At the Edge

by Norah McClintock

  “I told you, I had something to do. God, I wish everybody would just get off my back!” His eyes shifted from me to the house behind me. I turned and saw Mr. Derrick framed in the living room window.

  “Come on,” James said. “I’ll take you home.”

  He kept his eyes steady on his father as he turned the key in the ignition and backed out of the driveway. He drove in silence for a few blocks before pulling over to the curb and killing the engine. It took a few moments before he turned to face me.

  “Yesterday was a kind of anniversary for me,” he said. “But not the anniversary of anything good.”

  Even though I already knew what he was talking about, I held my tongue. There were some things that you just couldn’t force.

  “My little brother died five years ago,” he said.

  “I’m sorry,” I murmured.

  James stared out the windshield.

  “What happened?” I asked.

  James still didn’t look at me. “He was murdered.”

  J

  ames was silent for a few moments. So was I. Gregory Johnson, nine years old, had died five years ago. James had the name Greg tattooed onto his arm. His father had just warned him that he couldn’t let Greg down again. It didn’t make perfect sense, but Gregory Johnson seemed to be James’s brother.

  “Are you busy right now?” James said.

  “Well, I—”

  “I’d like to show you something.” His eyes burned into mine. “It won’t take long. I promise.”

  . . .

  We drove to a place that I had visited for the first time only one day earlier. James pulled the car over to the side of the road and sat for a moment, gripping the steering wheel. I gazed at the fence and the expanse of lawn and trees beyond. It looked like a beautiful, well-kept park—if you ignored the headstones standing in rows under the shade of stately trees.

  James stared out through the windshield. After a few moments, he drew in a deep breath and got out of the car. I scrambled after him and followed him through the gate and into the cemetery.

  We walked in silence, James’s face rigid, his limp pronounced—as I realized it was whenever he was tired or upset. We followed a different path from the one I had taken earlier. This one wound its way through what looked like the oldest part of the cemetery—I glanced at dates on headstones and mausoleums as we walked—and then slowly downward into the familiar valley and back toward the thick hedge. James stopped in front of Gregory Paul Johnson’s headstone and bowed his head.

  “I know you saw the tattoo,” he said quietly.

  “James, I didn’t mean—”

  He pushed up his sleeve and showed me his left arm.

  “My dad hates it. He’d burn it off if he could.”

  I didn’t know what to say.

  “You heard what he said to me, didn’t you?” he said. “You heard him say it was my fault.”

  “I didn’t mean to eavesdrop,” I murmured.

  “The way my dad yells, you’d have to be deaf not to hear him.” He reached out and touched the letters that had been carved deep into the stone. “Greg was my brother. He was shot.”

  Shot?

  “It was my fault.”

  I stared first at the stone and then at the anguished expression on James’s face. What did he mean? Surely he hadn’t shot his own brother.

  “What happened, James?”

  James traced the letters of his brother’s name one by one.

  “The night it happened, our dad took us to a movie,” he said finally. “Greg really loved seeing movies. He liked to go to the theater where there were other people. Lots of other people. He liked the comfortable seats and the smell of popcorn and the darkness in the theater. My dad took him to every kids’ movie that came out.

  “Dad couldn’t find a parking space close to the movie theater. He finally left the car in an alley. He said it would be safe there and that he wouldn’t get a ticket. When we got out of the movie, we walked back to where the car was. My dad wanted to stop and get cigarettes. He used to smoke. Greg was totally hyper from the movie and from the candy my dad had let him eat, even though my mom kept telling him too much candy wasn’t a good idea. Greg could get really excited, you know? He was running all over the place, so my dad told me to go on ahead with Greg, you know, so Greg wouldn’t act up in the store. He said to wait for him in the car. He gave me the keys.”

  He stared at the stone, his head bowed slightly.

  “It was my job to watch out for Greg. It was always my job to watch out for him, because I’m older—I was older.” He looked up at me. “We moved to this place out in the suburbs right after Mom married my dad. My real dad died when I was a baby. Mom married Richard. She had Greg when I was three.”

  “So he’s your half-brother,” I said.

  “He was my brother,” James said fiercely. Nick had reacted the same way when I’d called Joey his stepbrother. “My mom told me that a million times. Maybe we had different dads, but he was my brother. And he was younger, so it was my job to look after him. And I did. I always did my best. But—”

  Suddenly I wished that I hadn’t come with him. I wished I didn’t have to see the look of anguish on his face or hear the grief in his voice.

  “There was a creek out behind our house. In the spring, when the snow was melting or when there was a big rain, the creek would swell and the water would run really fast. We weren’t supposed to go near it when that happened. When we went outside, it was my job to make sure that Greg stayed away from the water.” He touched the cold stone again with his fingertips. “I turned my head for a minute. I swear, it was just one minute. Maybe less. I heard Greg scream. I don’t know how it happened, but he was in the water, being swept away. I yelled for help. I yelled until I lost my voice. I ran along the creek—but the water was so fast, and I was scared.”

  He laid his hand flat on his brother’s headstone. “There was a neighbor out with his dog. If he hadn’t come along when he did, Greg would have drowned. But this man saved him. He brought him out, did CPR on him, and rushed him up to the house. When Richard—my dad—found out what had happened, he hit me. My mother was screaming. She had to pull him off me.”

  “You must have been terrified,” I said.

  James stared at the stone.

  “I shouldn’t have turned my head,” he said. “But Greg—” He shook his head. “He could be such a pain. My dad let him do whatever he wanted. Greg could get away with murder, and he knew it. I got in trouble all the time because of him. But he was smart, too. And funny. He could really make me laugh. Whenever my dad got mad at me, Greg would always come up to my room and clown around until he got me to laugh.”

  He smiled at the thought, but a moment later his smile faded. “Anyway, we moved back to the city again a few years later. The night we went to the movies, my dad went into the store, and Greg and I went across the street to the car. There were all these garbage cans in the alley. They were smelly, and I was afraid there might be rats. I told Greg we should wait on the street. But he was fooling around, and he didn’t listen to me. He ran into the alley. I couldn’t let him go in there alone. I went in after him to get him. There was a man in the alley. He shot Greg.”

  He closed his eyes and drew in a deep, shuddery breath.

  “Greg was lying on the ground. There was blood all over the front of his shirt, and he had a surprised look on his face, like he couldn’t believe what happened. He was looking right at me, trying to say something, but he couldn’t get the words out. I ran to where he was and knelt down beside him and held his hand.” James swallowed hard. “I held his hand. And he went still and quiet. He died.”

  A tear trickled down his cheek. He rubbed fiercely at it.

  “My dad said he was coming out of the store when he heard a big bang. He said his first thought was that it was a car backfiring. Then he heard me. I was screaming for him. He started to run to where the car was parked. He said other people must have heard, too
, because they were moving toward the alley—all except this one man who was hurrying away from the sound instead of toward it. My dad told me later that he should have realized, but that he wasn’t thinking.”

  “Realized?”

  “Who the guy was,” James said. “He said he wished he had taken a good look at him—if he’d known what was going to happen ... But by then it was too late.”

  He pulled his hand away from the headstone.

  “I was kneeling on the ground, holding Greg’s hand. I remember my dad showing up. I remember him talking to me. Then the cops arrived, and an ambulance, but that part’s all kind of a blur. My dad told me later that I wouldn’t let go even when the paramedics arrived. He said he had to pry me loose from Greg. The cops were there, too. They kept asking me questions—what did I see, where did the man go, what did he look like? But I just kept seeing Greg lying on the ground, covered in blood, staring up at me with that surprised look on his face.”

  “Did you see the guy who did it?”

  A faraway look came into his eyes.

  “He had dark eyes—I couldn’t tell what color exactly—a long, thin nose, ears that stuck out, shaggy brown hair, a small mouth, and a scar on his chin, right here.” He pointed. “And he had a gun. I got a good look at it. It looked huge. Later—I think at the police station—I told a cop how I had stared at that gun. He must have written down what I said or told someone about it, because it came up at the trial.”

  He stepped away from the grave and looked down at the ground.

  “The cops thought maybe the guy was trying to break into my dad’s car or steal it. I described him to them. They showed me some pictures, and I picked him out. Then they showed the pictures around, and they found a man who said he’d seen the same guy in the area maybe a half hour before the movie ended. They found someone else who had seen him even earlier. The cops found the guy and brought him in. They put him in a lineup and asked me if I would see if I recognized him. I was terrified. What if he saw me? What if he had friends who would try to kill me?” He looked sheepishly at me. “Pretty selfish of me, huh?”

  “You were just a kid, James.”

  “I didn’t want to do it. I was crying. Can you believe it? My little brother had been shot dead, and I was crying because I was scared of what would happen to me.” He shook his head. “If they hadn’t let my dad stay with me, I don’t think I could have done it.” His eyes skipped back to the gravestone.

  “I picked him out. He had a record. He had a drug problem, he’d stolen stuff before and had done some muggings, stuff like that. The police arrested him. I remember how happy my parents were when they heard. My dad said they would get him for sure. They said the guy would pay for what he did to Greg. I thought it was all over. But it didn’t turn out that way.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I thought it would be like TV. I thought once they arrested him, they would make him confess. But he didn’t confess. Then I thought, okay, so then I’ll go to court and tell everyone exactly what had happened, and they’ll know he’s guilty, and he’ll go to prison for the rest of his life. But it wasn’t like that. The cops didn’t find the guy’s fingerprints on the car or even in the alley. They never found the gun that he’d used to shoot Greg. They didn’t find any of Greg’s blood on the guy’s clothes. Basically, it came down to what I had seen. I thought everyone would believe me, but they didn’t.”

  That was no surprise, either. How many times had I heard my parents talk about eyewitness evidence—from opposite sides? They both agreed that eyewitness evidence is the least reliable type of evidence there is. What eyewitness see—or think they see—can be influenced by the weather or lighting or faulty memories. In a case like the one James was describing, where there was only one witness to the actual crime—and where the whole case hinged on what that one witness, a kid, said—a good defense attorney would go after that witness. A good defense attorney would shake that eyewitness up and do his best to get the witness to admit he wasn’t one hundred percent positive. It’s up to the prosecutor to prove guilt beyond a reasonable doubt. All the defense has to do is create that doubt.

  “It took forever until the trial happened,” James said. “Months and months.” His voice started to quaver.

  “James, you don’t have to—”

  His expression was fierce when he turned to look at me.

  “I do,” he said. “I do.”

  I nodded.

  “Finally the trial happened,” he continued. “The prosecutor explained to me how I should answer the questions—I should be truthful. If I wasn’t sure, I should say so. If I needed a minute to think, I should take it. I shouldn’t be nervous. And that’s what I did when I got to court. The prosecutor asked if the person I’d seen in the alley was in court and I said yes. I pointed to him. My parents were watching me the whole time. My mom looked proud.”

  I tried to imagine what it must have been like to be Greg Johnson’s parents, sitting there in court, watching their other son testify. All those hopes pinned on one boy.

  “Then the guy’s lawyer started asking questions,” James said. “They seemed so easy—what did Greg and I do when the movie was over? Where did I go? Where did he go? What made me go into the alley? The lawyer seemed nice, and I answered the questions. But then ...”

  He looked at the headstone again. “There were more questions. They got more detailed. What did I remember about the person I said I had seen in the alley? Was it light or dark in the alley? How far away was the person I said I had seen? Was it true that I told the police that when I saw the gun, I was scared the guy was going to shoot me? Did I also tell the police that the gun looked huge, bigger than anything I had ever seen? Did I know that according to some expert, the gun that shot Greg was actually a small gun—a .22? Would I like to see how big a .22 actually is?”

  His voice grew bitter.

  “The way it went,” he said, “was that if I was wrong about the gun, then maybe I was wrong about the man I’d seen. Didn’t I tell the police that he was really tall? I did. I did say that. But it turned out he was just average. I said I thought he was holding the gun in his right hand, but the guy turned out to be left-handed. The lawyer got me all confused. I could tell by the way the jury was looking at me that they thought I was just some confused kid. I remember that lawyer saying, ‘Maybe you made a mistake. If you did, nobody will blame you for that.’ After all, my brother was lying on the ground, I was terrified. It was perfectly understandable if I got confused about who I said I had seen. And then, of course, there was no physical evidence.”

  My dad always says that physical evidence is the best kind of evidence—it never lies, never changes, never makes mistakes. A case with solid physical evidence, he says, is the kind that’s most likely to stand up in court.

  “You know what happened?” James said. “You want to guess how it turned out?”

  “T

  he guy got off,” James said. “He got off. And you know what? When the verdict came in, when they said not guilty, the guy turned and looked right at me. He looked like he wanted to kill me. He came up to me after it was all over—I was really scared. He said because of me, he’d lost his little girl. He said he was going to get me for that.”

  “What did he mean?”

  James shook his head. “I don’t know. My dad told me not to listen to him. He took me out of there. But the guy called our house. He said he was going to get me. I had nightmares about him every night.”

  “That’s awful,” I said.

  “My parents took the verdict hard. My mom said it wasn’t my fault, but that didn’t stop her from crying and crying. My dad didn’t say anything. If my mom or I ever mentioned Greg, he got up and left the room. And school?” He shook his head. “I couldn’t stand to go there anymore. I felt like everyone was staring at me, everyone was saying, ‘That’s the guy who screwed up and let his brother’s killer go free.’”

  “I’m sure nobody really thought t
hat.”

  “I should have told them that I wasn’t confused. I should have said I knew exactly who killed my brother—I would have recognized him anywhere. He was sitting right there in that courtroom. It was him. We moved after that. We all just wanted to get away. But it didn’t help. Six months after we left, my mom died.”

  Oh.

  “It was what they call a ‘single-vehicle accident,’” James said. “It happened on a hill near our new house. She smashed into a pole. Car was totaled. The cops said she must have been going 35 miles an hour when she hit that pole. They said there were no skid marks—it looked like she didn’t even try to stop.”

  I felt sick for him. I thought about the so-called accident he and his father had been in. That had happened a year ago—almost exactly two years after James’s mother had died, according to his dad. Mr. Derrick had said that he was in the car with James—the way he’d said it, it was obvious that James had been driving. Had James been so filled with guilt that he had tried to end it all? I remembered the scars on his body. I couldn’t begin to imagine how he must have felt as tragedy piled up on tragedy. It seemed like far too much for one person to bear.

  “Why did you move back here, James?”

  “My dad wanted to come back. He thought it would help. And after everything he’d been through ...”

  After everything he’d been through?

  “I didn’t want to come,” James said. “I didn’t want to have anything to do with this place or with anyone who knew me. I didn’t want to be that kid again—the one who had let his brother’s killer walk free. So ... I changed my name,” he said. “My real name is David James Johnson.” So that was why his dad called him Dee. “I changed it so no one would know it was me. But you know what? It didn’t help. I still know I’m me.”

  “It’s not your fault, James,” I said again.

  “Then why does it feel like it is? He was my brother, Robyn, and I let him down. I let my parents down too. My mom never recovered. Even before the ... the accident, she wasn’t the same person. She cried every night for Greg. Every night. And my dad blames me for everything.”