The sheriff let Daniel sit outside his office instead of in the tank with the real malfeasants. The boy suspected the lawman sympathized with him but had his hands tied in this matter. After all, if Daniel went postal one day and the authorities neglected an opportunity to prevent it, there would be hell to pay.
Daniel wondered if he’d be forced into aggression therapy. Maybe they’d place him on antidepressants? The thought of numbing out life was inviting to Daniel. He had occasionally contemplated the “stoner” lifestyle. They were numb to life’s barbs. At least he’d belong to a clique. But that path was too similar to his stepfather’s, and that meant there’d be another generation of asshole on the way. He wouldn’t give Clyde the victory.
Rita walked into the squad room. Daniel let out a sigh of relief; a reprieve from the wrath of Clyde had been granted. He would, however, have to make arrangements to sleep elsewhere that evening. Before today, Adrian’s house would have been the best refuge, but Daniel was now more inclined to help the Grundys pound on the fat boy. No good deed goes unpunished, he thought, recalling the satisfying crunch of the two-by-four into Elijah Grundy’s face.
Rita ignored her son as she walked into the sheriff’s office. The sheriff asked Daniel to come in. He sat to his mother’s left. It was the first time all day he could see Sheriff Maher’s eyes. He looked like a fair man.
“Will this take long?” Rita asked. “My neighbor is watching my four-year-old.”
“Ma’am…,” the sheriff started-there was a sense of urgency in his tone, “Dr. Brown is of the mind that the size and impact of your boy’s injuries were not made by another teenager.”
“My son is free to go, then?”
The sheriff looked troubled that his point had been missed. “No, ma’am, it doesn’t work like that. We know for a fact Daniel was involved in the altercation with those boys and whipped them good. But, I’m still concerned about his bruises. Those marks are the fist and foot imprints of a fully grown man. Perhaps another situation, maybe at home, is forcing him to act out against his schoolmates.”
Rita sat in silence, her hands placed perfectly on her lap before her as if in prayer. Her eye contact with the sheriff never wavered. Daniel noticed the dimple, which occurred when his mother bit down on her inner cheek, sometimes to the point of bleeding.
“Ma’am?” the sheriff said.
“What are you implying?”
The sheriff rubbed his jaw and redoubled his efforts to communicate the facts to Rita.
“Mrs. Hauer…”
“Knoffler. Hauer was my former husband’s name.”
“God rest his soul,” Daniel whispered. He tried to incite a response from Rita, but she just gripped her armrest tighter. The sheriff noted the exchange.
“Ma’am, a boy that’s bullied is liable to act out in extreme ways. Possibly take things out against innocent people from sheer frustration. This is serious. Do you know anyone-adults-who have issues with your son?”
“No one has any issues with Danny. He’s a good kid. I don’t even understand why he’s here. He’s the one looks beat up.”
“Them Grundys was sent to the emergency room, ma’am.”
“Jim-Bob Grundy shaves almost daily,” she said. “He’s been left back so many times he’s eligible for the draft. Have you checked the size of his fists?”
The sheriff braced himself and asked, “Mrs. Knoffler, is your husband physically abusive at home?”
Rita didn’t flinch. “My husband is a good man going through hard times.”
A glimmer of intelligence flickered in the sheriff’s eyes; he was not convinced.
Rita seemed to waver for a moment, lost as to what to say next. Daniel stared into the well of his mother’s thoughts. Was she actually considering the truth? He knew better than to hope. Rita was not strong, at least not since John’s passing. She was terrified of loneliness and was adept at stretching the morsel of consideration Clyde bestowed her into a meal of affection.
“So, is that a yes?” the sheriff asked.
Daniel held his breath. The lawsuit, the cost of bail, these were enough to push Clyde into the zone. The world stopped on Rita’s next breath. A single assertion could end this mess-protective custody; the sheriff would shield Daniel from Clyde’s wrath.
“No,” Rita said, in a steady, strong voice. “My husband does not abuse us.”
The lie kicked Daniel as hard as Clyde’s boot. His hope deflated. His mother said it so compellingly that Daniel almost believed she was right.
“Son, is that true?” the sheriff asked him.
Daniel wondered why the sheriff asked him this in front of his mother. It wasn’t right. He looked at his mother, who still refused to acknowledge him. She was fixed on an imaginary point before her. Daniel realized Rita would waver under his pleading gaze if she turned. His mother teetered on a precipice. The sheriff realized this. Some part of her wanted to let loose.
Daniel had the power now to write a new chapter for them, but all the alternatives, all the things that might go wrong played in his head. Clyde might actually beat the rap. Daniel knew he couldn’t depend on Rita to follow through on charges. She’d waver in the face of loneliness, fear, guilt, or a missed fix. If Clyde beat the rap, he’d probably kill them. What’s more, Rita was in danger of being punished by the law, too. Besides his abuse, Clyde was involved in all sorts of welfare scams, food stamps, unemployment. She had lied about everything that was going on in that house, closed her eyes to the truth, and would be punished, maybe even jailed as an accessory after the fact.
Even if charges stuck and everything went right, a foster home loomed for Daniel and Penny; cold, industrial childrearing-guardians making a buck off the state while packs of children fight it out for attention and resources. He’d be trading one abusive jerk for a pack of smaller ones. There were no guarantees that Penny would be placed with him, so he couldn’t even keep an eye on her. And then, when Clyde got out of prison in two or three years, as her biological father he’d get Penny back anyway since he never abused her. Daniel would be long gone from the house. She’d be left to grow up with an emotional invalid for a mother and an angry ex-con psychopath for a dad. There were more reasons to maintain the status quo than to plunge them all into a legal and social upheaval.
“I just told you my husband does not-”
“Yes, sir,” Daniel cut in.
“Yes what?” the sheriff asked. “That your mother is telling the truth or that Mr. Knoffler is abusing you?”
Another chance to change-to get off the path that promised grief. Looking at his sneakers Daniel said, “My mother is telling the truth.”
Disappointed, the sheriff leaned back in his chair with an air of surrender. The boy was grateful at least for the lawman’s skeptical look. It was enough that someone important knew the truth despite the lies that were freely doled out.
Daniel realized his mother was watching him in wonder. He had every right to rat out his stepfather. Clyde would never acknowledge the boy’s loyalty, only his troubles. All the precious money Daniel was costing him would send Clyde into a rage. Clyde might kill him, even if not on purpose. Once Clyde was in the zone… Daniel realized he’d just taken his life into his own hands.