Feels like Trouble (Lake Fisher 4)

“It’s all coming back to me in fits and starts.”

Grady is wearing a pink t-shirt with a fancy glittery logo on the front, along with a pair of grey sweatpants of undisclosed origin. The officer had retrieved both from the lost and found box at the front of the jail and very politely asked him to trade the clothes for Grandma’s apron. He had pulled the pants on right there in front of everyone, and then he’d neatly folded Grandma’s apron into a tiny square and stuffed it into the pocket of the sweatpants. He looks ridiculous, but at least now his ass isn’t hanging out.

“So, are we going to take the blame?” he asks.

“We probably should,” I reply. “They have kids.”

Grady glares at me.

I stand up taller so I can glare harder at Grady. “So if anybody needs to go to jail, I think it should be you. They have kids they need to get home to.”

“Me?” Grady squeaks as he lays a hand on his chest. “Why should I take the blame?” He lifts my hands. “You’re the one with the evidence all over you.” He shoves my hands in front of my face so I’m forced to look at them. “If memory serves me right, you did most of the painting.”

My memory wasn’t serving me right at all. “Fuck off, Grady,” I say.

He steps back with a huff. “You suck so bad, Clifford,” he says. “Can’t you just work with me here?”

The door opens and Mr. Jacobson walks into the room. He’s a gruff old man who still makes me want to pee my pants when he looks at me. He owns the big complex at Lake Fisher, where people go to camp, swim, and there are little cabins people use for vacationing. It’s a beautiful place. Or at least it was before we had the bright idea to graffiti the big white building right next to the entrance of the place.

He motions for us all to sit down. Four butts hit chairs, like we’re all trained puppies. Mr. Jacobson glares at all of us. “What the hell were you thinking?”

I stiffen. I’ve never heard Mr. Jacobson say more than four words. And they were usually “Get away from me.” They were very effective words because he usually prefaced them with a mean glare and ended them with a kick toward a retreating backside.

Junior opens his mouth to speak, but Mr. Jacobson lifts a finger. Junior bites his lips closed and says nothing.

Mr. Jacobson looks from Junior to Barbara-Claire and back. “You two should be ashamed of yourselves.” He leans toward them like he’s going to tell them a secret, but he says at full volume, “If you’re going to screw in the back of a Jeep, you should at least put the top on it.” He stares at them long enough to make them draw into themselves a little. “And don’t do it in front of a camera! I can never unsee that.” He grumbles something about Junior’s technique that I can’t fully understand, but Junior must have understood because all the color drains from his face.

“I didn’t know there was a camera,” Barbara Claire says quietly. She lifts her fingernail to her mouth and starts to gnaw at her acrylics. Junior reaches over and brushes her fingers from her mouth with an impatient hand.

“You two can go,” Mr. Jacobson says.

Junior scoots to the edge of his chair, preparing to flee. “We can?”

“You two didn’t paint my building,” he says. He holds up his hand when Junior gets ready to talk. “I saw the video,” he reminds them.

Barbara-Claire’s face goes scarlet. “Thank you, sir,” she says. She gets up and follows Junior out the door, clutching the back of his shirt all the while.

Grady makes a noise low in his throat, and his leg begins to jump. So much for blaming Junior and Barbara-Claire, huh? All they did was get caught fucking. They didn’t deface anyone’s personal property.

“And you two,” Mr. Jacobson says. “Have you no respect for private property?”

“We’re sorry,” Grady and I both say at the same time. I look at Grady, shocked. He ignores me entirely.

“I could see it if you were kids!” he says. He throws up his hands. “But you’re, what?” He glares at us. “Almost forty? You’re too old to be out doing stupid shit.”

He just said shit, the childhood memory center of my brain notes. “Thirty-nine,” I say.

“Close enough.” Mr. Jacobson sucks in a breath through his nose. “What do I do with you two?” He looks at us each in turn, and I have to stop myself from hugging my legs to my chest in an effort to make myself smaller and smaller.

“We’d like to come and paint the building,” Grady says.

Mr. Jacobson wraps his hand around his ear and leans toward Grady. “You’d what?” he asks. “You say you’d like to paint my building?”

“Yes, sir,” Grady replies.

“I can press charges,” he feels led to remind us.

“We’re aware,” Grady says.