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will know. In fact, I’ll bet you know somebody with Asperger’s,
even if there’s one degree of separation.”
    “Well, I know your son,” she said.
    “See?”
    “Five hundred words, Aaron,” Lydia finally said. My
freelancer’s mind immediately calculated the fee at $1,000. Not
great, but you don’t turn down work. Besides, I was going to be
covering this story with or without an assignment.
    “That’s not much,” I said. Nobody ever got anywhere
in this business being timid.
    “It’s five hundred more words than I intended to give
you,” she said.
    “Good point,” I said.
     
     

Chapter Six

    A rmed with a fresh and
legitimate magazine assignment, I forwarded the calls from my home
phone to my cell phone and drove south out of Midland Heights
through Highland Park, then across the Albany Street Bridge to Rt.
18, which eventually led to Rt. 1 South, and North Brunswick. The
whole trip took less than fifteen minutes.
    Lori had given me Justin Fowler’s address, and
informed his mother that I’d be coming by. The house was blue,
vinyl sided, with a small screened-in porch, and a tiny, nicely
tended lawn.
    Mary Fowler answered the door practically before I
rang. She must have been watching through the front window and seen
me drive up, because I was still smoothing out my coat when the
door opened.
    She looked tired. Having a son with Asperger’s will
wear anyone out, and she’d begun the task ten years before Ethan
was born. Having a son accused of murder greatly compounded the
burden. Still, she offered a warm hand, and I took it.
    “Mr. Tucker, I presume,” she said. “Lori told me
you’d be here soon.”
    “Lori never lies,” I answered, establishing our
common bond. “And she never lets a parent down. May I come in?”
    Mary looked embarrassed and opened the screen door a
little wider. “Sorry,” she said. “Where are my manners?”
    I walked into the living room, which was dominated by
the kind of grandfather clock obviously handed down from generation
to generation. Unfortunately, the room surrounding it wasn’t quite
as grand or regal, so the clock looked like a king visiting the
commoners for the annual tournaments. “Don’t worry, Mrs. Fowler,” I
said. “You have nothing to be sorry about.”
    “It’s Mary, Mr. Tucker. And may I get you something
to drink?”
    “No, I’m fine. And call me Aaron. Is Justin
here?”
    Mary looked embarrassed, and stared past me for a
moment, not wanting to make eye contact. “No,” she said. “They’re
holding him on $200,000 bail, and I don’t have that kind of
money.”
    Abby had thought the Middlesex County prosecutor
might want bigtime bail. While Justin had been charged with
aggravated manslaughter and not pre-meditated murder, the bail was
still set high, with no option for putting up just ten percent in
cash. Mary would have to mortgage her house to a bail bondsman if
she wanted to get her son out of county jail.
    She thought I should see Justin’s room. Like many
young Asperger adults, Justin was not ready to live on his own,
even though he had graduated with an associate’s degree from
Middlesex County College and had a full-time job. The pressure of
living in a world populated with other people, and having to
maintain a household of some kind on his own, would have been too
much for him to handle.
    His room, which was smaller than Ethan’s, couldn’t
have changed much since high school. But instead of the posters of
bands or basketball players you might have expected, the walls were
covered with pictures of guns. Rifles, automatics, pistols,
revolvers. Guns, preferably by themselves, but sometimes in the
hands of their owners, were clearly Justin’s heroes.
    “When did he develop his interest in guns?” I
asked.
    “It doesn’t help his case, does it?” she said. “I
think it started in high school. He had gotten hold of some gun
magazine or another, and that was it. It’s all he talks about. But
I never let