“This is ridiculous,” Mike sighs in exasperation, “my friends and I had nothing to do with any of this.”
The detective at the other end of the table doesn’t seem to accept this. She’s a recent transplant from another state. Most of the Derry police department leaves Mike be, summing up his interest in police matters as a side effect of his fascination with Derry history. She doesn’t seem to be interested in giving that same assumption.
“You keep saying that,” she pushes, “but I think it’s strange that you show up to all the crime scenes and that two of your friends harassed one of the victims. Not to mention that Henry Bowers was found dead under your place of residency.”
Mike is growing more and more frustrated. It was surreal when the police showed up at dinner last night. The Losers Club plus the small group of cops nearly overwhelmed the small Italian place they’d been enjoying.
Bev, Ben, and Eddie are sitting in the lobby while Richie and Bill are in cuffs. Mike is somewhere between the two options or so he figures. He’s not sure he likes those odds.
Detective Lopez fixes him with a look that lacks any hint of retreat or gentility. She’s a no nonsense kind of woman. Her curly, dark hair is cropped in a pixie cut and her face is bare and set in a deadpan expression. Her blouse is a gray button up and the lanyard of her badge is tucked under her collar.
“It’s a small town,” Mike responds, “coincidences are everywhere.”
“Nothing is ever just a coincidence. Did you know Mr. Bowers?”
Mike calmly explains how Henry Bowers was the resident bully when they were children. How often that bullying went past simple pranks and low grade violence. To stop at calling Henry a bully was like trying to call Ted Bundy just an unfortunate date.
“You can ask Ben about his scar, that should give you a clue.”
“I understand that Mr Bowers had a history of violence and mental illness-“
“Being an angry white boy is not a mental illness,” Mike points out.
“Agreed,” Detective Lopez says flatly, “but that isn’t my point. My point is that several children and a man named Adrian Melon are dead and the escape of Mr. Bowers does not correlate with those deaths.”
“It doesn’t correlate with the arrival of my friends either. They weren’t here.”
“But you were.”
Mike is taken aback by the remark. All this time he’s been keeping watch, dreading the day that Derry needed saving but looking to save it nonetheless. Not that this town ever gifted him much beyond tolerance. He has no adult friends here, no significant others, only a series of routine faces that note his presence. Derry, Maine isn’t friendly or good. It’s not even scenic but he wanted to save it anyway. His jaw tightens.
“Of course I was here. I live in Derry. I’ve lived here most of my life, where else would I be?”
“You didn’t know these kids. You didn’t know Adrian Melon. Why did you visit the crime scenes? What business did you have being there?”
Detective Lopez is standing over him now with her hands planted on the table. She does this all calmly with very direct body movements. She never lets her frustration get to her. She harnesses it into orderly conduct and in a way it’s terrifying.
But she’s an outsider without all the facts. You can tell she comes from a big city by her demeanor and her thought process. Often a crime is committed by someone close to the victim or someone that makes themselves close. Contrary to the movies, the person most likely to kill you is the one in plain sight and right next to you. Monsters that hide in the dark and stalk you like prey aren’t the norm.
Mike is glad that he and his friends got rid of that norm for Derry.
“Detective Lopez? Have you ever seen someone die-“
“Of course I have. I’m a homicide detective.”
“I wasn’t finished,” Mike insists, “I was asking if you’ve ever seen someone die when you were a child?”
This gives her pause. Her elbows soften the smallest amount and her hesitancy is plain to Mike. She doesn’t sit. There’s no way she’s backing down that quickly but it’s clear she’s listening.
“I can’t say I have, why?”
“If you take the time to look into me a bit more you’ll know that my parents died in a fire and I was in the other room. I was too little to help them. I couldn’t save them.”
Now Detective Lopez sits down. Her posture is unnaturally straight and her gaze is still unwavering. This is either the best she can do to convey being receptive or it’s the most she’s willing to give.
“Can you imagine the sort of impact that has? I couldn’t even put down a sheep on the farm I grew up on. The idea of causing harm to anyone or anything, indirect or necessary or otherwise, still makes me sick. So please, Detective Lopez, don’t insult me with what you’re trying to infer.”
“Be blunt then. What were you doing?”
“Trying to see if there was a way to stop it. If you look at our history, you’ll see there’s a pattern. Every 27 years since the town was formed, a stretch of terrible things happen. That’s longer than I’ve been alive. Longer than my family’s been in Derry.
I thought maybe if I could pay attention for the next phase I could find the connection. I could save them.”
Mike can see that she’s regarding him as an absolute looney but Mike hopes it’s the harmless kind. She can picture him tinfoil hat and all if it means she doesn’t see him as a murderer.
“And what did you find?”
Mike decides that this is as good a time as any to tell one last lie. It’s not like she’d understand the truth of the matter. She’s the type to only accept hard facts and indisputable evidence. There isn’t anything he can show her to back the truth. Nothing but a lot of rubble on Neibolt street.
“I found nothing. Whatever makes this town the way it is, it’s not for me to understand.”
It’s not entirely a lie. Pennywise was just a part of what made Derry the way it is. Its death isn’t going to cure Derry of its bigotry overnight. There will still be small minded people, violent people. Mike will never understand that.
“So you’re giving up? Just like that?”
“I almost died because a literal living relic of my past broke out of an insane asylum and tried to kill me. I think that’s a sufficient wake up call that I’ve wasted too much time on this town and my own baggage.”
Mike can’t tell if she’s buying it or not. Detective Lopez gives away nothing. She’s an absolute professional to the core. Mike respects that. Derry could use someone on the force who can’t be swayed.
“I may need you to call you back in to corroborate a few stories so don’t skip town,” she gives him a curt nod, “You’re free to go.”
Detective Lopez opens the door to Mike’s freedom. Mike has a feeling that the others have been given similar instructions or that they will be given them. He wonders briefly if they should have thought ahead to confirm a set story with each other but he thinks better of it. None of the Losers are crazy enough to tell the truth.
“Hanlon, wait,” the detective stops him as soon as he’s out of the door frame, “tell your comedian friend that making jokes isn’t going to work with me. It’s not endearing and he’s digging a much bigger hole for himself.”
“Ma’am, with all due respect, trying to get him to stop is a joke in and of itself.”
—-
“Her first name is Jennifer!” Richie shouts as if wounded, “Last name Lopez! What did you want me to do?”
Richie can tell that his lawyer is not amused. His voice sounds really far away and it is. He’s driving to Derry as fast as he can.
“Richie, this isn’t your usual legal trouble. This isn’t stolen material or a damaged room-“
“That was one time and I was still a baby! How was I supposed to know what ecstasy looks like? You’re about to see the podunk town I grew up in, man.”
“They’re talking homicide!”
“I still cry over Bambi, for fuck’s sake. Do you seriously think I’d kill anyone for fun?”
“Of course not.”
Roger Clemming has been Richie’s lawyer since the start of his career. He’s a cousin of his manager and normally Roger has no qualms about representing Richie. Most of his legal cases aren’t even his; the man doesn’t write his own stand up so he can’t exactly be held responsible if it’s stolen. Richie Tozier is an easy client.
“I didn’t even mean to kill him. He had Mike and it was clear that old Bowers was totally batshit. I reacted. I don’t know.”
“So we have a witness. That’s good. The more witnesses the better. I just wish you hadn’t pissed off the Detective.”
“Yeah yeah I’m an asshole but I didn’t say anything about the case. And I stayed away from ass jokes!”
“I’m sure that’s what will save you.”
The Derry police station is not a big place. The holding cell is visible to the front lobby and there’s only two private rooms; the sheriff’s office and an interrogation room. Richie can see Eddie, his arms crossed and his face looking like he bit into a lemon.
Stressed out, Eddie spaghetti? You’re not on this end of the station.
“Be honest with me, Roger, am I going to jail or not?” Richie clings to a rare moment of seriousness.
“You defended someone from an escaped convict. If you sit back and don’t make an ass out of yourself we may not even go to court.”
Richie sighs and he wishes he could telepathically share this news with Eddie. He stares down Eddie in the hopes that somehow they do share a psychic link. Eddie remains pissed at some very specific wall instead.
“And, uh, my friend? Bill?”
“I’m not sure a trial can be avoided on that, but as long as there’s no physical evidence then the best they’ve got is circumstantial with no real motive. They’ll be grasping at straws if they charge him. Dead kids do make for angry parents though and sometimes they’ll pull a guy to trial because they’ve got no one else to blame.”
“So 50/50 chance?”
“40/60 of an arrest being made and I can’t begin to estimate the odds on him being found guilty. That all comes down to the kind of town your Derry, Maine.”
“Fuuuuuuuuuuuck!” Richie groans and buries his face into his free hand.
“Watch it, Tozier,” the nearby cop warns him.
Richie apologizes and feigns composure.
“Sorry kid,” Roger’s using his turn signal given the soft ticking in the background, “I’ll do my best but I make no promises.”
Richie mutters a sentiment of gratitude before hanging up. It would still be the better part of a day and a half before his representation gets here. Technically he’s not even sure if Bill wants Roger to represent him but Richie figures it couldn’t hurt to arrange it. After all, do either of them really want to trust whatever a Derry lawyer looks like?
---
Bill settles in for the night. To be honest, he’s slept in far more uncomfortable places than a holding cell. He wasn’t always a big famous writer. He remembers when he had to sleep in his shitty, used Toyota back in the early days. Now he’s got two houses, a celebrity wife, and a second movie deal. None of which he’s particularly sure he wants anymore.
It’s startling how unconcerned Bill is about the charge against him. He’s been taken in on suspicion of murder but Bill knows damn well he didn’t kill that kid and Detective Lopez doesn’t have much of anything on him except that he was seen yelling at the child earlier at the day and had been spotted at the carnival.
Bill didn’t want to seem entirely unhelpful though despite knowing they were never going to catch what killed that boy. He offered an account of what he thought was an animal attack but it was difficult to make out. Richie’s lawyer probably won’t like that he talked without him present but Bill doesn’t really care.
Bill blamed the yelling on a mental breakdown. His hometown memories were complicated and a failing marriage and work pressure wasn’t helping. When he saw a kid about Georgie’s age living in his old house, he lost it. It was easy to sell this because it wasn’t really a lie. Detective Lopez did make a comment to Bill about how childhood trauma seems very convenient in this town but Bill didn’t know how to respond outside of confusion.
“All right, everyone,” a tired cop announces into the lobby, “Y’all should get yourselves to bed. Visiting hours are over.”
The other members of the Loser’s Club are essentially draped across each other in the lobby and half asleep already. Ben is in the middle like some sort of handsome centerpiece. He has an arm over Beverly and Mike is leaning on his free shoulder. Meanwhile, Eddie is sitting on the floor at Ben’s feet looking tense and irritated.
They gather themselves up except for Eddie who continues to sit on the floor.
“Eddie, honey,” Beverly says softy, “it’s time to go.”
“Richie and Bill didn’t do anything wrong. I will leave when they do.”
Bill chuckles a bit at this and looks over to Richie on the other side of the holding cell. The look on his face gives him pause because it’s not what he was expecting. Eddie looks genuinely frightened in here. He’s also watching Eddie as if looking at the last boat on a sinking ship; one that’s just too far out of reach. Bill isn’t sure what to make of that.
“They’ll be okay,” Mike assures the sulking man on the floor, “I know these cops. They’re decent.”
Eddie doesn’t respond.
“Sweetie,” Bev is getting a hint of irritation to her voice, “we can come back in the morning.”
“I refuse to get up. This is a protest.”
Bev sighs and looks to Ben.
“We’re going to have to force him.”
“Force him?” Ben asks back incredulously, “Force him how?”
“Ben, he weighs 90 pounds soaking wet, what do you think?”
“Oh Lord,” Mike immediately understands the implication.
Ben thinks about it for a second and it dawns on him the same exact time it dawns on Eddie. Ben is briefly horrified by the idea.
“You wouldn’t” Eddie challenges him.
Ben looks helplessly at Bev who shrugs as if to say that there’s no other way. Eddie recoils as Ben clearly accepts his orders and approaches Eddie with strong arms ready to lift him. His stance is that of someone attempting to capture a wild animal.
“Don’t touch me! Don’t you fucking touch me!” Eddie screams while rapidly kicking his legs to slide away.
Bill again turns to get Richie’s reaction to all this. He’s pleased to see Richie desperately stifling a chuckle. The cop stationed here for the evening seems to be frozen in disbelief as one grown man is trying to catch another and that other fully grown adult man is essentially crab scuttling his way to safety.
On reflex, Eddie sends a hard kick and gets Ben right in the shin. Ben stops his pursuit to cradle it.
“Eddie! What the hell!?” Bev scolds him.
“Now that’s enough!” the cop finally sees fit to reanimate, “I’ve seen some bull shit in my day but I won’t have a brawl in the station! Sort yourself out or I’ll put you in holding! Got it?”
Eddie gets up from the floor.
“Oh no,” Richie says quietly.
Bill’s confused but looks back to the scene playing out before him. Eddie looks apologetic and humbly confronts Ben.
“Sorry, Ben” he says meekly.
“It’s just my shin,” Ben responds, “It’ll bruise but it’s fine.”
“No, I’m sorry about this.”
Eddie uses his whole body to send a punch right into the side of Ben’s scruffy and very shocked face. Eddie’s fist retreats just as quickly as it had departed and he’s shaking out the pain of contact. Ben cups his cheek, obviously not very wounded. The man’s essentially built like a brick house for fuck’s sake. This does get the cop moving though.
Eddie is escorted into the holding cell with Bill and Richie. Richie looks in awe of Eddie either because he was so reckless or stupid Bill can’t figure which. He does have sneaking suspicion however that Eddie’s little stunt has more to do with Richie than with Bill himself.
Eddie is still pouting and sits square on the floor all over again.
“The little guy will be free to go after he cools down, unless you want to press charges,” the cop asks Ben.
“What? No. No… it’s fine.”
Mike quietly exits as quickly as possible. He’s clearly done with the nonsense that just played out. Bev and Ben stay behind a minute as Bev checks his cheek over again. Bill can make out the soft conversation they’re having but just barely. She’s apologizing for her plan, saying she didn’t think Eddie would fight that much.
“No no, it was a good idea,” Ben assures her.
Bill can see the way that comment washes over her. Ben was always full of a certain sincerity and purity that none of the other Losers ever really had. He’s soft and probably the only one of them that didn’t end up with a ridiculous amount of paranoia or cynicism. Bill doubts that Ben is unscathed but it looks like he at least had the good sense not to unleash his unknown trauma on anyone else.
Unlike Bill and his marriage to Audra.
It’s painfully clear to Bill right now just how much Audra looks like Beverly. They’ve got similar frames, similar facial structures and they’re both redheads. Granted, Audra’s red comes from a salon but it suits her as naturally as it does Bev. They could be sister’s.
‘Why can’t you be how I want you to be?’ Bill remembers saying to Audra not long before he took off to Derry. He’s disgusted with the comment now. He’s disgusted with the fact that he kissed Beverly and it meant more to him than his entire marriage. He’s disgusted with himself.
“See you in the morning, boys,” Bev waves to everyone in holding.
She doesn’t give Bill any special treatment. No lingering eye contact or wistful gaze. It’s as if she never had a crush on him at all, as if they’ve never shared anything. Before it always felt as if she was looking to Bill and now she’s looking at Ben.
Despite a sense of heartbreak, Bill takes comfort in that difference.
---
There’s only two beds in the holding cell. One of which is already taken up by Bill who is sound asleep. Eddie is still sitting on the floor and up against the wall. He watches for the cop to doze off. Sure enough, he’s starting to snore in his chair.
Eddie quietly and carefully scootches over to Richie. Richie’s been lying on other cot, entertaining himself with some sort of impromptu, silent puppet show. He breaks from it as he notices Eddie encroaching on his personal bubble.
“Hey,” Eddie whispers.
“Hi…” Richie answers.
Eddie isn’t sure of how to move forward. Originally he had mapped out exactly what to say after the gang’s celebratory dinner. He was going to apologize for kissing Richie, explain again that he had panicked. He would ask that they move forward from this and go back to normal. He wanted to reassure him that he is very alive and not going to die anytime soon too. He wanted to know how much it meant to him that Richie cared so much. He never knew he was that important to anyone.
Eddie did not plan on embracing his inner chaos and landing himself in a cell for the night. He still isn’t entirely sure what came over him in that moment. The idea of leaving just hit so hard and quickly that he couldn’t do it.
“I went to jail for you,” he glares at Richie.
Well that’s not a good start, Eddie mentally notes.
“I see this. I’ll file it under your list of uncharacteristically brave fuckery.”
“I mean that I want to talk. We need to talk.”
“Oh.”
There’s a pause between them. That pause grows into a prolonged period. That period slinks into awkward silence. Eddie is aware since he brought up the conversation that he should actually start it but his head is empty. All he can think about is how the stab wound in his cheek hurts and how flustered Richie looks.
“Look, man,” Richie gives in, “We don’t have to talk. I get it. You panicked. Case closed. Mystery solved. We both deserve a Scooby snack for that epic conclusion.”
Eddie realizes for the first time that Richie is hiding behind his humor. He feels like an idiot for not noticing sooner but his eyes are a dead give away. Richie is making more eye contact now than usual. It’s like he’s forcing himself to present a put together facade. He’s watching Eddie to make sure he believes it.
Eddie wonders if it might be prudent to look at Richie in a different light. In childhood, he was always just that asshole friend. He liked to pick on him but never past annoyance. You’d think trying to steer clear of Henry Bowers would have made Eddie resistant to a friendship built on teasing. In retrospect, Eddie’s not sure what did open him up to it. By all logical accounts, Richie shouldn’t mean much of anything to Eddie and vice versa.
“Why do you do that?” he decides to approach it directly.
“I’m a comedian, Eds. Cracking a bad joke is as natural to me as breaking wind.”
Eddie could easily feed into this but he doesn’t want to. He physically sits up straighter and takes a calm breath in. It’s tempting to write Richie off as immature and continue down the rabbit hole of humor at Eddie’s expense but he refuses. Richie is keeping a secret of some kind which seems painfully obvious to Eddie now. If he’s ever going to move forward from recent events he’ll need to know what it is.
“What are hiding?” he leans in close.
Richie’s face loses all color. He stammers for a moment and Eddie is secretly pleased with himself. He’s so used to Richie getting at him that it is deeply satisfying for the tables to turn. Eddie tries not to stay in that mentality though. He wants answers not revenge.
“Bill’s the one with the stutter,” Eddie points out, “fess up. You’re hiding something from me and you’re using your crap jokes to do it. I won’t go to sleep until you tell me what’s going on.”
It seems a little overkill but Eddie is feeling the dramatics today. They saved each other’s lives earlier. They should be able to talk. Eddie debates their closeness as he waits for an answer. Sometimes it felt like they were the closest two people in the room and other times they were the furthest. Eddie wants to know why.
“I- uh,” Richie is sweating at the forehead, “I want to say first that- shit no. Okay, growing up I- fuck no that’s going to take forever.”
Eddie continues to glare down his friend. It’s not that he wants to force the truth out of him but rather his concern is growing. Showing Richie his soft side doesn’t come naturally though. So here he is trying to be a good friend but acting like a displeased asshole.
“Okay, here goes,” Richie takes in a breath of confidence, “Dinner.”
“...dinner?”
“Yes.”
“What about… dinner?” Eddie says bewildered before getting accusatory, “I swear to God, Rich, if this is a set up to a mom joke I’ll-“
“Dinner!” Richie says again a bit too loud.
The guard stirs. The two men freeze. A few seconds later a loud snore emerges. Eddie sighs in relief. He’s done just enough to end up in here. He doesn’t want to get in enough trouble to stay.
“You and me. Dinner. Us. Dinner. Together. Y’know, dinner?”
Eddie rolls his eyes and relaxes his shoulders. So it’s not a joke about his mom but a joke nonetheless.
“Oh. I get it. Ha ha, very funny. Like a date,” Eddie comments sarcastically.
“Yes.”
Richie isn’t grinning. He not casually avoiding eye contact either as he does with a usual set up. Instead he’s looking directly at Eddie with everything he’s got. It’s the ‘please believe me’ look from before but in an entirely different context. It’s sincere.
Jesus Christ, I think he fucking means it, Eddie panics.
“Okay,” he finds himself saying even as confused internal screaming fills his insides.
“Shit. Really?” Richie is as shocked as Eddie is.
“Yeah.”
“You’re going on a date.”
“Yes.”
“With me.”
“I guess.”
This is all on the premise that Richie is released in time for a date. He may end up in real jail. Then what would they do? A prison dinner date doesn’t have the most enticing ring to it.
Eddie feels like a part of him has detached from his own brain. Whatever his body is doing is past his control now. The surrealism of this unexpected direction broke him.
“Move over,” Eddie demands quietly.
Richie backs up as far as can, looking absolutely befuddled. Eddie climbs into the small space left on the cot. He’s tired. There’s only two cots and one is taken. It makes direct sense to share at least when you’re not entirely in your own body anyway.
Eddie remembers briefly about how the two of them would often share the hammock as kids. Eddie unceremoniously plopped himself in and fought for space so often that it became customary. He never did it to anyone but Richie though. He was the only one.
Richie braves putting an arm around Eddie and at first Eddie’s spine goes rigid. He’s not ready to think about this, not even sure if acting on it is right yet. He still feels far away from all this even as he Richie’s body heat cradles him.
Something about the way Richie’s hand cups the small of his stomach feels...good. Eddie’s body relaxes and he realizes how fucking exhausted he is. It’s been an exceptionally long 48 hours. A little shut eye and a cuddle isn’t so ludicrous. Even if it is with Richie Trashmouth Tozier.
“Just keep it in your pants,” Eddie yawns before falling asleep.