Pepper?
No, I didn’t feel so good about my chances. “I want to call my parents,” I said.
“Dylan wants to call his parents,” Detective Forehead told his partner, in a mocking, playground-bully way.
“Do you really?” Detective Hair Gel asked. “I doubt that. I mean, what are you going to tell them, that you’re down at the police station because you were out doing drugs and killed your best buddy? Because that’s what we’ve got on you right now. The only question is whether it was an accident or intentional. And let me tell you, we’re a lot more likely to lean toward the accidental side of the situation if you just come clean about what you were up to tonight.”
It was starting to look like I’d never get home. At least not until I’d served a good twenty years in maximum security. Iwondered what I’d done to deserve this kind of trouble. Obviously, I didn’t kill Hector, but maybe I’d done something else the universe was paying me back for.
Just then, the door opened and a lady cop motioned for the detectives to come into the hall. “Sit tight, kid,” Detective Forehead told me. “We’ll be back to have you sign a confession in a minute.”
They didn’t have anything for me to sign when they came back, though. Instead, they did something I never would’ve expected in a million years. They told me to go home.
I’m like, “What? Just like that?”
“Just like that,” Detective Forehead said as he studied the contents of some kind of paperwork.
“Don’t worry, Dylan,” added Detective Hair Gel. “We’ll be in touch. Don’t leave the city.”
Don’t leave the city
. Like maybe I had a private jet waiting to fly me off to Acapulco.
CHAPTER 3
Waiting for my parents to come pick us up, Randy and I sat on the edge of the concrete planter in front of the station trading interrogation stories as we simultaneously texted the news to whoever came to mind. Turned out Randy didn’t crack under pressure after all. In fact, he had a better strategy than I did—playing dumb ass. He acted like he couldn’t even understand the questions, getting the cops to restate them over and over, then acting like he understood, only to come up with an answer that made no sense at all.
“I think those guys chasing us might have been Wiccans,” he told them when they asked him how long he’d known Hector.
Not bad. Maybe Randy was some kind of weird genius after all. He wore them out way before they could wear him out, so they came back at me.
“But why do you think they let us go all of a sudden like that?” he asked, the streetlight shining on his oily brown hair.
“Simple,” I said. “They probably finally called the grocery store and found out we were at work all evening. Idiots.”
“Yeah,” he said. “Kind of hard to get loaded up on ecstasy with your buddies when you’re standing around catching salamicoming down a conveyor belt and packing it into paper or plastic. They should’ve called the store before hauling us to the station.”
“Nazis.”
Driving us home, my parents also got pissed about the cops giving us the third degree, but did they do anything about it? No. They just rattled on about civil rights until it finally dawned on my mom that finding a dead kid in a Dumpster might be traumatic for our tender teenage minds. Then she and Dad both started in with their TV-talk-show psychotherapy. Randy and I traded exasperated looks like,
Parents—how can they be so clueless?
At home, I passed on their offer to sit around the kitchen table with some cold leftovers and discuss my feelings about what happened. They meant well, but how could I talk about Hector Maldonado while Mom and Dad stared back at me like I was still their five-year-old little teddy bear? No, I accepted the cold meat loaf all right, but I took it back to my room, where I could call my all-time best friend and confidante, Audrey Hoffman.
I’d known Audrey since the days of the little inflatable
No, I didn’t feel so good about my chances. “I want to call my parents,” I said.
“Dylan wants to call his parents,” Detective Forehead told his partner, in a mocking, playground-bully way.
“Do you really?” Detective Hair Gel asked. “I doubt that. I mean, what are you going to tell them, that you’re down at the police station because you were out doing drugs and killed your best buddy? Because that’s what we’ve got on you right now. The only question is whether it was an accident or intentional. And let me tell you, we’re a lot more likely to lean toward the accidental side of the situation if you just come clean about what you were up to tonight.”
It was starting to look like I’d never get home. At least not until I’d served a good twenty years in maximum security. Iwondered what I’d done to deserve this kind of trouble. Obviously, I didn’t kill Hector, but maybe I’d done something else the universe was paying me back for.
Just then, the door opened and a lady cop motioned for the detectives to come into the hall. “Sit tight, kid,” Detective Forehead told me. “We’ll be back to have you sign a confession in a minute.”
They didn’t have anything for me to sign when they came back, though. Instead, they did something I never would’ve expected in a million years. They told me to go home.
I’m like, “What? Just like that?”
“Just like that,” Detective Forehead said as he studied the contents of some kind of paperwork.
“Don’t worry, Dylan,” added Detective Hair Gel. “We’ll be in touch. Don’t leave the city.”
Don’t leave the city
. Like maybe I had a private jet waiting to fly me off to Acapulco.
CHAPTER 3
Waiting for my parents to come pick us up, Randy and I sat on the edge of the concrete planter in front of the station trading interrogation stories as we simultaneously texted the news to whoever came to mind. Turned out Randy didn’t crack under pressure after all. In fact, he had a better strategy than I did—playing dumb ass. He acted like he couldn’t even understand the questions, getting the cops to restate them over and over, then acting like he understood, only to come up with an answer that made no sense at all.
“I think those guys chasing us might have been Wiccans,” he told them when they asked him how long he’d known Hector.
Not bad. Maybe Randy was some kind of weird genius after all. He wore them out way before they could wear him out, so they came back at me.
“But why do you think they let us go all of a sudden like that?” he asked, the streetlight shining on his oily brown hair.
“Simple,” I said. “They probably finally called the grocery store and found out we were at work all evening. Idiots.”
“Yeah,” he said. “Kind of hard to get loaded up on ecstasy with your buddies when you’re standing around catching salamicoming down a conveyor belt and packing it into paper or plastic. They should’ve called the store before hauling us to the station.”
“Nazis.”
Driving us home, my parents also got pissed about the cops giving us the third degree, but did they do anything about it? No. They just rattled on about civil rights until it finally dawned on my mom that finding a dead kid in a Dumpster might be traumatic for our tender teenage minds. Then she and Dad both started in with their TV-talk-show psychotherapy. Randy and I traded exasperated looks like,
Parents—how can they be so clueless?
At home, I passed on their offer to sit around the kitchen table with some cold leftovers and discuss my feelings about what happened. They meant well, but how could I talk about Hector Maldonado while Mom and Dad stared back at me like I was still their five-year-old little teddy bear? No, I accepted the cold meat loaf all right, but I took it back to my room, where I could call my all-time best friend and confidante, Audrey Hoffman.
I’d known Audrey since the days of the little inflatable