“No,” Del said firmly. “No, I won’t.” He nodded at Dr. Atchley who was obviously looking for a way out and took it as soon as he expressed they had no further questions. Then he turned his attention to Harper. “I did nothing wrong. I went and helped Justin when he was in trouble. The police just need me to give my statement so that they know what exactly happened. That’s how the law works.”
Harper looked dubious, and Del could understand why. After all, she’d been raised to believe that the police were the enemy and her family—probably Uncle Steve included—had never done anything bad and they’d been unjustly put in jail anyway.
Suddenly she got off the chair and walked to Del, then climbed onto his lap and held on like the little girl she was supposed to be. Del felt tears threatening to fall, and hugged her close, despite the fact that it meant taking his hand off Scarlett.
* * * *
An hour later he sat in a very small room at the sheriff’s station. It had a narrow table pressed against one corner with a chair next to it in the other corner, and two chairs by the other end by the door.
Del was tired as hell. There was no clock in the room, but on the way in he’d seen that it was barely nine in the morning. It felt like he’d been awake for days.
He’d gotten a ride from a deputy when it was time to leave the hospital, and because he hadn’t had the chance to change, there were a few drops of Justin’s blood on the knee of his jeans. He picked at it as he sat there, waiting for someone to come get his statement.
He’d written it down already, trying to sound as clear as possible when his memories of what had happened that night were already fuzzy and incomplete. He knew it was shock and just being bone tired, but he still disliked not being concise enough to his own liking.
A man stepped inside without knocking.
“I’m Detective Fischer, I’m sorry to have kept you waiting.” He looked like any other detective ever, except maybe his suit fit better and he had more hair. Del hid a smile at the thought.
“No, it’s okay. It’s…it is what it is,” he said, shaking Fischer’s hand when he came closer.
“Can we go through what you’ve written here?” Fischer asked as he picked up the notepad.
“Yeah, I expected you wanted that. I’m just…I’m sorry, I’m drooping, big time.”
The detective flashed him a small smile. “Well, it’s been a long night so I’ll try to make this brief.”
They went through the statement and Fischer made some additional notes of his own into a separate pad, and then when he seemed happy enough, he put his pen away. Then he leveled a look at Del. “You know, Mr. Abbot, I find it curious that you haven’t asked what happened to Steve O’Dwyer.”
Del blinked, feeling confused for a moment. “I know he was alive when your people arrived and I…I guess that was enough for me?”
Fischer looked at him seriously for a few moments, then snorted and shook his head. “I guess I can see your point. Nasty piece of work, that man.”
“Look, I don’t know what happened in that house during the weekend, but maybe the guy who almost ran me over does? I heard what Steve called Justin as he beat him, and that’s all I know.” Del rubbed his face with his palms and felt the room sway a little bit.
“Have you spoken to Justin’s doctors?” Fischer asked, serious again.
“Yeah. She says time will tell, I guess. There are broken fingers where…where that bastard fucking stomped them, some cigarette burns on his arm, he lost his pancreas and a part of his liver. Whether there’s damage to his brain, we don’t know until they let him wake up. It’s…” Del found himself unable to keep back the sob that bubbled from his throat. “I’d do fucking anything for him and the kids. I love him, you see, and that bastard almost killed him. I…” He peered at Fischer through his tears. “How bad did I hurt him?”
Fischer leaned back in his chair, seemingly not uncomfortable with his sobbing. “You hit him hard enough that he’s got some brain damage. It’s hard to say how bad it is exactly, like Justin, he has to wake up first, but one thing’s for sure; he’ll be going away for a long time for this.”
Del wiped his cheeks and looked at Fischer, feeling slow. “W-what?”
“He assaulted Justin. There’s proof of it being a hate crime, and this is an election year. His parole officer isn’t happy at all and will do his best to make sure Steve goes inside and stays there.”
It hadn’t even crossed Del’s mind that Steve had been on parole. It made sense, of course, but to know that he wasn’t going to be a problem anymore for a hopefully long time made him slump a little.