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As he crunched across the cinder track, Hanson wished he'd made the call. He could've given Lucy a phony location, claimed he was taking an early break for chow. |
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Would've been worse, lying to her. |
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He planned to marry the woman. You don't lie to someone you love. |
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Better this way, he thought. Besides, she'll probably cover for me if anything comes up. |
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The grass felt soft and springy under his shoes. He walked through the end zone, the goalpost jarring slightly in his vision. He stopped just outside the circle where the grass had been removed. He stared. |
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Again, he wondered why he was drawn to this place. |
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He'd seen murder victims before. Though not many. And only one, Jennifer Sayers, who'd met an end this brutal. She hadn't been burnt like this boy. Tortured and raped. Her mutilated body had given Hanson plenty of nightmares, but he'd never made a secret trip to the section of woods where it happened. |
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Somehow, this was different. |
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Yeah, he thought. Somehow. Maxwell Chidi was a black kid. That's the difference, right there. |
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When does a black guy become a nigger? When he leaves the room. |
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Hanson used to laugh at stuff like that. Shit, he used to say stuff like that. |
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That's why I'm here, he realized. |
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They did it to the kid because he was black. White people. They got themselves a nigger. |
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