The Silence of Murder

by Dandi Daley Mackall

  “Yeah. I guess,” Mr. Petersen admits.

  Raymond smiles up at the judge. “Then, Your Honor, I have no more questions for this witness.”

  Mr. Petersen hurries out of the witness box and out of the courtroom. The whole question-and-answer routine took a lot longer than things take on TV court shows. Twice it looked like Juror Number Seven fell asleep.

  But not Jeremy. I could tell my brother was tuned in, listening to the testimony, absorbing it. If Jeremy is focused on something, he’s smart, really smart. It’s just when he loses interest that he drifts into his own, much more fascinating world.

  The judge announces a short recess, and when we get back, Raymond calls Bob Adams to the stand. Bob is a few rows up from us, but he glances back as he steps over people to get out of his row. I smile at him, relaxing a little because I know Bob likes Jeremy. That’s why Raymond wanted him to testify about Jeremy’s character. When we first moved to Grain, Bob hired Rita on the spot. When I began standing in for Rita, mostly because she wanted to sleep in or just didn’t feel like working, Bob wasn’t crazy about the idea. But when he saw how hard I worked—a lot harder than Rita—he came around. He came around with Jeremy too.

  Bob swears on the Bible to tell the truth, then makes his way to the witness box, where he balances himself on the edge of the wooden seat, like he may need to get away quick. I might not have recognized Bob outside of the restaurant if I’d seen him dressed like this—gray suit, blue tie, leather shoes, and no apron. I try to remember if I’ve ever seen Bob outside of the Colonial Café, and I don’t think I have. He clears his throat. His hair is slicked back, and he looks as nervous and out of place as a cat in a courtroom full of rocking chairs.

  Raymond has Bob identify himself, and then he starts asking Bob about Jeremy.

  “I’ve always thought Jeremy was a great kid,” Bob answers. “A little different maybe, squirrelly, you know, what with not talking and all. But nice. Real nice.”

  Bob gives examples of nice, like when Jeremy would come by the Colonial and jump right in to help wash dishes for no reason and no money. Or the time Jeremy picked black-eyed Susans and put a glass full of flowers on every table in the Colonial.

  I’m thinking Bob’s done a good job talking about my brother. Jeremy comes off as different, just in case we still need the insane version of the plea, but nice and regular too.

  Raymond announces that he’s finished with the witness, and Bob starts to get up to leave.

  “I have a few questions for the witness,” Prosecutor Keller says from behind his table. He stands and buttons the middle button of his light gray suit.

  The judge nods, and Bob sits back down.

  Keller is all smiles, which makes me nervous. “Mr. Adams, wasn’t there a time when Jeremy caused some disturbance in your restaurant?”

  “That … that was nothing,” Bob answers, but he shifts his sizable weight in the witness seat and loosens his tie. I know what’s coming, and I’m sure Bob does too.

  I glance at Jeremy, and he’s staring at Bob like he’d trade places with him if he could, just so Bob wouldn’t have to be on that witness stand any longer.

  “You say it was nothing? Really?” Keller turns his wrinkled-up, surprised look on the jury. I’ve come to hate that look. “Didn’t someone call the police? Didn’t Sheriff Wells have to restore order?”

  I glare at the sheriff. I know he had to be the one who told Keller about this.

  “It all got blown out of proportion,” Bob answers.

  It really did. It shouldn’t have been such a big deal, and it wasn’t Jeremy’s fault anyway. He lost his temper, but only because some jerk at school told him that Rita served horse and dog meat at the café. Jer loves animals, so he got upset.

  “Mr. Adams,” Keller insists, “I remind you that you’re under oath. Please tell the court what transpired about a year ago on August second, when Sheriff Wells was called to your establishment.”

  Bob glances over at Jeremy, then back to Keller. “Well, Jeremy came storming into the restaurant at lunchtime. It was a Saturday, and we were busy. He ran from one table to the next, over to the booths, and down the short-order counter, peering at every plate.”

  “Go ahead, please,” Keller urges.

  “If a customer had a hamburger, say, well, Jeremy grabbed the plate and tossed the whole thing into the garbage. It all happened so fast. I guess some kids in one of the booths tried to hang on to their plates, and Jeremy got a little carried away. But it was them kids at his school that done it. They messed with Jeremy’s head, telling him his mother was serving horsemeat and dogs.”

  A ripple of restrained laughter flicks across the courtroom. I can’t believe anybody thinks this is funny.

  “Mr. Adams, tell us about the plates,” Keller urges.

  Bob stares at his pudgy hands. “He broke most of them,” he mutters.

  “Speak up, please,” Keller says, “so the jury can hear you.”

  “He broke them!” Bob shouts, staring Keller straight in the eyes. “Jeremy broke them plates and a dozen others, okay? But that busybody Mrs. Rouse had no call to phone the sheriff. We didn’t need the police. We could have handled it.”

  “It’s a shame you couldn’t have been in the barn to handle things the day of the murder,” Keller says.

  Raymond stands up and pounds the table. “Your Honor! I object!”

  But the judge is already on it. “Mr. Keller, save your comments for your closing. I’m watching you.”

  “Sorry, Your Honor,” he says, clearly not one bit sorry. He turns to Bob and smiles. “Mr. Adams, Bob, you like Jeremy Long, the defendant, do you not?”

  Bob looks at Jeremy again. “I like Jeremy fine,” he says, still obviously upset at Keller.

  “Would it be fair to say that you like Jeremy’s mother too?” Keller presses.

  My stomach twists. I’m not sure why, but I know something bad is coming.

  “What are you saying?” Bob demands.

  “Just that I believe you like Jeremy and his mother.”

  Raymond stands up, but only halfway, like he’s not quite sure of this one. “Your Honor, I object to this line of questioning.”

  “Goes to motive for testifying, Your Honor,” Keller explains.

  “Overruled. Answer the question, Mr. Adams.”

  “Fine. I like Rita and Jeremy. So what?”

  “Could we say that, at least in the case of the defendant’s mother, Rita Long, you more than like her?” He sounds like a second grader teasing a kid with a crush.

  “Your Honor!” Raymond complains, starting to stand again.

  The judge raises her hand to stop him. “Move along, Mr. Keller.”

  This is what I’m thinking—move along.

  “Isn’t it true that you and Mrs. Long are lovers? That you—”

  “I object!” Raymond screams. I have never seen him this angry.

  I object too. But I have to admit that I’m not surprised. I knew Rita was seeing somebody. I should have guessed it was Bob, if I guessed about it at all. I knew Bob liked her. I’ve just never seen the “like” coming back from Rita’s side.

  “Mr. Keller, that’s enough.” This is as firm as I’ve heard the judge, and it makes me like her even more.

  “All right,” Keller says. “Just one more question, Mr. Adams, and then I can let you go. Where were you the night before Coach Johnson was murdered?”

  “Home.” Bob stares at his hands again, and I get a sick feeling about where this is going. Rita and I are the only alibi Jeremy has, and I was asleep until the sheriff woke me up pounding on the door.

  “You were ‘home alone,’ as they say?” Keller asks.

  I want to smack that grin off his face.

  “No,” Bob answers, barely above a whisper.

  Keller acts amazed. “Really? Who was with—?”

  Bob doesn’t wait for the question. “Rita! Okay? Rita Long was with me.”

  “Ah,” Keller says, as if
everything is finally all cleared up. “I see. Um … excuse me for asking, but all night?”

  “Yes. I went into work at six-fifteen, like I do every morning.”

  “And Jeremy’s mother was still there?”

  Bob nods.

  “For the record, Mr. Adams, will you please answer the question aloud?” the judge asks.

  “Sorry, Your Honor. Yes. Rita was there when I left at six-fifteen.”

  The spectators break into murmurs, and the judge bangs her gavel and asks for order.

  I don’t know what to think or how to feel. I try to figure out how bad this is for Jeremy, but I can’t. So Rita slept with Bob? So she wasn’t home to make sure Jeremy was in his bedroom all night. That one would have been pretty hard to prove anyway—what with the bloody bat and Jeremy’s bloody uniform. And it’s not like Rita would have checked in on Jer even if she had been home all night.

  Chase looks over at me, like he wants to see how I’m taking it.

  There’s a tap-clapping noise at the front of the courtroom. I can’t see where it’s coming from, but I have a good idea. A chair squeaks and somebody slaps a table. Every other noise stops. The slap sounds again and again.

  “Mr. Munroe, can you please control your client?” asks the judge.

  I lean to the left until I can see between two reporters’ heads and get a view of my brother. Jeremy is swaying back and forth. His hands fly above his head like frightened birds.

  “Mr. Long,” says the judge, “you must settle down, or I’ll need to have you removed from court. Do you understand?”

  Jeremy’s hands twist in the air, clenching and unclenching as he moves faster and faster. Raymond puts a hand on his shoulder, and Jeremy shakes it off like Raymond’s hand is made of fire.

  From where I sit, in the back, my brother’s face is split in shadows. He is Jekyll and Hyde, light and darkness.

  I don’t want the jury to see him like this.

  I don’t want Chase and T.J. to see him like this.

  I don’t want me to see him like this. And in that fraction of a second, I wonder. Did he do it?

  25

  I make Chase drive me straight home after court. It’s probably the quietest car ride any three teens have ever taken. I’m saving every word I have for Rita. I can’t believe she didn’t tell Raymond, or me, about her affair with Bob. What did she have to worry about, her reputation?

  Chase pulls the car next to the curb in front of my house, and I see the light of the television glowing from the living room. “Want me to come in with you?” he offers.

  “Yeah,” T.J. says. “I could come in with you.”

  “No. Thanks. This is between Rita and me.”

  When I walk in, I see Rita in her white slip, kicking back on the couch. Her feet, crossed at the ankles, are propped up on the coffee table. It’s four-thirty in the afternoon, but she’s got a beer in one hand and two empties on the table.

  “Hey!” she calls, all cheery. “You ought to watch this. Dr. Phil’s about to let this loser have it right between the eyes.” Her speech is slurred already, making me wonder what she had before the beers.

  I charge the TV, shut it off, and stand in front of the screen.

  “Hey!” she whines. “I was watching that.” Under her makeup, Rita is a child, with pouty lips and fuzzy slippers.

  “Why didn’t you tell me you were sleeping with Bob?”

  “What?”

  “Bob! You know, as in our boss, Bob?”

  She frowns and sets down the beer. No coaster. I’ve told her to use coasters. Our table looks like a bad version of the solar system, with the planets out of whack. “How did you—?”

  “He testified in court, Rita.”

  “About us?” Her forehead wrinkles form a V as she tries to grasp this. “Why would Bob—?”

  “Because things come out when you’re on the witness stand, Rita. The truth comes out. I don’t care what you do with your life. Not anymore. Not for a long time. But it made it look like you and Bob were lying to protect Jeremy—and all you ended up doing was making Jeremy look more guilty!”

  “Hold on a minute.” She’s coming out of her drunken state. Angry Rita is hardening in front of me. “What’s one thing got to do with the other? And what’s any of it got to do with you?”

  “Jeremy is my brother!” I shout. “I know he couldn’t have murdered Coach Johnson, and I’m trying to prove it, but you—!”

  “Don’t tell me you haven’t given up on that yet.” She falls back onto the couch and turns on the TV with the remote.

  I slam the TV off again. “Rita! Don’t you care what happens to Jeremy?”

  She sits up straight. “Of course I care! He may be a legal adult, but he’s still my boy. I borne him. And I don’t want him to go to prison. I want him safe, in a mental home, where people can look after him and he won’t get into no more trouble. That’s what I want!”

  I feel like throwing the TV at her. How can she be so cold?

  Rita shoots me a look I’ve seen a million times. Lips pressed together and shifted sideways, her head tilted, eyes full of disgust. If I had just one picture of my mother in my head, this would be the expression on her face, a look that says, “I’m sick to death of you. You’re too stupid to talk to. Get out of my way.”

  “We’re done here, Hopeless.” She takes a gulp of beer and drains the can. “Get me another one of these from the fridge.”

  Here’s where I would give in, do what she says so that things wouldn’t get uglier, so that nobody would get hurt. Here’s where I always make peace by giving up, by giving in.

  Only not this time. “Rita.” My voice is calm. I see her flinch at the sound of it, surprised maybe? “Why was Coach Johnson paying you off?”

  Her body stiffens, and she scoots to the edge of the cushion. At last, I have her attention. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  “Really? You and Jay Jay? Are you saying he wasn’t writing you checks?”

  She tucks her feet under her and smooths her slip over her flabby thighs. “I had him pay me Jeremy’s salary for working in the barn. So what? Jeremy wouldn’t know what to do with a check.”

  “A check for a thousand dollars? Every month?”

  “Where did you—?”

  “Were you and Coach, ‘Jay Jay,’ having an affair, Rita?”

  “Shut up!” Rita screams. “This is none of your business!”

  “Was it your business? Was Coach paying you to keep quiet?”

  “You little—!” The words squeeze through her teeth, greased by spit.

  “Was he afraid his wife would find out? You were blackmailing him, weren’t you!”

  “You don’t know what you’re talking about!” she screams.

  I have never seen Rita so angry, and that’s saying something. But I’m not backing down. This is too important. “Is that why you’re so eager to send Jeremy away to a mental hospital?”

  Quick as a flash, Rita picks up the remote and flings it at me. I dodge, but it catches my cheekbone before crashing into the TV. The remote breaks into pieces. Batteries fly. The screen looks chipped. She gasps. “Hope, are you all right? Are you hurt?”

  “You’re pathetic, Rita!” I feel something trickling down my cheek. I touch it, and my finger comes away red. I don’t care. I can’t feel anything. My body’s shaking. “You’d send your own son away to keep your ugly little secrets from getting out! You’d help them convict Jeremy of murder just so you wouldn’t have to be tried for blackmail?”

  Rita stands up, and I think she’s going to fly across the coffee table and tackle me. But I don’t move. I don’t care.

  Instead, she shakes her finger at me. “I would send my own son away so he wouldn’t kill anybody ever again!”

  “He didn’t kill anybody!”

  Her eyes narrow, and I know I’m about to get the worst of this argument, the worst of everything. “Hope, he did it. I know without a doubt that your brother murdered Jay Jay.
”

  I want to yell again. I want her to throw something else at me. I don’t want this.

  She continues, her voice calm, “I saw him washing that bat of his in the bathroom sink the morning of the murder.”

  Her words take the rest of the fire out of me, out of both of us. I want to call her a liar, but I’m doused, drowning in her words.

  Rita is quiet now. The whole house has turned silent. “I saw him, Hope. I came home that morning and tried to go back to sleep. I thought you and Jeremy must be in bed still. But I couldn’t sleep, so I got up and went to the bathroom. I opened the door, and there he was. He was trying to wash blood off his bat.”

  “What did you do?”

  “I looked at him. He stared back at me with his wide, panicked eyes, like he was begging me for something I couldn’t give him. I closed the door.”

  “You—?”

  “I know. I should have asked him right then and there what he done. But I figured he’d clubbed some animal—not a dog or a cat, but a squirrel or a gopher. And I didn’t want to deal with it.” She stares past me, at the blank TV screen. “I didn’t think he’d … he’d … used that bat on a … a person.”

  I’ve been backing away from her, stumbling toward the door. Images of the crime scene flash through my head. They bring pain, as if they’re mounted on arrows. Coach, bloody, curled on the stable floor. Jeremy curled in the corner of his bedroom.

  My back slams into the door. I reach behind me, frantically feeling for the doorknob. I have to get out of here.

  Rita is shouting at me, but I can’t hear her. A buzzing in my head drowns her out.

  I’m outside. I take off running. One foot, the other foot. I used to read a book to Jeremy when we were little. Dr. Seuss. One foot. Two feet. I can’t remember how it goes. Left foot? Right foot?

  I keep running. I want the pain in my chest to hurt more. To explode.

  My run ends in front of an old church that’s been turned into an antiques store. If it were still a church, could I pray? Would it help? A dozen signs are posted on the big front door: DON’T TOUCH ANYTHING! IF YOU BREAK IT, YOU BUY IT. NO CHECKS, NO CHARGE. CASH ONLY. NO RUNNING. NO EATING.