Moreover, he read all the articles about the Darwin family, and their dedication to their church. He read that some in their congregation held all-night vigils outside the jail, though he hadn’t seen the outside since they brought him in.
It wasn’t long before the papers started reporting on the prosecution’s case, and the character profile it was building against David. Schoolmates, who were already almost two months into the school year, were interviewed. David could imagine the rumor mill, the wild stories circulating through the hallways.
A local writer named Elijah Fennecker started writing a series called “The Life and Practices of David Westwood.” The series interviewed his neighbors and classmates. Very quickly, Fennecker stumbled on the nickname Red. The whole town was gripped by the life of David Westwood.
“Paper says you write diaries about all the things you hate? That you hate America; that you’re a communist?” said Barry Levin during one of their meetings.
David sat across from him at the stainless-steel table and rubbed his arms for warmth. He had stopped eating the jail food, was getting sick to his stomach from it, but he didn’t want to tell anybody. His eyes were heavy and dark. Barry was holding the latest issue of the Turnbull Times with Fennecker’s article folded open. He spun it around. David dropped his eyes to the pages, leaned forward to take the paper by the corners, and shook his head.
“Any more surprises for me, David?” Barry leaned back and put his hands behind his head. He exhaled loudly through his nose.
“What does this have to do with anything?” David asked.
Barry smiled in disbelief. “It means nothing. You’re just a stupid kid, but they’re going to use this information to paint you as a danger to this town, to society, to this country. To national security, if they have to. This doesn’t help them with the bare facts of the case, but it goes a long way in the court of public opinion.”
“What does that mean?” David asked, the phrase burning in his mind like a branding iron. He had an idea what it meant, and he didn’t like it.
“It means if the town thinks you’re a rotten apple, they’ll be all the more anxious to toss you onto the compost.”
“I never told anybody I hated America. I don’t, really,” protested David. “They were calling me a communist.”
“Yeah, well, your classmates are having long conversations with this writer, and they’re saying you used to go on about how bad America is.”
“They hated me,” David said, his head shaking.
“Who’s they?”
“They, them! All those . . . I don’t know, any damn one of those jerks in that school.”
Barry kept silent. He spun the paper back around and continued reading the article. He picked at his bottom lip. Then he dropped a finger onto one of Fennecker’s lines and looked up at David. “Says here you checked out a copy of The Communist Manifesto from the library?”
David shrugged.
“Now? In the midst of all that’s going on with Beirut and the Olympics, you’re going to choose to walk around with that stuff?” Exasperated, Barry slid the paper away and rubbed his eyes. He’d been working for hours on David’s case, hanging up the phone in his office every three minutes after a reporter got hold of his number. Wrangling with the prosecutor since David’s indictment. “I think we should start to seriously consider a plea arrangement,” he added.
But David wasn’t paying attention. He was reading frantically. His lips moved softly to the words and his ears grew hot and red at the horrors the article was saying about him.
* * *
Two days later, while David was reading the new edition of Fennecker’s series, a guard stormed up to his holding cell.
“Visitor!” he shouted.
An electronic buzzer went off, and the cell door slid to the side. David stepped out gingerly. The guard guided him down the corridors of sliding bars, grabbing his shoulder every so many feet.
“Wait!” he’d bark, until the bars behind them slammed shut. New bars opened, and they could move ahead. David could see a large room at the end of the corridor.
“Wait!” the guard ordered, and pulled on his arm. David stopped. Bars slammed shut. Bars slid open. “Move!” He stepped forward obediently. His mind was beginning to race ahead of him. Who could it possibly be? He thought it might be someone from class.
“Wait!”
He stopped. It might be his mother. It had been awhile since she’d visited. He feared it could be the victim’s parents.
“Move!”
Could it be Elijah Fennecker? He began to sweat a little. What if it was Julia? Oh God, what if it’s her?
“Wait!”
He stopped. What would he say to her? What was he supposed to tell her—that he’d murdered that little kid?
“Move!”
That he’d been angry? He’d lost control and took another person’s life? I wouldn’t know what to tell her, if it’s her, he thought.
And yet. Deep in that place where a person would rather have knowledge than bliss, he wished it was Julia, and the closer he got to the end of the corridor, the more he hoped to see her eyes blinking from behind the thick glass dividing them.
“Wait!” he heard for the last time. A buzz went off and the door in front of him was pulled open. The guard led him to a small stool and shoved him down onto it. David craned his neck to see who was coming, and his eyes filled immediately when they fell on his father.
Mr. Westwood looked at his son as if for the first time. He gazed over his clothing, bit his bottom lip before he sat, and picked up the phone. Although they each held the phones in their hands, neither said a word.
His father finally broke the silence: “Are you being treated fairly in here?”
David nodded. The weight in his chest subsided, though he didn’t know what to say.
“I just got out of a meeting with Barry. Says he’s going to try to get you a plea bargain deal, you know, so you do less time.” On the word “time” Mr. Westwood choked up and the word only made its presence in vowel form—a squeak that came from somewhere deep in his throat. He wiped his eyes and lowered his chin, burying his face into the mouthpiece of the phone. David looked with pity at the top of his head. A bald patch revealed itself under the jail lights.
“I’ll be all right,” David said. “How’s Mom?”
His father sniffed. “She’s hanging in there. Started a fan club for one of those soaps she watches.”
David laughed uncomfortably. “Yeah, I remember her saying something about that. Sounds like something that’s right up—”
“Did you do it, David?” The question exploded—as if it were the one and only question he’d come to ask. He didn’t make eye contact with his son when he asked it; his eyes remained fixed on the steel desk while he waited for the answer. Like waiting for the punch he knew would knock him down.
On David’s side of the glass, the question hit him like a rush of frigid air. This was the one person David didn’t want to have ask that question. The cops, Barry, the prosecutors—he could answer them. But his mind was swimming for a suitable answer to give his father, who breathed heavily and repeated the question, softer this time: “Did you do it?”
“Why?” asked David, as if stalling for time.
“I need to know, from you, if you killed that boy. Did you do it, or was it one of the other kids and they’re blaming it on you?”
There was a long pause, and David got that feeling in his stomach, the feeling he got back when he was younger and his father would ask him if he took out the trash, or did his homework. He decided to gamble on that old feeling, and answer him honestly.
“Yes,” he finally responded. He watched his father close his eyes tightly as tears squirted out and ran down the lines of his cheeks. His hands started to shake. Then suddenly, as if a fever had just broken, he composed himself, sniffed, and cleared his throat. He looked at David.
“Then I have to walk away. You did a horrible thing, a
nd you should be punished, and your mother and I have to walk away now.” He quickly hung up the phone and stood up.
“Dad!” David yelled, and leaned forward to bang on the glass. His father had already turned away and was leaving. “Listen to me, Dad, come back!”
A loud crack rang out over the loudspeakers and a bored voice said, “Prisoner Westwood for transfer.”
David stood up and craned his neck as his father disappeared from view. In desperation he yelled out once more: “Dad!” Then a heavy hand clamped down on his shoulder and shoved him back down onto the metal stool.
“Wait!” the guard barked. A buzzer went off. “Move!” David heard, and he was pulled to his feet.
CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR
To look at David Westwood’s sketchbook is to gaze down the barrel of a mind poised on the edge of destruction. A disturbing journey through an emotional volcano of what would spill over on that sweltering day in July. It is also a rare glimpse of what we are about to encounter in our new generation—the angry teenager. The murderous youth.
DAVID SAT UP IN HIS JAIL CELL and read Fennecker’s most recent essay in horror. He wasn’t feeling well. His head swirled, and he felt constantly rushed, though there was nowhere to go. How did he get my sketchbook? he wondered, before he remembered he’d left his knapsack behind when he ran from Darryl Knight’s party. The night he’d punched Phil Massa and was chased by his friends. That was the night before everything else. His sketchbook, of all the private things in his possession, was riddled with every bad, rebellious, perverse, cruel, and primitive thought he’d ever had. Every interesting turn of phrase he heard. He had wanted it that way. Wanted to pour himself out uncensored, both with the brush and the pen. He’d never dreamed it would be read, especially not under these circumstances. Barry would lose his mind, this was certain.
“One day we’ll pay for how we treat the weak,” he writes in one entry. “And America will choke on its own capitalist gluttony.” “Do everything your impulses tell you to do, you’ll regret the things you didn’t do when you get older,” he states in another.
David scanned the middle paragraphs frantically.
Can a boy this young still have years left for redemption? . . . David Westwood isolated himself from his peers—and then he set to the task of isolating himself from God.
David recoiled from the words. He didn’t consider himself a godly person—that was true. But had he cast God away? Did he really make a conscious decision to force God out of his life? That line about American gluttony? A publicity stunt in waiting. He remembered writing that down hoping one day it would cause a media stir when he was famous. The way John Lennon said the Beatles were more popular than Jesus. It was a plant, but it made David suddenly wonder if he hadn’t written it with more seriousness than intended. Is it possible to be sincere even while being insincere? He didn’t know anymore. That’s how it is with these people, these writers, he thought, they start making you think that they know you better than you know yourself.
The article went on. A cold sensation flooded David’s mind, like an ice cube inserted at the base of his skull, dripping slowly. He was a cautionary tale, it said. He was unwholesome, adhering to destructive philosophies. He didn’t look a person in the eyes. He didn’t hold his hand over his heart and recite the Pledge. He had no base in religious faith, and was in the “fringe minority.”
David tugged at his hair. All these conclusions from a sketchbook, he thought. The smarmy enthusiasm of classmates. He glanced back at the final paragraph.
When I see him in the courtroom, I don’t know how I’ll fight the urge to yell across to him: “It didn’t have to be this way for you!” But I know he’ll probably not hear me. By his writing and behavior—his poor attempt at art excluded—he seems beyond reason. He seems to resent all that is fine. He is angry at times, brutally sarcastic at others. Antisocial. And he’s a sober warning to us all. Don’t let his legacy reproduce in our town.
David let the paper drop from his hands. He felt like he couldn’t swallow. It was as if he’d been sleepwalking for fifteen years, and then awakened to all the horrible things he’d done, said, written, and believed. He wanted to reject all of what Fennecker wrote. He was not that person. But all of this was out there, outside the walls of his cell. Guards were reading it. His classmates were reading it. His parents and neighbors. Julia too. Beads of sweat formed on his brow. He hadn’t eaten a solid meal in weeks. His head throbbed, and he suddenly couldn’t breathe. Dragging himself up from the bed, he pressed his face against the cold bars. They felt good on his hot face and he leaned there for a few minutes. He still couldn’t catch his breath.
“Help,” he moaned weakly. “Someone help!” His eyes turned toward the back of his head, and now his body pulled away from his control. He seized, dropped to the floor with a thud, and let out a guttural noise. It was another call for help, but he knew his mouth couldn’t form the word correctly. The throbbing in his temples grew louder. He heard a loud buzz and then his cell door sliding open. Boots clapped on the floor around him. A hand grasped his arm.
“Pick him up, we’ll take him to the infirmary,” one of the guards said.
“No,” said the other, “bring the doc here. He could be faking this whole thing . . . Lay still, Westwood!”
CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE
AFTER HE RECOVERED FROM HIS FEVER,David began eating the jail food again, by order of the doctor and his lawyer. The guards stood over him while he ate to make sure he cleaned his plate. They seemed to take some pleasure in watching him. David would pinch his nose and force the spoonfuls into his mouth. A few days earlier, he’d explained to one of the guards standing over him that the food gave him a stomachache.
“That’s what the latrine is for,” the guard replied flatly. He had his arms folded across his chest, and stood up on his toes from time to time as he looked around the mess hall. “You’re not allowed to have any more fevers from malnutrition, so it’ll have to be a stomachache, I guess,” the guard said. “Eat.”
David shoved a spoonful into his mouth and grimaced. “Disgusting,” he mumbled.
“You’ll get used to it,” the guard said, his arms still crossed. For some reason, the remark almost made David cry.
* * *
Once he was feeling strong again, David sat down with Barry to discuss the possible plea arrangement. David had somehow become convinced that he could take a shot at pleading not guilty. The facts of the case had faded from his mind. A trial would be about clearing his character. He wanted the court to see who he was, and to expose all the lies and assumptions swirling outside like plastic bags in the empty parking lots of Turnbull. His guilt had subsided to sadness, which in turn subsided to desperation, as he spent his days reading about himself and waiting for the grown-ups to decide his fate. Barry said it would be stupid to try the case.
“The prosecution has so much wrapped up on you, I’d be lucky to get them to agree to any plea deal. Are you kidding, David?” he asked, leaning forward in his chair.
“But . . . Okay, so I’m guilty of this thing, but I’m not guilty of all these other things . . . all this stuff about me being a communist, and that I hate everybody. I’m a monster. I’m not guilty of that stuff.”
“Look, the only time we should take this thing to trial is if the prosecutor wants to get you for first or second degree murder. If he takes a manslaughter plea, without question we should jump on it.”
David picked at his lip as his lawyer spoke. He was shaking his head. “Why would he want to get me for that?”
“First degree?” Barry raised his eyebrows. “Easy: they want to get a serious conviction. And those people out there with picket signs wouldn’t mind sending you upstate for the rest of your life.”
“There’s people picketing outside?”
Barry Levin turned his face down into a solemn frown. “And I have to convince the DA to ignore them and not go after you for premeditated murder.”
“They can
’t prove it was premeditated,” David said, frowning in disbelief.
“Sure they can. You had a run-in with these kids before, chasing them through the woods. You had a fight with one of the victim’s brothers the night before. So you decide to get your revenge on the older brother by waiting for the younger one to come through the woods—”
“That’s not what happened,” David interrupted.
“Forget what happened, this is what they’ll try to prove. You took out your revenge on the older kid’s little brother, because he humiliated you in front of a crowd of people.”
David felt the hairs on his neck sizzle. His temples pounded as he watched the lawyer shake his head in exasperation and fan out a short pile of crime-scene photographs.
Barry was focusing on the space around the small yellow markers, as if the story written in the sands of the victim’s last few moments would reveal something he’d overlooked. But even as he placed them side by side, they were still empty photos of pine needles. The ghosts of sneakers.
David’s eyes scanned the photos too. Laid out like poker cards, a royal flush of chaos. Each corner of one photo overlaid another. Leaning forward, he examined the one nearest him—a shot of the ground. Sand mixed with the tips of pine needles. A fury of footprints had overturned the earth. Small divots from the little boys—monstrous ones gashed deep behind from David and his friends. David wondered which were his. There were so many ruts it was impossible to tell. He could just make out the spot where James had fallen face-first. Where his hands must have clutched at the sand. A deep rut, from when David had dragged James to his feet, stretched across the composition and disappeared off the edge of the photo.
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