Broken

 On my way back to my room, Jerry stopped me. "I know who broke the window."

"Really?" This was intriguing to me because Jerry seemed just as likely a suspect as anyone. This third grade tough guy who had a history of mischief already after two months back in school. And I had set aside the mystery of the broken window after discovering it on Monday morning. Now on Friday there was a break in the case.

"Terry did it." 

"Terry?" Jerry and Terry were not best friends, so this revelation didn't hold the kind water that a confession might. And I had put the broken window in a pile of other concerns as the week progressed. We have had broken windows before and would again. "What makes you think it was Terry?"

"He showed me the video."

Well, how about that. Not a confession, but verifiable proof provided by the culprit himself. Sort of. There was still a matter of getting that video and the actual reckoning to coalesce. Terry had not shared the video with me. But it did allow me to share the news with our principal who has access to the multitude of security cameras on campus and with the brief description of what Jerry had seen, it was a simple matter of rolling back the tape to Sunday morning. 

There he was. Terry and someone who would later be identified as his cousin, a former student of ours. Not only did we now have institutional video of Terry's cousin taking private video of Terry hurling a chunk of pressure-treated four by four at the window until it began to shatter, but we were blessed to have a perp who was perhaps not a master criminal when it comes to covering his tracks. Before our principal made the call to have Terry come up to the office, she hit pause on her laptop, leaving Terry's curious face looking up at the security camera as if he had only begun to reckon on someone else watching him. This meant when he came in the principal's office door, he was greeted by his own goofy face staring back at him. 

To say that he folded like a tent in a stiff breeze would be a waste of a good simile. There were lots of tears, as one might expect from a nine year old, especially one who was asked to call his mother to explain his part in the crime of the early part of the third decade of the century. Things at Terry's house would be unpleasant for Terry for the foreseeable future. 

And Jerry? Well, he was just glad that he was the one skating free on this one.