Chapter Seven #2
He and two other teenagers sat huddled together, their eyes wide with bewilderment and fear.
Resting on the table before them were three Halloween masks, as well as cans of spray paint and unused rolls of toilet paper.
The blond teenager, George, followed Janice with his eyes as she moved.
Overhead, a light flickered dimly, casting shadows across his young face.
“I swear, we didn’t do it,” he repeated. He nudged the boy next to him, a redhead. “Tell her, Brad!”
Janice stopped pacing, turning to face them, and she could’ve sworn she felt them hold their breaths.
Unease swept through her gut. Something didn’t feel quite right, and it wasn’t just the fact that she was in an interrogation room with a bunch of teenage suspects.
Deep down, she couldn’t help feeling like she’d made a mistake.
But she’d followed the facts. And they’d led her right to this point. Could they have been wrong?
She’d been standing in here for what felt like thirty minutes so far.
Honestly, she wanted nothing more than to get this over with.
She’d already picked Charlie up from school, and he was sitting alone in her office.
Knowing him, he’d probably gotten curious and busied himself by taking a peek at whatever information was on her desk.
Still, she hated to leave him alone by himself for so long.
Hopefully, she could pry whatever answers she needed out of these teenagers and wrap this up quickly enough.
The red-haired boy—Brad, was it?—leaned forward. “H-how did you find us, m-ma’am?”
She folded her arms across her chest. “It wasn’t hard. There aren’t many kids your age named George or Brad.”
George shot his friend a dirty look. “This was your fault. You shouldn’t have used my name.”
“It was your idea to lock them in the barn, remember?”
“God, you two are idiots.” The third teenager, a girl with long, brown curls, shook her head in disbelief. She faced Janice, fear still flickering in her eyes. “Look, I’m sorry we locked you in that barn. It was a bad prank. But we just wanted to TP it. I mean, it’s Halloween.”
“And what about Svenson’s dead animals?” Janice inquired. “Or his vegetables?”
The girl’s eyes grew even wider. She held up both hands in front of her. “We had nothing to do with that.”
Janice lifted a brow. “You locked the barn doors on us, just moments before Svenson’s barn was attacked. Sounds like one heck of a coincidence to me.”
“That’s because it is,” George said. “Sara’s right: we had nothing to do with Mr. Svenson’s animals.
We just wanted to TP his barn. We’ve been TP’ing houses and barns over the past few days, and sometimes we’ve been spray-painting, and...
” He trailed off, pressing his lips together as though he’d just realized he’d said too much.
As far as confessions went, that was a clear one. But defacing property with spray paint and toilet paper had little to do with her case, if Janice was being honest. It didn’t answer the questions still burning in her mind.
She wanted to believe that these kids were responsible for the carnage and destruction on the ranches, but the thought didn’t even sit right with her.
They looked scared out of their wits just being in here.
How could any of them have mustered the courage to slaughter so many animals?
It didn’t make sense. These kids looked no older than fourteen or fifteen, barely five years older than Charlie.
“Where were you two nights ago?” she wanted to know.
“At home,” said Brad. “We all were. You can ask our parents or George’s uncle. I’m sure they’ll tell you just that.”
She pondered for a moment. “Mama Martha’s was attacked two nights ago.”
The girl—Sara—shook her head. “We didn’t do that. I swear.”
“I know.”
Sara blinked. “You do?”
Janice gave a sigh. “I don’t think you did much besides deface property with your Halloween pranks.” For a moment, she’d been so certain she’d cracked the case, but she’d been dead wrong. Which meant that the real culprit was still out there. Would they attack another ranch? Or was it all over now?
Brad let out a sigh of relief. “So...we’re not in trouble anymore, are we?”
She regarded all three teenagers with a stern frown. “You did just confess to trespassing and defacing property.”
Their eyes all widened. It was Brad’s turn to shoot George a dirty look.
“But you’re not going to jail, if that’s what you’re worried about,” Janice said. “I’m still going to have to report you to your parents, though.”
And, barely suppressing a smirk at the stunned faces of the trio before her, she turned and left the interrogation room, heading for her office. Before she reached the door, however, Greg popped into her line of sight.
“How’d it go?” he asked, and she caught a whiff of smoke on his breath.
She shook her head. “Those kids didn’t do it. Whoever did is still out there.”
The chief of police ran his fingers through his hair. “Dammit. I guess we should’ve seen that one coming.” He patted her on the shoulder. “I’m sure you’ll figure it out, JFK. Oh, and by the way, Old Man Benny came by while you were in the interrogation room.”
Benny? “What did he want?”
“He wanted to know whether we’d caught the person responsible for his ruined vegetables and dead animal.” Greg breathed a small sigh. “I didn’t tell him about the kids, thank goodness. Just said we were on top of things.” He shook his head slowly.
“That’s good, I guess. At least he’s not giving us hell.”
Gary gave a tiny shrug that suggested otherwise. “He complained to me for more than ten minutes, telling me just how upset he was about his vegetables. According to him, he got to sell most of his pumpkins, but he’s still pissed he couldn’t sell them all.”
Of course he was pissed. She would be, too, if someone had ruined her vegetables right as she was about to make major Halloween sales. Something clicked inside Janice’s head just then: what if that was just what this was? It could be some ploy to put one or all the ranches out of business.
The question was, who would want to do such a thing? And how had they managed to attack all five ranches unnoticed?
“You’ll figure it out,” Greg said, as though he could read her thoughts. His lips curved into an encouraging grin. “Don’t worry, I’m sure you’ll get to the bottom of this quicker than you expect.”
Janice certainly hoped that would be the case. Time wasn’t exactly on their side.
With a nod, she brushed past Greg, heading straight for her office.