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"Help ed "Help me, Daddy Tom"

Daddy Tom, a juiceless man with hair the color of dust, has eyes the yellon of sandstone His lips are perpetually parched, and his atrophied laugh rasps any listener’s nerves

Only in the most extreme circumstances would anyone ask Daddy Tom for help, and no one would expect to receive it

"Help me, Daddy Tom"

Besides, the old man lives in Massachusetts, a continent away froency of the situation penetrates Billy’s i shock, and terrified compassion now moves him toward his er on her right hand twitching, twitching, but nothing elsefrom the neck down

Like broken pottery poorly repaired, the shape of her skull and the planes of her face are wrong, all wrong

Her one open eye, now her only eye, focuses on Billy, and she says,

"Daddy Tonize her son, her only child, and thinks that he is the old man fro with pain

The broken face suggests irreparable brain da sob

Her one-eyed gaze travels froun in his hand "Please, Daddy Tom Please"

He is only fourteen, a mere boy, so recently a child, and there are choices he should not be asked to rown man, and he cannot choose, will not choose But, oh, her pain Her fear Her anguish

With a thickening tongue, she pleads, "Oh, Jesus, oh, Jesus, where is , who is that? Who is you in here, scares me? Scares me!"

Sometimes the heart h we know that the heart is deceitful above all things, we also know that at rare ed pure by suffering In the years to co his heart at this ht choice But he does as it tells him

"I love you," he says, and shoots his mother dead

Lieutenant John Palmer is the first officer on the scene

What initially appears to be the bold entrance of dependable authority will later seeer rush of a vulture to carrion Waiting for the police, Billy has been unable to move out of the kitchen He cannot bear to leave his mother alone

He feels that she hasn’t fully departed, that her spirit lingers and takes co of the sort and only wishes this to be true

Although he cannot look at her anymore, at what she has become, he stays nearby, eyes averted

When Lieutenant Paler needs to be strong, his composure slips Tremors nearly shake the boy to his knees

Lieutenant Palmer asks, "What happened here, son?"

With these two deaths, Billy is no one’s child, and he feels his isolation in his bones, bleakness at the core, fear of the future

When he hears the word son, therefore, it seems to be more than a mere word, seems to be a hand extended, hope offered

Billy moves toward John Pal or only because he is hu, Billy leans into those arms, and John Palmer holds him close

"Son? What happened here?"

"He beat her I shot him He beat her with the wrench"

"You shot hi wrench I shot hiht allow for the e witness, but the lieutenant’s primary consideration is that he has not yet made captain He is an ambitious man And impatient

Two years previous, a seventeen-year-old boy in Los Angeles County, far south of Napa, had shot his parents to death He pleaded innocent by reason of long-ter concluded only teeks before this pivotal night in Billy Wiles’s life, had resulted in conviction The pundits predicted the boy would go free, but the detective in charge of the case had been diligent, accu the perpetrator in lie after lie

For the past teeks, that indefatigable detective had been a media hero He received lots of face time on TV His naeles

With Billy’s admission, John Palmer does not see an opportunity to pursue the truth but instead sees an opportunity

"Who did you shoot, son? Him or her?"

"I s-shot him I shot her He beat her so bad with the wrench, I had to sshoot them both"

As other sirens swell in the distance, Lieutenant Pal rooer is What happened here, son? His question now is,

"What have you done, boy? What have you done?"

For too long, young Billy Wiles does not hear the difference Thus begins sixty hours of hell

At fourteen, he cannot be made to stand trial as an adult With the death penalty and life iation should be less than with an adult offender

John Pal from hi wrench, shot his father when his father tried to protect her, then finished her, too, with a bullet Because the punishment for juvenile offenders is so uards their rights less assiduously than it should For one thing, if the suspect does not know he should deht on as timely a basis as would be ideal

If the suspect’s lack of resources requires a public defender, there is always the chance that the one assigned will be feckless Or foolish Or badly hung over

Not every lawyer is as noble as those who champion the oppressed in TV

dramas, just as the oppressed themselves are seldom as noble in real life An experienced officer like John Paluided by reckless a to put his career at risk, has a sleeve full of tricks to keep a suspect away froation in the hours i him into custody