Roadside Crosses

finished junior year.”
    “Robert Louis Stevenson, right?”
    “Yeah.”
    “What’re you studying?”
    “I don’t know, stuff. I like computer science and math. Spanish. Just, you know, what everybody’s taking.”
    “How’s Stevenson?”
    “It’s okay. Better than Monterey Public or Junipero.” He was answering agreeably, looking directly into her eyes.
    At Junipero Serra School, uniforms were required. Dance supposed that more than stern Jesuits and long homework assignments, the dress code was the most hated aspect of the place.
    “How’re the gangs?”
    “He’s not in a gang,” his mother said. Almost as if she wished he were.
    They all ignored her.
    “Not bad,” Travis responded. “They leave us alone. Not like Salinas.”
    The point of these questions wasn’t social. Dance was asking them to determine the boy’s baseline behavior. After a few minutes of these harmless inquiries, Dance had a good feel for the boy’s nondeceptive mode. Now she was ready to ask about the assault.
    “Travis, you know Tammy Foster, don’t you?”
    “The girl in the trunk. It was on the news. She goes to Stevenson. She and me don’t talk or anything. Maybe we had a class together freshman year.” He then looked Dance straight in the eye. His hand occasionally strayed across his face but she wasn’t sure whether it was a blocking gesture, signifying deception, or because he was ashamed of the acne. “She posted some stuff about me in The Chilton Report. It wasn’t true.”
    “What did she say?” Dance asked, though she recalled the post, about his trying to take pictures of the girls’ locker room after cheerleading practice.
    The boy hesitated, as if wondering if she was trying to trap him. “She said I was taking pictures. You know, of the girls.” His face grew dark. “But I was just on the phone, you know, talking.”
    “Really,” his mother interjected. “Bob’ll be home any minute now. I might rather wait.”
    But Dance felt a certain urgency to keep going. She knew without doubt that if Sonia wanted to waitfor her husband, the man would put a fast end to the interview.
    Travis asked, “Is she going to be okay? Tammy?”
    “Looks like it.”
    He glanced at the scarred coffee table, where an empty but smudged ashtray rested. Dance didn’t think she’d seen an ashtray in a living room for years. “You think I did it? Tried to hurt her?” How easily his dark eyes, set deep beneath those brows, held hers.
    “No. We’re just talking to everybody who might have information about the situation.”
    “Situation?” he asked.
    “Where were you last night? Between eleven and one?”
    Another sweep of the hair. “I went to the Game Shed about ten-thirty.”
    “What’s that?”
    “This place where you can play video games. Like an arcade. I kind of hang there some. You know where it is? It’s by Kinko’s. It used to be that old movie theater but that got torn down and they put it in. It’s not the best, the connections aren’t so good, but it’s the only one that’s open late.”
    Dance noted the rambling. She asked, “You were alone?”
    “There were, like, other kids there. But I was playing alone.”
    “I thought you were here,” Sonia said.
    A shrug. “I was here. I went out. I couldn’t sleep.”
    “At the Game Shed were you online?” Dance asked.
    “Like, no. I was playing pinball, not RPG.”
    “Not what?”
    “Role-playing games. For shooter and pinball and driving games you don’t go online.”
    He said this patiently, though he seemed surprised she didn’t know the distinction.
    “So you weren’t logged on?”
    “That’s what I’m saying.”
    “How long were you there?” His mother had taken on the interrogation.
    “I don’t know, an hour, two.”
    “What do those games cost? Fifty cents, a dollar every few minutes?”
    So that was Sonia’s agenda. Money.
    “If you play good, it lets you keep on going. Cost me three dollars for the whole night. I used money I made. And I got some food too and a couple of Red Bulls.”
    “Travis, can you think of anybody who saw you there?”
    “I don’t know. Maybe. I’ll have to think about it.” Eyes studying the floor.
    “Good. And what time did you come home?”
    “One-thirty. Maybe two. I don’t know.”
    She asked more questions about Monday night and then about school and his classmates. She wasn’t able to decide whether or not he was telling the truth since he wasn’t deviating much from his