Total pages in book: 109
Estimated words: 107352 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 537(@200wpm)___ 429(@250wpm)___ 358(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 107352 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 537(@200wpm)___ 429(@250wpm)___ 358(@300wpm)
Tatum and Darwin were on putting-away-the-groceries duty, which would take them a while. After I got all the perishables in the refrigerator, I told them to get rid of anything that had expired. Once they were done with that, they were to start on the pantry and do the same. Anything they weren’t sure of went on the dining-room table. Everything needed to be emptied and cleaned out.
I had checked, and there was recycling, so no jars or plastic would be going in a landfill. They seemed happy with the task, the organizing appealing to Darwin, the throwing away appealing to Tatum. Also, out with the old and in with the new was always good. Since their mother left, it was like the house, and all of them, had been frozen in time. We were changing that right now. Serendipitously, since I needed to have a private conversation with Griff, and with them both occupied—laughing when I went upstairs—it gave us time.
“I need you to tell me everything that happened from the time you left home on Friday until the moment you saw me at the police station.”
He was sitting at the end of his bed, dejected. “Why?”
“Because two police detectives from Newcastle finished taking statements from Daniels and Benning at the police station, and are on their way over here to speak to you. I need you to have your story straight when you see them.”
“How do you know they’re coming?”
“Because I got a text from Chief Higheagle.”
“Oh,” he said, glancing away from me.
“Hey.”
His gaze was immediately back on me.
“I will not leave you. I will be sitting right next to you on the couch when they get here. You will not be alone with any adult without me there.”
His exhale was long, his shoulders dipping with relief.
“So g’head and tell me.”
It was not, once it was all related to me, even remotely interesting up until he got thrown into the back of a police car at two in the morning on Saturday.
Friday night, he left his sister in a locked house and went to play video games at his friend Benny’s house. Apparently, he had an awesome basement, and his parents let everyone drink there as long as they all slept over. No one was allowed to drive, and you couldn’t leave unless collected by a parent. Since no one wanted to do that, there were always kids in sleeping bags at their house. Not great, but better than nothing. I would let Luke worry about it, because at the moment, Griff was grounded for no less than a month. He didn’t appear all that upset about it, but I was thinking when he was no longer in pain, when his face stopped throbbing, the punishment might chafe.
“What about yesterday?”
Saturday night, he and his buddies Benny and Sean went over to Chief Wilson’s house because he was out of town with Mrs. Wilson, and his daughter, Christine, threw a rager. Kids had come from the high school in Newcastle, as well as the one in Eena, including many that had graduated, and it very quickly got out of hand. If what Griff was telling me was true, I would be furious as well. Eventually someone ran the chief’s riding mower into the pool, and that was a wrap on the party. Griff was walking home when Chief Wilson pulled up beside him, got out, and proceeded to beat the crap out of him. Griff had no idea why, ended up running, had to stop to throw up, and in the field by the high school, was hit again, and that was all he remembered. The next thing he knew, he woke up cold, shivering, his clothes wet, in a cell at the police station. He begged them to call his father and was informed that the chief already had. He was promised that as soon as his father arrived, he would be released into his custody.
“Okay,” I said, and took a breath.
“I don’t know why, of everyone at that party, Chief Wilson picked me to beat up. It wasn’t like I was the only one there.”
I nodded. “I don’t either.”
“What are we gonna do?”
“You are not going to do anything. I’m going to follow up on a call I made to my buddy Shaw and find out who’s coming to sit with us when we talk to the detectives.”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean, without a lawyer, we’re not talking to anyone.”
“But they’re here to help me.”
“Yes, but they could also ask you things that could lead to you being blamed for something you had nothing to do with.”
“I don’t know about any of this stuff,” he said, those big, vulnerable eyes of his on my face. “But you do, right?”
“I do. I promise.”
“Okay. So, whatever you think.”
“Aw, kid, if only everyone in my life was this agreeable.”