The lake and a large portion of the woods themselves were on Geo's father's land. The woods covered over 150 acres, 95 of which were owned by the Franklins. Accordingly, Detective Meadows, the policeman investigating the case of the dead man found in the shallow grave, called on Mr. Franklin, informing him of the body they'd found on his property and telling him there'd be men coming and going in the woods.

The next day he was back, asking if anyone in the family had a .22 caliber pistol or rifle or if they knew anyone who did. Mr. Franklin said his son Ken had a .22 rifle. The detective told him the dead man had been killed by being shot with a .22. He said a bullet had been recovered from the man's head and he'd like to take the rifle so ballistics could be performed.

Then came the discovery the rifle wasn't there. Ken was questioned, and it was obvious he knew nothing about the gun's disappearance. He kept looking at Geo as he was being questioned, and Det. Meadows saw that. He then asked Geo what he knew about the rifle.

Eff and Geo had discussed this. Eff agreed: Geo was a terrible liar. It would be better to admit to a story they made up than to try a false denial. They could sell an entire story much better than they could a short lie answering direct questions.

"I'll tell you," Geo said, looking guilty, most of which was an act. "It was my fault. I'm not supposed to touch the rifle without permission, but Eff was coming over. We were going squirrel hunting. Ken wasn't home to ask, so I just took it."

Geo managed to look more guilty and turned to Ken. Telling him a fib was much easier than telling the detective. "I'm sorry. I wish I hadn't taken it, because now it's gone."

"Yeah. We were in the woods down by the lake, and four older teenagers showed up. We had been swimming, uh, not wearing bathing suits because we hadn't brought any. They came and looked at us and made a lot of rude remarks; pissed me off. But there were four of them, older and dressed, and what could we do? I didn't know them. Neither Eff or I had ever seen them before. But you know how you sense trouble right away sometimes? These guys were trouble. They started in with remarks, saying things about us, trying to, well, I don't know what, and then one of them saw the rifle we had. It was leaning up against a tree where I'd put it. He picked it up. I said no, that was mine, and approached him. Sometimes when I get mad, I don't get smart. I was going to take it from him. He just got a sneer on his face and gave me a push, shoving me down. 'I'll keep this,' he said. One of them knocked Eff down, too. One of the guys was going through our backpacks, and he found our phones.

"'We'd better take these,' he said, holding them up so his buddies could see them. "'They'll call someone about the rifle.' The one with the rifle told him to throw them in the lake, and the guy did. Then all four of them left. We were scared they might come back, so we got dressed and came back home."

"Why didn't you tell someone about this?" the detective asked, his tone of voice very accusatory.

"I'd taken the gun without permission, that was why, and I was embarrassed. I don't know how I could have done anything other than what I did, but I didn't do anything. I always act like I can take care of myself, but all I did in the woods was be a pussy. I didn't want to admit that." He stopped and looked at the floor. Eff had told him looking at the floor was good after a confession.

Meadows came back the next day. He asked to have Ken come into the station to make a formal statement. Same with Geo. He also asked if either of the boys had done some target shooting on the property. When they both said yes, he showed their father a search warrant, then asked to see where the target was. There, he collected and bagged a number of .22 bullets.

When their father asked what that was for, Meadows, not one inclined to hide his light under a basket, said, "We got ballistics on the bullet in the body we found. We'll compare it to these." He held up the evidence bag that now held the bullets he found in the target area. "We're still collecting evidence, but one thing you can count on: one of your boys is lying. He's going down."

The boys were to be formally questioned the next day. Mr. Franklin hired a lawyer. He was a stout, middle-aged man with intelligent eyes named John Forsythe.

Geoffrey Franklin, 13 years old, came into the police station accompanied by Mr. Forsythe and Mr. Franklin. They were taken to a room with a table and straight-backed wooden chairs. The detective sat on one side of the table, Geo and the lawyer on the other side.

The detective spoke first. "I'll be recording this conversation," he said, then turned on a recorder that was on the table. "Please state your names."

The lawyer shook his head. "Not until everyone is present who needs to be present."

"Your investigation hasn't been very thorough if you don't know the answer to that. To save a lot of time, I'll help you out. You seem to need all the help you can get, Detective Meadows. Whatever you think Geo did, it would have been done along with his friend Pete Ffher. Pete should be in on this conversation."

Clete scowled again. "I think we'll just go ahead with Geoffrey. Please state your name."

Meadows jumped to his feet, his face quickly turning red. "Hey, we're not playing games here. This is a murder investigation, for crying out loud. You will answer my questions. Give me any grief, I'll throw you in a cell till you agree to talk!"

"I wish you'd do that!" Mr. Forsythe said. "My client could use the money for his college fund. He'd get a lot of it from the city for false incarceration. I'll remind you and also the tape that we requested another person to be here during your questioning. Having him here will save time, and Geo then will be happy to talk to you. Don't do that, and Geo has a civil right not to speak. Up to you, Detective Meadows, but I will add that there isn't a judge in this state who'd allow you to throw a kid his age in a cell when you haven't even questioned him yet. Why don't you forget all your intimidation tactics and get with the program?"

There was a delay while Pete was located and brought in. He'd already spoken to Geo's lawyer. The man was now representing them both. Pete had simply been waiting to be summoned.

The lawyer had spoken to both sets of parents and gotten the full story of what the boys had done. The boys had had to be coerced to speak, but with Eff already feeling a bit shaky about what they'd done, and five adults pushing them, they'd caved and talked. The only thing they didn't mention was their phones. They'd do that later when they could construct a good story why they no longer had them.

Then the lawyer had contacted some people he knew from his long years working as a defense lawyer in town. He told the parents and the boys that the best way to handle this would be to give as little information during questioning as they could. That he knew Detective Meadows, and the man was an egotistical blowhard. No matter what the boys said or didn't say, he knew Meadows would go for an arraignment. The questioning was where the police made their bones. The courthouse was where the real action was. There, he said, was the best place to get the boys cleared and any records expunged.

He told everyone not to worry. His dealings with Meadows in the past showed the man to be incompetent, and there was no reason not to expect the same from him in this case.

Now, in the interview room, Geo and Eff sat on their side of the table with their lawyer; the boys parents were also present but not at the table; Mr. Forsythe had requested them not to speak at all. The participants gave their names for the tape.

Detective Meadows spoke. "We've found the body of a man in the woods on your dad's property, Geoffrey, and with a little work that I supervised, we also retrieved the bullet than killed him. Markings on that bullet match those on a bullet either you or Ken shot as target practice. We heard your wild-ass story about losing the rifle. No facts support that story.

"I've questioned your brother Ken, and it's pretty obvious he had no involvement in this. Furthermore, we found your fingerprints on a wristwatch we found in the dead man's pocket. They match your prints we took from some items in your bedroom. So, it's obvious you shot the man. If you come clean and confess, we'll be as lenient as possible because of your age. But we know you did this. It's time for you to stand up, save everyone some time, do the right thing and admit it."

"No, I won't admit I shot him. I didn't. I never saw a man in the woods. Eff here was with me every time I've been in the woods recently. He'll swear there was no man in the woods with us."

At that point, Pete backed up Geo's claim. No questions were asked that made the boys change what they'd already stated.

That had no impact on Det. Meadows. He knew Geo was guilty, and perhaps Pete, too. He formally arrested both. They were released to their parents. They would be formally arraigned the next day, charged with murder.

Detective Meadows was in Asst. D.A. Cory Coldville's office. The detective was too excited, too passionate to sit, and he paced—two steps to the right, two back to the left—in front of Coldville's desk. Coldville was watching him with a slight frown on his face. He'd always found Meadows annoying to deal with.

"I've got him!" Meadows said for the third time. "His fingerprints are on his watch that I found in the stiff's pants. It proves contact between the two, which the boy denies. No alibi other than one from the other kid saying they were swimming, not killing anyone, and all kids lie. Everyone knows that. No one will take either of their testimony as true. Furthermore, the kid who shot the guy, Geoffrey, certainly, had easy access to the weapon; no one else did but his brother, and he's clean. The cock-and-bull story about four other teens just doesn't hold up. No footprints were found, and four guys near the lake would leave some. And earlier today, we got some new evidence. This'll be a big win for us.

"The murderer kid, Geoffrey, did all he could to avoid my questions. He's guilty as sin, and I've got him! I got all the evidence we need."

"Isn't it a bit circumstantial?" Coldville asked. He didn't share Meadows' passion or pleasure.

"Yeah, but so what? No one else had a reason to shoot the man, and he'd stolen the kid's watch, and you know how kids are. Shooting him would seem okay to a kid. But, come on! This was great police work. The kid disappeared the rifle fearing we'd get the ballistic match. We got one anyway! He hid they body under pig shit, if you can believe that—and Vicks—but I still found it."

"Wasn't it the cadaver dog that found it?" Coldville was accustomed to Meadows jumping to conclusions and taking credit he didn't deserve, and he had to mask the sarcasm in his voice while asking questions.

Meadows ignored the man. "I'm going to put this kid away for a long, long time. Probably get a promotion out of this, too, putting away a killer like this who has no remorse at all. I'm taking him off the streets. I'll probably be Chief Inspector Meadows by next week. No doubt he's a young psychopath. This scumbag belongs behind bars, and that's where I'm putting him. He'll be an old man by the time he gets out."

"Why are you so happy about putting a young boy in jail? You sound almost obsessed."

"He wouldn't answer the simplest questions in the interrogation room! Like he was more important or smarter than me, a police investigator! Like he didn't have to answer what I was asking. Kept smiling at me, almost saying out loud that I'd never put him away; I could read his eyes. He thought he'd get away with it, that he was better than me. Smarter—hah! He won't be smiling tomorrow. Just wish I could keep him in his cell till then. Namby-pamby law says we can't just because he's young. Hell, he wasn't too young to kill a man! But he didn't get away with it. I'll show him! Laughing at me!"

"Oh, he was in on it, too. Up to his eyebrows. But no way to get the goods on him unless you can rattle him on the stand during the trial. You probably can; he's just a kid and not as overconfident as the killer. But we have the killer dead to rights, and the other kid, we can probably get him for obstructing justice, for conspiracy to commit murder, maybe for tampering with the evidence, certainly for perjury.

"Tomorrow's going to be a great day! And the trial will get me a promotion. Maybe you, too."

"It's too soon to be thinking about the trial, Clete. The arraignment tomorrow comes first. You sure your ducks are in a row for that?"

"Sure. It's a no-brainer. Let's go over it again. I want you to do a number on him, get him crying on the stand if he's called up there. Get a quick trial date from the arraignment judge, too."

The arraignment was held in Juvenile Court in a tiny courtroom. The only people in the courtroom as spectators were the boys' parents. The prosecutor, Cory Coldville, and the investigator, Detective Meadows, were at one table. The two boys, wearing sport coats and ties, khaki slacks and tennis shoes, were at the other table with John Forsythe, Esq., their lawyer who had been with them when they were being questioned. The two boys looked very, very young.

Juvenile Court Judge Robert Perkins was presiding. He began with his usual statement. "We are here for the arraignment proceedings in a murder case, number NK-42721. The prosecution will bring the charges, supported by evidence, and the defense will have the opportunity to refute. This is not a trial; it is the laying of groundwork for one. I shall decide if there is enough evidence to support a trial. Mr. Coldville, you may proceed."

Mr. Coldville laid out the facts of the case. They were as Det. Meadows had stated when arresting the two boys. They included the ballistics findings, the fingerprints on the watch, the unsupported story of four teens taking the rifle. They added that the boy, Geoffrey Franklin, had denied any knowledge of the man and that the man having his watch made it obvious he was lying. Then he popped their surprise. "Your honor, the boys tried their best to hide the rifle, but we used ground-penetrating gear in the area aroud the lake and got a hit. The rifle was encased in plastic and buried there. No way a group of kids who'd just taken it from these two would have had the means to do that, or the motivation. Only these two would have.

"As for Peter Ffher, he backed up Geo's lie about the other teens, and it was likely he was part of the killing and the disposing of and interference with evidence. At trial, his culpability can be proven."

"Yes, your honor. The state's case is a fabrication. There is no evidence against these boys. None that specifically involves them. I would like to question one of the boys under oath."

"I'd like to call Peter Ffher to testify. Would you please come forward to the stand, Peter?"

Mr. Forsythe had spoken to both boys, and he knew Pete would be a much better witness for what he wanted to accomplish. He'd have more credibility and would sound more truthful. Geo could easily stumble and maybe say something impulsively that would hurt the case, and he'd have a shaky demeanor. Pete would be good on the stand. He'd do exactly what Mr. Forsythe needed.

Pete nodded, then was told all his testimony had to be spoken, not gestured. "Yes," he said into the microphone.

"Peter, you've heard the prosecution's case. What's your response?" Mr. Forsythe asked.

"I'm no lawyer or prosecutor or detective. I'm a kid. So, I hope everyone will excuse me if I talk like one. What you've just heard from that guy is a bunch of baloney."

Mr. Coldville sat up straighter and glared at Pete. Pete didn't look at him. Mr. Forsythe smiled. "How so?"

"Well, it's all circumstantial. None of it ties Geo to that man they say he murdered. Or me."

"But they have his fingerprints and his watch and a bullet from the dead man that came from a gun that Geo had access to. Can you tell me how none of those facts have anything to do with Geo?"

"Sure. Geo and I went swimming in the lake in the woods probably on the day the man was killed. Right around that time, too, from what I learned when Detective Meadows questioned us. We took the rifle to the lake with us. We like the rabbit-and-squirrel stew his mom makes. So, we went swimming, played in the water for probably a half hour or forty-five minutes. Most of that time, we weren't even looking anywhere but at each other and the lake. We mess with each other a lot, arguing and teasing and splashing water at each other and using our hands as stirrups so we make it easy to dive over the stirrup-boy. During all that time, a man, that dead man, could easily have stepped into the clearing and grabbed our clothes and backpacks. We'd left them right up against the trees where the woods meet the clearing. If he'd taken them and stepped back into the woods, it would have been amazing if we'd seen him in the very few seconds it would have taken him to do that."

"After grabbing our stuff, he could have stolen the watch—actually, since he had it, he did steal the watch—then tossed the clothes back so we wouldn't notice they were missing. Geo's watch isn't waterproof and he always takes it off when he swims."

"But what about the ballistics from the bullet that killed the man showing it came from a gun that only Geoffrey had access to?"

"I already said, Geo uses that rifle; sometimes, me, too. Our fingerprints not being on it would be more suspicious than if they were. If you shoot a man, the first thing to do would be to wipe your prints off. Anyone who watches TV knows that, and Geo and I are experts at TV. The reason Geo didn't wipe the gun was because he didn't shoot the man."

Mr. Forsythe continued in his devil's-advocate role. "But the man was shot with the gun that had Geo's prints on it and was in Geo's possession. If he didn't do it, who did? Who else could possibly have used that gun at the time he was shot with you guys right there in the lake and the gun near to you?"

Pete shook his head. "I don't know. But they said the gun was found buried. We didn't have the means to do that any more than he said the four boys did. Yet someone buried it. It's a fact, rather than a suggestion. It's also a fact that someone shot the man with it. But if you want to entertain suggestions, maybe it was the same person that did both, and that person did have the means. Saying someone didn't have them doesn't mean anything. There's no proof. Just like the four teens. Saying there's no trace of them doesn't mean they didn't exist. It's just an easy way of getting out of doing the work of finding them, saying there's no proof they existed.

"I can only tell you Geo didn't shoot him. He was with me in the lake, and I just explained how none of the evidence says he did. Someone else did the shooting, and it's the detective's job to find out who, not mine. I can say that we were in the lake making a lot of noise for a long time, and probably when the guy was shot. We're two young boys, and we can make a lot of noise splashing around in a lake with no lifeguard whistling at us and telling us to keep it down. Some of that time we were both under water. The gun was right there near the lake leaning against a tree. Easy enough for someone, the murderer in fact, to have picked it up, walked into the woods where the man was, and shot him while we were submerged. Then he could have replaced it, probably did replace it, where it had been, because that's where the four teens found it. If we were below the surface of the lake, there's no way we'd have heard a shot from a .22 that was pointed away from us into the woods.

"Seems to me, either the four teens buried the gun later, or the murderer got it from the teens and buried it himself. If the teens or the murdered had the gun, they'd realize they didn't want to be caught with it, and burying it would be logical for them. Why is it more likely that we buried it? Which we didn't do as we didn't have any way to do that."

"Yes! I thought when you accuse someone of a crime, you should identify their motive. That guy over there trying to prove what isn't provable didn't even suggest a motive. The murderer probably did have one, but we didn't have one. We never saw the man, still haven't. Why in the world would we want to kill a man we'd never seen, never knew at all? We had no reason to shoot anyone. We didn't even know he existed. So our motive? Nada!"

"Thank you, Pete." Mr. Forsythe turned to the judge. "Your honor, you can see the evidence doesn't incriminate these boys and that they had no reason to kill an unknown man. If a 13-year-old boy can come up with such an easy set of alternate events, I'm certain you can see that there's no reason for these boys to be arraigned. We ask for a judgment right now eliminating them from prosecution."

Judge Perkins stared at Mr. Forsythe for a moment, then said, "You've done a wonderful job of showing the evidence might not indict these two, but that same evidence also makes a strong case that they could be guilty. This is why we have trials, to determine what really happened. The arraignment is to establish if there are questions that should be answered under oath in a trial. I can't grant you your wish to abandon arraignment based on flimsy suppositions."

Mr. Forsythe shook his head, frowning. Then he said, "That means I need your permission to have one more person testify. I've tried to avoid that because I wanted it made clear that the boys didn't do this and avoid arraignment. As you won't grant us that ut res stare, I need to call one more witness. He's waiting in the hall outside, and his testimony won't take more than a minute or two. You need to hear this, your honor, to save the state the embarrassment and cost that trying these two boys would bring."

A tall, thin man of late middle age with a receding hairline walked in and took his place on the stand. He was sworn in.

"The manner of death, that is, the circumstances surrounding it, were that he was found in rigor mortis with his pants at his ankles and his hand around his male member. He also had a bullet hole in his head. A postmortem bullet hole."

"He had a heart attack. He was in bad health as suggested by several failing organs, among them his heart. From what I found, he was headed for a heart attack soon, and it's easy to conjecture that if he were pleasuring himself, which seems likely by what I described when outlining his manner of death, the stress of an impending orgasm may well have been the proverbial last straw needed to break his back, or, in his case, his weakened heart."

"So to be clear, Mr. Jengal, whether or not these boys shot this man, the shot had nothing to do with his death?"

The judge couldn't help himself. He allowed a wry smile to be seen, then said, "The arraignment of these boys is terminated. The case against them is closed. I would like to speak with you, Mr. Coldville, to find out why you've wasted the court's time this way."

As the boys and their families were walking out of the courtroom, Eff heard the detective yelling at the coroner, "Why didn't you tell me?" and the coroner replying, "I tried three times. You kept saying this was an open-and-shut case, you were going to put this boy away, and to stop bothering you; you weren't interested. You wouldn't listen to me."

The boys were in the clearing by the lake, stripping. They were surprised that their parents even let them out of the house. Geo had taken the gun without permission, and Eff had never told his parents anything about what had been going on. But both sets of parents were so glad nothing had come of the arraignment that they just hugged their boys, and that was that. Except that Geo was told if he ever even touched that rifle again, they'd be the one doing a murder.

Geo was still waiting to get pounded by Ken. But Ken, seventeen now, had just found a girl as willing as he was to explore the mysterious frontiers of sexual maturity, and pounding his little brother would have to wait.

Eff was done stripping first and stretched and bent to loosen his muscles, though in fact he was putting on a show. Geo watched, transfixed, but then hurried to catch up. They were a little less shy about touching each other now. Their horizons were being broadened just as Ken's were. What amazed them was that they both had the same eagerness about what they were doing. They'd both been scared the other wouldn't want to walk down this path. But now, the two of them, the feelings they had, their togetherness, it was all perfect.

"I do have a question for you about when you were testifying," Geo said, finally dropping his undershorts.

"What if the judge had asked you a question? You said we were naked at the lake. What if he'd reminded you of the statue against public nudity?"

"I told you! Don't use words you know I don't know! You do it on purpose! Stop it!"

Eff grinned. "Okay, then: your 'what if' question. That's easy. I'd have told him you're so small down there I hadn't even noticed you were hanging out in the open air, because you don't have much to hang, so if he's going to throw the book at one of us, it should be you, the one who was naked. I, on the other hand was wearing a bathing suit because without it, there's too much water resistance due to my large dangle; it makes swimming fast just about impossible. Like a heavy keel on a boat."

"I'll show you my dangle ain't small!" yelled Geo, and Eff took off for the lake at a gallop, whooping. The race was on.

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Two Boys and the Pervert

by Cole Parker

Chapter 4