The Accused

by John Grisham

  cell phone you got busted with this morning, where did you get it?”

  “Uh, I bought it.”

  Vorman opened his notepad, licked his pen, and asked, “Okay, who’d you buy it from?”

  “Uh, some guy named Randy.”

  Vorman scribbled on his notepad and asked, “How much did you pay for it?”

  “Uh, fifty dollars.”

  “The phone was stolen from Big Mac’s. Did you know it was stolen when you bought it?”

  “No, sir, I swear.”

  “What’s Randy’s last name?”

  “Uh, I’m not sure.”

  “Do you know where he lives? Where I can find him and go talk to him?”

  “No, sir.”

  “Okay, so this mysterious guy Randy just pops up and offers to sell you a brand-new SmartPhone for fifty bucks, one that’s valued at three hundred, and you don’t think it might be stolen?”

  “No, sir.”

  “That’s not too smart on your part, is it?”

  “I guess not.”

  “Are you lying to me?”

  “No, sir.”

  “If you lie to me, Jonah, things will only get much worse.”

  “I’m not lying.”

  “I think you are.”

  Jonah shook his head, his bangs flopping in his eyes.

  Vorman had spent years questioning tough criminals, men who could tell great lies with sincere faces. This kid was nowhere close to being believable. “The thief, or thieves, who broke into Big Mac’s also took some tablets and laptops. Did Randy offer to sell you a brand-new tablet or laptop?”

  “No, sir.”

  “Have you ever seen a Linx 0-4 Tablet?”

  Jonah shook his head, his eyes still watching the floor.

  “You know the school has the right to inspect your backpack and your locker,” Vorman said, moving in for the kill. “Do you understand that?”

  “I guess.”

  “Good. Let’s take a look inside your backpack.”

  “What are you looking for?” Jonah asked.

  “More stolen goods.” Vorman reached for the backpack. Jonah clutched it for a second, then let go. Vorman placed it on Mrs. Gladwell’s desk and slowly unzipped it. He removed textbooks, notebooks, a video game magazine, and then a tablet. A Linx 0-4. He held it up, examined it, and said, “Jonah, you lied to me. Where did this come from?”

  Jonah leaned forward and placed both elbows on both knees, his head hanging low.

  Vorman pressed on: “Jonah where did you get this? Did your brother give it to you?”

  No response.

  “Okay, let’s go have a look inside your locker.”

  At about the same time, a mile away at the high school, Detective Hamilton introduced himself to Jessie Finn. They were in the principal’s office, a few minutes after the final bell. Jessie’s backpack was on the desk, unopened.

  “I’d like to ask you a few questions,” Hamilton began with a friendly smile. The principal, Mr. Trussel, was sitting at his desk, watching.

  “About what?” Jessie asked with a sneer. He had been through the Youth Court system once and didn’t like cops, or judges, or even lawyers for that matter.

  “Do you have a brother named Jonah?”

  “That’s an easy question.”

  “Then answer it.”

  “Yes.”

  “Thought so. We have Jonah in custody right now, caught him with a stolen Excell 7 SmartPhone and three Linx 0-4s, one in his backpack, the other two still in boxes in his locker. Any idea where he got them?”

  Jessie flinched, though he tried to seem unmoved. The color drained from his face and it was pale. He shook his head, no.

  “Didn’t think so,” Hamilton said. “We checked the registration numbers and we know where they came from. Do you Jessie?”

  “No.”

  “Well, Jessie, at this moment your little brother is one scared boy. He’s talking, singing like a bird, and he says that breaking into Big Mac’s was all your idea, says he didn’t want to do it, but you pressured him because you needed some help in hauling away all of the laptops, cell phones, and tablets. What do you think about that, Jessie? He’s not a very tough kid, is he? I mean, he’s your brother and he began ratting on you before we could even put the handcuffs on him.”

  “Handcuffs?” Jessie said with a dry, husky voice, his face confused and scared.

  “Yep, and I’ve got a pair for you, too. Just hang on. Your little brother says that you two broke into the store through a back window last Tuesday night and took about a dozen cell phones, six fifteen-inch laptops, and ten Linx 0-4 Tablets. Says you guys were in the store less than five minutes because you had scoped out the place and knew where things were, plus you knew how to dodge the security cameras. Any of this ring a bell, Jessie?”

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  “Oh, I think you do. Can I look inside your backpack?”

  “Go right ahead,” Jessie said, and shoved it at him. Hamilton unzipped it and slowly removed books, notebooks, a water bottle, a couple of magazines, nothing that appeared to be stolen. Hamilton shrugged and stuffed all of it back into the backpack. “Let’s go take a look at your locker.”

  “You can’t do that,” Jessie said.

  “Oh really? Why not?”

  “It’s a violation of my privacy.”

  “Not so fast, Jessie,” Mr. Trussel said as he lifted a piece of paper. “This is a locker rental agreement you signed for the academic year. We don’t require our students to use a locker, but when they choose to do so, they must sign this agreement. This clearly states that you must submit to a search of your locker when asked to do so by the school or the police.”

  “Let’s go,” said Detective Hamilton.

  Back at the middle school, Detective Vorman and Mrs. Gladwell returned to her office, along with Jonah, who looked as though he was ready to cry. On her desk were the same two tablets she and Vorman had taken from Jonah’s locker earlier in the day.

  Vorman said, “We have your brother in custody over at the high school, and he’s saying it was your idea to plant the three Linx Tablets in the locker of Theodore Boone. He’s saying you hacked into the school’s files, got the entry number, and placed the tablets there last Wednesday morning in an effort to frame Theo for the crime. True or false?”

  “Jessie said that?”

  “Oh yes, and plenty more. Right now he’s sitting in a small room at the high school, in handcuffs, telling the entire story. Pretty sad, if you ask me, to rat out your little brother like this, but that’s what happens when you do stupid things with an accomplice.”

  “I don’t believe it.”

  “I don’t care what you believe, son. You’re in more trouble than you can possibly imagine. You’re looking at breaking and entering, felony theft, stalking, conspiracy, vandalism. Your brother even says you slashed Theo’s bike tires and tossed the rock through his office window.”

  “No! He did that!” Jonah blurted, then caught himself. He held his breath as he stared at the detective, who just smiled. In the heat of the battle, the kid had made a crucial admission. Vorman looked at Mrs. Gladwell. Both smiled. The mystery had been solved.

  Back at the high school, the contents of Jessie’s locker were stacked neatly on the floor of the hallway. Detective Hamilton, wearing surgical gloves, gently removed the last items—two Linx 0-4 Tablets. “Gee, I wonder where these came from,” he said with a smile. “Jonah said we would probably find them here. Let me guess, Jessie, you have no idea how these shiny new things made their way into your locker, right?”

  Jessie said nothing.

  They stepped into an empty classroom and Mr. Trussel closed the door. “Sit there,” Hamilton barked at Jessie as he pointed to a desk. Jessie did as he was told. There was no fight left in him.

  “What I want at this point,” Hamilton said as he hovered over Jessie, as if he might begin slapping him at any second, “is the rest of t
he stolen goods. Where are they?”

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Jessie said feebly. His hands were clenched together on the desk and he stared at them.

  Hamilton reached into a pocket and pulled out some papers. “You’re a real smart kid, aren’t you, Jessie? So tell me, what is a search warrant?”

  Jessie shook his head.

  “You don’t know? Maybe you’re not that bright after all.”

  Jessie shook his head.

  “A search warrant allows the police to go into your house and search every room, every drawer, cabinet, closet, box, bag, every pile of junk in the attic, and every piece of old furniture in the garage. It allows us to turn your house upside down looking for the rest of the stuff you and your little brother stole from Big Mac’s.” Hamilton dropped his search warrant on the desk and it landed on Jessie’s arms. He made no effort to read it.

  “Is your mother at home, Jessie?” Hamilton asked.

  “She’s asleep. She works the night shift at the hospital.”

  “Well, let’s go wake her up.”

  Chapter 24

  Linda Finn was sound asleep in her bedroom on the ground floor of her home at about 5:00 p.m. Monday afternoon when the doorbell rang and jarred her awake. She never got enough sleep. She worked from 8:00 p.m. to 8:00 a.m., four days a week and occasionally on weekends for extra money. Such a weird schedule disrupted normal sleep patterns and kept her tired. And often, when she should have been sleeping, she was wide awake worrying about her bruising divorce, her worthless husband and his hardnosed lawyer, and her two boys and the bad direction in which they seemed to be headed. Linda had plenty to worry about.

  The doorbell would not stop ringing, so she pulled on an old bathrobe and walked to the front door in her bare feet. She opened the door. Staring at her was Detective Vorman, with Jonah, and behind them were two police officers in full uniform. Beyond them, at the curb, were two police cars, with lights and all the usual decorative painting and decals. There was an unmarked car in the driveway. She put her hand over her mouth and almost fainted.

  Then she managed to open the storm door and said, “What is it?!”

  Vorman flashed his badge and said, “Detective Scott Vorman, Strattenburg Police. May I come in?”

  “What is it, Jonah?” she asked, horrified.

  Jonah looked at his shoes.

  “We need to talk,” Vorman said, opening the storm door wider. She backed away, clutching her bathrobe to make sure she was decent. Vorman followed Jonah inside and closed the door behind them. In the driveway, Detective Hamilton sat in his car with Jessie in the passenger’s seat. “Are we going in?” Jessie asked.

  “Maybe,” Hamilton replied. The two uniformed officers loitered in the front yard, smoking cigarettes. Across the street, a few neighbors were on their porches, watching with curiosity.

  Inside, Vorman found a seat in an old chair with holes in the fabric. Linda and Jonah sat on a sofa with battered cushions. “I’ll get to the point, Mrs. Finn. A computer store on Main Street was broken into last Tuesday night. The thieves took some laptops, cell phones, and tablets. About twenty thousand dollars worth of stuff. Our prime suspects are Jonah and Jessie.”

  She jerked around and glared at Jonah, who was still fascinated by his shoes.

  Vorman went on: “We’ve searched their lockers and backpacks, and so far we’ve recovered five of the tablets and one cell phone. We suspect the rest of the stuff might be hidden somewhere in this house, so we have a search warrant, signed by a judge, that allows us to look everywhere.”

  “Everywhere?” Linda gasped, immediately thinking of the stacks of unwashed dishes in the kitchen sink, the piles of dirty laundry in the basement, the unmade beds, the undusted furniture and shelves, the filthy bathrooms, the litter in the hallway, the half-empty glasses and cups in the den, and all of this was only the downstairs. The upstairs, where the boys lived and she was afraid to go, looked worse than a landfill.

  “That’s right,” Vorman said as he pulled out the search warrant and handed it to her. She just gawked at it and shook her head.

  “Every room, every closet, every drawer,” Vorman said, cranking up the pressure. Vorman knew no woman would want the police or anyone else poking through their house.

  “Is this true, Jonah?” she asked, her eyes suddenly wet. Jonah refused to speak.

  “Yes, it’s true,” Vorman said. “Jessie has pretty much confessed to everything, but he will not tell us where the rest of the stolen goods are. So, we have no choice but to take the house apart and see if the stuff is here.”

  “Is it here, Jonah?” she demanded. He glanced at her, another guilty look.

  “At this point, it’s important to cooperate,” Vorman said helpfully. “The judge will take it into consideration.”

  “If it’s here, tell them,” she said angrily to Jonah. “There’s no sense in making the police dig through our home.”

  After a long pause, Vorman said, “Look, I don’t have all afternoon and all night. I’m going to call for some extra men and we’ll start by digging through the boys’ bedrooms.”

  “Tell me, Jonah!” Mrs. Finn growled.

  Jonah crossed his arms, bit his bottom lip, and finally said, “In the crawl space above the garage.”

  Sitting in the unmarked car, Jessie watched with horror as the policemen walked out of the garage with armloads of laptops, tablets, and cell phones. “Well, well, I guess they found everything,” Hamilton said. “Stay here.” He got out of the car to go have a look. Jessie wiped a tear off his cheek.

  Linda Finn quickly got dressed and followed the police downtown. Jessie was riding in the car in front of her. Jonah was with Detective Vorman in another car. She cried all the way, asking herself—How could this happen? What had she done wrong as a mother? What would they do with her boys? How would this affect her divorce and her battle to win custody of Jonah and Jessie? Would custody be an issue if they were sent away? A hundred questions raced through her mind as the little caravan moved through the streets of Strattenburg.

  At the police station, they gathered in a small room in the basement, and for the first time since that morning Jonah and Jessie were face-to-face. Jessie looked as though he wanted to punch his little brother. Jonah was thinking what a rat his big brother was. But they could say nothing.

  Detective Hamilton took charge by saying, “This crime has been solved and you boys are in some serious trouble, no sense in beating around the bush. You’re not going home tonight, and you may not be home for quite a while.”

  Linda started crying again. After a few sobs, she managed to ask, “Where are you taking them?

  “There’s a juvenile detention center down the street. They will appear in Youth Court the day after tomorrow and the judge will decide what to do with them at that point. A formal hearing will be held in about a month. Any questions?”

  A thousand questions, but none spoken.

  Detective Hamilton said, “I’m going to ask Detective Vorman to explain your Miranda Rights. Listen carefully.”

  Vorman slid across two sheets of paper, one for each boy. “These are the same. Number one: You have the right to remain silent. Number two: Anything you say in this meeting may be used against you in court. Number three: You have the right to an attorney, and if you can’t afford one, the court will provide you with one.”

  “Just like on television,” Jessie said, the wise guy.

  “You got it,” Vorman said. “Any questions? Okay, sign those forms at the bottom. Mrs. Finn, as their mother, you sign just under their names.”

  The Finns reluctantly signed their names. Vorman collected the sheets of paper. Hamilton looked at Jonah and Jessie, and said, “I’ve been through this a thousand times, and I can promise you that the most important thing you can do right now to help yourselves is to cooperate. You’re guilty. We know you’re guilty. We can prove you’re guilty. So none of this pointing fingers at everybody else. The judge, the s
ame guy who decides if you’re gonna be sent away to juvenile detention, and for how long, will ask me in court if you boys cooperated. If I say yes, he likes that. If I say no, then he frowns and doesn’t like that. Understand?”

  “I want a lawyer,” Jessie said.

  “We can sure get you one,” Hamilton shot back. “Scott, take him to jail.”

  Vorman jumped to his feet, snapped a pair of handcuffs off his belt, grabbed Jessie by the neck, pulled him up, and cuffed his hands behind his back. He opened the door and was about to take him away when Linda slapped the table and said, “Wait a minute! I want the truth! I want you two boys to tell me the truth. Sit down, Jessie. Sit down right here and tell me what happened.”

  Vorman released Jessie, who was stunned at the speed with which he got himself handcuffed. Carefully, he sat on the edge of his chair, his hands still cuffed behind his back.

  When everyone took a deep breath, Jonah said, “We did it because we needed the money.”

  Chapter 25

  Theo was in the middle of his homework when his father’s voice came across the office phone intercom. “Hey, Theo.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Could you please step into the conference room?”

  “Sure.”

  Both parents were there, and his mother had been crying. “What’s the matter?” Theo asked.

  “We have some good news,” his father said.

  “Then why is Mom crying?”

  “I’m not crying, Theo,” she said. “Not now.”

  His father said, “I just talked to Detective Vorman. They’ve arrested two boys, brothers, Jonah and Jessie Finn, for the break-in at Big Mac’s. The police found most of the stolen goods in the boys’ home.”

  “Their mother is my client, Theo,” Mrs. Boone said sadly.

  No kidding, Theo thought, but said nothing.

  Mr. Boone continued, “The boys have confessed to everything, including their little campaign of terror against you. Seems they were carrying a pretty substantial grudge because of the divorce.”

  “I’m so sorry, Theo,” Mrs. Boone said. “I should have realized this.”

  Theo took a deep breath and smiled and thought about Ike. His crazy uncle had solved the mystery long before anyone else had a clue. “This is great,” Theo said. “The flat tires, the rock, the Internet stuff, everything?”

  “Everything,” his father said. “The break came when someone at school reported that the younger boy, the seventh grader, had a cell phone in his pocket. As you know, that’s against the rules, and the cell phone turned out to be one that was stolen from the store. One thing led to another, more stolen goods were found in the boys’ lockers, and then the police got a search warrant.”

  Theo felt as though someone was reading secrets he’d written about himself. He managed to smile and nod happily along, and he wasn’t really faking it. Theo was delighted this little nightmare was over. “What’s gonna happen to them?” he asked.

  “That will be determined in Youth Court,” Mrs. Boone said. “The older one, Jessie, has a record and I suspect he’ll be sent away. Jonah will probably get probation.”

  “What does this do to you and your client, their mother?” Theo asked.

  “I can’t represent her, Theo. I’ll withdraw tomorrow as her lawyer. Her boys attacked you because of me, and I should have realized it. I’m so sorry.”