Plaster knew her game. He'd been cast as the second-class servant type for too much of his life to miss the signs. He used to struggle with it. Tell them where he'd been accepted to college. Tell them his SAT score. Mention his two years of international volunteer work overseas. Whatever white lie would get them to pry open that second (almost transparent) eyelid of condescension and really see him ... +more+
Charlie only made it back up to the the top of the hill before he had to pull over. He returned to the small parking lot of the old metal workshop. I'm not equipped for this. I can't do it Fran. Not kids. Not all these kids. He felt himself hyperventilating and lost track of the number of tears in the hot-faced embarrassment of crying in someplace almost public. He bent his ... +more+
Charlie Oliveri rubbed his bald head. He had only slept three hours since yesterday morning. He sat in his '95 Honda Civic at the top of the steep hill running down to the river and the poorest housing in Brenlee. He had parked in the small parking lot of an abandoned workshop made of corrugated aluminum siding. Since moving to Brenlee, he had written stories about ten different businesses opening ... +more+
Instead of another student, Andrea Lawson stood in the doorway. "That's it for the kids, Dennis. Did you want to talk to me, too?" As the boy's teacher, she had taken it on herself to manage the flow of kids for Plaster after he sent Marti back to the office. "Well... you're not on the list." Andrea Lawson had grown up with, Joanne, Plaster's girlfriend and they still called one ... +more+
She had tiny fingernails painted cotton candy pink at the ends of tiny hands. She was skinny with dirty blonde hair, and braces that looked new and painful. "You should talk to Mac. He liked Gabriel. They sat by each other."*
Plaster had been to the boy's house and the boy remembered him - his parents had a domestic disturbance habit that came naturally with all their others. Big for... +more+
"Well, where is he?" "I don't know exactly, Dennis." "He must have radioed in." "He did. From the Sneed farm around seven. Then again about ten minutes ago." "Does he realize school has started?" "Yes, I'm sure he does." "Well, this is his deal." "He said you could handle it. Just follow the questionnaire." "The questionnaire?" "Yes, the questionnaire." "What questionnaire?" "The one he left on your desk this morning. I typed it up. He made a hundred copies last ... +more+
When Hernandez returned to the car he looked for the peach, but it was gone. He didn't feel any more at ease than when he first saw it. He closed eyes and pushed out a big sigh. His day had started with a schedule. A plan. Simple. Purpose built and purpose driven. Now... Andy Currie... The old man might be, hell, must be, senile. But he said he would testify. Against ... +more+
"It's the same man. No doubt." "How do you know that?" The whole time they talked, Hernandez kept looking at the skin of old Mr. Sneed's hard, ancient, calloused hands and the faded wear of the old man's cotton shirt. "The way he done it. The way the boy was layin' there." The old man answered this as he answered everything the officer asked, as though patiently stating the obvious and with ... +more+
The old man never stopped shaking. He shook as he ushered Hernandez through the back door and into the kitchen. He shook as he asked his wife to give them privacy. He shook as she brought them coffee. He shook as he sat across from Hernandez at the kitchen table and he shook as he sipped his coffee with milk and sugar. Hernandez could not remember him shaking the day ... +more+
He stands where they found the body the day before. He turns slowly around, looking through the heavy fruited orchard, down the narrow dirt access road the killer almost certainly drove. He stops. What? Something there. Across the road in a tree. A reflection of metal up in limb. Not high up. Perhaps at the level of his chest. He walks toward it with great care not to ... +more+