Disappearance at Devil's Rock (31 page)

Josh: (inaudible)

Murtagh: Could you repeat, please?

Josh: Yeah. He told us he was going to do it.

Murtagh: Why did he invite Arnold?

Josh: Tommy said that we had to fix it.

Murtagh: On August 13th, you drove Josh Griffin, Luis Fernandez, and Tommy Sanderson to the apartment you shared with your uncle, Martin Weeks, is that correct?

Rooney Faherty: I didn't know their last names. They sound kind of weird. Last names. Those names don't fit them. Yeah, the boys. We went for a drive. Just around. They were drinking too. I know I shouldn't have let them
drink in my car, but I'm not their dad. But hey, I didn't give them nothing to drink. That's the truth. Not sure where they got the beers, wasn't me. Josh took them from his dad. Rich dude from what I heard, yeah? Luis might've taken some too. Whatever, it wasn't me. You should ask their parents why that was so easy, you know? I took them but they were all over me about wanting to see the place, see the hobo nickels I was working on. They wanted to see my uncle. I'd told them all about what a mess he was.

Murtagh: You're saying the boys suggested you take them to your apartment?

Rooney: That's exactly what I'm saying. Hey, I didn't know it then, if I did there's no way I would've taken them, right? But they wanted to cause some trouble, you know, like serious shit kind of trouble. And I had no idea what they wanted to do. No idea. I was really nervous about bringing them over, wasn't sure it'd be okay, but I thought they were good kids, you know, so I played along.

Murtagh: Was your uncle home when you got to the apartment?

Rooney: Yeah. He was home. Always home. On the couch. The Rev. Good old Uncle Rev. Drinking. Smelling. Sitting. Shitting. Just there. I can't lie and say that I loved the guy or had a great relationship with him, but don't get me wrong, he took me in when he didn't have to, especially after last winter. So he gets big respect from me for that.

Murtagh: What happened when you were all inside your apartment?

Rooney: It wasn't good. Nothing good happened. I don't think I really want to talk about what they did. It'll be hard.

Josh: How Tommy wrote about it, that's how it happened. All of it. I tried not to do anything. Arnold grabbed me first. Picked me first. Why did he pick me first? I wouldn't do it. I wouldn't hit him. I didn't. And then someone else did and Arnold kept making us hit his uncle.

Murtagh: We found Arnold's uncle, Mr. Martin Weeks, dead in the apartment today.

Josh: Oh my God.

Luis Fernandez: No, I do understand, ma'am. I was pretty drunk, we all were, and I don't know how to explain it. It was like we were living in a shared bad dream or something, and you want to move but can't, everything's stuck in slow motion and can't escape. It was like that. We didn't want to move. I don't know, I can't explain it well. We knew his uncle was hurt real bad, especially after Arnold kicked him in the head right before we left. Tommy was the last one in the bathroom with his uncle, and told us after that he was breathing. We never thought . . . we didn't think . . . we didn't want to think . . .

Murtagh: Didn't want to think what?

Luis: That he could die. Could be dead, ma'am.

Murtagh: If you were so upset by what happened, why not help the uncle by calling an ambulance or the police? Did you ever consider calling for help?

Luis: Yes. Yes we did, ma'am. We did. But. But we were afraid to.

Murtagh: Were you afraid of getting arrested?

Luis: No, ma'am. I mean, I can't say that we didn't know we were in like the biggest trouble. But we were like so more scared of Arnold. I swear. I swear on a thousand Bibles. Like I said, Arnold threatened to kill us and our families if we ever said anything to anyone about his uncle. We really thought he would kill us or hurt us. He would've, too. He definitely would've. He was legit threatening us the whole ride home. How he looked and sounded, it was real. Driving us back he sped his car right at trees and telephone poles and swerved out of the way at the last minute. The last tree was on Massapoag, near where we'd dumped our bikes. I thought for sure he wasn't going to stop that time. He was screaming, “This is it,” and we were all screaming, and the car bounced up, off something, a curb maybe, and he didn't actually stop the car in time. The front of the car skidded past the tree. It was right up against my door and I was sitting in the back. He really tried to hit the tree and missed it because of the curb or something. He tried to kill us right then. He did. I know he did. After he told us to get out of the car and he sat there and we rode away on our bikes.

Murtagh: Did you talk about what happened when you got home?

Luis: No, ma'am. We left each other. Went home. Later that night we were on our Minecraft server and talking and we were ready to call the police. I swear. We were
scared but we were going to do it in the morning, but then in the morning we went to Josh's house and Josh was all upset because in the middle of the night he saw Arnold standing outside his window, staring into his bedroom and watching him. And so we knew Arnold would do something awful to us, or to our families, if we said anything about his uncle.

Murtagh: When did you decide to meet Arnold at Borderland?

Luis: The next day, ma'am. We spent that whole day after talking about Arnold. What we should do. And we didn't know what to do. It started off mostly me and Josh talking but not saying much more than like what are we going to do? Tommy was throwing up he was so nervous and scared, and everything. Then after a little while Tommy started saying that we had to take care of Arnold ourselves. Make things right. He said we had to fix this. He said that a lot. He said everything that happened was our fault and that we had to make it right. Then Tommy said he had like a plan.

Murtagh: Did you hit your uncle first?

Rooney: Are we going to talk about Tommy? I'd really like to talk about Tommy. I still don't understand why he tried to hurt me.

Murtagh: What was his plan?

Luis: Have a sleepover at Josh's house because it was like the closest to Borderland. His backyard is right up against it. Then we sneak out and meet Arnold at Devil's
Rock late at night when no one is around. And then kind of trick him into having an accident. Like fall off the rock or something. Tommy talked about how whenever we were at the rock Arnold would always jump back and forth over the split and if we got him drunk enough maybe he'd fall in on his own.

Murtagh: And what were you going to do if he didn't fall on his own?

Luis: Tommy said that we would push him, ma'am. Into the split. Or if he got close enough to an edge, he'd push him off. Me and Josh were going crazy when he first said it, you know? We were like no way, there was no way we could do it, we couldn't push him off. We just couldn't do something like that. And it would never work. But then Tommy said that he would do it. He would push him. He even said it should be him to do it.

Murtagh: So you planned to kill Arnold?

Josh: No. Not like that. I mean, I guess we did. But we weren't thinking of what we were going to do like that.

Murtagh: How were you thinking of it?

Josh: Tommy never said we were going to kill him. We just wanted to stop him. Stop him.

Murtagh: Stop him from doing what?

Josh: You don't understand! He went to my house that night! He knew where I lived. I never told him that. He found my house on his own. He was standing there and looking in my window and he's been there, outside my window, like at least three more times since Tommy
disappeared and he's probably been to Tommy's house and Luis's house.

Luis: Tommy kept saying this is how it has to be. That we had no choice that Arnold was going to hurt us or someone we loved and it wasn't like if it happens but when it happens. I said something stupid and kind of mean to him about being a seer, and Josh was a mess and kept asking Tommy what he meant by the not-if-when stuff, asking if he knew something he wasn't telling us. Tommy was the only one of us who Snapchatted with Arnold, right? And I don't know, it felt like Tommy was hiding something. That he knew something else we didn't but he didn't say anything more, asked us to trust him, that this is how it had to be. And even through all that, me and Josh still said no. We did. We told him no and it wouldn't work. But it was too late.

Murtagh: Why was it too late?

Luis: Tommy said he'd already told Arnold we'd meet him at the rock the next night.

Rooney: I'm not going to talk about this too much because you're not going to understand. You've already made up your minds anyway. I can tell. I can see it. Didn't the boys tell you I'm a seer? Future teller? Mind reader? Runs in the family, you know.

Murtagh: We haven't made up our minds, Rooney. We want to know the truth.

Rooney: Let me tell you a secret. We are all seers. We just can't see everything all the time. Or maybe we can
and we're like purposefully blind to it. We don't want to see it. We couldn't live without going totally batshit crazy if we could see the connections to everything, so you have to screen stuff out, ignore some of it. You see what you want to see. That's it, there. You have to want to see it. Simple as fucking pie. Tommy knew that better than anyone else. He wanted to see.

Murtagh: Rooney, please tell us what happened when you and the boys entered your apartment.

Rooney: I'm going to say this quick. Get it over with. And this is the God's-honest truth, right? I swear on the pus-covered soul of my mother and if she's not dead, she should be. Sorry. I'm kidding, bad joke, I know. Sorry. I'm sorry, I'm nervous because I'm not sure you'll believe me.

Murtagh: We're here to listen to what you have to say, Rooney.

Rooney: The boys were so drunk and I should've taken them home then. They stumbled up the back stairs and I stayed behind them, the caboose, in case one of them fell, you know. I was worried and even then I was like this is a bad idea. My uncle's probably sleeping. But they went on ahead, let themselves in, and ran into the apartment. They went into the living room and my uncle was there, drunk, kind of half asleep in front of the TV like he always was. I told them I kept the coin stuff in my bedroom but we had to be quiet and the boys were hooting and hollering and didn't listen to me. They took some of my uncle's beers and started pounding those down and spilling everywhere. My uncle finally woke up a little
and he growled at them. He's a growler, always was. He gave him a little dose of the Rev's voice, you know? Told them to get out of there, leave his beer, dropped a few f-bombs on them. And then the boys went crazy laughing and started yelling fuck off and then, Josh, he was the first one, he slapped my uncle with an open hand. Just crack! Like that, and then he hit him again real quick, then bounced back behind his friends, hiding or something. Typical Josh shit, you know? And then it started blurring, the three of them were all over him, like a, like a pack of, what, jackals, or something. Hitting, punching, kicking, and they wouldn't stop.

Murtagh: Why didn't you stop them?

Rooney: This is why I don't want to talk about it. You're not going to believe me. I know it looks bad, real bad that I didn't do anything to stop them, especially after how you found him today. But I did. I froze up, shut down. Have you ever seen a beating? Not a fight or one punch. Have you ever been right there for a total beatdown? It's awful. Makes you sick. Changes you. It does. It changes you just seeing it. And I've seen and taken my fair share of beatings in my life, some really bad ones, awful ones. You have no idea how awful, how awful it can be. And I don't know, there in the TV room, I did what I always did. I stayed silent. Didn't move. I just took it. I watched.

Josh: We filled my backpack with a bunch of my dad's beer. We had to take enough and get Arnold to drink a lot of it. We watched superhero movies until my parents were asleep and snuck out.

Murtagh: Was Arnold at the rock waiting for you?

Josh: No. We were there by ourselves, the whole time.

Murtagh: By yourselves?

Josh: We never saw Arnold that night. We weren't lying about not knowing what happened to Tommy. I never saw Arnold there that night. He was there outside my window the next night and the night after that, and again after that. But I didn't see Arnold in the park.

Luis: Tommy said he chatted up Arnold to make it seem like we were still his friends and everything was normal. Said he told Arnold that we were solid, wouldn't ever tell on him, and you know, said we still wanted to hang out with him and stuff. Tommy said Arnold was totally into coming out to the rock. Excited about it.

Murtagh: Did you see the texts? Why did Tommy think Arnold was excited?

Luis: No, ma'am. They weren't texts. Snapchats, and they like disappear right after you look at them. Tommy said that Arnold was excited to meet us out there.

Murtagh: If you were so afraid of Arnold, why would you meet him out in the woods in the middle of the night?

Luis: We were totally scared, but because Tommy went ahead and told Arnold we'd be there we were more scared to not show up. If we didn't show up, then Arnold would think we were like setting him up or something, and then he'd come after us for sure. I was so scared, ma'am. And . . .

Murtagh: What is it, Luis?

Luis: I was scared of Arnold and mad at Tommy. He put us in that spot. We had no choice. We had to go. Walking out into those woods was the scariest thing I've ever done in my life.

Rooney: I stood there even when they started smashing beer bottles over his head. And then, then, they jabbed pieces of glass right into him. Just fucking stabbing him, right there in front of me. It wasn't real. It wasn't happening. My uncle, he was passed out, knocked out, and didn't do anything. I couldn't believe he wasn't doing anything. I wasn't doing anything. I backed up into a corner, crouched down into nothing, I was nothing, and watched. I watched. That's all I do, I watch. Those times I've been arrested. I never take anything or do anything in their houses, I just watch. I'm not a bad guy and I don't do those terrible things. I want to see what it's like to be in those other places, you know, the nice houses I broke into. I just watch. It's all in my record, right? You know this. It's all there. I haven't ever done what they did.