by Janae Marks
Now I needed to write Marcus and tell him about my plan. I opened my desk drawer and took out my stationery.
From the Desk of Zoe Washington
July 27
Dear Marcus,
How are you? I’m good. I can’t believe summer is already halfway over!
I’m sorry it took me a while to write back. When I read your last letter, I thought you were lying to me. I didn’t think innocent people went to prison. But now I know that it does happen. I really want to believe you, but I barely know you. I haven’t even heard your voice before. So how am I supposed to know for sure? I thought of one way. Can you tell me the name of the alibi witness? Then I could find them and hear their side of the story. If I could do that, and they said they remembered you from the day of the crime, I’d feel so much better. Though I’d feel sad that you’ve been in prison all this time for no reason.
Have you heard of the Innocence Project? I read about them at the library. If you’re really innocent, maybe they could get you out of prison.
I paused writing and got out Marcus’s last letter from my backpack. I uncrumpled it and smoothed it out, then reread it. The last song he’d sent was “Water Runs Dry,” by Boyz II Men, so I played it on my phone and picked up my pen again.
I’m listening to the Boyz II Men song right now. Wow—their voices are so good. This might be my favorite on my Little Tomato playlist so far. Send more, please!
I can’t believe you like to cook! What’s your favorite recipe? Do you know one of your mom’s recipes by heart? Maybe I can try to make it myself. That’s so cool that you get to work in the kitchen at the prison. I guess I thought you stayed in a cell all day. Do you get to do anything else?
My baking internship is going well. I decided to make up a totally new cupcake recipe, so maybe Ariana will sell it at her shop. Can you think of a unique ingredient that would be good in a cupcake?
I thought of something—it was possible Marcus had never seen a picture of me. I found an extra wallet-sized print of my sixth-grade photo in my desk drawer. I didn’t always like my school photos, but that one had turned out pretty good. I liked the purple sweater I was wearing, and my half-up, half-down hairstyle looked nice. I’d put extra shea butter hair cream on it so my curls wouldn’t frizz.
Here’s my recent school picture. I thought you might like to see what I look like now.
Write back soon,
Zoe
I put the letter in its envelope and stuck it back in my hiding spot. Tomorrow, I’d give it to Grandma to mail.
I got up to grab a glass of water from the kitchen. But then something else gnawed at me.
It was my school photo—it reminded me of Lucy Hernandez’s picture from the article. I hadn’t looked her up before, but now I wanted to know more about her.
I opened my computer again and searched for her name. I skimmed the results, and they were all articles about how Lucy had died. It was awful; when you looked up a person, you were supposed to see stories about their life, not their terrible death.
Then I found a memorial page for her. It was a really simple website, with a few photos of her on top. In one, she wore a cheerleading uniform, and another showed her with a bunch of other cheerleaders on a football field. Below the photos was an area where her friends and family could post messages. Some of them were in Spanish. As I read through them, my eyes filled with tears. People loved her a whole lot, and she seemed like a really nice person. I thought about how I’d feel if anything happened to Jasmine or Maya, or Trevor, and my throat clenched up. Lucy didn’t deserve to die.
If Marcus was guilty, why did he do it?
I hoped with every inch of my heart that Marcus wasn’t responsible, that this was all a big mistake.
When I handed Grandma my letter to mail the next day, it hit me: she was around when Marcus was arrested, and when he had his trial. Maybe she knew stuff about the case that I couldn’t find online. Like why none of the articles mentioned his alibi or a witness.
“Grandma, can I ask you something?”
“Of course,” she said.
I took a deep breath. “In his last letter, when Marcus told me he’s innocent, were you surprised?” I knew she’d read it before she gave it to me.
“Well, he told me he was going to tell you that.”
“He did?”
“Yes,” Grandma said. “I know I’m going behind your parents’ back to let you write to him, but I still want to keep you safe. I wrote to him and asked him to call me so we could talk about him writing to you.”
“You talked to him on the phone?” I was dying to know what Marcus’s voice sounded like.
Grandma nodded. “It was a quick phone call. He couldn’t stay on long. But it was long enough for me to make sure that he isn’t trying to hurt you in any way.”
“Oh.”
After a few moments of silence, Grandma asked, “Is there something else you want to know?”
“Oh, yeah. Hold on.” I ran to my room to grab my journal. When I got back to the living room, I sat next to Grandma on the couch. I opened to all the notes I’d taken about Marcus’s case and the Innocence Project.
“Marcus told me he had an alibi,” I said. “But I couldn’t find anything online about it. Do you think he’s telling the truth?”
“He told me the same thing after he was arrested,” Grandma said. “Here. Let me grab a cup of tea, and then I’ll tell you what I know.”
Chapter Seventeen
“After Marcus was arrested,” Grandma began once she was back and settled on the couch with a mug of green ginger tea, “I visited him at the prison a couple of times before he went on trial. Your mom didn’t want to see him, but I had to. I had to look him in the eyes and hear what happened in his own words. That’s when he told me about his alibi.”
“What was it?” I asked.
“He was at a tag sale,” Grandma said.
“For real? Like at somebody’s house?”
Grandma nodded. “He said he saw some ad online and emailed the lady before going over there.”
“Why wasn’t she part of the trial?” I asked. “None of the articles I found talked about her.”
“Marcus’s lawyer never brought her to court.”
I scrunched my eyebrows. “Why not?”
“The lawyer never even looked for her.” Grandma sipped her tea.
In the letter, Marcus only said his lawyer couldn’t prove his innocence, not that he never looked for the alibi witness. It didn’t make any sense. “Why not? She could’ve told everyone that Marcus was somewhere else when the crime took place.”
“Exactly,” Grandma said. “She could’ve really helped Marcus’s case. But, you know, he didn’t have the money to pay for a big-shot lawyer after he was arrested. He had to use the defense lawyer assigned to him for free. And this lawyer . . .” She shook her head. “To me, it was like he didn’t care one bit about what happened to Marcus.”
“Why not?” I asked. “Didn’t he want to win the case?”
Grandma exhaled. “He got paid either way, so I’m not sure it mattered. He seemed completely biased against Marcus. He wanted him to plead guilty, and take a deal, but Marcus refused.”
“What do you mean by ‘biased’?” I asked.
“I think he saw a Black man being charged with murder, and saw no reason to believe he was actually innocent,” Grandma explained. “He went through the motions of defending him in court without putting in any real work.”
“That’s terrible!” I huffed.
Grandma nodded.
I thought of my email to Mr. Miller, and wondered what he’d say when he replied. If he replied at all.
“Do you think Marcus is really innocent?” I asked.
Grandma put her mug down on the coffee table. “Yes. I do.”
I blinked at her, surprised by how confident she sounded. “You do?”
“Yes,” Grandma repeated. “Marcus dated your mom for two years, and I got to know hi
m pretty well. He never seemed like a violent person. He was always so polite and respectful. And such a gentleman to your mom. You could tell he really respected her.” She laughed. “Your mom would take forever to get ready for dates. She’d be in that bathroom singing along to some song, putting on makeup or whatever. Anyway, instead of waiting outside in the car, Marcus would come inside and talk to your granddad and me. He talked about college. Said he wanted to travel. One time he helped your granddad fix the leaky pipe under the sink while he waited for Natalie to get ready. He got his shirt all dirty, so he had to run back home and get a new one.”
“Wow,” I said.
“There’s this quote from Maya Angelou,” Grandma said. “‘When someone shows you who they are, believe them.’ That quote usually refers to when someone shows you their bad side, but I think it’s also true when someone shows you how good they are. I really do think Marcus is a good person. I don’t see how he was capable of killing someone. I always trust my gut, and my gut has always said to believe him.”
I nodded, feeling a little more hopeful.
“Then I don’t get it,” I said. “Why did the court think he could’ve killed somebody?”
“The prosecutor told this one story about Marcus . . . ,” Grandma began, but then shook her head. “Never mind.”
“What? You have to tell me.”
Grandma exhaled again. “There was one time when Marcus was a senior. He got into a fistfight with another player at a basketball game.”
“What happened?” I asked.
“The other player provoked Marcus—got him mad enough to fight. Your granddad wasn’t too happy when he heard about this, so the next time he saw Marcus, he asked him for an explanation. Marcus said that the other player, who was white, called him the N-word while they were playing. Under his breath, when nobody else could hear him.”
I knew exactly what word she meant. Mom and Grandma had talked to me about it. Racist people used it. And sometimes other Black people called each other that, which wasn’t racist but wasn’t great. My parents had told me that I should never use that word, and to tell them if anyone ever called me that. I’d never heard anyone say it about me.
“When the white kid called Marcus that,” Grandma said, “Marcus got really mad. Of course he did. So that’s what started the fight. A lot of people were at the game, and they all saw it. The white kid, he was the star player of the other team, so a lot of people took his side. With all the racism around Boston, people weren’t about to take a Black kid’s word over a white kid’s.”
Every once in a while, I’d overhear my parents talk about how racist Boston was. I noticed it myself, too. Like all the times people gave Dad and me “the look.” Once, I went to a fancy clothing store on Newbury Street with Mom, and a saleslady started following us around the store, looking at us like she didn’t trust us with the merchandise. As soon as Mom noticed what was going on, she pulled me out of the store. “I’m not giving them my business,” she’d told me.
I had no idea where the idea of Black people as thieves came from, but it wasn’t the first time something like that had happened. In fourth grade, a girl told me that I wasn’t invited to her birthday party because her parents said Black people steal. I’d said her parents didn’t know what they were talking about. After I told my mom, she stopped herself from cursing out loud, and said she didn’t want me going to that racist family’s house anyway.
“Did Marcus say what the other kid called him?” I asked Grandma.
“Nobody else heard it. But I believed him, and your granddad did too.” She paused and then said, “Anyway, when Marcus was later accused of the crime, the prosecutors told that story, used it against him. They said he had a violent past.”
“But getting into a fight isn’t the same thing as killing someone!” I squeezed a corner of a pillow between my fingers. “And the other kid called him the N-word!”
“I know. But it was up to the jury, and they decided that Marcus was capable of all kinds of violence, even the worst kind.” She sighed. “People look at someone like Marcus—a tall, strong, dark-skinned boy—and they make assumptions about him. Even if it isn’t right. The jury, the judge, the public, even his own lawyer—they all assumed Marcus must be guilty because he’s Black. It’s all part of systemic racism.”
“It’s not fair.”
“I know, baby,” Grandma said, her expression sad.
I thought about all of this. “Why didn’t Mom want to see him in prison before the trial?”
“She was really mad at him.”
“Why?” I asked.
“Because Marcus was friends with the victim.”
“Lucy,” I said.
“That’s right.” Grandma said. “Marcus and Lucy were spending a lot of time together, because they were in the same study group. Your mom thought something more was going on. Marcus said there wasn’t, but your mom, she had her doubts. It was tough for them—he stayed in Boston for college, and she went down to New York. It wasn’t a huge distance, but it was still hard on their relationship.”
I nodded, remembering how I’d read that some people even thought Marcus and Lucy were dating before she died.
“Your mom wanted to believe he was innocent, but when the prosecution brought a witness into court who said he’d seen Marcus leaving Lucy’s place around the time of the murder, she started having doubts. I did too, to be honest, but Marcus insisted that it wasn’t him. Eyewitnesses get it wrong all the time.”
Grandma continued. “Plus, the crime happened after your mom found out she was pregnant with you.” She poked my nose, like she used to do when I was a little kid, and I smiled for a second.
“She was so mad at Marcus,” Grandma said. “For spending time with that girl in the first place. For getting arrested and leaving her alone, when she was already scared about having a baby so young. The whole mess broke her heart. Then he was convicted, and I think she decided it was easier to believe he did it, let him go, and move on.”
When Grandma explained it like that, I felt some sympathy for Mom. It must’ve been really hard for her.
“Do you think Marcus could get out of prison, if we found his witness?” I asked Grandma.
“I don’t know.” She put her hand on top of mine. “I’m telling you all of this because you deserve to hear the truth. But I don’t want you to get wrapped up in it. You’re only a kid. Even if Marcus is innocent, the chances of him getting out are slim. Who knows where this woman is? And getting a new lawyer would be expensive, too.”
But I wasn’t only a kid. And just because it wasn’t easy didn’t mean it couldn’t get done. Dad had always told me that when I had a hard time on a school project. And he was always right. Sometimes that homework wasn’t easy at all, but I always got it done. Most of the time, I got a better grade on it than I expected.
“If Marcus really didn’t do it,” I said, my voice solemn, “then it means somebody else did. That person should be in prison, not Marcus.”
Grandma put her arm around my shoulder and squeezed. “You’re right. This isn’t only about Marcus. It’s also about justice for Lucy. That poor girl’s family deserves to see her actual murderer behind bars.”
“Do you think there’s any chance Marcus can get out of prison, and they’ll find the real murderer?”
“There’s always hope,” Grandma said. “But that doesn’t mean it’s enough to make change. I’ve followed Marcus’s case, and he tried to appeal the verdict a few months later, but his appeal was denied. At this point, if Marcus is innocent, he needs more than hope to get out of prison anytime soon—he needs a miracle.”
A miracle.
I had a lot of work ahead of me.
Chapter Eighteen
I spent the next couple of days looking up more facts about wrongful convictions, and found out that the Innocence Project had an office in Boston. Their website said you could send a letter to request assistance. I thought about writing to them, but decided to wai
t until after I’d tracked down Marcus’s alibi witness.
On Sunday night after dinner, I browsed the internet some more. One article said that thousands of innocent people were convicted of crimes each year. I couldn’t believe the number was that high.
Another article said Black people were more likely to be wrongfully convicted of murder. If this was known, then why wasn’t more being done to fix it? Probably because not enough people cared, like Grandma said. A lump formed in my throat.
But then I read that the year before, a record number of innocent people were freed from prison. So, there was hope.
I closed my laptop as soon as I heard a knock on my bedroom door. Dad peeked inside my room. “Get your shoes on and meet me at the car in five minutes.”
I groaned. “What if I don’t want to?”
“Too bad,” Dad said, all serious. But then he smiled. “But you’re going to want to.”
He shut my door again, and I stared at my closed laptop for a few moments. It was already eight o’clock at night, so whatever it was probably wouldn’t take long. I left my room, slipped into my flip-flops next to the front door, and went outside.
Our car was running in the driveway, with Dad in the driver’s seat and Mom next to him. I got into the back seat and put my seat belt on, crossing my arms on top of it.
Dad started driving while I stared out the window, zoning out to his favorite jazz station on the radio. The sun was setting, and it was as if someone had taken a brush with pink paint and made a streak across the sky, which was pale blue but getting darker by the minute. I guessed where we were going by the route we were taking. Five minutes later, Dad drove into Davis Square. He found a metered spot, and once he parked, we all got out of the car.
We automatically started walking toward the center of Davis, straight to J.P. Licks. Home of the best ice cream in Boston.
We walked inside the small shop and got in line. I stared at all of the flavors on the chalkboard menu, and decided on peanut butter cookies ’n’ cream in a waffle cone. Dad ordered a cup with one scoop of coffee ice cream and one scoop of maple walnut. Mom got a cone with a scoop of coconut almond chip.
