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right, I’ll be with Todd.” He raised his eyes to mine. “What about you, Mom?”
“I’ll be fine,” I said, with more calm than I felt.
I called the Druckmans’ house and told the machine that we’d had a family emergency. If Eileen could come to the Stoneberry cul-de-sac to wait for Arch, we would deeply appreciate it. I closed the cell phone, thinking I should call St. Luke’s Episcopal Church, where John Richard was a sometime parishioner. But I couldn’t face it. I stared out the windshield, unable to think. The sun’s glare on the dust burned my eyes.
Cops swarmed all around us. Once again. Arch’s breath began to come out as soblike gasps. I hugged him. Shoulders heaving, he accepted the embrace.
Tom startled us by opening the back door. He slid in again, his face grim. Still, he reached over and patted Arch on the back.
“Hey, buddy. I’m sorry. We’re going to take care of you.”
Arch cleared his throat once, twice. Then the three of us were silent. What if the cops insisted Arch go to the department with me? I couldn’t contemplate it.
When Eileen Druckman’s black BMW wagon roared up, I thanked God. Eileen leaped out of the car and trotted toward the van. She wore a gray sweatsuit. Her dark hair was wet, as if she’d just gotten out of the shower. Bless her for answering my desperate call so quickly.
I jumped out when Eileen was intercepted by a cop. He seemed to accept her explanation for why she was here, and let her go. As I walked over to meet her, I noted that what had to be my heightened adrenaline from finding John Richard had diminished the physical pain from that morning’s assault. Once again, I shook my head at the irony.
“John Richard’s been shot,” I murmured. “He’s dead.”
Eileen’s slim, pretty face twitched. “Good Lord.”
With Tom helping him, Arch slowly descended from the van. He still had the black-and-gold quilt pulled tightly around his head and shoulders. On this breezy, dusty June afternoon, he needed the protection. Before my son was allowed to leave, thought, the same policeman intercepted him.
“We need him to give a statement, ma’am,” the cop informed me.
My shoulders slumped. “Can’t it possibly wait?”
He shook his head, but his tone softened. “The detectives aren’t here yet. Tell you what, I’ll take a preliminary report. You need to be here, though.”
I nodded. Of course. I knew a parent had to be present when a minor was questioned. But I sure didn’t look forward to it.
We walked to his car, which smelled of tuna sandwiches and old vinyl. In a halting voice, Arch told the patrolman everything he’d seen, from the old man in the blue sedan (he’d been up knocking on the door when the guy asked for his money), to there being no answer at his father’s house. When we got to the part about how I’d told him to wait while I went to the garage, the patrolman flicked me a look. Still numb, I pressed my lips together and shrugged. When Arch broke down and started crying, the cop told him he could leave.
Eileen walked over and held Arch. “Todd’s waiting for you. OH, you dear boy, I’m so sorry.”
“Arch!” Tom called after him. “I’ll come over to the Druckmans’ house as soon as I finish here with your mom. All right?”
Arch looked back and nodded, his face a pale sliver inside the dark quilt.
When Eileen’s wagon had belched smoke and taken off down Stoneberry, Tom muttered to me that he’d return in a few minutes. He strode back up the driveway. I couldn’t think of what I was supposed to do. The policeman said I needed to wait for the detectives, so I climbed back into the van’s driver’s seat. There were now six Furman County Sheriff’s Department cars parked at various angles in the cul-de-sac.
It was going to be a long afternoon.
Cops came and went. One unrolled yellow crime-scene tape around John Richard’s rental property. The coroner arrived.
I had no idea how much time had passed. Finally, finally, Tom came