Stephen White - Warning Signs

"The stuff Ramp brings keeps Paul stirred up. Now Paul's started collecting stuff on his own, too. They trade it like Paul used to trade baseball cards when he was little."

"Go on," I said. I shouldn't have said anything but I was an impatient audience. I was aware that there was a possibility that my need to hear this story was getting ahead of my patient's need to tell it. In almost all circumstances in psychotherapy, that was a problem.

Naomi said, "Ramp thinks that Leo is a hero."

I tried to remember who Leo was. After half a week of therapy appointments, I sometimes discovered that all the names I'd heard had blended together like the fruit in a smoothie.

"Paul, of course, thinks it's great that there's somebody who understands what his father did."

That Leo. The one who pummeled the rapist with a tire checker. The one doing hard time in a small concrete room in Buena Vista.

"Most of his friends deserted Paul after Leo was arrested for attacking the… scum who raped Marin. With Ramp, Paul has a friend who thinks what Leo did is the absolute coolest thing in the world. Ramp actually wants to go up to Buena Vista and visit Leo." She shifted her gaze from the window, to me, and back to the windows and the soft light at the end of the day.

"Yes?" I said.

"Ramp's the one who keeps bringing up retribution. 'Wouldn't it be cool?' That's what he says all the time. 'Wouldn't it be cool if somebody raped the judge's daughter? Maybe then he'd know how it feels.' Or 'Wouldn't it be cool if something bad happened to that lawyer's family? Then he'd know the pain.' Or 'Wouldn't it be cool if so-and-so's house blew up?' That's what Ramp always says."

"And Paul plays along?"

"It's like a parlor game. When I ask him about it, he tells me it's just their version of fantasy baseball."

She sounded skeptical. I stated the obvious by saying, "But you're not so sure it's so innocent?"

"I was." For a moment, Naomi appeared uncomfortable. "I didn't like it, that kind of talk. I mean I don't wish tragedy on any family, especially after what we've been through. And then I heard that Royal Peterson had been killed. Since then I haven't been so sure."

There are rare moments in psychotherapy where my practiced façade is tested to the extreme. I think of those moments as slugs that slam into my bulletproof vest. Usually, the lead doesn't pierce the protective shield, but sometimes the bullets rock me back on my heels. This was one of those times.

"What?" I said, as though I was feigning an acute hearing loss. To a casual observer my state could probably just as easily have been mistaken for a brief interim of idiocy.

"Roy Peterson's murder? The boys won't talk about it. Not a word about it since it happened. That alone made me suspicious. The truth was that I half expected them to be celebrating when they heard that Peterson had a dose of the medicine he was dishing out."

"I'm not sure I understand."

"Peterson was like a drug lord. DAs like him all are. With their plea bargains and sentence recommendations they put scum back on the street just like a drug lord ships crack or heroin into town. They think they're doing the right thing but they're really just making things worse. Do you know what percentage of charged crimes went to trial in the last ten years under Peterson? One percent. That's it. One percent."

"I didn't know."

"Do you know that pedophiles, and I mean active pedophiles-pedophiles who have actually touched children-have received deferred sentences in this county? Do you know that?"

I didn't answer. Part of me knew that it might be true, though. Some cases kept Lauren up at night. They were the ones I heard about at breakfast. I fought an impulse to defend the DA's office.

"Their good-old-boy networks and their political connections-it's disgusting. The excuses, God. When Peterson died, I thought the kids would be celebrating that maybe he choked on some of his own filth."

What did I want to say right then? I wanted to say, Holy shit! You think your son may have murdered Roy Peterson ? But I kept my mouth shut until I could think of an alternative that might actually keep Naomi talking and not cause her to keep her mouth shut.

"What I talked about that first day? About sympathy for the Klebolds and the Harrises? I think sometimes that I know how they felt in the months before the attack. Maybe even how they feel now. Are you finally beginning to understand what it is I mean?"

I can't say how much time passed before I spoke again. It might have been only a few seconds, but I'd guess it was most of a minute. I broke the silence with a question: "Naomi? Was Royal Peterson ever the focus of any of Paul's wouldn't-it-be-cool games?"

"They were Ramp's games."

The distinction was obviously important to Naomi. Essential, even, as far as our therapeutic alliance was concerned. "Okay-was Roy Peterson ever the focus of any of Ramp's wouldn't-it-be-cool games?"

"I don't really think they did it."

We both recognized that she hadn't responded to my question. I said, "You don't?"

"No." She shook her head for emphasis. "No, I don't think they did it. But, obviously, I'm not sure, not totally sure. So I'm not willing to say anything to anybody about my concerns."

"You just did. You told me you're not convinced that the games the boys are playing are innocent."

"I meant say anything to the police. Or whomever. The question I struggle with all the time is: How much does a parent have to know in order to turn her child in to the police?

"Do you know that before Columbine, Eric Harris's parents failed to notice that their son had an arsenal in their house, for heaven's sake? And that one of them-Eric or Dylan-wrote an essay that predicted what they were going to do? And sometime before the two kids made their assault, Mr. Harris actually took a call for his son from a gun shop? Well, it wasn't enough for him to do anything at all; it certainly wasn't enough for him to turn his son in.

"And the police?" she scoffed. "The sheriff in Jefferson County was informed that Harris had threatened to kill a student a year before the shooting. They even suspected him of detonating a pipe bomb. And they were aware that he had this violent, awful Web site. Some deputies even wrote a request for a search warrant. But the sheriff did nothing with the suspicions. Nothing.

"So I ask you, what does it take to get a parent to believe that her child is planning something evil? What should it take? Believe me, I've thought a lot about it and I don't know the answer to that question. But I do know that it's going to take a hell of a lot more than I know so far."

Softly, I said, "What do you know so far, Naomi?" I didn't say, Have you found an arsenal, too ? But that's what I wanted to know.

She glared at me as though my question was a trap. "Nothing. I don't know a thing. I haven't found any smoking guns in my house, and I haven't intercepted any calls from gun dealers, and I've checked my child's Web site and it's nothing but the same kind of stuff I hear around the house. I don't know a thing. I know less than the Klebolds and the Harrises knew. I definitely know less than the Jefferson County sheriff knew."

"But don't you think that the Klebolds and the Harrises and the sheriff all should have said something to prevent that tragedy?"

"The sheriff, sure, of course. But the parents? That's easy for us now , isn't it? We know what happened. They didn't know what was going to happen. Who could've guessed what those two boys were about to do?"

I tried empathy. "It's a tough place for a parent, Naomi."

For a long interval she stared at me, swallowing once or twice, and then she found a place where her composure was more assured. When she spoke again, she took me someplace else I didn't want to be.