One of the most heart stopping phone calls a parent can get is a call from the local police saying, “Could you come down to the station? We’ve got your son here.”

“What’s the problem?” Candice Archer replied. They’d been getting a little worried about Cody; it wasn’t all that late, but it was later than he usually got home from the range on Thursday nights.

“He’s all right,” she heard the voice on the other end of the phone. “It’s just that there’s been an incident.”

“We’ll be right there,” Candice told the officer on the phone.

“What’s happening, honey?” John Archer asked his wife as she put the phone down.

Candice had never been one to fly off the handle when things went wrong. Things often did go wrong when working with dog teams, and she’d learned early on that panic never helped. It hadn’t even been a new lesson for her then; she’d learned it from working with horses when she’d been a little girl. Keeping her voice level, she told her husband, “That was the police. Cody’s all right, but there’s been some kind of an incident, and they want us down at the station.”

“What kind of incident?” John replied with a little bit of alarm. He wasn’t as good about keeping his cool as his wife, but then he rarely got into situations where things went that far off the rails.

“They didn’t say,” Candice replied, heading for the coat closet. “But I think we ought to get down there pretty quick.”

“I’m right behind you,” John told her.

Given the benefit of a small head start, she made it to the minivan first. She had the engine going and the garage door open by the time John climbed into the right seat. It was only a matter of a few blocks to get to the police station; there were several cars parked outside. Quickly, they climbed out and hurried up to the door, where they were met by Sergeant Wexler.

“What happened, Charlie?” Candice asked without preliminaries.

“Long story, and we don’t have all the pieces yet,” he told them. “Let me give you a thumbnail before we go inside. About an hour ago, Cody found a girl being assaulted and raped. He broke up the assault, but both the perps died in the process.”

“He shot them?” John asked incredulously.

“Apparently,” Charlie said. “We haven’t had the chance to get his statement yet, since we wanted you and an attorney present when we did. He’s a little shaken up, but I wouldn’t be surprised if he comes out of this as the hero of the whole affair. Just to make things interesting, the perps were apparently running a meth lab.”

Candice shook her head. “How’s the girl?” she asked.

“Not good,” Charlie told her honestly. “We’re waiting to hear. The last I knew they thought she would live, but they haven’t had time to get her to the hospital yet. Now, look. Whatever happens, it’s going to be important to get a clear statement. He said that you sometimes used Matt Schindenwulfe as an attorney, and he’s on the way. Under the circumstances, I thought it best if an attorney was present. I’m going to have to ask you to just sit back and not say anything. You can see him, but don’t ask him about what happened.”

“What’s going to happen to him?” John said. “Is he going to have to go to jail or something?”

“I don’t know,” Charlie told them. “A lot is going to depend on his statement, which is why I don’t want you muddling his thinking.”

“All right,” Candice said. “Can we see him?”

“Sure,” Charlie said, leading them inside. “I really doubt that this is going to take too long.”

They headed inside, to find Cody, Sheriff Stoneslinger, and another officer sitting around in chairs behind the desk. Cody got to his feet as his parents approached, and took his mother in his arms. “Are you OK?” she said softly.

“Yeah, I guess,” he said. “Just pretty tired.”

“Just hang in there,” she replied, holding on tight to him.

“Yeah, hang in there,” his father agreed, taking both of them in his arms. “We’ll do what we can.”

After a moment, Charlie spoke up. “I’ve got some fresh coffee ready, if anyone would like a cup.”

“Yeah,” Cody said. “I think so. It might help me keep awake.”

“I guess,” John said, rather nervously. He could see all sorts of ways this could go, few of them good, but there was nothing much that could be said right now.

“Yeah, me too,” Candice nodded. Normally it would be too late for coffee, but she suspected this evening was going to go late.

“We’re going to have enough people here, I suppose we’d better do this in the conference room,” Charlie said. “Leo, could you set up the video camera in there?”

“Sure, it’ll only take a couple minutes.”

It was awkward standing around; no one wanted to say anything. The silence was broken by the phone; Charlie picked it up and said, “Spearfish Lake Police, Sergeant Wexler.”

He was silent for a moment, then said, “Yeah,” then in another moment, another “Yeah.” After a third “Yeah,” he said, “OK, good. If that’s all you’re going to get tonight, you might as well hitch a ride back with them. See you in a while.” He set down the phone and said, “That was Fred Piwowar. They got her down to the hospital all right, and they think she’s going to be all right although she’s got a lot of healing to do. She’s going to be under sedation, so we won’t get any more out of her tonight.”

“Good,” Cody said softly. “At least that much went all right.”

“Why don’t we move into the conference room and get organized?” Sergeant Wexler said. “I’m sure Matt will be here in a few minutes.”

They were just getting settled in the conference room when Matt Schindenwulfe showed up. He normally was a suit-and-tie kind of person, but tonight he was in slacks and a sweat shirt. He was fortyish with a ruddy complexion, and starting to go gray. “Evening, Charlie,” he said to Wexler, who was waiting at the door, the last to go in. “You want to give me a thumbnail of what’s happening?”

“Yeah, I guess I’d better bring you up to speed. Let’s go in my office.”

Charlie came out a couple minutes later, and headed into the conference room. “Mr. and Mrs. Archer, Cody: Mr. Schindenwulfe would like to see you in my office for a second.”

The three of them got up and headed into Charlie’s office. “Evening, John,” the attorney told him. “Sorry I have to see you like this.”

“Yeah, me too,” John nodded.

“Let’s make this quick,” the attorney said. “Charlie gave me a short version of what he knows happened and what he thinks happened. He’s planning on taking you straight through the whole thing, Cody. If he asks something I don’t think you should answer I’ll tell you not to. I may ask something at some point to clarify something, even if it’s just in my own mind. What I need you to do is to tell the truth, Cody. The truth the best way you can remember it. I think you’re going to get out of this all right, but it may be uncomfortable for a few days.”

“Can’t ask for a lot more than that,” Cody told him. “For better or worse, there’s no point in not telling the truth.”

“OK, let’s do it,” the attorney said. “Relax. This isn’t going to be that bad. It’s not going to be like the stuff you see on TV.”

A couple minutes later they were all seated in the conference room, except for Leo, who stayed at the front desk to answer the phone.

“All right,” Charlie said. He stated the date and time, announcing that this was an interview with Cody Archer about the events of earlier that evening, then added. “Present are myself, Sergeant Charles Wexler of the Spearfish Lake Police Department, Cody Archer, his parents, John and Candice Archer, and attorney Matthew Schindenwulfe. I have also asked Spearfish County Sheriff Steven Stoneslinger to sit in on this for the benefit of his experience and observations. For the record, I’d like to point out to everyone that this interview is being videotaped. Does anybody have any objection?” He waited a few seconds, then said, “Hearing none, let’s get on with this.”

Charlie made a point of reading Cody his rights, including the right to have a lawyer present. “Mr. and Mrs. Archer, do you accept Mr. Matthew Schindenwulfe as Cody’s and your attorney in this matter?”

“Yes, we do,” John said.

“All right, Cody,” Charlie began. “About 7:30 PM this evening, you and I were out at the Spearfish Lake Sportsman’s Club indoor range, and you said you wanted to talk to me in private. Out in the cruiser, you told me that you had concerns about Janice Lufkin. Would you please repeat those concerns that you told me about at that time?”

Slowly and carefully, Charlie took Cody though the discussion at the range, then Cody’s concerns about what was happening to her.

“Cody,” Mr. Schindenwulfe asked, “do you have any kind of relationship with Janice. I mean, is she your girlfriend or anything?”

“No,” Cody said. “Just a friend, a classmate, but she looked bad enough at school the last few days that I was concerned about her.”

“Did you take your concerns to someone in the school administration?”

“No,” Cody replied. “I, uh, I didn’t want them to screw up and cause her more trouble. I’ve seen it happen before and turn out really bad. I thought this was really something more for the police, and I was pretty sure I was going to be seeing Sergeant Wexler later.”

Schindenwulfe let Charlie take the questioning back over. The Sergeant took Cody through the events of the rest of the evening – the decision to go and snoop on what was happening, the discovery of her being raped, and his attempt to call 911 before deciding he had to do something immediately.

As Cody went through the events of the evening, he threw off the lethargy that had haunted him ever since Janice had been carried off in the ambulance and gave clear, precise answers. He went through going back to the house, opening the door, calling for the Lufkin men to leave Janice alone, the warning shot, Jack Lufkin diving for the gun. He was virtually emotionless as he described shooting first the father, then the son as they dove for the shotgun.

“Just to make clear,” Charlie said. “You gave them a warning, and fired a warning shot when Mr. Lufkin dived for the shotgun. Is that correct?

“Yes.”

“Where was that shot aimed?”

“Upward,” Cody replied. “Upward, and over their heads. I noticed later that it hit in the ceiling just outside the door to the kitchen.”

“Cody,” Charlie asked. “Can I ask why you went for a head shot, rather than a center-of-mass shot?”

“I didn’t think about it,” Cody said. “All three of them were more or less down on the floor and close together, at best on their knees. A center-of-mass shot might have hit Janice.”

“Did the thought cross your mind that you might miss?”

“I never thought about it. I knew I could make the shot, and I did.”

“What happened after you shot Bobby?”

“Janice was screaming in fear. I very quickly ejected the magazine from the weapon, ejected the round in the chamber, set the gun down and called 911,” he replied. “I figured that an ambulance could do more for her than I could. Most of her clothes had been torn off, so I grabbed a throw cover from the couch, wrapped it around her, and just tried to hold on to her and quiet her down until you arrived. That could have been two minutes, or it could have been an hour. I don’t know, but it seemed like forever.”

“You were shaking a little, weren’t you?” Charlie asked.

“Maybe a little,” Cody admitted. “But I felt like I needed to care for Janice and show strength for her. Once the ambulance crew took her off, I guess I collapsed.”

“Cody,” Mr. Schindenwulfe asked, “why did you do it?”

“Mr. Schindenwulfe,” he replied, “I’ve always understood that it’s everyone’s duty to protect the weak from the strong.”

“All right, this concludes the interview,” Charlie said a few minutes later.

“Uh, Sergeant Wexler,” Candice spoke up. “What happens now?”

“Well, I’d suggest you take Cody home and let him get some sleep,” Charlie smiled. “If you have a tranquilizer or a sleeping pill around, it might be a good idea. Since Cody is a minor I can’t advise you to do this, but if it were me, I’d probably have a good stiff drink or two, if you know what I mean.”

“You mean, you’re not going to arrest him, and he’s not going to have to go to jail?”

“Not at this time, and most likely not at all,” Charlie said. “What’s going to happen is that I’m going to have to get a couple more statements, get autopsy reports back, and other details, along with a thorough study of the scene. Then, I’m going to have to present all this to the prosecuting attorney, and it’ll be his decision whether to issue a warrant. If everything continues to check out the way it has so far, my recommendation will be to not seek a warrant, and it’s very doubtful that he would.”

“I agree,” Schindenwulfe said. “It’s extremely unlikely that a warrant would be issued. This is a clear cut case of self-defense and defense of others from the commission of a serious felony. Even if the prosecutor was crazy enough to issue a warrant, you’d have a very defensible case. He’ll realize it when he sees it, and that gives me the confidence that he won’t issue one.”

“How long before we know?” John asked.

“Hard to say,” Charlie said. “There’s enough happening that it’s going to take a while to even get things ready for the prosecutor. Maybe the first of the week, maybe a little longer, but I really think it’s going to be mostly a formality. However, on the odd chance it might happen, I’ll have to ask you to stay around town, unless you check with me first. I’ll also have to hold onto your P226 for a few days, Cody. Any problem with that?”

“No,” Cody said. “I’m not all that sure I want it back, anyway.”

“Don’t feel like that,” Charlie told him. “As messy as this is, you and your shooting probably saved Janice’s life this evening. I deliberately didn’t tell you before the interview, but that phone call I had earlier from Fred Piwowar said that he’d gotten something of a statement from Janice while they were in the ambulance. I’ll have to do some more investigation, but apparently someone else went to the school administration with the same suspicions you had, and the school muffed it. At least Jack Lufkin told Janice that she must have blabbed it all over school, and she was going to pay for it. I don’t know if they really intended to kill her, but they were well on the way. This wasn’t the first time something like that has happened to her, but it was the worst.”

Cody shook his head. “The poor girl,” he sighed. “What’s going to happen to her? I mean, I wiped out her whole family, such as it was. I mean, no great loss, but still . . . ”

“Yeah,” Charlie nodded sympathetically. “I hear you, Cody.”

A few minutes later Charlie stood by the door of the police station watching the Archers head out to their minivan. “Shit,” he said to no one in particular. “I sure wouldn’t want to be in their shoes tonight.”

“Yeah,” Stoneslinger said from behind him. “When you’re a cop, you’re at least a little prepared for things like that to happen.”

Charlie shook his head and leaned up against the door frame. He really felt sorry for the kid, and for his parents. They were going to be facing something that was most likely going to be very hard for them under the best of circumstances. Finally, he asked, “Steve, have you ever had to deal with something like that?”

“You mean, to be in the kid’s shoes? Or the parents’? No, I haven’t,” the sheriff replied slowly. “But I always know it could never be very far away.”

“Me either,” Charlie said thoughtfully. “Sometimes you have to do some things that sit pretty hard on your gut, but this is not the same thing as telling a parent that their kid is dead in a car wreck or something. At least then you don’t feel like you’re in the same boat. I know that kid has been thinking about wanting to be a cop. We’ve talked about it any number of times. Tonight, he was acting like one. I think he’d have made a pretty good one, at least before tonight.”

“At least if you’re a cop you’ve got the badge to protect you a little,” Stoneslinger observed, stepping back to lean against the front desk. He scratched his head and went on, “If he’d been a cop, he’d have to go through the same sort of investigation. At least he’d know he had the law on his side, and I don’t think any of them fully realize that. If he was a cop, he’d also have some friends to talk him down, friends who know what he’s going through. But, really, you’ve done about all you can do for him under the circumstances.”

“Yeah, I suppose you’re right,” Charlie sighed. “We probably shouldn’t have left the scene, but I at least wanted to help Cody through that so he didn’t have to hang in suspense any longer than was necessary. He’s a good kid and deserves that much respect.” He shook his head. “I suppose we better get back to the house and get all the crime scene shit done so the ambulance crew can haul off the bodies and take them to Camden for the autopsy.”

“We can do the simple stuff tonight,” Stoneslinger said. “The upstairs stuff, the photos and measurements. Not that it’s going to matter for a hill of beans, but you need to have it on record. The downstairs stuff, the meth lab: Charlie, in your shoes I wouldn’t even get started on that tonight. That way we don’t screw up the upstairs scene any more than it already is before we get started on the downstairs stuff.”

“Yeah, we might as well get some rest before we get started on that mess. That’s going to be a hell of a lot of work,” Charlie agreed, pushing away from where he’d been leaning against the door while thinking about what the sheriff had said. “We probably need to get some prints off of the stuff just to make sure that it was just Jack and Bobby who were running it. Hell, someone else may have been involved.”

“I still wouldn’t touch it tonight,” Steve said thoughtfully. “Hell, that’s what we’ve got a Regional Drug Task Force for. Besides, they have the access to all the HAZMAT gear that’s going to be needed to get all that crap out of there, and it comes out of their budget, not yours. Besides, someone is going to go through the house from one end to the other to look for evidence of outside connections. From the looks of the house, that’s a HAZMAT job all by itself.”

“Shit, I never thought about all that,” Charlie said. “I’m glad I’ve got you around for advice. I’ve just been thinking too much about what’s happening to the kid. If there were other people involved with Jack and Bobby, I suppose we ought to keep someone on the scene after we get done. We don’t dare just lock up and go home when we’re done upstairs. We don’t want someone sneaking in and making off with some kind of critical evidence.”

“Good thinking,” the sheriff nodded. “It probably wouldn’t be a bad idea to contact the task force now, so they can get here in the morning. This is going to take some time.”

“I better call them,” Charlie replied thoughtfully. “This is my turf, after all, but I don’t think I’m going to mind letting someone else wade through all that shit. They’re probably going to want some extra hands, and with Abernathy gone there’s only Fred and me, plus whatever part timers I can round up. Can you lend me a hand or two if I need them?”

“A situation like this, sure. But try to utilize your own resources as much as you can. There’s less of a chance about Abernathy getting pissy about it. Do you think maybe you ought to call him, have him come back from his vacation?”

“Shit, I don’t know,” Charlie said. “On the one hand, I’d really rather not have him around screwing things up. On the other hand, it is his territory, after all.” He stopped and thought about it for a moment, then added, “He told me to call if there was a real emergency. I think we’ve got some things that are urgent, but nothing that’s a real emergency. What do you think?”

Stoneslinger frowned. He didn’t like Abernathy very much, and pretty well knew that Charlie didn’t either. “Tell you what,” he said finally. “Call him in the morning, after the task force gets here. Then you can tell him we found a meth lab, but the task force is here and handling it. Make it his call.”

“Good thinking,” Charlie agreed. “Whatever happens, that puts the ball in his court.”

“Sounds reasonable,” the sheriff agreed. “I suppose we’d better get to getting it done. Go make your call, and I’ll run across the street, grab a couple things, and meet you back out there.”

“All right, see you in a few,” Charlie agreed. “I think I want to take a little warmer jacket for the job. That way we can open the house up a little bit and maybe kill some of the smell.”

“That’s one of the things I wanted to do,” the sheriff agreed. “You wonder how people can live like that, but they do.”

“Yeah, that’s true,” Charlie nodded, and headed for his office, which he shared with Piwowar. The number of the Regional Drug Task Force was easy to find, but he hesitated calling for a moment. There was an idea right on the edge of his mind that wouldn’t quite come clear. It was a damn shame that there was no one to support the kid and his family. He really had done about all he could, but there ought to be someone. Who could he call that would be supporting, sympathetic, and understand what he was going through? Not a counselor or someone like that, but someone who had been there and done that. Someone like . . . yeah!

He had the number on his Rolodex, so it only took an instant to call. “Yeah?” A sleepy voice answered.

“Gil, this is Charlie Wexler,” he said. “I’ve got a little problem that I think you could be a lot of help with . . . ”

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