Excerpt: To Count the Stars

So far he could only see 628 stars out his plexiglass window. Beneath his robe, a shoulder connected to a tightly defined arm which then connected to an exposed soft masculine hand and finally, his long golden fingers curled tenderly around one of the white bars. It was that time of night just after twilight and the asylum, built miles away from the closest city, had few security lights outside the west wing. Stars begun to appear, tiny sparkling wishes and promises over the sky. River could see 100 miles into space and there he stood all night like a painted statue counting the stars.
Dr. McKenzie stayed up a little later that night than usual before going to bed. River Williams, male, no middle name (McKenzie smiled when he read this). His new patient was run of the mill, but not without hope. Unlike his other patients, River did not have a long criminal history. But like his other patients, he had been arrested for a petty crime - driving without a license – and then turned over to the state asylum because of some previous crime. In River William's case, he had two things going for him. First, they hadn't even set a trial date, so that meant that River would be most easily helped now, before a daunting death penalty entered his consciousness as being even a possibility. If anything else, Dr. McKenzie could at least prepare him psychologically for his up-coming interview with his lawyer and at best, help River come to confess for his crime and work from there on rehabilitation therapy, helpful for life in prison and also for 20- 30 years.
Officer Mitchel was seated around a dimly lit table with two other officers. They were celebrating his recent advancement to head officer with a few beers.
“It was the craziest thing,” Mitchel explained to the other two, “The kid has no papers, no job, couldn't tell you his birth date or even his parent's names, yet here he was with enough cash on him to post bail and he lives in that giant stone house in Lake Park.”
“But that house has been abandoned since the entire subdivision went up!” officer Lewis exclaimed, “There's no way the kid could live there and without a job? That's impossible!”
“I know, Bryce, didn't believe it myself until FBI comes in and tells his knock-out girlfriend who had been waiting for him all day that they had a warrant to search the house. Agent Mason didn't even break a smile when she told him the same address.” Mitchel paused to take a swig of beer, enjoying this story, though he was oddly terrified of it, too, which was one thing he was not going to allow his fellow officers in on. “Anyway, when Mason came back, they had searched the house. Said they had found some evidence or some such thing, bagged it, and had an order to ship him out to Blue Valley Asylum.”
“When did he get the evaluation to leave to the asylum?” Lewis asked, “Which psychologist checked him out?”
“That's even weirder,” said officer Mitchel, “Kid never even had an evaluation. Wasn't even led out in cuffs, swear to god, just walked as calm as you or I alongside Mason and got in the front seat and drove off.”
“No cuffs? That kid probably didn't do anything,” Lewis said, “and he was probably just some crazy guy thinking he lived in some house just because it was famous for being empty. You know how kids are these days, thinking an empty house is haunted or something. Maybe he just broke in and did some graffiti or something”
“I'm thinking something else,” smiled Mitchel, “I think the kid actually does live in the house. I think the FBI went there and found something horrible; something terrible that you or I could never imagine. I think that kid did live in that house and did something real awful to someone there. And maybe those poor people were still living in there or rotting in there and...”
Officer Lewis interrupted, excited, “No way a kid lives there, not that kid at least, but I don't think that kid could have hurt a fly. I saw his mugshot. Kid looked as innocent as you or I. Maybe even more innocent. They've gotta just have the wrong guy and are accusing him of something just 'cause he's nuts. That's probably why they didn't handcuff him.”
“I don't know, Bryce,” Mitchel mused, “They gotta have something on him or else they wouldn't have come down to the station in the first place.”
Officer Birch sat quietly in the seat next to Bryce Lewis, listening patiently. He was comparably twice, maybe even three times the other two's age and many wondered why he was still even working in Law Enforcement anymore. About a decade before, his fellow officers had gotten onto him about how he needed to retire, enjoy the world, but Birch kept on the force. Some people thought maybe he didn't have much of a home life, his kids all grown up and his wife's death 20 years back. And some just thought he didn't want to admit he had passed his peak as an officer. There was only one thing everyone at the station could agree on when it came to officer Birch: he was a man of few words. And there Birch sat, gazing blankly into nowhere in particular, with a weary look of familiarity in his eyes.
“You ever hear such a thing?,” Lewis asked Birch.
He moved his head slightly in response. And here was another thing that no one could be certain about: whether Birch had nodded yes or if Birch had nodded no.

On this night with nearly 800 stars counted in the sky, officer Mitchel payed his tab at the very same time that McKenzie went to bed. There was one thing that neither Williams, officer Mitchel, or McKenzie knew: the crime in which River Williams had been incarcerated for.