From the Desk of Zoe Washington

by Janae Marks

  “I’m not,” I said, though when I thought about it, it was sort of true. It was so unlike me—lying to my parents, sneaking around doing something they wouldn’t approve of. I never lied to them this much about anything, and I felt a little guilty.

  But now that I knew Marcus might be innocent, there was no way I could stop.

  Maybe I could track down Marcus’s lawyer and ask him questions about the case. Or I could find his alibi witness and listen to their side of the story. If that person really did see Marcus when the crime was happening, then I would know for sure whether he was telling the truth.

  If I could prove that Marcus didn’t commit his crime, then Mom would have to let me have a relationship with him. Then the lying could stop for good.

  “If he’s innocent, then how come he’s been in prison this whole time?” Trevor asked.

  I hesitated, not sure if I should trust Trevor with anything else. Would he really keep my secret?

  “What?” Trevor asked, as if my thoughts were written all over my face. “I’m not going to tell anybody.”

  “Okay,” I finally said. “Marcus said he had an alibi—like, he was somewhere else when the crime happened.”

  “Wait, for real?” Trevor asked.

  I nodded and put my hand on the book. “Then I found this—it has all these stories about innocent people who went to prison. I didn’t think that happened.”

  “I guess I knew that,” Trevor said. “My parents have all of these talks with me—like, because I’m Black, I have to be extra careful around the police. Stuff like that.”

  “My mom had that talk with me, too,” I said. “I hadn’t made the connection.”

  I told Trevor about the Innocence Project and filled him in on the case I read about. I still couldn’t believe how unfair it was. What was the point of a legal system if it didn’t work a lot of the time? And what about all the people who didn’t know to ask for the Innocence Project’s help?

  “That’s messed up,” Trevor said.

  “I know,” I said. “I’m going to go use a computer and see what I can find about Marcus’s case.”

  “Cool, let’s go,” Trevor said as he pushed his chair back.

  “What do you mean, ‘let’s’?” I asked.

  “I want to come, too,” Trevor said. “I’m curious now.”

  “Um . . .” I hesitated, not sure if I was ready to be friends with Trevor again. But it was nice to talk all of this through with him. It was almost like before.

  “Okay, then,” I finally said.

  I left The Wrongfully Convicted on the table, gathered my other stuff, and then Trevor and I walked to the nearest computer.

  My mom never told me any of the details of the crime—only that the victim was someone Marcus knew in college. I didn’t want to look it up before, because I was sort of scared of what I’d find. But now that I wanted to figure out if he was really innocent, I needed to know exactly what happened the day of the crime.

  I typed “Marcus Johnson” into the search bar, and the page filled with links and pictures of some jazz musician. I had to get more specific, so I put “Malden” after his name, since that’s where he and my mom grew up.

  A few articles from over twelve years earlier popped up at the top of the list. In the middle of the page, a few images appeared. I immediately recognized Marcus in one of them.

  I clicked on it to get a better look. The picture showed his head and the top of his shoulders, with a gray background. It had to be Marcus’s mug shot.

  “That’s him.” The only other picture I’d seen of Marcus was him smiling at the basketball game. But in this one, Marcus looked mean—like a murderer would look. His jaw was tight, his eyes stony, as if he didn’t feel bad at all.

  I started to panic; maybe this was all a mistake—he was guilty, of course he was guilty. But then I looked at the picture a little closer and noticed something else in his eyes. It seemed like maybe he was putting up a front, like he was really frightened but trying not to show it.

  I wasn’t sure which was right.

  It looked like the picture came from an article, so I clicked on it. I leaned even closer to the computer screen and started to read.

  Arrest Made in UMass Student’s Murder

  Published: Friday, November 1

  A suspect has been charged today in the death of 18-year-old Lucy Hernandez, authorities said. The University of Massachusetts freshman was found dead in her apartment near campus on Sunday morning. Marcus Johnson, 18, UMass freshman and Malden resident, is charged with first degree murder.

  Hernandez’s roommate found her body in her apartment the morning of October 27. Authorities ruled the death a homicide later that day, a Sunday. An autopsy determined that the cause of Hernandez’s death was blunt force trauma to her head, according to the prosecutor’s office. The coroner estimated that her death occurred sometime between 3:00 and 5:00 p.m. on October 26.

  Authorities said Hernandez and Johnson knew each other through school, and classmates believed the two were dating. A witness reported seeing Johnson exit Hernandez’s apartment building the afternoon of her death.

  Suddenly, it was hard to breathe. What happened to Lucy was so horrible. I couldn’t read any more.

  “He sounds guilty,” Trevor said.

  “I know,” I said. “But maybe the witness got it wrong. Maybe this was all a misunderstanding.”

  “Maybe,” Trevor said, but he didn’t sound too convinced.

  I went back to the search results and clicked on the next article. That headline read, “UMass Student Murder Suspect in Court.” This article had more pictures. In one, Marcus was wearing an orange jumpsuit with handcuffs holding his hands in front of him, and a police officer walked beside him. It was hard not to see him as a criminal when he was in that jumpsuit. In the photo, his eyes were pointed toward the floor, and hair dotted his chin and upper lip, like he hadn’t gotten to shave. This is probably what he looked like right now, only older. Maybe he even had a full mustache and beard now.

  In a low voice, I read a few lines of the article. “Marcus Johnson faced a judge in court today. The eighteen-year-old is accused of murdering his former classmate Lucy Hernandez in October.”

  Lucy’s picture was in the article, too. The way she was posed, and with the blue fading background, it looked like a yearbook photo. Her wavy brown hair flowed past her shoulders, and she wore a black sweater, silver dangly earrings, and a silver necklace with a key charm. I wondered who gave her the necklace, and if it meant anything. She looked happy in the picture, probably excited to be graduating from high school.

  She was alive, and then she wasn’t. I swallowed hard as my stomach churned.

  “You look like you’re gonna throw up,” Trevor said.

  “It’s just . . . that’s her,” I said.

  “Yeah. She was pretty.”

  I stared at her picture for a few more seconds, memorizing her features. “I know.”

  Then I forced myself to go back to the article. It said Marcus pleaded “not guilty.” There was a picture of Marcus standing next to his lawyer, Anthony Miller. He was white, shorter than Marcus, and had a bald spot on the top of his head. His gray suit and tie made him look like a lawyer, plus the way he stood there with his hands clasped in front of him, all serious, as he focused on the judge.

  I glanced at the clock on the bottom right of the computer screen. “I have to go back downstairs and meet my grandmother in a minute.”

  “Okay,” Trevor said. “I guess I’ll head back to the kids’ floor.”

  We got up and went down to the library’s main floor. I couldn’t believe we were walking together, like we were friends again.

  “I won’t tell anybody anything,” Trevor said. “I can help you, if you want, with whatever you’re doing with Marcus.”

  “Maybe.”

  We said goodbye, and Trevor skipped down the steps to the children’s floor.

  I made my way to the circulation de
sk, where I found Grandma holding a couple of mystery novels.

  She looked at my empty hands. “You didn’t find anything to check out?”

  I shook my head. “Not this time.”

  When Grandma was done checking out her books, we walked toward the library’s entrance. I thought about what the articles said. They made Marcus sound guilty, even though he said he was innocent. But Grandma said things aren’t as simple as black-and-white. What if the truth wasn’t either?

  Chapter Fifteen

  An hour after Grandma and I got home, I heard the familiar squeaky sound of Trevor’s storm door. He was back from the library.

  Talking to Trevor at the library felt so normal, like we’d never gotten in a fight at all. It was a relief to be able to talk out loud about Marcus with somebody other than Grandma.

  I went outside, Butternut following behind me. I found Trevor sitting on his side of the porch steps, holding his new library book.

  “Hey.” I sat down across from him, on my side of the steps. Butternut found a patch of sun and lay down on it.

  “What’s up?” Trevor flashed a quick smile.

  “How was the rest of the library?” I asked.

  “Good. I hung out on the computers after you left.”

  “Nice.”

  After a long pause, I said, “I’m ready to tell you why I’ve been mad at you.”

  Trevor put his book down. “Okay.”

  I took a deep breath. “It started when you joined the basketball team.” That was at the beginning of the sixth grade, last year. Trevor had always said that he wanted to join the team when he got to middle school, and that’s exactly what he did.

  “You’re mad that I joined the team?” Trevor asked. “You knew I was going to.”

  “I didn’t think you’d start ignoring me.”

  “I didn’t,” he said.

  “Yes, you did. You didn’t talk to me as much at school.”

  “I couldn’t,” he said. “I had to talk to the guys on the team, too. And you were hanging out with Maya and Jasmine. You were the one ignoring me.”

  “What are you talking about?” I asked.

  “During the summer, it’s always the two of us. But when school starts, you go back to Jasmine and Maya, and it’s like I don’t matter to you anymore.”

  Wow. Was that really how Trevor felt? I did spend a lot of time with Jasmine and Maya during the school year, since we didn’t see each other during the summer, but that didn’t mean I didn’t care about Trevor. “You still mattered,” I mumbled.

  “It didn’t feel like it,” Trevor said.

  “Well, what about you?” I asked, remembering why I was out there in the first place. “You’ve been pretending to be my friend this whole time.”

  Trevor looked up at me, his face a big question mark. He had no idea what I was talking about.

  I took another deep breath. “I heard you guys. Last month.”

  “Heard who?”

  “You, Sean, and Lincoln. You were here on the porch after school. I was sick, so I stayed home all day. I was in the living room and the window was open, so I could hear everything. You guys couldn’t see me because I was lying on the couch.”

  I remembered the huge pile of used tissues that littered the coffee table, and how Butternut stayed near me the whole day, like he knew I was sick and needed a friend. I was in a cold-medicine haze when Trevor’s and the other boys’ voices woke me up. But I heard them loud and clear.

  “Zoe Washington lives on the other side of this house, right?” It was Sean’s voice, which I recognized right away since he had a thick Boston accent. When he said my name, it sounded like “Waaah-shington.”

  I didn’t dare move from my position on the couch, so they wouldn’t know I was right on the other side of the window from them.

  “Yeah,” Trevor said.

  “What’s with her?” Sean asked. I couldn’t see his face, but I could picture him scowling.

  “What do you mean?” Trevor asked.

  “Why’d she have to tell Mr. Peters that I started that fight with Will?” Sean asked. “I didn’t even start it.”

  Trevor didn’t say a word.

  “Yeah, why’d she have to open her big mouth about it?” Lincoln asked. “Nobody asked her.”

  “Exactly,” Sean said. “She thinks she’s better than everyone, but she’s really a loser.”

  Then Lincoln asked, “Did you hear what she did in gym class one time? She fell when we were playing basketball. I was there. She tripped over nothing—her own feet. She looked ridiculous. But then later I tripped her on purpose and she fell again.”

  “Oh yeah, that was wicked funny!” Sean said.

  I heard laughter. There were definitely more than two voices in the mix, and Trevor’s laugh was unmistakable.

  My eyes stung with tears, and there was no holding them back.

  “It sucks that you have to live right next to her,” Sean said. “It’s gotta be so annoying to hear her whiny voice every day, right?”

  “Uh . . .” Trevor paused for a second and I waited for him to say no, and that I was his best friend.

  But instead, he said, “Yeah, I guess.” There was a pause, and then he said, “We’re not really friends. We hang out sometimes during the summer, when I have nothing better to do.”

  It was a punch to my gut. I got up and ran to my room, burying myself under my covers while I sobbed.

  All this time, I thought Trevor was one of my best friends. But I’d been wrong.

  I recapped all of this to Trevor, who now stared at me with a pained expression on his face. “I had no idea you heard that,” he said. “I didn’t mean it, any of it. I was mad at you because you were always with Jasmine and Maya. And I didn’t know what to say when those guys asked. But it’s not true.”

  “I only told Mr. Peters about the fight because he asked me what I saw,” I said. “I didn’t want to lie to him.”

  Trevor nodded.

  “Nobody forced you to hang out with me,” I said, my voice cracking. “You didn’t have to do me any favors.”

  “I didn’t,” Trevor said. “I like hanging out with you. A lot. The summer is always my favorite. You’re my best friend. I’m really sorry.”

  “If that’s true, why would you let those guys say that stuff about me?” I asked.

  “I don’t know.” Trevor paused and glanced down at his sneakers. “I wanted to fit in, I guess. It was wrong.”

  I wanted to accept his apology and forget it all happened. Get back to our friendship and summer adventures like nothing had changed.

  But it was like when you drew something in pencil and then tried to erase it—the pencil lines would mostly go away, but sometimes the indent would still be there, so you could still sort of see what had been erased. That’s how Trevor’s apology felt—like he was trying to erase my pain by saying he was sorry, but he couldn’t make it all disappear.

  “Do you believe me?” Trevor swallowed hard.

  “I keep remembering what you said.” We’re not really friends. “I need more time to get over it.”

  Trevor nodded.

  “Guess I’ll see you later.” I got up from the porch steps.

  “Later,” Trevor said. His mouth turned up in a small smile.

  Maybe the pencil marks couldn’t be erased, but at some point, you could decide to turn to a new page.

  “Do anything interesting today?” Dad asked me during dinner that night.

  “Not really,” I lied, and chewed on a piece of asparagus.

  “How has your internship been going?” Mom asked.

  “Good.”

  “What kinds of things have you been doing?” she asked.

  “I don’t want to talk about it right now,” I said. What I really wanted to talk about was Marcus, but if I brought him up, Mom would just shut me down again.

  “All right,” Mom said. She started talking to Dad about something that happened at work, and I stopped paying attention.


  I ate a couple more bites of salmon and rice, and then asked to be excused.

  Back in my room with the door closed, I searched for more information about Marcus and his case, but the other articles I found repeated the same stuff I already knew. None of them mentioned anything about an alibi witness. I even searched for Marcus’s name with the words “alibi witness” after it, in case I missed it somewhere, but no real results came up. Why was that?

  I needed to know if Marcus was telling me the truth. If he was, I could keep writing to him and keep getting to know him. But if he was lying about this, then I couldn’t trust him.

  For the longest time, I didn’t care whether or not I knew my birth father. I had my parents, and they were all I needed. But his letters were making me realize that there had always been a piece of me missing, like a chunk of my heart. I was finally filling in that hole. Marcus seemed to care about me. He actually wanted to know about my life. And he liked cooking! I probably got my love of baking from him. What else could I have inherited from him? I wanted to find out.

  There was only one way I could think of to know whether or not he was really innocent, and that was to find the alibi witness. If I could find the person who was with Marcus when Lucy was killed, and could prove it, then I would be able to believe that he really didn’t do it. And that he was who he said he was.

  I’d find Marcus’s alibi witness—and the truth.

  Chapter Sixteen

  There was one person who knew all of the details of Marcus’s case, and maybe even the alibi witness’s name—Anthony Miller, Marcus’s lawyer. When I searched online for his name, I found a website with a list of public defenders. Mr. Miller’s name was on the list. I read through the website and figured out that he was assigned to Marcus because Marcus couldn’t afford his own lawyer.

  The contact page only listed a general email address and phone number for the law office. I sent an email to the general address, asking for information about the case, about an alibi witness. Anything that might prove Marcus was really innocent. I didn’t mention that I was a twelve-year-old.