Guilty

Amber was pronounced dead at 3:04 Sunday morning. I was away on a scouting trip and did not get the news until Sunday evening. Her mother refused to see me. Her father took a swing at me and accused me of killing her.

“She did this trying to get into that damn college,” he spat at me. “You kept pushing and pushing and now look at it. She’s on a cold slab because of you!”

Kris, her 14-year old sister, knew better. “She was behind on her reports,” she said.” You were gone this weekend and she and Toni thought they could pull an all-nighter with a bit of gravel for extra energy and get back ahead. I told her it was stupid, but she thought once wouldn’t hurt.”

On Monday the school held a short memorial and offered counseling to the students. I went from class to class in a daze. We had known each other since we were ten and spent that first summer on the local swim team. By an agreement we made when we were 12 we didn’t start dating until our sophomore year. Things had gotten serious this last summer and we had new plans for our senior year. Amber was still determined to make her parents dream come true and go to Princeton. For whatever reason her father didn’t think college was college unless it was Ivy League. This from a guy with an Associate’s degree in business from a junior college. My own plan was simple: go where Amber went.

Third period I was called into the vice principal’s office. I thought it had to do with counseling. Instead, her father was there, with a sheriff’s deputy. I was accused of supplying Amber with alphapyrrolidinopentiophenone, or Alpha-PVP, better known as gravel or Flakka (slang for “skinny girl”), and since she died, her father gleefully told me he wanted murder two. My anger rose, but I kept calm. I knew anything I did would look bad against me. I was placed on suspension until an investigation could be completed. In other words, get out. There would be no graduation. As a 17-year-old kid I had zero rights and as a teenage male I was automatically guilty. I didn’t bother going home. My parents knew it wasn’t my fault and they would support me, but I didn’t want to draw them into a losing battle with the system.

Toni stayed home from school. She was there alone. While her friend convulsed and died, Toni was lucky enough to just be violently sick. Nobody other than Kris seemed to know about her involvement. I found Toni soaking in the hot tub out back. Stretched out in the water as she was, topless with barely a wisp of bikini bottom, you wouldn’t have known she survived a nearly fatal dose of designer drugs 24-hours earlier. She panicked and tried to run, but I caught her by the arm and threw her down on a lawn chair. I kicked the other chair over and picked up the side table and threw it across the yard. I wasn’t at the point where I would intentionally hurt a woman, but I was close.

Toni confessed. She curled up into a ball and blabbered the whole dark story. I was under the impression they had picked up the drug from some street corner in Shay Town. The truth was much worse. I left her cowering in the chair, tears and snot running down her face as she pleaded she was sorry.

The Cornerstone New Beginnings Church was a staple in the neighborhood and had grown from an old run-down barn into a multi-level, multi-building, multi-million dollar complex. The local news constantly touted Pastor Arnold Jennings as a true miracle worker. The place was not only the religious center but the cornerstone of the community and community outreach programs, like my Scout Troop. So it was a bit of a surprise when Toni said her source was Angelina Jennings, the pastor’s gorgeous and refined thirty-something wife.

I followed Toni’s instructions and left two $50 bills in the notch of the old pear tree that grew on the far corner of the church property. Looking up into the branches I could barely see the camouflaged video camera. I went across the street to Mary’s Village Burger, bought an ice-cold cherry-lime rickey and garlic fries and sat down to wait. In less than an hour Sabrina, the pastor’s 12-year-old daughter, came out to the tree, picked a few pears, and then went back inside the main residence. I gave her a few minutes then finished my drink and fries, tossed them in the garbage, and crossed the street to the tree. There was a small bag of clear crystals in the notch where I dropped the money. I left it there.

My next stop was to visit Acting Police Chief Russel Chin. He was an Assistant Scoutmaster with my troop and someone I could trust. He was surprised to see me in his office, but he had me sit down and pulled a voice recorder from his desk so he could tape the conversation.

I told him what I knew: the charges from Amber’s father, Toni’s involvement, and what I witnessed at the church. Chief Chin took notes and asked a few clarifying questions. I felt better knowing I had someone on my side. I was about to pull out my phone and show him the video I had taken of Sabrina when he told me to hang on and left his small office. A few minutes later I glanced out his office window and spotted the Chief shaking hands with Pastor Jennings.

Time to go.

I grabbed the recorder, stuffed it my pocket, squatted down until I was eye level with his desk and did my best duck walk out the door, through the open bullpen, and out into the hallway. I shut off my phone, left my car where I parked it, and made a beeline for the railroad tracks a mile away. I climbed over the barrier and hiked south until I was at the town limit and at the old hideout my friends and I had built years before. Once I was safely inside I took the time to mourn.

When I was done crying and the dull ache of loss had turned into the slow burn of rage I began planning. In hindsight it made sense. Pastor Jennings and his family had shown up four years ago and bought the old farmstead on the edge of town. Within a year the old barn that had served as the chapel was bulldozed and the current complex went up. A new neighborhood went up around it and the town flourished, especially the sport and scout programs. My troop was fully funded and we wanted for nothing. That made the betrayal bad enough, but if adults like Chief Chin were involved then the betrayal went much deeper. We were using blood money and I could not accept that.

If she had lived I may have walked away, taken it as a life lesson and moved on. However, Amber was dead, and fingers were pointed at me. I couldn’t walk away now.

I mentally mapped out the Cornerstone. Everything I needed was there, I just had to utilize it. A plan formed. I dug into a corner of the hideout and came out with an old tire iron. A cigar box held a few dozen matches. Another rusted first aid box held three homemade fire starters. I waited for nightfall.

Mary’s Village was serving its last customer when I used the shadows to dart across the street into the Cornerstone. There was no fence, no guards. Why bother when you owned the town? Staying low I used what cover there was to reach the equipment sheds in back. The grounds were quiet and the only light came from the residence. The church complex sat silent. I used the tire iron to pop off the lock to the garden tool shed. I piled all the gas cans outside. I grabbed an oily rag from the bin and wrapped it around the end of the tire iron. I used it to brake the window to the scout shed and crawled inside. I unlocked the door and started piling the equipment I would need on the front porch. When I was finished I stopped and took another look around. Still no sign of guards, of anybody. The night was quiet. The light in the residence went out.

Time to go to work.

I found the stash by accident. It was behind a false wall in the kindergarten classroom. The space was the size of two walk-in closets. Crystals were wrapped in everything from gallon-sized Ziploc bags, to tiny dime bags to small glass vials. In the back of the hidden room were shelves lined with stacks of currency. I stripped the bands off a few dozen bundles and spread the loose bills on the floor. I soaked them and the remainder on the shelves with kerosene. I took six propane bottles and one five-gallon tank and opened the valves.

When the sun finally peaked its weary head over the mountains to the east I was sitting at a table at Mary’s Village. From here I could see the fingers of fire reaching above a few classroom windows. Who knew hymn books made suchgreat fire starters?

Smoke streamed out of broken windows in the main church. A small explosion rocked the second floor classrooms. Then another from the first floor. A third from the back of the church. The fourth was at the back of the residence and flames licked at the back porch as the Jennings hustled out the front door in their bathrobes and bunny slippers. I heard sirens when the stash closet blew. By then it was too late for Cornerstone.

Mary’s Village opened at six. I ordered a chocolate milk and her famous breakfast quesadilla. I sat back down to enjoy the show. By 10 o’clock there was nothing left but that damn pear tree. The three Jennings stood next to it in their smoke-smudged bathrobes.

The fire fighters were poking through the rubble and Mary was switching over to her lunch menu when Acting Chief Chin slowly approached me. I made sure to keep my hands in sight. He hadn’t drawn his weapon but he keep his hands close. Along with him were the town Mayor, Mr. Devinson, the school vice principal, and Pastor Arnold Jennings.

Not a word was spoken as Acting Chief Chin put me in handcuffs and took me to the police station. My parents were waiting for me. I was not officially booked, but I was put in a holding cell while the grown-ups figured something out. I knew what I had done. They knew what I had done. And to be honest it wasn’t much. I set them back a week. A week. Seven days. One hundred and sixty eight hours. The money and drugs were replaced and by the end of the month the pastor broke ground on a new complex.

As for me, I was out of jail and on a flight to Seward, Alaska that night. I was to live with my uncle until I graduated in the spring. My parents followed a few weeks later. My only regret was missing Amber’s memorial service. Four months later, on the day I graduated from Seward High School, I received a letter from Kris. Inside was a memorial prayer card, a photo of the new church complex, and a newspaper clipping dated a week before: “Bad Luck Plagues Pastor as Second Church Burns to the Ground.”

On the back of the photo she had written: “Little sis is pissed.”

I smiled.