The Girl in the Window (16 page)

The boy ducked his head in shame.

By her clothes his mother wasn’t rich, but she’d given her son the best she could. It was visible in his clothes, in the fancy running shoes on his feet. At a guess, she was a single mom, struggling to make ends meet and he was all she had. She’d tried to give him what he needed to succeed, had thought that clothes would do it, when her example should have been enough.

Tragedy on tragedy.

Beth looked at Josh, saw him watching the boys as well, the expression in his eyes troubled. His gaze met hers.

How many times have I seen boys like them, all of them
? Josh wondered, shaking his head.

He’d grown up with kids like these, rich kids who hadn’t done a lick of real work in their lives, who’d made fun of him because Josh’s father was a farmer. It didn’t matter that his dad had been well-respected in the community, in school all that mattered was that he worked in the dirt.

Town kids versus country.

After his father had died and his mother had been forced to sell the farm, it had gotten even worse, because then they made fun of him because he was poor.

These kids were much the same.

All but the one.

Josh looked at the boy. He’d known kids like him, too, and remembered one in particular.

They’d been good friends until Greg had decided he wanted to be friends with the in-crowd, with the wild ones, the ones who had the fancy cars, the four-wheelers and other toys, the ones who got drunk, ran the roads, and tipped cows for fun. Unfortunately, Greg hadn’t been rich so when one of their pranks had gone bad it had been Greg who’d gone to jail while the other kids had gotten off.

Josh looked down at Beth, her face pale, but her eyes clear.

“You have something in mind?” he asked.

With a nod she walked down the hall to the bailiff with Josh beside her.

“I need to talk to the judge,” she said.

The judge was a hard-faced man, adamant, but he called the attorneys and the public defender in for a talk. It was easy to tell who represented who by their clothing.

“Give him to me for six months,” Beth said about the younger one.

“We want all of them,” Josh said. “I’ll take the others, have them work for me. It’s better than jail, and maybe they’ll learn something, like the value of hard work. I’ll pay them a decent wage.”

His face grim, the judge looked at the lawyers. “They want to deal. I’d take it if I were you. This isn’t the first time I’ve had some of these boys in front of me. I’m inclined to throw the book at them.”

One of the lawyers started to speak, but the judge silenced him with a glare.

“I hope you’re not about to say what I think you’re going to say,” he said tightly. “You tell Martin he’d better take this deal or that boy of his is going to a have a record he’ll carry the rest of his life. He’s just old enough to be tried as an adult. How do you think a jury will look at him hurting that horse and kicking a puppy so hard it needed a vet?”

When the lawyer subsided, the judge nodded. “That’s what I thought.”

He looked at Josh. 

“Their wages will go to pay for the vet bill.”

Josh nodded.

The youngest boy’s name was Tyler. He was thirteen, a tow-headed gangly boy with hazel-green eyes. At the moment he looked numb, trying to figure it all out, knowing he was in trouble, and uncertain what would happen next.

He was silent as they walked out of the courthouse, but he didn’t shrug off Beth’s arm when she laid it over his shoulders.

His mother met them outside the courthouse.

“Miss…,” she began, looking at Beth.

There was hope on her face, gratitude.

With a soft smile, Beth shook her head as they walked toward Josh’s truck. She wasn’t ready to talk yet. All she could think about now was Wolf, about getting back to her dog.

She had shut everything else down, refusing to think of what came next.

“It’ll be all right,” Josh said to the woman. “We’ll bring him home this afternoon.”

Josh had his hand around Beth’s waist as they walked to his truck.

The vet’s office was a long low building, a mix of brick and vinyl siding, a little worn at the edges, institutional.

Beth looked at Josh as they walked toward it.

He slipped his hand into hers as she looked at Tyler.

“It’ll be all right” she said, echoing Josh’s words to Tyler’s mother. “No matter what happens. But you should know there are consequences to your actions. Don’t let it define you, define who you are, but there are always consequences and all of them, your actions and the consequences, will make you who you are, good or bad.”

For the first time she looked at the boy, really looked at him.

He is so young
.

Barely finished.

She could see hints of the man he would be someday in his face, in the thin lines of it. She couldn’t see meanness in him, just fear and uncertainty. It had been that determination to look like a man, to try to be one in the face of his actions, that had caught at her.

She could respect that.

That look stuck with her.

He could be saved.

She wasn’t sure about the others.

Now they’d see what kind of man he would be.

The three of them walked into the vet’s office. It smelled of frightened animals.

Inside it was all tile floors and plain walls. A video played endlessly in one corner, touting a system for decreasing shedding.

They knew her, had been prepared by her phone call.

“How is he?” she asked, looking at the vet as she came out.

The woman looked tired, strained. “There were a few cracked ribs, contusions and scrapes, and the leg was broken. We think we got him. Right now he’s stable, but the next few hours will tell the tale. You can come see him if you’d like.”

Wolf lay on the table, his fur thick and dark, sedated so his bright eyes were mostly closed. His tongue lolled from his half-opened mouth. They’d shaved the dense fur around his ribs, the bandage so white against his bare skin.  A cast immobilized one leg. There were tubes in him, but his chest rose and fell regularly.

She almost broke down then and there, to see him like that, so broken, so still. He was just a puppy. Too young to really understand why this had happened to him, that the world could be so unkind. He’d been so brave.

As was the boy, he was so young.

Gently she laid a hand on Wolf’s rough/soft fur, the texture both wiry and soft, and so unique to him.

She looked at the boy again, at Tyler.

“You can touch him if you’d like,” she said, her voice gentle. “His name is Wolf.”

His gaze shot to hers, startled.

She nodded.

For a moment he hesitated and then he brushed his fingers through the soft puppy hair.

It was something Tyler had wanted to do, there was something about that cushiony puppy fur that made you want to touch it, stroke it. His fingers had itched to do it.

The sound of that yelp when Jeff had kicked it still echoed in his head, made him want to cringe and crawl inside himself.

He’d always wanted a dog but his mother said they couldn’t afford it.

Knowing how tough it was, knowing how hard his mom worked, knowing by some of the stuff his grandma said that his dad wasn’t helping, he’d stopped asking.

He touched that soft fur, felt the minute rise and fall of the puppy’s chest and wanted to cry, but he couldn’t. Boys didn’t cry.

Man up
, Jeff would have said.
You gotta be tough
.

Tyler didn’t want to man up.

He glanced at the girl, at the sound of her breath hitching. She was trying not to cry, too.

Another hand reached out to pet the puppy’s soft fur, this one big, broad, and weathered.

Josh.

He was the kind of man Tyler wanted to grow up to be, muscled, tough and strong. He remembered what Josh had looked like when he’d vaulted over the fence and faced down Jeff and the others. That had been something to see.

Looking up at him, Tyler was surprised to see the emotion on the man’s face as he looked first at the puppy, his fingers curling just a little in the puppy fur, and then at the girl, at Beth.

With gentle hands, Josh drew her into his arms, sliding his hand into her hair and held her close.

She burst into tears.

To Tyler’s astonishment tears were bright in Josh’s eyes also as he held Beth with one hand and reached out to touch the puppy with the other, shaking his head, his mouth set tightly.

His eyes, though, when he looked at Tyler, weren’t angry, just sad and considering, measuring.

A kind voice spoke, the vet.

“I’m afraid that will have to be enough for right now,” she said. “We’ll keep you informed.”

Beth took a shuddering breath, her forehead still lightly against Josh’s chest, his fingers tangled in her hair.

She was grateful for his presence, his strength. His lips brushed her forehead as she lifted her head and the gesture made her heart swell sweetly, soothing the fear and grief.

Looking up at him, she tried a smile on for size.

“Don’t, you don’t have to,” he said, his lips touching her cheek. “I understand.”

Taking another shuddering breath, her arm still wrapped around his lean waist, she nodded and reached out to touch Wolf.

“Silly brave puppy,” she said. “You did good, dog. You did good.”

“He did,” Josh said. “He’s tough, Beth, he’ll make it.”

Josh looked to the vet in question over the top of Beth’s head.

“We’ll see,” the woman said, “how he does, but he’s young, healthy, and strong.”

It would have to be enough.

Beth looked up at Josh. “How is Fair?”

Taking a breath himself, Josh tried not to show his concern. He’d talked to Russ while they were waiting to identify the boys, waiting for the arraignment. It hadn’t been good.

At his look, Beth’s breath caught.

Fair. Knowing how much he’d hated being cornered he had to be traumatized by what had happened.

And after all their work gaining his trust… Her heart sank at the thought.

“There’s nothing you can do here,” the vet said. “Come back later if you’d like. We’ll call you if there’s need.”

Beth nodded and looked at Josh.

Then she turned and reached for Tyler. So did Josh.

The boy looked startled as they dropped their arms around his shoulders.

Josh’s truck was a big old rattletrap Ford that had once been painted red and was nothing like the trucks of the people Tyler knew from school, the big rumbling diesels or glossy monster trucks like Jeff’s. It was a working truck and that showed. There were signs of use – rub marks on the sides and hay in the bed – and signs of age – rust spots here and there – but you could tell by the sound of the engine that it still ran good. It had one big bench seat that ran across it. Tyler sat in the middle between Josh and Beth as they drove.

He’d been raised in town, or what there was left of the town, which was nothing but a bunch of mostly closed stores all clustered around the Square and the courthouse. He and his mom lived in a set of newer buildings on the outer edge. Subsistence housing, they called it, provided by the county. It was where poor people lived. School was just outside of the town limits, too, an old building with no air conditioning in the summer and uncertain heat in the winter. His mom had said that they were talking about building a new one, a county school. He’d have to ride a bus instead of walking to school. That was cool with Tyler – it was better than sweltering in the heat and much better than freezing his butt off in the winter.