Deviation, Breaking the Pattern #1

CHAPTER ELEVEN

  MARTY WAS TIED UP for a few minutes eating in the kitchen, so Henry went back to the main control room. Sweating, he looked around to make sure no one was close by. He plugged the telephone cord back into the back of the computer, and it snapped back into place with a loud click. Henry watched the screen. Nothing happened. Would he be able to tell if someone was accessing it? Would others? Henry loosened the connection on the back of the monitor until the screen went blank. He got back up and left the room.

  Henry wondered if all of the phones were rigged to go directly to John. He couldn’t get to the main phone that he and Marty had previously used. There were too many people around. Eventually, he couldn’t stand it and longer and he went to one of the other offices. He didn’t turn the light on. He didn’t want to attract any attention. He picked up the phone and crawled under the desk where he couldn’t be seen. He pulled his sweat-soaked uniform away from his body and picked up the phone.

  “Hello?”

  “Hi,” it was John.

  “It’s Henry,” he told John.

  “That’s what I thought. How are things going in there, Henry?”

  “I plugged the computer phone line in. Did you find out if there’s a back door?”

  “I’m told that there is. But we need some more details from you. We can’t just perform a lock-down. Then our guys can’t get in.”

  “Yeah, okay.”

  “So tell me, Henry, what’s your motivation behind all of this?”

  Henry considered his answer before answering.

  “I shouldn’t even be here, you know. I know everyone says it. But they don’t even have any evidence against me.”

  “Are you saying you’ll help if you’re promised a free release?”

  Henry shook his head, bumping it on the desk. When had he asked for anything in return for help?

  “No—I just want someone to take another look at my case,” he said.

  “You were convicted without evidence?”

  “I haven’t been convicted of anything. I haven’t gone to trial.”

  “I see.”

  “Don’t you have access to everyone’s records?” Henry quizzed, frowning.

  “Well, we haven’t had access to the computer, so we’ve had to do everything manually. And believe it or not, you’re not the only Henry in there.”

  “Oh. It’s sort of a geeky name. I haven’t run into a lot of others.”

  “Yeah, they usually have weird nicknames. You never had a nickname?”

  “None I liked, no,” Henry said, with a slight laugh. He’d been called a lot of things. But he’d never actually gone by anything other than Henry.

  “So where are you situated, Henry? What room are you in?” John questioned.

  “I don’t know the number. It’s an office in the main wing.”

  “And where are the others?”

  “Marty’s in the mess, unless he’s finished eating already. One or two will be patrolling the cells. Everyone else will just be hanging out, playing cards or whatever.”

  “Are they all fairly centralized?”

  “Yeah. All in the main wing, except for Marty and the guards.”

  “Okay. The first thing we’re going to do is lock out anyone not in the main wing. That will hopefully isolate your leader and a couple of guns. After that, we’ll have to act fast, before anyone realizes we have control over the computer.”

  “Yeah, okay.”

  “I want you to think carefully. You said there were about ten of you free. Is that accurate?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Including Marty?”

  “Yeah.”

  “And you?”

  “Yeah.”

  “So if you’re on our side, and we’ve isolated Marty and two others, that only leaves half a dozen to contend with.”

  “Right.”

  There were urgent voices in the background.

  “Okay. This is all going to happen pretty fast,” John warned. “Are you armed?”

  Henry felt his waistband. He was still carrying a gun.

  “Uh—yeah.”

  “Okay. I want you to put it on the floor and kick it away.”

  Henry did.

  “Okay.”

  “Is it a good distance away? You don’t want to make our SWAT team nervous.”

  “Yeah, it’s out of reach,” Henry reassured him.

  “They’re going to be using tear gas. I don’t want you to panic. In just a minute, I want you to put down the phone and lie on your stomach with your hands behind your head. Keep down on the floor and close your eyes, the tear gas won’t bother you as much.”

  “Okay.”

  There was a long silence from John. Henry could hear a chaos of background noises, but couldn’t differentiate between them. Then he heard John’s voice again.

  “Okay, get ready. Put down the phone and belly down.”

  Henry’s stomach twisted. His shirt was sticking to him again. He put down the phone and lay down. At first, nothing happened. Then he heard the clank of doors opening. There was deadly silence, and then shouting and yelling. Henry braced for shots, but heard none. The tear gas stared to seep into the room. Henry shut his eyes tightly and tried not to breathe the gas any more than possible. The shouting quieted and there were opening and closing doors and it was a few minutes before Henry realized they were looking for him. They were a couple of doors away still. Henry raised his head for a moment, but the gas stung his eyes and he put it down again. Then the door flew open and booted feet rushed in.

  “Here he is!” a deep voice shouted. Henry started to rise, only to be kicked back to the floor.

  “Don’t move! Hands behind your head!”

  “But—” Henry tried to protest, to tell them that he was one of the good guys. But they weren’t listening.

  “Stay still!” Henry was kicked again, and rough hands wrenched his arms around behind his back and cuffed them. They raised him to his feet, and Henry coughed and choked in the clouds of gas, his eyes blurred with tears. He was hustled out to the compound outside and thrown to the ground. The others were there too. He could hear Azzi cursing, one of the others crying, everyone sniffling and coughing from the tear gas. There was muttering and grumbling about the bust, but no one was shouting slogans and ‘never surrender’. They weren’t real terrorists. They were a group of juvies who got lucky, and who always knew that sooner later they’d get caught and be prisoners again.

  Henry was quickly frisked down, heavy hands firmly groping for hidden weapons. Then they lifted him to his feet again and escorted him to a dark-colored car, pushing him in so clumsily that he knocked his head on the roof before sliding into his seat.

  Tears were still running down his cheeks. He kept blinking, trying to clear them. He hadn’t even had that much exposure to the gas. They eventually pulled up to a police station, which Henry could now see. It was still blurry even though the tears had stopped, but it wasn’t until Henry tried to use his shoulder to readjust his glasses that he realized he’d lost them in the fracas. He let the cop who’d driven him lead him into the station and walk him into an interrogation room. Henry sat down at the table. Another man came in and sat across from him. Henry squinted at him, his eyes burning still.

  “Hello, Henry,” he greeted.

  Henry thought he recognized the voice.

  “John?”

  “Yeah. How are you doing?”

  “I lost my glasses.”

  “We’ll see what we can do about that. I want to thank you for your help in getting the prison under our control again.”

  Henry nodded.

  “No one was hurt?”

  “No. Not during the operation. During the uprising—well, you know as well as anyone.”

  “Yeah. It all happened so fast. I didn’t know what was going on.”

  “Exactly how did you get mixed up in it?”

  “I was in Marty’s cell. I didn’t have anything to do with it; I was just caught in the m
iddle of everything.”

  “I see. Well, make yourself comfortable. I expect you’ll be here for a while until things are sorted out.”

  “And then what?”

  “I don’t know, kid. It all depends on your record, witness testimony, and that sort of thing.”

  “Can I call my family?”

  “No,” John said flatly.

  “I don’t get a phone call?”

  “I’ll let you know later. Right now you’re part of a terrorist group and we can hold you for a while without allowing you communication with the outside.”

  Henry frowned, wondering if that was really the truth. It didn’t sound right to him. But then, he’d never been part of a terrorist group before.

  John left Henry by himself. Time seemed to stand still. He sat there, waiting in the cold, silent room. He wondered if the others were being told that he turned on them. He wondered about Dorry and Bobby. His body started to ache. He could feel the bruises from being manhandled in the bust. And he had that curious feeling of wanting to sleep again. Just to shut off and withdraw into himself. He studied the bare room, the scarred table, the light fixture, his hands, trying to stay alert and aware. But the desire to sleep was overwhelming. Henry eventually put his head down on the table and closed his eyes, just for a minute.

  He didn’t know how much time had passed before another cop came in. He knew by the man’s shape and clothing that it was not John, but couldn’t make out his face. The cop pulled out a chair and sat down.

  “So tell me about yourself, Henry,” he suggested.

  Henry rubbed his eyes.

  “What about me?” he questioned.

  “You were in juvie for murder.”

  “No. I wasn’t convicted. Just waiting for trial,” Henry explained

  “What happened?”

  “A girl I knew OD’d. They thought maybe I injected her or something. There’s no evidence, though, you just look at my file.”

  “Why would they think you killed her, if there was no evidence?”

  “She was sort of my girlfriend for a while,” funny, he had never actually thought of her as a girlfriend. They hung around together, messed around, but there were other girls too, and she had other guys. They weren’t exclusive boyfriend-girlfriend, but what else do you call that? “We broke up, and she overdosed. I don’t know. I guess they thought I was upset about the breakup, or something.”

  “Were you?”

  “I was more upset about her dying.”

  “Sure. Why did you break up?”

  Henry shifted uncomfortably.

  “Why don’t you read my file?” he suggested.

  “You wanted us to look into the case again. That was one of the reasons that you helped get us into juvie, right? So cooperate, or I’m not going to waste my time on it,” his voice was tough, stern.

  “Lana had this old boyfriend that she got back together with again. She was still hanging out with me, too. So he said shove off and I shoved off,” Henry explained with a helpless shrug.

  “So someone else muscled in on your girl.”

  “Yeah.”

  “And you weren’t mad about it.”

  “If I was mad, wouldn’t I go after him, not her?” Henry pointed out. “If I kill her, what do I get out of it?”

  “If you can’t have her, no one can,” the man suggested.

  “I didn’t kill her. I’m not that kind of person.”

  “You’ve been under investigation for murder before,” he countered.

  “That was an accident,” Henry maintained evenly. “Not murder.”

  “It looked enough like an accident that they figured they couldn’t win a jury. That doesn’t mean you didn’t do it.”

  “I never killed anyone. Never.”

  “Why didn’t you fight for this Lana?” he demanded, jumping back to the earlier line of questioning.

  “I didn’t think it was worth it. And this other guy was really cut, you know? A guy like me is no match for him.”

  “So you got back at him by taking her away from him.”

  “I didn’t kill Lana,” Henry growled, frustrated. “You think I wanted to go through all of this?”

  “Of course not. No one ever thinks they’re going to be caught.”

  “If I was going to kill her, I’d make it look like an accident. Isn’t that what you think?”

  “You’re a smart kid. You thought it through. Varied your method.”

  Henry scowled.

  “Where’s the evidence? You got no evidence that points to me. You can’t arrest every guy whose ex-girlfriend dies.”

  “You’ve had an interesting history.”

  Henry was thrown.

  “What are you talking about?”

  “Well, there’s the other girl that died. There’s the dead hamster thing before that. There’s shoplifting—”

  Henry felt himself flush with embarrassment. He rubbed the bridge of his nose where his glasses should have been.

  “I made a mistake,” he protested. “It was an accident.”

  “You try to walk off with a two hundred dollar music player? I’ll say you made a mistake,” he said with amusement.

  “I just forgot I was holding onto it. What’s that got to do with Lana?” Henry questioned, trying to divert his interrogator’s attention away from the one thing they really did have on Henry.

  “It shows a pattern of law-breaking. It shows that you have little regard for the rules of society. And the hamster shows you have no regard for life. Those are dangerous patterns. You add this little bit of trouble in juvie, and the guards that were killed, and that tells me you’re well over the line. You’re a cowardly, cold-blooded killer.”

  “The only thing you’ve got on me is shoplifting,” Henry said reasonably. “Not Lana and Liz, not the hamster, and not the guards at juvie,” he felt his temperature rising and tried to hold back a wave of emotion. “You ask any of the guys who were there. I had nothing to do with the uprising.” He hoped he was right about the others not admitting who’d pulled the trigger on whom. That was the code, wasn’t it? Besides, who’d believe that he had pulled the trigger, and not Marty? They couldn’t prove it.

  “You had a gun on you.”

  “I didn’t use it. We all had to have guns when we patrolled. Orders from Marty.”

  “Yours was missing bullets.”

  Henry gulped.

  “We just grabbed whatever was handy,” he explained. “We didn’t have the same ones all the time.”

  “Yours killed a guard.”

  “We didn’t use the same ones all the time,” Henry repeated with more emphasis.

  “You have an answer for everything, hey?”

  “I’m innocent,” Henry said.

  “Oh, don’t try the naive and innocent kid act on me. I know more about you than anyone else.”

  Henry swallowed and wiped at the sweat beading along his hairline.

  “I want a lawyer. I want to talk to someone. I’m not answering any more questions.”

  “You wanted a new investigation.”

  “It wasn’t a condition of my helping. Just a request, when John asked what I wanted. You’re not listening any more than the other cops!”

  “That’s because the facts are the same. The facts don’t change.”

  “Please let me call my family,” Henry pleaded, his voice cracking and changing pitch.

  The cop stared at him without saying anything. Eventually he stood up and walked out. Henry was left alone again.

  The next time the door opened, a cop was there with a figure that Henry recognized, even without his glasses on.

  “Clint,” he said with relief, and then when Dorry didn’t follow him into the room. “Where’s Ma?”

  “She couldn’t come, Sport.”

  Clint came closer, and put something on the table. Henry looked down.

  “They told me you broke your glasses,” Clint explained. He’d brought Henry’s spare pair. Henry grate
fully picked them up and put them on. Tears started in his eyes at the small kindness.

  “Is Ma at home?” he questioned roughly.

  Clint cleared his throat, glancing at the officer, who Henry now saw was a large- jowled, red-cheeked man with watery blue eyes.

  “No. She was having some problems,” he explained. “She’s at the clinic.”

  Henry wasn’t surprised.

  “Bobby?” he questioned. “Who’s looking after him?”

  “Someone else is looking after him for a while.”

  “Social Services?” Henry dropped his voice.

  “No, just one of the moms she knows from the playgroup.”

  “Oh, okay,” Henry nodded, relieved.

  “What do you need, Hank?” Clint questioned. “I don’t know what I’m supposed to do here.”

  Henry looked at the officer for guidance.

  “What now?” he questioned.

  “We’re finished with the questioning for today. They’re just figuring out where everyone’s being transferred to. We don’t exactly want to put all these boys back together again,” he confided to Clint with a chuckle.

  “So he’s not coming home?” Clint questioned.

  The cop laughed.

  “Why would he go home?”

  “They arrested another guy for that girl’s murder,” Clint said, as if everyone knew that.

  “Who?” Henry asked, startled.

  “That other boy she was seeing.”

  “Gus?”

  Clint shrugged. Henry looked at the cop.

  “They can’t arrest two people for the same murder.”

  “Of course they can. And I can’t do anything about it. You have to talk to the officers investigating it.”

  “You gotta get me a lawyer to talk to them,” Henry told Clint. “Just call legal aid.”

  “What about the one you had when they arrested you?”

  “I dunno what happened to him. But he was no good anyway.”

  “Okay. I’ll call them and get someone else.”

  “Are you his guardian?” the cop questioned Clint.

  “No. He’s just got his Ma.”

  “We’re going to need to inform her about the new charges relating to the prison uprising.”

  “New charges?” Henry repeated. “I didn’t do anything!”

  “You were one of the conspirators,” he pointed out. “You’re not going to get away without any charges.”

  “His Mom can’t come.” Clint said.

  “I guess we’ll need a hearing to put him in care of family services.”

  Henry’s stomach twisted. In care of family services. He couldn’t be in foster care again. But he wouldn’t be in foster care. He’d be in juvie. He wasn’t sure what the penalty for prison breaking was, but it wouldn’t be short.

  “Don’t worry, Sport,” Clint said, seeing his panic. “The lawyer will straighten it all out. Another day or two, you’ll be back home. They can’t keep you in jail without evidence.”

  Henry nodded, a lump in his throat that he couldn’t speak around.

  “Will you be seeing Bobby and Mom?”

  “Sure.”

  “Tell them hi for me…?”

  “Yeah, of course. And you’ll see them soon.”

  “Okay.”

  Clint patted him awkwardly on the shoulder, and nodded a wordless goodbye, shrugging embarrassedly. Clint didn’t handle shows of emotion well.