The Summer Time Lie

As I approach my next short-story, believe we, and I mean we, have moved beyond the criminal statute of limitations. Certainly you have watched a Law and Order television show or one of its many spin offs and heard this term. The time limit declared for when a prosecutor can file criminal charges meaning beyond that point the accused person or persons are free; and got away with it. Or on the fantasy land version, some last-minute piece of evidence magically appears prior to sending the criminal to prison, forever. Often, some observant detective concludes upon further investigation that the unsolvable crime had to be committed by a left-handed person. Yes, sports fan always be wary of the quiet lefty.

It was summer break. School is out now. Each day designed for fun and games.

For those following my tales, they may recall that my cousin (whose name I shall not mention) and I seemed to be well-behaved children. I cannot vouch for my Aunt Wilma, but my mom noted within hearing range, on multiple occasions, that when we hung out together, our cumulative “Super Power” was finding a pinch of mischief. Today, we could confirm her hypothesis.

Here we are on a normal, nondescript summer afternoon at my cousins’ house. We were outside in the street playing catch among the trees.

With a hardball.

From our location, looking at the house, to the right side of Aunt Wilma’s house was a park with a slide, swings, seesaw (teeter-totter or teeter board, Google it), and lots of space containing no trees. Facing the left a well-maintained lot, a large cleared space with grass and no trees.

We chose the street in front.

Now we decided rather than just toss the hardball back and forth, we would toss the hardball up into the branches and, being the athletes we were, we would let the hardball ricochet back through the branches and, of course, catch it. I can only surmise we thought this to be more of a challenge than just simply tossing the hardball back and forth.

This day was going to be special.

Two city workers, in a city vehicle, choose to stop for lunch in the shade under one of the large trees, entertained by two athletes playing catch in the road.

We stopped and approached and chatted with the city employees for a few and then returned to our game. Things were going well on this nondescript summer afternoon until…

Now some of you are predicting, an important skill to possess as readers but, let’s not get too far ahead of ourselves.

Someone, we will never know who, tossed the ball into the verdure, and we waited. As the projectile returned to earth, to our amazement we noted it was moving, unexpectedly, toward the City Vehicle and to our astonishment, and the two laid-back city workers munching on lunch, found its way to the very center of the windshield.

The hardball did not penetrate rather bounced off (there may have been a momentary sigh of relief, but) and the impact at the center of the glass caused what they, in the profession call starburst cracks that, in this case, branched in multiple directions.

The genius of four criminal minds is not a lot better that two. Possibilities aplenty, options weighed. With the help of two adults, the city employees decided, “We will report this to our supervisors and tell them that while we were working, away from the truck, someone broke the window.”

“Yeah, it must have been a rock thrown by a rowdy teen,” confirmed our other adult co-conspirator.

And that’s the story and we will all stick to it.

The End.

Oops, that, my friends, is not the end. For once I can say, “What were we thinking?”

The next day on the front page of the local rag, I did not know the Star-Gazette, a tiny, a minute paper, that a blurb, would appear in our small town diurnal, posted for all to read: VANDALISMS in the streets of Elmira! City Vehicle vandalized, window smashed by unknown vandals.

Apparently, the co-conspirators reported the incident to their supervisor, who passed the information up the chain of command and then onto the City Police Department, who then leaked the information to the Press, and here it is on the front page. The report noted the street and block where the criminals breached city statue.

[Fortunately, they did not include twenty-seven eight-by-ten color glossy photographs with circles and arrows and a paragraph on the back of each one explaining how each one was to be used as evidence against us. All they lacked were pictures of the approach, the getaway, the northwest corner, the southwest corner and that's not to mention an aerial photography.]

Who would crack, no pun intended, who would spill the beans?

Mom always pointed to the Reformatory on the Hill, “That’s where the bad kids go.”

I cannot state, because I do not know, if the co-conspirators stuck to the story. Was there a leaker? I only know mom asked me three times, so biblical, if I knew anything about the broken window and I lied three times and I was pretty sure I was going to spend eternity in Hell.

By all appearance we had successfully pulled off the crime of the century. And, should anyone ask, I will deny ever being involved, case closed.