Free Scum by James Dekker Page A

newspaper still in his hands. He’s coming to see what’s going on. At first he has a kind of puzzled, half-there expression on his face. My dad is an architect. When he’s working on a new project, you always get the feeling that he’s somewhere else, deep inside his head, seeing things that don’t exist because he hasn’t created them yet. But when he sees the two men in suits at the door, suddenly he’s right there. He looks at me. He’s probably thinking the same thing I am.
    â€œWhat’s going on?” he says.
    My mother glances over her shoulder at him. “It’s something about Danny,” she says.
    The shorter man has pulled something out of his pocket. It’s his identification. I knew it. He’s a cop.

Chapter Two
    At first my mother doesn’t seem to understand. Why are there cops at our house? Why are they talking about Danny?
    â€œWhere is he?” she says. “Is he all right?”
    The taller cop looks down at his partner. I have this weird feeling that they tossed a coin before they rang our doorbell—the loser gets to tell the family.
    â€œWas he in an accident?” my mother says.
    I glance at my father. His face is somber. He is bracing himself for bad news.
    â€œI’m sorry to have to tell you this, Mrs. Carter,” the shorter cop says, “but he’s been shot.”
    â€œShot?” My mother looks stunned. She shakes her head. Then, just for a second, I see the hint of a smile on her face, like she thinks this must be a joke. “No,” she says. “That’s not possible.” She sounds so positive. “You’ve made a mistake.”
    â€œYour son is Daniel Christopher Carter,” the shorter cop says.
    â€œYes,” my mother says, confused and alarmed. I can see it in her eyes. “Yes, that’s my son. He’s been
shot
?” It’s like she can’t believe it. “Is he all right?”
    â€œI’m sorry,” the shorter cop says. “He’s dead.”
    My mother stares at the cop. My father touches her elbow. He tries to pull her gently back into the house, but she won’t move.
    â€œNo,” she says. “No.”
    My father finally manages to ease her inside. When the two cops come into the house, I see one of our neighbors standing on the sidewalk, looking up at me. Another neighbor goes up to him and says something. The first neighbor shakes his head. They both look at our house. I close the door.
    My father is asking the two cops to wait, please just wait a minute, he wants to attend to his wife. He takes her into the living room and makes her sit down on the couch. He gives her some tissues. He tells her he’ll be right back. He tells me to go and sit with my mother. When I hesitate— I want to know what happened—he tells me, “Go, Meggie.” As I start to go to my mother, I hear my father say to the cops, “Please, there are some things my wife doesn’t know.”
    In fact, there are a lot of things she doesn’t know.
    My mother stops crying when I come into the room. She sees my father talkingin a low voice to the two cops out in the front hall. She stands up. She says, “What’s going on, Paul?”
    â€œI’m just having a word with these two detectives,” my father says.
    â€œI want to know what happened,” my mother says. “I want to know what happened to Danny.”
    The shorter cop looks at my father for a moment. Then he comes into the living room. He introduces himself as Detective Rossetti, homicide. His partner, the big cop who looks like a wrestler, is Detective French. Detective Rossetti asks my mother if she minds if he sits down. My mother says she doesn’t mind. She sits too.
    Detective Rossetti says, “Danny was in a bar early this morning.” It turns out he means three o’clock in the morning. “A couple of men came in and had words with him. One