Shouldn't want her. Shouldn't crave her. But I do—I'm desperate.
Chapter One
“First-degree murder,
concealing a homicide—you're involved in a messy situation here, Buddy,” Muscle
Cop says. He's young, and broad-shouldered, like a weightlifter.
“It wasn't murder,” I say. “It
was an accident.”
I'm hunched on a metal chair
in front of a battle-scarred wooden table, in the interrogation room of the
tiny Lost Grove police station. My hands clutch each other on the table. My
palms feel soggy, as if I need to wring them out.
Sweat bubbles on my forehead.
The cops have brought me
here from Mercy Hospital, where I'd been released after a week's stay because
of a severe concussion, which resulted in a bit of confusion on my part and
temporary memory loss. But I'm okay now … I think.
“Why protect this loony
bitch?” the other cop asks—a pudgy, red-nosed guy of about fifty. Both are
dressed in street clothes: dark slacks, short-sleeved white shirts open at the
throat, silver badges hooked to their belts. They're standing over me, glaring.
Vultures.
I thought cops were supposed to be friendly,
especially if they wanted information from a witness, but these guys are
scaring the crap out of me.
“You wouldn't understand,” I
say.
“Are you dating her?” Red
Nose asks. “Sleeping with her?”
Blood rushes to my face. I
rub my forehead with my palm and drag my hand through my hair. “What difference
does that make?”
“She's going to maybe land
you in jail,” Muscle Cop says. “Aren't you at least smart enough to realize
that?”
“It was an accident,” I say
again, and wring my hands.
“Accident. Murder,” Red Nose
says. “A jury will decide that.”
“You could be looking at
hard time,” Muscle Cop says. “Just like this witch you're protecting.”
“Why defend her?” Red Nose
says, pacing in front of the one-way window, a four-foot by six-foot hunk of
glass I can't see through. He halts, looks at me, and says, “Tell us what
happened, Buddy. Christ. You were
there. You know what happened. Most
of it, anyway.”
He calls me buddy, not
because I'm his buddy, but because it's my name. Buddy McNeal. He's seen it in the newspaper. I
played football for the Kennedy High School Cougars.
Red Nose plunks his butt on
the corner of the table and stares at me, his dark eyes flashing under bushy
eyebrows.
The fingers of his right
hand have wrapped themselves around a Styrofoam cup that he spits tobacco into.
Levi Garrett. He dipped it after he shoved me into this chair twenty minutes
ago. “Why don't you start way back from when you first met her?”
I lick my lips. They're dry
and cracked.
Muscle Cop says, “Buddy,
it's best you tell us what you know.” He sounds like maybe he's lightening up. “Right
from the start,” he adds.
“You're eighteen,” Red Nose
says. “If you had any part in this, you'll be tried as an adult.”
“You got a football
scholarship to the University of Iowa?” Muscle Cop asks.
I nod.
“There goes your college
career,” he says. “Out the window before it starts.”
Maybe if I don't look at
these guys, I can calm my pounding heart.
My eyes roam the walls and
ceiling, as if I'm bird-watching.
“You're a vic, too,” Muscle
Cop says, but I'm not looking at him. “Don't you realize that? A girl is
dead—hell, you could've died. You got a pretty bad knock on the head, didn't
you?”
Red Nose stands. I shrink
back. He sets his spit-cup carefully on the table. Sweat's dripping from my
armpits. “You listening to me, Buddy?” Red Nose grabs my T-shirt, twists, and
shoves his face in front of mine. “Look at me!”
I grab the arms of my chair.
I smell the Levi Garrett on his breath. “You guys take pride in being bad-ass
cops?” I choke out the words.
“You want to know why we're
so pissed?” Red Nose says. “A terrible thing was done to that girl, and your
girlfriend was the ringleader!” His fist twists my T-shirt tighter under my
chin. I try to swallow but can't. His knuckles are jammed into my Adam's apple.
“Sickening,” he says. “Horrible!”
Muscle cop says, “Best you
speak up, Buddy.”
“Fifteen years,” Red Nose
says, “I worked a beat on the north side of Chicago before I came here—I never
heard anything like this. You understand what I'm saying? I got a daughter
myself. I'd kill any guy—or girl—who did something like that to her.”
Muscle Cop grabs him by the
shoulder. “Frank, give Buddy a chance. I think maybe he's ready to tell us
something.”
That's when I decide to tell
them the whole story from the beginning, when I first met Crystal. Not that I
want to tell the story, but I probably should for my own good. I swallow the
jagged lump blocking my throat. “Look,
get this straight. Nobody intended to kill anybody.”
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