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Learning to Fall: it's official.
"We know it was your friend from the fingerprints he left behind." The big cop told me like he was explaining fingerprints to a baby or something. He held out his hand and traced the shape of a finger on his palm. Gee, thanks idiot, I mean, officer.
Momma and I sat and listened to their story, actually Terry's story, or maybe better still, Gill's story, 'cause he's the one who died in it and all, and when they were done there wasn't anything else to say 'cept "bye" and then they left.
Terry really did it. All those notes and spying and what it came down to was a nutty boy, a hammer and a sleeping man. He went into Gill's house and clobbered him in the head with Dad's hammer and then he set the place on fire after propping the propane tank from the grill in Gill's lap and cracking open the valve just a smidge. What a dork.
"What your friend did was in-human," Momma sobbed. She and Gill and Dad and Ms. Harriet were the best of friends for longer than I'd been alive and Terry ruined that forever. "He's an evil monster."
"Do you think they'll ever catch him, Momma?"
"N.B.," Momma looked into my eyes with that listen-up-but-good-young-man look of hers. "The wheels of justice seldom fail to overtake the wicked."
I reckon that means Terry will get his one day, but good, too.
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