Web of the Weaver: Sidestory, Mysterious Death in a Gray Boy Zone! Two Interviews Break the Case Open!

The next morning I got up, showered (it was amazing how much you could love a shower after days of having to be bathed), and did some low-impact exercises. There would be time for getting back in shape later, and I’d taken the rehabilitation sheet to heart.

It had nothing to do with all the “I told you soes” I’d hear if I ended back up in the hospital with a pulled muscle or popped joint.

The meetings would occur after the football game. The principal and Agent Stimmons would be with me.

I could have delayed the meetings until school, but in case one or more of the students knew of my presence and reason for being here, it would give them too much time to talk among themselves.

I paused, then shook my head. Treating a football team and cheerleading squad with the same caution I used against the E88 might seem excessive…but better to be safe than sorry.

****

The game was a home game, so I had a classroom blocked out. Agent Stimmons drove me to the school and we got out while the last bit of the game was playing.

As we were setting up, I heard the rumbling as the team charged into the locker room to change. And—

“That’s right, everyone! We won, we ate our fear!”

Well.

Another female voice. “Jesus, Hank. Show a little respect. Michael is dead.”

Then they proceeded down, too far for me to hear.

But I waited until the first one was ushered in. I had my faux lie detector set up, and was sitting behind the teacher’s desk. The first football player was Jackson. Tall, muscular, African-American. I had the information about him, all of his grades. Few disciplinary infractions. Save for the fight, one that almost saw him removed from the team.

“I…hello?” he asked, looking nervously at me. I had my Investigator uniform on, along with my mask, Stimmons at one side, Principal Sandy Winna on the other.

“Mr. Rada, I’m The Investigator. Please sit down.”

“Um… okay,” he said. “Is… something wrong?”

“Your teammate killed himself in a Gray Boy zone. His parents and the PRT asked me to clarify the issue.”

He twitched. His eyes widened slightly.

And I moved my toe and suddenly a yellow light gleamed on my device. His eyes got even wider. “What’s that?”

“It is a detector of my own design,” I said. “It measures stress, sometimes untruths. I’m simply testing it out—pay it no mind.”

I didn’t know enough to rely on it. After all, if a student told an untruth and I didn’t notice it…

But here, casually mentioning I was testing it out, meant they had no idea when and if it would work, and of course… it was tinkertech. Or at least everyone generally assumed that.

“Could you give me a false name, please?”

“Um. Mary Sunshine?”

I moved my toe. The box flashed amber, then red.

“But why did it…”

“I’m testing it. The false name isn’t a big deal to you, so it initially read it as an ambivalent reaction. Then you thought about the lie, did you not?”

“Uh… yes.”

I shook my head. “This device is far from ready for general use. Thank you for helping me with it.”

If I really did have a stress monitor, it’d be going off non-stop.

Which was good. Stressed people tended to be very bad at lying, especially if they had to come up with a consistent lie on the spot.

“So, according to Principal Winna, you accepted two months of Saturday school instead of being suspended from the football team. Why did you and Michael get in a fight?”

“It was sill—“ I flashed the amber light. He licked his lips.

“Mr. Rada, you are a junior. In your time at school, the only other offense you had was being consistently late to school one month when your family car was unavailable. You then escalated to a fight that could have seen you expelled or charged with a crime had someone been hurt. In my experience, people don’t escalate in that way for no reason.”

“I…” he licked his lips. “Michael pulled a stupid joke on Shiela. I got pissed, but I… you know, it’s up to Sheila to tell you.”

“Did he commit a crime?”  That would change a lot.

“No, It was just… a stupid joke. Sheila yelled at us both. She told me that I’d be sleeping on the co—not that we’re doing anything!”

“Of course not. And in any case, that’ is of no concern to me.”

“Very well,” I looked at him. “This seems almost finished, but tell me, Mr. Rada… did you… eat your fear at the crack in the wall?”

The reaction was instant. Jackson surged halfway up out of the chair, eyes wide, then looked at Agent Stimmons who had tensed.

“I, um don’t know that you—“

Red light.

“Shall we try again, Mr. Rada?” I looked at him. “I have been to the crack, and I am a Thinker.”

He swallowed. “We… Hank…”

“Yes?”

“When I started, Hank had an idea. We’d… show that we were the best, that we had no limits, but he said that cowards didn’t need to apply so we’d…”

“Go to the wall, and peer through the crack, even though you couldn’t…” I fell silent. “Ah. You went at night, the candles illuminating your way, and while you couldn’t see the bubbles themselves, you might see…a little flicker of light?” I tilted my head. “And there were three little clearings, each one where you’d stop for a moment…” Their feet tamping the dirt down. “And there you spoke.”

“Ho—how did…”

“Mr. Rada. It is my job to know. Thank you. I’ll be speaking to Sheila.”

“The Cheerleaders didn’t know!” he burst out. “Hank said it was just for us.”

“And if you didn’t go, you didn’t get on the team.”

“That or you just stayed benched.”

“He had no such hold on the Cheerleaders. Fortunate. They at least are not involved in a possible felony.”

“What?” he said, face going paler than I thought possible.

“You did not breach a containment zone, but you may have assisted someone to do so. The PRT takes that very seriously. Lastly, nobody went into the zone, did they?”

His eyes went even wider. “No. It was bad enou—“ I flickered the green light.

“You should have taken that as a warning,” I told him. “Please return. I’ll be speaking to Sheila next.”

****

 Sheila was still in her cheerleading outfit when she came  in and I suppressed some very unfair jealousy. Long blond hair, toned body, and well, I doubt anyone had ever mocked her “lack of curves.”

Captain of the cheer team. Senior.

She sat down and smiled. “Hi!” she said, then got more serious. “You’re here about Michael.”

“Yes. What do you know?”

“He didn’t just go into a zone and kill himself,” She said. “Michael could be… okay, sometimes he didn’t think things through, but he wasn’t suicidal.”

“But he ate his fear,” I said.

She blinked and shook her head. “Yeah, that’s Hank’s stupid saying. It’s like… a week after graduation this is gonna mean anything.”

“Your position doesn’t?” I asked. I’d never really talked to cheerleaders before.

“Yeah, look, I’m good at this. I have big boobs, hot body, look nice… I mean, yeah, Principal Winna likes to say it’s about athletics, but half the dads in the stands…” She shook her head. “Between this and my grades, I can get into a good school with a decent scholarship. I mean, don’t get me wrong, I like it, but I’m not going to keep watching old cheerleading videos when I’m 40.”

“And you were the cause of Jackson and Michael’s fight?”

She glanced up at Principal Winna. “Uh… Okay, is this gonna be said about Michael? His family has gone through enough.”

“The dead cannot be charged with a crime,” I said. “But why would you be concerned?”

“God-dammit, Jackson,” she muttered. “Fuck. Fine. Michael got dared to give my tits a fondle, so I was coming off the field and stuck his hands under my shirt.” She reddened slightly. “It was after a drill, and I was hot as hell, so I didn’t have my bra on. Stupid prank.”

“That was sexual assault, Sheila,” Principal Winna said.

“I turned around and slapped the hell out of him, and then Jackson just went bonkers, and I thought he was gonna put Michael in the hospital. So I had to jump on my idiot boyfriend’s back and pull him off Michael.”

“If you had reported this, Michael would have been suspended. Possibly charged.” Principal Winna looked thunderous.

“Yeah, but you know, getting slapped and pounded on was enough…” Sheila shook her head, and suddenly the bouncy teen looked depressed. “That’s what I figured, but if he’d been home or in a cell or just… not on the team, maybe he—“

“Maybe is the most useless word in the English language,” I told her. “His actions were his own. Also, did it put his position on the team at risk?”

“I mean, maybe?” She nodded. “If Hank had to choose between Jackson and Michael…”

“I see.”

“Sheila, I’m concerned that you seem to take someone touching you in that way so casually,” Principal Winna said. “We’ll be talking about that.”

“Thank you, Sheila.” I nodded.

“Something came up,” she said. “People don’t get a cape for a suicide, not unless…”

“Gray Boy has a very special place in the nightmares of many people.” I shook my head. “Thank you. We’ll be talking to the entire team and squad momentarily.”

Beneath me, bugs started to slowly twist and turn. I knew what had happened now. Maybe I should speak to Hank alone, but…

No. The Detective always finished his mystery in a room full of witnesses.

And in any case, I was angry.

I was very angry.