Roadside Crosses

taut jeans and a billowy gray blouse with a triangle of stain on the belly. Kathryn Dance noted that the woman’s cream pumps were hopelessly limp and scuffed from bearing her weight. From inattention too.
    Dance and O’Neil identified themselves. The woman was Sonia Brigham and she was Travis’s mother.
    “Did you get him?” she persisted.
    “Do you know who he was, why he attacked us?”
    “He wasn’t attacking you, ” Sonia said. “He probably didn’t even see you. He was going for the windows. They’ve already got three of ’em.”
    One of the Pacific Grove officers explained, “The Brighams’ve been the target of vandalism lately.”
    “You said ‘he,’ ” Dance said. “Do you know who he was?”
    “Not that particular one. There’s a bunch of them.”
    “Bunch?” O’Neil asked.
    “They’re coming by all the time. Throwing rocks,bricks, painting stuff on the house and garage. That’s what we’ve been living with.” A contemptuous wave of the hand, presumably toward where the vandal had disappeared. “After everybody started saying those bad things about Travis. The other day, somebody threw a brick through the living room window, nearly hit my younger son. And look.” She pointed to green spray paint graffiti on the side of a large lopsided shed in the side yard, about fifty feet away.
    KILL3R!!
    Leetspeak, Dance noted.
    Dance handed the spray paint to one of the Pacific Grove officers, who said they’d follow up on it. She described the boy—who looked like one of five hundred high school students in the area. They took a brief statement from both Dance and O’Neil, as well as Travis’s mother, then climbed back into their cars and left.
    “They’re after my boy. And he didn’t do anything! It’s like the goddamn Ku Klux Klan! That brick nearly hit Sammy. He’s a little troubled. He went crazy. Had an episode.”
    Vengeful Angels, Dance reflected. Though the bullying was no longer cyber; it had moved from the synth world into the real.
    A round-faced teenager appeared on the porch. His wary smile made him look slow, but his eyes seemed fully comprehending as he took them in. “What is it, what is it?” His voice was urgent.
    “It’s okay, Sammy. Go back inside. You go to your room.”
    “Who’re they?”
    “You go on back to your room. You stay inside. Don’t go to the pond.”
    “I want to go to the pond.”
    “Not now. Somebody was out there.”
    He ambled off into the house.
    Michael O’Neil said, “Mrs. Brigham, there was a crime last night, an attempted murder. The victim was someone who’d posted a comment against Travis on a blog.”
    “Oh, that Chilton crap!” Sonia spat out between yellow teeth that had aged even faster than the woman’s face. “That’s what started it all. Somebody should throw a brick through his window. Now everybody’s ganging up on our boy. And he didn’t do anything. Why does everybody think he did? They said he stole my mother’s car and was driving it on Lighthouse, you know, exposing himself. Well, my mother sold her car four years ago. That’s how much they know.” Then Sonia had a thought and the seesaw returned to the side of wariness. “Oh, wait, that girl in the trunk, going to be drowned?”
    “That’s right.”
    “Well, I’ll tell you right now, my boy wouldn’t a done anything like that. I swear to God! You’re not going to arrest him, are you?” She looked panicked.
    Dance wondered: too panicked? Did she in fact suspect her son?
    “We’d just like to talk to him.”
    The woman was suddenly uneasy. “My husband isn’t home.”
    “You alone is fine. Both parents aren’t necessary.” But Dance could see that the problem was that she didn’t want the responsibility.
    “Well, Trav isn’t here either.”
    “Will he be back soon?”
    “He works part-time, at Bagel Express, for pocket money. His shift’s in a little while. He’ll have to come back here to pick up his uniform.”
    “Where is he now?”
    A shrug. “Sometimes he goes to this video game place.” She fell silent, probably thinking she shouldn’t be saying anything. “My husband will be back soon.”
    Dance noted again the tone with which Sonia delivered those words. My husband.
    “Was Travis out last night? Around midnight?”
    “No.” Offered fast.
    “Are you sure?” Dance asked with a crisp tone. Sonia had just exhibited aversion—looking away—and blocking, touching her nose, a gesture Dance had not observed