared a list of potential suspects so quickly. Usually, it took him several weeks to clear a person of interest. However, this time around, the alibis were plainly cut and dried.
One person of interest remained, however. He hadn’t returned any of the sheriff’s calls and hadn’t been home whenever Earl and Ricky stopped by his house. Earl knew something wasn’t quite right about this guy and wanted to investigate further. If he had to, he’d put out a warrant for the man’s arrest. He could have been the last man to see Jackie alive. Hell, he could even be the murderer.
Jackie’s body had been released to her family, and the funeral was planned for the following afternoon. Earl and Ricky attended to see if any suspicious men would be there, too. Murderers often return to the scene of the crime or participate in memorial services and funerals of their victims.
Earl also instructed his deputies to carefully analyze the tips which poured in from the newly established hotline. Earl warned his team the killer might try to inject himself into the investigation by calling in with a tip or even ringing in for information about the investigation. He might want to know just how much the police knew.
Earl wore his nicest uniform to the funeral. The station donated a few bouquets as well. It wasn’t every day a woman was brutally murdered in Stone City. Just about the entire town poured into the cramped church for the funeral and followed the procession to the cemetery.
Ricky wore a body camera on his uniform to capture the crowd in attendance. The camera streamed directly to a program back at the station, and he could analyze the crowd later that today.
“See anyone you think is suspicious, Boss?” Ricky asked quietly as they stood at the back of the group near the gravesite.
“I don’t think so,” Earl admitted. “I found a photo of the guy we haven’t talked to yet, but I don’t see him here. You?”
“I’m not seeing anyone suspicious either,” Ricky said. “Do you think they’d come to the funeral?”
“It’s possible. Unlikely, but possible.”
Once the cemetery crew lowered the casket into the ground, the funeral crowd dispersed. Earl and Ricky moved closer to the outskirts of the morose faction but kept their eyes peeled as they looked upon the people leaving.
Janice caught sight of the sheriff and his lieutenant. She somberly tread over to where they stood against an old, sagging willow tree.
“Hi, Sheriff Davis,” she said with bloodshot eyes underneath a black hat.
Earl put his hand on her shoulder. “Again, we are so sorry for your loss.”
“Have you found anything? Any leads?” Janice asked eagerly.
“Not yet, I’m afraid. We’ve interviewed a few people of interest, but all had solid alibis. We have one more guy to look at.”
Janice nodded. “I miss her so much already. I can’t believe she’s done. Please find who did this.”
“I’m so sorry, Janice. My heart is breaking for you right now.”
Janice leaned into Earl and rested her head on his shoulder. Sobs erupted from her body, and Earl held her tightly. He wanted nothing more than to catch the killer, but in this very moment, all he could offer was sympathy.
“We’ll bring you justice. I promise.”
“You’re a good man, Sheriff Davis.”
Earl nodded and let Janice out of his embrace. Janice turned to walk toward her husband who stood and waited for her several feet away. Earl smiled gently to him, and he returned the gesture.
“I think we need to talk to the last guy right away,” Earl said.
“Didn’t Chance and Kyle go to his house this morning and reported he wasn’t home?” Ricky asked.
“Yeah, but I have a feeling he’ll be home now.”
“How do you know?”
“Let’s just call it a little intuition.”
Fourteen
Earl and Ricky drove an unmarked car to the last potential suspect’s home. Earl noticed a car parked in the driveway and all the curtains were pulled open.
Gotcha.
Earl held the gun in his holster and nodded toward Ricky to follow suit. They’d parked the car a few houses down to try and avoid raising suspicion. As the sheriff and his deputy walked closer and closer to the house, Earl pointed toward the back of the house. He wanted Ricky to cover the back door just in case the guy wanted to make a break for it.
Ricky quickly strode up the driveway, while Earl stepped up onto the porch and knocked on the front door. He heard whistling from inside, so he knocked again. He stepped out of view so the man inside would have to come to the door to see his visitor.
“Who is it?” a voice called out.
Earl didn’t answer. He heard an audible sigh and footsteps as the man inside strode closer and closer to the door. Still with his hand on his gun, Earl stepped in front of the door once he sensed the homeowner drew near.
“Sheriff Davis. Are you Mick Young?”
The man froze and turned to look back toward his kitchen.
“I have a man out back, too. You can’t run.”
Mick nodded and sighed once more. “Are you here to arrest me?”
Earl furrowed his brow. “Depends. What would I be arrestin’ ya for?”
Both men stared at each other through the screen door, and each waited for the other to make a move.
“You’re here about the stolen cars, aren’t you?”
Earl chuckled. Maybe this guy wasn’t smart enough to pull off a murder in the first place. “I’m here on different business, but is there something else you’d like to tell me?”
“Fuck,” Mick whispered.
“I think you need to come down to the station for a few questions,” Earl said.
Mick obliged and came outside after he closed the front door and locked it securely. Earl called on his radio for Ricky to go back out front.
“Am I in trouble?” Mick asked shakily.
“I believe you are, son,” Earl said. “The question is just how much trouble you’ll be in after we have a little one-on-one time.”
Fifteen
Kit held high hopes for speech therapy, but they soon came crashing down once he realized it wouldn’t be as easy as he initially thought.
The teacher tried various techniques to help Kit, but unfortunately, none seemed to work. After one particularly frustrating session, Kit sobbed uncontrollably. He stuttered profusely as he begged for his mother, but the teacher ignored his pleas.
“You need to learn on your own,” she said with little sympathy..
“Ma-ma-ma-mama,” he wailed.
The teacher sighed and slapped her packet of exercises down on the desk. “Kit, you need to stop it right this instant! Your mother isn’t going to help you with your speech. Now sit down, shut up and let’s get back to work! If you don’t put in the work, you’re going to sound like a moron for the rest of your life!”
Kit looked up at his teacher, and a fit of rage echoed in his belly. He was tired of adults yelling at him, angry at people criticizin
g his speech and frustrated he hadn’t made any progress since school started a few months ago.
He wanted to be a regular kid for once. He wanted to be able to play with his classmates without being harassed and continuously accosted. He wanted to be able to participate in the class sing-a-longs instead of hiding in the back row, refusing to speak up.
Now, as he wanted to give up, his teacher became the newest person to pull him down even lower. He couldn’t take it anymore. He couldn’t handle this damn woman screaming at him all the time.
Kit stood up from his desk, and the tears stopped streaming.
“Kit, sit down,” his teacher ordered sternly.
“Nuh-nuh-no.”
“Kit, what are you doing?” the teacher asked nervously.
Kit picked up the pencil from his desk and grasped it tightly in his right fist. He walked with purpose toward his teacher’s desk.
“Go sit down right this instant! That’s an order!” she shrieked as she pushed her chair back against the chalkboard.
“I’m nah-nah-nah-not a mo-mo-moron,” he said slowly.
Kit walked closer to his instructor with hatred in his eyes.
“I didn’t mean it like that,” his teacher urged.
Without warning, Kit raised the pencil in his hand and pushed it deep into the neck of the woman before him. She was responsible for helping him, but instead, she belittled him every chance she got. Blood squirted at the injection site, and his teacher screamed so loudly, another teacher came running from across the hall.
Mrs. Spencer stood up and flung her arms around while blood splattered across the blackboard, her blouse and Kit’s face. Kit, however, stood before his work with an eerie smile on his face.
The teacher who’d just arrived shouted as well. She cried, “Help! Help!” Another slew of staff members poured in, and Kit slunk behind them to the back of the room, where he sat down on a plush, blue beanbag chair. He picked up his favorite book in the classroom, Oh, the Places You’ll Go, and read the crinkled pages until a medic arrived.
