Property of the State

by Bill Cameron

  I didn’t care that Moylan could see me shake my head in disgust. Typical adult overreaction. Duncan’s the one who lost his shit; I’m the one who threw the punch. Nobody else did anything wrong, but everyone had to pay. I looked into Moylan’s eyes. Something smoldered back there, a flame that flared when he turned my way. This is all your fault. I could have said something, but when someone like me tries to defend people like Colin Botha and Courtney An, we only make things worse for them.

  Cooper cleared his throat. “Duncan, you can go. Mr. Moylan, thanks for your help.”

  What that told me was Mrs. Petty was on her way. Duncan shuffled out. I wondered how hard Moylan would land on him for ripping up the Book. Philip was the golden child of the chessboard, after all. I was more worried I’d be stuck alone with Cooper for hours. But a minute or two after Moylan closed the door, Mrs. Petty burst through.

  It was like hearing the chorus of some Cranky Adult song. Fighting will not be tolerated…running out of options…had I forgotten why I was here? I thought I was being empowered by critical thinking. I guess I’d never be allowed to forget the nun. I faded, but somewhere in there among the lassoes and six-shooters, it hit me. My problem was too much school. Each day of internment was another opportunity to fuck up. Escape was my only hope, the sooner the better.

  Eventually the ass-chewing ended and I found myself in the outer office. Mrs. Petty stayed with Cooper to plot behind my back. My adrenalin rush was gone. Mrs. An was gone, too, but the cabinet next to her computer monitor hung partway open—a gleam of metal inside caught my eye.

  I scanned the office, the windows looking out into the corridor. All clear. Courtney and Beth were in the supplies nook, too busy getting stoned on envelope glue to notice as I slipped behind the counter and reached into the cabinet. A couple dozen keys hung on hooks, each tagged. I grabbed one labeled “Lounge/Public Conference” and hoped I’d guessed right. The aides were still giggling as I slipped the key into my pocket and headed for the door. Mrs. An passed me on her way back from the Commons with a fresh cup of coffee.

  I bumped into Mrs. Huntzel in the corridor. I sorta knew her, of course. She was practically an employee.

  “You looked out for Philip.” Her first words ever to me.

  The way I saw it, I punched an asshole in the mouth. Philip may have been the trigger, but I wasn’t thinking about him so much as Duncan. Then I turned around and told Duncan how to beat Philip. The way she smiled at me, honesty would get me nothing. “His notebook is pretty important to him,” I offered.

  “It’s very important to him.”

  “Yeah.” I figured that was enough. And I wanted out of there anyway. Any second Mrs. An could notice the missing key and call in an air strike. But when I turned away, Mrs. Huntzel put a hand on my arm.

  “I have some work I need done up at the house. Odd jobs. Is that something you’d be interested in?”

  No.

  That was my first thought. If she knew my story—working in the office, she’d have to—she probably saw me as a charity case. But then I thought about how hard it was to come by cash. Carpentry supplies weren’t cheap. My treatment plan required that I earn spending money in exchange for chores, but Wayne had a Scrooge-like approach to that idea.

  And anyway, I was a charity case.

  “What do you have in mind?”

  “There are rooms in the basement which need cleaning out. After that, we could see.”

  Rooms? What kind of basement was she talking about?

  “I can pay you ten dollars an hour.”

  Better than McDonald’s. I was sure Mrs. Petty would be cool with it. Wayne wouldn’t care. Hell, he’d be glad to be rid of me for a few hours.

  “Sounds great. After school?”

  “You can ride with Philip and me.”

  That day was my first ride in the BMW, my first look at Huntzel Manor. A month later, after I built a new set of shelves for the butler’s pantry and proved I could use a power buffer, she made me houseboy. Turns out Mad Maddie’s cleaning lessons were of some use after all.

  1.19: Boys Have Their Secrets

  I don’t think the detectives like me. That’s okay. I don’t like them either.

  They drag me into the corral past a grim-faced Mrs. An, this time with Cooper in tow. I sit in my straight-backed chair. The cowboy display is more than I can take this morning, so I focus on the shelf of contraband. The answer to their question is right there in my laptop. Dumbshits.

  Except I’m the dumbshit if I forget juvenile detention is full of kids who thought they could outsmart the police. There’s only one way to beat a cop: STFU. Name and prisoner number only.

  “Joey…”

  Since I won’t, they do all the talking. Occasionally they drop a question in there, but mostly it’s thinly disguised accusation delivered with a sneer. Trying to piss me off.

  We know you weren’t in Directed Inquiry.

  We’re not assuming you were anywhere near the accident…

  It was an accident, wasn’t it?

  Just tell us what you saw.

  What I saw was nothing.

  They never read me my rights: another trick. Present the illusion this is all informal. Just a chat. If I invoke my right to an attorney, they know I have something to hide. If I try to talk my way clear, they twist my words to trip me up. The second I say something of significance, the cuffs come out. “He surprised us by confessing, Your Honor. At that point, we Mirandized him—” This is why you keep your mouth shut.

  The big guy is the patient one today, friendly-lite. The woman barks the questions that imply I know things I don’t. Cooper sits behind them, ass on the credenza, chin down around his knees. I steal glances at him, only to find him staring from beneath his eyebrows every time. At last he clears his throat.

  Detective Stein sighs. “What?”

  “Perhaps we could send Joey out for a moment.”

  From the looks on their faces, they think I’ll bolt the second I’m out of sight. No chance of that; they’d look for me at the Boobie Hatch. Detective Davisson runs his hand over his buzzed head. Detective Stein frowns and turns to Cooper.

  “I think Joey understands the next step will be a drive downtown.”

  Cooper exhales sharply. “I’m sure that won’t be necessary. Come on, Joey. Duncan is your friend.” There’s an edge to his voice I don’t like. He sounds flustered.

  Stein waves Cooper off and stands up. “Forget it. We’re taking this—”

  Davisson puts a hand on her arm. “I’m sure we can sort things out.” He smiles at me. The Good Cop/Bad Cop act is so obvious I have to bite the inside of my cheek to keep from laughing in his face. He settles himself on the edge of the desk and hunches over, no doubt trying to reduce his intimidating bulk.

  “Joey, I understand where you’re coming from.” His voice is soft, coaxing. When he leans close, I can smell the Barbasol. “You’ve been through a lot in your life.” In other words, he’s read up on me. My DHS file is supposed to be confidential, but it’s probably not that hard to get. “And hell, we all know boys have their secrets. I respect that.” There are police records too, stuff he can pull up on his computer. From ten years ago, from five. “I also know you have your reasons for mistrusting us.” He shows me his teeth—

  —and an alarm goes off in my head.

  “I’m guessing you don’t remember me, but I was friends with Zach Yearling—”

  The room goes dim. My fists clench and heat boils through me, like a flashback to that day in chess club. Stein jumps to her feet—Cooper moves too. Their mouths fly open; their eyes spark. They look like stick puppets dancing on a stage. The atmosphere bleeds from the room with a crackling roar. In a split second of clear thought, I realize they think I’m going to throw a punch, or try something more drastic.

  Idiots.

  Wh
at I do is puke on Man-Mountain’s shoes.

  It’s not much. A little coffee and stomach acid. The smell burns in my nostrils, floods my eyes with tears. In a heartbeat, heat drains out of me and I slump back against the chair. Someone shouts for towels. The cops are making noise, so much noise. Cooper tries to calm them down, but he might as well be a mouse against a couple of alley cats. Doesn’t matter.

  —because nothing ever changes.

  They almost got me last time. Zachariah Yearling almost got me. He missed, but cops are like hornets. Hive memory runs long and deep.

  Sixth grade—almost five years ago to the day—I was an ass hair away from Screwed for Life. My beige foster mother, the Missus, died in a fire at the bar Sergeant Yearling owned with a couple of other cops. I’d never been within a mile of the place, but that was beside the point.

  The way Mrs. Petty put it, “They circled the wagons.” Cared more about protecting one of their own than finding out what really happened. I was convenient. Cops looked at me and thought, “He survived the fire that killed his family. He must have set this one.” With Zachariah dropping blunt-force hints—“The boy has all the signs: withdrawn, hostile, prone to violent outbursts.”—I was hours from being charged. Arson. Murder. Some were even calling for me to be tried as an adult. Just, you know, because.

  I was eleven.

  A lucky break saved me. One detective broke ranks to pull at the threads of the investigation. By then, I was in the pediatric psych ward at Good Sam—suicide watch. You want to know about noise, visit a psych ward. Crying, shouting, screaming—all day, all night. I may not have been crazy when they locked me up, but the noise just about drove me there. Three days in, I was curled in a ball with my fingers in my ears.

  Then, out of nowhere, Mrs. Petty unlocked the door and drove me to my new home, the Tinkels. Yearling had been arrested. The rogue detective had unearthed surveillance video proving I was forty miles away when the fire started. Then, traces of the accelerant used to start the fire were found on Yearling’s cop shoes and he cracked. In his confession, he still tried to blame me. The convenient orphan with a fiery past.

  On the news, they showed cops camped out at the courthouse for a chance to serve as character witness at Zach’s trial. I’m betting Detective Davisson was one of them.

  “Joey!”

  They’re all staring at me. I blink. Sometimes my thoughts are so loud I miss what’s going on around me.

  Cooper is on the phone. “Mrs. An, would you get hold of Mrs. Petty? It’s urgent. I need the district legal counsel too.” When he puts the phone down, he stares at Stein.

  Davisson and Stein exchange a look. Someone has wiped at the vomit on the floor, but Man-Mountain’s shoes are still wet. The room is strangely hushed until Cooper’s phone rings. When he picks up, it’s obviously Mrs. Petty.

  “Yes, the police are here. The situation is…exactly.” His eyes fall on me. “I’ve called the district lawyer too.” He listens for a moment, then offers the phone to Detective Stein.

  It’s awfully quiet for Jaeger versus Kaiju. Detective Stein doesn’t say much. No one does when Mrs. Petty is talking. Finally Stein hangs up the phone. She lets out a long sigh. “All we want to know is where he was.”

  Even if I tell them, I can’t prove it. I was alone. If I open my mouth, I blow up The Plan without escaping their crosshairs. I’ve got a rhythm here at Katz, but I’ve been bounced from too many schools. One more move, especially after an expulsion, and I may never recover.

  As for the cops, they’re out to screw me, no matter what I say. I can’t count on a rogue detective twice in one lifetime.

  Cooper leans forward. “Joey?”

  Never admit to anything.

  But Cooper’s need is a ball of pressure squeezing my skull. I rub my face and sigh.

  “I don’t remember where I was.” That’s a lie. “But I never…left…school.” That isn’t.

  Stein’s fingers grip the edge of the desk so tight they turn white. “You’re going to have to do better than that.”

  I put my head in my hands, like Duncan did after the Chess Club Fight of the Century. “There’s too much noise.”

  Davisson finally cracks. “What in holy hell is that supposed to mean?”

  But Cooper jumps like a man at sea who just found a life raft. “Joey needs a quiet place to work.”

  “Like where?”

  “The gym.” I never go in the gym. Cooper must know it. But they don’t.

  Davisson doesn’t understand. “Since when is a gym quiet?”

  Cooper smiles sheepishly. I know he’s thinking about how we don’t have a basketball team. I say, “This is Katz.” If they can’t figure it out, they’re lousy cops.

  At that moment, Mrs. An opens the door. Her expression is grim, steel in her gaze. “The attorney is on the phone.” That doesn’t matter, unless I invoke my right to counsel—which I won’t unless there’s no other choice. But it’s enough to suck the heat out of the air.

  The county has lawyers, too, an entire prosecutor’s office. Stein and Davisson grant Cooper this round. Next time, I won’t be so lucky. They shuffle out, sputtering bullshit apologies no one believes. In a dozen thudding heartbeats, it’s just me, Cooper, and Mrs. An. She puts a hand on my shoulder, then leaves us alone as an almost alien realization settles through me.

  Cooper had my back the whole time.

  I meet his eyes and nod a fraction of an inch. He acknowledges me with a nod of his own, but there’s a strain there, a sharp vertical line on his forehead. He turns his head. I can tell he’s looking at the picture of himself on the horse.

  As Mrs. Petty would put it, “Joey, you don’t make it easy for any of us.”

  1.20: Watch Your Back

  I can’t imagine what brought me to the Commons. It’s too early for lunch and long past breakfast. The space is only half-full and quieter than usual. Despite what Man-Mountain would like to believe, Katz has no scheduled study halls. If you have a free period or an open-attendance class, you make your own study hall. The Commons or the library is favored by those who want a work surface. Otherwise, any wall or corner will do.

  As a rule, I spend as little time as possible in the Commons, but today I drop into a chair at an unused table. In my lap, my hands shake. A sensation like ants creeps down my neck. My eyes steal around the room, unable to find what I’m looking for.

  Who.

  Damn it.

  If she’s not in class, I suspect she’ll be at Uncommon Cup. I don’t know her exact schedule—the only class we have together is AmLit. Right now, I should be in Chemistry. I think. I’ve lost track of time. Part of me wants to go look for her, but I have no energy. Or maybe my legs are smarter than I am. I don’t know what I’m doing with Trisha. My Plan is on the verge of coming unraveled and here I am, wiggy over a girl.

  A shadow falls across the table. For a moment, my stomach flip-flops at the sight of dark hair. But it’s too short, too straight. The eyes are all wrong—gold-flecked brown, distant. I blink the fog from my gaze and find Courtney An standing there.

  “Hey, Joey.”

  “Hey.”

  “My mom said you were upset.”

  I drop my chin, bite back a smart-assed comment. A chair scrapes across tile. I hear her fingers drum the table. Before I can engage my mouth to say I want to be alone, she heads me off.

  “Fucking cops.”

  I shake my head. What would Courtney An know about cops? Chess maven, school secretary’s kid, insider favorite for valedictorian this year. But when I look up, I glimpse the curl of a tattoo on Courtney’s wrist, a thorny vine illustrated to look like it’s piercing her golden skin. Inked blood drips from a jagged slash. The rest of the tattoo is hidden by her sleeve, but it serves as a reminder I don’t actually know anything about her. Her sweatshirt reads, “Ask Me About My Grandkids.”
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  “Don’t they know you’re his friend?”

  A grim smile steals across my lips. Isn’t delusion grand?

  “It’s just all so sad. I don’t understand why they’re here.” She gestures vaguely with both hands, like she’s shooing away flies. “He didn’t get hit in here.”

  I shrug. “If there’s one thing cops are good at, it’s looking the wrong way.”

  “Tell me about it.”

  We sit there for a while, neither speaking. Around the wide space, others are talking, or tapping laptop keyboards. The rush of blood in my ears is too loud. Courtney’s fingernails tick silently against the table. She’s somewhere else, lost in her own thoughts. Only her eyes show any sign of life, but I can’t read them. Angry. Or calculating. I wonder what her story is, but I won’t ask. I don’t want to invite questions.

  After a while, she lets out a long breath and for a split second her eyes mist over. “He didn’t even get a chance to enjoy being first board.”

  Her words are like a punch to the gut. “First board? Duncan?”

  “Philip didn’t tell you? I thought you practically lived with him.”

  Paranoia washes over me, but I push it down. My job with the Huntzels isn’t a secret. She must think we’re closer than we are. “Philip and I don’t really talk.” I’ve been completely out of the loop on the chess team.

  “Well, you should have been there.” Like Moylan would allow that…he barely tolerates me in Math class. “He spent the summer refining his game, then finally made his push against Philip. It was pretty dicey for a while. Duncan won three in a row last week, then Philip responded with three wins and it looked like he would hang on. But at lunch that day Duncan took game seven. Got inside Philip’s head, broke his legendary concentration. It was awesome.”

  “He went off-Book.”

  “Way off. Just like you told him.”

  “He told you about that?”

  “Yeah.” Courtney grins, a sad smile, yet proud. I find myself wondering about her relationship with Duncan. Last I heard, she’d made third board, the only ranked girl in the club—I know she takes shit for that. She and Duncan must spend a lot of time together. “Remember him in the hall that day? He was so excited.”