One Grave Too Many

trying to turn around to see who it was. She was pushed forward through a doorway and fell on her shoulder, skidding on a rug across a hardwood floor, bumping her head on some piece of furniture. She saw the butcher knife looming over her before she saw the face of the person who held it.
    “I’ll cut you with this. I will.”
    Diane looked into the twisted face of a boy of about sixteen, his tangled brown hair falling into his eyes. His clothes looked as if he’d been living in a cave. They were wrinkled, dirty and covered with cobwebs.
    “You’re Star’s boyfriend, aren’t you?” Diane found herself saying with more resolve than she felt.
    “Shut up!”
    She clutched the dresser she had landed next to and pulled herself to her feet. Her gaze darted around the room. Cedar bed and dresser, buck head mounted above the green-and-red plaid-covered bed, no personal items. The guest room? Had he been living here? No. It was too neat. Her mind was a whirl of questions and her head hurt.
    He stood a few feet away. Holding the knife toward her. “I heard you and him talking. You want to pin this on me—me and Star.”
    “No, that’s not true.”
    He waved the knife. “Don’t lie. I heard you talking. I heard what he was saying.”
    “What you heard was fear that maybe Star did it. You heard fear, not certainty. You heard when he talked about Star, he couldn’t even make a complete sentence. Frank loves Star. She’s the daughter of his best friend. He’s her guardian now, and he’s scared to death for her. If you were listening, you had to have heard that.” Diane thought she saw a subtle change in his features. “Do you know who did this?” she asked.
    “I didn’t. Neither did Star.”
    “Why, then, are you standing here holding a knife on me?”
    “ ’Cause . . . Look, shut up. You don’t know nothing.”
    “Why don’t you tell me?” She heard the high-pitched sound of her phone ringing in the other room. “That’s my phone. He’ll expect me to answer it.”
    “He’ll just think you went to the bathroom or turned it off.”
    “At any rate, he’ll be back soon.”
    “I know.” He paced back and forth between her and the door. “I got to think.”
    “What are you doing here?”
    “Don’t talk. I got to think.”
    “What’s your name?”
    “Look, what do I have to do to get you to shut up?”
    “Why did you pull me in here? Why didn’t you just hide out until we left? You must want something.”
    “I thought you were going to search the house, and I’d get you first. And maybe you have some money.”
    “Okay, now that you have me first, what are you going to do?”
    He took a couple of steps toward her. “I could get rid of you.”
    “If you didn’t kill Star’s parents, why start now? Look, let me help you. What’s your name?”
    “Dean! It’s Dean. Are you satisfied? Don’t you think I know you just want to turn me in?”
    “Turning yourself in might not be a bad idea.”
    “It sounds like a bad idea to me. You people are all alike. You have to have control, tell me what to do.”
    “No. You have control over what you do. You make up your own mind. I’m just suggesting you do something that works. This isn’t working for you. Look at yourself in the mirror. Unless rheumy eyes and snot running out of your nose is a new fad like green hair and body piercing, you’re not doing that well. You’re hungry, you’re alone, the police are looking for you—it’s not working.”
    He wiped his nose on the sleeve of his jacket. “Yeah, and just what do you think turning myself in will do?”
    “It will be a start in solving this. It will look really good for you if your lawyer can say to the court that you turned yourself in because you’re innocent and want to help find out who killed your girlfriend’s parents.”
    “Like they’re going to believe that. Besides, I can’t afford a lawyer. They’ll just give me one of those free ones that don’t know nothing.”
    “Do you know how to make a silencer?”
    He looked at Diane as if she were the one on drugs. “What? A silencer? Like a hit man uses? That metal thing you screw on your gun? No, I don’t know how to make one. How would I know how to make one of those?”
    “How did you and Star get her grandfather’s coins?”
    “Why are you asking me all these questions?”
    “I want to help. Right now, that’s why the police are holding her. They think she took the coins after she killed her