The Silence of Murder

by Dandi Daley Mackall

My heart thumps, and my head feels dizzy. This is my chance, and I know it. “Jeremy didn’t murder Coach Johnson. He liked Coach. I think he may have loved him. And anyway, Jeremy couldn’t kill anybody, even if he hated them. And he’s never hated a living soul. You don’t know Jer like I do.”

  “Trials aren’t about what happened. They’re about what either side can prove. You haven’t been in court to hear the prosecution’s case, Hope,” Raymond says.

  “You wouldn’t let me,” I protest.

  “The judge wouldn’t let you. When you’re done testifying, you might be allowed in the courtroom as a spectator. But that’s not the point. The point is, you didn’t hear the evidence that the prosecution has against Jeremy. And evidence is all the jury can consider.”

  “Then we need to get our own evidence!” I insist.

  “What evidence? Keller put Sarah McCray on the stand, the woman who discovered the body. She came to the barn a little after eight that morning, and Jeremy almost knocked her over running away. He got blood on her, Hope. John Johnson’s blood.”

  I try not to picture this. “He was scared. That’s why he was running away.”

  “He was carrying the murder weapon,” Raymond continues. “She saw the bat in his hands.”

  I know these facts. I read the papers. “There’s an explanation. I’m sure there is.”

  Raymond shakes his head. “Jeremy certainly hasn’t given it. He won’t talk to me.”

  “He doesn’t talk!”

  Raymond doesn’t lose his cool, even with me shouting. “All right. He hasn’t written. He could write the explanation.”

  “Maybe he’s scared! Maybe he … he saw it happen. He saw who did it, and he’s afraid to say.”

  “His are the only fingerprints on the bat. And Mrs. McCray would have seen if somebody else had been there.”

  I’m breathing hard. If I cried, ever, I’d be crying now. “He didn’t do it. Jeremy didn’t do it.”

  “I’m not saying he did.” Raymond’s voice is softer, less lawyerly. “I’m just telling you what the jury’s heard up to now. The prosecution’s case is strong. I’m the only lawyer your brother has, and I have to look out for his best interest. Right now, that means going after the insanity plea as hard as I can. If I don’t, and if the jury finds him guilty …”

  Raymond doesn’t finish his sentence … because he doesn’t have to.

  7

  Raymond sits up straight and pulls over a file from the stack on the table. “So, are you ready to get down to some serious work?”

  I nod. I want to keep trying to convince Raymond that Jeremy couldn’t murder anybody, but I’m all out of arguments. I wish Jeremy had somebody smarter for a sister.

  “Okay.” He’s already jotting things on his yellow notepad. “Tomorrow, I have to let Dr. Brown, the psychiatrist, testify before I recall you. I don’t like breaking up your testimony, but I don’t have a choice. Dr. Brown is testifying in a big case in New York and has to get back. She’s good, though. She won’t take long, and we need her to explain Jeremy’s condition to the jury.”

  People have been trying to explain Jeremy for as long as I can remember. I keep this thought to myself. “Then maybe you don’t need me again?” I’d give almost anything not to have to get back up on the witness stand.

  Raymond smiles at me. “I need your testimony, Hope. You give a human face to the clinical analysis.”

  I nod.

  “Good,” he says, shuffling papers. “We should still be able to finish your direct testimony with no problem. I want you to tell the jury about Jeremy and his empty jars.”

  I’ve already agreed to this, but I don’t like it. Everybody else thinks it’s weird that my brother collects empty jars, but I don’t. I tell Raymond a bunch of stories, like how Jer always carries a couple of jars in his backpack and sometimes gets them out and opens and closes them. Then I tell him about the time we were in the IGA and Jeremy loaded up his backpack with Mason jars, then threw a fit when I took the jars out and put them back on the shelf.

  “Good,” Raymond says, scribbling notes. “You can tell that one—just like that, Hope. What else?”

  It feels like I’m tattling on my brother, but I keep going. “Most of the time, he uses regular jars that are empty. He peels off the labels. I have to wash them fast, when he’s not looking, before he puts them in his pack or squirrels them under his bed. They can really stink if I don’t.”

  “What does he do with all those jars?” Raymond asks, still writing.

  I don’t know if he’s asked for real or for practice, but I answer anyway. “He saves them. Sooner or later, they end up on the shelves in his bedroom. I’ve never counted, but he probably has a couple hundred in every shape and size.”

  “Keep talking, Hope.”

  I have so many memories of Jeremy and his jars. It’s hard to settle on a single story. “Sometimes, if a jar of mayonnaise is almost empty, he’ll dump out what’s left—usually into the wastebasket, but not always.”

  I remember a day about four years ago. I can almost see Jeremy in his jeans and a gray sweatshirt I got him at the Salvation Army thrift store. His whole body is wound tight, and his eyes bulge. He’s in the kitchen, with the refrigerator door open. At his feet is a pile of long, sliced dill pickles swimming in a sea of yellow-green pickle juice.

  “Once,” I begin, “Jeremy came running into the house, dashed to his room, then darted out again. He was pacing the kitchen floor and refused to stop long enough to write me what was wrong. For whatever reason—and we never know the reason—Jeremy needed a jar. A fresh jar. Before I could stop him, he took out a giant jar of pickles and dumped the whole thing onto the floor. I just stood there, staring, while he tucked that jar into his chest like a football and ran back to his room, closing the door behind him. He didn’t come out the rest of the night.”

  “What did you do?” Raymond asks.

  “I cleaned up the kitchen. The next day I took a lot of flak from Rita for eating a whole jar of newly bought pickles.”

  We keep talking about the jars. I tell Raymond about the elderly neighbors we had in Oklahoma who saved their empty jars for Jeremy, no questions asked. They even washed the jars out first. I bring up every jar story I can remember, including the time Jeremy went through the garbage to get a mustard jar. That jar sat in his room for weeks before I found it.

  Raymond settles on the pickles, the mayo, and the mustard. He makes me tell him each story two more times, prepping me on what to cut and what to draw out. Finally, he puts down his pen and squeezes the bridge of his nose. “Hope, tomorrow the prosecution gets to cross-examine you. I’ve got to warn you that Prosecutor Keller won’t go easy on you just because you’re a young girl.”

  “I didn’t expect he would.”

  “You didn’t see him in action all month, Hope. He’s a pit bull at getting what he wants out of witnesses. He’s even tough on his own witnesses.”

  “Well, he can’t get anything out of me. There’s nothing to get.”

  “Don’t kid yourself, Hope. He’s earned his nickname, Killer Keller. Keller has been at this a long time, a lot longer than I have anyway.”

  “I think you’re doing great, Raymond,” I say, although I don’t have any idea how he’s doing.

  Raymond looks grateful. “So, we better start preparing you for the state’s cross-examination. Remember that Keller can only take side doors if we open them. Let’s get started.”

  Footsteps patter up the hallway, and Mrs. Munroe scurries into the bathroom. She tries to shut the door, but I can hear her hurling.

  “Honey?” Raymond gets up so fast his chair tips. “I’m sorry, Hope. I’ll be right back.” He joins his wife, and they close the bathroom door, but I can still hear them—her puking, him murmuring to her. If I listen to her, I’m in danger of hurling too. Whenever Jeremy has the flu, I throw up worse than him.

  I turn back to the table, where Raymond has every last folder out of his briefcase. Thumbin
g through loose papers, I spin a couple of the folders so they face me. One is labeled “Cases—Precedents.” Another says “Crime Scene.”

  I slide the crime scene folder over and open it. The top photo is of a woman in the stable. I recognize her. It’s Mrs. McCray, but it looks like a much older version of the woman who let Jeremy ride her old pinto. She kept two horses at the Johnson Stable, an expensive bay gelding for dressage and the old mare Jeremy fell in love with, Sugar. Coach taught Jer how to ride on that horse. Sometimes I’d come by the barn and see Jeremy riding that spotted horse bareback through the pasture, his backpack of jars clinking like angel chimes.

  In the crime scene photo, Mrs. McCray looks like she’s seen a ghost, or worse. Her back is to the sun, which peeks through gray morning clouds and lights the barn entrance. Her arms are wrapped around her like she’s keeping herself from splitting into pieces. She’s the one who found Coach dead in front of her bay’s stall. She’s the one Jeremy bumped into.

  I glance back at the hallway. The bathroom door is still shut. I hear dry-heaving.

  I slide Mrs. McCray to the side to see what’s underneath … and there’s Jeremy. I guess this is what they call a mug shot—Jeremy looking forward and to both sides. In each shot, he’s smiling for the camera. The photos look like every school picture Jeremy ever posed for—that same goofy grin he’d get when the photographer told him to say “cheese.”

  Shoving Jeremy’s mug shots to the side, I take a look at the next photograph. It’s Coach Johnson, lying on his side, curled up like a baby inside its mother’s womb. His hands are drawn over his ears, like he doesn’t want to hear his own cry. A circle of darkness pools beneath his head and shoulders. If I didn’t know better, I’d think it was a shadow. I know better.

  How can a single blow do that?

  I can almost hear the horses screaming, a rumbling thunder, life bubbling out into sticky dark pools. I can smell manure and blood mixed with sweat and flies and fear.

  The person on the ground isn’t just “the victim” anymore. Tears are trickling like early rain down my cheeks, but I don’t know how they got there because I don’t cry. This is Coach Johnson, the nice man who gave Jeremy a job mucking stalls at his stable and paid him twice what he should have paid, the kind coach who made Jeremy feel part of the team, who gave Jer a Panther uniform that he would have worn every day, all day, if I’d let him.

  I can’t stop staring. Coach is not so much a dead person as he is a person without life. I take in all the details of this picture—sawdust and a dark pool of blood, a hoofprint partially covered by Coach’s foot, a cell phone inches from his hip, fallen from his pocket. Coach—faceless, lifeless John Johnson.

  My brother could not have done this.

  The toilet flushes, and the bathroom door opens. I shove the photos back into the folder and push the file away from me.

  “Sorry, Hope,” Raymond says, returning to the table.

  “Is she okay?” I ask.

  Raymond runs his fingers through his hair and looks about twelve years old. “The doctor says not to worry about the nausea, even though it’s late in her pregnancy. But I can’t help it.”

  “You’ll make a good dad,” I tell him.

  “You think so?” he asks, like it matters what I think.

  “I do.”

  We go at it for another thirty minutes. Raymond does his best to prepare me for cross-examination. But when it’s time to go, I’m pretty sure I’m a whole lot less prepared than your average Boy Scout.

  Raymond follows me to the door, where I put on my shoes. It’s raining pretty good now. “Isn’t Rita here yet?” he asks.

  “I’m meeting her.” I don’t add that I’ll be meeting her at home, though, and not out on the street.

  Raymond frowns. “Are you sure you don’t need me to give you a lift?” He tosses a nervous glance down the hall. I can tell he’s worried about his wife.

  “Nope. But thanks.”

  “Here. Take an umbrella. That’s the least I can do.” He hands me a giant black umbrella, leaving three just like it in a tall white can by the door.

  “Thanks, Raymond. I’ll see you in court.”

  “You’ll do fine, Hope!” he calls after me. But I know neither of us believes him.

  8

  When I crawl into bed, I’m too tired to sleep. In every other apartment where we’ve lived, I slept on the couch. This is the only bedroom I’ve ever had. It’s the smallest room in the house, but I’m not complaining. I should paint the walls, but one wall has a cracked wallpaper mural of a green forest, and I love it, even though it curls at every seam. I keep the room picked up, except for books I’ve checked out of the library, books I almost never finish. I jump to the end after a few chapters and then lose interest. Near one wall, half a dozen books are spread out in tepees that mark my quitter pages. But I’m too tired to read.

  I close my eyes, and my mind fills with images from the courtroom. I can see Jeremy, wearing a suit that could never fit right. And Chase, leaning forward, elbows on his knees, his green eyes staring up at me.

  Other images of Chase flip through my brain too. The tighter I shut my eyes, the faster they go—Chase driving, the back of his head, his golden hair thick but not coarse, his broad shoulders and strong back. Chase, his neck craned to see something out the rear window. His arms are muscled without being gross, the arms of a runner.

  I can see each line and curve of Chase’s classic features, the angle of his chin when I thanked him for the ride. Thinking about him makes me feel … what? Content? Peaceful? Maybe a moment, just one moment, of good?

  Then I stop. Because mixed in with the joy of that picture of Chase Wells is the mug shot of Jeremy. And the crime scene photo of Coach Johnson.

  And I wonder what kind of a person can feel even a piece of good in the middle of so much bad.

  When I wake up at six the next morning, my first thought is of Chase. I guess I really can’t help myself. I roll out of bed and head for the window, where I always watch for him. Dust and dirt cling to the windowpanes. Sunrise is officially past, but I have time to get a cup of instant coffee.

  I take up my lookout post again. And before I finish my coffee, Chase comes running up the street like somebody’s after him. He’s tan and fit in his running shorts and looks more like a California surfer now than a Boston preppy. I can see the muscles of his legs twist and tighten as he gets closer.

  This is the moment when every other morning I duck into the shadow of my musty curtains. But today I stay where I am, watching, willing Chase to look this way.

  “Morning, Hopeless.”

  Rita startles me so bad I spill coffee on my T-shirt. “Hopeless” is her little joke. Hope Leslie. Hope-Les. Hopeless. Funny as ever.

  “What are you looking at?” she asks.

  I turn back to the window, but Chase has already passed. He’s halfway up the street.

  Raymond leads off with his expert witness, who couldn’t look less like a psychiatrist if she tried. If I didn’t know she came in on an airplane this morning, I’d swear she left her Harley and biker jacket, size extra large, parked out back. Her hair is shaved so close to her head I can see her skull from where I sit. The only doctorly things about her are the thick black glasses, and even they are strapped to her head like she’s off to play ball instead of testify in another case.

  Raymond starts out slow, getting her to list all her college and doctor degrees. I guess the jury has to believe her, since she swore on the Bible and all, but if I were Raymond, I would have made her bring in her framed diplomas to prove what she’s saying about being so smart.

  RAYMOND: Please tell the court your current position and title.

  DR. BROWN: I’m senior advisor for NORD, based currently in New York.

  RAYMOND: Please explain NORD, Dr. Brown.

  DR. BROWN: The National Organization for Rare Disorders is an American nonprofit group that provides support and advocacy for people with rare diseases. I meet
with individuals all across the United States and help in any way I can.

  RAYMOND: Were you able, from your experience and expertise, to discover what might be Jeremy Long’s particular disability?

  PROSECUTOR KELLER: Objection! Lack of foundation.

  JUDGE: Overruled. Answer the question, Dr. Brown.

  DR. BROWN: I can’t state it unequivocally, but the boy certainly has a disability along the spectrum of autism. He has impaired social skills, yet high-functioning splinter skills—which is to say, he has overall developmental delays and lacks certain ordinary skills, such as dressing himself appropriately and interacting appropriately in social situations, yet he excels at writing and organizational endeavors. This, coupled with certain repetitive gestures, would lead one to suspect a diagnosis of Asperger’s syndrome. I personally believe the boy may also be suffering from Landau-Kleffner syndrome. One of the symptoms of the disease is the inability to verbalize language. It’s often misdiagnosed as pure autism because the patient tends to rock back and forth, or side to side, and focus in unusual ways. And there are often tantrums associated with the disorder.

  RAYMOND: Tantrums. I see. When a person has one of these tantrums, is he aware—in your opinion—of what he’s doing while he’s doing it? And again, I’m only asking for your expert opinion here.

  DR. BROWN: I would say that, in general, a person is a victim of his own tantrum. Tantrums are not malicious. Toddlers have tantrums. We’re all familiar with the behavior; most of us outgrow it. Some do not. However, no one wants to have a tantrum.

  RAYMOND: You say you can’t be one hundred percent certain of the diagnosis. Is there any diagnosis you can testify about with absolute certainty before the court today?

  DR. BROWN: Yes. Jeremy definitely suffers from SM.

  RAYMOND: SM?

  DR. BROWN: Selective mutism. He is able to speak, but he chooses not to.

  RAYMOND: Tell us more about this selective mutism, if you will.

  DR. BROWN: Of course. Let us start by defining our terms, shall we? A mute is one who cannot talk; a selective mute elects not to talk. Originally identified in 1877 as aphasia voluntaria, selective mutism presents itself most frequently in children around the age of five but can develop at any age. Over the past two decades, more and more American children have decided to stop talking. Due to the lack of funding and research for this disorder, it is a daunting task for those of us in the field to determine whether the child is simply shy, extremely shy, or if something more serious underlies the behavior—drugs administered to, or by, the mother during pregnancy; early childhood trauma; displaced hostility. One hypothesis suggests that the absence of speech results from biological deficiencies combined with psychological and social abnormalities. We may never know with absolute certainty, although future funding would help us find the answers we need to help children like Jeremy.