“Did he tell you what these special things were?”

“All he kept saying was everybody was going to know him. He’d be more famous than Twister ever was, ’cause there’s still pictures of Twister and trophies in the glass cases so I guess that’s how Smoke heard about him.”

“Think hard, Weed.” Brazil put his hands on Weed’s shoulders. “Was Smoke planning something that might make him famous? Maybe something bad?”

“I think he wants to shoot people,” Weed said.

32

BRAZIL TRIED TO figure out what to do. If Smoke was planning to show up at school with semiautomatics and take out as many people as he could, Brazil had to do something fast. He grabbed the phone and called West, waking her up.

“Get down here right away,” Brazil said. “Don’t ask why, just come.”

“Where’s here?” she groggily asked.

“HQ. We need to get as many cops as we can at Godwin tomorrow to make sure Smoke doesn’t show up, and we need to get that going now.”

West tried to wake up. Brazil could hear her moving around.

“I’ll meet you in the detective division in maybe two hours,” Brazil said.

“Yeah,” she said.

Weed was getting increasingly frightened. He picked at his jersey and kept sighing as if he was having a hard time breathing.

“He made me do things. He put a gun to my head and said he’d shoot me if I didn’t. Then a couple weeks ago he stopped showing up at school.”

“So he didn’t give you rides anymore.” Brazil was taking copious notes.

“He’d drop me off and leave. Then he started making me late, started dragging me around, making me miss band practice. And I was supposed to play in the Azalea Parade on Saturday.” The light went out of his eyes. “I been practicing all year. And now I guess I can’t.”

The phone rang, startling both of them. Brazil answered it. He was wired and somewhat impatient as he explained Weed’s transgressions to Intake Officer Charlie Yates.

Brazil charged Weed with violating Code 18.2-125, Trespass at night upon any cemetery, a class 4 misdemeanor, and 18.2-127, Injuries to churches or church property, cemeteries, burial grounds, etc., a class 1 misdemeanor, and 18.2-138.1, Willful and malicious damage to or defacement of public or private facilities, a class 1 misdemeanor or a felony, depending on how much damage was done.

“So which is it?” Yates wanted to know.

“Misdemeanor, class one,” Brazil said. “We don’t know how much cleaning up the statue’s going to cost. If it’s more than a thousand dollars, we’ll deal with it at the trial.”

Weed was staring wide-eyed at Brazil. It was obvious Weed did not understand. He was terrified.

“Hearing’s set for Friday,” Yates went on. “He got someone . . . ?”

“I want the hearing in the morning,” Brazil interrupted. “It’s really important, Charlie.”

“Hey, no big deal.” It made no difference to Yates.

It did to Brazil. He knew from this month’s court calendar that Judge Maggie Davis was on the bench. She had a policy that her courtroom was not open to the public unless the juvenile had committed a felony, and the last thing Brazil wanted was Weed’s hearing open to the public. He didn’t want some reporter making the rounds and walking in. He didn’t want anyone except the attorneys and judge to hear what he and Weed might have to say.