Read Rainbow's End for Free Online

sheriff’s men had to go back, however, and the firemen were due downriver. They said goodbye to me and Mom, then putt-putted away. Going back to his car, Edgren told me and Mom: “We’ll be out later on in the day to ask more questions about it—if that girl is able to come. Around five o’clock, I’d say. So stand by. If you want a lawyer, you’re entitled to have one, and of course, if you don’t want to talk, you don’t have to.”
    â€œWell why wouldn’t I want to talk?”
    â€œI’m advising you of your rights. You killed a man. I don’t think you’ll be charged, but you might be. It’s not up to me to say.”
    â€œWho is it up to then?”
    â€œCoroner’s jury—they generally do as the state’s attorney says. But if we have reason, we can charge you too.”
    â€œAnd that’s why I need a lawyer?”
    â€œI didn’t say need. You’re entitled to one if you want him.”
    â€œWell, that’s nice,” said Mom. “Here my boy kills that awful man, and now you’re fixing to lock him up.”
    â€œMa’am, I’m not fixing to do anything, except what the law requires, and right now the law requires I advise him. Which I’ve done.” And to me: “You understand, Mr. Howell?”
    â€œI think so. Thanks.”
    â€œAnd ma’am, you were a witness, so you must stand by, too. You’re entitled to a lawyer, and you don’t have to talk if you don’t want to.”
    â€œYou mean I could be charged too?”
    â€œIt could happen.”
    â€œWith what?”
    â€œWe don’t know yet.”
    That’s what he said, but before he said it he shot a look at Mantle who didn’t return it but kept his eyes on the ground. “Well I like that ,” said Mom.
    â€œAny questions?”
    I didn’t have any. If Mom did, she kept them to herself, so the officers drove off—but not till I got them the rifle which they took with them, the empty shell still in the chamber.

6
    W E WENT IN, AND Mom said: “Well, thank God it’ll soon be over, and then the sun will come up. Won’t it?”
    â€œWell? It generally does.”
    She had plumped herself down on the sofa and looked at me kind of funny as though what I said wasn’t quite what she expected to hear. But before she could say what that was, a car turned in to our lane from the main highway and pulled up in front of the house—a cream-colored truck with the letters on the side of the TV station we have across the Ohio from Marietta at Parkersburg, West Virginia. Then a woman was ringing the bell and guys were getting out. She wanted to come in and take pictures of me and Mom, and I said OK—“but the real star of the show was that girl, Jill Kreeger’s her name, who rode that parachute down, and held Shaw off somehow until I had a chance to plug him.”
    â€œOh, but we have her already.”
    It seemed that Jill was hardly in her hospital room before they were there too, “and shot her in her nightie, the short one the hospital gave her, which wasn’t much of a costume, but a lot they’ll care tonight, when the tape goes on TV. That’s a mighty pretty girl, and the tribute she pays you, Mr. Howell, is really something to hear.”
    Mom didn’t say anything.
    They set their camera up at the end of the room, next to the arch, and the woman put me on the sofa, using the low table, the one in front of the fireplace, to sit on herself. Then she began asking questions. I answered as well as I could, though there wasn’t much to say, and I felt she was disappointed. I strung it out as well as I could, how I carried Jill to the house, “got her into a hot bath, to stop her teeth from chattering, and then called the sheriff’s office.” After a while she seemed satisfied, then decided to work on Mom. That made me nervous, for some reason,