Chapter 15
We both figure that Jesse just needs some time to realize how serious the situation is. A few minutes in the room a stranger trashed should convince him that he isn’t dealing with some bully in the school yard. This is the real deal.
“Don’t you ever talk to my children about . . .what you were talking about,” I tell him.
“Jesse and I understand each other,” he says.
“And I don’t understand him? Is that what you’re saying?” He pretends it’s not, but it is.
“I know my children,” I tell him.
He says that’s great, and asks where, then, did my son get the figurine.
“From a friend,” I assure him.
He demands to know which friend, as if he wasn’t present for the conversation we had with Jesse.
I remind him that Jesse said he was just holding it for a friend.
“He’s lying,” Drew says, and despite the fact that I know he is, I am prepared to defend him to the death.
“My children don’t lie,” I tell him.
“All children lie,” he shoots back, but he knows it’s the wrong thing to say and so he puts up his hands in mock surrender. “Okay,” he says, “let’s just say that sometimes they don’t exactly tell the truth. Like, let’s take Dana and Halloween night, shall we?”
Of course, I don’t have any great comeback for that.
“Then let’s take Jesse’s first reaction to the dragon. I believe his words were ‘what’s that?’”
I say that maybe he couldn’t see clearly what Drew was holding. And then I just let it out. “My children do not steal and they do not deal in stolen property, and if he says that someone gave him that stupid piece of dead elephant, then someone gave it to him.”
“And he won’t tell us who because. . .?”
I stare hard at Drew Scoones, detective extraordinaire, and I shake my head in disbelief. “You really can’t figure this one out?” I ask him.
Drew looks at me with something akin to pity. “He’s protecting someone,” he agrees without my having to say so. “But unless he feels like he’s the one under suspicion, he isn’t going to give his ‘friend’ up.”
“So your idea is to badger him?” I ask, shaking my head in disbelief.
“My idea,” he says in that rational calm voice that makes my squeaky one sound hysterical. “Is to make him realize that this is a serious criminal investigation. That someone is dead, and that more people could die. People he loves, if he doesn’t tell me everything he knows.”
I see his point. I agree with him. I get it. But I’m not a ten year-old boy.
“Okay, you try your way.” I say, grabbing up my coat. “I’ll try mine.
