“Maybe not,” I said, “but I could be comfortable in my misery.”
Dad chuckled. “I know you don’t really think money equates happiness. If it did, all these rock stars and movie idols wouldn’t end up committing suicide and taking drugs.”
Movie idols? Sometimes I swear Dad must have been born in another century.
Dad checked his watch, snatched the keys from the ignition, opened the car door, and stepped out into full sunlight. “Let’s go. There’s no reason to put it off.”
I could think of at a dozen or so good reasons, just off the top of my head.
»»•««
The building was abuzz with men in white short-sleeved shirts and out-of-date ties, and women in straight calf-length dark skirts with white-collared-blouses and drab sweaters. The district attorney’s office was on the fourth floor, just down the hall from the six courtrooms.
In the hall outside his office stood a small wooden table and a printed sign on a chrome pedestal: SIGN IN, FORM A SINGLE LINE AGAINST WALL AND WAIT FOR YOUR NAME TO BE CALLED. DO NOT KNOCK ON DOOR.
We were the first to arrive, but instead of signing in, Dad knocked on the door, ignoring the sign’s instructions. To my surprise, after a few whispered words with the rather small older woman who answered the door, she invited us in.
Inside was a large room with six identical small desks, a swivel desk chair, and two straight-back wooden chairs that could have come over on the Mayflower. Six clerks busied themselves preparing for their day. The DA’s office must be a busy place. Each desk had a computer, a monitor, and a two-drawer file cabinet. Oddly enough, I didn’t see any phones.
The older woman’s laminated ID badge introduced her as Adeline Goodson, Sr. Admin Assistant. She ask us to have a seat on one of the two rather modern black leather sofas outside a door marked Harold C. Bell, District Attorney. The name sounded familiar. Another woman, this one in her late twenties or early thirties, came out of the DA’s office and introduced herself as Miss Gordon, his executive assistant.
“Mr. Bell and his Assistant DAs are in their morning briefing, he’ll be with you in a moment.”
“Dad,” I whispered. “What did you say that got us special treatment?”
“I told her to tell Mr. Bell his pastor was here.”
I was shocked. “Is this the same Mr. Bell that ushers at church?”
“One and the same,” said Dad.
As I was pondering whether Dad being the DA’s pastor would swing any weight, Mr. Bell stepped out of his office and offered his hand to Dad. “What can I do for you, Pastor?”
“We have a bit of a problem, I’m afraid. Todd here has something to say, or to be exact, confess.” The DA’s eyes widened.
Dad nodded to me. “Tell Mr. Bell what you told me, son.”
Mr. Bell held up his hand. “Just a minute. Maybe we ought to step into my office.”
Inside, Dad coaxed, “Go ahead, tell him.”
My breathing quickened. My resolve toward the truth weakened a bit. “I thought Mr. Hoffman is handling Josh’s case.”
Mr. Bell turned to face me and said, “They are all my cases too, Todd. Ultimately, the buck stops right here.” He patted the back of his tall-backed leather desk chair.
Oh, this guy could be governor someday, maybe higher. His “the buck stops right here” bit, in a deep honey-smooth style, will play as pure gold on TV ads.
Bell asked, “What is it you wanted to say?”
It was too late to turn back now. The hour of reckoning. Now-or-never time. You pick the cliché. As I hesitated, Dad gave my neck a reassuring squeeze with a firm, confident hand and whispered, “Go on.”
I spoke maybe three words before the river of confessions and apologies gushed out. I could have been kneeling at the prayer altar at church, head bowed, heart laid open, pleading with Almighty God for mercy and reconciliation.
I was sincere, too, ashamed of letting my little brother take the heat for my crimes. I’d been selfish, cowardly, and dishonest. Above all, I had betrayed my own brother, never once stopping to think of how he felt. Josh was a lot younger than I was. He’d lost his mother too. He too had been thrown into a new school, and I’m sure he was as worried about Dad, his job, and what was to come next, just like I was.
And poor Dad, I’d never given his feelings a minute’s thought before breaking the law. Dad had lost his wife of twenty years. How many times had he talked about Mom being his soul-mate, partner, and friend? What was I thinking?
“Mr. Bell, I’m ready to take whatever punishment you want to give me.”
Mr. Bell moved around his desk and said, “Whoa, son. It’s not up to me. There’s a whole process to go through.” He walked behind his desk, and sat down. “What is Josh’s middle name and date of birth?”
When Dad told him, he clicked at his computer keyboard for a minute, and then picked up his phone. “Miss Gordon, would you ask Drake Hoffman and Deputy Sergeant Langston to join us, please. I think I saw Langston down in the briefing room.” He turned to Dad, smiled slyly, and said, “The briefing room is what we call the break lounge.”
Chapter Thirty-One
The die was cast. There were no king’s Xs, time-outs, or do-overs. It was one of those times in life when your destiny was completely out of your hands. Funny, though, I was actually relieved. For weeks, every sin, whether of commission or omission, had tied another knot of barbed wire in my gut.
I knew the next few weeks, or maybe months, would be hard, but for the first time in a long while, I felt like we would all get through them. And, in the end, we’d still be a family.
By ten fifteen, Mr. Bell’s office, which earlier seemed cavernous, became cramped and stuffy. Eventually, there were eight of us in the room. Mr. Bell, his executive assistant, Sergeant Langston and another deputy, a Mrs. Dodd from the Department of Family Welfare, Marshmallow Man, Dad, and I, all squeezed into the room.
“I know it’s a bit cramped in here,” said Bell, “but this shouldn’t take but a few minutes.” He didn’t ask any of them to sit.
Dad and I were seated. Mr. Bell and everyone else hovered about. We were roadkill, and the others, hungry vultures circling overhead.
Mr. Bell turned to Marshmallow. “Drake, did you bring the Josh Nelson file?”
Drake Hoffman raised a pale green folder and waggled it over his head. “Right here.”
“I assume you’re familiar with it.” A statement rather than a question.
“I am.” Hoffman opened the file and fanned the pages with his thumb. “The Nelson boy and his accomplice are charged with criminal trespass, several counts of burglary of vehicles, and burglary of school property and felony mischief.”
So they’d caught Kevin Brunson after all.
Hoffman didn’t mention the auto theft. They must not have enough proof for that one. I sure wasn’t going to say anything about what I saw unless someone asked—I sure prayed they wouldn’t.
Mr. Bell went into full DA mode. “I would like for us to see if we can resolve this issue right here and now.”
He summarized my confession and addressed the woman from Family Welfare. “Ms. Dodd, I assume your office has made an evaluation of the Nelson home environment. What are your thoughts on the situation there?”
Before she could speak, Deputy Langston stepped forward and angrily interrupted. “Mr. Bell, I’d think, with this latest turn of events, it’s plain to see the Nelson home is a den of thieves.”
Mr. Bell spoke up. “Calm down, Sean. You’ll get your turn. I was speaking to Ms. Dodd.”
Langston grunted something unintelligible and stepped back to his place near the room’s only window.
I was a little surprised Mr. Bell didn’t turn the whole thing over to one of his assistant DA’s, Dad being his pastor and all, but I began to understand: The town of Branard was an alien planet all to itself. The logic and conventions of a normal Earth society did not apply. At times, I suspected even the laws of nature didn’t work the s
ame in Branard as they did in other places.
Ms. Dodd read a few excerpts from Frau Vondenhoff’s report. To my surprise, the report appeared to be accurate, and for the most part, favorable. “I found the home environment to be stable and nurturing, especially given the family’s recent bereavement and loss of their principle domestic nucleus.”
Our principle domestic nucleus? Mom would have been all over that one. I could hear her saying, “You can’t condense a wife and mother’s love to clinical terms.” She used to say, “My job as a wife to Douglas and mother to the boys is both a huge responsibility and an immense blessing.” Then she would get that little sparkle in her eye, grin, and say, “Although, there are times…”
Dear God, how I miss her.
Mr. Bell nodded to Deputy Langston, who was about to have a full-grown cow.
“Harry…I mean, Mr. Bell…they can’t be serious. This isn’t about a couple of mischievous juveniles. This is a gang of criminals who have victimized our town for nearly five months. We need to try this older boy as an adult. As far as we know, he could be the gang’s mastermind.” He barely took a breath between rants. He raised his voice and shouted, “And another thing, Harry, we ought to file on the father for contributing to the delinquency of his minor charges.”
Mr. Bell held up a hand, and Langston lowered his voice. He went on another two minutes about how this “crime wave” had cost the taxpayers of the county thousands of dollars paying for overtime and the state crime lab’s fees. He talked about Josh and me as though we were kingpins in some modern-day mafia. He had me squirming, that was a fact. If it were up to him, our whole family would be sentenced to ten years in the electric chair.
Mr. Bell finally interrupted. “Sean, I’m sorry your department had such a hard time catching them, but in truth, the younger brother and his partner are sixth graders. Sixth graders, Sean! And another point, Deputy Langston, until I told you about Todd’s confession, you didn’t even have him on your radar, so your assessment is a little premature.”
Mr. Bell, the District Attorney, and Mr. Bell, the usher from church, were light years apart. The one from church was quiet, dull, and passive. DA Mr. Bell was self-assured, forceful, and unyielding. He let everyone have their say as long as they kept their voices down and stayed to the point. Once everyone else had their say, he turned to Dad.
“Is there anything you would like to say, Reverend Nelson?”
Dad stood and glanced around the room. He said, “I must admit, I would have never expected to find myself in this position. My parenting called into question, both my boys in trouble with the law, and no excuse for any of it. All I have to say is this, I’m sorry for the trouble my family has caused all of you.” He paused and took a slow deep breath.
I thought I saw just a hint of a tear in the corner of his eye as he finished.
“We’re ready for whatever consequences follow.”
As for me, I wasn’t as sure as I had been when we first walked in.
Dad pulled a handkerchief from inside his suit coat, dabbed his nose, and sat down.
Mr. Bell broke the room’s stark silence. “Reverend, would you and Todd please have a seat outside my office. I’ll have someone show you to the conference room.”
As we started for the door, Mr. Bell asked his assistant to find someone to show us where to go.
In the sparsely decorated conference room, Dad and I talked about its decor and lighting, the weather, the rise in gasoline prices, and the poor guy who took a header off the roof of the American Trust building last week, avoiding the issue at hand.
After twenty minutes, Mr. Bell and Langston stepped into the conference room.
“Todd,” Bell said. “I need you to accompany Deputy Langston to county booking.” My heart leapt to my throat. I guess on some level, I knew it had to come to this. After all, as Langston had pointed out, I had confessed to a felony, and a Class A Felony at that, one punishable by up to a year in prison.
A year in prison. That was all I could think about. No college, no football, no girls, and no prospects for the life I had dreamed of. I’d had big plans. I was going to get a scholarship to a major university, be an All-American defensive end by my junior year, and then have to decide whether I wanted to stay in school or opt out for a mega million dollar contract in the pros.
Never had doing the right thing sucked so bad. When I confessed to Dad, a huge burden was lifted off my chest. I had never felt so free. Now, with the words, “I need you to accompany Deputy Langston to county processing,” the weight returned tenfold.
Chapter Thirty-Two
At first, I thought Deputy Langston was reaching around me to give me a reassuring hug. I’m not sure where that thought came from. Instead, he took firm grasp of my flannel overshirt where the sleeve attaches to the shoulder, gathering a handful of my T-shirt in his fist as well.
He grabbed my right wrist with his right hand and pushed me toward the door. I suspect the move is a standard method taught in police academies everywhere. It certainly was an effective way of controlling someone, even a big someone like me.
Langston spun me around and slammed me against the wall, pressing my face against the plaster with his left forearm. Although I had fifty pounds on the deputy, at will, he was able to manipulate my body like a ventriloquist controlling the dummy on his knee. Dummy being the fitting word here. His control tactics weren’t necessary. I had no intention of resisting.
“Both hands behind your head, fingers interlocked.”
My response must have been a second or two slow in coming, because he rammed his shoulder into my back forcing me harder into the wall. With a raspy whisper, he called me a name that caused my blood to boil.
Why is it, that when some foul-mouthed bully wants to call you a name, he always includes your mother in his slur?
I must admit, in that moment, I did not want to “bless them that curse you,” as the Bible instructs. To my credit, and probably, in my best interest, I kept my opinion of the deputy and his lineage to myself.
He repeated his instructions into my ear, and I begrudgingly did as I was told. He snapped handcuffs on my right wrist and pulled it down behind my back. He pulled my left wrist down and squeezed both cuffs snug. A move he had no doubt done a thousand times before. He pushed me in the direction of the main door across the room. No one seemed to notice any of the deputy’s Gestapo tactics. Standard operating procedure, I assumed.
I had hoped there would be some sort of private elevator leading from the fourth floor to the jail in the basement. But then, why would the criminal justice system care if criminals are embarrassed when they are paraded through the halls like…like common criminals.
As I did the perp walk down the crowded hall, past open courtroom doors, and growing lines of lawyers, jurors, and witnesses, I thought about the kids at my school. It was a weekday, and I imagined it would take an hour, maybe two, for word of my arrest to reach every corner of the school. It might take a couple of hours longer to reach Lisa and her family.
If my name was mud before, I couldn’t imagine what it would be once word of my arrest got around. But looking on the bright side, maybe Dad would lose his job and we would have to move far away from Branard. I hear they need missionaries in Venezuela and Nicaragua.
I thought about poor Lisa. The grief she’d take from her friends, her dad and sister, and anyone from school who knew of our date. The thought of hurting her was worse than my own embarrassment. I deserved it, but she didn’t. I bet she wished she had never met me, but I was glad she dodged the bullet of a second date.
Down the main hall, left through the elevator lobby, and into the elevator marked KEY CARDS ONLY. It seemed as though everyone we passed stared at me before wagging his or her head in disgust. The deputy made me face the rear door of the two-door elevator until we reached the floor marked B2. The elevator opened into the basement parking level.
As Deputy Langston prodded me along a brightly painted yellow wall and
pushed me through a pair of swinging glass doors marked “County Jail Induction Processing,” I thought of the embarrassment for the whole family: Granny Walls, Aunt Sue, my cousins, and the rest.
“Stand in the white square and don’t move until you’re told.” Langston shoved me toward a counter labeled “Intake-Station #1” and a very large, very sour-faced woman wearing a tan uniform with a county jail patch on the upper right sleeve. I noticed an embroidered cloth sheriff’s department badge on the front of her uniform shirt. I guess they were afraid an inmate might grab one of the metal badges and use it for a weapon or something.
“Name?”
While deciding whether she was asking me or Langston my name, she leaned toward me and asked, “Are you trying to give me a hard time, or are you just stupid?”
In case I had gone deaf and stupid, Deputy Langston shoved a now familiar elbow into the small of my back and yelled in my ear. “Name, dummy! You do know your name, don’t you?”
Sadly, things did not go any better from that point on.
I blurted out my name, and Langston handed the woman behind the counter a thin green folder and said, “Happy birthday, DeeDee. He’s all yours.”
I felt the cuffs click and loosen as a larger Hispanic officer stepped in, grabbed my right wrist and slapped on a shackle. “Turn around and hold out your hands.” The monogram on his shirt read “P. Garcia.” I stifled the urge to call him Pee-dro.
He latched the steel bands on either end of the shackle chain to my outstretched wrists. The shackles were twice as heavy as the handcuffs, but it was better than having my hands cuffed behind my back.
Officer Sourpuss, behind the counter, slipped my file into an apparatus resembling a time clock, checked the printout, and typed something into her computer. She said, “Inmate JM49523, have a seat right over there.” With a wave of the file, she motioned toward a row of tan molded plastic chairs with steel tube frames bolted to the floor.
The Hispanic officer said, “Sit down and don’t cause any trouble. Don’t get up unless your name is called. Got it?”
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