Commonality — Gordon Watt

In Commonality, the murder of a teenage girl sends shock and rage through a small town's age levels: There's the ol' boys, parked again for the summer out front of Lucy's, who, crabbier than ever, search for validation that their town has had plenty of troubled times. Also, the fourteen boys at their every-day summer-long baseball game abruptly feel the real conflicts of life right there with them on the dusty diamond. Always crude with jabs and insults, now it gets tense. The five college-aged friends, who normally would make the odd trek with a box of beer out to their back-road-philosophizing nights, begin to repeatedly scramble there, as though the memory of their whole idyllic-town childhood feels spoiled. And the middle-aged, born-and-raised police chief, with his noble best friend and their sensible wives, struggle to understand. And don't know what to do. All the while, everyone is trying to figure out who -- right there in town with them -- is the murderer. Clues come slow. And elusive too is the identity of a boy witness -- who evidently watched as fifteen-year-old Janet was dragged away in the night from her own back yard. And everyone is questioning what life here will be like, now... The following summer's story 'Looker' has all the same characters. Minus the killer. Sixteen-year-old Mike stabs his oppressive older brother Ray, the Dark Presence. But, under house arrest, he runs...not far. In the perfect garage hideout, Mike proves clever about survival, escaping detection. Again the town is torn, each age level struggling what to think. Mike is guilty, sure, but what about the abuse he suffered? Ray recovers and wants to prosecute. When apprehended, Mike decides to charge Ray. A murder mystery and a tale of teenage rage, these stories are more about the impact of crime on a community, on all age levels. As though testing if this is still a town.