“What would you do?” I asked my father.
We were sitting on the back porch, he in his favorite chair, me on the swing.
It was late afternoon and the cicadas were in force, loudly chirping, providing a discordant background to a melancholic afternoon.
“Don’t think I’m not bothered by this, Buddy,” the Sheriff said. “That he got away with it. That no one blew the whistle on him. That these kids lived in such fear of reprisals. Makes no sense.”
“The football players may have played a role in keeping it under wraps, but frankly, these guys are a pair of stupids. Terrifying, perhaps, in their size and musculature, but essentially witless.”
“You’re holding them?”
“Pending charges.”
“Which will be?”
“Unlawful sexual intercourse with minors and statutory rape, for openers. Plus anything else that would beg jail time and cause them to register as lifetime sex-offenders.”
“Why?”
“Because I want them in the system and out of circulation. They’re a pair of thugs whose future will most certainly include violations of the law. I want these offenses to be part of their profiles. Sex crimes. Criminal assault. Stupidity. All of them serving as warnings to law enforcement that they pose a serious threat.”
We sat silently for a while, listening to the insects and enjoying the breeze. He was wearing down. His movements were slow and studied. He had difficulty swallowing. He did his best to hide his discomfort, but I was aware of it. “Stupidity isn’t a chargeable offense.”
“It isn’t?”
“You know damn good and well it isn’t.”
“Well, in their case, it should be.”
He smiled. “You think someone else was involved in all this, don’t you?”
“I think it’s possible.”
“Who?”
“I can’t bring myself to say it.”
“Fred Maxwell,” my father said. “The head coach.”
I shrugged, reluctant to officially implicate the coach, although my suspicions of his involvement were through the roof.
“You want to bring him in?”
“Not yet. He’s been around for a long time. I’d want proof positive before I went after him. He doesn’t deserve to be identified without certainty.”
“How do you achieve certainty?”
“I’ve just started interviewing the sixteen-year-old girls. Very disturbing. More so than the older girls. Thanks to social media, seventeen-year-olds are far more sophisticated for their age than were previous generations. They’ve only known life in the technological era, where innocence is compromised way too soon.
“The sixteen-year-olds are different. They’re still children, struggling to discover who they are. Their vulnerability has yet to be corrupted. I believe this circumstance, this havoc that was wreaked upon them by Henry Carson, has caused immeasurable psychological damage. They aren’t mature enough to fully process all they’ve been through. They’re troubled and confused. The break in this case, when it happens, will come from one of them.”
“The sixteen-year-old girls.”
“Yes.”
“And?”
“I’m dancing as fast as I can.”
“Meaning?”
“My coply intuition tells me we’re on the threshold of solving this case. I just hope it comes sooner rather than later.”
“You and me both.”