by Tim Lockette
“We ask God to forgive our debts as we forgive our debtors,” Jones said. “He said he didn’t have much time left, and lots of debt to forgive.”
Friends told Ambrose to keep the lottery win a secret, at least until he’d collected the money. But it didn’t stay secret for long. On Monday morning, Ambrose stopped for breakfast at the Speedy Queen on Galvez Road and told the whole story to everyone who would listen—about his conversion experience, his lottery win, and his plan to close his pawnshop.
“I’d never seen him like that,” said Annie Smith, a waitress at the Speedy Queen who regularly served Ambrose. “He was bright and happy, like a little boy. I wasn’t sure how much of it was the Lord and how much of it was winning the lottery.”
Smith said she assumed he’d won the big lottery prize, about $12 million, not a lesser jackpot. And she was impressed when he pulled the lottery ticket out of his wallet and showed it to her.
Police say Ambrose called at least two customers early Monday morning and told them to collect their items free of charge. One of those customers arrived to find Ambrose dead in the pawn shop’s back office, his winning ticket gone.
Police later found the ticket, and a gun that matched the bullet in Ambrose’s body, in the possession of Jethro Gersham, 55, a disabled man who lived near the Speedy Queen. Gersham was a customer of Ambrose’s—he’d pawned the very gun that was later used to kill the pawnshop owner—and was often known to hang out in the Speedy Queen parking lot, chatting with customers.
“He used to come around all the time,” Smith said. “Then a few weeks before the shooting, he and J.D. got in a big argument in the parking lot. J.D. called Jethro a deadbeat and Jethro called J.D. a greedy you-know-what.”
Police believe Gersham found out about the lottery ticket and came into the pawnshop claiming to have the money he needed to get his gun back. Then he shot Gersham and took both the gun and the lottery ticket, police say.
In fact, police say they have a confession, signed by Gersham, that confirms that’s how it happened.
Gersham’s attorney, Paul Peale, says the police tricked Gersham into signing the confession. Gersham is illiterate, Peale said, and didn’t know what he was signing.
Peale said police should look more deeply into Gersham’s version of the story. When first caught by police, Gersham said he was given the gun by a man in a red hat—not Ambrose—who worked at the store. Gersham’s story doesn’t explain how he got the lottery ticket; the defendant claims the man in the red hat gave him only a receipt for the gun.
Ambrose didn’t have any employees at the pawnshop, though the co-owner, his brother-in-law, often worked behind the counter when Ambrose wasn’t around. Police say the brother-in-law was fishing the day of the killing, and has a receipt from a marina to prove it.
Sources close to the case say Peale is working frantically to get Gersham a plea deal that will send his client to prison but avoid death by lethal injection. Peale declined to comment on the issue, citing attorney-client privilege.
When I read it, I heaved a big sigh. I know Dad would probably like me to grow up to be a lawyer like him. But if this is what it takes, I don’t know. How can you defend somebody, somebody you know to be innocent, and still help him plead guilty? I know Dad’s job was to do what’s best for his client, and I guess I can see where Jethro would rather go to prison for six or seven years—instead of life in prison, or getting executed—if it didn’t look like he could win. But how can a person go to jail for something as horrible as murder without even going to a courtroom and explaining their side of the story?
“You know I can’t talk to you about the case, Atty,” Dad told me. “But let me just plant an idea in your head. Better yet, let me ask you a question. Who taught you to read?”
“Nobody,” I said. “I’ve always been able to read. Even in kindergarten.”
It was true, or I thought it was. My earliest memories are of when Taleesa and Martinez first came into our lives. I remember crying because Martinez got to sit in the seat in the grocery cart. Suddenly I was too old to ride the coin-operated giraffe outside of Super-Valu because I was the big girl now, and I didn’t get to do little kid stuff. But even then, in my earliest memories, I could walk down the aisle of the store and point and read names. Tide, Bounty, OxiClean. People would stop and smile and tell me how amazingly smart I was, so I kept doing it, and did it louder. Reading is my superpower.
“So who taught you?” Dad asked again.
“Nobody,” I said. “Okay, you. Or Taleesa. Mom? Did Mom teach me to read?”
Dad paused, and sighed. “Do you remember a woman named Molly? Sometimes she went by Menolly, a nickname. It’s from a book.”
“Dragonsong,” I said. “I’ve read it. I love that book.”
“The copy that’s on our shelf now? First printing, with the flying dragon on the cover? Molly gave your mom that book. Do you remember Molly at all?”
“Never heard of her,” I said.
“You used to sit on her lap right there in the living room, reading picture books,” Dad said. “For hours. You were a toddler. And she would point to letters and sound them out. For hours at a time. Because you’d let her. After your mom died, and before I met Taleesa, she came around every day. First to help me, then really just to see you. Every day.”
“Why don’t I remember her?” I asked.
“Things got weird,” Dad said. “I really needed her. You really needed her. I love her like a sister. I miss her a lot. But she wanted . . . I don’t know. She wanted more. She told me she was in love with me. I really wasn’t ready for that. Honestly I hadn’t even thought about her in that way until she said it. I was just taking and taking from her and never even asked why she wanted to give. So she left. I mean, really left. Not a call. Not another visit.” Dad sighed again.
“Just what I needed,” I said. “More guilt. This woman taught me to read, and I don’t even know her.” I paused for a minute, then: “What the heck does this have to do with Jethro?”
“Atty, you and I have been watched over by the grace of others our whole lives,” Dad said. “We don’t even know all the people we need to thank for what we have. But Jethro, he didn’t have a Molly. He can’t read. Even the school system that was supposed to teach him to read, it didn’t do that. I can’t see any bitterness in him about that. But I can see why he doesn’t trust public institutions to do what they say they’re going to do. If the schools will let him sit there for nine years and not teach him, if the cops will make him sign a confession they know he doesn’t understand, why would he trust the court to give him a fair trial? And if you don’t believe you can get a fair trial, why wouldn’t you take a deal for a few years in prison, compared to execution?”
I shook my head. “Doesn’t anything work the way it’s supposed to?” I said. “Doesn’t anything work in real life the way it works on TV?”
“Football does, I guess,” Dad said.
That didn’t make me feel better at all.
12
It was strange, going to school without Martinez. For all those years at the elementary school, he was like a parrot on my shoulder. He got nervous about the first day of school. He was bummed that he couldn’t play video games all day anymore. He knew which kids at school were the bullies and the tattletales, and he dreaded seeing them. And he would chatter about it every morning, as Taleesa dropped us off at Houmahatchee Elementary. As the big sister, I was the one who had to calm him down, the one who had to make sure his lunch wasn’t poking out of his backpack, the one who warned him his britches weren’t zipped. (Martinez hates the word “britches,” which Dad uses from time to time. Dad, and grizzled old prospectors in Westerns. And me, sometimes, because it annoys Martinez.)
Now we were driving to Houmahatchee High, a place where twelve-year-olds like me would wander the halls alongside seniors with mustaches and sophomores in Air
Force ROTC uniforms. Suddenly I realized that, for all those years, taking care of Martinez kept me from being scared myself.
“Why do you keep checking your fly?” Taleesa asked. “Is something going on down there? You know, it’s almost time for all those changes that turn a girl into—”
“STOP!” I said. “Just stop, T. Don’t make this whole thing any weirder than it is.”
I can’t remember when I didn’t know about the birds and the bees, because my parents believe in “being frank and honest” and they talk all the time about how all this realistic information will keep me from getting pregnant in high school. And they are totally correct. I am never getting pregnant. I am never ever doing any of that.
“You’re already sounding like a teenager,” Taleesa said.
“Uuugh,” I replied, realizing suddenly that I did sound just like a teenager in some dumb sitcom. But why couldn’t she see that it wasn’t me that was changing? It was circumstances that were changing. One minute I’m doing my real life’s work, darn near running the animal shelter, and the next minute I’m thrust into Teen World against my choice. I wanted to say this so much but somehow it just came out as a big ball of frustration. “Uuugh.”
Martinez didn’t have any problem when we dropped him off at Houmahatchee Elementary.
“With Atty gone, now I can assert my rightful kingship over this place,” he said as we pulled in to the drop-off. “So long, great oppressor.”
“So long, Britches,” I shouted as he got out of the car.
“I’ve got ninety-nine problems,” he shot back, but I pulled the door shut before he could finish.
And then we pulled up to Houmahatchee High, a big chunk of cinder-block building. The building was new, just finished last year, but it looked spookily familiar.
“This thing looks just like the county jail,” I said. “It looks like a big nursing home where people go to watch Wheel of Fortune and die.”
“Check yourself before you poke fun,” Taleesa said. “You don’t have any idea what people are doing in their free time at a nursing home. It’s okay to be crotchety and grumpy at twelve, but don’t go projecting it on somebody you never met.”
Adding to the jailhouse atmosphere, there was a deputy standing outside, the school resource officer. I felt a little twinge when I saw the car and the uniform, but as we pulled closer it was clear it was definitely not Troy Butler, but some older balding guy who smiled and waved at everybody. Probably retired.
The guy standing next to the resource officer wasn’t in uniform, but he seemed a lot more like a cop. Aviator glasses, a little bushy mustache, three-piece suit, with a big radio in one hand. As we pulled up I could see him stopping some of the taller boys and looking close at them to see if they’d shaved properly.
“I guess that’s Dr. Dalton, the vice principal,” Taleesa said. “Looks like he’s the disciplinarian. Good luck.”
I got out, hoisted my backpack over my shoulder, and headed for the door of the school. At first, Dalton didn’t notice me—he was busy telling some girl her dress was too short—and I tiptoed past. But just as I reached for the door: “Young lady,” he said. “Come here, my friend.”
I turned. The aviator glasses were looking me up and down. Creepy. So I looked right back at him the same way.
“Are you going to go all the way into school without saying hello?” he said. “Is that polite and respectful? Is that the Purple Devil way?”
So we’re doing this.
“I’m sorry, hello.” I stuck out my hand. “I’m—”
“Let me make something really clear from the outset,” Dalton said. “We have rules here. Purple Devils are polite. You’ll always say hello. You’ll always acknowledge when someone else is there. You’ll always lend a hand.”
I nodded. I’m a smart aleck, but I know when to keep my mouth shut.
“And you’ll wear a belt. That’s in the dress code, for young men and young women. We went over this at orientation, so you know this.”
“I missed orientation,” I said. “I know it’s strange, but my mom’s a writer and she’s bad to forget stuff when she’s working.”
“Purple Devils don’t make excuses,” he said. “You’re in high school now. Seventh grade, but high school. You’re becoming an adult, and you need to take responsibility for your actions, not blame your parents. Now give me a 341.”
“A what?”
Dalton sighed, reached into his pocket and pulled out three folded-up slips of paper. “Each of these is a Form 341. You carry three of them around in your right front shirt pocket. You’re supposed to wear a shirt with a front pocket. Every time I see you commit an infraction, I can ask you for a 341. When you have none left, or when you lose your 341s, that’s a trip to the office. Understood?”
“Understood.” I turned to leave. “Why is it called a 341?”
“It’s based on Air Force Form 341,” he said. “The military uses it in basic training. And, here, since you don’t have one, is a copy of the Houmahatchee Code of Conduct. Now: aren’t you going to say hello?”
All right, I thought, time to turn on the lawyer stuff. I thrust my hand out.
“Atticus T. Peale, pleased to meet you,” I said.
And just like that, the angry-cop face went away.
“Atticus . . . hey, you’re Colonel Peale,” he said, suddenly bright and almost chummy. “You’re friends with Governor King.”
“We’ve met,” I said. “I wouldn’t say we’re close.”
“Well, I’m a big fan of Governor King,” he said. “It’s good to have a strong conservative man in charge. What’s he like in person?”
I shrugged.
“He likes cookies,” I said. “He doesn’t like alligators.”
Dalton’s face clouded over again. Guess I shouldn’t have been so flippant about it.
“Well, a lot of people would love to have his ear,” Dalton said. “A lot of people who don’t have connections in the political world. You’re lucky to get to meet him.”
And that was my introduction to seventh grade. There, see what I mean? Seventh-graders live in a madhouse run by madmen. We’re not crazy, and we’re not going through a phase. I’d like to see Backsley Graddoch running around with 341s in his front pocket. Imagine how he’d behave!
Inside the school lobby, there was a giant mural of a sinister-looking purple demon with a football in one hand and a pitchfork in the other. And next to him, in bold letters, the Houmahatchee Code of Conduct:
Purple Devils are Honest.
Purple Devils are Sweet.
Purple Devils are Decorous.
Purple Devils Look Up Words They Don’t Know.
Purple Devils Respect Tradition.
Purple Devils are Humble.
And on and on. There were maybe fifty items. I hoped they wouldn’t ask us to remember them all.
I pulled a crumpled sheet out of my pocket. When we missed orientation, the school district mailed us a nastygram with my locker number on it and the name of my homeroom teacher, Ms. Pinson. So, let’s find this locker.
As I headed down the hall, I realized something: I was scared. Genuinely scared. Facing judges and governors never was all that hard. Other kids, though, that was hard. They’re all so handsome and pretty, they laugh and say funny things, and I never feel like I really get what’s going on in their heads. I want to say cool, fun things, too, but my head just isn’t in the same place.
In the hallway, I saw a lot of new faces. Skater boys looking awkward without their boards. Beefy rednecks with crooked smiles and camouflage jackets. Tall volleyball girls who looked like they could jump across the Grand Canyon and still land on Barbie-doll tiptoes.
And Premsyl Svoboda. Leaning against his locker, talking to some girl with big glasses who clutched her books against her chest and laughed with big, braces-covered teeth.
Whoever she was, she liked him, and he knew it. And it wasn’t hard to see why. He was taller now, with his blond hair in a cool, floppy cut. He looked very ready for high school.
I looked at my locker number and groaned. No. 622. Premsyl was leaning on locker number 623.
“Hey, Premsyl,” I said.
“Hey, Atty,” he said.
“Pretzel?” chuckled Braces Girl. “Did she just call you Pretzel?”
“Only my mom calls me that now, Atty,” Premsyl said. “The kids on the Genius Bowl team call me P.J.”
“P.J. is like the king of Genius Bowl, aren’t you?” Braces Girl said.
“I wouldn’t be if Atty were on the team,” Premsyl said. “She’s super smart. You could join, Atty.”
“I probably won’t have time,” I said. “I go straight to the animal shelter after work. Lots and lots to do.”
“Oh, yeah,” Premsyl said. “Colonel Peale. You’re the animal activist now.”
“Please do not call me Colonel,” I said. “Some of us like our original names just fine.”
“Oh,” said Braces Girl. “So this is her. This is the one you told me about. She’s the one who thinks she’s a lawyer.”
I really thought Braces Girl seemed sweet at first. She probably was, usually. But now that I’d butted in to her talk with Premsyl, she was just full-on catty. And I realized I was feeling catty, too.
I took a deep breath. Come on, Atty, think like a lawyer.
“Look, y’all, I see where this is going,” I said. “Premsyl, you’ve become really cute. Your accent is great. And, yes, your name is Premsyl and, yes, you’re my ex-boyfriend.” I turned to Braces Girl. “But Premsyl has already rejected me, and I’m not going to get into some kind of competition with you about it. I’m just here because it’s my locker he’s leaning on. So I’ll just get in and out.”
Braces Girl blushed. “I don’t know where you get off. I’m not hitting on P.J. I’m just having a conversation.”