Was that Attina’s plan? To make this so high profile it became too risky for us to stay and hunt him?
We pushed our way gently out of the crowd, waved solemnly at Pastor Nash, who stood near the back of the crowd, and headed toward the police station. Marci started working on our story, conjuring something placating to tell the police if they demanded ID, while I put together the beginnings of a plan to kill Corey. Only the beginnings, though. Killing a Withered was just as delicate as tracking one; if you knew their powers you could do it fairly easily, but otherwise it was all but impossible. We’d have to start the way we always started: the speed-bump test. But how to arrange it? We couldn’t just be in the truck when we hit him—we’d end up in jail or worse—and if he survived we would have exposed ourselves for nothing. It had to be more subtle. But how?
And did we dare to do it in the first place? What if Corey, despite all our suspicion, was innocent? What if he was just a weirdo with poor social skills, and his Facebook announcement was a pure coincidence? “It begins” might just as easily refer to … I didn’t know, a garage band or something. Maybe his mustache was coming in. Maybe he was binge watching something online. I, of all people, couldn’t condemn a guy just for being suspicious and not fitting in.
But how could I know for sure? Every moment I didn’t act was another moment when someone could get hurt. Better to have the plan ready, so I could employ it when the target was confirmed.
Assuming I could get hold of a truck in the first place, how would I do it? Maybe if I aimed the truck just right and stacked a bunch of bricks on the gas pedal? If he was in a specific place, like the tables in front of Kitten Caboodle … but how could I keep him from seeing it coming, and getting out of the way? How could I limit the collateral damage? Maybe if I caught him at night, drunk at the drive-in theater, or walking home in the dark. The more I thought about it the more I wanted to do it, like a junkie sitting and staring at a hit of meth—just sitting there, waiting, filling up my entire mind. I looked at every truck we passed, wondering how to steal it, how to rig it, how to clean my own DNA off it.
We arrived at the police station only to find it almost as crowded as the crime scene—though most of the people here were in police uniforms. There were too many just for this department; they had local police, state police, and volunteers from all over the region. Most of them were milling around in the parking lot and by the front door as if they were waiting for something—an order or an announcement.
There was an ambulance in the parking lot. That was new, but I didn’t know what it meant. There were no cameras or news crews.
One of the officers stopped us as we tried to walk to the front door.
“Do you have business here?”
“The officer at the church meeting told us to contact him if we knew anything,” said Marci, putting on her most innocent voice. “We were with Jessica a lot yesterday.”
“And that’s it?” asked the cop. “You hung out with the victim? Do you have more than that?”
“Officer Glassman was there,” said Marci, dropping her eyes. I couldn’t tell if she was really embarrassed or still acting.
“Damn Cuddles,” said another cop, walking up next to the first. “Send them through.”
The second officer motioned for us to follow him. He led us past the crowd of police and into the station itself, where we could hear someone yelling in one of the offices. The cop pointed us to the waiting area: seven or eight plastic chairs, most of them already filled with what I assumed were other witnesses. Marci and I sat down, Boy Dog panting languidly at our feet, and I strained to hear the shouting.
“… another one? How the hell am I supposed to explain this?”
The response was too muffled to make out. The first voice shouted again.
“You’re not getting out of this with a transfer, Luke!”
Officer Davis, the one from the church meeting, was yelling at Officer Glassman. “Another one” didn’t refer to the dead body, but to Glassman’s history with underage girls. I glanced at Marci, and she shook her head.
“You want proof the Withered are evil?” she whispered. “It killed the girl instead of the child molester.”
“Listen!” shouted Davis. “I don’t care what excuses you have! I don’t care that you risked your life or got a few cuts or whatever pathetic excuse you’re trying to give me. This town’s ready to explode, and instead of solving their problems now I’ve got to deal with some dirtbag officer and his dirtbag fantasies.” He paused, while Glassman murmured something I couldn’t hear. “Do you think that matters?” asked Davis when he was done. “Of course it was all just gossip—that’s why you haven’t been fired—but this is evidence. If you’re so damn innocent this time can you explain what you were doing with her at 1:30 in the morning?”