Drought by Graham Masterton Page B

friends.’
    â€˜He’s talked to you? Did you read him his rights?’
    â€˜He’s over eighteen, sir. He’s legally an adult, and of course we read him his rights. He said he was anxious to clear things up.’
    â€˜His attorney isn’t even here yet.’
    Corporal Evander shrugged. ‘If a suspect volunteers to talk to me, sir, there’s not a whole lot I can do about it.’
    â€˜Listen – I’ve told you. Tyler doesn’t
have
any friends. Well, only the kids he hangs around with at school. He doesn’t have any
street
friends, for Christ’s sake.’
    â€˜Maybe he’s never told you about them, sir. Parents always think they know everything about their kids, but you’d be surprised how often they don’t know half of what they get up to. The point is, though, that he was caught holding what appears to have been the murder weapon, a double-barreled shotgun, which had been discharged twice and then reloaded. The storekeeper had been shot at point-blank range in the stomach, and probably died instantly.’
    Martin said, ‘I still don’t believe he did it. Not Tyler. He doesn’t have a single mean bone in his body.’
    â€˜Our investigation isn’t complete yet, sir, not by a long way. Our forensic people are still examining the crime scene, and we’ll be holding an autopsy, too. And of course your son will have every chance to defend himself in court. However, I’ve formally detained him on a charge of felony murder. As soon as we can we’ll be booking him into the West Valley Detention Center in Rancho Cucamonga to await a preliminary hearing.’
    â€˜Wait a minute,’ Martin interrupted him. ‘Felony murder? Isn’t that when you kill somebody while you’re carrying out another crime?’
    â€˜That’s correct, sir.’ Corporal Evander ticked them off on his fingers. ‘Murder while engaged in robbery, or kidnapping, or rape, or sodomy, or sex with a juvenile, or oral copulation, or burglary, or arson, or train wrecking or carjacking.’
    Martin stared at him in disbelief. ‘So which one was it?’
    â€˜Which
two
, sir, as a matter of fact. Robbery, and rape.’
    â€˜
Rape
? Who the hell is he supposed to have raped?’
    Corporal Evander took a notebook out of his shirt pocket and flipped it open. He frowned at it for a moment and then said, ‘Maria Alvarez, sir. The store owner’s daughter, seventeen years old. She was sexually assaulted numerous times, possibly by all of the suspects involved, including your son. She’s in the hospital right now, but so far she’s been too traumatized to tell us anything.’
    Martin had to sit down. ‘I just can’t get my head around this, detective.
Tyler –
shooting a storekeeper and raping his daughter? That is so totally out of character. I know he
liked
the girl, for Christ’s sake. He told me about her a couple of times, but he always said that he didn’t have the nerve to ask her out.’
    Corporal Evander didn’t answer that, but Martin glanced up at him again and he could guess what was going through his mind. He probably thought that while Tyler and his companions were robbing the store, he had seen his chance with Maria, and taken it. Martin had seen young enlisted men forcing themselves on village girls in Afghanistan, even though they were probably as shy as Tyler when it came to dating the girls back home. But he couldn’t believe that Tyler would have done such a thing to Maria. Apart from anything else, he wasn’t stupid, and he would have known what the consequences were. Not just the legal consequences, but the consequences if Martin found out about it.
    â€˜You can see him now if you want to,’ said Corporal Evander. ‘We won’t be taking him to West Valley for a while. We’re having some delays with transportation.’
    â€˜My lawyer will be