Say Nothing

by Brad Parks

  A small squeak escaped from Byrd’s wife, who then muffled herself with a tissue.

  “My wife and I . . . We’re going to have to make peace with what our son did. But we’re having an even harder time making peace with the idea that the man who supplied him this . . . this poison . . . gets to go on enjoying his life and seeing his family and doing all the things Dylan can’t do anymore. Mr. Hubbard said if he didn’t do a plea deal there was always a chance this man would go free and, well, I’m not sure we could handle that. So we said, ‘Okay, go ahead and do the deal.’ And Mr. Hubbard said he’ll probably get about fifteen years or so and, well . . . The harsh truth is, my son is still going to be dead in fifteen years.”

  His voice was trembling. He was fighting a losing battle with his lower lip.

  “Your Honor, my wife and I, everyone tells us we need to start moving on. But how can we? Dylan was our only child. He was the center of our lives. This has destroyed us beyond anything I can describe. And I don’t know if having Mr. Skavron go to prison for a long time is really going to make it any better. But . . . do you know what it’s like to bury a seventeen-year-old boy, Your Honor? It’s not something I’d wish on anyone, not even Mr. Skavron here. If someone had let me crawl into that box in my son’s place, I wouldn’t have skipped a beat. It just . . . I . . . I miss my son . . . I miss my son so much. It hurts all the time. Can you imagine what that feels like, Your Honor?”

  Ordinarily, I never would have said a thing. I’m not even sure I knew I was about to talk. But the next thing I heard was my own cracked voice.

  “Yes,” I said, at a volume just above a whisper. “Yes, I can.”

  Byrd nodded and looked me square in the eyes. “Then I know you’re going to do the right thing. For us and for Dylan. Thank you, Your Honor.”

  Byrd left the witness stand to a courtroom that had fallen silent. I was grateful—immensely so—that if nothing else good came out of this calamity, I was at least going to be able to give this man and his suffering wife some small measure of comfort by announcing a sentence far harsher than what he or Mr. Hubbard or anyone else in the courtroom could have reasonably expected.

  And then I felt my phone buzz.

  Hubbard was back on his feet. As he murmured a few words of thanks to Thomas Byrd, I took a peek down. It was the 900 number again:

  Change of plans. Let Skavron walk.

  * * *

  For the next few seconds, I experienced what I can describe only as vertigo. The courtroom seemed to pitch and yaw right in front of me.

  My phone buzzed again: FREE SKAVRON! it taunted.

  Then again: FREE SKAVRON!

  I let the phone drop softly to the carpeted floor at my feet, then brought both hands up to the desk in front of me to steady myself. I feared I was going to vomit all over its polished cherry surface.

  Free Skavron? After what I had just heard? How could I possibly do that to Thomas Byrd and his wife? How could I ever again have a shred of respect for myself as a judge or as a human being?

  And yet I already knew I didn’t have a choice.

  I hated myself for how quickly I came to this selfish, self-serving conclusion. But nothing I did to Skavron could change that Dylan Byrd was dead.

  My children, on the other hand, were still alive. They had to come first. And I felt like any parent—even the Byrds—would absolve me for that decision, if only I could tell them the full circumstances.

  Mr. Hubbard had resumed: “Part of our agreement with the defense is that Mr. Skavron’s offense be reduced from Level Thirty-six to Level Thirty-one, without some of the enhancements that could have been added. He is a Criminal History Category Five. The guidelines call for a sentence range of one hundred and sixty-eight to two hundred and ten months. Given what we’ve just heard, my recommendation is for the high end of that scale. Thank you, Your Honor.”

  Hubbard sat. I was still trying to recover my equilibrium. Jail Skavron. Free Skavron. What was the agenda here, exactly? And who was behind it? It was like trying to unscramble an egg.

  Alan Sutherlin, a lawyer from the public defender’s office, was already standing and expecting to be recognized by the court so he could begin his defense. Wearily, I turned to him.

  “Mr. Sutherlin?” I said.

  “Yes, thank you, Your Honor,” he said. “On behalf of my client, I’d like to express my condolences to the Byrd family. And I’d like to thank Mr. Byrd for that moving statement.”

  Sutherlin shuffled some papers on his desk. I was hoping he might give me something to work with, something that would make me seem remotely justified in the travesty of justice I was about to commit.

  He immediately began disappointing me.

  “I don’t have much to add beyond what appears in the presentencing report,” he said. “Obviously, you’ve read about Mr. Skavron’s childhood. He didn’t exactly have a lot of breaks in this world. Yes, he’s made some poor choices, which he acknowledges. But there were also times when I think Your Honor could recognize he wasn’t dealing from the best set of options. I don’t need to tell you how hard it can be for an ex-convict to find work, and Mr. Skavron’s record would deter even the most forgiving employer. But he was trying, Your Honor.

  “As to some of the aggravating factors addressed by Mr. Hubbard, it should be noted that the firearm Mr. Skavron stored at his cousin’s house was not loaded and did not have bullets with it, so it wouldn’t have been a danger if a child found it. In addition, with the fentanyl, there is no evidence to suggest that Mr. Skavron knew the heroin had been cut with this other product. Mr. Skavron was really just acting as a pass-along here.

  “As to the overdoses, these students made statements to the police that they had never used heroin before and that they were looking to experiment with the drug. They were seeking it out. If they hadn’t gotten the heroin from my client, they would have gotten it from somewhere else.”

  They would have gotten it from somewhere else. As legal arguments went, this was like trying to beat a murder rap by arguing, But, Your Honor, the victim was going to die eventually.

  Then again, what was I expecting? Sutherlin was defending the indefensible.

  “So, bearing that in mind, and having reviewed the sentencing guidelines, and taking into consideration Mr. Skavron’s continued cooperation, we feel that a hundred and forty-four months is an appropriate sentence. That’s just below guidelines, but it’s still twelve years. And with all due respect to the statement from Mr. Byrd, I’m quite sure the Bureau of Prisons will see to it my client will not be enjoying his life. Those will be long, hard years. And I know Dylan Byrd will weigh heavily on his mind during that time and for the rest of his life. Thank you, Your Honor.”

  My mouth had gone dry. But I managed to say, “Thank you, Mr. Sutherlin.”

  I turned my eyes to the defendant. “Mr. Skavron, is there anything else I should consider before I impose my sentence?”

  This was my last shot. In truth, there wasn’t much Skavron could say, given the evidence against him. But if he could at least appear human . . .

  Instead, the worthless son of a bitch just looked down at the carpet and mumbled, “I just wanted to say I’m real sorry for what I done, Your Honor. I didn’t mean to, you know, hurt no one or nothing. And I just want to, you know, throw myself on the mercy of the court.”

  I waited for more, but that was it.

  He had given me virtually nothing.

  I looked down to the floor, where my phone was resting. Quickly, I bent and picked it up, hoping it might offer me a reprieve: another text, reversing the reversal. I tapped at it a few times.

  But its face contained only the time and date. There were no new messages. I was on my own.

  * * *

  This was the moment everyone had come for. A courtroom full of eyes was trained on me. A courtroom full of ears awaited my words.
>
  Having appeared to deliberate on the matter, I lifted my head. I couldn’t look at Skavron, much less the prosecution. Certainly not the Byrds. So I gazed out at the wood paneling in the back of the courtroom as I spoke.

  “Mr. Skavron, after carefully considering the guidelines and all the factors in thirty-five fifty-three A, the court has now prepared to impose a sentence,” I said, and then I forced down the bile in my throat and went on with it:

  “I feel you have demonstrated significant remorse for your crimes. I have noted your recent work history and your intent to pursue a GED. I believe you have found the desire to live a crime-free life. You have asked for mercy, and as I consider that, I would like to be very clear: This is your last chance, Mr. Skavron. If you squander it, I will personally make sure any future judge punishes you to the fullest extent of the law and beyond. That said, judges are given discretion at sentencing, and I am going to take the admittedly unusual step of exercising the full extent of that discretion. I hereby sentence you to time served.”

  I was going to finish by telling him the marshals would need to take him back to jail so he could fill out some paperwork before his release, but there were already outbursts coming from around the courtroom.

  The first came from the row where Skavron’s family sat. One of the older women, perhaps the aunt who raised him, was loudly thanking Jesus. The man next to her had leapt to his feet and raised his arms in triumph. A younger woman was clapping her hands with joy. Skavron had twisted around to look back at them, so I could see only about a quarter of the disgusting smile already spreading across his lips.

  “Your Honor,” Hubbard was shouting over the din. “Are you—”

  But I couldn’t hear him anymore once Thomas Byrd found the use of his vocal cords. The victim’s father was standing and pointing at me. “What the hell kind of judge are you? He killed my boy! That scumbag killed my boy and you’re going to let him go free? What’s your problem? My son is dead. He’s dead. Does that mean anything to you?”

  His blond wife was tugging on his suit jacket in a fruitless attempt to get him seated. His face was something close to purple.

  The court security officer was also yelling, attempting to restore order to a courtroom where none would be found. I was searching for my gavel, so I could at least attempt to quiet things down. But I couldn’t find it.

  It was bedlam. None of the people who had started yelling would stop long enough for me to quiet things down and finish this farce of justice once and for all.

  And then, in the back of the courtroom, the door opened. One of the court security officers from downstairs had appeared. And he was holding the hand of a little boy.

  My son.

  I leapt to my feet. Dimly aware that I still had a duty to perform, I said something like, “Court is adjourned.”

  My confused law clerk began giving the cry, which was barely being heard over the other shouting. I was already dashing past the attorneys and the defendant, none of whom had ever seen a judge move so fast. Even the marshals, who were in courtrooms nearly every day of their working lives, just gaped at me.

  When I reached the waist-high wall that bifurcated the room, I plowed through the swinging door, passing a stunned Thomas Byrd, who was still gesturing and screaming. I reached Sam, I fell to my knees, and smothered him in a hug.

  “I love you,” I blurted. “I love you so much.”

  I buried my face in his silky blond hair and gripped him so hard I was probably knocking the air out of him. There were tears rolling down my cheeks. I smelled his sweet, little-boy scent and felt the tiny muscles in his back.

  Then I lifted him and continued right on out the back door. I had to get him out of that noisy, chaotic courtroom. It didn’t feel safe in there. Above all else, I had to keep Sam safe.

  The CSO followed us out. When we reached the hallway, I set Sam down.

  “He just walked up the courthouse steps and asked to see his daddy,” said the CSO, who had followed me. “Surprised the heck out of us.”

  Sam was appropriately bewildered. He didn’t understand why Daddy was crying; but, then, he probably didn’t understand a lot of what had happened to him over the previous twenty hours or so.

  “Are you okay, Sammy?” I said, kneeling in front of him. I scanned him from top to bottom, looking for bruises or cuts or welts, finding none.

  He couldn’t seem to summon a response. He just stood there, frozen in his spot. It must have jarred him, seeing me so out of control. Children are emotional mirrors. They reflect their environment.

  For his sake, I tried to force an outer calm that I was nowhere close to feeling internally. “Is your sister with you?” I asked.

  Still no answer. I grabbed him gently by the shoulders.

  “Sammy, buddy, where’s Emma?”

  A look of confusion and anguish coincided with his first words: “She’s still with the men.”

  “What m—”

  And then Sam pulled a small envelope from his pocket. It was identical to the one I had found in the box on my porch and had JUDGE SAMPSON printed on it.

  “They said to give this to you,” he said.

  I grabbed it, then slid my finger under the flap. Inside was, again, half-folded card stock. I flipped it open and read:

  THIS IS YOUR REWARD FOR FOLLOWING ORDERS. IF YOU WANT TO SEE YOUR DAUGHTER, KEEP UP THE GOOD WORK. YOU’LL HEAR FROM US AGAIN SOON. AND, REMEMBER, IN THE MEANTIME: SAY NOTHING.

  “Is everything okay, Your Honor?” the CSO asked.

  “Yes, yes, fine,” I said, standing and grasping Sam’s hand. “I’m just going to take him back to my chambers now. Thank you very much for bringing him up here. He . . . I think he just got separated from his mother. But it’s fine now. It’s fine. Thank you.”

  “Okay. Glad to help,” the man said, with a smile and a parting wave.

  As I scooped up Sam and carried him back toward my chambers, the reality of the situation was crashing into me: Rayshaun Skavron had been nothing more than a test, a kind of trial balloon to see if I could be controlled. This had never been about Rayshaun Skavron.

  It was about one of the other four-hundred-plus cases on my docket. And at that moment, I didn’t have the slightest idea which one.

  TWELVE

  Before my staff could begin asking questions—about why I had inexplicably cut loose an admitted drug dealer, about why Sam was visiting his father at work—I swept us out of the office, mumbling a quick series of apologies and non-explanations that probably only heightened the intrigue.

  I held off on interrogating Sam on the way home. Alison was going to need to hear everything he said, and I didn’t want to make him relive the ordeal more than once.

  She was waiting for us on the front porch when we arrived. As soon as my car emerged from the woods into the clearing outside our house, she leapt off her chair and ran toward us. I had called her on the way home and let her know she was getting only one of her babies back, and she practically tore the handle off my door to get at him.

  “Oh, Sammy, my love,” she said, hauling him out of his booster seat and squeezing him fiercely. I recognized her experiencing the same bittersweet emotions I did. Getting to touch one of them made you only that much more cognizant of how much you ached to touch the other.

  We eventually got him inside and plopped down on the family room sofa. She sat on one side of him, putting a weak smile on her face. I had thought we were going to let him settle in, give him time to acclimatize before we peppered him with questions. Alison was apparently of a different mind.

  “Sammy, honey, Momma and Daddy need to ask you some things about what happened to you,” she began.

  But before she could get going, I interrupted. The judge in me knew witnesses were more forthcoming when they were at ease.

  “The first thing we want you to know,” I said, quickly
flashing my eyes toward Alison, then looking back at Sam, “is that Momma and I may be acting like we’re a little . . . concerned. But it’s not because we’re mad at you. We’re very, very happy you’re here. And you’re not in trouble for anything that happened. Okay?”

  Sam bobbed his head twice. He had the saddest little look on his face.

  “None of this was your fault,” I said. “You didn’t do anything wrong. You understand that, yes?”

  He nodded again.

  “Can you start using your words, buddy?” I asked.

  “Yeah,” he chirped.

  “Okay, good. So we’re going to ask you a few questions and you just do the best you can to answer them.”

  “It’s important for Emma,” Alison added, and I wished she hadn’t. The boy was already under enough pressure.

  “No big deal if you can’t,” I countered, smiling through the strain. “Just do the best you can. Let’s start with yesterday when you got picked up from school. What happened? The Honda came and picked you up, right?”

  “Yeah,” he said.

  “Did you notice anything different about it?”

  “Yeah, there was Transformers.”

  “Where? On the seat?” I asked.

  “No. On the TV.”

  This would have been noteworthy because, one, Transformers cartoons had been banned in our house (too violent), and, two, we turn on the TVs in the car only during longer trips. The kidnappers must have thought—correctly, it seemed—it would be a good diversion so the kids wouldn’t notice the stranger in the front seat.

  “And who was driving the car, honey?” Alison asked. This had become a subject of some importance for my wife.

  The gaze he returned to her was one of innocent childhood confusion. “You were, Momma,” he said.

  “No, honey, that wasn’t Momma,” she said immediately. “It was someone dressed up to look like Momma.”