Herb sat on one side of a boxy table in a even more cramped room. A bulky orderly in white scrubs waited behind the metal seat on the other side.

“Sure you wanna do this?” The chestnut-haired brute chuckled. “Edgar.”

“Herb.” He pulled a notebook from his leather case. “I suppose.”

Edgar leaned over the table. “Whatever you do, do NOT take her house slippers.” He righted himself. “Gets her battier than a goddamned bell tower.” A cuckoo whistle.

Moments later, a skinny kid shuffled into the sterile room. She wore a dingy white robe, a torn set of flannel pajamas, and a set of dirty red house slippers. Her empty brown eyes watched him from behind dangling strands of auburn hair. A cloud of filth drifted in with her as she stopped next to the empty seat.

Edgar slid the chair out. “You may sit.”

She padded in front of the seat and plunked down.

Herb opened his briefcase and pulled out a stack of files and notebooks. “Good morning.”

His guest sat in a silent stench.

“My name is Herb Halbert. I’m a detective.”

Her hair hung over her bruised face.

“I’ve been asked to re-examine your case.”

The girl sniffed the air on either side.

“Can you state your name for the record?”

A belch escaped her.

Herb tapped his his pen on the lined pad. He clenched his jaws. “Look. If you’re not gonna talk, then ‘I’ll --”

She slapped a hand down on his notebook. “Please, don’t go.”

“You do speak.” He eased back into his uncomfortable seat. “Name.”

She drew her unsteady hand into her lap. “Dorothy. Dorothy Gale.”

“Age?”

She rubbed her nose. “Sixteen.”

Herb jotted the info into his paperwork. “Thank you. Now,” he flipped his pad to a fresh page, “let’s uh, begin at the beginning, okay?”

Dorothy nodded.

“Good. Where are you from, Ms. Gale?”

She teetered from side to side. “I lived on the farm with Auntie Em and Uncle Henry. In Kansas.”

“What about your parents? Mom and dad?”

She sat still. “Left me at an early age.”

Herb scribbled. “Left you?”

Dorothy nodded.

“How early?”

She twitched some fingers next to her temple.

“Three? Four?”

“Eleven.” She pulled the other hand down and sat on it.

“Okay.” Halbert glanced back down into his chicken scratch. “Where did you live at that time, Dorothy?”

“Manhattan.”

Herb’s head bounced. “New York City?”

She giggled. An intoxicating sound somewhere between a child’s laughter and a morning lark. “No, Kansas, silly.”

“Do you know where they went, or why they just up and left you?”

She shook her bangs.

Herb plucked a photo from the corner of his case and slid it to the center of the table. Two decomposed human skeletons in shallow graves.

Gale rocked a little.

“Authorities discovered them on a tip.” The veteran cop sensed the mounting tension. “Both were buried under the floor of your barn.”

Faint grumbles from Dorothy.

Halbert flipped a file open, and turned through its reports. “What I’m trying to figure out is how an eleven year old girl managed to drag them over thirty yards.” He spun his pen over the file. “That is, after you bashed their heads in with old dad’s hammer and strangled the remaining life from them.”

She sat stoic on her side of the table.

“Something doesn’t add up there for me, Ms. Gale.” He gave her time to reply, but none came. “Fine. You were found alone, and your aunt and uncle took you in.”

She nodded again.

“Take me back to that day – the day your dog was taken.”

Dorothy wrenched her neck, setting off a cascade of snaps and pops. “I had come home from school. There’s a one-room schoolhouse about a quarter of a mile down the road from the farm.”

Herb’s pen flew in a blur. “Uh huh.”

“I had tried to tell Auntie Em that” she emphasized the name with head bobs, “Almira Gulch, had threatened my dog.”

“Toto?”

She confirmed with quick nods.

“Threated to do what to Toto?”

Her voice sank back under her dangling strands. “Take him and kill him.”

“I see.” He moved to a new line on the page. “What next?”

“Uncle Henry told me to pay her no mind. Said she was just a mean old hag, and wouldn’t really take my dog.”

He wrote down some more notes: emphasized Mrs. Gulch. Motive? “I see. But, Mrs. Gulch did come back after Toto, didn’t she?”

Dorothy nodded.

“The fact that Mrs. Gulch even threatened your dog seems to have upset you.”

She lowered her head. “Yes. He was my best friend.”

More notes scribbled: revenge murder? “I understand. So, Almira Gulch came back to the farm. What then?”

Dorothy turned her attention to the whitewashed brick wall. “They let her take him away.”

“Em and Henry?”

She whimpered. “All I could do was watch her stuff him into her basket, and ride off over the hill.” Another sniffle. “Miserable woman.”

Halbert pulled a paper from his stacks. “Says here, he came back.” Herb’s eyes searched hers. “’Zat right?”

Gale perked up. “He did.” She brushed a set of oily bangs behind her ear. “Such a bright little guy!”

Remnants of a deep bruise haunted her eye socket. It tarnished a cloud of light freckles and blemished an otherwise high youthful cheek.

Herb’s pen wobbled some more: physical abuse? Self-inflicted? “Your dog has returned on his own.” He moved the paper up between his fingers. “After that, you disappeared?”

“Ran away.” Dorothy wrung her bony hands. “No one understood.”

Halbert stopped. “Understood you? Your situation?”

Gale agreed. “If we were the problem, then leaving was the best thing.”

Herb emphasized some lines on his page: Ran away. Feelings of rejection. “Where did you go?”

The teen smiled. Pristine teeth. “Now, I know you know that already.”

“This is an examination, Ms. Gale. I need to hear it from you.”

She propped her chin in her hands on the tabletop. “We crossed the creek. Found Professor Marvel!”

More notes. “Marvel. Got it.” He rearranged his papers. “Can you describe him?”

“Of course!” Dorothy drew lazy circles with a middle finger. “A wonderful man. He took us in and even gave Toto some food.”

“Did he mention where he came from?”

Her head shook.

“After a snack, then?”

“The professor said he sensed that we were in trouble, and invited us into his wagon.”

Herb jotted more thoughts: Prof. Marvel. What’s his deal? “Did he offer anything inappropriate, Dorothy?”

“Heavens, no!” She relaxed in her seat. “He saw Auntie Em in his crystal ball. Said she felt terrible and was worried sick.”

“Worried sick?” He wrote it down in quotes after she confirmed.

“He’s the one that said Toto and I should go home before the storm hit.”

“A storm, you say?”

She nodded. “An awful tornado followed us home, Mr. Halbert.”

Herb removed another file, a blue one, from his briefcase. “Ms. Gale, there was no storm that day.” Hs slid a report from the weather service across the table. “Well, not a meteorological one at least.”

Her palms slapped the table. “No! There was a storm, detective.” She bounced on her elbows as she spoke. “A tornado hit the farm. Uprooted the whole house, and wisped us away to Oz.”

Herb suppressed his frustrations. “Oz.”

Her head bobbed with fervor. “We spun and spun,” her finger wound wide ellipses, “and when we came down, we had landed in Munchkinland and on top of the Wicked Witch of the East.” She smiled. “Glinda, the Good Witch showed up, too.”

Herb chuckled. “I’m afraid the news from that day painted a completely different account.”

She raised a brow.

Halbert unfolded a newspaper in front of her. The headline: Rural Rampage Leaves Several Dead. No Leads.

She crossed her arms tight over her chest and went limp in her chair.

He poked the story with his pen. “A storm hit your farm all right, Ms. Gale. You did return home. You marched into your uncle’s den, took his gun and some ammo, and plugged them both.”

Dorothy rocked in her seat, mumbling.

“Munchkins?” He scoffed. “You walked back up that dirt road to your schoolhouse, Dorothy.”

Her utterances grew. “No.”

Halbert pushed the newspaper closer. “You emptied every round you had into those kids.” Images of school children face down in their own blood fell atop the paper. “Glinda? You mean, Glinda Miller, your teacher?”

“No, no.”

“Two in the head, Gale.” Another black and white of an otherwise gorgeous blonde with gaping holes bored into her forehead. “I don’t know anything about a house falling on anybody, but you did manage to plug Almira Gulch’s younger sister, Louise.”

“No!”

“The teacher’s aide, Dorothy.” He slapped another official crime scene photo down. “Shot in the back, and crushed under a loaded bookshelf.”

“No!” She sprang up from her chair, flinging Halbert’s pictures and papers against the brick. “Liar!” Dorothy pulled her matted hair out in bloody clumps. “Liar!”

Edgar’s hairy arms wrapped her from behind. Dorothy’s flailing legs kicked over her chair. The orderly struggled to secure the teen’s rigid arms.

“Okay, Gale,” Edgar managed between elbow shots to the face. “Show’s over for today.”

Two of Edgar’s colleagues stormed the room and bum rushed her.

Herb shoved his things back in the briefcase. “Is all that really -- ?”

The sawed-off orderly flew off the pile. Dorothy poked her contorted face through the hole in the pile. She spat pink and yellow saliva from her crusted lips. Eyes wide and shaking. Her nostrils pulsed. Something had taken control, but Dorothy Gale’s conscious mind had vacated.