Chapter 5: Ice Cream and Trials
March 6th, 2013 10:30 a.m.
Ice cream stand, Central Park
(Still New York, New York)
“Was killed in a Hit-and-Run? Probably just a coincidence. I mean really, Halloway, who would purposely try to kill him?”
“The real killer!” Piper practically shouted, taking the ice-cream cone from the plump man next to the cart and handing him a five-dollar bill. “Keep the change,” she told him, and Reynolds shook his head in disapproval, scooping a helping of his own Pecan Praline from his paper cup.
“That was my money,” he said, and Piper shrugged.
“It’s a tough business Detective, how do you expect someone to pay the bills off of four dollars and twenty-one cents?”
Reynolds scoffed, the sweet desert melting in his mouth. “Oh yeah, because eighty cents makes a big difference.”
“Seventy-nine,” Piper corrected.
“Whatever.”
She put her tongue to her own treat, a burst of flavor sending fire-works through her taste-buds. She missed the taste of ice-cream. Compared to prison food, ice-cream wasn’t heavenly, but heaven itself. “Some jobs are really tough, not that I’d expect you to know. All I’m saying is that it wouldn’t hurt to show a little compassion.”
“Says the girl convicted of murdering her father.”
Piper rolled her eyes, but cracked a smile anyways. She’d wished he’d added ‘wrongly’ to that sentence, but she knew that he had no faith in her. She couldn’t blame him. “Let’s get back to the matter at hand,” she said, trying to stay on topic.
Reynolds tossed his paper cup and plastic spoon in a trashcan, licking his lips, probing for any traces of ice-cream left. “What’d I tell you this morning, kid? After the trial. We still have another hour or so.” She groaned, moving to toss her cone in the trashcan, suddenly too anxious to eat. “You’re not going to eat that?”
Piper sighed, handing him the cone, and he polished it off quickly. “What’re we supposed to do for a whole hour?” she asked, and Reynolds sat down on a park bench, Piper following suit.
“What is it with you teenagers and the need to always be doing something?”
Piper let out a puff of air from her mouth, her out-grown bangs blowing out of her face before falling back into place. “Fine, what did you do for fun when you were my age?”
Reynolds hesitated, his brain fighting to unlock memories he tried to keep shut and blocked out from the world. “Honestly?” Piper nodded. “I got into fights. Placed bets, lost most of them. My mom worked as a waitress but it was never enough. I had six kid brothers, and when I turned thirteen, my mom said to me, ‘Son, you’re the man of the house. Go get a job.’”
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Criminal Essense
Short StoryPiper Halloway was (wrongly) convicted of murdering her abusive father when she was thirteen years old. Four years later, she is given a second chance when she is brought back to New York to have her trial as an official adult a week before her eigh...