K ELLER: But things changed when you moved back and told him Jeremy was his son? He paid you money, helped with the bills… at first?
R ITA: Yeah. Then he stopped, refused to pay me a penny.
K ELLER: When did he stop giving you money?
R ITA: Last spring.
K ELLER: Why did he quit paying?
R ITA: He said he didn’t have it. He said he had hospital bills and responsibilities. What did he think we were? We were his responsibilities too.
K ELLER: Is that what Jeremy thought?
R ITA: Jeremy? He never knew about Jay Jay or the money.
K ELLER: I find that hard to believe. Didn’t Jay Jay want to tell Jeremy he was his father?
R ITA: Huh-uh. He was the one who didn’t want Jeremy to know. I didn’t care either way.
K ELLER: Why? Why would John, Jay Jay, want to keep Jeremy a secret?
R ITA: Because of his wife having the cancer and all. She couldn’t have children, he said. He didn’t want her to know that he already had one.
K ELLER: But you told Jeremy anyway, didn’t you?
R ITA: No! I didn’t tell him nothing. Jeremy didn’t know.
K ELLER: Ms. Long, when was the last time you saw John Johnson alive?
It seems like a full minute of silence passes. I think the courtroom is holding its breath.
K ELLER: Your Honor, will you please instruct the witness to answer the question?
J UDGE: Mrs. Long, please answer the question.
R ITA: I don’t remember.
K ELLER: I’ll ask you again. If you lie, you’ll be subject to a charge of perjury. Do you understand? One more time. When was the last time you saw the deceased?
R ITA: That morning. The morning of the murder. I stopped by the stable.
I cannot breathe. Rita didn’t say anything to me about seeing Coach then or any other time. “What time was this?” Keller presses.
“Just after seven,” Rita mumbles.
“Please speak up,” Keller asks, but there’s no politeness in his voice. “What time was it, and how do you remember the time?”
Rita squeezes her lips together so hard it looks like she doesn’t have teeth. “It was seven-oh-seven, and I know because they said so on the radio right before I shut off the engine, okay? Station seventy-point-seven at seven-oh-seven. AM radio in the AM.”
“Where exactly did you find Mr. Johnson that morning?” Keller asks. I get the feeling that he knows the answer to every question before Rita opens her mouth.
“I told you. In… the barn.” Rita cocks her head at him, then looks down.
“Was Jeremy with you?” Keller asks.
“No!” Rita snaps. “I was going home from Bob’s, but I decided to stop by the barn and talk to Jay Jay face to face about the money he owed me.”
“So you argued?” Keller asks.
Rita squirms in her seat. “He owed me child support. I had that coming. I just wanted what was rightly mine. He had no right to stop paying. Jeremy was his son, his flesh and blood! And we needed the money. I could have asked twice what I did. But I didn’t.”
“I understand,” Keller says, like he’s suddenly on Rita’s side. “You and Jeremy deserved that money, and he was cutting you off.”
“Exactly!” Rita sits up straighter.
“When you told Jay Jay that you and Jeremy deserved that money, were you loud?” Keller asks.
“Yeah. You ever argue without being loud?” Rita challenges.
“Precisely where did this argument take place?” Keller asks.
“Near one of the back stalls. I had heels on, and I remember that I had to watch where I was stepping and walk way to the back because Jay Jay wouldn’t come up front and talk.”
“So if someone had been in the stable, for example, they would have heard you?” Keller asks.
“They’d have heard us. But nobody was there,” Rita says.
“You’re wrong about that.” Keller turns and points at Jeremy. “Your son was there.”
Rita gasps. She shakes her head. “No. That can’t be. He never… He didn’t…”
Raymond jumps to his feet and objects all over the place. He yells phrases like “facts out of evidence” and “move for a mistrial” and other things I can’t hear because everybody is shouting. I don’t have any idea how Keller knows what he does about Jeremy finding out Coach was his dad that morning, but I recognize truth when I hear it. And that’s truth. Jeremy knew. He didn’t know before that morning, so he must have heard Rita screaming it. That’s why he doesn’t want to see me, why he won’t write to me. He couldn’t keep that secret if he did.
The judge is angrier than I’ve ever seen her. She pounds her gavel and orders the courtroom cleared.
I watch Rita staring at Jeremy. Tears stream down her face. Mascara streaks her cheeks like tribal paint. Over and over again, she mutters, “I’m sorry, Jeremy. I’m so sorry. I didn’t know. I just didn’t know.”
Chase and I are ushered out of the courtroom like everybody else. The second we’re outside, I dash around the corner and hurl. I vomit again and again until nothing else is in me.
Rita, how could you?
I don’t know what will happen in the courtroom, or what it will mean. But I do know this for sure. My mother has just given the jury the one thing they didn’t have-motive.
34
Chase drives me around and tries to talk me down, but I’m too angry. It’s all so unbelievable, even for Rita. “All that time,” I say, to myself as much as to Chase, “she knew who Jeremy’s father was, and she didn’t tell him? I don’t care if Coach wanted Jeremy to know or not. Jeremy wanted to know! Didn’t that count for anything?”
“You really didn’t have any idea, did you?” Chase says. Mostly, he’s let me rant and has just been circling Grain while I blow off steam.
I glare at him. “Are you kidding? There’s no way I would have kept it secret if I’d known.”
“Maybe your mother was trying to do what she thought was best for Jeremy.”
“Rita?” I let out a one-note laugh that has no laughter in it. “She did what she thought was best for Rita. It’s what she always does.” I think about those pictures of Jeremy in Coach’s desk, Jer’s special color wheels pinned up on the wall in his office. “They might have had a relationship, Chase. A shot at a father-and-son relationship, if Rita had told Jeremy the truth.”
Chase sighs. “I don’t know. Father-son relationships are overrated, if you ask me.”
“You don’t mean that. I’ve missed my father my whole life, and I never got to know him in the first place.”
He reaches across the seat and puts his hand on the back of my neck. “Ready to go home?”
Rita is waiting for me when I walk in. “Don’t start, Hope,” she warns the minute I close the door.
I stare at her. Her hair is a mess. She’s in that same white slip. And she’s drinking, not bothering with a glass. She tilts her head back and gulps. I watch the whiskey travel down her throat, making waves in her neck.
“How could you do that to Jeremy?” My voice is quiet, but I’m screaming inside.
She shakes her head, coughs, then chokes out her answer. “I didn’t do nothing to that boy.”
“True enough,” I admit. “You didn’t tell him he had a great father, who really cared about him.”
“Jay Jay didn’t want the kid to know!” Rita screams.
“Since when do you care what anyone else wants?” The anger is bubbling up now. “You didn’t tell Jeremy because you were afraid Coach would stop giving you money. Was he paying to keep you quiet? That’s blackmail, Rita.”
“That’s not the way it was.” She sprawls on the couch, the bottle cradled between her knees. “He didn’t want his wife to find out.”
“So you took advantage of that. You made him pay you to keep your mouth shut.” I can see on her face that I’m right.
“You don’t understand,” she moans.
“And when Jay Jay stopped paying, why didn’t you tell Jer then? He would have been so happy, Rita. Now he won’t ever have that, the feeling that he has a father who loves him. You should have told him.”
“Jeremy was all right. He was already spending lots of time with Jay Jay. I thought I could change Jay Jay’s mind. I thought I could get him to start paying up again.” She shoves her hair out of her face and takes another drink.