Roswell Fanatics

"Mr Williams, I have a young man out here by the name of Brigham. He doesn't have an appointment - Do you have tme to see him?"

"Of course, Felipe. He's one of my constituents. I always have time to see my constituents," replied Arthur Williams. He placed the paperwork he'd been reading in a folder on the desk, and was waitiong with a solicitous smile when the door opened.

"Mr. Brigham.... how may I be of assistance?"

"Actually sir, you already have been of assistance. I - uh - took advantage of the advice you gave me. I made a clean breast of everything with the judge and it really couldn't have worked out much better. I mean, I'll be working my tail off at community service for the rest of the schoolyear, but looking on the bright side, I'll be getting in shape for football in junior college in the Fall and learning just how to do the job before I do the job you offered me for this summer. I even went over to Liz Parker and made an apology. She didn't actually forgive me, but she was sure as hell a lot more understanding tham I'd have been under the circumstances.

The reason I'm here now, sir, is to thank you. You were right, I had screwed up, and f I'd listened to my dad and Mr Grogan and tried to lie my way out of this, my future would have ended up just as screwed up as my past."

"Well, we all make mistakes, son."

"Yeah, that's what Liz Parker said. Well, sir, I've made more than my share, but hopefully I can learn from them and not repeat any - or do anything else so damn stupid. So thank you for the good advice."

"That's quite alright son," said Williams sincerely, shaking the young man's hand. Williams had the professional smile of the politician on his face - right up to the moment the door closed behind Bubba as he left. After that the smile became somewhat more cynical, and was accompanied by a shake of the head.

'I like young people,' Williams thought to himself. 'They are so incredibly dumb.'

That wasn't entirely fair, he realized. Most were not dumb. Even Bubba - clearly no rocket scientist - was more naive than dumb. The stupid fool would probably be voting for him for governor in a few years, when he was on the ballot and Bubba was voting age.

He leaned back in the chair at his desk and smiled. He wished the entire world were so young - and easy to manipulate. Particularly he liked the young girls.

Debbie, his stepdaughter, had only been a child of five when Arthur had married her mother. Six years later when the girl was eleven, it was obvious that her beauty would soon eclipse that of her mother. He'd started gradually - while her mother was away on her charity trips - manipulating his step-daughter through her desire - the desire of most adolescent girls - to perceive themselves as adults and sophisticated. Her mother Janice, he'd told little Debbie, wanted to keep her a little girl -because that was just what mommies did. So he would buy her the bikini that her mother would have never approved of, but she could only wear it at the ranch when they were alone on those occasions that her mother was away for her charity work. It had become their little secret - just the two of them. He'd bought her a $200 pair of sunglasses as well - but she couldn't tell mommy.

He was a patient man, waiting until Debbie was twelve before he'd opened the bottle of wine in front of her - not taunting really - more sympathizing that she was too young to drink a sophisticated beverage like that. The next time her mother was gone, he'd given her a glass -half diluted with water - just Debbie and Daddy's secret, which she mustn't tell. The girl had idolized him.

The next trip it was a glass of wine, the trip after that two glasses - the second one spiked with enough zanax to make the girl a zombie. It was easy after that to pose her for the pictures, the expensive sunglasses hiding the fact that she was unconscious. The first picture was topless, the later ones totally nude, the unconscious twelve year-old's body posed in positions that quicky escalated from provocative to pornographic. The final ones had been of the two of them - Debbie wearing nothing but her sunglasses - and her stepfather.
When she had awoken hungover the next morning - in his bed - he had accused her of seducing him - she'd actually believed it, especially after he showed the terrified girl the photos.

He'd managed to play off of her guilt - blackmail her by threatening to show her mother the photos which he kept in an album locked safely in his desk - telling her the scandal would kill her mother. He'd managed to have the silly little thing almost every night her mother was out of town for nearly four years until the girl got herself screwed up on the drugs and wine he provided and ran off to Phoenix.

And ultimately it had killed her mother. He was never sure if Janice had suspected what had happened to Debbie or not, but her remorse over the girl's death led her to take her own overdose of sleeping pills.

The ignorant bimbo he subsequently married, Arthur knew, had been a mistake, but only the first of two. She had appeared young and fresh, but appearances had been deceiving. Clearly, the girl was no Debbie. She had been streetwise enough to not even mention divorce - not until she had somehow forced the lock on the desk drawer and found the album with the pictures of him and twelve year-old Debbie.

Getting that album back had cost him half of his fortune in a settlement, the prenuptial agreement notwithstanding, and that was the principal reason that his political fortunes had taken a sudden downturn three year ago. But he'd already taken the first step back on his way to the statehouse. The Bimbo had suffered an unfortunate and exceedingly fatal 'accident' that McCarthy and Abernathy had managed to arrange by tampering with her brakes just before she attempted to descend from Cloudcroft into the Tularosa Basin. It certainly wouldn't have been prudent to leave someone who knew the truth about little Debbie when he made his run for governor, even if she no longer had the album itself. Unfortunately, the money that she'd extorted from HIM went to her heirs rather than returning to him.

The second step, of course, would be the elimination of Liz Parker and her father - possibly her mother as well. Technically the woman could sell the old homestead, once she inherited it, since there would be no survivors of the Parker bloodline. On the other hand, the woman's relatives were all out East, and it was likely that none of them would want anything to do with a desert ranch carried on the county tax rolls with an assessed valuation of less than ten thousand dollars. Of course they didn't know the things about the property that Williams did.

Yes, Williams liked these young and naive kids. He had no intention, however, of repeating his mistake with Debbie. It was easier - and far cheaper - to make a trip into Mexico every few weeks to use one of the border-town brothels that specialized in the young and fresh girls who were only recently lured or seduced or kidnapped into prostitution. These establishments catered to a distinct clientele, and were far more expensive than your average bordertown bordello. But they certainly cost nothing approaching what his late and unlamented second wife had managed to extort from him only three years ago. Everything considered, Williams considered renting those ten to twelve year old Mexican girls for the weekend a real bargain.

'Yessir,' said Williams to himself. '...my plan is all starting to come together.' In less than four years he had every expectation of being the governor of the state.

It was 6AM Saturday morning and the sun was rising in the New Mexican sky where the road passed through the arroyo outside of town.

The van dropped off the tools, a large water jug, six box lunches, one reserve deputy, and five members of – well, chain-gangs were something of a different era. More correctly they could be called individuals contributing their labor for a public service project under court order.

A truck from the Williams construction company would be by later – probably after 8AM – to deliver additional posts and the steel railing that would be required to complete the project. It really didn’t require designs or blue prints – someone had spray painted on the ground where to dig the holes. Once a sufficient number of the poles were in place, the guardrail would be lag-bolted to them through holes that had been predrilled at the factory. It wasn’t rocket science.

The 6AM dropoff time actually was not intended to be punitive. It was going to be a hot, heavy, hard, manual labor job, and getting as much as possible of the digging done while the sun was low on the horizon was in fact a kindness to the five individuals that would have to do that digging. Actually setting the poles in the holes and tamping them down – then attaching the steel railing would be much less physical than carving the holes themselves out of the rocky soil of the arroyo. The one reserve deputy - the junior person in the Roswell Sheriff's department, his law enforcement courses completed last summer and still awaiting a date for the law enforcement academy up in Santa Fe - was pretty much the minimum supervision that prisoners - that is, individuals contributing their labor for the public good - could have, his job being as much to assure the five didn't drop from heat exhaustion as it was to actually control them.

That being said, however, three of the five were there at least in part for assault, and the two others were actually the ones that had been assaulted themselves, so the young deputy wasn't totally sleeping on the job. When the largest of the five somehow got paired off with the guy who had assaulted him, the young deputy was instantly alert and apprehensive. As it turned out, he needn't have bothered.

"Move over, Evans. Give me a turn at that spud bar," said Bubba.

The digging in the arroyo was in rock and sandstone, with little actual soil. The guy with the spud bar did the overwhelming majority of the work - those with posthole diggers or shovels mainly stacking the rocks and gravel to the side to be used for tamping back in the holes once the large treated timbers had been put in place. Bubba hammered away with the spud bar, loosening the larger rocks from the sand and gravel in which they were embedded. Max cleared the larger stones away with his gloved hands and the gravel and smaller stones with a narrow shovel. It was difficult work and it quickly became apparent just why this crossing had not had guard rails put in place before. This ground would have even torn up the power augur of a post-hole attachment on a tractor. After almost twenty minutes of effort, sufficient depth was reached for the first post. Across the gravel roadway, the other three 'volunteers' were just about finishing their first posthole as well.

"Not bad," said Max as he took a cup of watrer from the large orange cooler and handed it to Bubba. "My turn now..."

Max labored for almost a half hour, carving the rocks, sand, and gravel from the spot required for the next posthole. Max really didn't mind the labor.

He would, he knew, never forgive himself for what he had done to Liz, but her abortion had been scheduled for yesterday. It was at the same time as the trial so he hadn't been there - not that she'd have wanted him there anyway - but he was at least comforted by the fact that she'd had it. Max had gone by the crashdown last night - not close enough to be seen by the Deputy Sheriff that he had noticed parked across the street, but close enough to get a quick look at Liz. She seemed to have come through the procedure fine.

As the hours went by and the holes were laboriously dug - fifteen or twenty minutes of hard work each over the next six hours, Max said little, but he thought a lot.

Max had read up about abortions. At this stage of pregnancy they usually did a dilation and curettage. He felt guilty, of course, both about raping her and about putting her through that, but by scraping out the lifeform he had planted in her this early at least she would survive, thank goodness.

He was a little apprehensive that the pathologist might become alarmed by the appearance of the tissue that was removed and contact the Sheriff's office - not that he cared for himself. No, Max had been somewhat impressed when Bubba had come clean on everything - just given himself up for the judge to sentence him for what he admitted he had done. For all the guy had fouled up, he at least was truthful at the last and willing to take whatever punishment the authorities deemed appropriate.

'You make the excuse that you're keeping the secret now to save Michael and Izzy - but should that even matter? Hell, what if they do something as bad as what you did? It isn't like they'd have to want to do it on purpose - you didn't.'[/url] Yet was even THAT really true? His mind went back to that night working in the lab when she'd first come in - even then he had felt the attraction - like the presence of her body was calling to his. Even while she had been working on the Spectronic 20, he had needed to resist the need of his body to get closer to her. Possibly Izzy and Michael were no better - no different at all. Maybe it would be best if all three of them WERE taken in to custody by the authorities - before what had happened to Liz happened to someone else.... '...or to her again,' he thought suddenly as he felt his body start to react even to the memory of her walking in to the lab that night.

But it was hard to make that judgement for Isabel or Michael - certainly neither of them had hurt anyone - yet. And what was worse.... what would happen to Liz? Would she wind up quarantined? Poked and prodded and her body subjected to additional indignities - additional defilement - in some government lab? There had to be some answer to this - some solution that would not further harm Liz, and as the sun burned down on the workers, he struggled in his mind to find a solution.

Despite the frequent drinks, by the noon lunch break they were all dehydrated, and drank deeply from their cups as they ate their box lunches in the meager shade of the side of the arroyo. He and Bubba were collapsed on the ground in the shade of a large boulder. The other three man work-crew was across the road in the shade of a couple of large yuccas. and the deputy stood back by the water cooler where he could see all of them. Max looked back at the fruits of their labor - he and Bubba had gouged out nineteen holes on their side of the arroyo - the other team one less. They were - he estimated - less than a third of the way to the other side.

"We haven't done that bad," said Bubba, "... and the ground gets better -well, fewer rocks and more sand and gravel anyway - once we get halfway there. I figure we can have all the digging done by noon tomorrow probably - and put the poles in and tamp them in place. Then we've got tomorrow afternoon to put the guardrails on them, and get this finished this weekend, while we still have you and Valenti with us. The going will be a little tougher on the next two with just the three of us - probably take another four weekends - maybe five. One of them is a little larger than this one."

"You seem kind of blase' about doing eighteen times the work that we already have done - doesn't this bother you at all? It must be 110 degrees in the sun."

"Hell, Evans, it's like the man says ... don't do the crime if you can't do the time. It ain't like I don't deserve it. Besides - the other four of us are footballers. I've had practices and conditioning programs that were almost this bad. But I have to say, you're holding your own. That surprised me - of course it would be surprising me more if you hadn't already beat the crap out of me - well, most of it anyway,' he said with a smile. "You must really love Parker a lot, I guess... been a long time since anyone whupped my ass and don't think they ever whupped it quite that bad."

Max shrugged his shoulders. What could he say? He did love Liz - he had since the third grade - or was that just the alien DNA inside him stalking her - maneuvering him to get her in a position where he could strike? Where he could use her?

Bubba looked at Max and shook his head. "None of my damn business - I know, but the two of you really are quite a pair. Like what you just said - eighteen times the work we'd already done. You and her are the only two I know that do algebra in your head. You belong together. Even if some other guy got her kno...I mean, even if she did get drunk at the party and someone took advantage of her ... cause you know damn well she is not some sort of skank like Troy ... Parker has to have been drunk and someone took advantage of her..."

"Yeah, I suppose she was," replied Max morosely, "... and I'm sure the whole thing wasn't anything she could have prevented... I'm sure she was forced..."

"Well then don't be a stupid ass - don't give up on her just because of what happened one night... Hell, if I had a shot at a girl like Parker, I sure wouldn't let the fact that she'd made the mistake of going to that party stop me from going after her. Hell, you see the kind of girls I wind up with."

"It's a little more complicated than that, Bubba..."

"Shit, you think it's complicated for you? Did you HEAR the goings on back there at the court with Troy? That's the world of MY ex-girlfriend. Now that's complicated."

It had gotten a little bizarre in the court when Judge Roberts had found Pamela Troy guilty on all charges. He'd sentenced her to two years in the women's prison, sentence suspended on condition that she volunteer every other weekend and three nights a week at a local state veterans home.

The judge had indicated that she would tote bedpans and urinals and otherwise help the elderly veterans, and that if she so much as hinted publicly about any of their medical issues, he was going to reinstate the sentence and she'd serve the full two years AND be tried for the subsequent violation of privacy as well. Troy had gotten indignant - inhaling so deeply she'd actually popped a button off her blouse and said that they were going to appeal the verdict - to the Supreme Court, if necessary.

Judge Roberts had said that was certainly her right, but to be prepared for a long and costly court fight. She had responded defiantly that she had already paid her lawyer for that - to see this case through until the end. Grogan had started back-pedaling, saying that payment to date only covered this appearance in court - not any appeals.

Pam Troy had begun screaming at him - right there in open court. He'd begun screaming back. Before Judge Roberts could get order in the court, Pam had played the recording she had made of his words on her cellphone. It was apparent from the recording that Grogan had indeed agreed to defend her all the way to the Supreme Court, if necessary. It was also apparent exactly what he was doing with her - how he was being paid - as he made that promise. This was all done with the court recorder's dictation equipment running.

Before the dust was settled, Grogan was looking at a charge of Third Degree sexual contact with a minor since as an 'officer of the court' he was considered to be in a position of authority over Miss Troy. It probably hadn't helped his defense any when she agreed with the judge, saying, 'that's right, he was on top.'

On the other hand, despite her being technically a minor, the Judge also instructed the prosecutor to consider charges of prostitution against Pamela - since she admitted that she initiated the deal. It was something that would take other courts - not Judge Roberts who indicated he was happily going back to retirement - months and perhaps years to sort out.

"I'm not at all sure that your love life is any more bizarre than mine, Bubba," said Max, "but I do have to admit it's pretty damn bizarre..."

"You're alright, Max... you know that? For a wuss who doesn't play football that is. But I still think you're an idiot if you let Parker walk out of your life. You're two of a kind. Besides, pregnant or not, she's a hell of a lot nicer than anyone most of us will ever get."

Max and Bubba never would become great friends, but there now existed a sort of rapport that saw them through the weekend. That Liz was a great gal - that they could both agree upon - and that at least was something.

Max knew he'd have to keep away from Liz. Now that she was no longer - infected - he wasn't sure what might happen if he got close to her. Maybe his alien DNA would again trigger him to attack her again, and he couldn't allow that. He wasn't sure what to do about Isabel and Michael but they hadn't attacked anyone yet. He couldn't bring himself to turn them in for what they might do or even for what he had done.

Most of the weekend was still ahead of him, but it would for Max consist of two twelve hour days under the blazing New Mexico sun, laboring to build two guardrails. The five 'volunteers' didn't know it but those guardrails would stop a car from being washed into the arroyo four years later, saving a mother and her two small children from drowning. That would at least be redemption of a sort - some good to come out of the whole sordid business that had gone before.

Williams and his men had other uses for the weekend, however.

Roswell New Mexico was currently in the midst of a time of relative prosperity. It hadn't always been that way. A lot of rural areas had experienced some rather tough times - particularly in the 1960s - when they lost population due to youth migration to urban areas. The young would be drafted - or go off to college - and quickly discover there was indeed something better - or at least bigger and brighter - than a rural town like Roswell New Mexico.

In the past twenty years that had changed. An influx of retirees who had grown weary of being sun-birds and desired to live permanently in a land of blue sky, the coming of DVDs, the internet, distance-learning - all these things and more had led to a turnaround. The old downtown area where the Crashdown was locating was increasingly gentrifying with new shops and businesses as people seemed to enjoy again the sense of small town community. Of course, the prosperity wasn't universal.

The industrial area was over 20 acres and it sat empty behind the chain link fence almost a mile from the center of town and the Crashdown. On the face of it, one would have thought the land valuable - and someday it likely would be - but right now it just sat there - just as it had the last five years, and that status wasn't going to change quickly

The place had started out as a cattle feed lot in the 1950s at what then was a half mile outside the edge of town. Even that was too close for the people on the westside. On any day with a westerly wind - admittedly rare - the pungent aroma of steer manure was enough - it was claimed - to 'curl your eyebrows all the way to the city park'. But west winds were infrequent and times were tough, and the feed lot operation persisted into the mid 1970s before going belly up. The feed lot and the small granary that was its only large building sat empty for a decade -or almost so. A small portion of it was leased to the Chaves County Public Utility District as a storage area.

Polychlorinated Biphenyls - PCBs - had once been an integral part of the entire US electric grid. They replaced the previous material - flammable mineral oil - for that purpose beginning in the 1920s. At the turn of the century, AC current was the only technically practical way to transmit electricity over large distances and this required high voltages. But high voltages in transformers, capacitors, and switches, causes both heat from induction, and arcing. Used as coolants and dielectric liquids in transformers and capacitors, the dielectric liquids served as both coolants and increased insulation. But mineral oil is essentially light paraffin wax, and when the equipment failed it generally did so in a big way, blasting flaming wax for dozens of feet. Something else was needed - something with a high dielectric constant and good cooling properties. It also had to be non-flammable. Chemical engineers built a new category of man-made chemicals not previously seen on Earth called PCBs for that explicit purpose. They worked, and what's more they worked very well. By the early 1900s the use of PCBs to replace mineral oil was mandated by federal law as a safety feature for high voltage electrical machinery.

By the 1970s PCBs were pretty much everywhere in the US electric grid. Even as early as the late 1930s, a few people had raised concerns about the health effects of PCBs, but the necessity of building up the industrial base for WWII took precedence. Even after the war, it simply took time for good evidence to become available of the dangers of PCB. In the meantime the giant government rural electrification programs of the 1950s had seen to it that much of the rural Southwest was equipped with PCB containing electrical equipment. It was nobody's fault - not really - no evil corporation wanting to make money and public health be damned - but it had the same effect. By the time awareness of the toxicity and persistence of PCBs was general, they were all over the place. The EPA ordered them removed from service and that was done - but it didn't solve the problem. For a long time no one could quite decide what to do with these big pieces of electrical equipment containing hundreds of pounds of PCBs. Eventually it was decided that these could be burned in specially-built incinerators under tightly regulated conditions - but it took years to make that decision and still more years to build and certify those incinerators. In the meantime the equipment pulled from service sat - and all too often leaked.

The old transformers had sat for years - since no one would take them - and endured thousands of heat-cold cycles as the desert sun baked them during the day and the high desert cooled quickly at night. Of course the rubber compounds that acted as seals broke down and they leaked. The PUD had stored tons of PCBs on the site, and in all fairness, only several hundreds of pounds had actually leaked, but by the time this was discovered hundreds of tons of soil had been contaminated. It had gone into the soil directly under the transformers mostly, although the wind and dust had managed to spread it to some degree over almost five acres of the site. The place was too small to be a superfund site - but nonetheless it would cost millions of dollars to scoop up the soil and incinerate it with all due precautions in the appropriate incinerator and - like many such sites - i was just sitting there waiting for overloaded courts to sort out who paid for what.

Eventually the old feed lot site would be valuable land once it was cleaned up, but that wouldn't be any time soon. The original feed lot owners had gone bankrupt and sold the land to a Real Estate Investment Trust in New York City. The current legal owners had a lawsuit going against the PUD and that was complicating the efforts to decide who would pay for what in the cleanup - a cleanup that would involve hundreds of tons of soil going to those same special incinerators. Right now it was simply a blight on the landscape.

Part of that blight was the old grain elevator. The building was over four stories in height - constructed of wooden timbers and covered with corrugated steel - the latter looking a little weatherbeaten and even rusted now despite the dryness of the desert. The center of the building had once held a long continuous augur that had carried the grain to the very top of the structure where it could be directed into any of a number of different tubes that would allow the grain to fall into one of the small hoppers at each of the feeding areas in the pens below. The hoppers had been sold off after the feedlot had closed. The tubes were gone too now, leaving holes in the walls of the rusting grain elevator. Four stories tall in many towns would scarcely be noticeable. But in Roswell NM, it seemed to tower over the south part of the town, a rusted remnant of a bygone age.

It was slightly past dusk Saturday night when the panel truck approached from the far side of the property - from the old access road that ran alongside the abandoned railroad spur that had once brought grain cars full of feed grain from the agricultural areas around Clovis and carried away stock cars full of fattened steers to the slaughter houses of the Midwest. The truck stopped only briefly at the back gate where the sign warned the uninformed about the contaminated status. One of the three occupants The fence itself had been installed by the Williams Construction company who happened to have retained an extra key to this gate.

McCarthy drove to the base of the old grain elevator and stopped the truck. Williams and Abernathy joined him and entered the building where they started climbing the winding stairs toward the top level. Even with their flashlights and the last rays of the sun coming through the numerous holes in the corrugated steel covering, the place seemed dark and menacing.

"Are you sure that we aren't going to get poisoned by that PCB-shit, Mr. Williams?" asked Abernathy.

"The building itself is safe enough. They stored the transformers down in the pit below the building - where the grain cars used to dump their loads for the grain augur to lift. But the augur itself had been long gone by then - same for the tubes that carried grain down to the pens. As long as we stay out of that pit, we're safe enough here."

"Yeah, unless we die of some disease from all the pigeon crap," said McCarthy, as he scraped his feet against a board to get the coating of pigeon poop and feathers off. It was apparent that the pigeons had no particular fear of living in the old grain elevator - and they appeared to be thriving too.

"The only ones going to die are Miss Parker and her father - perhaps her mother too if the situation presents itself - but not tomorrow night. I'll be amazed if you even get the girl herself. The important thing is to get at least one or two rounds through the window. If they happen to hit her - that would be fine. The Evans kid will wind up taking the fall for that. Then when daddy dies - a suicide - an accident - hell, maybe he'll take a trip down to Alamogordo and you can fix his brakes like you did with the late and unlamented Mrs. Williams - then this will be over and I'll be on my way to the governorship - but I doubt that's going to happen. It's damn near a mile to the Crashdown and that's a long shot for a 30-06, even firing a high speed .224 bullet. What you CAN do though, is to get a couple in the window. Any bullets that hit the brick around that window - well, it would take a miracle for them to get ballistics off the slugs - but put a bullet through the window -it'll bury itself in the drywall and that should give them an excellent opportunity to match up the ballistics with the rifle."

"That's the window there? Third from the right?" asked Abernathy.

"That's the one."

"It's a long ways - no shit - but I can put a couple through the window without much trouble. When do I take the shot?"

"Tomorrow night. She's going to be working until close. You should be able to see the light go on in her room when she goes to bed. She leaves the blinds open during the day, and stands right in front of the window when she closes them. Take as many shots as you need to either get the girl or put two rounds through the window glass but remember she's under surveillance. "

"Not a problem. If I set up back here - well away from the wall, I can see nothing but the window and I can't be seen by anyone unless they are standing in that window, and from a mile away, I'd be amazed if even the girl sees me. The sound will rattle around in here - rattle around in the buildings in town - the deputy will never track the shots back to here - certainly not before I am miles away."

"But the ballistics guys will track it back here...," said McCarthy.

"They will, but not until hours later, after they dig out the slugs and backplot their trajectory," agreed Williams, "...which means you two do not leave any evidence here - except for what I'm going to plant." Williams took a couple of fired .224 Weatherby cartridges and carefully wiped them clean of fingerprints before depositing them around the firing position. "Now for the piece de la resistance," he said, as he reached into a white plastic bag and withdrew a soft drink can.

"What's that?" asked Abernathy.

"As 'donor' of the guardrail supplies and county commissioner, I drove out to the arroyo this afternoon to see how the work was going. They're doing a pretty good job, actually - especially Brigham and Evans. I took along a cooler full of soft drinks and everybody got a break while I complimented them on their work. This particular can was the one that Evans drank out of. When the CSI guys track the bullets trajectory back to here, they are going to find .244 Weatherby Magnum - not 30-06 brass, and a soft drink can with the Evans boys prints on it. It will take them a day or so to run the prints - and I doubt he has any on file. They won't have probable cause to take his fingerprints - not until they get a tip about ammo in the kids jeep. When they find the rifle in his locker they'll scoop him up - check his prints - Les Voila!, they have the culprit. Even with two lawyers in the family, he gets locked up and denied bail. They ease up on shadowing the Parker girl and we can move in and get her without having to worry about a nearby deputy."

"So how do we get the rifle in his locker?" asked McCarthy.

"Don't you pay attention to the local community?" asked Williams. "Band concert tonight at West Roswell High, with the alumni band playing as well. I was in the band many years ago. I have the rifle broken down in a trombone case. I take the rifle in inside the case, wander down the darkened halls until I find the kids locker, open it, and put the rifle inside. Then I carry the case back out to the car saying I've got the wrong trumpet, and bring my real trumpet out. We play a couple of West Roswell High fight songs, and I leave - simple as that. Monday morning one of you goes by his parked Jeep, tosses in a few fired brass and a few live rounds and the kids in violation by having ammunition on campus. That'll be enough, given how unusual the caliber is, to be probable cause for a locker search. After that - well, it ought to just go like clockwork then."

It was another twenty minutes before the panel truck left - twenty minutes during which Williams went over the ballistics of the Accelerator round with Abernathy - how high above the window he would need to sight to allow for the drop of the bullet. Not really all that high - the .224 bullet would travel over 4000 feet per second leaving the muzzle. Even though it would slow enroute, it would only fall about thirty-five feet. Most of that could be taken up in the vertical adjustment of the sight.

"Hell," said Abernathy, "... I might just nail the girl - it really isn't all THAT hard a shot."

It was 10 PM Sunday night and the Crashdown was closing. Deputy Wagner had just come on duty, his patrol car parked across the street and down the block from the Crashdown where he could see both the front of the restaurant and around the side street to the windows of the family quarters. He had only been there a few minutes - relieving a deputy who was no doubt on his way back to the station to log out and go home. Deputy Wagner anticipated a long - and hopefully boring - night.

He was parked next to the Chaves County historical museum which had closed at 5PM. It mostly had artifacts from the early days of New Mexico Territory - with the one obligatory display of the alleged 1947 saucer crash - something Wagner privately believed was completely fiction. That was ironic, since Max was on the roof of the building above him.

Max had come the roof of the museum just to be able to get a look at Liz. He knew that she'd had the 'procedure' Friday while he'd been in court. He'd lain awake most of Friday night - not that THAT was unusual these days - imagining her going through that -wondering if it had been painful - if she'd been afraid -wishing he could have somehow been there for her. A stupid idea, he knew. He was the cause of her having to go through it. But he'd actually slept well last night - for almost nine hours, his first real night's sleep since this whole mess had started.

Kyle had asked if he'd wanted to go out for a milkshake to celebrate finishing their community service and b eing 'free men' and mentioned that Liz would be working tonight. Max couldn't bring himself to face her - in fact - he really didn't trust himself to be alone with Liz now that she could be - reinfected. But he had to see her - just once - from a distance. He had to reassure himself that she was safe and that - God -did he really think there was no permanent damage? Look at what she'd been through. Look at the terrible memories that would follow her forever....

But still, he had to see her. He had to know she was alright, and that was why he was on the roof of the museum, looking through the windows of the restaurant at where she was waiting on the customers.

A mile away, someone else was waiting. Abernathy had a side bet going with McCarthy, and - despite Williams' assertions that killing the girl was less important than just getting a few rounds through the window had brought along a little extra gear to sweeten his chances to help him win that bet. The first was a shooting bench, complete with two small sandbags that he'd brought in the panel truck and laboriously brought up the old stairs. The second was a laser sight which he had attached to the 30-06 and spent most of yesterday sighting in. He had been able to hit a silhouette target the size of the girl from a mile away about nine out of ten times. It was important to him - he had a thousand dollars - and bragging rights - riding on this night. All that really bothered him were the winds which had picked up after the sun went down. He didn't mind constant wind - he could correct for those - but these were gusting, and all he could really do was to take the average wind to adjust laterally, and that might give him a windage error to either side of the girl, even with the laser sight right on her heart. It couldn't be helped though. He sighted at the window, adjusted the sandbags for the last time. He was ready as soon as the girl came to the window to close the shades.

As Max looked at her - he felt suddenly overpowered. Perhaps it was his subconscious mind that knew what had really happened that night on the gym floor - perhaps it was just that Liz was so beautiful in the hormonal driven blush of early pregnancy - perhaps it was that at some deep visceral level his alien DNA recognized the two new auras that were forming deep within her - recognized them as his own - and had now bonded to her as his own as well. Perhaps it was simply that no woman is ever so beautiful to a man as when she is carrying his child, and Liz was carrying two. At the subconscious level he felt - possessive - in need of her - like he had never needed or wanted anything in his life.

At the conscious level Max was horrified. He could feel the pull of his body - wanting to go down there - wanting to be with Liz, to the exclusion of any other consideration. It was, he feared, like what had happened that night when he'd raped her - or at least planted his seed in her. It was like his body needed her. It was frightening and terrifying. He had to get away - stay away from her. He turned quickly away and retreated down the fire escape at the back of the building. He needed to go walk in the desert, he told himself, to get this feeling under control.

Liz wiped down the last table and checked with Jose to see if he needed any help cleaning up the grill.

"No Senorita," he replied. "You have done more than enough already. I agree with your parents... you shouldn't even have worked tonight."

Liz shrugged her shoulders and moved toward the back of the store -toward the entrance to the Parker living quarters. The spare room wasn't as comfortable as her upstairs room had been before the fire, but it was OK. It was a little bit more awkward though - not having her own bathroom. She stopped by her new quarters only long enough to pick up her nightgown and then headed toward the bathroom. She turned on the shower - this bathroom was even farther from the hot water heater than the upstairs bathroom had been, and took off her clothes, letting them drop to the floor. Soon she was naked in the shower letting the warm water wash over her - shampoo in her hair and her mind on the procedure tomorrow.

Liz was scared - she knew that. That was why she'd wanted to work tonight - to have customers to worry about - food to serve - anything to keep her mind off tomorrow. But now in the shower she couldn't get away from the thoughts about tomorrow and what it would bring. She really wasn't afraid of the amniocentesis itself - although the idea of having someone stick a needle through your belly into your uterus - twice - certainly wasn't particularly pleasant. It was just the whole thing - the very rationale for doing it - 'Damn, have I EVER screwed up,' she thought, shaking her head as the warm water beat down on her skull.

She had wanted to hate Max when he'd broken up - no, that wasn't right, what had they ever had to break up from? She'd wanted to hate Max when he had shied away - refused to make their relationship any more than a simple friendship.

'You should have just asked him HOW he was different,' she said to herself. Maybe he wouldn't have told her - not at first - '... but if you'd just kept being his friend...,' her conscience told her. Perhaps the conscience was wrong, but even so. It was obvious Max had carried this fear all of his life. Liz was pretty sure that even Diane didn't know. 'If she did, would she have told me?' Liz asked herself. 'Probably,' she decided.

They were both so damn young - only sophomores in High School - but she hadn't understood - maybe hadn't even tried to understand, and then she'd gotten drunk and pushed the issue. Suddenly Max's worst fears - fears he had worried about all his life might be a reality. She hadn't been fair to him - even before the night of the party. 'I should have waited - been more understanding...'

Her hand went to her lower belly, feeling the bulge pressing outward there. That was the scariest part of all. It was strange. It had only been weeks ago that she had found out she was pregnant. It had seemed like the end of the world - a disaster. Then somehow it had changed. It was probably hormones - she guessed - but somehow it had ceased to be an unwanted pregnancy.

Instead it was a baby - a new life - something to care about and care for. A part of her and a part of him that would always be together, no matter what became of her and Max. Then with a few words from Max, that had become a nightmare. But she couldn't blame Max - none of this had been his idea - and she couldn't really blame herself either, because to blame herself would be the same as saying the children inside her should never have been - that they weren't wanted - and that just wasn't so. A boy and a girl, the radiographer had guessed from the ultrasounds - one of each. Maybe a few weeks ago the whole thought of a pregnancy - let alone twins - would have horrified her, but that wasn't how she felt now. She loved them - already, and she was scared to death of the test tomorrow not because of the discomfort, but because of what it might tell her about one or both of her children - the precious cargo she carried in her right now. Did they have any idea how much their mother loved them already? Probably not. But that didn't stop the love from being there - or the fear that what Max said was true. Oh, they weren't monsters in a physical sense - the ultrasounds had seemed normal enough - but Liz trembled when she thought of all the things they were going to test the placenta for - all the terrible things that might be genetically determined.

Liz hoped and prayed that Max was wrong. That he was misinformed - or that whatever had been wrong with Max's biological parents was a recessive that wouldn't be expressed in her children. They didn't have to be smart like Max - or good looking like their daddy or Aunt Isabel. 'Just let them be normal...' Liz begged, '...that's all I wish for.'

But she knew if she really had her wish, she'd wish for more than that. She'd wish for Max to be there tomorrow - at her side when the needle went in, telling her that everything was going to be alright. That somehow whatever happened, he would stand by her.

Liz dried herself off sadly, and put on the nightgown before going in to the bedroom. She turned on the light and turned down the bed - before noticing the open blinds. She slowly walked to the window to let down the shades.

As the light turned on, Abernathy was instantly alert, the 30-06 locked on the center of the window. He saw her appear in it - in a blue nightgown. He triggered the laser sight and saw the red dot light up in the telescopic sight on that blue nightgown, right below the neck and squarely in the midline. He took a deep breath and held it as he slowly squeezed, the night winds swirling through the grain elevator as the gun fired.

The recoil took the sights off the target but not for long - the sandbags held the rifle in place. The wind had taken the bullet to the right. There was a hole in the window just barely to the right of the girl, a spiderwork lattice of cracks visible in the window which had not yet actually fallen out of the frame. He quickly corrected to the left by as far as the bullet had been blown to the right and fired again.

As she stood at the window she was momentarily distracted. The room was brighter than outside the window, but she really had paid little attention to her reflection in the window pane – at least until she saw the red dot wiggling erratically across her chest. She had thought it an optical illusion at first – perhaps some light in the room reflecting off the suncatcher that was dangling from the curtain rod. But eventually she had actually looked down – down at her own chest where she recognized the dancing red dot for what it was.

If you have ever seen one projected on a surface, a laser beam is quite distinctive. Lasers produce coherent light- not just light of an identical frequency – or monochromatic -,but with the very waves of the light beam themselves moving in lockstep. The interference patterns of a laser give the dot produced by a laser beam a pebbly appearance while the monochromatic nature of the light causes some color receptive cones in the retina to be heavily stimulated while other cones in the same area see nothing at all. Laser light is both distinctive and disconcerting.

But before she could really react – before she could begin to understand what was happening, there was a “whapp” and a stinging at her left elbow as a hole suddenly appeared on the left side of the window and – instantly – a spiderweb of cracks ran from the hole to the edges of the glass.

The 55 grain bullet had left the muzzle of the rifle at a velocity of over 4000 ft per second and it had been pointed directly at her heart. The bullet had started to decelerate rapidly, but even so it had taken less than two seconds to cover the mile to the window. But it had moved through a sea of air. The eight mile per hour gust of wind was not unusual for the evening in New Mexico, but eight miles per hour is almost 12 feet per second, and the small bullet had traveled through an ocean of air that had moved over 18 feet to the right while the bullet was in the air. A heavier bullet – perhaps the 165 grain bullet actually made to be fired from the 30-06 – would have moved to the right only a few inches and been lethal despite the wind. But the little 55 grain bullet had a third the mass and proportionately greater area for the crosswind to push against. It had moved the trajectory of the bullet almost 14 inches to the right, missing Liz, although her upper arm was sprayed with fine glass fragments from the impact.

The window was an old one, the glass had set for decades adhered to the glazing compound in the frame. A more modern window would have likely shattered with the first shot. This window actually held together until the second shot.

The second shot was a mistake, but even a well-trained sniper might have made it. The gust was just that – a gust – and a well-trained sniper might have fired a second shot with the same aim point which – in the absence of the gust – would have killed the girl standing there. But even a trained sniper is a human being and after a failure human beings want to 'do something.' Most likely a trained sniper would have corrected the aim of the rifle to the left by half the distance he had missed to the right. The second bullet would have ended up to the left of midline – but only by six inches or so – likely still a lethal shot. But Abernathy wasn't well trained. He corrected the full amount, and the second bullet came crashing through the window as far to the left as the first had been to the right.

As she felt the sting of fine glass abrade her right elbow and heard the 'whapp' of the supersonic shock wave of the second round, the rumbles of the first gunshot were still echoing through the manmade canyons of the brick buildings in the center of town.

Deputy Wagner had been watching the window as she'd gone to close the blinds. He'd actually missed the arrival of the first bullet and by the time the sound of the gunshot which – traveling a mere 600 miles per hour – took six seconds to arrive. He watched helplessly from the ground as the second shot put another hole in the window and led to a general collapse of the pane of glass. He looked out – trying to localize the source, but the gunshots and their echoes rattled around the crowded buildings of the central business area. By the third shot he had given up. Screaming in to his handheld radio for backup and an EMS unit, he raced toward the Crashdown.

With the second shot causing the window to break, Liz's disbelief left her. She was being shot at – she recognized that and even connected the laser that had been designating her to the shooting. She threw herself down and to the side. Two more bullets flew through the window – embedding themselves in the drywall behind her – but by that time she was safe. Collapsed on the floor in the broken glass and quivering with fright, Liz had some scratches – even a few superficial cuts to her palms. But other than being totally terrified, she was pretty much unhurt when Deputy Wagner broke through her door with Jeff Parker following closely behind him.

It was 5AM and Jim Valenti was in a grain elevator, watching a crime scene investigator scraping pigeon poop off the soul of his foot. The entire building interior was lit up - thanks to a gas generator that was running at the base of the building, feeding a half dozen halogen lamps through a spiders web or orange extension cords.

"Oh, Hi, Sheriff," the man said looking up. "The shooter fired from over there," the man said, nodding toward a room at the side of the elevator where an area was festooned with yellow tape. "It took us awhile to dig the slugs out of the wall and plot back their track - the only thing out in this direction was this abandoned elevator. We really didn't believe it because of ths distance, but once we got to looking - well, as you can see, the hole in the wall where the old chute used to go lines up perfectly with the window, and we found three spent cartridges - we may have gotten lucky there - .224 Weatherby Magnum cartridges aren't exactly all that common."

"Just three? I thought there were four shots taken."

"The shooter may have tried to pick them up - then just not found these others where the gun had ejected them. I imagine the guy - or gal - was trying to get the hell out of Dodge pretty quickly. Then again, if it was a bolt-action rifle, he may have just left one spent round in the chamber when he picked up his stuff and got out of here."

"Who is doing the investigating on this one?" The Sheriff asked.

The CSI nodded at the deputy that was running around giving orders. It was Pembroke - the same young man who was so strongly pushing to go after Max Evans in the meeting with the Fire Chief. Pembroke had a reputation as someone who aspired to be a detective. Jim hoped the young man got his wish some day but privately thought the kid needed a whole lot of seasoning first.

"So what's the situation?" Jim asked Deputy Pembroke.

"Well, Sheriff," the site has been secured but the CSI guys are telling me there is little chance we are going to get any prints off of anything unless its the spent brass. This whole place is pretty much dust and pigeon crap, with no surfaces that could really support prints. It has been stirred up recently, but hell, with the condition of the place there's really no telling how many times the shooter might have come here. There are four depressions in the pigeon crap - looks like there was some sort of a shooting stand used. What with the winds tonight, we don't expect to find any usable tire tracks or footprints outside either."

"So how is the intended victim?"

"She's over at the hospital - she'll be there until noon probably."

"I'd heard that she was just scratched?"

"A few superficial cuts to her palms and knees but mostly just scratches. Scared spitless of course, and who'd blame her? But it turns out that she has some sort of medical procedure scheduled in about four hours at the hospital anyway. It was easier to just keep her there until after that than it was to move her back and forth. I just left a female deputy there to cover her until she gets done with that – then we’ll need to talk with her folkd about keeping her safe – at least until we find out who is doing this.”

"Any witnesses?"

"Well, Wagner was right across the street - but if you mean any witnesses to the identity of the shooter - a few nesting pigeons maybe - or perhaps a barn owl. This isn't the sort of place a lot of people hang around at night. We'll be knocking on doors at first light - but the nearest ones are over a quarter mile away so I wouldn't count on anything from them. Chances are they came and went through the back gate - out into the desert. The chain back there was cut. But we'll be looking around a lot more as soon as it is light. Maybe something will show up."

Jim nodded his head, still looking at the crime scene. "It must be near a mile. That's a hell of a shot - the guy actually came closer to killing her than I would have thought that he would have."

“Maybe not any sort of professional – they probably wouldn’t even have tried it at this distance – but a talented amateur anyway, considering how close they came. Once we get all the forensics gathered I’d like to meet with you and the Prosecuting Attorney some time this morning to talk about pulling in the Evans boy for questioning.”

Jim looked at Deputy Pembroke and shrugged his shoulders. “Well, we can talk I guess, but so far you haven’t given me anything that points to him about tonight any more than it does everybody else in the county who had the same opportunity. The legal arguments that applied before this happened don’t appear to have changed much, but you can certainly make your case to the prosecuting attorney.”

Pembroke nodded his head. “I’d like to try to do that.” He didn’t say it but it was obvious to him that the Sheriff’s son and the Evans boy were close. They’d gotten in the same fight for the same reason – Hell, they’d spent the weekend working on a modern-day chain gang side by side. He wasn’t sure Valenti was being objective about this, but perhaps the girls near-miss would convince the prosecutor.


Four miles away, Max looked at the clock and decided he had to go home. In the ten-plus years since he’d left the pod, he actually hadn’t had much of a social life outside his immediate family, and that was something he had always longed for. He knew he wasn’t human – that they couldn’t really experience the sort of romantic love that humans had for one another – not if they ever knew what he was - but his feelings toward Liz had been like that as he’d worked side by side with her last year as her lab partner. He’d come back to the lab – hoping to recapture some of that feeling – something that would give his life meaning. When she’d suggested – practically insisted – that they start dating at the end of last year it had been the most frightening thing he’d ever experienced. Also the most wonderful. He knew he couldn’t let it happen – knew it would destroy him and hurt her as well to know that he’d tricked her into caring for a freak – a monster. But even so – the thought that she would care for him – could care for him that way – it somehow warmed his soul – if aliens HAD souls – even in this his darkest hour.

And that was why he’d come to the high school – spent the night in the lab where he’d worked beside her for all those happy hours. He’d turned in the key he’d had when he was doing the summer program but it was simple to open the door with his powers. The alarm system assumed he still had a key – was still authorized to be in the building after –hours. But now it was time to go home and try to put his life back together again. He couldn’t stay in Roswell – he’d decided that. He couldn’t take the chance that he’d run in to Liz somewhere and – overcome by whatever part of his alien DNA had led him to do that to her to begin with, do it again.

As he left the building he knew he was on the security tapes, but it didn’t matter. Unless there was a break-in – or a fight – those tapes would just re-record every twelve hours and no one would look at them anyway.

Not sure just what he was going to do, he wandered back toward his home. His parents would be getting up in another hour. He needed to be there or they’d suspect something. He needed a few days to plan – where to go –what to do. But he knew he couldn’t stay – couldn’t take the chance of hurting Liz ever again.

"Max, you have to talk to her, just the two of you...," said Isabel, as they drove down Second Street toward West Roswell High. She looked at her brother at the wheel of the Jeep. He looked like crap. She was willing to bet that he hadn't slept all night - a bet that she knew she would have won since she'd been trying to dreamwalk him half the night with no success.

"Uh-huh," said Max, his mind on where he would go - what he would do - his mind on anything other than being alone with Liz. He couldn't trust himself to do that. He couldn't help what he had already done to her, but he damn sure wasn't going to do any more.

"OK then - when are you going to talk to her?"

"I don't know. I'll have to think about it."

Isabel clenched her fists in frustration. Brothers could be so damn irritating. Max would put this off forever if she let him. But she had no intention of letting him. She was going to be an aunt, damn it, and she certainly intended to be able to participate in the life of her niece or nephew - ergo, Max and Liz would damn well HAVE to patch this up. "I'll talk to Maria - see about setting something up where the two of you can talk in private," said Isabel. She had no intention of taking no for an answer.

"You do that, " Max said, "....maybe Wednesday would be good." By Wednesday Max planned on being in Yuma - on his way to California. It'd be a cold day in Hell before he let himself hurt Liz like that again, he told himself.

As they drove in to the West Roswell High School parking lot, neither Max nor Isabel noticed the white Williams Construction van parked in the side street across from the lot. By the time first period had started, Abernathy had already put the partial box of .244 Weatherby Magnum ammo in the glove compartment of the Jeep. He looked around carefully to make sure no one was watching - then scattered three spent cartridges on the floor of the Jeep. If no one saw them by noon, he'd call in an anonymous tip from a public phone.


It was 8AM and the meeting was in a small conference room in the Prosecuting Attorney's office. Pembroke was there, as was the Prosecuting Attorney and Jim Valenti. Pembroke briefly explained the shooting and the findings so far. The cartridges had been wiped clean - likely before they were even loaded in to the magazine of the gun. No real witnesses - no tracks - but they had found a soda pop can in the corner that looked like it had been recently discarded there - no pigeon poop on it and scarcely any dust. They had been able to get latent prints off the can, but no matches had been made so far.

"I'd like to pull the Evans boy in for questioning - and get his prints for comparison," said Pembroke.

The Prosecuting Attorney winced. "And what are you going to use for probable cause for that?"

Deputy Pembroke looked obviously irritated. "The girl was damn near killed last night. We already had suspicions about the boy from the arson - now this. How can we NOT bring him in?"

"THIS, as you have just told us, has NOTHING that specifically indicated the Evans boy any more than it does anyone else in the county who had the opportunity to be up there last night. If you want to ASK his parents if you can question him and print him, be my guest. Given that both of his parents are lawyers, I'd give you long odds on getting them to agree."

"I think he's right, Deputy," said Jim Valenti, "...and you don't have probable cause to get a court order for him to be fingerprinted."

"Damn it, the girl was almost killed," said Pembroke. "Just because this kid is a friend of your son, Sheriff, and his lawyer-parents run in the same social circles as you do," he said to the Prosecuting Attorney,"...he ought not to get any special treatment.

The Prosecuting Attorney looked at Jim Valenti and sighed. They'd been there too once upon a time. Full of piss and vinegar and out to solve all the problems of the world. It wasn't that easy, and each of them had been burned early in their careers by over-reaching. The Prosecuting Attorney had little doubt that Jim would be having a serious discussion with the young deputy once this was over with but right now he just wanted to defuse the situation before the young man said something that was going to get him in serious trouble.

"Look, son, Judge Roberts is still in town. I'll give him a call and set up a meeting over lunch. Give him what you have - make your best case - the judge gives you a warrant, do whatever it lets you do. But if he doesn't, you stop making allegations about the Sheriff and me that one of us might just start to take personally, OK?"

Pembroke heard the irritation in the Prosecuting Attorneys voice, and saw it in his face. Maybe he had pushed a little too hard. "Yes sir," he said, looking at both the older men. "I guess that would be fair."


At the hospital, things were also progressing.

"Just hold very still, Liz," said Linda. "I've already anesthetized the area and this is just a very fine needle - a little long perhaps - but very fine. We have to go in twice - once to sample each placenta. Liz gazed up at the ceiling of the treatment room. The long needle was scary, but not as scary of the thought of what it would be like if the test was positive. How had it happened so soon? Friday morning she hadn't even been aware that she was carrying twins. This morning - despite all that had happened to her last night - all she could think about was them - her children - that is - her and Max's children.

What if one or both of them were somehow abnormal? Could she really give either of them up? Abort them? She honestly didn't know.

She closed her eyes as she felt the needle slide deep inside her. Linda was right, it really didn't hurt that much. The terror she felt was the fear about the result - not the process. Twenty minutes later it was all over. Two specimens - labeled placental tissue Parker Baby A and Parker Baby B were on their way to the lab, and Liz was on her way to labor and delivery where they would monitor her for contractions for the next four hours before she could be discharged. Her fears, she decided, were only beginning. She knew that she didn't deserve him there with her - supporting her - not after what she'd done. Even so, she'd have given her soul to have him beside her, telling her he cared - telling her that somehow everything would be alright.

It was 11:30 and while Liz lay flat on her back in the OB ward, being monitored for amniocentesis induced contractions, a meeting was being held in a small conference room at the court house.

Deputy Pembroke was introduced to Judge Roberts by the Prosecuting Attorney and the deputy quickly explained the history of the three attempts upon the life of Liz Parker, with particular emphasis upon the circumstantial evidence linking Max to the natural gas explosion. He then went into great detail about exactly how close the girl had come to dying the previous night. "What I'd like to do, Judge," he continued, "... is to bring the boy in for questioning.”

“By that, I take it, you want to go ask the boys parents if you can question their son?”

“No sir. That's the problem. They are both lawyers and I doubt that either would allow it. What I want is to pick the kid up and see if we can get him to spill anything before his parents find out we have him and tell him to clam up. The girl has almost died twice now – three times if you count the argument in the restaurant when she was almost shot.”

“Well certainly you don't believe that the boy was responsible for that? I understand that he was present, but everyone there indicated two strangers were responsible for the shooting after they argued together.”

“I'm not sure he wasn't involved, your Honor. He was sitting right there – he might well have been acting as a look-out. Certainly he did everything he could to get out of there quickly – and he didn't volunteer anything about the appearance of the alleged perpetrators. Heck, he might have hired them himself.”

“And his motivation to do this, son? Why would he want to hurt the girl? Heck, I just sentenced him to community service for beating up the guys who painted her name and condition up on that water tank. Why would he defend her if he wanted her dead?”

“I'm not just sure, Judge, but as I understand it, they used to be a couple - of sorts anyway – then they broke up – then the young lady got herself pregnant with someone else's child... maybe the first shooting was just a coincidence and unrelated, but we have pretty good evidence to place him at the scene of the arson – both beforehand and that night. I, for one, would like to find out where he was last night when this shooting happened. More than that, I'd like to check his fingerprints against the fingerprints on that can we found upstairs at the grain elevator.”

“Well, son, I'm sure we all would like to help this young girl before whoever is after her really does get her, but I honestly don't see what you have that makes you any more suspicious of the Evans boy today than you were yesterday.”

“If we wait until we are sure, the girl is going to be dead, Judge. We need to do something – not pussyfoot around because the kids parents are a couple of lawyers,” Pembroke said with obvious indignation.

Judge Roberts looked pensive. “You know, son, I'm an old man. When I was young – when I was your age – I felt the same way. There were a lot of judges back then who would have given you a warrant for the kid – let you move him around from one holding facility to the next ahead of his lawyers so they couldn't serve you with a writ of habeus corpus – common as could be, once upon a time.”

“Does that mean you'll give me the warrant, Judge?” Pembroke asked hopefully.

“No it doesn't, son. I said I was old – not senile. If I was stupid enough to do that you'd permanently taint this case. Even if the boy was guilty – which you sure haven't established – me playing fast and loose with the kid's legal rights would just get the case tossed out on appeal even if you did get him to say or do something incriminating – hell, even if you got him convicted. Now I don't mind getting overturned on appeal, son, it just makes me look like a fool who doesn't know the law – but I do mind criminals getting away because I did something stupid. Times have changed in the last six decades, son, and I've had to change with them. You need to build a case – not try to scare or beat it out of the kid. Bring me probable cause, I'll be glad to give you a warrant. Until then, I'd suggest you listen to the Sheriff and the Prosecuting Attorney – and even if they do have a little bit of a conflict of interest – you'd do well not to insult them when they are simply giving you the benefit of their experience.”

At about this same time, however, something was occurring over at the High School that was about to help Deputy Pembroke in his quest for a warrant.

Jane Curtis answered the phone on the second ring. It had been a busy morning for the School Secretary – Mondays frequently were. One would think that – with five days in the school week – twenty percent of the absenteeism would be on each day of the week. At least that's what you would think if you didn't know better. Jane Curtis knew better. Almost sixty-five percent of school absences occurred on Monday and Friday. People tended to like long weekends. Jane had spent a busy morning calling the homes of students who had not been in class first period when roll call was taken as well as answering calls from students and their parents calling in to notify the office that they were ill today. Perhaps some of them actually were ill at that. Most were likely playing hooky on a beautiful day. But
as Mrs Curtis picked up THIS call, things were very different.

“Hello – is this the high school office?”

“Yes it is. I'm Mrs. Curtis, how may I assist you?”

“Look, I don't want to cause any trouble and this is probably nothing but I was walking through your student parking lot a little bit ago and I saw a car with what looked like some ammunition in it. It's probably nothing – someone out plinking with a rifle and just forgot to put away the ammo, but after I got home I got to thinking about that Columbine shooting and everything.”

“We have a no-tolerance policy on firearms, Mr ... uh?”

“I'd rather not give my name – I don't want any trouble and I really don't like tattling, it's just that if I didn't tell anyone and someone actually was hurt, well, I'd never forgive myself – you understand?”

“I understand perfectly, but if I'm going to do anything I need enough information to...”

“Look, there's an old black Jeep – open top – out in the student parking lot. Just have someone look on the floor of it,OK?” the man asked.

“OK,but we'd still like a name...” Jane Curtis let the sentence trail off once it was obvious the caller had hung up. It might be just a prank. Even if it wasn't, it might be just like the man said – someone out plinking and forgot to take the ammo out of the car when they took their gun in to clean it. But it didn't really matter. The policy WAS no tolerance, and the checklist indicated exactly what she needed to do. She hung up quickly then picked up the phone and redialed 9-1-1.

“Chaves County Sheriff's department, is this an emergency?”

“Well, sort of. I'm Mrs. Curtis in the office at the High School. We have a report of a car in the student parking lot with ammunition in the back of it. Would you please send an officer to investigate?”

Perhaps, somewhere in America, there is an educational system that actually believes it works for the taxpayers that provide its funds. Perhaps not. Most tend to be autocratic and arrogant - believing themselves to be throwing pearls to swine, as the saying goes. Students 9 and their parents) are too frequently viewed as subjects or at least supplicants r.ather than participants in the process of education. And perhaps somewhere in America there are educational establishments that don't hold grudges. If so, that somewhere was not Roswell New Mexico.

The Roswell educational establishment had never particularly liked Diane Evans. It had started over a decade ago, when she had removed two children after their first day in First Grade to homeschool them. It wasn't that the elementary school had really needed two more students, although non-English speaking children who were barely house-broken would have likely gotten the school Special Needs money throughout their elementary school years had they been left in class. It was the woman's arrogant assumption that she - with merely a poli sci degree and a Doctorate in Law would somehow be able to educate her ADOPTED children more effectively than professional elementary school teachers.

The local chapter of the state educational association had fought her in the courts - claiming that she would do irrevocable harm to the children by homeschooling - and found to their further annoyance that she was a better lawyer than theirs was. That irritation was compounded even further when she brought the children back to enter them in third grade and they found that she had indeed brought the two kids up to grade. Her refusal to allow the school district to still classify them as Special Education students for fear it would ' taint their self-image' had cost the district federal dollars that it could have had and that was also resented. It wasn't like the money would have come out of the woman's own pockets, after all.

As the years had gone by, it was Diane Evans' pro bono work at the legal center - often representing students or their parents who had issues with the school district that had REALLY irked the educational establishment. The recent efforts by the woman to intercede for Liz Parker to ruin an Alternate High School situation that worked perfectly well for the members of the local chapter of the New Mexico Educational Association - aka, the Roswell teachers - was only the most recent episode of her butting in to things more appropriately left to educators and educational administrators. Yes, the woman had truly been a thorn in their side - it mattered little to them that she was consistently correct, and only enforcing the law. Institutionally, they really didn't like the woman.

When Vice-Principal saw the spent brass in the back of the black Jeep perhaps the thought did not really go through his mind that this was payback time, but the thought that did go through had rather the same effect. Vice-Principal Holbrook's more immediate problem with Diane Evans was her current crusade against a policy that he had instituted - the three day suspension for all students involved in a fight.

Diane had not protested the suspension or punishment given to Max. It was obvious from the tapes that Max had tossed the first punch at Bubba Brigham - in fact the first several. Even Vice-Principal Holbrooke had been impressed with the young man's hand speed. The problem had come with the suspension of Isabel Evans and the potential resulting impact upon her grades.

In fact, neither of the Evans kids were in any danger of failing - both did quite well academically - but students were not permitted to make up lost assignments or missed tests for the days they were suspended, and it had occurred to Diane Evans that this policy could be devastating to a marginal student. She had not - at first - even protested the suspension, simply asking that the student NOT at fault be permitted to make up the missed work without penalty.

The problem with this - from the education establishment's perspective - was that it would have forced them not only to go to extra effort to educate the student - it was scarcely THEIR fault, after all, that the student had become involved in fisticuffs - but worse yet, to make a judgment call about what student had actually been at fault in the fisticuffs. Making judgments about either legal or moral issues wasn't really part of their job description. But that was what Diane Evans expected them to do. Diane was appealing the policy to the school board - Holbrooke wasn't really worried about that, they were almost all either teachers or retired teachers - but if she failed there, was threatening to take the school district to court yet again. Diane hadn't lost in court yet.

As soon as he saw the spent ammunition in the back of the Jeep, Vice-Principal Holbrooke realized that he now had a mechanism to fight back. In reality, Holbrooke - himself a hunter - knew that the spent cartridges were totally harmless. Sure, they could be reloaded again. All it would take was the right reloading die, a reloading press, new primers, new bullets, new smokeless powder.... and then time to do it all. No, the cartridges were no more dangerous than the football coach's metal whistle, but that didn't matter. What mattered he knew, as he picked up the three spent rounds, was that they gave him leverage.

The US Supreme Court had decided in 1984 that school kids didn't really have Fourth Amendment rights when it came to their school lockers. A warrant wasn't needed and the school authorities could search student lockers as long as it was "reasonable" to do so. In point of fact, courts rarely found a locker search that wasn't reasonable, at least if it was in response to some observed violation of school rules. Teenagers taking rifles out in the desert and target practicing was damn near the national pastime in New Mexico and no doubt that was all that one of the Evans kids had been doing, but that was enough. Even though the federal law didn't make possession of even loaded ammunition on the school grounds a crime, the school board no tolerance policy had prohibited ammunition and ammunition components. These spent brass cartridges clearly constituted ammunition components, which justified his search of Isabel Evans' locker.

Holbrooke, over the years, had searched a lot of lockers. What he was hoping to find was something that he could use to convince Diane Evans that she should leave school policies in general - and the rule about automatic suspension if you were involved in a fight in particular - to the school board and the school administration. He didn't actually need to find some violation of the law - although if he happened to find some marijuana in Isabel's locker it would sure be helpful. Sometimes he found birth control pills in girls lockers - birth control pills that their parents were unaware they were taking. That too was a violation of the 'no tolerance policy" for drugs. All such medication was supposed to be given to the school nurse to be dispensed only by her - like the kids on Ritalin. If he found something like that it was very possible he could just ask Isabel to induce her mother to back off about the disciplinary rules - teenagers were extremely good at getting their parents to butt out when the alternative was great embarrassment. But though he searched her locker from top to bottom, he couldn't find a damn thing that was illegal or even embarrassing. It was so .... disappointing.

Holbrooke opened Max's locker almost as an afterthought. Despite his recent surprising fisticuffs over the Liz Parker incident, the kid was the proverbial Eagle Scout. He opened the locker more to be consistent than anything else - because he'd opened his sisters. Holbrooke was so surprised when the rifle came out as he opened the locker door that he barely managed to catch it. He stared at it in disbelief at first - before finally opening the bolt to see if it were safe. Yet another spent cartridge was ejected - pinging off the wall and skipping down the hall. He stooped to pick it up - his other hand still holding the rifle.

Holbrook looked at the casing - a Weatherby 244 magnum. He shook his head. The Evans boy was in a lot of trouble. Unfortunately, it probable wasn't anything that would make his mother back off on the argument about her daughter. He turned and walked back to the office to call the police.