The Boys from Santa Cruz Read Online Free PDF Page B

burned before you shot her.”
    “I told you, I
didn’t
shoot Teddy, she shot herself.” Scared, confused, close to tears, I turned to my lawyer. “You have to listen to me, he’s making this stuff up, I don’t know what he’s talking about.”
    He tried to come to my rescue. “This is starting to sound like a fishing expedition, Agent Pender. Do you have any evidence to back up these charges?”
    Pender turned to him. “So far, only the tape that survived the fire, and the two female bodies we found in the tomato patch,” he said cheerfully. “But they were still digging when I left.”
2
    It was close to daylight by the time the Santa Cruz cops arrived to take me into custody. Pender had one more surprise for me: he called one of them into the backyard, and when they returned, the cop was carrying my backpack. Pender told me he was sorry, that the cop found it on his own, but I didn’t believe him on account of his grin. By now it was practically splitting his big bald head in two. The man was just so
pleased
with himself he was starting to look like a Muppet.
    I put up a hell of a fight trying to get to him. I wanted to tear that grin right off his face, just dig my fingers under his skin and rip, but I only made it about halfway across the room before the cops got me into a choke hold. Pender’s laughter is the last thing I remember hearing before I lost consciousness.
    I was only out a few seconds. Everybody was still there when I came to, but I had never felt so alone in my life. And I don’t mean just friendless or nobody-loves-me alone. I was used to that. This was a different kind of alone, this was one of those science fiction deals where the hero finds himself in some other reality, in some other dimension or on some other planet, where everything looks the same as it did before but nothing is, and nobody seems to know it but him.
    As for Fred and Evelyn, they acted like I had some kind of infectious disease, drawing themselves up against the wall so as not to have me brush against them while the cops were hustling me out of the house in handcuffs.
    I spent the rest of that day in holding cells, courtrooms, and the backseats of cop cars. After I was arraigned for the dopein Santa Cruz (the kid lawyer pled me not guilty), they handed me over to a sheriff’s deputy who’d driven all the way down from Marshall County to pick me up. Not looking real thrilled about his assignment, the deputy shoved me handcuffed into the back of his cruiser, where I sat or lay for the entire drive. Didn’t talk to me except to bark orders, didn’t give me anything to eat or drink, though he stopped once to feed his own face, and the only reason he let me get out to take a leak was because I warned him that otherwise I was going to piss all over the backseat.
    We arrived in Marshall City early that evening. The courthouse had already shut down, so I was brought to the Marshall County Juvenile Facility for what they called processing, like I was lunch meat or something.
    Thinking about lunch meat reminded me that I hadn’t eaten anything all day except for a bologna sandwich in the holding cell in Santa Cruz while I was waiting to be arraigned. When I complained, the deputy who was conducting my second strip search of the day told me I had missed dinner, but said they would be serving cookies and milk before lights-out.
    I spent the night in a tiny room with a bare cot, one blanket, no pillow. One-piece metal sink-toilet. Never saw any other kids, because they’d stuck me in something they called a segregation unit, where they put kids who break their rules, or are considered too dangerous to house with the other juveniles.
    Me, I was so not dangerous, all I could think about was the cookies and milk. I constructed and reconstructed that snack over and over in my mind. What kind of cookies would there be? Would I get a choice? I was hoping for chocolate chip, but I was so hungry I’d have settled for oatmeal. And how