“Once,” I begin, “Jeremy came running into the house, dashed to his room, then darted out again. He was pacing the kitchen floor and refused to stop long enough to write me what was wrong. For whatever reason-and we never know the reason-Jeremy needed a jar. A fresh jar. Before I could stop him, he took out a giant jar of pickles and dumped the whole thing onto the floor. I just stood there, staring, while he tucked that jar into his chest like a football and ran back to his room, closing the door behind him. He didn’t come out the rest of the night.”
“What did you do?” Raymond asks.
“I cleaned up the kitchen. The next day I took a lot of flak from Rita for eating a whole jar of newly bought pickles.”
We keep talking about the jars. I tell Raymond about the elderly neighbors we had in Oklahoma who saved their empty jars for Jeremy, no questions asked. They even washed the jars out first. I bring up every jar story I can remember, including the time Jeremy went through the garbage to get a mustard jar. That jar sat in his room for weeks before I found it.
Raymond settles on the pickles, the mayo, and the mustard. He makes me tell him each story two more times, prepping me on what to cut and what to draw out. Finally, he puts down his pen and squeezes the bridge of his nose. “Hope, tomorrow the prosecution gets to cross-examine you. I’ve got to warn you that Prosecutor Keller won’t go easy on you just because you’re a young girl.”
“I didn’t expect he would.”
“You didn’t see him in action all month, Hope. He’s a pit bull at getting what he wants out of witnesses. He’s even tough on his own witnesses.”
“Well, he can’t get anything out of me. There’s nothing to get.”
“Don’t kid yourself, Hope. He’s earned his nickname, Killer Keller. Keller has been at this a long time, a lot longer than I have anyway.”
“I think you’re doing great, Raymond,” I say, although I don’t have any idea how he’s doing.
Raymond looks grateful. “So, we better start preparing you for the state’s cross-examination. Remember that Keller can only take side doors if we open them. Let’s get started.”
Footsteps patter up the hallway, and Mrs. Munroe scurries into the bathroom. She tries to shut the door, but I can hear her hurling.
“Honey?” Raymond gets up so fast his chair tips. “I’m sorry, Hope. I’ll be right back.” He joins his wife, and they close the bathroom door, but I can still hear them-her puking, him murmuring to her. If I listen to her, I’m in danger of hurling too. Whenever Jeremy has the flu, I throw up worse than him.
I turn back to the table, where Raymond has every last folder out of his briefcase. Thumbing through loose papers, I spin a couple of the folders so they face me. One is labeled “Cases-Precedents.” Another says “Crime Scene.”
I slide the crime scene folder over and open it. The top photo is of a woman in the stable. I recognize her. It’s Mrs. McCray, but it looks like a much older version of the woman who let Jeremy ride her old pinto. She kept two horses at the Johnson Stable, an expensive bay gelding for dressage and the old mare Jeremy fell in love with, Sugar. Coach taught Jer how to ride on that horse. Sometimes I’d come by the barn and see Jeremy riding that spotted horse bareback through the pasture, his backpack of jars clinking like angel chimes.
In the crime scene photo, Mrs. McCray looks like she’s seen a ghost, or worse. Her back is to the sun, which peeks through gray morning clouds and lights the barn entrance. Her arms are wrapped around her like she’s keeping herself from splitting into pieces. She’s the one who found Coach dead in front of her bay’s stall. She’s the one Jeremy bumped into.
I glance back at the hallway. The bathroom door is still shut. I hear dry-heaving.
I slide Mrs. McCray to the side to see what’s underneath… and there’s Jeremy. I guess this is what they call a mug shot-Jeremy looking forward and to both sides. In each shot, he’s smiling for the camera. The photos look like every school picture Jeremy ever posed for-that same goofy grin he’d get when the photographer told him to say “cheese.”
Shoving Jeremy’s mug shots to the side, I take a look at the next photograph. It’s Coach Johnson, lying on his side, curled up like a baby inside its mother’s womb. His hands are drawn over his ears, like he doesn’t want to hear his own cry. A circle of darkness pools beneath his head and shoulders. If I didn’t know better, I’d think it was a shadow. I know better.
How can a single blow do that?
I can almost hear the horses screaming, a rumbling thunder, life bubbling out into sticky dark pools. I can smell manure and blood mixed with sweat and flies and fear.
The person on the ground isn’t just “the victim” anymore. Tears are trickling like early rain down my cheeks, but I don’t know how they got there because I don’t cry. This is Coach Johnson, the nice man who gave Jeremy a job mucking stalls at his stable and paid him twice what he should have paid, the kind coach who made Jeremy feel part of the team, who gave Jer a Panther uniform that he would have worn every day, all day, if I’d let him.
I can’t stop staring. Coach is not so much a dead person as he is a person without life. I take in all the details of this picture-sawdust and a dark pool of blood, a hoofprint partially covered by Coach’s foot, a cell phone inches from his hip, fallen from his pocket. Coach-faceless, lifeless John Johnson.
My brother could not have done this.
The toilet flushes, and the bathroom door opens. I shove the photos back into the folder and push the file away from me.
“Sorry, Hope,” Raymond says, returning to the table.
“Is she okay?” I ask.
Raymond runs his fingers through his hair and looks about twelve years old. “The doctor says not to worry about the nausea, even though it’s late in her pregnancy. But I can’t help it.”
“You’ll make a good dad,” I tell him.
“You think so?” he asks, like it matters what I think.
“I do.”
We go at it for another thirty minutes. Raymond does his best to prepare me for cross-examination. But when it’s time to go, I’m pretty sure I’m a whole lot less prepared than your average Boy Scout.
Raymond follows me to the door, where I put on my shoes. It’s raining pretty good now. “Isn’t Rita here yet?” he asks.
“I’m meeting her.” I don’t add that I’ll be meeting her at home, though, and not out on the street.
Raymond frowns. “Are you sure you don’t need me to give you a lift?” He tosses a nervous glance down the hall. I can tell he’s worried about his wife.
“Nope. But thanks.”
“Here. Take an umbrella. That’s the least I can do.” He hands me a giant black umbrella, leaving three just like it in a tall white can by the door.
“Thanks, Raymond. I’ll see you in court.”
“You’ll do fine, Hope!” he calls after me. But I know neither of us believes him.
8
When I crawl into bed, I’m too tired to sleep. In every other apartment where we’ve lived, I slept on the couch. This is the only bedroom I’ve ever had. It’s the smallest room in the house, but I’m not complaining. I should paint the walls, but one wall has a cracked wallpaper mural of a green forest, and I love it, even though it curls at every seam. I keep the room picked up, except for books I’ve checked out of the library, books I almost never finish. I jump to the end after a few chapters and then lose interest. Near one wall, half a dozen books are spread out in tepees that mark my quitter pages. But I’m too tired to read.
I close my eyes, and my mind fills with images from the courtroom. I can see Jeremy, wearing a suit that could never fit right. And Chase, leaning forward, elbows on his knees, his green eyes staring up at me.