Conviction (6 page)

“Which is what, exactly?”

He narrows his eyes and runs his tongue along the inside of his cheek, and I get the impression he’s deciding how much he feels like telling me. “I’m sure you’ve noticed
there’s…how shall I say this? A sizable contingent of individuals who are positively rabid in their desire to see your father punished.”

I nod. Like I said, I’ve read some of the hate mail, a lot of it from people who seemed to take the accident personally and can barely type. And then there was the billboard, and I saw on
the news there was a protest one night, even (protesting what, exactly, I don’t know), and that same night on the news there was an interview with this columnist in San Francisco who’s
always hated my dad. I switched it off two sentences in; I didn’t need to see him gloat.

“Well, what you’re seeing isn’t entirely unusual in a high-profile criminal case,” Mr. Buchwald says. “The police and the prosecutors talk in public, and the
defense waits for the trial, so it’s not revolutionary for public opinion to feel tilted toward the prosecution before then.” He pauses. “But my personal theory is that Laila
Shah, the deputy DA who’ll be prosecuting the case, is testing the waters and trying to gauge the temperature of the public. I feel quite certain she’ll try to convince the jurors that
an act like this is in character for your father.”

The words settle around my shoulders. “She doesn’t even know him.”

“Laila is quite new to the position. She’s supposed to be a rising young star from Hastings Law—although so far I’ve not been terribly impressed—but it’s been
my experience that her type is often…bitter, really, and stridently angry, and constantly on the hunt for a scapegoat. Originally, she wanted to try the case as a hate crime. I think
that’s as telling as it is appalling.”

This isn’t how I thought court cases were supposed to work. It’s definitely not what we learned in Civics. “Okay, well—is that what juries base their decisions on?
Whoever just happens to seem like a better person, or what?”

“It all depends on the jury, of course, but I think her angle is going to backfire on her. She could have picked a better poster child for her crusade. I’ve looked quite extensively
into Reyes’s history. A delinquent in uniform is just a better-dressed delinquent.” He picks up the coffee cup and blows on the top of it with wet, pursed lips. “Now, to return to
the matter at hand. I understand you and your father had one previous encounter with Officer Reyes. Can you tell me about that?”

I would give a lot not to, but I don’t make it a habit to talk back to adults. “A little while ago, I kind of went to LA without telling my dad, and he got worried and he called the
cops and Officer Reyes was one of the ones who came. And Officer Reyes was—yeah. He and my dad got into it, and he told me he wished something worse had happened to me. But I wasn’t
there for when the two of them were—”

“Hm.” He marks something down. “Your father has maintained that he was forced to flee the scene of the accident as a safety concern. Can you explain that to me?
Actually”—he holds up one finger—“I’ll read the statement he gave me, and you may fill in as you wish.”

He deepens his voice and sits up straighter when he’s reading my dad’s words. I’ll bet my dad intimidates him. He has that effect on people. “‘I was speeding a
little bit, I’ll admit that. I deserved a ticket and I would’ve paid one, too, but right away, when I saw him, I knew it was going to be bad. The thing is, I met this cop once before,
and it was when I was worried about my kid, so we’d, you know, exchanged words. And I’ll admit I said some things I shouldn’t have, but I didn’t think he handled the whole
situation real professionally, so afterward I called up and complained to the station about him. And he knew it. You could tell he knew it and that it did something to him. That, and the fact it
was late and there was no one around, that I had no protection—he thought he was above the rules. He kept getting closer and closer to me, getting more and more threatening. And I was yelling
back, I was getting hot under the collar, too, but I miscalculated. He was out for me. When he went for his gun, I panicked he was going to hurt my son. I panicked. He drew the gun, and I had to
get away.’”

He puts down the paper he’s holding. “Sound right?”

“I mean, do people think you should just stay somewhere and let someone shoot you?”

“So you’ll testify that Reyes threatened you with a loaded firearm.”

There’s a buzzing in my ears that makes me want to swat at imaginary bees. But then, I’ve always hated guns. “I really think my dad would give a better testimony than I would.
He’s a lot better at that kind of thing.”

“It’s simply too risky to have the defendant testify in capital cases.” He writes something down on his pad. “Your father says he was left distressed and very shaken
after the encounter with the cop.”

“Yes. That’s definitely true. He was really upset. It kind of…I mean, it sort of made him not completely—”

Mr. Buchwald holds up a hand to stop me. “Your father backed up and then drove out into the road when he was what felt like a safe distance away.”

I nod.

“He says that when he felt the car hit something, he thought he’d hit a pothole.”

“There’s tons of potholes there.”

“You felt the car hit something, too, I presume.”

“I guess I—”

“But you didn’t believe it was Mr. Reyes?”

“How could anyone even think he’d do that on purpose? If you knew you hit a person, you wouldn’t take off. You’d get out and make sure he was okay, and if he
wasn’t, you’d try to save him or at least wait there with him and call nine-one-one. That’s what any halfway decent person would do.” My chest and face feel like someone
rubbed Icy Hot all over them. I look toward the kitchen again. It would be stupid to ask Trey to come sit in here; I’m capable of having this conversation myself. And I’m not on trial
now
. This is probably nothing compared to what it feels like saying this kind of stuff in court. “I just—I really think you should have my dad talk about all this instead. He
talks for a living. And he obviously has a better memory of everything that’s happened, so—”

“Son, I know this is unsavory, but these questions will come up again.”

I hate when people call me
son
. “Okay, but if there’s a trial and I screw it up, then what? It’s going to be twelve random people who’ve never met him and who
might have made up their minds about him already, and you said yourself it’s a death-penalty case. So if I mess things up—”

“You’ll have ample time to prepare, Braden, don’t worry. I am very heavily invested in making your testimony as clear and as compelling as possible, and you’ll be seeing
quite a bit of me as we prepare. Now, do you have any questions?”

“What about bail? Can he get out on bail?”

“I’ll make a motion at the preliminary hearing, but it’s unlikely. Judge Scherr is up for reelection in the fall, so he’ll be treading carefully.”

“And if my dad doesn’t get bail, then I’m just…not allowed to see him or talk to him the whole time this is going on?”

“Most likely no. Occasionally letters are approved. Anything else?”

It’s clear he’s not actually asking, but I ask anyway. “Whose idea was it for me to testify?”

He blinks at me. “I beg your pardon?”

“Like, it was your idea, and my dad didn’t argue? Or he was the one who came up with it?”

“There wasn’t much conversation. You’re an eyewitness. It’s your father.”

“But did he tell you in so many words that I would testify, or what?”

“Really, Braden, there’s no need to be so nervous.” He claps his hand on my back and smiles with his lips closed. “Your father trusts you, and so do I.”

T
here’ve been dark gray clouds gathering over the orchards at the horizon and threatening rain all day, but there’s a good-size crowd
gathering for the game when we head out onto the field that afternoon to warm up. Baseball is king in Ornette, the thing you talk about with strangers in line at the store and relive when
you’re barbecuing at the lake in the summer. Last year when we took the championship it felt like the whole town made the trip to Southern California to see us play. Something about the crowd
today makes me feel safer—the normalcy of it, partly, and also I guess it feels like a sign of good faith. Everyone in the crowd’s been listening to my dad announce our games nearly all
my life.

I toss a few off-speed pitches to Colin, my catcher, to warm up, and I half watch who’s coming into the stands. I guess this was dumb, but I’d thought maybe Trey would be here.
He’s not. But it’s a bad habit to watch attendance, anyway—at best, it’s just a lot of people to worry about letting down.

To make the playoffs again this year, we can lose no more than once, and today won’t be that day. Sierra West isn’t a real threat like Brantley or La Abra, and last year we took them
11–2. Today I’m pitching against Logan Marshall, a second-string pitcher who last year had nothing more than a halfway decent slider he couldn’t command half the time anyway, and
whose career will probably end in Tuesday night community softball once he graduates. I’ve already told Colin I want to throw curveballs today to practice for Brantley, since Sierra’s
the kind of team you can practice on.

But still, even though Logan Marshall isn’t someone I’m afraid of, even though I’m not actually worried about this game, there’s a stinging, pulsing anxiety building in
my muscles like lactic acid. It gets worse when I take the mound and there’s a loud, breathy staticky sound from the announcer’s booth. Colin gets the game ball from the umpire and
tosses it to me, and whoever they got to replace my dad reads my stats from a list in a way that makes me think he’s never heard of me in his life. Before I can stop it, I see again my
dad’s arms wrenched behind his back, the way his legs buckled from pain or maybe fear.

I curl my hand around the ball. There’s a place in your mind where any voices you let in slip down your spine and into your lungs and heart, become a thing you breathe and bleed, and my
dad taught me this: how to stake a barricade against those ones you can’t allow. I wait until I’m back in control, until there’s nothing else except the next pitch.

I position my right foot against the edge of the rubber and stand straight, sheltering the ball in my glove. Colin puts down a sign for a fastball and then sets up outside, and I position my
fingers around the ball’s seams, and I lift my left leg and balance on my right and watch the hitter circle his bat. It’s not often that you matter more than you do in that moment, when
you’re another person’s entire world. Then I draw back my arm and shift all my weight forward at the same time as I fling my arm as hard as it will go in one calibrated explosion and
the ball goes rocketing out of my hand, a pure, clean line across the grass, and it flies over the plate and is swallowed safely into Colin’s glove before the batter ever moves.

Strike one.

I escape the first inning with nothing worse against me than a single. As I go back into the dugout, Colin’s talking to Greg Harmon. Greg’s our only freshman this
year, a quiet, smallish kid who moved here last year. He’s…not exactly the kind of new kid who does well here, or maybe anywhere, so I started dragging him out to eat lunch with the
guys after I found out he always spent lunchtime alone in the library watching anime on the computer. He has some bullpen potential, so I’ve been giving him pointers every now and then, and
Coach Cardy’s got him batting leadoff today. Greg’s gulping down water and flexing his hand around the bottle, and Colin’s saying, “Greg, you aren’t scared, are
you?”

“Um.” Greg drinks more water. He makes a
glllghh
sound when he swallows, and I don’t think his voice has changed yet all the way. “No. Maybe. I guess.”

“Of Sierra
West
? If that’s how you feel now, you’ll be shitting yourself when we play Brantley.” Colin grins and elbows me. “Maybe you should just sit back
and watch Braden and see how it’s done. What’s your batting average, Raynor? Couple goose eggs up there after your name?”

“Yeah, shut up.” I sink down on the bench next to them. I’m not one of those pitchers who can also hit. “You have nothing to worry about, Greg. Logan Marshall’s
nothing.”

“Right.” He pushes his sports goggles higher up the bridge of his nose. “Well, um. It’s not really that I’m worried about him.”

I say, “What is it, then?”

“I mean, it’s kind of that, but then also…do you ever get nervous when someone’s here to watch you and you want to impress them?”

Colin hoots. “Is it a girl?” He shoots me a look. I know some of the guys have wondered about Greg before—the way he’s always smoothing his hair, his voice, just the way
he seems kind of…different—but I shut that down pretty quick. Greg’s on our team, and you don’t talk like that about someone you play and share a locker room with. Colin
whacks Greg on the knee with his glove. “Say it’s a girl.”

“No,” Greg says. “It’s my dad. He came today and he never comes.” Then he looks at me, alarmed. “I mean, I shouldn’t complain. It’s not like
he’s—”