Red Rain

19

He heard shouts for help. Shrill cries. And, in the circle of light from a tall streetlamp, saw a small group of people wrestling against the side of the darkened lobster shack. He didn’t realize they were children until he was a few feet from them.

“Stop! Police!” he boomed.

He stepped in something soft. Glancing down, he saw a smashed ice cream cone on the pavement beneath his shoe. Another cone lay near it, ice cream still round at the top.

“You dumb shit! You dumb shit! You pay me back!” a blond-haired boy in a blue Southampton sweatshirt was screeching.

A big dark-haired kid, nearly twice his size, had him by the front of the sweatshirt and swung a meaty fist above the boy’s face. “Shut up! Shut the fuck up, liar!”

Two or three other kids stood back a few feet and watched. They were all shouting angrily at the big guy.

Not even teenagers, Andy realized. Their voices hadn’t changed.

“You fuck! You pay me for that cone!”

“You want a cone? I’ll shove it up your ass! You think I can’t? You want to dare me?”

Kids!

The big kid started to lower his fist to the smaller boy’s midsection. Andy stepped between them and absorbed most of the blow on his side. The kid had a pretty good punch.

“Break it up. Police.”

He grabbed the big kid by the shoulders of his gray hoodie and pushed him backward.

“Get off me, asshole. You don’t look like no police.”

“Sag Harbor Police,” Andy said, as if that would convince the kid. “What’s the fight about?”

The blond-haired boy pointed to the asphalt. “My ice cream cone. He tried to take it.”

“Liar!” the big kid screamed. He lunged at the smaller guy again. Andy caught him and stood him up.

“Ethan is telling the truth!” a girl cried. The others joined in agreement.

“You’re Ethan?” Andy asked.

The blond kid nodded. He had tears in his eyes. He brushed back his straight blond hair with one hand. His whole body was trembling. Andy saw he was struggling with all his might not to burst out sobbing.

“And what’s your name?” Andy asked the other kid.

No reply. Instead, a sullen stare.

“Derek Saltzman,” the girl said. “He knocked down my cone, too.”

“I’ll knock you down, too,” Derek told her.

“You’re not going to knock anyone down,” Andy growled. “What’s your problem?”

“Derek is mean,” the girl said. “He’s always picking fights.”

“He’s always stealing our stuff,” Ethan said in a trembling voice.

“Fucking liars,” Derek muttered.

“Nice language,” Andy said. “How old are you?”

“Old enough,” the kid muttered, still offering up the surly glare.

He has a face like a bulldog, Andy thought. And a personality to match.

“He’s twelve,” the girl offered.

“And how old are you?” Andy asked Ethan.

Ethan took a step back. He didn’t take his eyes off Derek. “I’m twelve, too.”

Cora stepped up beside Andy. “What’s going on?”

“Kids fighting,” he told her. “Over ice cream.”

“I didn’t take their ice cream,” Derek snarled. His fat cheeks puffed in and out like a blowfish. “They’re total liars.”

Andy noticed he cleaned up his language with a woman present.

“Then how did the cones end up on the pavement?” Andy asked.

Derek shrugged. “They dropped them.”

“Liar!”

Cora squinted at them. “Why are you kids all alone out here? It’s ten o’clock at night.”

Before anyone could answer, hurried footsteps clicked over the asphalt. Andy turned to see a red-haired woman running awkwardly toward them on high, spiked heels. She was tall and lean and had a white jacket tied around her shoulders, which flared behind her like a cape as she ran. Gold bracelets jangled up and down one arm.

“Derek?” she called breathlessly. “What’s going on?”

She stopped a few feet from Andy and Cora and eyed him suspiciously. “Who are you? Is there a problem?”

“I’m a police officer,” Andy started. “I-”

“Police? What did he do? Who are these kids?” Her voice was throaty, hoarse, a smoker’s voice. It rose with each question. Her chest heaved up and down beneath her violet sweater. The bracelets matched a gold chain with a jeweled heart that hung from her neck.

“I didn’t do anything,” Derek said, jutting his fleshy jaw out defiantly.

“Is he your son?” Andy asked.

She nodded. Then she brushed a strand of coppery hair off her forehead. “Yes. Derek Saltzman. He’s my son. I’m Elaine Saltzman. I left him for ten minutes by the ice cream store.” She pointed toward the end of the pier.

“These kids say your son tried to take away their ice cream. I think there was some kind of scuffle.”

“Liars!” Derek shouted.

“We’re not lying!”

Mrs. Saltzman squinted at Ethan, seeing him for the first time. “I know you. You’re Ethan, right?” She turned back to Andy. “He’s in my son’s class. What happened, Ethan?”

Derek lurched forward. He raised both hands as if to give his mother a shove. “Why do you ask him? Why don’t you ask me?” In a whining voice that made Andy want to cover his ears.

He glanced at Cora. Her eyes were on one of the tall, white yachts at pierside. Three people had come onto the deck to watch the confrontation.

Bet Cora is impressed seeing a cop in action, Andy thought wryly. Spilled ice cream is a felony in this town. Ha. Wait till I slip the cuffs on the kid. She’ll be all over me.

“Derek tried to take our cones,” Ethan reported. “When we said no, he knocked them to the ground.”

“Stupid liar! They knocked my ice cream to the ground!”

Mrs. Saltzman stared down at her red-faced son. “Are you telling the truth?”

She didn’t wait for him to answer. She wrapped her hand around Andy’s arm and led him across the pier. She waited for an SUV to pass, then pulled him to the side of a parked car, out of her son’s hearing.

“Derek has problems,” she murmured, fingers still tight around Andy’s sleeve. She leaned against him and brought her face close to his. He could smell her flowery perfume and a whiff of alcohol on her breath. “Ever since his father left, he’s been angry, very troubled.”

This was definitely more than Andy wanted to hear.

“Mrs. Saltzman, I really have to be going. Why don’t you just solve this thing by buying cones for all three kids?”

She blinked. Did she expect him to get tough or something? She was still holding onto him. A strong breeze off the bay fluttered her hair.

“Good. Okay,” she said. “I just wanted to explain. I mean, these days sometimes Derek acts out. But he’s basically a good boy. He has a good head on his shoulders. A good head. Really.”

Of course, neither Andy nor Elaine Saltzman, nor anyone on the pier that night, had any idea of what would happen to Derek’s head a few weeks later.