Tami Hoag - Deeper Than the Dead

“Not a problem,” he said. “I appreciate your concern for setting the record straight. Why don’t we go inside? The smell of that pizza is too much to resist.”

They went into the restaurant and found a booth. The place was booming with Saturday night customers-college kids, families, teenagers traveling in packs. Video games bleeped and growled in their own alcove at the rear of the place. Tommy was wide-eyed, taking it all in.

“We don’t get to come here very often, do we, Tommy?” Peter Crane said.

Tommy shook his head.

“Tommy’s mom is a member of the food police,” Crane explained. “All healthy, all the time.”

“And as a dentist, you must agree with that,” Anne said.

“I don’t think the occasional pizza is such a bad thing. Tommy and I sneak in some fun stuff every once in a while, don’t we, Sport?”

Tongue-tied, Tommy nodded.

“What do you like on your pizza, Tommy?” Anne asked.

“Cheese.”

“Me too. What about pepperoni?”

The shy smile tucked up one corner of his mouth as he nodded again.

“What about Brussels sprouts?”

“No!” he said emphatically, shaking his head so hard his whole body swung from side to side.

Anne laughed. “All right. No Brussels sprouts.”

A waitress came and took their order for pizza with no Brussels sprouts. When she had gone, Anne looked across the table at Tommy, growing serious.

“Tommy, after seeing your mom last night, I just want to make sure you don’t have the wrong idea about something,” she began. “When I asked you those questions I never meant for you to think that your father might be involved in what happened, or that I might think that. Do you understand?”

“I guess,” he said in a tone of voice that was less than convincing.

“You know the detectives have to ask a lot of questions when they’re investigating a crime,” Anne said. “They ask questions of a lot of people. That doesn’t necessarily mean they believe everyone they talk to might be guilty. But they have to ask a lot of questions to try to get a clear idea of where people were when a crime was being committed. They want to know who couldn’t have committed the crime as well as who might have.

“Detective Leone asked me to find out from you if your dad was home that night. And you told me he was. That’s all they wanted to know.”

Tommy’s brow furrowed. “But why didn’t they just ask my dad?”

“They did ask me,” Peter Crane said. “But not everybody tells them the truth. They need to get confirmation from other people-like you or Mom.”

“My dad would never kill anybody,” Tommy said. “He’s a good person. He doesn’t even ever yell-not even at my mom. And even if he wasn’t home, that doesn’t mean he would kill somebody.”

“No, it doesn’t,” Anne agreed even as she found his statement odd. Even if he wasn’t home …

“My dad helps people,” Tommy said. “That’s what he does. Even when he doesn’t have to.”

“That’s great,” Anne said. “Your dad is a really good example for you.”

“My mom says he’s a pillar of the community,” he said, not exactly sure what that meant, but certain it was something very admirable.

“I’m sure he is. And I’m sure you will be too, when you grow up,” Anne said. “You’ve been through a lot this week, and you’ve handled it all with a lot of courage. I’ve been very proud of you and Wendy.”

At the mention of his friend’s name, Tommy’s face went very sober. “Dennis Farman attacked Wendy and Cody in the park today.”

“Yes, I know,” Anne said, wishing they could have gotten through the evening without this conversation. She had decided it would take her until Monday to come up with a way to explain to her students what had happened to Wendy and Cody, and what would happen to Dennis. She couldn’t make sense of the senseless to herself. How was she supposed to make sense of any of this madness in a way ten-year-old children would understand?

“Wendy called and told me,” Tommy said. “She said Dennis had a huge knife and he tried to cut Cody’s heart out!”

“He had a knife,” Anne said. “And he hurt Cody with it, but Cody is going to be all right. So is Wendy,” she added, in case Wendy had taken the opportunity to embellish her part in the story as well.

“My mom says Dennis is evil and he should be locked up like an animal.”

“Dennis has done a lot of bad things,” Anne said. “He’s a very troubled boy, Tommy. As easy as it is for us to just be angry with Dennis, we need to feel bad for him too.”

“Why?” Tommy said with all the brutally honest incredulity of a child.

“Son, we can’t know what makes other people do bad things,” his father said. “We can’t make excuses for them, but we have to understand that there are probably a lot of complicated reasons Dennis is the way he is.”

Tommy made a face. “I just don’t want him to be around me, that’s all. If he was a grown-up and he tried to cut somebody’s heart out, he would have to go to prison, wouldn’t he?”

“Yes,” Anne said. “And Dennis will have to pay for what he’s done. But at the same time, I hope someone can help him understand why he did it.”

“’Cause his brain doesn’t work right,” Tommy said matter-of factly as the waitress brought their drinks.

He was bored with the subject now, having stated unequivocally the root of the problem. He took a big gulp of his Pepsi and looked up at his father.

“Dad, can I go play Pac-man until the pizza comes? Please?”

“Sure,” his father said, digging quarters out of his pocket. “Excuse yourself from the table.”

“Excuse me, please, Miss Navarre.”

“Have fun,” Anne said, watching him dash for the arcade machines. “You have a very special little man there, Dr. Crane.”

“He’s a good boy. I’ll thank my lucky stars today especially, after hearing about what the Farman boy did. It’s difficult to imagine a child that young having that much rage inside him.”

“I don’t think Dennis has had the best childhood,” Anne said. “We really can’t know what goes on in someone else’s family.”

“No,” Crane agreed. “Every family has its secrets, and those secrets can run deep-deeper than lies, deeper than death. And they impact every member of that family in ways we can’t know.”

“True enough,” Anne said, thinking of her own family secrets. Her father’s philandering and callous treatment of her mother had left lasting scars on her, though certainly no one outside the Navarre household knew anything other than what a model family they had appeared to be.

“I worry a little about Tommy,” Crane admitted. “His mother can be a very negative influence on him. I do my best to counterbalance that aspect of my wife’s personality. But will it still have an impact on Tommy? Probably. Will it drive him to knife a playmate? I don’t think so, but with all this talk about serial killers this past week, you can’t help but wonder what drives someone to do that.”

“Hopefully the killer will be caught soon, and we won’t have to think about it at all,” Anne said, steering the conversation on to activities coming up on the school calendar for Tommy and his classmates, including a field trip to the Griffith Observatory in Los Angeles, which Tommy had seemed especially excited about.

She felt relieved to have set things straight with Tommy. One burden off her shoulders. She tried not to think about Dennis Farman, who was spending the night on a cot in the same interview room where she had seen him that afternoon. Instead, she tried to enjoy the pizza and the company.

As they left the restaurant and said their good-byes, Tommy’s eyes suddenly got big.