The Truth In Three Cigarettes

A woman is interrogated for a crime she could've prevented if she'd kept her calm, but revenge for her son's death seemed more important at the time.

 

 

“Tell me then"what was your goal, Mrs. Florence?” the Detective asked"Tenpenny, his name was"twirling that stupid Florida-shaped keychain around his finger.

Beth still wasn’t sure what the keychain was for, Detective Tenpenny had been fiddling with the souvenir during the whole interview. Maybe it was some good luck charm"could’ve used one of those last night, she mused"or maybe it served as part of the interrogation tactic. A distraction. It bothered her more than it should have, Beth thought, focusing more on the keychain than the question. Do I know someone in Florida? she wondered, finding her thoughts to often segue into other tangents, other concerns, other questions. These past twenty-four hours, her mind had “been everywhere but between her ears,” as her husband would say"Tom, who still didn’t know what she’d done. Now Tenpenny was asking her questions about motive, about intention"like this had all been some grand plan. There was motive"of course there was motive"and there was an intention. A good intention. It was an impulsive plan, yes, but Beth honestly felt like everything was out of her hands once Dylan Porter showed up in town. Like a gun had gone off, a lightbulb clicked, and Beth was lost to an instinct she’d considered long buried"she felt urges only innocently daydreamed about.

Revenge. Revenge! REVENGE!

Beth Florence didn’t say any of this to Detective Tenpenny, however, because the words just wouldn’t come out. She was still trying to think of friends or relatives who had moved to Florida recently, but came up with none. Next Beth was wondering what the weather was like in Florida during this time of year"probably humid and muggy"and pictured Detective Tenpenny in a bathing suit buying that tourist crap from some street-vendor.

She realized she’d forgotten his question.

The Detective didn’t appreciate her silence, apparently, and stuffed that keychain into his pocket with a groan. “Come on, Mrs. Florence. Please. Give me something,” he begged, circling the metal table and then sitting on the edge next to her chair. “Let’s start over, okay?”

Beth looked up at Tenpenny. He had big gray eyes like Jason’s, but the Detective’s were worn from age"dimmer than her son’s had been"lacking that promising youthful glow of a nineteen-year-old. That’s what Beth remembered and missed the most: her son’s brightness. The pleasantness he radiated was infectious. She’d loved being around her son"he was God’s little gift to this planet and she missed him so damn much.

“I’m Detective Tenpenny,” he said with a hand held to his chest. “And I’m here to talk to you about Dylan Porter. I’m aware he was the passenger of your son’s car during the accident, but can you tell me about your meeting with him last night?”

Beth could tell him everything. The words were there. The memories, fresh. But she looked up at Tenpenny’s face and saw no true compassion, felt no understanding. Jason would have forgiven me for what  happened, she thought. Beth felt no urge to explain anything to this man with his slightly-sour breath, his scruffy unshaved beard, his agenda and his lack of concern. Why tell him anything? He wouldn’t understand what she meant, what she felt. Her motives? Her intention? Like Tenpenny could fathom the remorse of losing a son. Like he knew.  Would he understand how much happiness Jason supplied her"how it felt to know that would never come back? How about how far Beth was willing to go to get a bit of that happiness back. Could Tenpenny ever see it her way? 

“Let’s start with your son, then, shall we?” Tenpenny said. Then the Detective actually lit a cigarette"right in front of her, without asking"and Beth found that terribly cliché. He even looked at her through the swirling smoke, eyes squinted, with a knowing smirk. Why do people do things to themselves they know will hurt them in the end? she pondered, watching the tobacco burn, bothered by the poignancy of that thought. She tossed the idea aside. All Tenpenny wanted, Beth realized, was a confession. All he wanted was to hear her say the words out loud. He nodded and said, “I know you’re not an idiot, Beth. You’re a cop. You’re one of us.” He reached across the table and dragged an ashtray to his side. “I’ve got three cigarettes left, Beth, and if you’re not talking by the end of that last one"I’m not going to be able to help you like one of us.”

Beth looked away.

She thought about her son and smiled.

 

1

 

Jason. Home in Sacramento from New York University for spring break, Jason who hadn’t gotten a haircut since Christmas, apparently. He’d “met someone” who “dug guys with long hair” and Beth had taken that as a reason enough for the change. It looked good on him. He said the girl was named “Anne,” but that was as much as he’d been able to share with his mother. They spent the afternoon cooking dinner for the family get-together that night. Four-cheese lasagna, green-bean casserole, mashed potatoes"the works. Her husband came home around the time the other guests arrived and helped her gather everyone in the dining room. Jason’s old highschool friends. Aunt Marcy and Uncle Rick, plus the litter of Jason’s cousins. Mr. Ferguson, the neighbor. Everyone who loved Jason and wished him the best. Beth had wanted him to feel loved when he came home from college"she’d planned this day two months in advance"and was certain her son was more than pleased. He had looked so grown up, still only nineteen, but going away to college had added some weight to his spirit"he was older and wiser, if only by way of handling sudden independence. Maybe it was the long hair and stubble beard. Maybe she was just really proud of her son.

Telling the courtroom about this final memory with Jason was painful.  

The party went well and Beth kissed her son goodbye when he left for the evening to hang out with his friends. Beth wasn’t dumb"she knew what they were doing. She simply hoped her son knew better than to take any stupid risks. She couldn’t have imagined that her baby boy would drive his car into oncoming traffic and find a steering wheel lodged in the place where his brains should have been. She stayed up late to greet him when he came home, that first night back from school, and would have gone to pick him up from any location as a designated driver if he called. Instead she received a much more horrific call from another officer who arrived at the accident first, and Beth felt the joyful energy of the world sucked completely dry.

“Thank you, Mrs. Florence,” said her lawyer, handing her a tissue.

Whatever she’d said out loud, she hoped it had something to do with Jason’s return from college during spring break. Her mind tended to wander these days, like a dragonfly who couldn’t find a spot to rest, and sometimes the words that left her mouth had nothing to do with what she was really thinking. Beth took the tissue and wiped tears from her eyes"she didn’t even remember crying"and nodded to her lawyer. Kind Mr. Ferguson, her next-door neighbor, working pro bono. He had been more than willing to help Beth put Dylan Porter behind bars.   

The defense attorney"with some slimy name like Vincent"stepped up as Mr. Ferguson returned to his seat. Beth took this transitional moment to look over at the jury. Had they understood what she’d been trying to say? Jason came home from college and went out with friends after dinner and got drunk and crashed a car. Had she mentioned where Dylan became involved? He was a friend of a friend, allegedly, someone’s twenty-five year old sluggish brother. He bought all the underage minors alcohol and let them get drunk and then asked Jason for a ride home, which" “How well did you know your son when he was at school, Mrs. Florence?” the attorney asked, interrupting her thought.

“Just as well as ever,” she replied.

“Was he a partying kind of guy?”

Beth shrugged. “He was very social.”

“Did he drink? Were you aware of any drinking?”

Beth nodded. “Yes. He told me he’d been drinking on occasion. Safely, of course.”

Some people in the audience laughed and Beth cringed. She eyed the jury cautiously, not wanting to appear too desperate. Her eyes bounced to Vincent the Attorney, then to Dylan Porter slouched at the table behind him. The slime-ball sonofabitch stared right back at Beth with beady little eyes and slicked-back hair. What she’d dug up during her own research was a lot of dirt on Mr. Dylan Porter and his lowlife criminal record"assault with a weapon, restraining order violations"and he presented himself as nothing better than a petty thug. Beth looked away only because Vincent was approaching her bench with another question.

“And what did you expect him to do with his friends when he came home?”

She sighed. “Whatever he wanted to,” she said. “I don’t know if you have a son, sir, but as a parent and an officer I taught my son the difference between right and wrong. He was nineteen"a parent hopes they don’t have to hold their child’s hand forever.”

“You expected him to drink?”

“I expected him to be responsible.”

Vincent smiled, breaking eye-contact with Beth and turning to face the jury. “So a teenage kid comes home from college for spring break"he’s probably been partying quite a lot, freshman students tend to do that"and he meets up with all his other highschool friends home from spring break, who, no doubt, have also been doing keg stands and taking bong rips for the past six months, too.” He shrugged and asked Beth, “So what else would these kids do but get trashed and make some trouble?”

“Objection,” said Ferguson. “Unfair presumption. Many do not fairly represent one.”

The judge lifted his head and nodded. “Make your case,” he said to Vincent.

“Will do,” replied the attorney with a toothy grin. He nodded to Ferguson and then to Dylan Porter and returned his gaze to Beth. “You’re saying that my client, Dylan Porter, is responsible for the irresponsible actions of your son, simply because he supplied them alcohol. But Mr. Porter did not tell these kids to drink"he did not coerce them. They were simply continuing behavior that all college kids deal with when they first leave home. Your son simply succumbed to peer pressure. There is no law against self-motivated behavior, no matter what the cause.”

“Objection,” Ferguson stated. “Preaching to the jury.”

Vincent laughed. Before the judge spoke, Vincent shrugged and said, “I’m done.”

Beth watched the attorney pat Dylan on the shoulder as he sat down at the opponent’s table. The two men whispered to each other. She looked to Mr. Ferguson for support, then caught Tom’s face in the crowd"her rock amidst the emotional storm her life had become"and he mouthed an I love you to her from across the room where he sat beside Jillian, both of their eyes wet from tears. She was about to return the words when the judge asked, “Mr. Ferguson?”

“We’re good,” said her lawyer.

“Defense? All through?”

Vincent smiled and said, “I’ve said all I need to. Nothing further, your honor.”

Nothing further"there was something ominous about that. Nothing further could be done for her, or for Dylan? Surely nothing further would happen for Jason"he was dead and he would be dead forever. There were faces of young adults in the courtroom audience, the twenty-somethings of Sacramento, who simply reminded her that Jason would never reach that age. He would always be nineteen and dead and nothing further. But to think, also, that nothing further would happen to Dylan Porter was a despicable thought. The man enabled her son to die. The man deserved some punishment"why else did she go through all this trouble to bring him to court? Two months ago the sonofabitch walked away from an accident that killed her son and goddamnit but there was something inhuman and unfair about that, wasn’t there? She’d spent nineteen f*****g years raising that angel and if there was nothing further, your honor, then Beth already knew, in the back of her mind, that she was willing to do anything to make sure Jason’s death did not go unjustified"even if this trial swung in the wrong direction. Having a child stolen from her was a pain Beth would break the very laws and moral codes she upheld as an officer to repair"she would take it further if she had to.

“You may step down, Mrs. Florence,” said the judge.

She was glad to be out of the booth and took a few quick breaths to calm her nerves, walking across the courtroom to her table, noticing all the eyes watching her. Strangers witnessing such a crucial moment in her life. Beth getting justice for her son’s death. Despite the summer heat in the courtroom, all these local eavesdroppers and reporters"she had no idea who they were"felt it necessary to include themselves in her crisis. The whole situation was becoming some vibrant nightmare. As she sat down in her chair, Beth felt for the first time like she might lose this case. The atmosphere had changed while she’d been questioned"the outcome had seemed so obvious from the get-go, but suddenly the mood had shifted, she thought. She didn’t enjoy being cross-examined"she wanted people to simply have a heart, for Christ’s sake. What Vincent was trying to prove was the logistics of the scenario: Could you blame an adult for the actions of a nineteen year old? At what point was it the teenager’s responsibility?

She had no one else to blame but Dylan Porter.

For two months she’d wilted old photographs of her son with endless tears as she compulsively flipped through albums, fermenting this hatred for a man she hardly knew other than a face and a name. Jason’s baby pictures made her cry the hardest, second to his senior highschool portrait. Nothing had felt the same after Jason’s death. Nothing. She’d felt so robbed"not simply for herself as a mother, but for her son as a human being. As a young man with endless opportunity. The unfairness of it"the lack of resolve. Dylan was responsible for his death and she knew that, she felt it, and the way it looked like the man was holding back a smile let her know that he knew it, too.

It was the basic fact that had Dylan not been there with Jason, her son would still be alive"that was what motivated her as a mother. Being an officer was what kept her from taking the pen from Mr. Ferguson’s shirt-pocket and stabbing Dylan in the neck with it. She had her husband. She had to be a responsible member of the community, had to uphold what her career-choice represented.

But what about fair justice? No one trained her how to react should a low-life schmuck like Dylan Porter influence her son’s death. Her goal as an officer was to uphold justice, was it not? That was why she was here. That was why she wanted Dylan to face a jury. Because this was fair.

Beth had felt her case was sound. An adult bought alcohol for minors which led to the intoxication of her son and, giving the adult a ride home, a horrible crash. It had felt justifiable before, and it still did, only something about the way Vincent manipulated the jury with some wordplay"she’d seen it happen and been helpless to stop it"made her think the vote might favor the defense.

“Jury"please leave to decide the verdict,” said the judge.

There was a bit of commotion while everyone moved about and the courtroom emptied some of its audience. Beth sat there silently next to Ferguson and stared at the zig-zag design between hardwood panels on the floor, mesmerized by the reflection of the hanging lamps above them in the recently-waxed surface. Ferguson chewed a piece of mint gum"she would never smell mint again without remembering the thirty minute hiatus between her testimony and the verdict. And the smell would nearly bring her to vomiting the same way the jury’s announcement did. Not guilty.

For buying alcohol for minors, Dylan got thirty days and community service and a fine.

This was nauseating"she worried she’d vomit before finding a trashcan, but managed to hold back the grief. So little of her had expected the jury to side with Dylan"so little of her mind had considered failure"but some hidden part of her burst forth in that moment, something savage which refused to go away. She’d been so sure she would win, this felt like a cruel prank, restricting her reaction to blank-faced disbelief.  Her son"the justice she sought for him was suddenly pulled away again, like the bait of a sadistic fisherman. But how could this have happened?

Beth accidentally looked at him when she was leaving the courtroom and he smiled a stupid grin and winked"the nerve! She wanted to run up to him and spit in his face, the smug b*****d, and Beth knew right away that she’d never let a day go by when she didn’t wait for better justice for her dead son. If she ever saw that man wink at her again, Beth knew she would kill him.

 

2

 

The first cigarette was sucked to the filter and smashed in the ashtray. Detective Tenpenny fished out a second one, lit it, inhaled, and pointed at Beth with the glowing end. He asked, “You kept working, didn’t you? Through all of this?”

“Yes. As best as I could.”

“That’s a strong quality"to be able to work through that.”

Beth shrugged. “I never considered myself strong. I never stopped thinking about"” Her voice trailed into that and-the-rest-is-history area that needn’t be spoken aloud, she felt. It was obvious where her mind had been, even while performing her duties as an officer, or as a wife. But the role she found herself falling into over and over, no matter how much her husband or friends tried to pull her away from it, was the grieving mother. That part of her never felt satisfied, especially not after the very laws she worked to uphold had worked against her. She never let that go.

“So what happened next?” Tenpenny asked, keeping her mind from wandering off.

“Dylan came back to town,” she said, looking at him through the cigarette smoke.

 

***

 

“You’re nuts,” Jillian replied, sipping iced white mocha through a straw, and she shook her head and even managed to laugh"because the idea was funny"and repeated, “You’re nuts.”

Beth stared back quietly, obviously not kidding at all.

“Oh, come on,” Jillian said, leaning back. “You can’t be serious.”

Her best friend sat across the table with arms crossed over her uniformed chest, eyes dropping to the untouched mug of black coffee in front of her, spacing out like she always did. Jillian wished her friend wasn’t so mentally preoccupied all the time, finding it a huge strain on their friendship, and yet couldn’t mention anything about it because she knew what Beth was suffering from. The woman had lost her son in a car accident ten months earlier and, two months after that, failed to bring the man she felt responsible for his death to justice. Jillian had been in the suffocating heat of the courtroom during the whole trial. She’d cried with Beth for an hour before Tom took her home. Her friend was an irrecoverable wreck after Jason’s death and only sank to a darker depression after the trial, and had worsened, it seemed, sitting now across from Jillian, pale and trembling with desperate red eyes. 

But this was a little too much. Jillian had to finally say something.

“Beth"listen to me,” she started, choosing her words carefully. “I know what you want to do. I know why you want to do it. I just"I just"I don’t think you can hear how crazy this sounds.” With an affirming nod, she sipped the coffee and glanced through the café window at the darkening sky. The Dirty Bird bar was across the street, heavy rock bass already thumping from its jukebox, and she knew that getting drunk in that bar was unfortunately part of the plan. She didn’t particularly like that bar, either, due to its knack for drawing the local perverts and womanizers. Jillian sipped the last of her iced coffee and looked at spaced-out Beth across the table, her thoughts collected, and said, “I really don’t feel comfortable with this.”

That was the basic truth.

Beth looked up, her eyes focused on some distant memory, her face as empty of expression as a sleepwalker. That was what she was doing, wasn’t she? Sleepwalking. So messed up from her son’s sudden death that no amount of anti-depressants or counseling could repair her. From what Jillian had heard from Tom, Beth hadn’t slept a full night in months, hadn’t eaten a full meal, hadn’t wanted to make love, hadn’t been herself at all. Still the woman went to work five days a week, patrolled the city streets for crime, and otherwise maintained a consistent life. But so emptily"Jillian was finding it increasingly difficult to sustain a friendship when Beth’s energy had been whittled to a dark, bitter black-hole. Jillian hadn’t even mentioned to Beth that she was looking to start an editorial internship with Random House in New York, despite getting the acceptance letter ten weeks ago, simply because Beth hadn’t the capacity to care about anything anymore.

“Please,” Beth whispered.

Jillian shook her head slowly. It killed her to say no.

Beth said, “I need this. I’ve wanted this for so long, Jilly.”

“I know.”

“It’s not even the same. I know that. It’s not even close,” Beth admitted. She seemed to suddenly find some energy and at least managed to stir cream and sugar into her mug and take a sip. Beth’s pale hands trembled as she held the cup. “But it’s something. Something more than a slap on the wrist, at best. I at least want a chance to tell him how I feel. I want to be able to tell it to his face.”

Jillian nodded. She had no idea how it felt to be a mother who lost a son. Jillian hadn’t had a steady boyfriend since highschool and really didn’t intend on mothering any child, ever. One time Jillian left a dog with a neighbor when she flew home to see Mom, then came back to hear that little Scooter had swallowed a bunch of rat poison and died. She’d been upset about that"wanted revenge, even"but probably nowhere as upset as Beth was over Jason. Still, there had to be a line drawn somewhere. What Beth wanted her to do was wrong, it was a trap. She wanted Jillian to go to The Dirty Bird and flirt with Dylan Porter, get the guy drunk, invite him over to her apartment, and then Beth wanted to catch the b*****d driving when Jillian lured him across town. Her patrol cruiser was parked around the back of the coffeeshop. The plan was Jillian would text her when they left the bar.

“I just know that he’s in there,” Beth continued. “And he didn’t suffer nearly as much as I did. He knows what he did was wrong, Jilly. He knows he got off lucky.” Beth sipped her coffee. She used to be very beautiful and happy, Jillian recalled, remembering when they met as roommates in college. One of them became a police officer, the other one majored in Journalism. 

“Yeah,” Jillian agreed. She’d seen the smug idiot in the courtroom"she had a particular dislike for live-at-home-and-skip-college boys in men’s bodies"and had recognized that undeserved sense of accomplishment Dylan Porter displayed after the verdict.

Beth said, “And I hate him for that.”

They both sipped their beverages. Jillian knew she’d go along with Beth’s plan. There was no way she couldn’t, honestly, knowing how much Beth had been waiting for an opportunity like this. She’d been waiting for the day Dylan Porter showed his face in this city again, waiting for the chance to teach him a lesson. It was all Beth talked about. It was all she thought about behind those wandering eyes, lost in the memory of that late-night call that changed everything. After Dylan served his minimal sentence and paid his fines, he disappeared from town. Beth’s favorite topic was how she’d “really show him how she felt” if he were to ever come back. Then Jillian was phoned on the way home from work and asked to meet Beth for an urgent coffeeshop rendezvous across the street from the bar where she’d seen Dylan outside smoking a cigarette.

Jillian could never say no"mostly because this was a positive step toward getting Beth back. It was only a few drinks and some fake flirting, after all"nothing she hadn’t done before.  

“Who is paying for my drinks?” Jillian asked, mostly joking.

“I will,” Beth said, sliding her credit card across the table. “But if you’re doing it right, isn’t the guy supposed to be buying your drinks?”

Jillian took the card, considering it payment, and said, “Yeah. But I’m gonna need a really good buzz before I start flirting with this guy. It’s not gonna be easy for me to pretend like I don’t want to sock him between the eyes.”

Beth smiled.

Jillian loved to see her friend smile. She nodded and leaned back, stuffing the credit card into her bra, and explained, “It’s a trick I learned. Guys love it when women pull money out of their tits"it’s hilarious.” Jillian reached across the table and held Beth’s hands around the lukewarm coffee mug. “You’re my best friend,” she said, “I want you to know that. You’re my best friend and I’m doing this for you and I’m doing this for Jason.”

“I appreciate that.”

Jillian nodded. She took back her hands to gather her jacket and purse.

“Text me when you leave,” Beth reminded her.

“I will. I will.”

As Jillian stood to go, Beth said, “If he tries to kiss you or touch you, you’re totally free to kick him in the balls or whatever. I’d rather not have him molest my best friend, too.”

 

3

 

One last drag ended the second cigarette and Beth figured she was getting about five minutes per cigarette to tell her story. She said, “And I told her: if he touches you or anything, you can kick him in the balls. Then she texted me about an hour or so later when they left.”

Tenpenny made it obvious that he was taking the last cigarette out of the pack and dropped the empty box on the table. Beth focused on the empty pack, finding its hollowness oddly relatable, and the Detective said, “So you went out and waited for Dylan to drive by.”

“Yeah. That was the plan.”

He lit the third cigarette and said, “Why don’t you tell me how that went?”

 

***

 

Woops, Dylan thought, watching his keys fall in slow motion to the ground. He’d missed the door lock on the first attempt and chuckled at his intoxicated motor-skills, finding his fingers numb and unresponsive. It took a lot of willpower to bend over and grab the keys, his fingertips scraping on the asphalt, and he nearly stumbled forward onto his head. How embarrassing that would be"showing up at some chick’s house with a big bloody gash on his forehead. He’d get laid for sure. Although, even in his drunk and muddled mind, he imagined that this girl would be turned on by the sight of blood"Jillian seemed into everything else about Dylan, truth or not. Not to say she was a vampire, but Dylan had never had luck with women and all of a sudden this chick comes in who was totally into him. It was like she’d already made up her mind to take him home before they started talking. How many drinks had he bought her? Five? Six? He’d surely had his share of alcohol. Finally getting the key into the lock after three more misguided attempts, Dylan opened the driver’s door of his Toyota pick-up and pulled himself inside with a grunt. She was hot, too. A little older than he usually liked, but this chick wanted to jump his balls from the beginning"he could feel it. Sometimes a girl just wanted to f**k and Dylan was completely okay with that. He turned the engine to an idling putter and waited. 

This town wasn’t the same anymore, he realized with sobering honesty, like being in his car and sitting outside of The Dirty Bird"his favorite dive bar of all time"was a trigger for introspection. He couldn’t quite tap into that nostalgia people were supposed to feel when they came home, having been gone for eight months, and was bothered by how people only remembered him because of the trial. Hadn’t he had more friends in the past? Hadn’t the bartender"Smitty"shared jokes and tossed back shots with him before? Coming back today had felt odd. He knew eight months was a long time, but he thought the town would’ve moved on after the trial by now. It had been a heated topic outside of the courtroom"half the town thought Dylan was guilty, the other half didn’t care. Eight months later, he’d been hoping to avoid bumping into anyone from the former category. At least in The Dirty Bird, Dylan could gulp down a few beers and not give a damn what anyone thought.

 There she was"Jillian, leaving the bar"and Dylan waved to her from where he’d parked. She crossed the road to where she’d parked a compact yellow Honda with sunflower murals stuck to the rear window. Dylan didn’t know much about her, or he simply couldn’t remember it clearly, but she’d seemed a little desperate to get some guy to notice her. A mom, maybe? A lonely housewife? He hadn’t seen a ring on her finger"he wasn’t about to make that mistake twice"and so he really had no clue why Jillian was interested in him. Oh well. Did it matter? It had been more than a year since his dick got attention from anything but his warm right hand. Jillian waved to him before she slipped into the car and Dylan shifted into drive, foot on the brake, and maneuvered out of the parking spot to follow Jillian when she drove off.

Oh boy, he thought with a smirk, I am probably way too f*****g drunk to drive.

The windshield was a little fogged-over so Dylan started the dashboard defroster, holding one hand over the vent to warm his icy fingers. Thankfully the traffic lightened as the night darkened. They’d been at the bar for maybe an hour and a half before leaving"Dylan had simply been waiting for her to initiate the scene change and kept buying her drinks until she was ready"and he fumbled for his cellphone to check the time: 10:46pm. He had a missed call from his mother and ignored the voicemail alert, tired of her “checking in on him” like she’d done since he dropped out of highschool to join the military and failed basic training"“just like his daddy,” she’d say. She was always lecturing him about this or that, telling him how to live his life, and she never let a conversation go by without a warning that Dylan could turn out just as poorly as his incarcerated father. She might’ve given him a roof for a few years when Dylan was trying to save up money to get situated, but that didn’t mean he had to return her phone calls"not now when he was already too drunk to keep from rolling over the lane divider.

Easy boy, he told himself, correcting the pick-up truck. He was suddenly aware that he’d forgotten to put on his seatbelt and quickly tugged the strap tightly over his chest and locked it with a click. He corrected his mirrors. He looked ahead at the taillights of Jillian’s small yellow car and followed her as she made a right turn onto Abraham Road. To keep his drunken thoughts from sloshing around too much, he flicked on the radio and found some AC/DC to ease his nerves. His head found equilibrium in the rock and roll and Dylan took a deep calming breath. He reminded himself that he was very likely about to get laid by a MILF and smirked proudly to his reflection in the rearview.

Then he saw the cop behind him.

“Oh you m**********r,” Dylan whispered, lowering his eyes from the mirror.

How long had the cop been there? Had they seen him weaving? Surely he hadn’t been driving too recklessly, though he still tightened his hands on the wheel and locked his eyes on Jillian’s license plate. He began repeating the digits aloud, “Three, You, Em, Bee, Oh, Five, One” like a chant that might somehow sober him up. He checked his speed. He checked his position on the road. Oh please, oh please, he prayed, please don’t do this to me.

The red and blue lights began to flash.

With a groan, Dylan knocked his head against the headrest and cursed.

Ahead of him, Jillian’s yellow car rumbled over a train-crossing and sped away, leaving Dylan behind as he pulled to the side of the road across the tracks. He wanted to get out of the car and wave her down"he wished they’d exchanged phone numbers"but turned off the engine instead and reached for the paperwork in the glove box. “Oh well,” he muttered, straining to reach his wallet. “It was too good to be true, anyway.” Glancing in the rearview, he saw the officer approaching with a flashlight, and Dylan sighed while rolling down the window. Having gone through this song-and-dance before, he readied the registration and insurance and his license in a stack and turned off the radio.

When the officer was outside his window, he expected an explanation of why he’d been pulled over. The hesitation, however, compelled Dylan to look at the cop face-to-face, something he’d refused to do since watching a whole fleet of cops break into his father’s mechanic-shop once and beat the man nearly to death for holding up a wrench. He’d never given a cop any more respect than they’d given his father on that afternoon long ago. Not even mournful mother cops.

Dylan recognized her right away.

“Been drinking tonight, Dylan?” she asked him with a smile.

He felt his skin crawl, felt his heart sink, and could do nothing more than drop his jaw and stare back at her. Jason’s mother. The b***h who tried to send him to prison. Prison! She’d tried to make it his fault that her son made a stupid decision, that her son was too stupid to say he was too drunk to drive. It had been a lame argument"the whole trial had felt completely pointless"and Dylan blamed the whole situation for the downward s**t-slide his life became afterward. Some of his friends stopped being his friends. He had to scrounge up every bit of savings to afford a lawyer. His mother got way too involved with his life. Not to mention the jail time, the hours of trash pick-up, and the fine. The reason he spent eight months with a cousin in Florida was to stop getting so many harsh stares from the locals. Jason’s mother"Officer Florence, he remembered"had been bitter and wanted to pull down the world with her, so she’d gone after Dylan, and she’d thankfully failed.

He smiled back and said, “No, ma’am.”

Officer Florence nodded, her hands on her hip. “I’m sure.”

“Would you like to see my license and"”

“Cut the bullshit, Dylan. Get out of the car.”

He frowned and took back his paperwork. Her tone was forceful, though with a hint of insecurity"the woman was small and the voice she was using was too big for her, like a heavy sword she couldn’t wield properly. Following directions, he moved to open the door and Florence stepped aside, one hand already on her holstered handgun. For a moment, when Dylan was closing the door behind him, he actually felt afraid for his life. There was something oddly discomforting about how this scene was unfolding. He felt helpless to avoid it, however, finding his eyes drawn to the badge on her chest and the grimace on her face. Officer Florence’s eyes were exploding with hate. He could feel the heat of her resentment despite a cool breeze. But he told himself to stay calm, play sober, and just let her be angry and upset. Don’t make it worse, his rational mind spoke. 

The dumbass within him"difficult to contain while drunk"said, “Long time no see.”

Florence ordered, “Put your hands on top of the car. Spread your legs.”

He nodded and obeyed, sniffing his clothes"they reeked of tequila, to his dismay"to calibrate how much trouble he had to dig himself out of. A lot of trouble. This wouldn’t be his first DUI. This would be a messy situation"impounded truck, revoked license"and Dylan wasn’t mentally prepared to deal with that. As Officer Florence brusquely patted him down, he debated the idea of admitting to being drunk outright and skipping all this patting-down and breathalyzer crap. But when Florence forcefully spun him around and shoved him against the truck, Dylan felt a different emotion bubble out from the buzz: pride. He only felt his pride when it was threatened"either in court or on the side of the road"and Dylan decided immediately that he’d play along with this b***h’s demands"let her get her little fix, let her get off on her power. He found the idea strangely compelling. If he was about to have this woman f**k up his life all over again, why not have a little fun with it?

“Go to the tracks,” she told him, pointing. So matter-of-factly"was she holding back how she really felt, too? Was she going to say anything about her son?

“Yes, ma’am.”

She followed him to the weed-infested tracks and stood in the road while Dylan waited for further instructions. Trains came through three or four times a day, but never this late, though that ominous what-if­ sensation kept him glancing over his shoulder and listening for a distant horn. His innate apprehension gave the situation a back-to-the-wall feeling, like being led to a cliff or walking the plank. Florence put her hands on her hips and said, “Walk fifty steps on the beam.”

Balancing would be nearly impossible. He already knew that.

Still, he stepped onto one of the tracks and stuck out his arms and gave it a try anyway. He had a flash-image of himself running"sprinting into the darkness beyond the tracks"but then saw Officer Florence whipping out that gun and happily shooting him down. Really that was his only option"other than lying"if he didn’t want to take the consequence of his action. There was no lawyer to defend him this time. No jury. He wouldn’t go to prison for some stupid kid’s bad decision, but he’d go to jail for driving under the influence. That he could live with. That he felt he deserved.

Fifteen steps away, he slipped off the beam. “Woops,” he said, turning to face Officer Florence. She shook her head and waved for him to return, ready with the breathalyzer, and Dylan groaned"knowing his time outside of handcuffs and a jail cell was limited. He wondered, briefly, if he might be able to apologize to the woman. Maybe she would let him go if he apologized? 

“I’m"sorry,” he tried, recognizing how forced that sounded. “I’m sorry.”

“You’re going to breathe into this for me,” she said, ignoring his apology. Her face was solid and cold, her eyes empty of emotion. That rage he’d felt radiating from her had dwindled to a small flicker, perhaps to allow her to remain professional, and Dylan was impressed. Considering how emotionally charged the trial had become, he would’ve thought Officer Florence had been dreaming for a chance to get what she believed she deserved"justice or whatever. But instead it was all business with the grieving mother, who lifted the contraption to his face and forced the plastic tube into his mouth. “Now exhale completely and"” Dylan had already blown a point-two-eight.

She took the tube away with a sly smile"the b***h.

“What did I get?” he asked, already knowing.

“Just what I expected.”

“Is it bad?”

Officer Florence laughed. She spun him around to face the parked cars and then he heard the jingle of handcuffs. Reality was still obscured by the haze of tequila, which made the situation flow along without too much of a reaction on his part, but when he felt the metal restraints fasten around his wrists he knew the fun part of being drunk was over. She tightened the cuffs until they pinched his skin and Dylan cringed. She said, “You’re going to prison, Dylan. One way or the other.”

Frowning was all he could muster, now.

He’d forgotten his original plan"getting laid"and he wondered what Jillian thought happened to him. She hadn’t come back to check. She probably thought he had ditched her for another plan"though he suddenly really wanted to explain to her the situation. He would’ve never ditched a woman as hot as Jillian. If this b***h hadn’t come and ruined everything"Officer Florence knocked his head against the door as she stuffed him into the backseat of the cruiser, probably on purpose, and then slammed the door shut like an exclamation point.

“Well, f**k,” he said, watching her move back toward his truck.

He wondered what else she’d do to him. He couldn’t read her emotions very well considering she was being much more controlled than he’d have expected. Was she planning on connecting this incident with the death of her son? It seemed likely, maybe. He didn’t know. He was drunk and arrested and his wrists hurt and he wanted to go back to the bar and start over. But whatever. Whatever. This was kind of funny, in a way. The small-world scenario of bumping into Officer Florence for a second time on this night, in a totally different context than before. The woman was just doing her job.

Officer Florence got into the driver’s seat and left her door open, reaching for the computer or the radio handset or something. She said to him, “I hope you can get yourself a good lawyer this time, Dylan. I hope you’re ready for how much shittier your life is about to become.”

He nodded. She looked at him through the metal grate between them.

“Don’t worry about me, ma’am,” said Dylan, adding a smile and a wink to show that he was playing along with her little self-righteous game. He said, “I’ve gotten out of worse bullshit situations than this one.”

 

Detective Tenpenny finished the last drag of the third cigarette and stuffed it into the ashtray. Beth turned to watch the concluding swirl of smoke drift up to the vent in the ceiling. Having finished the pack, Tenpenny stepped away from the table and faced the wall with his hands clasped behind his back, presumably thinking about all the information Beth had shared with him. She’d told him about the trial, about meeting with Jillian, and about pulling Dylan over. Surprisingly, Beth hadn’t cried.

“Okay,” said Tenpenny, uncrossing his arms. “That’s three.”

“Are"we done?” Beth asked, knowing there was more to tell.

The Detective shook his head. “No, no. I’m not convinced.”

“About what?”

“You didn’t just arrest Dylan Porter and bring him straight to jail. I know you didn’t. You know you didn’t.” He returned to his chair asked, “So what happened next?”

Beth responded, “That’s not even what this is about, though. I don’t"”

“No. You’re right. But now I’m curious, Mrs. Florence. I told you I’d give you as long as it took me to smoke three cigarettes, but you can’t leave me hanging like that. Tell me the juicy stuff,” Tenpenny said, leaning forward across the table.

Juicy stuff? The rest of her story felt more private to Beth"something she hadn’t and was still reluctant to give up, worried it might come back to hurt her. But was she giving up? Wasn’t it too late to worry about that? She’d spent almost an hour with the Detective and, though she disliked being on this end of the interrogation routine, her opinion of the man had improved enough to where Beth could be honest and could confess. It was inevitable that her actions would come up in trial, no matter what she told Tenpenny. A small bit of stubbornness insisted she end the dialogue before she got into more trouble, but then she realized whatever fate had planned for her was destined to happen with or without this conversation. Tenpenny at least made that harsh reality less heartbreaking.

The Detective shrugged and said, “You’re hesitating. I understand that. If you need me to say it, I will: this is off the record. And we can get to that later. But"Mrs. Florence"you’re face to face with the man you blame for your son’s death. Don’t tell me you didn’t at least slap him.”

Beth smirked. There had been no greater feeling than catching Dylan Porter with a DUI. As small in comparison to Jason’s death as that was, it was still something, and she still got to put the jerk into handcuffs and let out that tension she’d built up. She said to the Detective, “I went into the plan thinking I would do something crazy. I wanted to"kill him. I really did.” Her eyes drifted up as her mind wandered to the memory of seeing Dylan wink at her from the backseat. That wink was what triggered her"it was the same wink from the courtroom. Like this was all a big joke to him. Like her son’s death was a big joke. Beth confessed, “But when I was finally in that position, I locked up. I couldn’t push myself over that edge"even though I was so close. Up until the moment I was standing outside of his window, I was sure that I’d kill Dylan Porter if I ever saw him again. But when it came time to act on that, I couldn’t. I knew that it was wrong. I knew I was better than that"better than him.”

Tenpenny nodded.

“Then he winked at me.”

In Beth’s mind, she was furiously opening the backdoor of the cruiser and yanking Dylan outside by his pantlegs, dragging him to the street. He smacked his head on the cement and cursed at her, but she had ceased to exist in the present reality. Beth recalled how detached she felt from her own body during that burst of adrenaline and rage"the wink had reminded her deep subconscious of how much it loathed Dylan Porter"and she hardly knew what she was doing until Beth had Dylan’s hair balled up in one fist and her finger over the trigger of the handgun pressed firmly against his ear. She’d dragged him across the street to the chained-off electrical station with its big metal towers and coiled generators and drooping cables. None of this had been planned. She held Dylan’s face inches away from the chain-link fence and clicked off the handgun’s safety.

“I lost it after that. I totally lost control,” she said with a shrug.

“It’s not as strange as you might think,” Tenpenny offered.

“Before I knew it, I had pulled him to this"um"little power plant across the street. I took him up to the fence because there was this big warning sign: Electrified Fence"Do Not Touch. And I just wanted to scare him. I took out my gun and I put his face right up next to the fence"he was screaming about how it was shocking him"and I made him shut up and told him I’d shoot him if he didn’t.”

“What did you hope to achieve?”

Beth shrugged. “You’re asking the wrong person. Whoever that was last night, it wasn’t really me. I couldn’t even explain how it felt"it was like being part of a nightmare and knowing you could wake up, but choosing not to.”

Tenpenny nodded.

“I was just screaming and screaming at him. I wanted him to feel all the pain I’d felt because of him"I made him apologize to Jason.” Beth shook her head. She vividly recalled the way she was crying while pushing Dylan’s face dangerously close to the fence. Of course Dylan had been trying to wrestle away from her at first, but the gun kept him docile, and once she had him cornered, Beth hadn’t been sure what to do. What did she really want? It would’ve been unfulfilling to kill the man"or maybe she simply didn’t have the capability to murder"and Beth felt rushed in the moment to find some tangible purpose for her actions. “I realized that all I really wanted the whole time was for Dylan to look me in the face and apologize"and mean it. I needed to know that he meant it.”

“Did he apologize?” Tenpenny asked.

Beth still felt the tingle in her fingers from when she pushed Dylan’s head into the fence"but only for a split-second, only to make him feel the burn"and the shock had gone through both of their bodies in a jolt. Dylan had screamed and she’d knocked him across the skull with the butt of the gun, then used that moment to find the photo of Jason in her pocket, the one she’d carried since the day he died"a senior highschool portrait. She yanked Dylan away from the fence by his greasy hair and held the photo in his face, both people hysterical and crying and frightened. Beth told Tenpenny, “I demanded that he apologize to Jason. I shoved him down and put the gun against his head and showed him the picture. I don’t know how long we did this"he probably apologized a million times, though I remember never wanting to believe him.”

Tenpenny asked, “How did you explain his wounds to other officers?”

“When I finally felt like I was done with him, I didn’t care. I might have kept doing more to him if I didn’t hear someone calling for me on the radio. He had a pretty bad burn on his forehead in the shape of an X and some bruises, but I imagine it could have been a lot worse.” Beth looked at Tenpenny and explained, “I’m still surprised I didn’t kill him.”

“Would you have?”

Beth shook her head. “I kept thinking about my husband. I thought about how he’d feel if I put myself in prison for something stupid. I knew I was better than that.”

“Do you feel like you still got justice?”

“For Jason, I did.”

“But what about you?”

Beth shrugged.

Tenpenny asked, “More importantly: was it all worth it?”

Then her eyes began to water"dry during her confession"when she sensed that Tenpenny was about to wrap up this interrogation. He’d heard her side of the story. He’d gathered all the information he could regarding motive and intention"she’d hopefully been clear about where her mind was during the situation. What did he think of her? Did he feel pity? Did he understand why she put so much effort into Dylan’s downfall? Did any of that matter in the eyes of the law? An officer herself, Beth had been unsure how her brethren would digest the information. Would Beth think it was justifiable for another officer to do what she had done? Considering the cost of her actions, it seemed unlikely that her behavior was excusable.

“I don’t know,” she admitted. “I still don’t know.”

Tenpenny sighed. “You couldn’t have known what was happening outside of your situation,” he said, “and so I understand why it’s hard for you to take responsibility.”

Beth frowned.

“It was a decently thought-out plan, Mrs. Florence.” Detective Tenpenny leaned back and continued, “If it had all worked right, no one would have been hurt. Dylan would have gotten his DUI. You would’ve felt a little better. And Jillian would still be alive.”

Beth began to cry. The tears came quickly and suddenly.

Jillian"

“That call on your radio,” the Detective said, “was about Jillian’s car accident, wasn’t it?”

“Yes,” she replied, holding her face in her hands.

“Jillian ran a red light and t-boned a mini-van, killing four people, including herself. When did you finally figure out that your friend had died on the way home?”

Beth shook her head, feeling the guilt rush up from her gut and erupt into her brain"all she could see was Jillian at the coffeeshop, agreeing to get drunk with Dylan Porter. How could Beth have ignored the fact that she was putting her best friend’s life in danger? Why did she never stop for a moment to consider the risks? Jillian hardly argued against the plan"she did it because she loved Beth and loved Jason"and everything went flawlessly, as far as Beth could tell. It wasn’t until she’d locked Dylan behind bars when the news finally sank in. Footage on television of Jillian’s yellow car smashed to bits across the sidewalk, bodies in bags, pedestrians crying, reporters frowning. The edginess leftover from her encounter with Dylan was immediately squashed beneath an immense and terrible remorse which dropped her to her knees"right there in the police station lobby"and Beth began to bawl.

“It was the credit card they found in her car. Your credit card,” said Tenpenny.

Beth, head lowered, let a tear drop from her nose.

“You basically condoned her to drive under the influence, Mrs. Florence. That’s not a good thing to do when you’re a police officer.” Tenpenny held his hands together on the tabletop and leaned toward her, nodding slowly. “I know why you did it. I know what you were thinking. I’m not saying I agree with it, but I think you’ve explained your motives well enough. You loved your son and you wanted justice"it happens all the time. People are going to understand what you were hoping would happen, Mrs. Florence, they will. But they probably won’t forgive you for it.”

“I know,” she said softly.

“You know as well as I do,” Tenpenny added, “that you’re in trouble.”

She nodded.

“And so I want to ask again, Mrs. Florence, if you think it was worth it.”

Beth wiped the tears from her eyes and took a deep breath, staring at the Detective across the table, and felt the seconds ticking. She thought about that question for a long time. Longer than a cigarette’s lifespan, surely, and no good answer came to mind. Worth it? Self-fulfilling justice for the price of a friend’s life (and four other innocents)? Put bluntly, the answer was negative. Jillian didn’t deserve to die any more than Jason did, but both of them had been directly influenced by others. She’d killed Jillian in the same way Dylan killed her son. Maybe that was what made the whole situation hurt the most. She’d become a version of the man she hated. The worst feeling of all was thinking that Jason was watching her from heaven with a disapproving frown, but surely he would understand that she’d done this for him. She could at least justify her intention more than the result.  

How much could Beth blame on bad luck and how much of this did she deserve? All she’d wanted was for Dylan to apologize for killing her son, and she’d gotten that. For Jason"for Jason she’d succeeded. For herself"did that even matter anymore? She felt horrible"she did, on many levels. Beth loved Jillian like a sister"they went sky-diving for Jillian’s thirtieth birthday, she recalled fondly"and never imagined being held responsible for her death"never. It was an accident.

Beth looked at Tenpenny and said, “I think anyone in my position would have done the same thing. I think I have a lot of guilt to live with, but on some level I got what I wanted. On some level I know I did the right thing.” She sighed and looked at her hands. But was it worth it? Jillian’s death so similar to her son’s, herself as guilty as Dylan had been. But for Jason"for her son she had put herself in this position. For justice. For happiness. Was she happy now? Not the kind of happy she’d wanted with Dylan behind bars. But that was the goal, wasn’t it? Dylan behind bars. She’d gotten what she wanted for Jason and, well, s**t happened.

Beth looked down and said quietly, “It was worth it.”

Tenpenny nodded, allowing her words to linger in the air, and then said, “Okay, Mrs. Florence. That’s enough for now.”

She felt cold, hollowed-out, and was glad to be done talking.

Tenpenny grabbed the ashtray as he stood and dumped the ashes and cigarette butts into the trashcan beside the door, stalling for a moment to say to her, “I’m not condoning what you did. I think you should have known better.” He let that statement settle, then added, “But if you did this for your son, then you did this for your son. No matter what happens next, hold onto that fact. There’s nothing more powerful than a mother’s love for her child.” Then he was gone.

Beth sat alone in the room with the cigarette smell and waited.

 

THE END