The Silence of Murder (27 page)

I am in the middle of a train wreck. I’m tied to the railroad tracks, and the train is coming fast. Rita feels it too. She’s
acting all cocky, but I see through that act to her fear. I can count on one hand the number of times I’ve seen her scared, and this is one of those times. I glance over at Jeremy and see that he’s full-on watching this happen. His empty bottle sits on the defense table, as if he’s forgotten about it. He is watching Rita, and he’s not breathing.

Something bad, very bad, is coming.

I’m getting a sick feeling in my stomach. I think I know where this is going. How could I have been stupid enough not to guess it before now?

Rita is rattling on, like she does when she gets nervous. Raymond has to have told her what he told me: Keep your answers short. Stay on point. Don’t offer up information not asked for. But she won’t stop talking, and I know where it’s going to get her, to get Jeremy.

“I think my parents were too old to be parents, God rest their souls.” Rita crosses herself, but she’s never been Catholic. I think she does it wrong. “They’re both dead now, so I suppose that’s why I came back. I could still have a fresh start here. I figured I could get a job waitressing.”

Keller moves in closer, the predator creeping toward his prey. “About twenty years?” He nods, as if calculating, counting on invisible fingers. He turns and looks at Jeremy. “How old is your son, Ms. Long?”

Jeremy doesn’t flinch.

Keller wheels back around to Rita. “Ms. Long, how old is your son?”

Rita stares at the ceiling, then spits it out: “Almost nineteen.”

Keller’s lip curls up—a grin? a snarl? “Were you pregnant when you left Grain and dropped out of school?”

Rita turns to the judge. “He can’t ask me that, can he?”

The judge looks like she feels sorry for Rita.

Raymond’s slow on the draw, but he jumps up. “Objection!”

Keller smiles at the judge. “Goes to motive, Your Honor.”

Does it? Does it go to motive?

I lean way forward so I can see Jeremy’s face more clearly. He’s staring at Rita. His eyes are still and deep. He knows. I can see that. Jeremy knows exactly what’s coming.

“Overruled,” says the judge. “Please answer the question.”

“I was pregnant,” Rita says softly, not looking at Keller.

“Was the child Jay Jay’s?” Keller asks. “Is Jeremy the son of John Johnson?”

The courtroom goes crazy. Everybody’s talking at once. The judge bangs her gavel and threatens to clear the courtroom if we don’t shut up.

“Do you need me to repeat the question?” Keller shouts. “You’re under oath, ma’am.”

“I know that!” Rita snaps. “And I don’t see what any of this has to do with anything. Yes! Jay Jay was Jeremy’s father. Okay? Is that what you wanted? But Jeremy didn’t know it.”

I haven’t taken my eyes off my brother. Rita is wrong. He did know. I can read my brother better than anyone on earth. Jeremy knew that John Johnson was his father. I don’t know how or when he discovered it, but I can see the truth in his eyes. There’s not a hint of surprise on his face.

Why didn’t he tell me, write me a long note in his delicate calligraphy? I thought Jeremy told me everything. How could he have kept this enormous secret from me? I will myself to quit staring at my brother. When I look back to Rita, she’s wringing her hands in a way I’ve never seen her do
before. I hate her for keeping this secret, but I almost feel sorry for her too.

Keller isn’t finished. “Are you positive John Johnson was Jeremy’s father?”

Rita acts insulted. “I told you! I didn’t sleep around in high school. I think I ought to know who the father of my baby was.”

How many times have I asked her about Jer’s father? I try to picture the two of them together, Rita and Jay Jay. But I can’t. He was quiet, patient, good-natured. I don’t think I ever saw him say more than a couple of words to Rita. She never talked about him. On the other hand, I have a dozen memories of Jeremy and Coach together. Jeremy and his father: in the barn, at the ballpark, with the horses.

I try to listen to what else Keller will make Rita say.

It seems like a full minute of silence passes. I think the courtroom is holding its breath.

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.

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.