Free Edge of Midnight by Charlene Weir Page A

worked as a life-guard. Big football hero, he had to swagger to show his friends the tough don’t worry about a thing. In the interview room, he slouched down in a chair. “What’s the bandage for?” he said to Osey. “Keep your brains from falling out?”
    â€œI’ve been hearing things about you, Brett.” Osey sat across the table. “Things like you were involved in that accident yesterday.”
    â€œIt’s too late for the bandage. Your brains already fell out.”
    â€œI heard you were speeding. Racing one of your buddies.”
    â€œYou heard wrong.”
    â€œI heard you caused the accident.”
    Osey questioned the kid quietly, patiently, relentlessly. Brett didn’t look so tough when Osey pointed out what kind of trouble he was in, speeding, reckless driving, vehicular manslaughter if the injured kid died. This was the same easygoing, amiable Osey, except he never let up. Like that Chinese water torture stuff, drip-drip-drip, never-ending. It was interesting to see Osey pin the kid down when he tried to squirm away.
    Before she took her car in after her shift, she drove east to the huge cornfield. The house, probably a farmhouse in some distant past, was a two-story wood frame with a porch running across the front and along one side, turrets sprouted from the second story. It was not a house she would have chosen to live in, sitting across the road from endless rows of corn like it did, with the nearest neighbors nearly a block away. The birds were still there, doing their circle thing.
    Leaving her car in the graveled drive, she tromped up on the porch and rang the bell. No answer. With the tight feeling of nerves, she crossed over to the field, determined to know what was dead in the middle. After only a few steps along a row between stalks, she felt claustrophobic. The huge stalks, at least seven feet tall, towered over her. Ears of corn surrounded her. The smell of heat and corn and dust was sickening. Even with the sun blazing down, it was dark inside. And hot. Horrendously hot. Her shoes left shallow impressions in the soft dirt and the wind kicked up a puff of dust with each step. A short distance in left her disoriented. Panic. The heart-hammering, fast-breathing kind that told her she’d never get out of here.
    Carefully, she worked her way back to the road and breathed in a gulp of hot air. Shielding her eyes, she looked up at those damn birds. She either disturbed them or they were jeering at her, because now they weren’t so much circling the cornfield as flying around the buildings behind the barn. Forget it, she had a bus to catch.
    *   *   *
    Ida occupied Susan’s mind as she drove home around eight-thirty. Would she work out? Eager beaver, hot-headed, apt to use her own judgment rather than following orders. Late evening light filtered through the trees and dappled the sidewalk with shadow. When she spotted Jen walking slowly, backpack dangling from one arm, she pulled over and inched along. “Hey, Jen, like a ride?”
    â€œNo thanks.”
    â€œIt’s pretty hot for walking.”
    â€œThat’s okay. I got someplace to go.”
    A clear dismissal that Susan should mind her own business. “What is it, Jen? Tell me what’s the matter?”
    A long shuddering sigh. “There’s nothing you can do.”
    â€œThere sure won’t be as long as you don’t tell me what’s wrong.”
    Jen gave her that look teenagers give adults when the adults are being particularly dense.
    â€œIs it your grandfather?”
    Shrug. “Yeah.”
    â€œNobody was seriously hurt.” But only by good fortune. Osey and Ida could both have been killed by a poor, befuddled old man who had been a prisoner during World War II and was probably exacting some revenge for the torture he suffered.
    â€œI gotta go.” Jen trudged off and turned the corner.
    Susan watched, then took her foot