'How could someone do that to a helpless old woman!'
His last conversation with her sounded in his mind. He could hear her voice. He had used her to make West jealous. Brazil clenched his fists so hard his nails dug into his palms. He grabbed Weed by the shoulders.
'You know them, I know you do!' he said in fury. 'They just murdered someone, Weed! Someone I knew! Someone who never did anything to anybody! A human being with a name and a family and now people who loved her have to deal with what happened just like you do with Twister!'
Weed stared at him in shock.
'You're going to protect monsters like that?'
Brazil let go of Weed and walked across the room. Brazil tried to control himself. He was trembling, his heart pounding so hard he could feel it in his neck.
'I tried to tell you on the computer,' Weed said sadly.
Tell me? Tell me what?'
The fish map.'
Brazil's mind had an electrical outage.
'On AOL. A map with pikes on it,' Weed explained.
'Pikes as in fish?' Brazil came back.
'Uh huh. I did a papier-mache pike in Mrs. Grannis's class. Trying to tell somebody where they are.'
'Wait a minute.' Brazil pulled up a chair and sat down. The fish on the map. That's where the Pikes have their clubhouse?'
Weed nodded. 'In the back of Southside Motel. Behind a big piece of wood.'
'You've been there?'
'I didn't wanna be. I swear. But Smoke made me go and he hit me, too.' Weed wouldn't look up.
'Who is Smoke?' Brazil said.
'He broke in the garage and took all them guns. He made me go along and I held pillowcases for him. So I guess I get locked up for that and everything and I don't care 'cause if I go out, Officer Brazil, Smoke gonna kill me. I know it. He's looking for me now. That's why I told you to lock me up.'
'Do you know Smoke's real name?'
'He's just Smoke. Never heard no other name.'
'He go to school with you?'
'Uh huh.'
'And you don't know his real name?'
'He's a senior and I don't know no seniors except the ones in art class, and Smoke never been in one of my art classes. Not the band, either.'
'He get in a lot of trouble in school?' Brazil asked.
'I never even noticed him until he come looking for me and found me after school in the band room. He asked if I wanted a ride to school in the morning and something told me not to tell him no. And next thing he's talking about guns and the Pikes and how nobody in the school deserved to be a Pike except the ones he picked. He said he had special things to do.'
'Did he tell you what these special things were?'
'All he kept saying was everybody was going to know him. He'd be more famous than Twister ever was, 'cause there's still pictures of Twister and trophies in the glass cases so I guess that's how Smoke heard about him.'
'Think hard, Weed.' Brazil put his hands on Weed's shoulders. 'Was Smoke planning something that might make him famous? Maybe something bad?'
'I think he wants to shoot people,' Weed said.
Chapter Thirty-Two
Brazil tried to figure out what to do. If Smoke was planning to show up at school with semiautomatics and take out as many people as he could, Brazil had to do something fast. He grabbed the phone and called West, waking her up.
'Get down here right away,' Brazil said. 'Don't ask why, just come.' "Where's here?' she asked groggily.
'HQ. We need to get as many cops as we can at Godwin tomorrow to make sure Smoke doesn't show up, and we need to get that going now.'
West tried to wake up. Brazil could hear her moving around.
'I'll meet you in the detective division in maybe two hours,' Brazil said.
'Yeah,' she said.
Weed was getting increasingly frightened. He picked at his jersey and kept sighing as if he was having a hard time breathing.
'He made me do things. He put a gun to my head and said he'd shoot me if I didn't. Then a couple weeks ago he stopped showing up at school.'
'So he didn't give you rides anymore.' Brazil was taking copious notes.
'He'd drop me off and leave. Then he started making me late, started dragging me around, making me miss band practice. And I was supposed to play in the Azalea Parade on Saturday.' The light went out of his eyes. 'I been practicing all year. And now I guess I can't.'
The phone rang, startling both of them. Brazil answered it. He was wired and somewhat impatient as he explained Weed's transgressions to Intake Officer Charlie Yates.
Brazil charged Weed with violating Code 18.2-125, Trespass at night upon any cemetery, a class 4 misdemeanor, and 18.2-127, Injuries to churches, church property, cemeteries, burial grounds, etc., class 1 misdemeanor, and 182.2-138.1, Willful and malicious damage to or defacement of public or private facilities, a class 1 misdemeanor or a felony, depending on how much damage was done.
'So which is it?' Yates wanted to know.
'Misdemeanor, class one,' Brazil said. 'We don't know how much cleaning up the statue's going to cost. If it's more than a thousand dollars, we'll deal with it at the trial.'
Weed was staring wide-eyed at Brazil. It was obvious Weed did not understand. He was terrified.
'Hearing's set for Friday,' Yates went on. 'He got someone…?'
'I want the hearing in the morning,' Brazil interrupted. 'It's really important, Charlie.'
'Hey, no big deal.' It made no difference to Yates.
It did to Brazil. He knew from this month's court calendar that Judge Maggie Davis was on the bench. She had a policy that her courtroom was not open to the public unless the juvenile had committed a felony, and the last thing Brazil wanted was Weed's hearing open to the public. He didn't want some reporter making the rounds and walking in. He didn't want anyone except the attorneys and judge to hear what he and Weed might have to say.
'He got someone to pick him up tonight and take him home?' Yates was asking.
'We haven't been able to locate his mother.'
She was in the operating room and could not be disturbed, not that Brazil had tried very hard. Weed didn't want to go home and Brazil didn't want him to, either.
There's no beds in detention. I just checked,' Yates said.
'Never are,' Brazil replied.
'So if he can't go home, he's going to end up in a holding cell until the morning.'
That's fine,' Brazil said, not taking his eyes off Weed. 'As soon as you can get here, I'll sign the petition and take him on over. And try to make it fast, Charlie. There's a lot going on.'
Weed had an intake room without much of a view, a cell no bigger than a closet, everything stainless steel, including the bed. He could not sleep. He stared out a small grate and watched other kids brought in who reminded him of Sick, Beeper, Divinity and Dog. No one reminded him of Smoke. Smoke didn't look like what he was.
It was dark when Officer Brazil had transported Weed to this place. They called it the Juvenile Detention Home, but it wasn't like any home Weed had ever been in. He couldn't see what the outside of it was like but he knew it was in a bad part of town, because right before he'd gotten here they'd driven past the jail. It was all lit up, rolls of razor wire shining like knife blades waiting to cut someone. Weed's stomach got hollow and he had a cold feeling in his heart.
Weed was still mad they had made him take off all his clothes and go into the shower. When he came out they had a uniform for him to wear. It was nothing to make Weed proud. He was reminded of what his daddy wore cleaning out gutters and clipping hedges when he wasn't gambling away what he earned.
'Hey!' Weed banged on the door.
Someone was cussing and a deputy was telling a cocky badass boy everything he had done wrong and why he was going to pay for it.