by S. B. Cody
“Oh God,” Dennis said as he ran his hands through his hair, taking a few strands with him.
“So you understand why we’re asking you about it?”
“I read that thing like a year ago. I didn’t even realize it was still in there. I had forgotten about it.” It seemed as if he said this more to himself than to them.
“So why are you reading stuff like that?”
“I don’t know. I read all of Stephen King’s books.”
“How did you find it? That book has been out of print for years.”
“When my dad walked out, he left behind a bunch of old books. This was one of them.”
“You seem to be into some dark stuff there, Dennis,” Brody said.
“A lot of people are into those sorts of things.”
“Fair enough.”
“But I don’t think most kids have something like this in their trunks,” Kara offered as she produced the school’s floor plan. She set it out in front of Dennis. He looked it over as though it was an ancient text that he needed to decipher.
“What is this?” Dennis asked after a full minute had gone by.
“What does it look like?”
“Looks like West High.”
“I’d say you’re right.”
“Where was this?”
“Trunk of your car.”
Dennis’s gaze lifted from the sheet in front of him and met the detectives’ eyes for the first time. “But that’s not possible. I’ve never seen this before in my life.”
“Well then, how did it get there?”
“I don’t know.”
“Help us understand this, Dennis?” Brody said. “Because I can tell you right now that if you were to go to trial with this kind of evidence, there’s no way you don’t get convicted. But if you talk to us. If you confess. If you tell us who you were working with, things will go much easier for you. So please, just talk to us.”
Dennis remained silent, having lost any sense of himself at the moment.
“Remind us again,” Brody said. “Where did you say you were when the lockdown got announced?”
“Bathroom.” Dennis sounded like a caveman with his one-word response.
“That’s right. But you left during first hour, right?”
Dennis merely nodded.
“So tell us again. Why were you gone so long?”
“I was crying.”
“Crying?” Kara chimed in.
“Kid had called me a psycho in class.”
“Still a long time to be gone,” Brody said.
“Can I see my mom?” he asked, ignoring Brody’s last comment. Brody looked over at Kara, the two of them communicating silently, and seemingly coming to an agreement to let the boy talk to his mother.
“Sure, Dennis,” Brody told him. “Stay here. We’ll got get her.” The two of them gathered everything and headed out.
“Can you go get her? I can’t see any more crying today,” Kara asked of Brody.
He nodded and headed towards where Ms. Clements sat. Right as he stepped up, she lifted her head, her face looking like it had been doused with a hose. “How’s Denny?” she moaned.
“He’s fine. He’d like to speak with you.”
“Really?” A look of relief and hope popped onto her face. She stood and followed Brody back to the interrogation room. As soon as the door opened, she ran in and hugged her son. Brody slid away and closed the door. In the next room he and Kara would watch their conversation play out.
“Mom. I don’t know what’s going on,” Dennis cried into his mother’s shoulder.
“What did they say to you?” she asked while pulling back a bit but still keeping him close.
“They had a couple drawings that I’ve done that concerned them or something. And they had my journal where I wrote about kids bullying me at school.” His mother nodded along the entire time. She had seen a couple of his drawings and never particularly cared for them, but she didn’t want to harangue him about it. She had long suspected that he got bullied. He never seemed to talk much about friends at school. But she assumed that if he needed to talk about something, he would come to her. She would not harass him. Her parents had badgered her about things all the time when she had been a kid, and that was part of the reason that they didn’t talk much nowadays. She wanted, needed, to have a good relationship with her son. Especially since his dad wasn’t in the picture. She was all he had. He was all she had.
“Okay, well if that’s all they’re going on, then you’re fine. There’s probably dozens of other kids in the school that all that would apply to,” she told him.
With that Dennis took up the face that he would give as a kid when he got caught doing something bad and needed to admit it.
“What is it?” she asked, recognizing this look.
“They found something in my trunk.”
“Found what?”
“A… a…” he broke off and cried into her shoulder.
“Come on, honey. Just tell me.”
“There was a floor plan to the school. And there was this writing all over it. Something about stashing guns somewhere.” He spat it all out in a flash knowing he’d never be able to say it otherwise. His mother’s face was that of someone who had been tasked with solving an impossible riddle.
“But you have to believe me that I had never seen it before. I have no idea where it came from or how it got there. I swear to God that I didn’t do this, Mom. Please believe me. Please.” His eyes were a waterfall at this point.
“Of course I believe you, sweetheart. There’s plenty I don’t know, but I know you. And I know you could never do something like that.” She said this, and she meant it, and she believed it. But as Dennis looked her in her eyes, he noticed something. Something so small and fleeting that most would never perceive it. But for a young kid facing a prison sentence, a young kid who felt like the world had turned against him, it was all too clear what laid behind those eyes. Doubt.
29
Dennis didn’t get charged that day, but he still had to spend the night inside a cell. And that proved to be the longest night of his life. He laid on a thin mattress where the steel of the bed frame continually poked into him, threatening to come through at any moment. Dennis tried every possible position but could not find one that allowed for sleep. The one thin blanket they had given did little to protect him from the chilled temperature of the cell. He had expected that he would end up crying all night, but found that his tear ducts had been sucked dry. So instead, he laid awake all night staring at the cold gray of the walls. He imagined the years to come for him. Would this be his life from now on? He could remember a time a year ago when he had slept until 3:00 in the afternoon. He hated himself when he woke up and looked at the clock. He had wasted the entire day. A day that he couldn’t get back. That was how he felt about his life now. His life would be a waste. Even if he lived another eighty years, he would have nothing to show for it. All the dreams that he had for his life. Become a famous writer? Become a famous artist? That wasn’t meant to be. The only thing people would ever know him for would be as the kid behind the Stanford Massacre.
When the lights switched on, the only thing that changed for him is that he sat up and stopped pretending to sleep. At that point the time was 7:00, meaning that he had another eight hours before being released or charged. He hoped, begged for the former, but knew that the latter awaited.
And getting Stanford’s district attorney to agree to charge Dennis was Kara’s and Brody’s focus for the day. The first step in it was obtaining a warrant so they could collect the contents of Dennis’s school locker. That had managed to come through by the end of the day, Monday, and with the school back in session on Tuesday, Kara and Brody made it their first stop.
As Principal Devin led them back to the locker, gazes followed them the entire time. Kids in the hall stopped in their tracks. People crowded around the doors of classrooms to peer at the proceedings. Directions from teachers to get away from t
he door went unheeded. Kara and Brody collected the drawings and books from the locker and then made their way to Connor’s classroom. A knock brought him to the door. He opened it and all of his students looked up from the story they had been reading. Other than a few hushed whispers to each other, none of them said anything, but they all stared.
“Mr. Sullivan, I’m sorry to disturb you, but these detectives have a quick question for you,” Devin said.
“Mr. Sullivan, did Dennis Clements give you anything to read? Possibly on the day of the shooting?” Kara asked in a soft voice so as to not tip off the students as to what was happening.
“Something to read? I… I don’t know,” Connor replied, confused as to why they would even ask such a thing. And then it clicked. He recalled Dennis handing something to him that morning and asking him to take a look at it. With all that occurred, he hadn’t thought about it since. “Oh wait, I remember. Yeah, he gave me something. I haven’t looked at it though.”
“Do you still have it here?”
“Umm… yeah. I guess I do. I haven’t touched it since.”
“Could we have it, please?”
“Sure,” he said with a shrug. He walked back to his desk. The students had become antsier due to all the excitement. “Get back to work,” Connor instructed them. On the floor were piles of paper that he had laid there to make room on his desk. He shuffled through them and a little ways down the pile, found Dennis’s story. He scooped it up and handed it over to the detectives.
Having what they needed they headed back to the station where they reviewed all the collected evidence against Dennis. Brody got to work on the report for the DA, detailing everything found in regards to the book, journals, drawings, and floor plan. Meanwhile, Kara went through the story they had just collected. And if the floor plan had been the nail in his coffin, this would be the dirt that got shoveled on top of it. For a kid who was bullied in school, the whole thing played out like some kind of revenge fantasy. It told the story of a boy who had been victimized in high school. After gym one day, a group of boys grabbed him naked out of the shower and shoved him outside in the snow. Being stuck out there for more than half an hour resulted in him losing a toe to frostbite. Years later, still filled with rage, he would set out on a path of vengeance. The pages were filled with scenes of graphic torture as one man had his intestines pulled from his stomach and wrapped around his neck. Another had his head blown off with a shotgun after being nailed to the floor. The last man got shoved into an industrial-sized freezer while the killer watched. As he did so there came a line that Kara could imagine the DA reciting at trial to drive home Dennis’s guilt to the jury: He knew what they would say about him. They would call him crazy. They would call him a monster. He would let them because he knew all he had done was rid the world of the real monsters. The line read like it had come out of a manifesto. Once again Kara had to accept that her finely tuned instincts needed to be re-calibrated.
By noon that day, the report had been finished, and District Attorney Patrick Durant arrived. He met with Kara, Brody, and Captain Barron in the back conference room. He read the report as they presented all the evidence. It took all of ten minutes for him to agree to charge Dennis with twenty-eight counts of first-degree murder and fifteen counts of attempted murder. With that decided, Kara and Brody visited Dennis in his cell. He simply sat on the bed watching his feet swing back and forth.
“Dennis,” Brody said as he stepped in. Kara noticed that he took on a fatherly tone each time he spoke to the boy. “We’re charging you with the shooting. You’ll be transferred to the county jail and remain there until your arraignment. Then the judge will decide whether or not to grant bail and when you’ll stand trial. Do you have any questions?”
“No,” he replied in a monotone voice. This was what he expected, and now he found it hard to care. The way he saw it, he had died last night. His body just needed to catch up.
PART IV
Guilt and Innocence
30
That evening, Captain Barron stepped in front of a crowd of reporters. The rumors of an arrest having been made was blood in the water and the sharks had been circling all day.
“I am going to make a brief statement but will not be taking any questions,” he began. “Yesterday, our detectives made an arrest in relation to the shooting at Stanford West High School. Today, we met with District Attorney Durant and filed charges against the suspect. The suspect is sixteen-year-old Dennis Clements who is a student at Stanford West High School. I cannot go into detail right now concerning the evidence against him or any possible motive. The case remains open, however, as we must still identify the second shooter. More details will be released once the suspect has been arraigned. Thank you.” With that he walked back into the station ignoring the questions that were shouted.
Dennis was scheduled to be transferred to the county prison in the morning. Meanwhile, Kara and Brody had brought him back into interrogation, hoping they could end the investigation all at once. Kara had taken to standing against the wall, watching Brody do his magic.
Brody pulled up the security footage of Jason coming out of the bathroom and played it on a loop. “Come on and talk to me, Dennis. Because here’s what I’m thinking when I watch this, and I’ve seen it a lot. This person who is coming out of that bathroom seems scared. Watch how they jump back at the mere sight of someone. And then they take off running. I see someone who maybe doesn’t want to be there. Maybe they got talked into it. Maybe they were even forced. When I see the other guy, he seems to be in charge. And I think he’s enjoying what he does. So the one with the hockey mask, I think that one is you. So tell me what happened. Did he threaten you?”
“No. I mean, that’s not me. Neither one is. I wasn’t in the building. I mean you have me on camera going into a different bathroom. I never went in there.”
“Well, you could always have slipped out at passing time and made your way down there. We’d hardly catch you in the midst of that herd.”
Dennis said nothing at first. His brain had gone scattershot now, and he could hardly organize his thoughts. “But I would never…” he finally managed.
“Then why did you have floor plans to the school in your trunk?”
“I had never seen those before you showed them to me.”
“Then how did they get there?”
“I don’t know.”
“Does anyone besides you have keys to the car?”
“Just my mom.”
“Well then, I don’t see how it could have gotten in there. Do you?”
“No. I guess not.”
“Then tell us what happened.”
“Can I get a lawyer?”
“Of course. We’ll get you a phone,” Kara said as she turned to leave the room. Brody didn’t move an inch. Kara looked back at him and would have sworn that he grew in size. His breathing grew heavier. “Morgan. Let’s go,” she said.
“Enough,” he breathed more than vocalized. His eyes drilled into Dennis. “I’m sick of all this bullshit.”
“Morgan,” Kara beckoned, worried as she noticed tremors passing through his body.
“I am so sick of your fucking act. I know what you did. And you’re gonna fucking tell me who helped you.”
“Brody!” Kara pleaded, dropping all pretense of professionalism. She saw Brody transform into something otherworldly. She watched as he reached out and tossed the table aside as though it were made of plastic. He swooped down on Dennis, getting so close to his face that a piece of paper couldn’t be placed between them. In that moment, Brody didn’t even see the petrified teenage boy. He saw only the face of the man who had taken his Mandy from him.
“FUCKING TELL ME!” he screeched. Dennis just shrank into himself like a turtle. Kara slid across the room, threw her arms around Brody, and wrestled him back. She knew that she wouldn’t have been able to get him to budge, if he decided not to let her, so she was grateful that he relented. She yanked him out of the room and sh
oved him across the hall into the conference room.
“What the fuck was that?!” Kara screamed.
“That little shit is playing us like we’re a couple assholes.”
“So your move is to play psychopath cop with a sixteen-year-old kid?”
“You sure as shit weren’t doing anything. No, because he may as well be a puppy to you.”
“I don’t even know who the fuck you are anymore.”
“Maybe you never did.”
“Sit down and get control of yourself. I’m gonna try to salvage this.” Kara burst out of the room, slamming the door behind her, half expecting the glass to shatter. She went right back to the interrogation room where Dennis had gone fetal. He still hid his eyes. Beneath the chair, a puddle of urine had formed.
“I’m very sorry about that. We are getting you a phone so you can contact a lawyer. Can I get you anything else?” Dennis only shook his head. Kara slipped out of the room and sank into the wall, trying to catch her breath. What the fuck is going on, Kara wondered? Lately, this town had begun to feel like Invasion of the Body Snatchers. She didn’t recognize anyone anymore. Shooting. Public brawls. Hate crimes. Roid rage hitting her partner. And in the center of it all was a kid who pissed himself when someone screamed at him, but was meant to have gunned down a couple dozen people.
Kara made a beeline for Barron’s office. She couldn’t sit on this any longer. She walked right in without knocking and shut the door behind her.
“What the hell are you doing? I thought you and Morgan were trying to break the kid,” Barron said, looking up from his computer.
“He asked for a lawyer.”
“Then get him one. Do you need a refresher in how that’s done?”
Kara ignored that and kept on through. “No, but I’m not convinced it’s him.”
“Not convinced? What the hell are you talking about? We have him dead to rights.”
“It doesn’t feel right. I just don’t think it’s him. I’ve looked killers in the eye before and he isn’t one.”