Chapter 15 Noah
NOAH
Iborrow the squad car once again from the station with a smile that says no, absolutely, I will not be using this for anything emotionally motivated and possibly ill-advised.
The desk sergeant doesn’t ask questions. I suspect he’s afraid the answers will involve Lottie.
By the time I pull into Everett’s driveway, the sun is already gone, and the sky over Honey Hollow looks like it’s been bruised—dark purple, low clouds, that damp chill that says we’re in for another long, cold night despite the fact it’s May.
Everett steps out of his house in his usual uniform of black suit and permanent irritation, his jaw tight, and his shoulders stiff. He spots the squad car and gives an approving nod.
“Look at you,” he says as he climbs in, buckling up like the responsible lawman he is. “You finally joined the dark side.”
“I just wanted the cage in the back,” I say, pulling out of his driveway. “In case your self-control starts acting up.”
“Cute.” He shifts in his seat, looking all too comfortable in a vehicle built for hauling criminals. “You sure you’re okay to do this tonight? Lemon is going to find out, you know.”
“She already knows,” I say. “She told me not to kill anyone.”
“That’s funny,” Everett says. “She told me not to bury anyone.”
“See?” I nod. “Checks and balances.”
He grunts, but I catch the edge of a reluctant smile. For once, we’re perfectly aligned. Two men, united by a shared disdain for juvenile delinquency and dried egg.
If this doesn’t count as male bonding, I don’t know what does.
We turn down the Pickens’ street, and the air gets thicker somehow, like even the atmosphere knows we’re headed into a bad decision.
The Pickens’ place sticks out on the block like a sore middle finger. A sagging porch. Half a truck rusting in the lawn. Christmas lights still dangling from the gutters in spring. Three trash cans, one of them overturned, with garbage spilling onto the dead grass.
“Lovely,” Everett says. “Truly, a showplace.”
I pull up to the curb and kill the engine. For a second, we sit there in silence, headlights off, the squad car ticking as it cools.
“You ready?” I ask.
“No,” he says. “But that’s never stopped me before.”
We climb out into the cold. Gravel crunches under our shoes, the sound too loud in the quiet street. There are lights on inside the house—bright, cheerful, like nothing happened. Silhouettes move behind the curtains. Voices drift out through the walls. Laughter.
My jaw clenches so hard I might crack a molar. I spent all morning scrubbing egg off my windows while these punks were inside laughing about it. Probably posting videos. Probably high-fiving each other over how clever they think they are.
They have no idea what’s coming.
Everett looks like he’s thinking something similar. His hands ball into fists at his sides, then flatten out again. “Let’s do this by the book,” he says. “At least at first.”
“At first,” I echo.
We head up the rickety steps. The porch groans like it’s personally offended we’re here. There’s a broken lawn chair off to the side, a pile of muddy sneakers, and, for reasons I don’t want to contemplate, a dented kiddie pool full of cigarette butts.
I rap my knuckles on the door, and it rattles in the frame.
The door swings open.
Tammy Pickens stands there in blue scrubs, her blonde hair pulled back into a messy ponytail, dark circles under her eyes that suggest she hasn’t slept properly in years.
She’s thin in that way that says she’s surviving on hospital cafeteria coffee and fumes, and when she sees us—sees my uniform, sees Everett in his judge-at-rest stance, the squad car behind us—her expression shifts from confusion to dread.
“Can I help you?” Her voice is cautious.
“Mrs. Pickens, I’m Detective Fox, and this is Judge Baxter. We need to speak with you and your husband about some incidents involving your property.”
Relief flickers across her face. “Oh, thank goodness. A voice of reason.”
She steps aside, and we walk in.
The house is a disaster. In other words, no change from the other night.
I’ve been in crack dens that looked more functional.
Pizza boxes are stacked on the coffee table like a grease-stained Jenga tower.
Empty beer cans litter every surface. The carpet looks like it hasn’t been vacuumed since the Bush administration—either one.
Dishes are piled in the sink, visible from the entryway, and the whole place smells like teenage boy, stale food, and defeat.
Tammy notices us noticing, and her cheeks flush. “I work a lot,” she says quietly. “Daryl’s supposed to—”
“What the hell is going on here?” Daryl barrels into the living room from the kitchen, still in his stained sweatpants, a beer in one hand and a slice of pizza in the other. He’s got the look of a man who’s been caught doing absolutely nothing and is furious about being interrupted.
A cluster of teenage boys appears in the hallway—five, six, maybe seven of them, all in hoodies and basketball shorts, all smirking as if they’ve just won something.
Tyler Pickens, the older son, stands front and center. Dark hair, cocky grin, the type of kid who peaked in eighth grade and doesn’t know it yet.
He stops when he sees us, gaze bouncing from me to Everett and back again.
“Well, if it isn’t the Fun Police,” he says. “To what do we owe the pleasure?”
Behind him, shapes move. A couple of older boys—one of them Ryan, lanky and tall, the rest his friends—hover in the hallway, peeking around the corner. There are more in the room off to the side, clustered around a glowing TV. All of them grin like they’ve just tuned in for a comedy special.
Everett and I share a quick look.
I take the lead. “We’re here to talk about your son. And about the vandalism that’s been happening on our street. A few houses have been egged.”
Daryl scoffs. “Vandalism. Big word for a couple of broken windows and some eggs.”
“My baby girl was in that van when the rock came through the window,” Everett says, voice low. “My sons were, too.”
“My house was hit with eggs,” I add. “So was Everett’s place. Harassment. Rocks. This isn’t kids being kids. This is criminal behavior.”
The boys in the hallway go quieter, but their eyes stay bright. This is viral entertainment.
Daryl takes a swig of his beer. “So what? You here to arrest my boy for having friends?”
“We’re here to ask questions,” Everett says. “Because we’ve had enough.”
Tammy shifts her weight from one foot to the other, arms folded across her chest like she wants to hold herself together. “Maybe we should all sit down,” she says. “And talk this out like adults.”
“That would be nice,” I say. “Talking like adults would be a refreshing change of pace.”
One of the boys snickers. Tyler, I think.
Everett ignores it. “We reviewed the security footage from our properties,” he says, pulling his phone from his pocket. “Multiple angles. Multiple nights.”
Daryl’s eyes narrow. “And?”
“And we saw a group of male individuals, roughly Tyler’s age, wearing hoodies and masks, throwing eggs and rocks, writing on the driveway.” Everett’s tone is flat, clinical. “We might not be able to see faces, but we can see build, height, and shoes.”
One of the boys from the other room laughs outright, and the sound slaps against my nerves.
“You got proof?” Daryl asks with a smirk spreading. “Or is this one of those cop hunches I hear so much about?”
“We have them on camera,” Everett says. “We have timestamps. Patterns. Enough to know this isn’t random.”
Tammy’s brows knit together. “So you have my son and his friends on camera,” she says slowly. “Is that what you’re saying?”
I glance at Everett. This is the part where we have to be careful.
“We have a group of teenagers matching their size and shape on camera,” I say. “We can’t say with one hundred percent certainty it’s them. Yet. But the odds aren’t in their favor.”
The boy cluster erupts in muttered commentary. One of them whispers, “Told you they couldn’t see,” and gets elbowed into silence.
Knew it.
Daryl’s smirk widens. “So, no faces. No names. Just a couple of tall shadows in hoodies. That about right?”
“For now,” Everett says. “But patterns build. Witnesses talk.”
“Witnesses?” Daryl barks out a laugh. “What, you got a psychic squirrel watching the neighborhood?”
Unhelpful images of Percy the peacock flash through my mind. I keep my mouth shut.
“We’re not here because we love spending our free time like this,” I say. “We’re here because we have little kids in those houses. Babies. And they’re scared. My wife is scared.”
Everett slices me a side glance, and I shrug. I can’t help it, it slipped.
“We’re asking you to help us put a stop to this before someone gets hurt,” I say. “Before we have to treat your son like a case file instead of a neighbor.”
Daryl’s jaw clenches. “You don’t tell me how to raise my kid.”
“No one’s trying to,” I say, even though, yes, we absolutely are. “We’re asking you to talk to him. To his friends.”
Tyler shifts in the hallway, arms folded, chin up. That same cocky tilt I’ve seen too many times in too many juvenile intake photos.
“This is getting old,” Daryl mutters. “We already told you we didn’t do anything.”
“Odd,” Everett observes. “Because your history suggests otherwise. Vandalism. Trespassing. Destruction of property. All documented. All within the past year.”
Tyler glares.
Tammy lets out a breath. “Look,” she says.
“We don’t want trouble. I’m sorry about the rock.
I truly am. But that wasn’t Tyler. It was one of his friends.
He told me so himself.” She looks over at the knot of boys in the other room, her eyes sad.
“Tyler is a good kid. He just…he’s got a lot of friends. ”
Behind her, those friends start up again—laughter, shoves, a burst of running footsteps as someone bolts through the next room. One of them yells something about cops and chickens. More laughter ensues.
My teeth hurt from clenching.