Half the Distance

by Stan Marshall

I opened the door and leaned to the right looking around Mr. Brunson and the cops, looking for Josh’s buddy, Kevin, but he wasn’t there.

  Mr. Brunson said, “Todd, these officers need to talk to you.”

  I invited everyone in. Josh looked better than I would have expected. No puffy eyes, no redness of face or expression of remorse. Only twelve, and already a hardened criminal.

  The younger uniformed officer spoke. “Todd Nelson?”

  I nodded.

  I recognized the older officer as Mr. Davis from church. He said, “You know who I am, of course, and this is Officer Matheson.”

  Mr. Davis, whose name tag read Sergeant D. Davis, taught the junior high boys’ Sunday school class. I had never seen him in his uniform before and barely recognized him. I had never seen the younger cop before.

  “Sure.” I gestured toward the living room couch and its two matching chairs.

  Sergeant Davis turned to Law. “What is your name, son?”

  Law took a step back, looked from me to the younger cop and then to Mr. Davis. He said, “I am Mister Out-of-here, that’s who I am.” He gave the officers a halfhearted salute, stepped around them, and headed for the door.

  I was shocked. I knew Law still carried a grudge against the Branard police for not taking his dad’s threats against his mom seriously, but I’d never seen him so openly rude and defiant.

  Neither officer reacted as Law opened the door. Before he closed it, he turned back and pointed his index finger at me. “Cujo, call me later.”

  I turned to Sergeant Davis. “Please, come sit down,” and pointed to the couch.

  Instead, the sergeant moved a step back and separated himself from the rest of us. He was the epitome of the seasoned veteran policeman. Tall, clean-shaven, graying temples, with a rugged face and stern, knowing eyes. He motioned for Mr. Brunson to move around in front of him. It was as though he were afraid Gene Brunson might, as they say on TV, “make a false move.”

  The thought of Gene Brunson doing anything improper was a total laugher. He was the mildest, least threatening man I knew. He couldn’t have weighed more than a buck twenty and was a total Melvin Mouse.

  With Mr. Brunson safely repositioned, Sergeant Davis continued, “Todd, I understand your dad is meeting with the deacon board about the Ken Archer matter and could be tied up for quite some time. Is that true?”

  The Ken Archer matter? Dad only wrote in his note: “More meetings.” Sergeant Davis obviously thought I knew more.

  I nodded, “Yes.”

  Davis paused an uncomfortable second, then said, “I didn’t want to ask Pastor Nelson to come down to the courthouse so late. Ordinarily, we’d hold Josh downtown at juvie until your Dad came down to get him, but with your dad being a pastor, and him being out of pocket, well, just consider this a… courtesy.”

  I guess he didn’t want to call it a favor. I said, “Yes, sir.”

  “Todd, I’m afraid your brother here may have involved in a serious crime.” Sergeant Davis put his hand on Josh’s shoulder. I was having trouble matching the hard-nosed cop with the Sunday school teacher I knew.

  I found it odd he didn’t mention Mr. Brunson’s darling little delinquent.

  “Ordinarily, I’d wait until your father gets home, but I know this confrontation with the deacons is very stressful.” He assumed Dad had told me all about it. He hadn’t. All I knew was that Ken Archer had been the Youth Minister at Dad’s church and shocked all of us teenagers by suddenly resigning and leaving town.

  When I had asked why, Dad said, “It’s a confidential matter, Son. I can’t discuss it.”

  I just assumed it had something to do with a dispute over salary or some point of theology.

  “What’s going on, Mister Davis?” I asked.

  “That’s Sergeant Davis,” Officer Matheson corrected.

  Sergeant Davis shrugged him off and said, “Todd, tell your Dad about all this, and ask him to call me in the morning, between seven-thirty and nine.”

  I agreed.

  He said, “We lifted a couple sets of fingerprints from the crime scene last night. Today we got a hit.” He dropped his eyes to the floor, and then dropped a bomb. “The prints were Pastor Nelson’s.”

  “Wait,” I said. “What? My dad’s prints?” My head was spinning. I think I mumbled something about not understanding.

  He continued, “The prints were on a pry bar left at the scene. Of course, we knew your dad wasn’t the perp, but the other prints weren’t in the system. So, I got to thinking, since the other prints were smaller, I naturally thought about your little brother here.”

  “It wasn’t me, you idiot. Why don’t you skip a couple of boxes of doughnuts one morning and go buy yourself a clue?”

  The mouth on that kid.

  Josh winced as Sergeant Davis gripped down hard on his shoulder and shot him a glare.

  “I called Principal Welch and had him meet me at Josh’s school this morning. They had his prints on record, and I made a preliminary comparison.” Davis shook his head in a tsk-tsk fashion. “The second set is his. I figured the tool must have come from your dad’s tool box. That would explain why it had his prints on it too.”

  Josh, you unlucky little cretin, you’re dead now.

  It was Sergeant Davis’ next statement that knocked me for a loop. I was grabbed by confusion, terror, and panic. I gathered enough breath to ask if he would please repeat what he had said.

  “It looks like your brother used the bar to break into the high school field house. We think he broke out a window, jimmied the door to Coach Newcomb’s office, and ransacked the desk.”

  Wait! What? That’s not right. My head was spinning.

  Josh tried to squirm away from Davis’ grasp but couldn’t. He yelled at the sergeant, “I said I wasn’t there. Are you deaf or something? You’ve made some sort of mistake, pig.”

  In unison, Sergeant Davis and Officer Matheson said, “Shut up, kid.”

  Mr. Davis told me, “Tell your dad we are not taking Josh in tonight, if Mr. Brunson is willing to act as a citizen of good standing with the court.” He looked toward Mr. Brunson, who nodded.

  “If…” Mr. Brunson gathered some spine I had never seen before. “If Josh agrees to behave himself. Otherwise, I call the police station, and they come and lock him up.”

  “How about it, kid? You going to keep a civil attitude?” asked the younger cop.

  Josh’s demeanor fell solemn and quiet when he heard the “lock him up” part, and replied with a respectful, “Yes, sir.”

  Davis turned to me and said, “Okay, then we will remand Josh into Mr. Brunson’s custody.” He turned to Gene Brunson and asked, “You sure you’re willing to take full responsibility for him?”

  “I am,” said Mr. Brunson.

  Foolish, gullible, little man.

  Officer Matheson stooped down to look Josh in the eye and said, “If you don’t behave yourself, you’ll be spending the Christmas holidays in the Jocelyn Pruett Juvenile Detention Center, mister. Do you understand me? Vandalism of public school property carries a felony criminal mischief charge in this state.”

  Josh said, “Yes, sir,” and lowered his eyes. I think the word felony got his attention. It sure got mine.

  »»•««

  Three minutes after Josh and his entourage left, Law returned. He said, “I waited down the street until they left. Just how much trouble is the little goofball in?”

  “You are not going to believe this.”

  “What? Is he getting off scot-free?

  “Hardly. They arrested him for breaking into the field house last night.”

  “The field house? You’ve got to be kidding. How did that happen?”

  “I didn’t realize it, but I must have left Dad’s pry bar behind when the cops showed and I bolted last night. I wore gloves the whole time, so Dad and Josh’s prints were on the bar, and mine weren’t. Can you believe it? They think Josh broke into the coach’s office.”

  “Wow, man. You
have got to be the luckiest guy on the planet. I can’t believe it. You’re in the clear, and your freaky brother takes the fall. Sweet.”

  It sure didn’t feel sweet.

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  I sent Law home around six o’clock. He needed to beat his mom there and I had a lot to work out in my mind. Obviously, I would have to tell Dad about the police coming by and Josh being “remanded to the custody” of Mr. Brunson. How much more would I tell him? That was the big question, wasn’t it?

  When Dad came home at ten thirty, I asked, “Rough meeting?”

  He said, “You don’t know, Son. You don’t know.” He sounded like I felt. Beaten down and ready to give up.

  “We need to have a talk, Dad.”

  “Not right now. All I want to do is drink a Cal-o-rite shake and get into bed.” He heaved a deep, pitiful sigh.

  I moved directly in front of him and said, “I’m sorry, Dad. This can’t wait.”

  His closed his eyes and let out a long hard breath. He barked, “Okay, what is so important?”

  I said, “I’m sorry you are having this fight with the church board over Pastor Ken, but we have to talk.”

  He frowned and slowly shook his head. “Can’t we talk about it tomorrow?”

  “It’s not about the church, Dad. It’s about Josh and the police.”

  He stiffened and his eyes widened. Now I had his attention. Dad staggered a bit and let himself down on the couch. He said, “What is it, Son?” His tone was quiet and deep, in what I imagined to be his pastoral counseling voice.

  “Sergeant Davis came by this evening.”

  “Dewey Davis, from church?”

  “Yes, sir. He said Josh was in trouble for some vandalism.”

  Dad looked as if I’d hit him with a Taser.

  I continued, “They didn’t take him to jail, but since you weren’t home, they put him in Mr. Brunson’s custody.”

  Dad didn’t say a word. He looked straight at me, but it was as if he was staring right through me. He finally asked, “He’s been arrested?”

  “I guess. They just said he’d be at Mr. Brunson’s.”

  “Am I supposed to go pick him up from the Brunsons’ tonight?”

  “No. In the morning, around nine.”

  Dad wrinkled his brow and asked, “What then?”

  “They didn’t say.”

  Dad rubbed his forehead with the fingers of his right hand.

  “A headache?” I asked.

  “You don’t know.”

  Something deep inside me wanted to tell Dad the whole messed-up story right then. Tell him about Josh and Kevin’s city-wide crime spree, about the booty I’d found hidden in the garage, and the R8 sports car they had stolen. I also wanted to spill my guts and confess that I broke into school property and wrecked the field house. I wanted to, but my darker side held me back.

  Dad’s gaze dropped to the floor, and he leaned forward, resting his elbows on his knees. He looked as though he was about to cry.

  Again, I thought about confessing but didn’t. It wasn’t anything like what you see on TV or in cartoons, the ones where there’s a little white angel on one shoulder and a little red devil on the other.

  My evil influence was no cute animation, no imp. Instead, mine spoke to me in ominous tones, low but never in a whisper. It always emanated from some dark, shadowy place, always behind me, and it always spoke with frightening clarity.

  From over my shoulder came a hollow bass voice. “Let the smart-mouth punk take the fall. Don’t tell about his other crimes, the scavenger game stuff, and call it even. He gets in less trouble, and you get a pass.”

  Maybe my evil spirit was right.

  I told myself, “Todd, my man, you deserve a break.” The spirit, though evil, had made a credible case for remaining silent.

  “It’s not as though you’re lying, not really. You don’t actually have to do anything,” came my demon’s black-hearted logic.

  There was no rebuttal, no shoulder-angel saying, “Todd. You have to tell the truth. This isn’t some fib about who took the loose change on the counter, or what happened to the ceramic vase in the living room.”

  Mom used to say, “If you tell one lie, you’ll end up telling hundreds more, and in the end, the truth will come out anyway. It always does.”

  “That’s crazy. Think about it.” My demon was back. “Josh gets probation and his record wiped clean when he turns twenty-one. You, on the other hand, could do jail time, maybe even as an adult.” I could almost hear the deep hollow voice of Valdoom from the Black Wars movie saying, “Todd, follow me. We shall now descend into nothingness.”

  I shook the voice from my head and told myself I didn’t have to decide right then. It wouldn’t hurt a thing to let Josh stew for a while. He deserved that much, at least.

  Dad relaxed his shoulders and sit back. He apologized for blowing me off earlier, and we sat in silence for what seemed like an hour.

  “We haven’t had much opportunity, to just talk, you and I.”

  I agreed we hadn’t.

  “You sleepy?” he asked.

  “Too wound up. You?”

  “Worn out and wound up.” He smiled weakly. “I never knew that was even possible.”

  “It must be, Dad. I’m the same way.”

  Before I knew it, we began to chat. Not about Josh or the cops, and not about the mess with the church board. Just regular “How’s it going at school these days” stuff. We hadn’t simply sat and talked in ages. It was nice.

  As things wound down, I pressed my luck a little and asked him about his disagreement with the board. “How serious is it?”

  “It’s not the whole board; they’re evenly split on the matter. I should have told you before, but I didn’t want you to worry about it, not with all the things you’ve had to deal with lately.”

  “What exactly is the argument?”

  “Half the board is mad that I asked Ken Archer to resign, and the other half respects my decision.”

  “Asked him to resign?” I asked. “Like, fired him? Why? What did he do?” I liked Ken. He hadn’t been the best youth pastor I’d ever had, but he seemed nice.

  “I can’t say, it’s confidential.”

  I didn’t like him not saying, but I was used to it. I asked, “Are you going to lose your job over this?”

  “I might. I’ve known pastors who were ousted on less evidence.”

  “Evidence of what?” I asked.

  “Evidence of wrongdoing, malfeasance, or plain old poor judgment.” He paused for a quiet moment, and then said, “When I asked Ken to resign, I promised if he would leave quietly and quickly, I wouldn’t reveal what he had done. I thought that would be best for the church. No muss, no fuss.”

  “I guess you were wrong this time, huh, Dad?”

  “I’m afraid the story will come out anyway, and the church will be hurt by it.”

  The gears in my head were whirring. I said, “So sometimes it’s better not to tell the whole story?”

  “If,” he said, “the whole story will cause harm to the innocent, yes, I’d say so.” He just had to add that “innocent” part, didn’t he? There goes my “Get out of hell free” card.

  The next morning was Christmas Eve.

  Oh, joy to the world.

  No Mom. Dad about to be canned, my little brother a thief, and me a…what? A liar? A rat? A snake? What a merry Christmas this is going to be. I didn’t even want to think about it. Why couldn’t we just skip Christmas all together?

  Dad left the house early to go pick up his juvenile delinquent twelve-year-old, while his seventeen-year-old felon tried to decide what to do. I tried to convince myself that it was okay to let my little brother take the fall for me. From the TV in the living room came Christmas music. Families at Christmas by Shyr. They sang:

  When families gather at Christmas,

  Families so sweet and dear,

  Joy must abound with cheer all around,

  Family love so
close and so clear

  That was us all right…not.

  The moment Dad brought Josh home from the Brunsons’, they went into the den and shut the door. I dropped to the floor in the dining room and pressed my ear to the return-air grill, a couple of inches above the baseboard. Dad’s den had an identical vent on the other side. If the central air or heat wasn’t on, you could hear everything from his office as though you were in the room. I’d heard a lot through that vent in the past. Juicy stuff, some funny, some not so funny.

  Josh declared his innocence, of course, but Dad would have none of it.

  “Josh, you’d have a better chance of my believing you, if you didn’t have a history of lying and sneaking out at night.”

  That was news to me. I didn’t realize Dad had ever caught him.

  “If you so much as take one step out of this house between now and your court date, I will ask the judge to have you declared an incorrigible delinquent and recommend you be sent to the juvenile detention center in Granger.”

  I knew Dad was serious. He meant what he said, and Josh knew that as well as I did. Early on, Josh and I had learned if Dad said he’d do something, you could count on it, and no one, not even Mom, could dissuade him.

  »»•««

  Christmas morning, Dad, Josh, and I fell into an uneasy cease-fire. We exchanged gifts after breakfast. Dad gave me a number ninety-two jersey with “R. White” across the back. Some say Reggie White was the greatest defensive end ever to play professional football. Dad said it was an authentic game jersey, but I’d seen real ones on Bid-Buy go for two or three grand. No way would Dad spend that kind of money. He couldn’t. I’d peeked into his checking account.

  So much for using “PASSWORD123” to protect your accounts.

  I didn’t say anything to Dad about suspecting he had bought a fake jersey. It was nice of him to do what he did. Besides, who knows? Maybe when Reggie was still alive, he and Dad had met somewhere. Reggie White was supposed to have been a licensed preacher. That’s where he got his nickname, The Minister of Defense.

  Dad gave Josh a nice Ed Hardy denim jacket. I guess Dad didn’t know Ed Hardy was a tattoo artist and his clothes’ designs were basically tattoo art done on cloth rather than skin. I could tell that Josh liked the jacket, but he would have burst before he’d show any enthusiasm.