6 Courtroom Dramas

By Robert Trainor

6 Courtroom Dramas contains the following novels, all of which can be purchased separately: Frontier Justice, The Road Map to the Universe, Blood and Blackmail, Some Things Are Sweeter Than God, The Trial of Shada King, and Midnight on Death Row. In the space allowed, I will give brief descriptions of these novels, but if you would like more complete descriptions, you can obtain them under the separate listings for each book.

Frontier Justice describes the results of a crime committed by two teenagers when they stood on an overpass and hurled cement blocks at cars, which resulted in the death of eight people. During the arrest of one of the perpetrators, a police officer named Adriana Jones persuaded the suspect to surrender his gun, but shortly later, he was shot to death. Adriana claims it was self-defense, but the prosecutor, after reviewing both Adriana's history and the evidence at the scene, charges her with second degree murder. Will she be convicted? And how would you have voted if you were on that jury?

The Road Map to the Universe: Who really murdered Karen Breen? Although her husband is convicted of the crime, things change when an informant tells police that her son Jeremy was the murderer. Eventually, Jeremy is arrested, tried, and convicted, but then, while the jury is being polled, an extraordinary revelation occurs—in fact, in the annals of courtroom history, it is probably a premiere.

Blood and Blackmail: Jesse Barnett is confident his girlfriend Justine didn't murder Trent, her ex-husband, because he never heard any gunshots on the night the two of them broke into Trent's house to search for obscene photos. However, Jesse's confidence in Justine begins to waver when he is told that the murder weapon had a silencer attached to it. The prosecutor charges her with first degree murder, but the trial is an odd one that leaves everyone wondering who really committed the murder.

In Some Things Are Sweeter Than God, the protagonist is a lawyer named Lorinda Rivers—she's a public defender and a highly competitive woman. Her client, Kevin Jensen, is a man who's facing the death penalty after being charged with the brutal murder of his ex-girlfriend. Eventually, Lorinda is faced with a difficult moral dilemma: Should she ignore her conscience and defend Kevin aggressively, even if it means that he might go free?

In the Trial of Shada King, a woman is accused of murdering the man who raped her. Shada claims that she acted in self-defense, and since she was wearing a wire that recorded the shooting, her claim seems to be valid. But upon further investigation, the prosecuting attorney comes to the conclusion that the shooting was staged and that the audiotape is an elaborate hoax.

Midnight on Death Row: A shooting in 2006 by two eighteen-year-old students at a high school in Georgia leaves nineteen dead. One of the perpetrators is killed at the scene, while the other, Karyn Hill, is arrested. After she is sentenced to death, her mother and sister struggle with vastly different feelings about her possible execution. In the end, the tragedy inherent in the senseless murder of nineteen people overwhelms everyone in a tidal wave of grief.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Robert Trainor
• Release date: Feb 26, 2021
• ISBN: 9781393736202

Robert Trainor

Over the past twelve years (since I retired at the age of 59), I've written nineteen novels, four novellas, four non-fiction books, and seven anthologies, all of which you can find in the Kindle Store. Instead of writing a biography of myself, which seems rather irrelevant, I would prefer to write a biography of my books. Here, in the order in which they were written, is a brief sketch of the plots, themes, and subject matter of these books.1/ The Voice of the Victim describes a series of murders in a small city. I've always felt a great deal of empathy for the victims of violent crimes, especially those who are murdered by guns. What, I wondered, would these people say to us if they could speak? When reading this book, it is important to remember that my intention, from first page to last page, was to present the voice of the victim. And, to me, this voice is not a straight-line accusation of weapons and murderers but tends to veer to a pervasive mockery and total indictment of modern culture. This novel is much different than anything else I have written, and there will be many who will object to what the "voice" is saying.2/ Some Things Are Sweeter than God is somewhat along the lines of a classic murder mystery but is certainly not one of those books where the conclusion is some wild revelation that no sensible reader could ever discern beforehand. The protagonist is a forty-year-old woman lawyer who, in her role as a public defender, is required to represent a man who is accused of brutally murdering his ex-girlfriend.3/ The Road Map to the Universe is a well-constructed novel--at one time, I was a tournament chess player, and this book required a great deal of planning and analysis. Essentially, it's a highly unusual murder mystery, but the perceptive reader may be able to identify a standard plot theme lurking in the background. The Road Map also examines an interesting philosophical question: In a universe of four billion galaxies, what relevance, if any, does the human being have?4/ The Great Barrington Train Wreck, a truly offbeat social commentary, includes a unique type of murder mystery and is one of my favorite novels. Although I almost never include anything from my own life experience in my books, I was, just like the protagonist in the Train Wreck, homeless for many years. So I'm familiar with the lingo and attitude that some of the homeless have. This is a catchy, captivating book where the plot seems to materialize out of thin air until it becomes the elephant in the room. Also, to my mind, this tale could describe what happens to Holden Caulfield, the anti-hero of the Catcher in the Rye, as he approaches forty. It's not all peaches and cream! Especially when he falls in love with the daughter of a millionaire, and even more especially when he ends up on death row.5/ Your Kiss Is Like the Sweetest Fire describes a teenage romance between Jaime and Renee, who were adopted at a young age into the same family. It seems illogical to me, but in almost all states, the law views a sexual relationship between adopted siblings who live in the same family as a crime of incest--exactly as if they were related by blood. So Jaime and Renee have this difficulty to contend with, and also, their mother and father are both rather repulsive characters who are totally incapable of helping them. Wait until you meet Renee--I love her.6/ Requiem for the West is partially based on an apocalyptic poem that I wrote during the 1990's. Ten thousand hours is a lot of time to spend on a seven-hundred-word poem! Requiem is also an examination of some apparently abstract themes that seem highly relevant to me: 1/ The pervasive role of explicit sexuality in our culture and the very different ways that people react to it; 2/ The often farcical, Dilbert-like nature of the modern workplace, in this case a college; and 3/ Is doomsday just around the corner? The 1960-2000 version of myself considered a nuclear apocalypse to be inevitable, but nowadays, I'm ambivalent.7/ Frontier Justice was easy to write because once Adriana Jones arrived on page 10, she took over the book, and all I had to do was keep up with her as she overpowered every obstacle that crossed her path. I hadn't intended for that to happen, but that's the way life goes sometimes. Do I agree with, support, condone, or advocate Adriana's way of doing things? Difficult questions. Adriana is my creation, so I have to take some responsibility for her, I suppose, but I look at it this way: To be true to a character, one has to let the person speak and act in a way that is appropriate to his or her personality. I just can't legislate them into political correctness! Adriana didn't just overpower the other characters in Frontier Justice--she also overpowered me. I really like this book--I wish, as a writer, I could think of more characters who are as dynamic as Adriana.8/ A Tale from the Blackwater River is a novella that is meant to be a satire on a certain kind of story that is showing up far too frequently nowadays, but on another level, it's just kind of a humorous tale that was a lot of fun to write. This book is written in the first person by a forty-two-year-old woman named Alanda Streets. I almost published it under the pen name Alanda Streets because I thought some people might say that no woman would ever write a story like A Tale from the Blackwater River, but for those who feel that way, I hope you will ask yourself this question: If the name Alanda Streets had been on the cover of the book, instead of mine, would you have felt that a woman couldn't have written it?9/ The Blackwater Journal is another Alanda Streets novel--this time, she is only sixteen. I couldn't seem to get away from Alanda--she does have a spunky survivor's attitude towards life that appeals to me. In this book, she has to call on all her resources when her evil father imprisons her in a room and tells her that she has only a week left to live. As the days pass by, the terror mounts on her own personal death row. Does Alanda escape? Maybe so, maybe no.10/ Love Letters (Soaked in Blood) is another murder mystery that has a humorous undertone, which many will probably miss. The problem with writing a murder mystery is that anything that can be thought of has already been done about a thousand times. The only original idea left would be to have the most obvious suspect turn out to be the murderer. Think of it--that's probably never been done! And so...maybe you can guess the rest.11/ The Book of the Dead is about a man who goes to his 25th reunion and meets his high school sweetheart. The two of them embark on an impulsive twenty-four hour car ride that will take them through three southern states and bring them face-to-face with death. This is a tale where the boundaries of ordinary reality are stretched out a little bit! I'll leave it to you to decide whether The Book of the Dead is a fantasy or a reality.12/ Destroyed by Malice sees the return of a character who played a minor role in The Voice of the Victim. He's the world famous novelist Barker Drule, but unfortunately, he (and his wife) exit the book on page 1 when they are gunned down in their driveway. It isn't long before detective Jeff Willard is convinced that the murderer is a member of the Drule family. Perhaps it's Lenore, the older daughter, who was, years ago, secretly raped by her father; perhaps it's the beautiful Raylene, who wrote a novel about a rape victim that her father managed to have the publishing industry blackball; perhaps it's Ricky, the cocaine-addicted son who is desperate to get his hands on his father's money; and perhaps it's Dalton Drule, Barker's irascible eighty-two-year-old father who just happens to own the gun that was used to murder his son. In the end, when the truth finally comes out, there will be very few left to tell the tale.13/ How to Write an Imaginative Novel takes you through the whole process of writing a novel and then uploading it to Kindle. Among the many things covered are: Where will you find a plot? What is the best way to find names for your characters? How important is it to punctuate your book correctly? Is there a quick way to learn punctuation and sentence structure? What is the best way to write dialogue? What kind of things should one avoid in a novel? What is the significance of the first draft and why is it so important? How does one begin a book so that it immediately commands the reader's attention? How does one revise and edit a novel? Is it possible to create the cover for your book without spending any money? How does one convert a book to the correct format so that it can be uploaded to Kindle? And finally, how does one upload a book to Kindle?14/ I Ching 2015 contains a complete translation (minus the Confucian commentaries) of this ancient Chinese classic. Also included are detailed instructions on how to consult the I Ching using either yarrow stalks, coins, or dice. (For those who have been using coins, one should be aware that a significant error has crept into the method that many people use to cast an omen. This error, which involves using either three or four similar coins will seriously affect the accuracy of the omens you receive.) Additionally, there is extensive advice on how to interpret an omen. By using the correct method of interpretation, you will be surprised at how much clearer omens become. As part of this advice, I have posed a number of questions to the I Ching and have then interpreted the omen I received. Finally, for each hexagram, as well as many of the lines in each hexagram, I have included my own observations as to the essential meaning of these hexagrams and lines.15/ Blood and Blackmail is an elegant murder mystery with an unusual plot twist that took me some time to piece together. For those readers who enjoy the challenge of solving a crime before the final chapter arrives, this novel should provide you with a truly interesting puzzle. I doubt many people, if any, are going to see the underlying deception that runs throughout this tale because...if I say anything else, I might help the reader unravel this mystery, and I certainly wouldn't want to do that!16/ Fairy Tales by Martians takes a humorous look at the theory of evolution. Science, of course, claims that the human being originated from an amoeba that eventually became a tadpole that eventually became a frog and so on and so forth. However, I just can't conceive of the fact that ten million years ago, two frogs mated in a swamp and because of that event, I eventually arrived on the scene. What kind of a genealogy chart is that? Neither does the seven-day religious version of events appeal to me, so what I'm left with is a very cynical view of both the religious and scientific theories concerning the origins of our existence.17/ The Book of Dreams repeats a very old idea that has been used in many a novel. But here, in this murder mystery, the idea is taken to another level entirely and contains a twist that not many will see coming. The clues are there, starting with the poem in the Preface.18/ The Dark Side of the Moon is a tale about an attractive high school teacher who falls in love with one of her students. However, Carolyn Black is nervous that her sexual liaison with the student will ruin her career. Eventually, she tries to break off their relationship, but when he threatens to commit suicide, Carolyn is faced with an excruciating dilemma.19/ The Murder of Nora Winters was inspired by John Dickson Carr who wrote a number of locked-room mysteries. In this type of mystery, the murder victim is found in a room that does not allow the killer any means of exit. The doors and windows are all bolted from the inside, and it's considered very poor form for the author to create a room where there are sliding walls or secret panels. The solution to the murder of Nora Winters is, I think, relatively simple, but I've woven in enough deceit and misdirection to confuse all but the most astute readers.20/ The Vanishing Victim is a tale of a psychiatrist and a troubled woman who comes to him for counseling. What she reveals to him proves to be a confession to a brutal crime, but he is unable, because of the doctor/patient privilege, from revealing this crime to anyone, including the police. But even more troubling is that the woman's confession, although it contains a number of factual inaccuracies, turns out to have a terrifying reality of its own.21/ The Fatality Game follows a series of innocuous crimes in a rich neighborhood that seem to be more pranks than anything else. But when a woman is murdered in her bed, Detective Cody Barnes realizes that there is something evil lurking under the placid veneer of swanky mansions that are inhabited by millionaires. And when Cody becomes romantically involved with one of the earlier victims, the beautiful Lucinda Kane, the case begins to take on a life of its own that will eventually lead to the deaths of three more people.22/ How to Write an Intelligent Murder Mystery describes some of the adventures I encountered while I was writing murder mysteries (of my twenty-one novels, thirteen are murder mysteries.) This is a somewhat unusual instructional book that attempts to relate the problems encountered in the writing of a murder mystery to the more general problem of writing fiction in today's market where any new novel is almost instantaneously buried under an avalanche of new novels.23/ The Real Meaning of Life is definitely one of my favorite books. It's written in the first person by Patrick Devlan, a twenty-seven-year-old guy who writes murder mysteries. But his father, who is dying of pancreatic cancer, wants Patrick to write something that will take his readers to a "better place." Patrick decides to follow his father's advice, but a few days later, his roommate's pregnant girlfriend is murdered, and Patrick becomes entangled in a real-life murder mystery. Eventually, after his roommate is convicted of the crime and sent to death row, Patrick is faced with a dilemma that will lead him to the discovery of the real meaning of life.24/ Flight 9525 is a non-fiction book that attempts to answer the question as to why there is so much suffering in the world. For the most part, this book bypasses the usual political, psychological, and social reasons for suffering and examines the following: If God is real, then why do human beings suffer? Why would an all-merciful, all-loving, and all-powerful Being permit its creations to suffer? The usual explanations, such as the hypothesis that God granted man free will, don't answer the question at all. In fact, this is a question that's never been answered satisfactorily.25/ The Scriptwriter is the tale of a man who becomes entangled with three different women. There's the incredibly beautiful woman, the incredibly rich woman, and the incredibly homeless woman. Which one will he choose? Events, mishaps, and character flaws lead him to an interesting decision.26/ The Murder of Marabeth Waters contains a considerable amount of subtle black humor and describes the investigation that ensues after a prostitute is found strangled to death. Detective Devin Driver is quickly able to focus on a suspect; not only did this man send a threatening note to Marabeth, but also, her blood is found in his car. As it turns out, the real murderer lurks elsewhere, and unfortunately, Devin isn't a particularly perceptive detective, so it isn't surprising when the wrong person is convicted of the crime. However, even if Devin had been Sherlock Holmes on steroids, he undoubtedly wouldn't have solved this murder.27/ The Trial of Shada King--a district attorney in Hartford, Connecticut, is charged with manslaughter in the shooting death of the man who had raped her ten days before the shooting. Shada claims that she acted in self-defense, and since she was wearing a recording device at the time of the shooting, her claim of self-defense seems to be valid. But why was she wearing the recording device? The prosecuting attorney is convinced the crime scene was an elaborate stage production that was intended to deceive those who would be listening to the tape and that the victim was murdered in retaliation for the rape.28-34/ Finally, I have seven anthologies on Kindle that combine complete versions of many of the books listed above: Four Novels, 5 Novels, Four Murder Mysteries, The Blackwater Novels, Dark Tales, Six Novels, and Five Murder Mysteries. The purpose of the anthologies is that it gives the reader a chance to buy, for instance, five novels of mine at the rock-bottom price of $2.99.I spend a great deal of time revising my books. After finishing the first draft, I go through the book at least eight more times--first page to last page. Each journey through the book is slow and painstaking--no less than three hours and no more than thirty-five pages a day. From my experience, the kind of errors that pop up on some of the later readings can be rather surprising, if not downright alarming! I particularly look for inaccurate punctuation, lackluster sentence structure, and inaccurate or repetitive vocabulary. I also do not permit confusing sentences to stand--I can't imagine that any reader will want to read a sentence twice because I couldn't find a way to explain myself clearly.Finally, I would ask you all to keep an open mind about novels by an author who has no brand name. I am quite unusual because I do not advertise myself in any way, shape, or form (outside, I guess, of this little biography). My books are well-written, entertaining, and thought provoking, but they are often truly original, and I worry about the page-six syndrome. That's the point where some readers abandon a book by an unknown author because of a single sentence, idea, or attitude that seems amateurish to them. Have faith that there are some genuine diamonds in the Kindle arena and have faith that your instinct to buy one of my books was a good instinct. If you read any of my books to the finish, I think you'll feel that your time was not wasted because these novels are not cheap imitations--they are real creations.

Book preview

FRONTIER JUSTICE

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COPYRIGHT 2013

BY ROBERT TRAINOR

The Legend

To those who have met Adriana Jones, she is as real as it gets. To those who have only heard about her, she is referred to, rather negatively, as a legend. No one could possibly have done what she has supposedly done is something that is commonly said about her. 

To protect Adriana and those she has been associated with, I have changed the names of everyone, including Adriana. And neither did these events take place in the city that I have described. 

Otherwise, I’ll leave it to you to decide whether this book is fact or fiction, truth or legend. 

PART ONE: THE OVERPASS MURDERS

1

A cloudy night six days before Halloween...cool—in the low thirties...a light fog rising across the land.

The two of them hadn’t been thinking of doing anything special that night. School, as usual, had been a big drag—a stupid exam on all that George Washington stuff, and later on, they had to listen to their civics teacher who couldn’t stop yapping away about how important it was to be polite and respectful.

They had known each other for eight years—ever since the time they had gotten into the rock fight on the grammar school playground. No one had liked that, especially their parents, but afterwards, both of them thought it was funny, especially since one of the rocks had ended up smashing a window in the school.

Now that they were seventeen, they were all grown up, and since the only older people they had to compare to themselves were their parents and teachers, it wasn’t surprising that they had fallen into the habit of thinking of themselves as superior to everyone else. The other students at the high school were just lowlifes—all they ever talked about was college, which immediately made them even more stupid than their parents and teachers. 

Tonight, they were just chilling. Chilling on some grass one of them had stolen from his brother along with some wicked bad wine that they had lifted from a corner store—two fifths worth as the dopey clerk browsed through a girly magazine. Back home, at one of their parent’s houses, they hung out in the garage and used a space heater to keep warm. The parent figures were having a night on the town, but neither one of them wanted to take a chance on leaving a burning weed smell around the house. The one with the blue eyes had a Mom who was a bit of a bloodhound when it came to that. 

Once they had finished the weed, they began blasting through the rotgut three-dollar-a-bottle wine. As they started in on the second bottle, the one with the soft voice, blue eyes, and sly manner said, We ought to do something crazy tonight. 

Like what? His friend was taller and more physical, with dark brown eyes. Maybe not as smart, but blue eyes was really smart so that didn’t mean much. 

Like something that people will talk about for days. 

How about throwing a rock through old man Davis’s window? said brown eyes. I know where he lives. Vincent Davis was the principal of the high school. 

Let’s do something bigger than that, said blue eyes. 

What about setting fire to his house? We could bring that can of gasoline that’s over there in the corner and torch his place up.

That’s an idea...yeah, I could go for that. 

It wasn’t really like they were criminals or anything. Just a couple of vagrant kids who didn’t have much to live for. School was a waste of time, their parents were jerks, and the hot girls all laughed at them. Blue eyes was too geeky and weird, while brown eyes looked kind of scary. So they had begun to form a gang of their own, even if there were no other members. They’d played around with names and finally decided to call themselves the Dead Street Bullies. At first, they only had the nerve for little pranks, like stealing someone’s textbook and tossing it into the river behind the school. Or slashing the tires of one of their father’s cars—that night was their best night ever, because afterwards, they had snuck around a street that was about a mile from their houses and slashed about forty tires. 

But they were getting older, and it was time to branch out. The previous summer they had both been forced into meaningful work by their slave-driver parents; blue eyes was sent off to flip burgers and make shakes at a local joint, while brown eyes ended up working for a landscaping company. Not surprisingly, neither one of them liked being bossed around by morons, and their downhill attitudes, just like their driving speeds, had accelerated. Brown eyes was infuriated for the two weeks he had mowed lawns across a wide swath of the ritzy section of town. All those fat-cat rich folks staring at him like he was a sex offender as he sweated around some goofy yard on a ninety-degree day. Finally, just to prove to everyone who was really boss, brown eyes had taken the power mower and run it straight at some old matron who ended up fleeing into the house with the lawn mower growling at her heels. And then, before he hit the trail, brown eyes took the lawn mower and decapitated all the flowers in her stupid flower garden. 

Yeah, said blue eyes, when he heard the lawn-mower tale, that’s about all we’re good for. Even if we wanted to, we’d never make it through college, so I guess there’s not much left for us to do in life but lick the toes of the rich. 

My Ma wants me to go to a vocational school and learn to be a plumber. 

Blue eyes laughed. That means she thinks you’re stupid. I’ll bet she didn’t tell your sister anything like that. 

Ashley is all set—Ma has her pegged out for an Ivy League school. 

Your Ma’s always liked her more than you—I saw that the first time I was over your place. 

Yeah, said brown eyes, it’s basically like I’m an immigrant in my own house. 

Blue eyes had a wreck of a car that leaked oil and was terrible on gas, but since he’d recently been nailed for having a noisy muffler, he’d had that fixed, which on a night like this was a worthwhile improvement. It was almost six miles through crosstown city traffic before they reached the upper-class section of town where the principal lived. They circled around the area near his house and finally parked outside a tennis court that was only a couple of hundred yards from Davis’s house. Man, said brown eyes after they had parked the car, I don’t know if we should do this—it’s kind of a heavy crime. 

Arson? said blue eyes. I can think of a lot heavier crimes. Besides, we’re only seventeen so even if we get busted, all we’ll get is a slap on the wrist. Maybe, at most, a big lecture from the judge. 

Yeah, but what if someone doesn’t make it out and gets burned to death? 

Blue eyes laughed. They’ll get out—it’s only two stories, and even lowlifes like that know how to jump. 

OK, let’s do it. Davis doesn’t care whether we live or die, so why should we care about him?   

Blue eyes took the gas can from the trunk of the car, and they walked down the road a few yards before they came to a side road that ran behind the principal’s house. A minute later, they clambered through some underbrush until they reached the edge of the yard. By now, it was a little after ten, and there were no lights on in the house, so they just walked up to the back part of the house and splashed the gas over a twenty-foot area. How are we going to light it? said brown eyes in a whisper. If we toss a match into it, we might get scorched. 

Blue eyes picked up a small crooked stick and went over to where they had splashed the gasoline on the house and rubbed one end of it through the dripping gas. Coming back to brown eyes, he said, Go on—light it. The front part of the stick went up in flames and blue eyes tossed it against the side of the house. Whoosh! 

They ran back to the side road, and as they raced up it towards blue eye’s car, they could see the flames sweeping up the side of the house. 

By the time they reached the car, they began to realize that no one had seen them, and once they were a mile away from Davis’s house, they began to relax. That was too easy, said brown eyes. 

I knew it would be—the lowlifes who live in that section of town think they’re above everyone else, so they don’t take any precautions. 

I know what you mean, said brown eyes. If I lived in a place like that, I’d have about four hungry Dobermans prowling around the yard. Hey—look what I’ve got. He reached under the seat and pulled out a fifth of whisky. 

Where’d you get that? 

Ripped it off from my Dad’s stash—he’s got about six of these, so he’ll never know the difference. I put it under here yesterday afternoon while you and your Ma were yelling at each other about your homework. 

As they started swigging from the bottle, blue eyes drove out of town until they came to a narrow, little used road that led over the expressway just past exit 9. When they were about halfway over the bridge, brown eyes said, Stop the car for a minute, bro. They weren’t brothers but they liked that word. 

The two of them left the car and walked over to the edge of the road where there was a four-foot-high horizontal metal railing with vertical bars that were spaced a couple of feet apart. As they watched the traffic speeding by below, blue eyes said, Are you thinking what I’m thinking? 

Like maybe we should drop some rocks on these lowlifes? 

I was thinking boulders, said blue eyes. 

Yeah, but where are we going to find them? 

I know a place, said blue eyes in an excited voice. It’s an old construction site about a mile from here. Laughing, they scampered back to the car and took a couple of belts from the whiskey bottle before they drove off. 

This will be the best night of our lives, said brown eyes. 

Blue eyes jacked up the volume on the radio. An old song was playing—Hungry Like the Wolf. Seemed perfect. 

They found the place blue eyes had been talking about and loaded ten blocks of cement into the back seat and trunk of the car. What we’ll do, said blue eyes as they drove back towards the expressway, is dump the blocks off on the bridge and find a place to stash the car as close as we can. That way, we’ll be almost invisible. 

They unloaded the blocks in front of the railing and then had to drive a little bit past the bridge before they found a place where they could pull off the road into a small patch of grass. After another swig from the whiskey bottle, they staggered back towards the bridge—by now, they were both so drunk that it was difficult for them to see straight, much less walk straight. 

Finally, after bumping into each other and falling down a couple of times, they reached the place where they had left the cement blocks. Brown eyes reached down, picked up one of the chunks of cement, and went over to the railing. Bombs away, he shouted as he hurled one over the edge. 

They watched as it hurtled down toward the pavement where it hit harmlessly a couple of feet off the side of the road. Were you aiming at anything? said blue eyes, who hadn’t seen any cars passing by. You didn’t even hit the road. 

I forgot about that part, said brown eyes. 

OK, bro, let’s see who’s the best shot. Blue eyes moved over so that he was standing above the passing lane and waited until the next car came whizzing down the road, but by the time the block he had tossed over the railing hit the road and broke into three pieces, the car had already passed under the bridge. Annoyed, he reached down and picked up another block, and this time, by what would turn out to be an unlucky chance, his aim was perfect, and the two of them watched as a large chunk of cement shattered the driver’s side of the windshield and went plunging into a car. Bull’s-eye, he said softly. 

The car they had hit disappeared under the bridge, and a few seconds later, they heard an intensely loud squeal of brakes and just after that, the sound of two cars colliding. Running over to the other side of the bridge, they could see that the car blue eyes had hit with the cement block had jumped over the median and collided with a van and that a third car and then a fourth car had plowed into the wreckage of the first two cars. 

That doesn’t look good, said brown eyes. We have to get out of here. 

They ran down the road and jumped into blue eye’s car. I never thought something like that would ever happen, he said. 

Neither did I, said brown eyes. I hope no one was killed. 

2

The incidents described above occurred too late in the evening to make it into the local newspaper, the New Haven Daily Herald, but on the following day, the entire front page, as well as three other pages, were devoted to the story.

SEVEN VICTIMS IN EXPRESSWAY CATASTROPHE

At 11:15 P.M. on Thursday evening, seven people, all from New Haven, were killed on interstate 87 when a car from the northbound lane veered over the median and collided head-on into a van. Also involved were two cars that were travelling in the same direction as the van and were unable to brake in time to avoid the car and the van. Pronounced dead at the scene of the accident was the driver of the northbound car, sixty-five-year-old Thomas Smith, along with his wife Janet who was riding in the passenger seat. The remaining five victims, all from the same family, were riding in the van and were also pronounced dead at the scene. Their names and ages are as follows: John Synder, 39, his wife Andrea, 38, and their three children—Mary, 14, John Jr., 12, and Susan, 8. Besides the fatalities mentioned above, four people have been hospitalized, with three being in critical condition. The injured were all riding in the two cars that were unable to avoid the collision of the car and the van. 

Initially, the police assumed that the collision had been an accident—perhaps the driver of the car had fallen asleep or suffered from a medical condition, but these ideas were quickly dispelled when a large chunk of cement was found in the wreckage of the car that had jumped the median. Since the accident occurred just after a bridge that crosses over Interstate 87, police officers searched the bridge and found a number of cement blocks directly over the expressway. 

The police have, up to this point, been deflecting all inquiries about the crash and have scheduled a news conference for noon today. If you go to our web site at noon, we will be streaming the video of the press conference. 

Like most streaming videos, the picture was certainly not high quality, but it was easy enough to make out the picture and hear the voices. Standing in front of the microphone was the Chief of Police for the New Haven Police Department, Andrew Baines, while slightly to his right stood the chief of detectives. Her name was Adriana Jones, and she had a well-deserved reputation for ferocity when it came to the apprehension of criminals. 

Andrew was the first to speak. Ladies and gentlemen, I have a short statement to make and then, if you have any questions, I will let Ms. Jones answer them since she has been placed in charge of this investigation. After taking out his reading glasses, he read the following: At approximately 11:15 P.M. on Thursday, a four-car collision took place on Interstate 87. Although our investigation is still in its early stages, I can tell you that this collision was not an accident. It came about when a chunk of cement—roughly two feet by a foot by six inches—was thrown onto Route 87 from an overpass that occurs about a half mile after exit 9. The overpass allows Brandon Road to cross over the expressway, and we know exactly where the perpetrator of this act stood because we found seven other chunks of cement lying along the southern side of Brandon Road. I also have the sad duty to inform you that one of the critically injured has died, which brings the total number of fatalities to eight. 

The Chief stepped aside and Adriana took his place. She had come to New Haven two years previously from the Chicago area, and it was rumored that she had been forced to resign her position there because she had fatally shot an unarmed suspect. She was hired in New Haven because her recommendations and her performance in the hiring interview were excellent, and despite some initial misgivings about the abrasive nature of her personality, she was now viewed as an extremely capable and resourceful woman. Adriana, thirty-one, was tall and wiry, with dark-blond hair that fell almost to her shoulders, and she spoke in a voice that was somewhat more pleasant than her personality. 

Since there had been so little information released about the crime, the reporters were understandably inquisitive. 

Ms. Jones—do you have any leads as to who might have committed this crime? 

As a matter of fact we do, and although it is not in the Department’s best interest to talk about all of these leads, I will mention one that could be quite significant. Around 10 P.M. on the evening of the crime—this would be seventy-five minutes before the collision on the expressway—a house was set on fire in the northern section of town on Cedar Street. At this time, I do not want to reveal how we know that the fire was the result of arson, but I can tell you that it was deliberately set. There is nothing that obviously connects the fire with what happened on Interstate 87, but until it has been proven otherwise, I am assuming that the two events are connected. 

Ms. Jones—it sounds as if you recovered some evidence from the scene of the fire. 

Adriana said nothing for some seconds. "Yes, there was evidence recovered, and the evidence is potentially significant. Now, as you all know, I am generally opposed to closed investigations where information is withheld from the public. This is done far too often and usually does nothing to help in the solution of a crime. Information is power—it’s powerful for us as detectives, but it can be equally powerful if members of the public are apprised of this information. The public can’t very well help us if they don’t know anything. 

Having said that, I am going to have to withhold one piece of information, at least for a couple of days. However, I can tell you this: we have examined—and when I say examined, I mean minutely examined—the scenes of both crimes. No expense has been spared, and those who are investigating this crime, as well as myself, have had almost no sleep since this tragedy occurred. We are going to get the two people who did this, and they will be punished for what they have done. 

So you know that there were two people involved? 

There were definitely two people at the arson, and we feel it’s almost certain that there were two people on the overpass. 

Why is that? 

It’s just a deduction from certain clues that were left at the scene of both incidents. Unfortunately, if I told you what those clues were, it would not further our case. I hope you all understand that there is no one in this town who wants to apprehend these people more than I do. So when the time comes when I feel that any information I am withholding from you might be of benefit in apprehending these two murderers, you will be the first to hear about it. 

Ms. Jones—so you feel that this was a murder? 

Adriana looked astonished. Of course it’s murder—what else would it be? 

You’re saying that whoever threw the cement off the bridge deliberately intended to murder someone? 

I have no idea what their intention was, but I do understand what the result was. When you stand on top of an overpass and hurl chunks of cement at cars, I think it is unreasonable to say that murder is not on your mind, and I intend, for the sake of everyone, to bring these two murderers to justice. 

The overpass murders proved to be a relatively easy crime to solve, although the apprehension of those involved would take a little over two days. At the scene of the arson, an empty five-gallon gas can had been found, along with two sets of footprints. There were also two sets of fingerprints on the gas can, but they didn’t match any prints in the state or national databases, which meant that neither person had ever been arrested. 

Convinced that the arson and the overpass murders (as she constantly referred to them) were connected, Adriana had two detectives, Cory Banks and Derek Stoll, reenact a simulation of the two crimes in order to see if there was enough time for the perpetrators to have committed the two acts—the arson had been called in by the homeowner at 10:07, while the collisions on the expressway occurred at 11:15. 

We were able to determine, said Derek when he reported back to Adriana, that the chunks of cement came from an old construction site off Brandon Road. So what Cory and I did was to go out to the Davis house and park our car a little bit down the road, and from there, we began the simulation. We had to assume a few things, but the assumptions seem reasonable to me—for instance, because the road over the overpass is narrow, it’s doubtful that the perpetrators parked their car on the overpass during the commission of the crime, but there were many places close to the overpass where they could have parked. We actually went through loading and unloading ten chunks of cement into the car, and what we came up with was that at least an hour would be needed to commit the two crimes and probably seventy minutes would be more likely. A lot depended on how fast the perpetrators were driving, but I assumed, for the sixty-minute scenario, a very fast driving speed of seventy miles an hour. Of course, since we did this in the afternoon, there was a lot more traffic, but what we did was note down the mileage from the Davis house to the overpass to the construction site, which is about a mile beyond the overpass, and then back to the overpass. With that, we were able to calculate the driving time exactly. 

In other words, eight miles at sixty miles an hour would take exactly eight minutes. 

That’s right, and we found that if the two of them were driving at sixty miles an hour, it would have taken them somewhere between sixty-seven and seventy-one minutes. 

And in actuality, said Adriana, the difference was sixty-eight minutes. That’s just too perfect to be a coincidence, Derek. Because, while the natural tendency is to try and determine whether the two incidents could be linked, I tend to think that the time gap between them shows that they are definitely linked. A couple of guys commit arson and the fire goes to their heads. I guess what I’m trying to say is that if the arsonists did throw the cement off the overpass, this is exactly when they would have done it. 

Adriana then subpoenaed the records for every student at the New Haven High School—it seemed fairly obvious that since it was the principal’s house that had been set on fire, the perpetrators were students at the school. Adriana and her detectives spent the whole night studying the records of the students, and by the time of Adriana’s press conference, they had assembled a list of two hundred and twenty names worth checking out. However, there was a short list of thirty-four—these were juniors and seniors who had licenses, owned cars, and were students who had low grades and/or disciplinary problems. 

As soon as the press conference was completed, Adriana and her detectives separated and fanned out through New Haven—it was a Saturday, so there was usually someone around when they came knocking on the door. What they did, at each house they went to, was to ask whether there was a power mower or snowblower on the premises, and if there was, they asked to see the gas can. As soon as they were able to physically verify the presence of the gas can, they moved on. 

Around five o’clock, Derek Stoll had walked out to a garage with a man named David Watkins who said that he had a large gas can that he used to fill his power mower and snowblower. However, it wasn’t there, and when Derek questioned him about the gas can, it matched the description of the one found near the Davis house. 

Derek called Adriana on his cell phone. Listen, he said, I’m just about positive I’ve found the house where the gas can came from. The parent’s names are David and Marcia Watkins, and their youngest kid, whose name is Billy, is a senior at the high school. 

Is Billy there? 

No, his mother said he went to the mall—the one near the freeway. 

Did he use his car to get there? 

Yes. 

OK, Derek, wait with the parents—I’ll be there in five minutes. 

3

An hour before Derek had arrived at the Watkins’s place, Nathan Smythe had phoned Billy. Bro—the cops were just here. 

Blue eyes closed the door to his room before he said anything. Did they say why? 

It’s the gas can, Billy. This black woman cop was asking my father if he had one, and they went out to the garage so that she could check it out. My father told me that he thinks it has something to do with what happened on the expressway. We have to do something—your fingerprints are all over that can. 

I know...I know. What I don’t understand is why they came to your house. 

Neither do I, but they did, said brown eyes. 

Look, I’ll meet you in front of your house in about fifteen minutes, and we’ll drive around for a while. 

I don’t like the looks of this, bro. 

It’ll be OK—don’t worry about it. Blue eyes put his cell phone in his jacket pocket, sauntered out of his room, and went downstairs. His Ma was on one of her cleaning rampages, and he ignored her as he went through the kitchen and took the flight of stairs that led to the basement. As he went over to the gun rack where his father kept his hunting rifles, blue eyes began to wonder if the cops were about to arrive at his house. It was just so weird that they had been at Nathan’s. The gun rack, as usual, was unlocked, and blue eyes was about to take out his father’s favorite hunting rifle when he saw a pistol lying on a table underneath the gun rack. Beside it were two boxes of ammunition—at times like this, thought Billy, it was helpful to have a father who owned a lot of guns. 

Blue eyes took the pistol and the ammunition, opened up the cellar window, and placed everything outside on the lawn. Returning upstairs, he passed his mother and said, I’m going to the mall. 

You’ll be back in time for dinner, won’t you? 

Sure. 

Once outside, he placed the gun and the ammunition in the back seat of his car before he began the drive over to Nathan’s house. He knew he was probably being too paranoid, but just in case, he began to work on a backup plan. Leaving the gas can behind at Davis’s house had just been so stupid. But how had the cops ever connected the fire with the accidents on the expressway? Was it just dumb luck? And how had they ever connected Nathan to it? That was a little bit too much dumb luck. Maybe he wasn’t being paranoid. What were he and Nathan going to do if the cops really were onto them? The whole town had turned into a lynch mob—if they were ever caught...he didn’t want to think about that. So what was the backup plan? Maybe they could buy another gas can and put it in his father’s garage...but the fingerprints... 

Nathan jumped into the car. Turn on the news, bro—it isn’t good. 

They were almost out of town before the news came on. Although the police issued a terse ‘no comment,’ there have been developments in the overpass murders. We have been told by reliable sources that this afternoon, detectives visited a number of houses in the city where they inquired about a piece of evidence that had been left at the scene of the arson. We have been able to interview the owner of one of the houses that the police went to, and he told us that they were interested in examining a gas can that he had in his garage. He also told us that the police inquired about his son, who is a student at the high school, so it’s probably safe to assume that the perpetrators of these crimes left a gas can at the scene of the arson and that the police suspect the criminals are students at the high school—this would explain why the principal’s house was set on fire. This just in...the police department has issued the following bulletin: We are attempting to locate a blue 1997 Ford Taurus, license plate number 277-AXL. If you see this car, please call us immediately. 

That’s this car! said brown eyes. What are we going to do, Billy? Man, I don’t want to be charged with murder. 

They were travelling down a little used road, and blue eyes pulled off to the side. Rub some mud over the back plate—I’ll do the front. Don’t cover up all the numbers—just a couple in the middle or something. 

Afterwards, they drove for another couple of miles until blue eyes found a place slightly off the road where they could park out of sight for a while—it was behind an old dilapidated barn. We’ll just wait here for a couple of hours, he told brown eyes. 

And then what? Man, I’m scared. 

So am I. But we’ve got to think of something. 

We’ll never get anywhere in this car, bro. 

We’re going to have to ditch it, said blue eyes. 

And then what? 

Steal another one, I guess. 

It’s hopeless, Billy. How much money do you have? 

Ten bucks, said blue eyes. 

That’s five more than I have—we better hope that the car we steal has some gas in it. And anyways, how are we going to steal a car? 

We’ll have to steal the keys from someone. 

OK, but what about money? 

We’ll have to steal that too. Blue eyes pointed into the back seat, and Nathan saw the gun. 

What good is that going to do us? said brown eyes. We can’t just go up to someone on the street and threaten him with it. 

No, we’re going to have to bust into someone’s house. 

Blue eyes’ cell phone began to ring. It’s my stupid mother—she must be all freaked out by now. 

Billy, can’t they tell where you are from your cell phone? I saw some cop show where they were tracking a criminal by where his cell phone was. 

You’re right, said blue eyes. He left the car, put the cell phone down, and smashed it to pieces with a rock. We better get out of here, he said when he was back in the car. Blue eyes turned off the road they were on and headed down a narrow country road—each of them had spent so many hours driving around together that they knew the roads as well as anyone. Finally, after going about five miles, they found another place to pull over and blue eyes said, What I think we should do is just wait here until around ten o’clock, and then we’ll cut over to Holbrook Road—there’s a lot of fancy homes on that road, but they’re not very close together. 

And we’re just going to break into one of them? 

Us and the gun. 

But what if there’s a burglar alarm or a dog? A lot of people out here have dogs. 

We’ll leave the car running, and if we hear a dog, then we’ll take off. 

Man, I don’t know if I’m ready for something like this, said brown eyes. 

While they sat there waiting, blue eyes went into the back seat and loaded a clip of ammunition into the gun. 

Around ten-fifteen, they found a house that was secluded enough for their purposes—there were no other houses in sight, and it was easy for them to leave the car in a little dirt patch that was only fifty feet from the back door. Taking the gun from the back seat, blue eyes led the way as they cautiously crept up to the back of the house. No sound of a dog, so that was good. The back door was locked, but there was an unlocked window a few feet away from the door, and after climbing through it, they found themselves in a small room that was just off the kitchen. A light was on over the stove, so they could see where they were going, but the rest of the house was pitch-dark. If only they could find some car keys! Even blue eyes wasn’t in the mood to go storming into a bedroom with the gun, but as they pawed their way around a large room at the front of the house, brown eyes tripped over a low wooden table and went crashing to the floor along with a few glasses that had been left on the table. Nathan, what are you doing? said blue eyes. 

Brown eyes had hit his head on a chair and was slightly dazed. He was annoyed by blue eyes’ stupid question—as if he had deliberately tried to tumble over the table. And then, when he put one of his hands on the rug so that he could help himself stand up, he cut himself on a piece of broken glass. Billy, he said, let’s get out of here. 

Not until we find the keys or someone gives them to us. From upstairs, they heard someone walking down a corridor, and then, from the top of the stairs, a man said, Who’s there? 

Blue eyes had found a lamp and turned it on. Looking up the staircase, he pointed the gun at a guy who must have been at least seventy. Get down here, he said, or I’ll come up there and shoot you. 

Don’t do that, said the guy; I’ll do what you say. He began to come down the staircase, and when he reached the bottom, blue eyes pointed to a chair and told him to sit in it. Anybody else here? said blue eyes. 

The guy seemed paralyzed with fear and mumbled something that blue eyes couldn’t understand. Handing the gun to brown eyes, he said, I’ll go upstairs and take a look around. 

No, please—it’s just my wife, said the guy. 

Blue eyes ignored him, went out to the kitchen, and grabbed a sharp knife. Just before he went up the stairs, he turned and said, Don’t worry, Pops, everything will be alright if you just do what we tell you to do. 

Upstairs, blue eyes saw that there was a light on in a bedroom, and he barged in to find an older woman who appeared to be half asleep but sat bolt upright when she saw him. What? she said. What do you want? 

He brandished the knife at her and told her to get out of bed and go downstairs. She was hesitating, so he grabbed her by the arm, yanked her out of the bed, and propelled her towards the door of the bedroom. As they started down the stairs, blue eyes began to realize that he might have been lying when he had told the old guy that everything would be alright because it was beginning to seem risky to leave him and his wife alive. Obviously, as soon as they had a chance, they’d phone the cops and tell them the license plate number of their car, and then he and Nathan wouldn’t be any better off than they had been before. But if they shot these two, it would be cold-blooded murder, and blue eyes didn’t know if he was up for that. Everyone was calling the accidents on the expressway murder, but he and Nathan had never intended to murder anyone. It had just been bad luck that the cement block had hit a driver in the head—all they had wanted to do was freak some people out. 

But lining two people up and shooting them in the back? In his eyes, that was different, a lot different. If only there was another choice...maybe tie them up? Tie them up real good and then phone the cops from somewhere and tell them to check out the house? That would give him and Nathan some time...it had just occurred to blue eyes that maybe they could steal some plates from a car and transfer the plates to the vehicle they were about to steal. That might work...and, of course, they’d have to find a place to ditch his Taurus. 

When blue eyes reached the bottom of the staircase, he brought in a wooden chair from the dining room and had the guy and his wife sit next to each other. Where’s the rope? he said. 

The rope? said the old guy. 

I need some rope. 

What for? 

Maybe I don’t need it. Looking at Nathan, blue eyes said, What are we going to do with these two? If we just leave them here, they’ll be calling the cops two minutes after we’re gone. 

Why don’t we take them with us? 

Blue eyes laughed. You can’t be serious, bro. Ride around with these two turkeys all night? 

We can just dump them off somewhere, said brown eyes. 

Like where? 

I don’t know—maybe we can cut across to the interstate on that unpaved road that eventually connects to Route 64. There are places on that road where there are no houses for a couple of miles. 

Sure, said blue eyes, but the problem is that once they talk to the cops, everyone will know what car to look for. 

Yeah, I hadn’t thought of that. 

OK, said blue eyes, I have an idea, but first... He turned to the older couple who seemed frozen with fear. You two feel like living to see another day? 

Please don’t hurt us, said the woman. If it’s money you want, we’ll give it to you. 

We’re going to need money and also your car. How much money do you have? 

I don’t know, said the guy. You’d have to check my wallet—maybe a hundred dollars. 

That’s it? 

There’s my bank card. 

The kind you use in teller machines? 

Yes—I think you can withdraw up to four hundred dollars a day. 

Alright, that’s good enough—let’s get going. 

Both of us? said the woman. 

Yes, both of you, said blue eyes. What do you think I’m going to do? Leave you here? 

Blue eyes went out to the garage, found some rope, and tied the hands of their two victims behind their backs. They were dressed in night clothes, so before he tied them up, blue eyes let them put on sweaters and pants over the nightclothes, and he also brought them their jackets and shoes. Dress warm, he said, because you’re going to be out for a while. Brown eyes laughed and said, I hope they make it, but they don’t really look ready for the big time. 

Could I wear my hat? asked the woman. 

No hats! said blue eyes. This isn’t a fashion show, so get used to it and just thank your lucky stars that we’re not going to blow your brains out. 

But what are you going to do to us after you get the money from the bank? 

Lady, said blue eyes, will you please stop worrying? I don’t want to hurt anybody, but I’m not really in the mood to deal with complaints. 

Once outside, they walked to the guy’s car—it was a 2007 Toyota, and Billy and Nathan placed the two oldsters, with their hands still tied, into the back seat. Blue eyes now figured that there wasn’t much sense in ditching his car because no one was likely to see it, but just to be safe, he drove it behind the house where it couldn’t be seen from the road. 

Returning to the others, he got into the driver’s seat of the Toyota and drove off towards the bank, which was about five miles away. Once there, blue eyes had the guy give him the password to his bank card, and he took the card and walked up to the teller machine where he withdrew four hundred dollars. He didn’t dare to try and take out a larger amount because he was afraid that the machine would swallow the card. 

OK, said blue eyes, as they drove away from the bank, I’m going to let the two of you off on an old logging road. We’ll untie you, but it’ll be at least five miles from the nearest house. 

I can’t walk that far, said the woman plaintively. 

That’s not my problem, said blue eyes. Besides, you can just wait there while your husband goes to get help. 

He has a heart condition—I’m not sure— 

It’ll be OK, said the old guy. I can do that. 

That’s good, said blue eyes, because that’s what you’re going to have to do. 

The logging road, which was narrow and muddy, had no streetlights, and they drove up a long, fairly steep hill until blue eyes stopped the Toyota. OK, he said, as he looked into the back seat, this is the end of the line for you two. Everybody out.

But we’ll never find our way back from here, said the woman, who was becoming hysterical.

Blue eyes was fed up with all the complaints. He got out of the car, opened the back seat passenger door, grabbed the tied-up woman by one of her arms, and tossed her to the side of the road where she took a tumble into the mud. Going over to the other side of the car, he was about to do the same thing to the guy, but he had scrambled out of the car. After blue eyes had untied his hands, he looked at him and said, Nice knowing you. 

Man, said brown eyes, when blue eyes was back in the car and they were driving away, I hope they make it. I wouldn’t want to be charged with murder. 

The cops have already said that they’re charging us with murder for what happened on the expressway. 

I know...it’s just that...I couldn’t actually murder anyone. 

Bro, I feel the same way, said blue eyes. The safest thing for us to have done would have been to shoot those two, but— 

No, we couldn’t have done that. 

And we didn’t. 

Brown eyes stared out into the blackness. This is like a nightmare, he said. All we were doing was having some fun when we threw those blocks off the overpass. And now what are we going to do? We’ve got nowhere to go. 

I’ve got an idea, said blue eyes. What we’ll do is drive south until we reach Nashville—I always wanted to go there. Once we’re there, we can hang around for a couple of days and then buy some bus tickets to New York City—that ought to be far enough away so that our names won’t be posted on flyers everywhere. 

I’d rather go to Los Angeles. 

Sure—it doesn’t matter to me where we go. We just have to get away from here, and we can’t be driving this car around for very long because, eventually, the cops will discover those two old people. 

I don’t think they’re going to make it, Billy—it’s supposed to go down to fifteen tonight. 

Suddenly, a large animal, probably a moose, went running across the road, and blue eyes swerved to avoid him, but the road was so narrow that the car went off the right-hand side of the road and began to slide down an embankment. Billy! shouted Nathan. 

Blue eyes turned the steering wheel all the way to the left but that only caused the car to tilt to the right. Further and further...and then it flipped and rolled side-over-side down the embankment. Blue eyes could hear glass shattering and the crunching sound made by metal as it collapsed inwards. The Toyota front air bags had deployed, but there were no side airbags, and they had tumbled at least seventy-five feet when the car slammed against a tree and came to a sudden stop. At the same moment, blue eyes heard Nathan howl, and then he thought he heard a kind of gasp. 

Nathan, he said. Are you OK? Silence. 

The car was in an almost upright position, and blue eyes had no difficulty getting out. Walking around to Nathan’s side of the car, he stopped, staggered back, and collapsed on the embankment. So ghastly. The blood was just poring and spurting out from Nathan’s neck because when they had hit the tree, a sharp branch had gone through the passenger side window and was now partially buried in Nathan’s neck. Actually, it had sliced the front part of his neck open so that he had been about half decapitated. 

Blue eyes couldn’t take it. Lurching up, he went back to his side of the car, put his hand through the broken glass window, grabbed the gun, and climbed up the embankment until he reached the road. Only now did he notice his right ankle was throbbing and that a stabbing pain went through it when he put his weight on it, but after a while, the pain began to subside, although it was still difficult for him to walk normally. With no better alternative, he limped along through an endless dreary hour—he guessed that it was probably a little past midnight. 

Finally, up ahead, he saw a house. There was a light on over the front porch, and blue eyes made his way around to the back. This time, however, there was a dog, but although he was barking in a savage way, he was chained to a post. Still, blue eyes knew that he couldn’t allow the dog to keep barking, so he walked up to within five feet of the dog, pulled out the gun from his jacket pocket, and pulled the trigger. The dog, a Husky, staggered back, yelped, and collapsed. 

Above him, blue eyes could see a light go on. He was cold, hungry, and desperate, and without really thinking of the consequences, he smashed a window with the pistol and climbed inside where he was met by a black woman in a bathrobe who began to scream. Turning her back on him, she ran up the stairs to the second floor while blue eyes stood there indecisively. He couldn’t think of what to do, and he felt utterly depressed because his best and only friend had been killed in an accident where he had been the one who was driving. Aimlessly, he went out to the kitchen, opened the refrigerator, and began to chug some milk from a half-gallon container. Next, he found some bread and cheese and ate until he was full. Very depressed...the accident had taken a lot out of him...probably in shock...didn’t know what to do or who to turn to.

Was he just going to leave the woman upstairs? He could hear that someone was crying, but it sounded like a child. Very sleepy...all he wanted to do was sleep...but he couldn’t do that. Had to stay awake...had to think of something...maybe coffee. There was a coffee machine on the countertop, and he made himself some coffee. Usually, he detested the taste, but tonight, it seemed OK. Now he could think...now he could figure out what to do...he’d have to steal another car and head to Nashville. 

Just then, as he was looking through the kitchen window, he saw a police car racing up the road towards the house. Two police cars, actually. Grabbing the gun, he raced up the stairs and kicked open every door he saw until he found the woman, who was huddled in a closet with a child. He had almost missed seeing her, but the kid had let out a whimper. Downstairs, he heard the cops busting down the front door. Blue eyes grabbed the woman by her bathrobe, wrestled her out of the closet, and dragged her to the top of the stairs. Below, there were two cops who both had their guns drawn, and blue eyes placed the woman in front of him near the top of the staircase and stepped back from her far enough so that the cops could see that he had a gun. Mommy! Mommy! I’m afraid was coming from the other room. 

If you try to come up these stairs, said blue eyes, I’m going to kill this woman. Blue eyes didn’t care anymore. Nothing seemed to make any difference. He knew there was no realistic way that he could escape from this situation, but he wasn’t about to surrender. 

Put the gun down, and then we can talk, said the cop. 

Stay back—there’s a child in the other room, so I wouldn’t come any closer if I were you. 

Son, is your name Billy Watkins? 

The cops must have distributed his photograph everywhere. So what if I am? Just get out of here and leave me alone, and no one will get hurt. 

The two cops seemed to retreat, and blue eyes stood there with the woman, who had her hands over her face and was crying. She must have been the one to call the cops, but he wasn’t going to do anything to her. For one thing, she was his only bargaining chip, and for another, he still felt that he couldn’t murder a person in cold blood. And...dimly at first...a plan began to form in his mind. He had seen enough TV to know how these hostage situations worked—they’d try to negotiate with him, and he could see that there might be something for him to negotiate. He decided to wait until the cops phoned him and started in with all their hostage negotiation tactics. In the meantime, he took the woman back to her bedroom and had her and her kid sit down on the bed while he sat facing them in a position where he could see the corridor that led to the bedroom. 

It was easy to keep the mother under control because he told her that if she tried to escape, he would shoot her kid. Mothers always respected that one. He was bluffing, but how would she know? He got up and seeing a door slightly to his right, he opened it and found that it was a small utility room that held a washer and dryer. There were no windows in that room, which meant no one could sneak into the bedroom from that direction. The big danger was that the cops might approach him from the corridor that ran straight through the house on the upstairs level. 

He sat back down in his chair, and looking at the woman, he said, What’s your name? 

Sharise. 

Where’s your husband? 

He’s not here. 

Where is he? 

He went to Chicago yesterday afternoon to visit some college friends. 

Blue eyes looked at her—even though her face was stained with tears and her hair was a mess, he could tell that she was attractive. I didn’t do anything, he said to her. 

She didn’t have any idea what he was talking about. Please don’t hurt Alisha, she said as she put her arm around her child. 

If I was going to do anything to you or your kid, I would have done it by now because I know that you must have been the one to call the cops. I’m sorry for dragging you to the top of the stairs a couple of minutes ago—I was just scared. 

Alisha, who was probably four or five, was whining and fidgety, so he told Sharise to get her to sit still and be quiet. She put the kid by her side and held onto her tightly with her hand. Looking towards him, she asked him his name, and after he told her, she said, Want do you want, Billy? 

A fair hearing—that’s all. 

A fair hearing? 

You must have heard about the big accident on the expressway Thursday night.

You...you’re the one who did that? 

The kid began to cry—this time it was louder than before, and it annoyed him. Get her to shut up, he said to Sharise. 

I can’t—she’s really frightened, Billy. 

There’s nothing for her to be frightened about—I would never hurt a kid. 

Suddenly, the girl broke free from her mother and headed for the door. Billy, with the gun in one hand, bolted out of the chair, grabbed Alisha by the arm, and then shoved her back onto the bed. This was followed by prolonged screeching and sobbing as the little girl sat up on the bed and said, No! You’re a bad man. Pointing her finger at him, she said, Bad man! You hurt me. Mommy, tell him to stop—why are you letting him do this to me? 

Sharise looked at Billy and then at her daughter. Alisha, it’s alright. This man isn’t a bad man—he’s just...he’s just had a bad day. 

No, he’s a bad man—he hurt me. She was rubbing her arm where blue eyes had grabbed her. 

It’s OK, darling—please don’t cry. 

I want to go downstairs. 

No, not now. 

Why can’t I go downstairs? 

Alisha, you have to wait until I go downstairs, and then you can go with me. 

Sharise had been looking at her daughter, but blue eyes touched her on the shoulder with the gun, and she quickly turned around to face him. They said I murdered all those people on the expressway, but I never meant to harm anyone. 

I’m sure you didn’t. 

It was just a—me and my friend had drunk way too much, and we were in a rowdy mood that night and went too far. Now, everyone is calling it murder. 

But you didn’t mean to hurt anyone—right? 

All we wanted to do was smash up some cars—it never occurred to us that what we were doing might cause an accident. 

So can’t you tell them that? How can they charge you with murder, if you—if all you were trying to do was create mischief? 

So you believe me—you believe that I wasn’t trying to hurt anyone? 

Yes, of course—I know it was just an accident. 

Everyone’s going to hate me, Sharise. 

I don’t hate you. 

My mother will—she’s hated me since the day I was born. Listen...if I go to jail, will you come and visit me? I know it’s a dumb question, but you’re the only one I can think of who might have some sympathy for me. You wouldn’t have to come often—just once a month or so. 

She was startled by what he had said and didn’t know what to say. 

I guess you wouldn’t be able to, he said. What with you being married and all. 

Don’t you have a girlfriend? she said, in a sympathetic tone of voice. 

No, girls don’t like me—they’re always making fun of me. 

Billy, you have your whole life in front of you. Maybe you’ve—maybe some bad things have happened to you, but that doesn’t mean things can’t change. 

But if I go to prison for the rest of my life, there’s not much point in living anymore. 

I’m sure it doesn’t look good right now, but things can change. 

Nobody is going to forgive me for what I’ve done. 

Not right away, Billy. But if you’re really sorry for what you’ve done, then people will forgive you. It might take a little while, but they will. 

Not the families of the ones who died on the expressway. 

I guess that would be a hard thing for them to do. 

Sharise, if I wasn’t so scared of how it would feel, I would put this gun to my head and pull the trigger. I swear to God that’s the truth. 

You can still make something out of your life, Billy; you can still do things that you can be proud of. Don’t give up on yourself. 

It’s like I’m too afraid to kill myself and too afraid to go to jail for the rest of my life. 

Billy, if you promise not to hurt me or my daughter, I promise that I’ll come to visit you in jail. 

You’re just saying that, he said. Once they arrest me, you’ll never want to see me again. 

That’s not true, Billy. 

And besides, your husband will never let you do something like that. 

Sharise’s cell phone rang. Should I answer it? 

Who’s it from? 

She flipped it open and said, The New Haven City Police Department. 

Let me talk to them. She handed him the phone, and he said, Who’s this? 

Is this Billy Watkins? He was surprised because it was a woman. 

Yes, he said cautiously. 

Billy, my name is Adriana Jones, and— 

I know who you are. 

Billy, I won’t be there for another three or four minutes, but I understand that you’ve taken a woman and her child hostage. Is that true? 

Maybe. 

I’m sure you don’t want to harm them, at least I hope you don’t. 

It depends. 

Depends on what, Billy? 

I need to talk to someone about what happened on the overpass the other day. 

I am that someone, Billy. 

No, I can’t talk to you because you’ve already made up your mind. I saw you on TV the other day, and I heard you say that the persons who threw the cement blocks off the overpass were murderers, but it wasn’t murder—I don’t care what you say. 

OK, I’m listening. 

"I don’t need someone to listen to me—I need someone like the district attorney to talk to, someone who can promise me that I won’t be charged with murder. I never intended to murder anyone, and you can’t charge a person with