The Outsider

July 14

Detective Ralph Anderson is outside the ballpark in Flint City, Oklahoma, getting ready to arrest Terry Maitland, the suspect in the most heinous child murder in the state’s history. The evidence is incontrovertible: Eyewitnesses (whose accounts feature throughout this section) saw the victim getting into a van with Terry and saw Terry himself covered with blood and abandoning a white commercial van in a parking lot before switching to a green Subaru. The van had been spotted near the scene of the crime, and the Subaru was later found abandoned with Terry Maitland’s fingerprints in it.

It seems like a slam dunk, but Ralph wonders if they are moving too fast. They should have interviewed Terry himself to get his alibi. His judgment is clouded by the fact that he has known Terry for years and Terry has coached his son in Little League.

Terry is in the last inning of the last game of the season. The boy at bat has an irregular hitting record, but putting in a pinch-hitter would humiliate him, and Terry can’t bring himself to do that. Two police officers enter the dugout and arrest Terry in front of all the spectators—including his wife, Marcy, and their daughters, Sarah and Grace.