Over the Back Fence

Claire had one hand on her sunglasses when Officer Brooks asked the question again.

“Your son has a tattoo on his left wrist?”

Claire gave a quick laugh that didn’t fit her face. “Derek has a lot of friends. A lot of crew guys. I don’t track every little mark on his body.”

Brooks stood in the driveway with her tablet tucked against her hip. Greene had gone around the side gate, one hand on his belt, eyes on the alley. Michael stayed near the busted greenhouse, where the cedar beam had pinned the rose flat into glittering shards. He could still hear the glass shifting underfoot when somebody moved.

Brooks didn’t raise her voice. “You said, ‘I only saw a guy in a cap,’ and then you said you heard glass break. Which is it?”

Claire pressed her lips together. Her arms came up across her ribs. “I was in my kitchen. I’m not some sort of witness for your little show here.”

“Your son was home this morning?”

“He comes and goes.”

Michael watched Claire’s jaw work. She kept glancing toward the house, like she expected the siding to start talking for her.

Brooks tapped the edge of her stylus against the tablet case. Click. Click.

“Then maybe you can tell me why the man on your patio camera is wearing work boots your son likes, and why he’s moving like he knows this yard.”

Claire shook her head once. “I don’t know what you think you saw.”

An old voice cut across the street. “That one just went over the fence.”

Everyone turned.

Mrs. Vargo from two doors down stood in her driveway with a rusted garden trowel in one hand. Her gray hair was held back with a bandana, and she pointed with the trowel toward the alley like she was laying blame in a straight line.

“I heard the back screen slam,” she said. “Then he cut across my side yard and went over by the ditch.”

Greene was already moving.

“Stand by,” he said into his radio, flat as a receipt. “Male suspect foot flight, west alley.”

Claire’s face drained so fast Michael could see it happen. She shoved her sunglasses off with both hands, too hard, and the lenses snapped against her palm before she got them clear of her eyes. For a second she just stared at Brooks, mouth open, like she’d forgotten there were people around.

“Derek?” she said, and the word came out thin.

Brooks turned her tablet. The screen showed the paused frame from the patio camera, zoomed in on the man by the side path. Michael saw the shoulder dip. Saw the brown jacket hanging off one side. Saw the cap pulled low.

Brooks said, “You know who that is.”

Claire’s hands dropped. “No.”

She said it too fast.

Behind her, the front door banged open. Then the screen door followed with a hard slap against the frame, louder than it should have been in the quiet street. Michael caught a flash of movement through the glass storm door. A shape in a gray T-shirt. Bare forearms. Head down.

“Derek!” Claire shouted, but he was already gone.

The screen door slapped again as something hit it from the other side, and then there was the sound of feet pounding through the kitchen and out the back. A second later, the wooden gate off the alley rattled, opened, and crashed back against the fence.

Greene broke into a run.

Brooks was close behind him. “Stay where you are,” she called, not to Michael, not to Claire, just to the air and the whole mess of it.

Claire backed toward the porch rail, one hand over her mouth now. The perfect front yard she’d kept trimmed down to the last edge of mulch looked wrong with her standing in it like that, shoes planted on the top step and her whole body folded in on itself.

Michael took one step toward the house.

Brooks snapped her head around. “Mr. Bennett, don’t.”

He stopped. His left shoulder dipped on its own, from habit or pain, and he hated that even now it was in somebody’s camera somewhere.

Through the side fence, he heard the alley gate bang open again, then Greene’s voice, sharp and far off. “Stop. Police.”

Claire made a small sound and sank onto the porch step, sunglasses still in her hand. Her fingers were shaking hard enough to rattle the frames.

Brooks looked from Claire to Michael, then toward the alley where the chase had gone out of sight.

“Everybody’s staying put,” she said. “Until I know exactly what went where.”

And somewhere past the backyard fence, a car door slammed, then another, as backup started coming in, and Michael was left staring at the open side gate, wondering what Derek had run off with that was worth all this.