by Jason Parent
The first officers to arrive escorted Crotty to their patrol car on Sam’s orders. They then walked Mrs. Crotty over to an ambulance.
Sam disappeared down the cellar stairs with the next arriving officers. Plastic bags were filled, and yellow tape was plastered everywhere.
Around Michael, officers were conversing, taking evidence, or otherwise going about their police business without so much as giving him a nod. Why did no one notice or care about the fourteen-year-old boy sitting in the middle of their crime scene? The thought that he might still be invisible made him uncomfortable. The way he was being ignored, he might as well have been. He pinched himself to make sure he was awake and solid. The pain reminded him that he was real.
After a half hour passed, Sam emerged from the basement, wearing rubber gloves. Michael watched her pull them off and throw them on the kitchen counter. She glanced about the room until her eyes met his. Then, without a word, she escorted him outside. They got into Sam’s car, where he sat in silence the entire way back to his foster parents’ home. Apparently, going to dinner was no longer an option. Sam seemed anxious to be rid of him.
“I’m sorry,” Sam said as she pulled up to Helen and Greg’s house.
Michael snapped. The ten-minute ride had not been long enough to quell his anger. “How could you? He… he was going to drill a hole in her head! You knew I would see it. You made me watch it.”
“I didn’t know,” Sam said. “I had a hunch. I’ve heard of this kind of psychic phenomenon before. Some guy up in Maine supposedly helped police solve a number of cases just by touching objects at a crime scene. But I never really believed it until you predicted what would happen to Glenn Rodrigues. So I planned this little experiment. I also thought you would want to know if your vision regarding the school shooting was a fluke or if you actually do have the ability to see the future.”
“So it’s my fault I had to witness a man drill through his wife’s skull? I’m sure there are other ways we could have tested whether my brain is a crystal ball. You could have at least had the decency to give me a heads-up. I’m not your damn guinea pig, Sam.”
“I know. You’re right, and I’m sorry. What I did was wrong, inexcusable. But you did save a woman’s life today. What neither you nor Crotty knew was that we dragged his wife’s automobile out of the Taunton River yesterday. Of course, that kind of thing screams foul play. And when a wife goes missing, the first suspect is the husband. Ninety-nine times out of a hundred, he’s the one with blood on his hands.”
“The end justifies the means? Is that what you’re telling me? That shit I saw is going to give me nightmares for a long time.”
“I put being a cop before being your friend. You feel betrayed by that and understandably so. Again, I’m sorry. I really am. But I would do it all again if it was necessary to save Amy Crotty’s life, and I think you would, too. As long as you would be okay, I mean. Saving one life isn’t worth destroying another’s.”
Honesty. If nothing else, he could always expect that from Sam. Yet honesty didn’t make her betrayal hurt any less. Remembering the many times she’d been there for him, Michael could feel himself already forgiving her, but it would be a little while before he went with her on another ride-along. “I’ll get over it,” he said. “Just please don’t do it again.”
Sam smiled warmly. “I won’t. At least not without warning you first.”
Michael shrugged and opened the car door.
As he climbed out, Sam said, “You did an amazing thing today. You won’t get any credit for it. In fact, if my bosses find out I even brought you over to Crotty’s, they’ll have my head. How we caught him could jeopardize the prosecution, Fourth Amendment rights and all that other mumbo jumbo.”
“You mean he might actually go free?” Michael was shocked. John Crotty was a murderer as far as he was concerned, whether the rest of the world saw it that way or not.
“Don’t worry about that. We’ll find a way of making something stick. We obviously won’t get him for murder and maybe not even attempted murder, but kidnapping his wife and assaulting an officer will get him a heck of a lot more than a slap on the wrist. And even in the extremely unlikely case that he somehow walks, I’m sure Amy Crotty will still think our intervention was well worth it.”
Sam paused, staring at him that way she did when she probed his mind. It made him feel as if he were being dissected. “Still,” she said, “you’ve got some amazing skills, kid. If you wake up tomorrow feeling good about saving that woman’s life, maybe you’ll want to lend your services to the Fall River Police Department again. What do you think? The people of Fall River could use someone like you on their side.”
“I wouldn’t count on it.” Michael was grateful Mrs. Crotty hadn’t been killed, but he felt he would be better off if he never had any other visions. They were nothing more than nightmares while awake, and he experienced plenty of those when he slept. He would be thrilled if he never had one again.
Michael waved to Sam as she drove away. Sorry, Fall River. You’ll have to rely on good old-fashioned police work to solve your crimes. I’m not cut out for that sort of work.
Chapter 10
Tessa stared absently into her locker, hugging her biology book against her chest. She didn’t feel like going to class, and she definitely didn’t want to get called on again by dumb Mrs. Lautner, who always seemed to know when Tessa was daydreaming. The other kids would snicker when Tessa asked her to repeat the question, not that she ever knew the answer anyway. That idiot Lonnie Danvers will laugh loudest, hee-hawing like the jackass he is.
It made her blood boil, his obnoxious cackle. Not that she would ever do anything about it. Still, she could almost hear it now. Wait… I do hear it now. Is he laughing at me?
She hugged in so close to her locker that she had practically stuffed herself inside it. She tilted her head back just enough to see Lonnie hee-hawing his way toward her with Stacy Fields by his side. What that seemingly normal girl saw in that moron, Tessa couldn’t guess.
Lonnie’s laughter boomed into her ears as he and Stacy formed the beginnings of a line outside the nearby classroom, just four feet away from Tessa’s locker. Only a bent and rusted aluminum door separated her from them.
He must be keeping Stacy company before classes start. Better her than me.
Without a sound, she gathered her things, planning to tiptoe all the way to biology just to not have to deal with him. As she grabbed the locker door to swing it closed, she heard Lonnie say, “I heard from Nick Rennert that Nancy Pettigrew was there when Glenn was shot. According to Nancy, Michael Turcotte had tried to stop Jimmy from shooting Glenn. The rumor is that Michael knew about the shooting before it happened.”
Tessa’s hand fell away from the door. She leaned into her locker again but concentrated on Lonnie’s voice. She had heard the gossip and the stories, that Jimmy shot Glenn for dumping him and Michael in the toilet or something like that. But up until now, Michael had been only a footnote in the story.
She didn’t think much of Michael and barely knew him. He was kind of cute, in a little-brother sort of way. Humph. She giggled softly, covering her mouth with her hand. Awkward, like me. Only he wears the hand-me-down’s hand-me-downs.
Tessa didn’t know Michael, but she knew that foster kid stigma and the hurt of losing a parent. Other than that and their solo lunchtime habits, she doubted they had anything in common. She didn’t know Jimmy or most of the others involved in the crime or the gossip trail either, but the thought of another potential student killer on the loose touched something deep within her. Maybe there was another student at Carnegie who kept as much pain locked up as she did. Still, she’d been forced. She never wanted to hurt anyone. Tessa wondered if this Michael guy was a different sort of animal. Pretending to flip through a notebook, she hesitated in the hallway to hear the rest of the conversation.
“He probably knew
about it because he was in on it,” Stacy said.
“Don’t be stupid,” Lonnie responded. “If he intended to shoot Glenn, why would he tell Principal Alves beforehand?”
“Maybe he got cold feet. Maybe he tried to stop it because he realized he couldn’t go through with it.”
“That’s possible, I guess, but that’s not what I heard. I heard he told them what was going to happen right down to the last detail. He said when and where it would happen, how it would happen, and who would be there when it happened. And he told Principal Alves about it two days before it happened.”
“Probably because he planned the whole thing. Think, Lonnie. Michael Turcotte is not psychic. Don’t tell me you really believe that?”
“I don’t know. He even knew what Jimmy and Glenn would be wearing that day. Are you going to tell me he called them up to ask? Only girls do that.”
“What were they wearing? T-shirts and jeans? Every guy wears that every day. Your gender has no imagination, never mind fashion sense.”
Tessa stifled a giggle. Then, she looked down at her pink long-sleeved T-shirt and her blue jeans. Still, Stacy made sense. Lonnie’s belief sounded silly.
“Besides,” Stacy continued, “if the school knew about it before it happened and did nothing to stop it, wouldn’t there be a lawsuit?”
“Give it some time,” Lonnie said. “I bet there will be, probably a whole bunch of them. Anyway, I’m not the only one who thinks that kid is psychic. Ask around. You’ll see.”
“Maybe I’ll just ask him.” Stacy gave a sly grin. “He’s kind of cute, for a freshman.”
“Go ahead, but keep me out of it. That freak’s got some sort of power, and who knows where the hell he’s getting it from? He could be dangerous. I wouldn’t go anywhere near him if I were you.”
“It’s all stupid gossip blown out of proportion,” Stacy scoffed. “Just because you can’t explain something doesn’t mean it isn’t explainable by someone smarter than you. And trust me, there’s a perfectly rational explanation for it. Michael Turcotte is not psychic.”
“I know better than to argue with you,” Lonnie said.
Then, Tessa heard them kissing. She didn’t think there was supposed to be so much smacking. A moment later, Lonnie strutted by as if the world gave him all the things he wanted, none of the things it would ever give her. He walked past her without ever looking her way.
She spent most of the afternoon thinking about Michael Turcotte and his superhero powers. On the bus, with kids yelling and screaming and shooting spitballs past her head, she daydreamed about what it would be like to see the future and how she would alter it.
Her true future involved grocery shopping. Tessa hated being out in public with Father. She hated being anywhere with him, but in public, she had to hide in plain sight. She always felt as though people were watching her, examining her for signs of the secrets she so desperately wanted to reveal.
When Tessa and her father got to the checkout line, the couple at the register had just finished unloading their basket onto the conveyor belt. A gorgeous Hispanic woman put the divider bar down and started putting her groceries on the belt. The woman was so beautiful that Tessa knew life had to have been easy for her. Father stepped up behind the Hispanic woman, swinging their basket behind him.
The exit of the grocery store was less than fifty feet away. I could run. Just run and never look back. Tessa shuddered. Even if I managed to get away, he would find me. After that, things would be much worse. She surveyed the shelf of candy bars and ran a finger along the edge of a box of Butterfingers, her favorite. She sighed. She knew better than to ask Father for one.
Father was quiet, as usual, and his gaze was intently set upon the Hispanic woman unloading her basket. Tessa couldn’t blame him. Even she wanted to stare at the beautiful woman. But then she realized that Father’s eyes were following the woman’s hands and the items she was purchasing. He watched as a carton of eggs, a jar of peanut butter, and a bunch of celery were all placed on the conveyor belt.
He cleared his throat. “That’s fourteen items,” he said loudly.
The woman turned, and Father glared at her. If looks could kill, the woman would have died fifteen times over.
“Excuse me?” the lady asked.
“That’s fourteen items,” Father repeated. He pointed at the sign above the register. “This lane is for twelve items or less.”
“I’m sorry,” the woman said, obviously taken aback by the reproach. “I picked up a few more groceries than I had originally intended when I came in here. I’ll put two of them back if it bothers you. Perhaps you could forgive me this one time?”
Father didn’t answer right away. The question seemed to spawn conflict within him. The cashier, a pimply-faced girl with braces hopefully intended to fix her giant overbite, stared at him with her nose crinkled and mouth gaping. For the girl’s sake, Tessa was thankful Father didn’t seem to notice. But his expression remained hostile. Tessa was afraid the customer’s beauty was about to fade much faster than life had planned for her.
Oh God. Not another one. Not this soon. Tessa straightened the boxes of candy on the shelves, trying to appear busy, disinterested. Please don’t kill her.
The express lane violator seemed uneasy, too. Father had a way about him that made him appear more threatening than his small frame justified. His steel-hard glare, stiff posture, and low, monotone voice—and the way he always seemed to stand an inch or so closer than he should—unsettled anyone unfortunate enough to converse with him. The woman’s apologetic smile began to fade.
Then, the unlikely happened. Father grinned. “No need to put anything back,” he said. “Mistakes happen.”
The woman gave a courteous nod and went back to her groceries.
Mistakes happen? Tessa wondered if the man next to her was the same man she’d always known, at least as far back as she could remember. Father didn’t smile. He didn’t forgive. Did he think it was Christmas? Was he suddenly willing to overlook menial rule violations? “Rules were meant to be enforced,” he always said. He had said it so much that Tessa could hear him saying it in her head exactly as if he’d said it aloud. Rules weren’t meant to be broken.
Father’s uncharacteristic leniency was cause for alarm. Surely, the woman’s subtle charms hadn’t won him over. Something else must have been going on in that head of his.
The woman paid for her items, flashed Father another, somewhat nervous smile, and left. Father’s eyes stayed on her until she traveled out of their view. The lady was gone. Tessa hoped she would never have to see her again.
On the way home, Father seemed to be in an unusually good mood. Nearing a light, he waved in a car waiting to exit a convenience store parking lot. When its driver didn’t offer him a courtesy wave or nod in return, Father’s grip on the steering wheel tightened. His hands twisted around the grip, then he slapped the dashboard. He mashed down the horn and stepped on the gas until he rode the car’s bumper. He slammed his hands against the steering wheel.
Minutes later, they passed Winchester Street, the street they lived on, without turning. A sickly feeling rose in Tessa’s stomach. He planned on teaching that driver a lesson.
Chapter 11
Gloria’s feet were like iron plates, each step made heavy by the task before her and the boundaries she was overstepping. It was nearly two p.m. when she ascended the stairs to an immaculately maintained, battleship-gray-painted house on Winchester Street. She knew she had no true business there. Officially, Gloria was forbidden to be there.
“We can’t invade their privacy or make accusations without more substantial evidence than your hunch,” Janet at the Department of Children and Families had said. “I’m sorry, Gloria, but we just don’t have the resources to follow up on every suspected case.”
She forbade my intervention as gently as she could, but “no” means “no,�
�� however the Commonwealth says it. It doesn’t change the fact that this child needs me. Tessa could be dead before I can get state approval to ask a few questions.
But DCF was the least of her worries if either the father or the student should call the school to complain. If Roger finds out I’m here, he’ll kill me. She shook her head. He’ll definitely have to fire me. How could the school’s principal justify keeping on a guidance counselor who shows such blatant disregard for protocol. She sighed. Roger was a good man, and she loved him, but she knew he would do whatever he thought necessary to maintain the integrity of his school.
He won’t even let people know about us. Gloria’s lips pressed into a flat line. So what if he’s my boss? It’s not like either of us is married.
“Always so concerned with policies,” she mumbled. “The stupid policies are what got that Rodrigues boy gunned down. I’ll be damned if I sit back idly and watch another kid sent to the slaughter.”
She clenched a manila folder tightly beneath her arm, thinking about how she might have helped Glenn if she had just been a little less concerned with playing by the rules. Sure, he had denied the abuse at home, acting tough and being disrespectful toward her. But the signs were there—aggression bred aggression—and would have been obvious to a first-year psych student. She had met with his parents, as she did with all parents of suspended students, after he had dunked that poor boy in the toilet. She had seen Mr. Rodrigues cast his eyes away when his wife slapped Glenn’s face so hard it left an imprint. Then, the woman had twisted Glenn’s ear until the teen dropped to one knee, tears forming in his eyes.
Gloria had started to say something, but Mrs. Rodrigues glared and smiled wickedly as if to say she could do whatever she wanted to her boy and there wasn’t a damn thing Gloria could do about it. Without another word, Glenn’s mother dug her press-on nails into her son’s arm and led the boy away, Mr. Rodrigues following meekly at her heels.