Bad parenting.
Simple. If you are a good parent, you watch your children. You make sure they are safe. If you fail at your job, you do not blame some outside force. You look right in the mirror and take responsibility. That was the problem with the world. No one took responsibility. Someday, the police would catch the psychopath who committed this horrible crime. And when they did, she knew that the monster would cry his crocodile tears and say he was abused by his parents. Well, that is—excuse her French—bullshit. There is such a thing as insane. There is such a thing as evil.
Not one for chicken-and-egg arguments, Mrs. Collins wondered if somewhere in the world, there was a parent who abused his children who was not abused himself. She would bet a million dollars that there was. And if someone could find just one of these mothers or fathers to prove it once and for all, she would die a happy woman.
As for her husband, Mr. Collins spent Sunday arguing with the sheriff. The Mission Street Woods project was turning from his greatest dream into his worst nightmare. First that little Christopher Reese kid went missing in them. And now a skeleton? Fuck. Everywhere he put his foot in the Mission Street Woods, he either stepped in dog shit or a bear trap. Environmental groups bitched about the deer losing their natural habitat. Historical societies bitched about the town losing its “centerpiece.” Even preservation societies bitched to have him turn that shitty old tunnel into a coal mine museum. Yeah, that made sense. Everyone loves those. Fuck them all. He knew he had to start building by Christmas because the loans would come due. But did the sheriff (aka “government employee”) understand anything about that? Hell no. The sheriff was telling him that he had to close the woods down because it was a crime scene.
“When are you going to let me dig? When I’m buried under two feet of snow?! Well, fuck you very much, Sheriff. It’s like you and the rest of the universe don’t want me to finish the God damn thing!”
As for Mrs. Collins’ mother, she sat in the parlor of the old folks home. She couldn’t remember how she got there. Or who she was. Or who her daughter was. Or her rich son-in-law. She thought for a moment that the woman on the news was telling her that a child had died, but no other details were being released at this time. Then, a loud man named Ambrose came into the room and told her that it wasn’t her child. He said that her daughter was alive and well and waiting to torment teenage volunteers later that afternoon. Now shut up. He was trying to listen to the news.
Mrs. Collins’ mother didn’t like Ambrose. She didn’t care if he was losing his eyesight. Vulgar was vulgar. She turned back to the television and tried to remember something else. Something important. But she couldn’t. And then, right when the news ended, and the football game started, she remembered what it was.
They were all going to die soon.
Yeah. That was it.
They were all going to die.
Death was coming.
Death was here.
We’ll die on Christmas Day.
Chapter 28
The entire parking lot was filled with camera trucks and news vans when the boys arrived at the sheriff’s office. It had only been forty-five minutes since they ran to the Collins Construction security guard to call the police, but the skeleton was already big local news. Special Ed smiled when he saw the news vans.
“Wow. We’re going to be famous!”
Then he turned to the deputy driving.
“Can I see your shotgun?” he asked.
“No,” the deputy said.
“Did you know that the term ‘riding shotgun’ came from covered-wagon times when the man sitting next to the driver literally held a shotgun to protect the wagon?”
“No, I didn’t.” The deputy sighed as if wishing any of the other three boys had called shotgun.
“Can I use your radio then? My dad has a scanner in his Hummer. He uses it to know where the speed traps are. I know all of your codes. Ten-six means you’re going to the bathroom, right?”
The boys were ushered into the sheriff’s office without comment to the media. Well, except for Special Ed, who happily yelled out to the reporters, “We found a body!” A few of the local papers—most notably the Post-Gazette—were able to get a couple of snaps for the front page. The news vans took their B roll for the five o’clock news. Four boys find a skeleton in the woods. It was a great local story.
“If it bleeds, it leads,” Special Ed said thoughtfully. “That’s what my mom says.”
The boys entered the sheriff’s office and saw their parents waiting for them. From the looks on their faces, the boys knew that their sleepover cover story had been blown to smithereens. It probably took the grown-ups all of three seconds to realize that they’d been had by a series of texts, and their boys had run around unsupervised for an entire night.
“We’re so dead,” Mike said.
But Special Ed proved to have more than media acumen. He immediately burst into tears and rushed over to his mother.
“Mommy, we found a skeleton! It was so scary!”
He cried and held her. Whatever anger she felt at him for lying melted as quickly as the chocolate in her purse.
“Where the hell were you, Eddie? We were worried sick,” she said.
“Yeah!” Big Eddie said, checking the scores on his phone.
“We heard there was treasure in the woods. We wanted to find gold rings to give to our moms for Christmas,” he said.
“Oh, baby,” she said and held him tightly. “You’re so thoughtful.”
Mike and Matt followed his lead and rushed to their two moms. The boys apologized for lying and said they really wanted to find the treasure as a surprise. The M&M’s moms weren’t as forgiving as Betty, but they still hugged their boys within an inch of their lives and said it was going to be okay.
Then there was Christopher’s mom.
Christopher waited for her to yell at him. Or hold him. Or be angry. Or sad. But she did the worst thing she could have possibly done.
Nothing.
“I’m sorry, Mom,” he said quietly.
She nodded and looked at him as something she didn’t quite recognize. Christopher wanted to hug her and make this horrible feeling of being in trouble go away. But it wouldn’t. Because she was more than mad. She was hurt. Her little boy was lying to her. When did that start? What did she do so wrong that he didn’t think he could tell her the truth anymore? When he saw that she was more disappointed in herself than him, the guilt he felt for deceiving her was almost unbearable.
“Boys, I need to ask you a few questions,” the sheriff said, mercifully ending the standoff.
They spent the next fifteen minutes “being given the third degree” as Special Ed told everyone in school that Monday. In reality, the sheriff just asked them a couple of questions each. He wasn’t interested in punishing seven-year-olds for trespassing or stealing a few scraps from the woodpile. He left the discipline to their parents.
He only wanted to know about the skeleton.
About that, the boys had precious little information. The sheriff went back and forth between the boys to make sure they were all telling the same story. When he was satisfied they were, he concluded they were just a bunch of kids who went out to the woods to build a tree house and, instead, found a body. There was only one thing that puzzled him.