SPA CITY – RITES OF PASSAGE
The heavy weight of a .357 revolver rested in the right hand pocket of his trench coat.
It was too warm to wear the heavy coat, but the fat gray clouds that threatened rain would suffice if he had to make an excuse.
Brad Christian was an expert at making excuses.
Some would say the thirteen year old was even pathological he was so good at telling lies.
He would shrug and ask what pathological meant if someone mentioned it to him.
He knew he was a good liar.
It was all part of growing up.
Brad had overheard his stepfather tell his mother that one night when they thought he was asleep.
It was their fault really.
They should have known to keep their voices low in the tiny three bedroom single wide trailer the small family shared.
Even though his parents room was separated from the middle bedroom by the kitchen and living room, any sound louder than a whisper floated through the thin wood panel walls like wind through a window screen.
“I don’t care,” his mother said her voice hoarse from too many cigarettes. “He shouldn’t be telling stories. Especially not to me.”
“I know it,” Larry agreed to. “But he’s growing up. He’s gonna get older, and he’s going to think he knows it all, and if you think he’s going to tell us about it you’re dead wrong.”
Brad heard the scratch of a lighter as his mom puffed on another cigarette.
Pretty soon, the smoke would filter down the narrow hall and into his room permeating everything with its noxious stink.
He hated the way he smelled.
At school they made fun of him for it. The other kids would line up, point and laugh.
They called him names.
Stink ass.
Skunk ape.
Smokey the bear.
The teachers were worse.
They never called him names, at least not to his face.
But they would look at him, disappointment in their eyes, lumping him in with the kids who tried to sneak a smoke in the bathroom during recess or hunkered down behind the gym at lunch.
He wanted to scream at them, tell them he didn’t smoke, and that he would never do such a disgusting filthy habit.
But he knew what they would do.
Nod their heads, sniff his clothes, his hair, even his skin and say,
“Sure Bradley. Of course you don’t.”
It was like that all the time.
Just another lie to them.
That’s why he brought the gun to school.
While his parents argued he wrapped his fingers around the worn wood handle underneath his pillow and considered sticking the barrel in his mouth and pulling the trigger.
He knew about a girl that had done that during the first nine weeks of school.
She was tiny, quiet, and cute.
Bradley had wanted to ask her to go with him, but he was afraid she would wrinkle up her nose and shake her head.
Or even worse, tell him “you stink.”
It was too late now to wonder about the might have been.
During third period, just before lunch, twelve-year-old Dorothy Mitchell, new to Oak street Middle School went into the girls bathroom, put the end of her father’s .22 in her mouth and pulled the trigger as the lunch bell rang.
No one found her until fourth period.
Brad thought that was kind of weird, since the bathroom is full of girls all during lunch.
He wondered if they left her in the stall on purpose, if they were as good at telling lies as he was.
“Oh no, Mrs. Wayne,” each girl said around crocodile tears. “We thought she was using the stall.”
And the blood?
“We joked about her period. We asked if she knew what to do, but when she didn’t answer us, we thought she was just mad.”
Brad was pretty sure that’s what each girl said about the incident.
He wondered what they knew.
Because Dorothy Mitchell didn’t die from a .22 caliber bullet in her brain pan.
She died from blood loss where the bullet bounced off her top jaw and ripped through her cheek.
She lay in the stall, legs twitching, as blood leaked down her face, soaking through her pretty pink dress to drip on the floor just above the drain grate.
At least that’s what Brad heard as he eavesdropped on school gossip.
Larry put an arm around him after school and tried to talk about it, but Brad lied and said he didn’t even know about it.
He listened through his wall as Larry read the article in the morning paper to his mother over coffee.
He wondered if they would read about him if he shot himself in his bed.
And just as fast decided against it.
Shooting himself wasn’t the solution.
When you have a problem, you don’t eliminate the consequences of the problem, you eliminate the source.
Larry had told him some old proverb about sickness, don’t cure the symptoms, cure the cause.
It would work with problems too.
The source of his problems was Kirk Reid, straight “A” student, prep, star running back, world-class bully.
Kurt and Brad had gone to school together since first grade, had even been friends through fourth, back when money and location didn’t matter.
He had stayed at Kirk’s house, and Kirk at his trailer.
They had slept in the same bed, shared covers while watching Saturday morning cartoons, and in an inspired act of lunacy, sliced open each other’s palms to become blood brothers.
“We’ll be friends forever,” Brad told Kirk and the pretty blonde boy smiled back at him.
Forever lasted until the end of fifth grade.
Sometime during that year, every kid in his class became aware of social status.
A pecking order was established, with the children of rich parents somewhere at the top and Brad at the very bottom.
“It’s different in six grade,” Kirk told him one day after school. “Stuff matters there.”
“I matter too,” Brad wanted to scream
But Kurt turned his back and walked away.
When one young girl started teasing him about smoking, Kurt took up the chant.
It was Kirk who labeled him Smoky.
It was Kirk that called him stink ass.
It was Kirk driving a dagger in his heart with every guffaw, snapping a bond of friendship every day.
Brad responded the only way he knew how after the very first torture session.
He punched his best friend in the face and broke his nose.
Kirk’s two new friends, Alex and Bo jumped in and pounded Brad to the ground before a teacher made it through the crowd to stop the melee.
Brad was suspended for two days, and the other boys were put in afterschool detention.
It was the end of childhood for Brad.
He thought of them as his glory days of youth.
Because nothing was the same after that.
“Good morning Bradley,” said Mrs. Wayne.
Startling him.
He turned to her face flushed heart racing.
“Morning Mrs. Wayne.”
She passed by him, reaching out to touch the shoulder of the next student in the line of lockers. She touched everyone except him. He watched your move down the hallway, greeting a student by name and a kind word.
“Stink ass.”
Someone shoved him against his locker. Bow Alan towered over him.
“Say something,” The big young boy threatened.
Brad smiled a crooked knowing smile.
“What?” Said though.
“Nothing.”
“It better be nothing. Stink ass.”
Can’t think of anything original, Brad wanted to ask. Bow needed Kirk to come up with new names, new putdowns. Alone the oversized you could only parent his peers. Not a creative bone in his massive body.
Bow Lumbard down the hall in the same direction as Mrs. Wayne. He stopped at a group of four girls and made them giggle, peering back over his shoulder at Brad.
The class bell rang. Students began pushing their way into cramped rooms. Brad lingered at his locker for a moment. He had five minutes until the tardy bell would sound, but he did not care. One more tardy to the many he had accumulated meant little to him. They might keep him in afterschool detention, or even send him home for the day. Either way, he didn’t care.
Mr. Hall’s history class was his favorite subject. Mr. Hall was a man who lived for history. He would use examples from the schoolyard to illustrate the past to his students, bringing it alive, making it real for them. Sometimes he would divide his class into small groups, designating each is a particular nation or warring party and make them move around, showing an invasion here or ACH is there. The Roman expansion, the Moore’s expansion, The Spanish excursion, colonialism. Brad would sit in his desk in the back of the room close his eyes and let the man build entire lost world in his mind.
Mr. Hall was great. He didn’t care where Brad was from or what he smelled like or even if he was labeled a troublemaker. Brad answer questions when called upon, participated in the exercises, and scored high on all his tests.
To Mr. Hall, Brad was a model student. He didn’t pass notes or whisper during lecture or cheat. He sat in his chair and learned.
“Mr. Hall?” Brad raised his hand. “May I go to the restroom?”
“The pass is on my desk.”
Brad reached over and slip the pass in his trench coat pocket. He never asked to go to the restroom before class. He was surprised at how easy it was. Mr. Hall didn’t watch him as he left. No questions were asked. Brad just slipped out of the room quietly as the other students port over a passage in the books.
He moved past the bathroom door peeking over his shoulder to make sure no one watched him. He was alone. His lips were dry and he felt sick to her stomach but he said his shoulder straight resolved. Brad reach the hallway door that led into the courtyard. One last look down the hall. It was empty. He put his hand over the fire alarm lever took a deep breath and pulled.
The fire alarm screech through the building. Brad hit the doors and sprinted for the large oak tree that dominated the courtyard. He turned to face the doors opposite him. Students would pour into the open courtyard in a haphazard order, divided by classroom and move away from the building. He waited.
Mrs. Wayne’s art appreciation class was first.
She let her 30 kids out of the door, and marching across the courtyard pass the tree.
She was looking over her other shoulder and didn’t see Brad Lean against the oak. Kirk and Bo were right behind her, trying to shove each other into her back.
Brad pulled a 357 from his trench coat pocket, and cocked the heavy hammer. He had shot a pistol before. Larry made sure he knew about guns and gun safety.
“Never cock a gun unless you’re going to use it,” Larry warned him.
He aimed at Kirk, the small ball site bouncing as he tremble.
He took a deep breath and squeezed.
The explosion was louder than any sound he had ever heard.
During target practice, the 357 popped, the bullet singing through the air, and the paying of a tin can bouncing down a dirt hill where the only noises.
In the courtyard, the gun sounded like a cannon.
Kurt just backward into a group of girls.
They screamed.
Bow froze and stared at his fallen friend.
Brad jerked the trigger again.
The bullet tore into Bo, slammed him facedown beside Kurt.
Brad pointed at Mrs. Wayne and she fell.
The students panicked, tried to fight the outflow through the doors.
They screamed and pushed and shouted, trying to escape back into the school.
Brad and the gun at the crowd, no one person in particular.
His finger grew know, even though there were only six shots.
Clicking on an empty chamber, he dropped the gun and walked away.
Tang Wilson wore her hair pulled back behind her ears, clasped in a worn scrunchy. Every so often, she would reach up to push a stray that had escaped back to join the others. She leaned over the document on her desk, one hand massaging the bridge of her nose as she decipher the thick dark script, her other hand scribbling on a legal pad any thought, question or observation she keened from the paper. The intercom buzzer on her desk sounded making her jump.
“Ms. Wilson,” her assistant said. “He’s here.”
“Send him in, Anna.”
Tang pushed back one more strand, settled into her large overstuffed chair and watch the door. She didn’t wait long. The gleaming Oakwood slid open to show her visitor.
“Asher Duncan,” she smiled.
“Tang,” he said and slid into a slick leather chair across from her desk. As he said he scooted the right side of the chair adjusting the angle where she had carefully placed it. She smirked.
“Think you’re that cute?”
“Could be,” he shrugged. He knew she organized her office so that the large chair and subsequently she was the focal point. The guest chair was lower than her desk, so tang appeared to purchase Bob, slightly intimidating to any self-conscious individual fighting to sit upright on the smooth leather bottom.
Asher wasn’t self-conscious. He knew the chair was a carefully manipulated ingredient of an orchestration led by tang Wilson and enjoyed subverting her performance. That both of them knew he knew, and new he did it just for her made it all the more fun.
“Why am I here?” He asked.
“You look tired,” she answered not broaching the subject yet. She leaned forward, rested both hands on the doodle cover blotter, and pushed The scattered documents out of the way.
Asher was handsome and an off key plane manner. Just under 6 foot he was too thin, which made him look taller but also made his suits hang off of his frame, like a man just out of childhood playing in his father’s closet. His hair was a shock of Sandy Brown, highlights from the summer sun fading as was his dark skin. He shaved every few days, philosophy from his undergraduate days and a source of contention with more than one judge and who’s court room he presented himself.
Today was the third day send shaving, his cheeks and chin covered with brushy black stubble. His eyes were deep in his head, piercing brown with small dark circles underneath. As she watched he clinched his jaw the muscles popping out is a bit tacky Jan.
“I haven’t even started and you’re bored?”
“Sorry.”
“You read the paper?” She search the top of her desk Dragon folded in rumpled newspaper from under a log book. She tossed it at him.
“Which page?”
“Front.”
He turn the paper over and stared at the full picture on the front page under a large bold headline. School massacre kills two.
“I heard it on the radio,” he said and folded the paper carefully.he placed it on top of a precariously stack Kyla folders.
“They say who did it?”
He shook his head.
“A 13-year-old kid.”
“13?” He shook his head again, and sadness in disbelief. Shock was a pleasure he reserved for the movies.
After two sets killings in other states, it wasn’t so much a surprise that it happened just that it happened near him. He couldn’t remember middle School being that bad, so horrible that it put a desire to kill in the brain, but it had been 15 years. Humans have a capacity to blunt the rough edges of history and make it easier to live with. Repressed memory surfaced in middle adulthood, tragedies and family secrets hidden away in the dark recesses of the mind, made it all too clear that a person could know something, hide it until it almost one away. Most humans could deal with the torture. They could suffer through their own self Immolation. Apparently not this kid.
“Who’s talking to him?”
“He’s in Bell County,” she said referring to the detention center. New “I talk to a detective about questioning him but they’re staying away until he has a lawyer.”
“Score one for civil rights.”
“Wouldn’t be the case if they hadn’t been burned on it before,” she shrugged. Want to talk to him?”
“Me?”
He forgot to fight the slick leather bottom and slid out of the chair. He landed on the thickly carpeted floor with the solid dump.
Tang set up in her chair and peered down at him over the edge of her desk.
“Yes you.”
At thousand arguments race through his mind as he drew in a breath to tell her no. The catalog his inadequacies in adequacy’s for arguing a homicide case, especially for minor. He was too young, too inexperienced, too stupid, unversed, on the light, and 100 other un reasons for him not to try.
“Just talk to him?”
She rested her Chan and both hands.
“You’re the youngest person we have in the office. You’re the closest to his age. To a 13-year-old, 28 is way younger than 36.”
“Is that the only reason? I mean, Anderson is 31, he looks as young as I do and he’s got way more experience. “
“He’s confident, yes,” she said and sent back in her chair. She watches Asher pulled himself back into his seat.
“But he doesn’t have the right mindset for a case like this. Anderson has an 11-year-old son. He’s going to be thinking about his kid pulling the trigger, or even worse, being on the other end of the bullet. Tries he might to be objective, he won’t. And this kid needs objectivity. The media is running wild with this case. Watch and see. Gun control issues. Children’s rights. School safety. Victims rights. This case is going to be a battle, and that kid needs an objective voice on his side.”
“A battle?”
She nodded and waited for him to piece it together. Why would a mildly prestigious law firm send the greenest associate to talk to a kid accused of a heinous crime, and claim it was for objectivity.
And then he knew.
“If I lose, you can cut me loose.”
She didn’t nod or say anything. Just stared at him. She held the eye contact, telling him that yes he would be cut loose, blamed for the loss, and cast out. Not just for failure to win but for trying the case wrong or making a full of himself in front of the media or any misstep they could be blamed on his inexperience.
“Will you talk with him?”
She wouldn’t ask him if he thought her. Choice was fair. It wasn’t as if she didn’t care. She love this young man Innoway do you people would understand.
Six years ago fresh from an undergraduate degree in political science from the University of Central Arkansas and new to the UAL our school of Law and an internship with Wilson, Berg and went worth, tang had taken a very young ass or Dunkin and mentor him.
It was coupled with a wildly passionate love affair that some might label unethical if it were common knowledge. But both were very discreet with the past. It lasted for three years and ended ended better than any relationship she had indoor before or cents.
They became just friends based on respect admiration and love. After his graduation with the blessings of her partners she extended an invitation to join the firm.
He gladly excepted. She had faith in his abilities, faith in his performance. She knew what he was capable of probably more so than he. And he knew what she expected of him and work to surpass those high standards. He quickly established a reputation is hard fair and competent. She wouldn’t put the burden of this case on him knowing how high the personal steaks were without thinking he could do it.
“Sure, I’ll talk to him, “he said. After all it was only a conversation.
Knotty Pine Arkansas stood at the end of a four-lane highway built specifically because the state senator didn’t like passing on the old two Lane blacktop. He blackmailed, could you hold and otherwise condensed a cash strapped Transportation Department to build the highway from nowhere leading nowhere. Knotty pine was not the cultural epicenter of its region, nor did it enjoy any particular draw. It was a small town that rolled down the shutters at 6 o’clock and since the advent of air-conditioning and television, little moved in the town until 6 AM the next morning. Teenagers left as soon as high school was over, big dreams highlighting their eyes, feeling the call of Little Rock, Memphis and all points beyond. More than a few were inexplicably drawn back, some unseen force at work, a law of physics unstated, saying that while some could escape, it was only at the expense of others. A sacrifice of some for the common good.
Knotty pine had to chief industries, a papermill that spewed noxious fumes into the air, tainting the town with an impure stench, and a pipe factory plant, owned by a Japanese conglomerate. The infrastructure of the city was built between these two jobsites, the courthouse being an equal distance from either. The main street extended from the courthouse South bordered by dilapidated and forgotten old buildings from a boom in the late 50s, reclaimed in the 80s and just is forgotten now. The main street ended at an infamous bread billboard, a structure so ingrained in the local lore and psyche some swore it had been there forever. A cherry cheek blonde young girl kicked her legs in a swing, our after hour, day after day for over 40 years. She was every young boys first crush, every young girl secret best friend. Sometime in the past, it was rumored in the 70s, a few rebellious teens climb the structure to vandalize it. I youthful sheriff caught them and filed three runaway reports falling a trip to the lock and dam. No one could confirm the story, and if anyone brought it up to the salt and pepper haired Dub Kentworth now, he laughed it off to idle gossip. His wink told you it might be true, so watch your peas and cues.
Dub Kentworth had been reelected sheriff every four years since 1974. He had grown with the office, overseeing for deputies in that youthful age of innocence and even though the population of Knottypine had endured a steady decline sense, he had 12 deputies now.
“Crimes increased it,” he would say in a thick drawl, like speaking through a mouthful of molasses. “Ain’t my fault I need more folks to keep up with it.”
The voters agreed with him. Dub made them feel safe, even if crime was up. He was a large man, a man who look like he enjoyed his huge appetite for food, women and your drink. He had been a linebacker at the University of Arkansas Fayetteville, playing for his beloved hogs until his knee bent backwards in a homecoming game. He kept the muscle, packing girth around it every year to the tune of one waist size. His laugh was as big as he was, and he was quick to use it. So people like him, liked his friendly easy manner, like that he would remember everyone by name and new their kids and would bring them home instead of taking them to jail. They liked that dub didn’t get mad much, but when he did, even the devil it his face, and that made them feel safe.
When Bradley Christian shot two boys at the middle school, Dub Kentworth got mad.
He sat at his metal desk in a glass wall the office in the courthouse, listening to the noise of the cars passing outside on the expressway, the chatter of two of his deputies in the office and fought back tears.
Dub loved kids. He had four though they couldn’t call him daddy. Since their mothers were married to other men. He was more like a favorite uncle who showed up on Christmas and birthdays with presents and toys.
He felt a special kinship with the loan boy among the children. He had his mothers delicate features, but dubs huge love of life. The boy, Darrell, was a hunter, at 15, one of the best shots dub had ever seen. He got his first gun when he was 10, three years younger than Brad Christian. Dub taught him gun safety, taught him how to shoot, and took him in the Deer woods every fall with his father’s permission.
The sheriff said at his desk and thought about what the what what he would do if his secret son turn that rifle on a few of his classmates.
“Sheriff?” Sherry one of the deputies, stuck her head through his door.
Dub wipe his eyes with the back of his hand.
“Yeah honey?”
“That lawyers here.”
“Give me a minute, sugar.” Dub worked to compose himself.
Sherry nodded, block the door with her body. She was the first female deputy on the force, one of two now and dub had fought hard to get her on. When she scored low on the pistol exam, he tutored her. When she couldn’t pay her utility bills while she was in training, he slipped turn envelope full of cash loan. She paid him back every penny, just as he knew she would. And he never asked her for sex, or dinner or any other inappropriate or on ask for advance of any kind. She looked at him like a father, like most of the other deputies, intensely loyal to the man who treated them better than family.
“Send him on in,” he said. She waited a moment longer just to be sure he was ready.
“Holler if you want me,” she told him and turned back to the office. “He’ll see you now.”
Asher stepped into the office, his face clean-shaven, his suit rumpled from the long drive from Little Rock.
“Sheriff, I’m Asher Duncan.”
Dub stuck out his meaty hand, grasped Asher and pumped it up and down vigorously.
“Tang called me about you coming on down here. We are glad to have you.”
Asher sat in the paddock metal chair in the corner.
“How is he?”
Dub setback in his chair, the wood creaking under the strain.
“He ain’t crying yet. His mama and daddy been into see him for a little while yesterday and today. They both real good folks. Don’t seem like this boy at all.”
Asher pulled a small notebook out of his breast pocket and put it on his knee pin poised over the paper to jot down notes. Dub smiled and held up one off of his desk. It was the same kind of moleskin notebook Asher had.
“Score one for your camp,” dub smiled and Asher couldn’t help but smile back.
“I’m really nervous, sheriff.”
“Should be,” answer this year. “Things like this is so far out of the norm that they should make us nervous. I’ve been here going on forever, and this is what they call one of them freak accidents.”
Asher wrote that down.
“Does he say it’s an accident?”
“I’ll let you ask him.”
The sheriff called himself out of his chair.
“We talk to him about it none. Don’t want to, because the police department got into so much trouble on account of that last fella in there. You know about that?”
Asher nodded.
“Yeah, that was a big old mess. Things like that is what make us cops hate lawyer so much, no offense.”
“I understand,” said Asher.
“Still, give me a good old country lawyer any day over them reporters.”
He peaked out of the wooden blinds covering his office window.
“Such a site,” he side.
The lawn and first block of Main Street was covered in make media vans, trucks and reporters. They mailed about waiting, talking to any passerby to get a reaction, and attempt at an answer.
“I hate reporters,” said dub.
He turned to Asher.
“Ready?”
“She never met a mirror she didn’t like,” Shawn Ray screamed into the radio connecting him to the news desk. He glanced out of the corner of his eye at the striking young reporter that stared at a mirror clip to a visor. He was half serious, half kidding.
“We should be there in 10 minutes. What are we looking for?”
Static answered him on the radio speaker. He turned it down. Knotty pine was only an hour south of the capital of Arkansas, but 10 years behind in technology. A cell phone didn’t work and even the radio wouldn’t make it over the tiny Hills that’s around the city. You have to wait until they stop to get a satellite feed.
“How are you going to come at this? He asked Jan makepeace. She pulled a strand of white blond hair out of her eyes and glared at him.
“Just worry about your shot,” she said and return to her make up in the mirror.
“OK,” he sighed and concentrated on the road.
As pretty as she was, he hated working with her. Like most reporters in their market, Jan wanted a good piece for her resume tape so she could move onward and upward. Little Rock was a major steppingstone to network reporting, and a gig in the capital city was gold to most ambitious journalist. She works for the number one affiliate in the market, which made her even more valuable, and she was one of the most popular field reporters.
Why she hadn’t gone yet was a question only she could answer, if she wanted. Which she didn’t. She set her sights on giving the best job she could, and if she was occasionally saddled with an incompetent photographer, it wasn’t too much she could do about it besides complain. She couldn’t run the camera herself.
Sean Ray had. Been a photographer with the station for over three years. After a rocky start, he slowly improved. He couldn’t help it if you got so excited about a story, or making a cool move to draw attention to his camera work that he forgot the most basic elements of photography. Like everyone else in this business he was working on a resume tape that would take him out of here. If his zealousness to make an impression through photos lead to some questionable work, it was a price he was willing to make even at the expense of the reporter.
He would never voiced his opinion to her or the assignment editor. They would laugh in his face but I’m on nightside and send them out to cover fender bender’s. As far as the news desk was concerned the reporters were what made people watch, not the camerawork. So any attempt to be innovative got him reamed by the assignment editor, with a follow-up tongue lashing from the news director. It was not as sexy as it sounded. Competent photography wasn’t what the network wanted, he would tell himself. They wanted pizzazz.
When Jan heard her photographer assignment, she literally screamed in the newsroom. The biggest story to come out of Arkansas since the president was elected and she was saddled with the glory hound shutterbug. She went up the chain of command, bag, bargained to get a new person to go with her. But all the others were assigned else for you. She was stuck by virtue of no one else being available.
She gathered her make up kit and satchel and resigned herself and move to the truck. The ride down she sought by the door and waged in interwar on whether or not she should say something. She did.
“When we get there, I don’t want any zooms or pans or cool tilts. Set up the shot, light me, and leave it alone.”
Sean had been waiting for the outburst. “Do I tell you how to tell a story? No. Then you don’t tell me how to shoot it.”
“You’re shooting is for crap,” she screamed her voice cracking. “This is my chance to make an impression on the majors. I don’t want your shitty camera work to Laos it up.”
“My shots are not shitty.”
“Last time I was with you you put the sun behind my head and didn’t light my face. I watched the tape. I had a halo and no eyes.”
“That wasn’t my fault. The sun moved.”
“The sun moves every day. Sunrise. Sunset. Where have you been for the last 10,000 years?”
“I had it set up right. It wasn’t my fault. I got crappy equipment.”
“That’s always your excuse,” she made herself speak slowly. Screaming would ruin her voice, sabotaging her work herself.
“Hey, I told Bill that I needed new stuff. My cameras not even SP for gods sake.”
“If you didn’t screw up so many shots, maybe they’d issue you the new equipment. They probably think it’s not worth it.”
He bit back a retort. It was going to be a long day, and an even longer drive back.
“Stop at a store so I can buy some water,” she ordered.
“Yes sir, Ms. Daisy,” he smarted off but she ignored him.
Bradley was locked in a single large sell away from the hands of the general population, but in their site and therefore not immune to their Tontz. School was nothing compared to these men. He covered his ears with both hands touched his head under the neck of his oversized orange jumpsuit and still the words wrecked into him like waves breaking on a rock. He tried to be strong, tried to ignore them, But the words were true.
“Killer, hey little boy,”
“Sweet meat, you look so fine, maybe they will let me in there to visit with you.”
He hid the tears because they drew the worst years.
“How do you think them boys folks feel?”
“Pretty, pretty, skin so smooth like a little girls,”
If he covered his years and tried to think about different places different world here read about the words didn’t hurt as much as they could. He sat in the cell, legs propped up on the cot, a small ball of a little boy and waited. Truth be known, he expected no less.
Asher done walked through the small cell block like he owned the place, followed in the large wake up the sheriff. The hoots and catcalls died down as the large man made his way further down the row of bard cages, – removed with the confidence he didn’t feel. These men were not a part of his world. He saw them in court, visited with them singly in tiny concrete rooms under the eyes of a watchful peace officer. Alone, the criminals were human, a warped version of what man was supposed to be, Led down a path by economic circumstance, peer pressure or sheer stupidity.
Together, emasculated, D individualized and locked away the individual had a perverse code to live by, a part of a larger living organism known to the outside world as the populace. Men who had been in the Armed Forces talked about the function of the unit, the army being a collection of we’s with no I’s, except for heroes.
In jail, it was the same. The I was left at the door. Inside, I had no place. Asher looked at the men that stared back at him through the thick bars, they are dead eyes cold and unfeeling, ice that could kill without flinching, take without remorse and he felt his soul shiver.
Outwardly he projected nonchalance, and air he had affected in law school when the professors rode him the hardest in the lecture. They knew his mentor ship and internship gave him an advantage over some of the others. He kept his cool under their barrage then, and now it’s serve him well in jail.
Still he was thankful to be on the outside, with the bars between him and these men, and chastised himself for thinking it in the next thought. He might defend one of them someday. He would defend one at least in the very near future.
Bradley Christiañ was in possibly young, smaller than Asher had anticipated. That through him offguard more so than the intense bides given off by the populace. He was sitting on his cod, legs talk to his chin, the uniform too big, made for men instead of boys. Bradley had his head buried under his arms and in his shirt. Asher felt a tug at his heart, And swallowed a lump in his throat. This baby he felt sympathy for, he reminded himself, had killed two young boys, wounded three others.
A cold-blooded killer? Probably.
Desensitized, scared and unsure?
Most definitely.
Asher shifted his briefcase to his left hand and held out his right.
“Bradley? I’m Asher done. I’m here to help you.”
Bradley looked up his eyes swollen from tears his cheeks rosy and puffy.
“Go away,” he said.
Asher looked at the Sheriff and dub shrugged.
“He ain’t ate today,” he drawled. “Maybe he’s a little hungry.”
Are you hungry Brad?” Asher asked.
“No sir, I’m not hungry. I just want to go home.”
Asher nodded move to the back wall and leaned against it. He held his briefcase in front of him, rested both hands on the handle.
“That’s what we here to talk about.”
Bradley looked at him with renewed interest.
“You’re going to take me home?”
Asher shook his head.
“I can’t promise anything. But we will see what we can do.”
Brad nodded as if this was expected. He looked at dub and smiled, a young boy smile.
“Sir? Can I have some breakfast now?”
Dub raised his eyebrows, looks from Brad to Asher and back again.
“I’ll see what I can do.”
He locked the cell door behind him and shuffled up the hall. The murmurs in the populist grew louder as he passed.
“Are you my attorney?” Bradley ass quietly.
“I might be,” said Asher. He leaned in closer to hear better.
“When are we going to get that thing where up if I tell you something, you can’t tell no one else?”
Asher smiled.
“Attorney-client privilege? Will get there soon. How did you know about that?”
Brad smiled a tiny confident smile that contrasted his dear swollen face.
“I watch a lot of TV. Law shows and cop shows are my favorites. They tell you a lot of stuff, but I never know what’s real and what’s just TV”
“Well, if you have any questions, you can just ask me.”
“Yes sir,” Brad sent back on his cot. Legs crossed in front of him and picked up the him of his orange pants.
Asher marveled at him all the while reminding myself that this pole light smart young man was a killer. He just had to find out why.
From the corner of second Street looking up at the gold domed courthouse roof the roar of cars on the expressway is muted by the large stone building. Second Street was once home to a row of two-story businesses, the largest department store downtown, drugstore, and several offices. When the mall was built in the 80s, people quit coming downtown to shop so the drugstore and department store slowly died.
With The exodus of retail businesses, The officeholders watched is there traffic slowly bled off too. Newer buildings were constructed, with unimaginable amenities, like central heat and air instead of moody window units. The office is emptied one by one couple, until nothing was left but two blocks of vacant buildings on either side of the street, yellow peeling for sale or lease signs taped inside the windows.
Craig long was perhaps the best thing to ever come from knotty pine. An actor, writer and film director he left the city when he was 18 and only came back to visit his grandparents twice a year. He still playing the small town is home, and showed up for a dedication ceremony when the city Council erected a sign saying as much. He smashed the champagne bottle over the sign post, disappeared into a shadow we Tabron off of Main Street and drink himself through three local girls with promises of being the next Mrs. Long.
Despite his reputation, or even in spite of it, he was a philanthropist at heart. He donated money for several community recreation center scattered around town and he bought seven entire city blocks. Also it’s a rumor circulating through town, he was going to build a new mall, he was going to put in a promenade with specially shops, he was going to tear it all down and put in an amusement park, he was going to put in a warehouse district district to revitalize the community. Anyone in town had heard a new rumor to share almost on a weekly basis.
Mr. Long did tear down three city blocks. And while the towns folks waited for the new projects, he tore up the asphalt and concrete, planted trees and flowers and created a park. He was halfway through the fourth when the city Council sought an injunction to stop him from destroying downtown history. Craig long shrugged it off, and paid for the maintenance of three Memorial Park between downtown buildings out of an established fund.
The Janice Smith Memorial Park at second and Maine had a small set of swings, a tiny fountain in the middle of the fishPond, and pads that wound around and in unending circles, park benches sat across from each other at every intersection. It wasn’t a large park but it was quaint.
Asher discovered it on his second trip to town.
He sat on a park bench just outside the reaches of the tree limbs above, the shade a haphazard dotted circle just beyond the tips of his shiny shoes. He opened a white paper bag with an old hand mashed hamburger and greasy fries leaking through the bottom. He tried to manage holding the monster creation in one hand and balance a legal pad on his leg to write with the other. It wasn’t his most graceful moment. Shredded lettuce smashed out of the side of his mouth mouth and scattered down his tie. He brushed it away with the tip of his pen, careful not to write his pinpoint on to the oxford shirt with think. Someone laughed.
“You need any help?”
“” Asher tried to swallow the lump of food in his mouth without chewing, choked and thought not to spew it out. Notorious for faux pas’s, the master of making a fool of himself, Asher struggled with every fiber of his being not to.
The voice belong to one of the most striking women he had ever seen.
She was tall, model lean, just turn the pages of Cosmopolitan magazine and beautiful. He recognized her immediately, though he couldn’t remember her name.
He had to breathe.
He turned to one side, hid behind the legal pad and coughed. She reached out and patted him on the back to help.
“Are you all right?”
“Fine,” he choked out turning to cough again.
She held his cup to out to him. He dragged the cold liquid through the straw and not it.
“Thanks,” he said.
“Did I startle you?”
He started to tonight, and tried to play it cool.
“Yes, you did.”
“Sorry,” she said, moving his brief Klate case closer to him to clear a space on the bench to sit.
“Mind if I join you?”
He put his briefcase on the ground by his leg.
“Please.”
“It’s such a pretty day,” she looked around the park, and swung her long blonde hair behind her shoulder and some secret manner known only to women, a look practice to look natural.
“Are you here for the hearing?”
“You’re a reporter right?”
She held out her hand.
“Jan make peace.”
Her grip was strong and confident.
“Asher Duncan. I’ve seen your work.”
“Thank you.”
She leaned back, her eyes watch the activity in the park and glanced at him out of the corner of her eyes.
“Are you here for the trial?”
This was a tricky part, he thought. Tang had warned him about the media, and he knew that this attractive ambitious reporter was notorious for using her beauty to get the interview that no one else could.
He also knew she would skew were him in a second if she could, trap him in some unimaginable quagmire of words, twist his thoughts with her intoxicating perfume, the curve of her muscular tan thigh.
“I am.” “Me too,” she said. “It’s huge news. You can’t find a hotel room anywhere.”
“Why don’t you drive down?”
“And miss a scoop? Not on your life. What if they made an announcement at 10 at night? I have to be here. Just in case.”
She stared at him and studied his face.
“Are you an attorney?”
“How did you guess?” He continued eating his fries. The burger forgotten in its wrapper.
His ability to embarrass himself wouldn’t allow him to eat it in front of her. The fries were safe.
She pointed at his suit.
“The suits too nice to be a field reporter. And you don’t look like any network people I’ve seen.”
“I’m not pretty enough?” He smiled.
“I didn’t say that.”
“Don’t worry. My feelings are intact. I have those rugged good looks that someone and find attractive.”
“Rugged? You look like a half hour in the sun would send you to the hospital for third-degree burns.”
“Ouch. Be kind,” he said.
“Do you know who they assign the case to?” She changed the subject.
That’s why she sat down, he told himself, coaching the fleeting thought that it may have been for him. She was pumping him for information.
News of him hadn’t gotten out yet, which was good he thought. People were very curious about his client and in the absence of any real information, rumors an opinion were substituted as news.
So far Brad was being defended by the NRA, the ACLU, two prominent attorneys from New York, and the team who got the football player off. All untrue, all reported by credible inside sources, according to the reporters, just to show who knew more. Nature and the media for a vacuum and rushed to fill it.
“As a matter of fact,” he said holding out his bag of fries. “I do.”
She shook her head declining the offer.
“Want to share?” She asked.
“I hear there’s going to be a press conference at 4 o’clock on the courtHouse steps. You could spread that around.”
“Think the guy would give an exclusive?”
He shrugged.
“You’re pretty good at getting those. People like to talk to you.”
She beamed at him with a perfect, shining light smile.
“Thank you. I try,” she jumped up and brushed off her skirt. “4 o’clock. Are you sure?”
He nodded and sit from his Styrofoam cup.
“Are you going to be there?” She glanced at the courthouse up the street.
“You can count on it.”
She held her hand out.
“Asher right? It was nice to meet you and thanks again.”
“No problem,” he said and watched her walk away. He admired the curve in the movement she made with long stride. It was like watching a supermodel on the catwalk. He picked up his burger and finished it all.
Children are the miracle of creation. There are times in life when they are newborn at six again at 13 and finally around 18 or 19 when children are tiny perfect human beings. Every little lamp is fully grown for the time, every hair in place, every tiny finger and kris a minute reflection of what the maker truly intended when he made man.
Brad was at that stage.
His stature was that of maturity, his four head Kristen concentration when he looked at you, studying every word that reached his ears.
His hair was fresh washed from a solo trip to the common shower, still damp and curly against his neck. Is orange prison suit was new, and it look like dub had made some alterations to accommodate the size of the small young man. There was him just above the ankle, in the short sleeves of the top rested just above the elbow, exactly like that of the normal size prisoners and lock up across the hall.
“What did you find out?” He asked Asher.
“I found out that you’re not my client yet.”
Brad Nottage.
“Why not?”
“Apparently the state has reservations about my abilities to defend you properly.”
“Didn’t my mom pick you?”
Asher shook his head.
“I don’t know who came to our firm. I’m doing this because my boss told me to.”
Brad winced.
“You don’t want to help me?”
Asher leaned forward in the wooden chair set up across from the cot in the cell.
“Help you what?”
“Get off.”
“Did you do it?”
Yes.”
“Why?”
Brad stared at the bars on the window near the ceiling.
“I ain’t telling you nothing until you’re my lawyer.”
“Attorney.”
Whatever.”
Asher leaned back and crossed his hands behind his head.
Are you trying to be tough?” He asked.
“I am tough.”
“I bet you are.”
“You know those two boys beat me up every day?”
“Did they?”
“Yeah. Every day.”
“And you didn’t tell anyone?”
“No one would believe me.”
“What about your mom? She would believe you.”
Brad lay down on his cot and stared across the space at Asher. Both look relaxed despite their surroundings and the low whispers across the hall.
“She had other things to worry about.”
“You don’t think she worried about you.”
“No.”
“You don’t?”
“I said no.”
After dinner on a Thursday, before the ritual of television watching began, Brad help clean the table. He cleared away the dirty dishes and carried them to the sink where his mother wash them.
“Mom?”
“What is it honey?” She spoke around a cigarette clinched between her lips.
“Can I talk to you?”
“Sure you can.”
She blew smoke out of the corner of her mouth. It hung in a thick cloud around the counter. Brad held his breath walking through it. He could feel the stench sinking into his skin.
“Will you stop smoking?”
She stop washing dishes, both hands still in the water and stared at him.
“Honey, it doesn’t hurt me.”
“You say that.”
“I’ve talked to the doctor. He said with my bronchitis it doesn’t matter if I smoke or not”
“But it stinks.”
“It’s not that bad.”
Brad put the last casserole dish on the counter and backed away.
“When I go to school, I stink like smoke. When I go to my room, I stink. The smell is driving me crazy. It stinks.”
“You get used to it,” she shrugged and went back to washing.
“That’s just it, I don’t want to get used to it. You’ve smoked forever. I’m tired of it. I’m tired of smelling like I do it.”
“When you get a place of your own, you can make the rules. Until then, don’t worry about what I do.”
“But it bothers me.”
“And you bother me.”
He turned away, March for his room.
“I thought you wanted to talk to me.”
“You won’t listen to me,” he shouted.
“Don’t raise your voice to me.”
“Then listen. You stink.”
He ran for his room and shut the thin wood door behind him. He lay on the floor and put the covers on top of him and tried to cry. It didn’t happen.
Children are the miracle of creation. There are times in life when they are newborn at six again at 13 and finally around 18 or 19 when children are tiny perfect human beings. Every little lamp is fully grown for the time, every hair in place, every tiny finger and kris a minute reflection of what the maker truly intended when he made man.
Brad was at that stage.
His stature was that of maturity, his four head Kristen concentration when he looked at you, studying every word that reached his ears.
His hair was fresh washed from a solo trip to the common shower, still damp and curly against his neck. Is orange prison suit was new, and it look like dub had made some alterations to accommodate the size of the small young man. There was him just above the ankle, in the short sleeves of the top rested just above the elbow, exactly like that of the normal size prisoners and lock up across the hall.
“What did you find out?” He asked Asher.
“I found out that you’re not my client yet.”
Brad Nottage.
“Why not?”
“Apparently the state has reservations about my abilities to defend you properly.”
“Didn’t my mom pick you?”
Asher shook his head.
“I don’t know who came to our firm. I’m doing this because my boss told me to.”
Brad winced.
“You don’t want to help me?”
Asher leaned forward in the wooden chair set up across from the cot in the cell.
“Help you what?”
“Get off.”
“Did you do it?”
Yes.”
“Why?”
Brad stared at the bars on the window near the ceiling.
“I ain’t telling you nothing until you’re my lawyer.”
“Attorney.”
Whatever.”
Asher leaned back and crossed his hands behind his head.
Are you trying to be tough?” He asked.
“I am tough.”
“I bet you are.”
“You know those two boys beat me up every day?”
“Did they?”
“Yeah. Every day.”
“And you didn’t tell anyone?”
“No one would believe me.”
“What about your mom? She would believe you.”
Brad lay down on his cot and stared across the space at Asher. Both look relaxed despite their surroundings and the low whispers across the hall.
“She had other things to worry about.”
“You don’t think she worried about you.”
“No.”
“You don’t?”
“I said no.”
“The media is not in the business to present an objective point of view,” she said she a strand of hair behind her ear.
“Hell, they’re not even in the business to be fair. The media is entertainment pure and simple, driven by ratings and to the victor go the spoils. You remember that when you talk to them.”
“I will,” he said feigning a confidence he didn’t feel.
“They will eat you alive,” tang said through a tight grin.
He nodded.
She was right. As much as a dub hated the media, Asher feared them. The media was a living breathing organism, feeding on soundbites and misinformation, spewing skewed fax back on an unsuspecting public, filtered through biased news directors, producers and reporters. He had seen the same fact given six different slants, and viewers come away with 12 different versions of the story.
In a case like this one, one where a young child commits an atrocious crime, misinformation was The grease that kept the wheels turning. The media interviewed everybody, each separate outlet vying for a fresh voice and a claim for an exclusive. Asher had seen news packages from Brad’s neighbors, X scout leader, three day girlfriend, and the boy who sat behind him in homeroom. They all had different impressions of the boy, but in light of his actions, they all “suspected” he had a mean streak and evil in hand.
Asher didn’t agree. He spent 45 minutes in the tiny cell with Brad, and he suspected nothing of the sort. There was no doubt that The Boy committed the crime.
He would have to find a way to approach that. But why he did it was still unanswered. Asher wasn’t sure if he was the man to find the answer.
“Are you all right?” She asked and leaned across her desk.
He wiped his face with both hands hiding for a moment behind them.
“I will be.”
She studied him.
“Do you want to do this?”
“I’m not sure tang,” he said jumping up and pacing back-and-forth in front of her desk.
“This is biggest case of my career.”
She snorted and he ignored it.
“This case could make or break me and I have to decide if I want that.”
“You’re right,” she nodded.
“But you’re still young. If you lose it won’t matter for long. You’ll move onto a different firm, practice other cases. Somewhere down the line another man will murder his wife a kid will shoot another kid for a pair shoes and you’ll get it all back.”
“Do you think that’s fair? I mean look at the Burton the firm is putting on me. They pick me because I’m young and expendable. Is that the way I want to work this case? With that knowledge, that if I lose, I’m out of a job?”
“I know it’s not fair Asher. But those are the breaks. Pretty or not, we decided you should take this. If it’s any consolation, I have faith in you. If you win, you’ve made your career. Work will come to you for 10 years. You’ll be wealthy. This firm will be wealthy.”
It’s not the winning I’m worried about.”
He sat back down in the chair.
“His parents don’t want me because I’m young.”
“They have expressed concern about your experience,” she said diplomatically. “We’ve reassure them that you are a capable attorney.”
“Capable.”
“Asher,” she moved in front of him and perched in her familiar position on the edge of her desk. She took his hand and held them and hers.
“You’re brilliant. Green, fresh, wet behind the years, untestedly brilliant.”
“Is untestedly a word?” He leaned forward and rested his four head on her knees.
“That boy is going to need you committed to him. Despite his mother, despite the media, despite the outcome. The firm wants this case. We want the publicity. And if we want don’t want the responsibility by shoving it onto your shoulders, that’s our problem and your opportunity. Personally, I think you can handle it. Professionally, I think you are ready. Physically, I’ve seen your shoulders and I know how much you can hold.”
She reach forward and massage his neck with both hands. He looked up at her.
“Why don’t you take the case?” He smiled.
“You could talk a jury into anything.”
She brushed a lock of hair back from his four head.
“Because when you look at them like that, they’ll do whatever you ask them to,” she said.
They stared at each other for a few minutes each wondering if the spark could still be there wondering if the moment was lost or just beyond the French.
“Which of us tells the parents?” He asked.
“Will tell them together,” she answered.
She leaned backwards across the desk and press the intercom button to her assistant.
“Anna, get me the Kellers on the phone.”
“I want you to stand right here.”
“I’m not going to stand there,” Jan screamed at the photographer.
“The sons at the back of my head and you don’t have a reflector.”
Sean shook his head, and rested against his flimsy tripod.
“You don’t understand,” he argued. “I’m going to frame you with the Dohman the background and do this slow pan zoom out.”
“Can you see my face?”
“Hell yeah, I can see your face,” he shot back.
“You won’t if the sun is behind my head. My God, didn’t you take basic photography?”
Sean turned away, counted to 10 as he walked to the truck. Every reporter attacked his vision, starting with the most mundane skills. True he had never taken photography or study composition, but newsgathering wasn’t about that. Cameras today were so sophisticated that it was a basic point and shoot operation. He could point and push the record button, and keep up with the best of them. It wasn’t his fault that the reporters didn’t want to do anything new or interesting.
He called the audio into the station, got a mike check. The technical director commented on his shot and he ignored it. The guy had been with the station for 20 years, He was a dinosaur. Only happy when the reporters were talking heads. He fiddled around the truck, making excuses not to go back to his camera until the last possible moment. Then he did.
“Did you white balance? She shouted at him.
“Of course,” he yelled back.
Other newshounds watch their back-and-forth, smiling, whispering.
He gave her the finger countdown from five on one hand, The other ready to start his room. They want on air, he slowly panda down and out. The chatter in his headset was boorish, loud. All he could hear was the director screaming.
“Where’s her face?”
Mrs. Keller and her husband Larry set uncomfortably in the small leather chairs in the conference room. They both wore their Sunday best, but were ill at ease among the expensive tailored suits of the attorneys around them. Some of the men wore double-breasted jacket that cost more then Larry made in a year, and by the look in his eye, he knew it. It made him mad. He thought it was a form of elitist intimidation, A method of putting him and his wife offguard, a manner of controlling their decision. And Larry was a man who did not like to think he was controlled in any manner.
He paid for the trailer they lived in with cash money, scrape together over 12 months so no one would have any say over him. He paid for his used pick up truck from a friend with cash. His taxes were paid in greenbacks, his utilities his grocery bills his phone money. They didn’t have a checking account, A savings account, a credit card for emergencies. Those were always the government or some fat cat in the bank could control you. They get your name in the computer database and exploit the workingman.
He had a favorite rant about the workingman that he shared with his wife and friends, and stepson on many occasions. The workingman really only needed two things in life. Cigarettes and beer. Vegetables he could grow in his backyard, meat he could kill during season or cats down at the river and store in the freezer. He could build a fire in the woodstove if he got cold, or open the windows when it was hot. He could even sleep outside under the stars. But the workingman allowed himself to luxuries. Beer and cigarettes. The government tax those two items more than anything else, just like he tax the workingman sour you more than anyone else. The workingman supported the government.
He looked around the conference room at the soft, pale man and Beth they had never worked a hard day in their life. They spent their time inside, reading, which wasn’t working at all. He supported these men with his taxes.
He bet he paid more percentage wise than they did, and that made him all the more angrier that they herded them into the conference room. It felt like intimidation.
Brad had told him once that beer and cigarettes actually made more money for the companies that put the mouth and anything he paid in taxes, but Brad was just a boy, not wise to the ways of the world yet.
Brad said that he read about tobacco companies making cigarettes more addictive, just so many men and women would have to buy them. The governments taxation was a byproduct, and incidental expenses. If Larry hated the moneyman so much, why did they give almost $2000 a year to the moneyman? The moneyman was a fat cat to be sure, but he was passing all his tax burden down the pipe, Larry patiently explained. No business pays taxes, he told the boy. Only the consumer anytime the government raise the tax, the price of the item one up. That’s just the way of business.
Larry was as proud of Brad has he would have been his own son. He was smart, I had of his class, and if he thought about it and would admit it, Brad was smarter than Larry and his mother.
It always been a bright kid. Larry loved him with all of his heart, almost as much is his mother. He couldn’t understand why this Smart kid had done such a stupid thing. Or rather, why he didn’t talk to Larry about it. He hadn’t got the chance to talk to him yet, but when he did, he would get to the root of the problem and sort the whole mess out. If these boys in their fancy dress-up clothes would let him.
Tang barged into the conference room carrying a legal pad and a cup of steaming coffee.
“Sorry I’m late,” she smiled at the killers. “I didn’t mean to make you wait.”
“It’s all right,” said Jesse Keller.
She reached across the armrest and took her husband’s hand.
“It wasn’t long.”
Tang sat in a chair in front of the couple, and scribbled her pen on the pad to get the ink flowing.
“Asher’s coming in now. We need to talk about what you want us to do.”
“He’s young, ain’t he?” Larry stated.
“Yes.”
“Has he ever done a…,” He struggled around the word. “A murder case before?”
“No. This would be his first. But this is a unique case. And he wouldn’t be doing it alone, we would help him. He’s young, Brad’s going to talk to him. And the judge and jury will listen to him when it comes to that aspect.”
Jesse patted her eyes with the worn handkerchief.
“I don’t know. I’m not sure.”
Tank put a hand on her hand.
“I know it’s not easy. I just want you to meet him.”
Asher stood outside of the door waiting for his queue. He heard it and stepped through. Unlike the rest of the attorneys, he was dressed in khaki work pants, blue denim shirt and scarf boots, holdovers from his law school days. His sleeves are rolled up on his forearms, he had two pins in the left breast pocket and carried an aluminum clip board with his legal pad on it. He looks like a foreman at a factory instead of a lawyer. His hair was short, his face naturally dark had a pink glow from the sun.
Larry made an almost imperceptible not.
The look was carefully calculated. Tang had watch the Kellers come into the office building and instructed Asher to dress like a worker. She knew their financial situation and had dealt with Larry from a previous case, when his younger brother was caught coming out of a liquor store burglary and assault on a police officer. She knew how he felt about lawyers and how he would feel surrounded by what he felt were greedy man and expensive suits.
the entire meeting was carefully orchestrated so Larry would consider Asher his kind of man.
And by the look on his face it worked.
Tang watch Jesse. She didn’t take her eyes off Asher is across the room and pulled a chair closer to the Kellers. Her eyes were suspicious, scared, swollen. She didn’t understand why her son had done anything and was angry with herself more than anyone else.
If she didn’t have faith and Asher, Larry would convince her. But only if Asher couldn’t do it himself.
He held out his hand.
“I’m Asher,” he said.
Larry took it firmly, shoot twice. Asher had a callous palm from a summer job landscaping. It was a handout had seen work before. Jesse reached out slowly, and just as gently, Asher held her hand.
“I want to help,” he told her softly.
Jesse had been crying for two days since the sheriff called her away from work to tell her that her son had shot two boys at school. The tears came easily. Almost 2nd nature, she dad that the corners of her eyes with a damp handkerchief. Asher pulled a fresh one from his pocket and handed it to her.
“I understand you have some reservations about me working this case,” he said. He pushed his sleeves up his arms. He leaned forward and rested his elbows on his knees, spinning the legal pad slowly in both hands.
“I can’t say that I blame you.”
“You’re really young,” said Larry.
“I aint one to hold youth against a man, but we think Brad needs experience on his side.”
Asher nodded agreeing.
“You are right, Larry. But we have to be careful because of Brad’s age and because we don’t know why he did it. There’s going to be a trial, and juvenile justice is a great area. The rules keep changing when kids do adult crimes. One thing I know for sure the judge is going to want to know is why something like this happened,” he glanced over his shoulder at tank.
“I’ve talked with Brad a little bit. I don’t think he’s going to tell anyone else.”
“Can you keep him out of jail?” Jesse asked.
Asher wanted to reach out to her. The sadness in her voice touched him, but he held back. Larry put an arm around his wife shoulder.
“I’m going to be honest with you. Brad’s going to spend some time in a facility. The prosecutors looking for a way to try him as an adult, but like I said, it’s a great area. If he’s tried as a juvenile he’ll spend about five years on a crime ranch.”
“If he’s convicted,” Larry at it.
“Asher not it.
“I’m going to try to stop that. I want to find out why this straight a student did such a horrible thing.”
Asher setback with nothing more to say. The room was quiet while Jesse and Larry held each other.
Kids aren’t murderers Asher told him so. It’s the result of upbringing. But looking at these parents he couldn’t see any violent tendencies.
Tank had told him that Larry distrusted lawyers, the government, organized anything except the NRA, but he seemed to except Asher. The workingman outfit worked.
Unless Jesse was a great actress, putting her best face forward for the benefit of this meeting and a total shrew at home, then Brad committed an act completely independent of them. He knew the kid was precocious, but a killer with malice aforethought. Did he want to get someone like that off?
“Can we have a minute?” Tang motioned hey I’m out of the office.
“Think it worked?” He asked her just outside of the door.
She nodded. “Start getting affidavits from witnesses. This will go before a grand jury in a week or 10 days. Do we know who’s cordate is in?”
“Bill Hancocks.”
“Wild Bill?” She said. “I love that guy. Once the indictment is handed down, Will move for a change of venue, I miss trial, what other motions you can think of.”
“Constitutional violations?”
“Worth looking into.”
“I called a press conference for this afternoon.”
She raised an eyebrow at him.
“That cocky?”
“That confident.”
“So you do want the case.”
“Like everyone else, I want to know why.”
The courthouse steps were crowded with reporters, cameraman and curiosity seekers. The air was thick with tension and anticipation, the comforting breeze from earlier in the day long since departed. Behind the courthouse, across the Memorial Highway, was a shallow wide fishing pond affectionately referred to as Lake knotty pine. It had been drained it to a mud flat because of PCB contamination in the silk.
The electric company had discarded all transmitters in the lake bed sometime in the past. This city found out about it when area residents begin showing up at hospitals with residual side effects. There were lawsuits, and threats but in the end, the city and the electric company split the cost of draining the lake and dredging up the lake bed to remove the contaminated soil. In three years, they had only drain the lake leaving behind a sloppy expensive stump covered bog.
In the heat of the day a stench built up in the shallow basin. Like a bathtub overflowing, the stench would slowly rise and leek across downtown and curious patterns. A hint of rotting fish and what roundwood flashed by, assaulting the senses and MoveOn. It was a heavy sent, but stretch like cobwebs across a pathway. A person could drive down main street and never smell a thing, or get stopped at a red light to be trapped inside a noxious bubble.
Being across the street from the lake, the courthouse was one of the first places to be enveloped with the smell. A wave washed over the assembled mass on the steps. They balked, grew restless, even hostile.
The stench of the lake was almost unbearable. The locals didn’t notice.
“You get used to it,” they would say. “Like the Papermill. I don’t even notice it anymore.”
It was a common refrain to newcomers as if to soothe them pass the unpleasant moment. Give it time, the nose will go dead, and shut down for self-preservation.
At five after four pm, Asher walked out of the courthouse. He had change from his work pants and denim shirt into a trim, tailored conservative black suit with a colorful blue tie. Sharp, confident, and even a bit casual he stopped on the third step from the top.
“Thank you for coming,” he said softly.
The reporters crowded around him, unsure of his place of importance but ready to listen nonetheless.
“My name is Asher Duncan, and I’ve been retained as counsel for Bradley Christiañ. I will not answer any questions at this time, but I have prepared a brief statement.”
He caught Jan’s I, wink. She stared at him a blank look on her face. She had missed an opportunity and she knew it.
He and folded up piece of paper from his jacket pocket, but didn’t consult it.
“Right now, we cannot focus on the guilt or innocence. We should focus on the tragedy of three lives lost. Two young boys who will never grow to men, and a third boy driven to the act by forces and reasons we cannot imagine. This trial will happen, of that I’m sure. We will be inundated with the particulars. No indictments have been handed down, my client has not been arranged. There may be mitigating circumstances, but until we can know the whole story it’s all conjecture. I urge you to use restraint. We all wonder why this happened. We all wonder how to prevent it from happening again. I don’t know if I can find those answers, but I will do my best. I ask that you wait for the answers to come, instead of creating possibilities. The wait will be hard on all of us, I can assure you. Thank you.”
He turned to go moving for the courthouse doors. Depressive reporters searched after him, rapidfire question shot in his back. He ignored them and disappeared inside.
Jan sit on the steps watching the close door and calculating how she could get an exclusive interview.
“Moments ago, Asher Duncan, legal counsel for the 13-year-old accused of killing two classmates at a school in knotty pine held a short press conference at the Bell County Courthouse. Mr. Duncan urged the media to wait for him to find answers as to why this tragedy occurred in this small town. Although not formally invited, Duncan said he expects this case to go to trial. Under Arkansas law the juvenile cannot be tried as an adult. If found guilty, the young boy would only be in jail until his eighteenth birthday. The question on people’s mind is why did the boy allegedly commit the act. Will remain on the scene and bring you developments as they happen. I’m Jan make peace for channel 7 news.”
“And we are clear,” Sean looked around the viewfinder.
“That shot sucked.”
“What about it?”
“You’re just against a bare wall. There’s no movement, no color, nothing. It’s plain.”
Jan raptor my cord around the transmitter.
“It was fine the way it was.”
She compose the Schotter self, no awkward sunshine backlight to burn out her face, no jerky move to detract from her words. If she had her way, she would be in charge of every shot from now on.
“I’m going to nose around some,” she toss the mic at him and turn without waiting.
He didn’t stop her.
He moved to the truck and stored his camera and back and settled in the front seat, propped his feet up on the dashboard and tried to take a nap.
Chris Lowry Books 