23
“you had to start.” The two men respected each other, but seldom agreed on anything, particularly politics. Grandpa couldn’t resist.
“Thomas,” Grandpa always called him Thomas when he was about to discuss something important, “the problem is that your father has no grasp of good government,” and they were off. Tommy sat quietly turning his head back and forth like he was at a tennis match. After about 10 minutes he asked his grandmother if he could go downstairs and play pool. He knew that she was least likely to turn him down, even if he had started the whole thing, and as expected she gave her consent.
Tommy went down the steps into the cool of the basement, consciously trying to make his footsteps sound normal and not like he was headed out to murder somebody. He moved the balls on the pool table around to make it look like he had actually been playing and leaned a pool cue against the table. He headed for the sliding glass doors in the back, and grabbed a sheathed hunting knife he had found on a previous visit. He quietly slid the door open, slipped out, and headed down the hill to the back gate.
The Conlin family lived in a townhouse that backed up to the condos. Tommy walked bent over in the space between the opposing backyard fences. Hidden by the fences and the pine trees between them, he had little chance of being seen. He knew exactly which house his target lived in, because they rode the same bus, and because Tommy had spied on Gregory. He knew that actually getting to Gregory was the weakest part of his plan. He would hide outside his back gate for a few minutes each time he visited his grandparents and wait for Gregory to come out. Maybe he’d make a noise to lure him out, but sooner or later Gregory would come out that gate and Tommy would do the deed. He would strike so fast and so hard that Gregory wouldn’t be able to make a sound. He had rehearsed it over and over in his mind. There was no need to be in a hurry, it just needed to be done before the end of summer.
As he approached Gregory’s back gate he could hear frantic yelling, almost screaming. One house away, and he realized it was coming from Gregory’s