“It started small,” I say, standing up and walking closer. “Just moving a few things from the table to the wall, so I could see it all more clearly.”
And then it had spread, taking on a life of its own. Creeping toward the corners, mutating and expanding and growing like a tumor that had spiraled out of control.
“Has it gotten you anywhere?”
“Into trouble, mostly.”
“How so?”
I sigh as my eyes scan it all. The articles, the pictures. The giant map of the city, remembering the initial shock I felt when I finished sticking in those little ruby pins, stepped back, and took it all in.
“These are sex offenders,” I say, pointing to the pins. I’ll never forget the rising dread as I saw them sprawled out across our street, our neighborhood, like a swarm of insects erupting from a beaten hive. The way they seemed to multiply outward and spread like cancer until the entire thing was bleeding red. “Every single registered sex offender within thirty miles.”
“I imagine they were interviewed, right?”
“Sure, the serious ones,” I say, pointing to the spreadsheet printed out and tacked next to it. My eyes skim down the grid of names and addresses, page after page after page. “Criminal sexual misconduct with minors, child pornography, rape. But there are hundreds of them. Thousands. The cops barely even scratched the surface.”
Waylon stands up and steps closer, too, probably thinking the same thing I was the first time I let it truly sink in: the magnitude of it. They’re everywhere, it seems. Our neighbors, coworkers. Friends.
“What did you do?” he asks, barely a whisper.
I’m quiet, still eying those little red pins. My mind on Detective Dozier at the vigil and the way he had sunk back into the trees, watching.
“I would advise you not to do anything impulsive.”
“There was this older man who used to work at the grocery store,” I say at last, a cold detachment in my voice. “He always liked Mason. He used to keep these stickers in his apron pockets and hand them to the kids at checkout. He was sweet. I liked him. I always made it a point to get in his line, you know, make small talk … until I found his name on the list.”
Waylon is quiet, letting me continue.
“I told Dozier, but he wouldn’t listen. He said it wasn’t enough—a lesser charge, no probable cause—and at that point I just felt like everyone had stopped trying, stopped caring, so I went to the store one night and confronted him myself.”
I still remember the look on his face: the wrinkles in his cheeks stretching when he saw me and smiled; his arms outstretched like he was going in for a hug. And then: the terror. I couldn’t stop myself. As soon as I saw him, I couldn’t stop. The screaming, the thrashing. My fists flying and connecting with anything they could find until the other employees were able to shake off the shock and rush over, hold me back.
“It was public indecency,” I continue, my eyes still drilling into the wall. I can’t bring myself to look at Waylon and see the judgment there. “Apparently, he had stumbled behind some bar after too many drinks and peed in front of a cop. That was it.”
I’ll never forget his body on the floor, a trembling ball of limbs. Looking back, I don’t even know if I truly believed it was him. Maybe I did—maybe some small part of me had seen the way he looked at Mason, those stickers in his pockets, and assumed the worst—or maybe I was just looking for someone to blame. An outlet for the anger that had been roiling inside me.
It had been there so long, it was bound to boil over.
“Any mother would have done the same thing,” Waylon says at last, but it sounds like a courtesy. Like he can’t think of anything else to say.
“Yeah, well, he didn’t press charges, so the cops went easy on me, but they’ve never really wanted me around after that,” I continue. “Ben moved out shortly after. I guess it was his final straw.”
The house is uncomfortably quiet, and I start to chew on my nail to give my hands something to do. I feel a rip, a sharp sting. Taste blood on my tongue from where my cuticle tore.
“Why do you do this for a living?” I ask at last, an exasperated laugh escaping my lips. “How can you possibly stand it, listening to these stories over and over again? I always think about that, you know, when I go to those conventions. I ask myself how people could possibly get enjoyment out of listening to a story like that. Like mine.”
“Oh, yeah,” Waylon says, pushing a loose strand of hair away from his forehead, embarrassed. “I got into it because, uh, because of my sister’s murder, actually.”