Roadside Crosses

baseline. She thought again about what Jon Boling had told her about the synth world. If Travis was mentally there, not in the real world, baseline analysis might be useless. Maybe a whole different set of rules applied to people like Travis Brigham.
    Then the mother’s eyes flickered toward the doorway. The boy’s too.
    Dance and O’Neil turned to see a large man enter, tall and broad. He was wearing workmen’s overalls streaked in dirt, Central Coast Landscaping embroidered on his chest. He looked at everybody in the room, slowly. Dark eyes still and unfriendly beneath a fringe of thick, brown hair.
    “Bob, these are police—”
    “They’re not here with the report for the insurance, are they?”
    “No. They—”
    “You have a warrant?”
    “They’re here to—”
    “I’m talking to her.” A nod at Dance.
    “I’m Agent Dance with the California Bureau of Investigation.” She offered an ID he didn’t look at. “And this is Senior Deputy O’Neil, Monterey County Sheriff’s Office. We’re asking your son a few questions about a crime.”
    “There was no crime. It was an accident. Those girls died in an accident. That’s all that happened.”
    “We’re here about something else. Someone who’d posted a message about Travis was attacked.”
    “Oh, that blog bullshit.” He growled. “That Chilton is a danger to society. He’s like a fucking poisonous snake.” He turned to his wife. “Joey, down at the dock, nearly got hisself popped in the mouth, the stuff he was saying about me. Egging on the other boys. Just ’cause I’m his father. They don’t read the newspaper, they don’t read Newsweek. But they read that Chilton crap. Somebody should . . .” His voice faded. He turned toward his son. “I told you not to say anything to anybody without we have a lawyer. Did I tell you that? You say the wrong fucking thingto the wrong person, and we get sued. And they take the house away and half my paycheck for the rest of my life.” He lowered his voice. “And your brother goes into a home.”
    “Mr. Brigham, we’re not here about the accident,” O’Neil reminded him. “We’re investigating the assault last night.”
    “Doesn’t matter, does it? Things get written down and go into the record.”
    He seemed more concerned about responsibility for the accident than that his son might get arrested for attempted murder.
    Ignoring them completely, he said to his wife, “Why’d you let ’em in? This ain’t Nazi Germany, not yet. You can tell ’em to shove it.”
    “I thought—”
    “No, you didn’t. You didn’t think at all.” To O’Neil: “Now, I’ll ask you to leave. And if you come back it better be with a warrant.”
    “Dad!” Sammy cried, racing from his bedroom, startling Dance. “It’s working! I wanta show you!” He was holding up a circuit board, from which wires sprouted.
    Brigham’s gruffness vanished instantly. He hugged the younger son and said kindly, “We’ll look at it later, after supper.”
    Dance was watching Travis’s eyes, which grew still at the display of affection toward his younger brother.
    “Okay.” Sammy hesitated, then went out the back door and clomped down the porch and headed toward the shed.
    “Stay close,” Sonia called.
    Dance noted that she hadn’t told her husband about the vandalism that had just occurred. She’d be afraid of delivering bad news. She did, however, say of Sammy, “Maybe he should be on his pills.” Eyes everywhere but at her husband.
    “They’re a rip-off, what they cost. Weren’t you listening to me? And what’s the point, if he stays home all day?”
    “But he doesn’t stay home all day. That’s—”
    “Because Travis don’t watch him like he should.”
    The boy listened passively, apparently unmoved by the criticism.
    O’Neil said to Bob Brigham, “A serious crime was committed. We need to talk to everyone who might be involved. And your son is involved. Can you confirm he was at the Game Shed last night?”
    “I was out. But that’s none of your business. And listen up, my boy didn’t have nothing to do with any attacks. You staying’s trespassing, isn’t it?” He lifted a bushy eyebrow as he lit a cigarette, waved the match out and dropped it accurately into the ashtray. “And you,” he snapped to Travis. “You’re going to be late for work.”
    The boy went into his bedroom.
    Dance was frustrated. He was their prime suspect, but she simply couldn’t tell what was going on