I understand now why the man doesn’t have a key. He doesn’t want one.
Percy and Simone escort their daughter into the room, each holding an arm. She’s a skinny girl with bangs and a long ponytail that extends past her shoulder blades. She looks dazed, as if she’s just been roused from a deep sleep.
I want to speak to Kennedy alone, but I suspect that won’t go over well with Mrs. Carlyle, so I let it go for now. I introduce myself and ask a few harmless questions about her classes and teachers to put her at ease.
“Do you have any idea how someone could’ve gotten a naked picture of you?” I ask after five minutes or so.
Kennedy lowers her head and answers in a shaky voice, “No.”
“Do you know Graylin Alexander?”
She nods. “He’s in two of my classes. But we’re not friends or anything like that.”
“Has he ever approached you or tried to talk to you?”
“No.”
For the next twenty minutes or so, I ask a series of questions that yield nothing super helpful.
“Thanks for speaking with me. I’ll need to talk to you again later on, but right now I’d like to speak with your parents.”
Simone escorts Kennedy to her room.
“As you can see,” Simone says when she returns, “this has been a very traumatic experience for my daughter. I don’t know if she’ll ever be the same.”
I nod, hoping to appear empathetic. “I have a copy of the picture they found on the boy’s phone. I’d like to see if you recognize the background. We need to determine where it might’ve been taken. I didn’t want to show it to Kennedy yet, considering how fragile she appears to be.”
“I don’t want to see it.” Percy gets to his feet and stalks out of the room.
“He’s such a weak man,” Simone hisses as she takes a sip of tea. “Let me see it.”
I open a folder and hand Simone an 8x10 color photograph. “This is an enlargement, so it’s a little blurry.”
“Oh my God!” Simone presses her right hand to her chest. Percy flies back into the room. “That’s Kennedy’s room! That boy took that picture through my baby’s bedroom window!”
CHAPTER 21
Graylin
I wake up to a loud voice and banging on my door.
“Time to get up! Time to get up!”
It takes me a few seconds to realize where I am. When I do, sadness swoops down on me like someone slapped a hood over my head.
Mr. Dennison is stomping down the hallway unlocking doors. “Time to get cleaned up and make up your bed. Be in the day room for breakfast in thirty minutes.”
My granny has to come into my room at least two times before I finally climb out of bed. When I sit up, pain shoots across my back, probably from sleeping on that skinny mattress. The room feels as cold as the inside of a refrigerator.
I step outside my room and head into the day room. Two other boys are already in line for the bathroom.
“What you lookin’ at?” Tyke says, appearing from nowhere and breathing down the back of my neck.
I ignore him.
“I ain’t forgot about you dissin’ me.”
It’s my turn, so I wash my face and brush my teeth as fast as I can and go back to my room to make up my bed. When it’s time to eat, we walk up to the cart and Mr. Dennison hands us trays with sausage, hash browns, orange juice and a fruit cup. I feel Tyke watching me, but I refuse to make eye contact. I want to sit as far away from him as I can, but the day room isn’t that big. A white kid with tattoos crawling up his pale neck calls out to me.
“Sit over here, homie.”
The boy’s greeting feels almost as good as a warm hug from my granny. He tells me his name is Andrew.
“What you in for?” he asks, even before I get seated on the bench.
“For nothing,” I mutter, happy to have someone nice to talk to. I’m about to say I can’t talk about my case, but I don’t want a repeat of the situation with Tyke.
“They said I sexted a naked picture of a girl at my school, but I didn’t.”
“Aw man!” His blue-green eyes almost start glowing. “You goin’ down! My friend got a whole year at C-Y-A for that.”
“What’s C-Y-A?”
“California Youth Authority. Juvie prison.”
I open my orange juice. “I’m not going nowhere. My dad hired me an attorney. Two attorneys. They’re getting me out of here.”
Andrew presses his fist to his mouth like it’s a bullhorn and laughs. “I don’t care how many attorneys you got. You crazy if you think you gettin’ off.”
I now regret sitting down next to Andrew and wish he would shut up.
“So you know your dad?” he asks.
I squint as if something’s in my eye. “Of course I know my dad. He’s coming to see me today.”
“You rich or something?”
“No.”
“I never met my dad,” Andrew says with a shrug. “Don’t nobody visit me.”
Now I feel kind of sorry for him. “What about your mother or your granny? They don’t come to see you?”
“Naw. I got a foster mother, but she can’t get off work.”
“Why are you in here?” I ask.
“Got into a fight with my foster brother and ran away. Broke his jaw.” He puffs out his scrawny chest. “They charged me with assault and being a runaway.”
He’s smiling like he should get a prize or something. I want to tell him that’s nothing to be proud of, but I don’t.
“Stick with me,” Andrew says, getting up from the table. “I’ll show you what’s up. And don’t worry about Tyke. He always messes with the new kids. Just ignore him.”
Since it’s Saturday, we get to go into the yard. As soon as we step outside, I hear my name being called. “Graylin, you’ve got a visitor.”
When I see my dad coming up the walkway, I run over and hug him so tight we almost fall over.
“How you making out, Little Man?”
“I’m okay.” I was going to tell my dad about Tyke messing with me, but I figure he’s worried enough about me. I take him into my unit and Mr. Dennison lets me show him my room.
My dad looks all around, but doesn’t say anything. We go back outside and sit on a bench by ourselves.
“When can I come home?” My voice gets shaky even though I’m trying hard not to cry.
“After your hearing on Tuesday. I’m sure that judge will see you don’t belong in here.” My dad goes quiet for a long time, then stares at me real hard. “I need you to tell me what happened.”
I wring my hands. “But Ms. Jenny and Ms. Angela said I wasn’t supposed to talk about my case to nobody. Not even you.”
“I don’t care what they said!” My dad’s nostrils get bigger. “I’m your father. Did you take a picture of that girl?”
I want to do what my attorneys said, but I can’t disobey my dad. Anyway, I want him to know that I’m not guilty. “No.”
“Then what was it doing on your phone?”
“Somebody sent it to me?”
“Who?”
“I don’t know.”
“What do you mean you don’t know?”
“They sent it on Snapchat.”
“What the hell is Snapchat?”
I try to explain how Snapchat works, but I can tell my dad isn’t getting it.
“Well, if the picture disappears, why was it still on your phone?”
“Because I took a screenshot of it.”
My dad brushes his hand down his face. “This is nuts. I don’t see how they could punish you for having a picture when somebody else sent it to you. Everything’s going to be okay.” He pulls me so close he almost smothers me.
“My friend Andrew says his friend got sent to juvie prison for a year for sex
ting.”
“Friend? These hoodlums in here ain’t your friends! Didn’t Ms. Jenny tell you not to talk to nobody about your case?”
“I didn’t tell him anything.”
“You better not. And don’t be listening to these thugs. You ain’t going to nobody’s prison, you hear me?” My dad’s voice is so angry that it scares me. “That ain’t gonna happen because I ain’t gonna let it happen.”
CHAPTER 22
Angela
I agree to meet Jenny at Woodcat, a trendy coffee shop on Sunset Boulevard in Echo Park. It’s only twenty minutes away from Eastlake Juvenile Hall, where we’ll be interviewing Graylin in a couple of hours.
When I walk in, I see Jenny seated at a table in the back. It’s a small place with orange and gray walls and pictures of birds everywhere. Everybody in the place is bent over a laptop.
“I was able to get a copy of the police report,” she says, handing it to me before I can even sit down. “According to the report, Graylin did have a naked picture on his phone. I’ll have to get the hows and whys from him.”
It’s a good sign that Jenny’s willing to share the police report with me, but a bad one that she’s still using the pronoun I rather than we. I was hoping she’d give my offer to help some consideration overnight and come to the realization that two heads are better than one.
I go to the counter to order coffee and an oatmeal cookie, then return to the table and start reading the police report.
“I don’t know whether a prosecutor’s been assigned yet,” Jenny continues, “but Judge Jaynie Miller will most likely handle the detention hearing. That’s both good and bad. She’s in her early fifties, sharp as a whip and down-to-earth. She’s notorious for letting you know exactly what’s on her mind, even if you didn’t ask. She also doesn’t think kids should be prosecuted for sexting. And luckily for us, she’s the mother of two boys close to Graylin’s age.”
“That’s obviously the good part. What’s her downside?”
“She used to be in-house at a corporation. After years of pulling down a fat six-figure salary, she retired and set her sights on being a juvenile judge as a way of giving back.”
“I still haven’t heard anything bad yet.”
“She wants to know every minute detail of your case, even stuff that has no bearing on the charges. Nobody can un-hear something, but Miller thinks she can. She’s also a proud NRA member.”
I understand how the judge’s overreaching could be problematic, but on balance she sounds like a decent draw. I’m about to ask a question when Jenny beats me to it.
“As I mentioned last night, it came as quite a surprise to me that you wanted to be part of Graylin’s defense team.”
She certainly likes to cut to the chase.
I turn the police report facedown. “Frankly, I didn’t realize I wanted to participate until the words came out of my mouth last night. If you’re worried about splitting the fee, that’s a non-issue. I’m doing this pro bono.”
“I’m sure you know this, but it’s not always a good idea to represent someone close to you. Emotion can interfere with legal judgment.”
“I agree. It’s not always a good idea. But it shouldn’t be a problem in this case since I won’t be the lead attorney.” I try to stroke her ego a bit. “This is your case. I’ll just be there to help you out.”
I want and need to be part of Graylin’s defense team. The charges he’s facing are much too serious for me to sit on the sidelines. If Jenny doesn’t want to share her sandbox, I’ll have Gus fire her ass.
Jenny crosses her arms and leans back in her chair. “How much juvenile court experience have you had?”
“Not much. Primarily representing child trafficking victims on solicitation charges. But I was an assistant U.S. Attorney before going out on my own. I know my way around a courtroom.”
I don’t like having to defend my experience and my pride is gently needling me to strike back. “Where’d you go to law school?” I ask.
Jenny smirks, which tells me her J.D. is no doubt from some third-rate law school that couldn’t shine the shoes of my alma mater.
She takes a sip of water. “Harvard Law. Brown undergrad. I also picked up a master’s in public policy from NYU in between. And you?”
I struggle to keep the shock off my face. “Stanford Law. San Francisco State undergrad.”
Our respective law schools are often neck-and-neck in the national rankings, but Harvard Law is Harvard Law.
“Nice,” Jenny says. “I love the Bay Area.”
I take a bite of my cookie so I don’t have to talk. Jenny’s preference for solo work won’t be our biggest problem. I don’t particularly like this chick and that can wreak havoc on a defense team.
I decide to just put it out there. “Why are you so opposed to having me help out?”
“Attorneys who don’t practice in juvenile court don’t understand that representing a kid is very different from representing an adult client. Children are very emotional, their parents too. You’re part attorney and part therapist. You also have to manage expectations, which you didn’t do last night.”
“Excuse me?”
“You told Gus that Graylin would get to go home when you had no idea whether that was the case.”
“I was just trying to keep him upbeat.”
Although Jenny Ungerman and I surely won’t be developing any kind of girlfriend bond, I like the idea of Graylin having a Harvard-educated lawyer going to bat for him. But I want a place on his defense team too.
“How about this?” It feels like I’m groveling and I hate myself for it. “The minute something happens that makes you feel this isn’t working out, say the word and I’ll bow out.”
Several tense seconds pass, then Jenny’s thin lips flatten into a taut smile. “Okay, I guess. For now.”
I figure that’s the best I’m going to get, so I let it go. We start digging into Graylin’s case.
“It doesn’t seem like the detention hearing should be much of a problem for us,” I say. “Graylin has a safe place to stay, he’s not a troubled kid, he’ll be properly supervised and there’s no evidence that releasing him would put him or anyone else in danger.”
I’m trying to impress Jenny with my knowledge of the legal standard for detaining a kid. I stayed up late researching it last night. If Jenny’s impressed, she’s not letting on.
“I’ve had cases where the prosecutor pushed hard to have my client locked up even though none of those factors were present. And if the girl’s parents fight Graylin’s release, the judge will take that into consideration as well. Is there anything about Graylin’s family life that I need to know about?”
“Graylin’s mother is out of the picture. She’s had a drug problem for years. Gus is raising him with the help of his mother and sister. He has a felony drug conviction and did some time at Corcoran. But that’s all behind him now.”
I hesitate. She’s going to eventually find out the rest, so I might as well spill it now. “That’s where he met Dre. They both did time.”
Jenny tries to play it off, but I see a flicker of judgment in her eyes. I change the subject.
“How did you end up on the juvenile side?” I ask.
With a Harvard Law degree, Jenny could’ve been doing something far more financially lucrative and prestigious than defending juveniles.
“I thought I was going to change the world.” She laughs. “My older brother, who I idolized, got arrested for possession of forty bucks worth of marijuana when he was sixteen. He ended up with a prosecutor who threw the book at him and a public defender who was too overworked to give his case any real attention. The crazy part is, my parents could’ve hired an attorney to represent him. But they were tired of him getting into trouble and wanted to teach him a lesson.
“He spent a year at a juvenile camp and
was never the same after that. He’s been in and out of prison most of his life. I went to law school because I was on a mission to keep that from happening to other kids.”
“Sounds like you’re doing it.”
“Not the way I’d hoped. The juvenile system is just as overburdened as the adult side. And all this energy the D.A.’s Office is putting into crucifying kids for sexting is nuts.”
“Is sexting really a major problem?”
Instead of answering, Jenny pulls her iPad from her purse, taps the screen a few times, then hands it to me. “Take a look at that.”
The screen shows the Los Angeles Unified School District’s website. Several pages are dedicated to warning students and parents about sexting. They even have an official campaign, Now Matters Later, to educate students about using social media responsibly.
“If the district is putting this much emphasis on it,” I say, “it must be a problem.”
“Yep. Schools all across the country are doing the same thing. Our kids are bombarded with sexual images on TV, in movies and music videos. As a consequence, they’re desensitized. They don’t think sexting is a big deal.”
Jenny retrieves her iPad, taps the screen a few more times and slides it back across the table. “If this doesn’t tell you we have a crisis on our hands, nothing will.”
This time she’s pulled up an open letter written by the L.A. County Sheriff posted on the department’s Facebook page entitled: Nude #Selfies and the Need to Protect Our Children.
I quickly read it, then gaze across the table, dumbfounded. “Is this for real?”
“Crazy, isn’t it? When you have the sheriff of the largest county in the nation effectively begging parents to stop their kids from sexting, you know there’s a problem.”
I had no idea how prevalent this was. “But the child pornography statutes were passed to catch pedophiles. Why are they charging kids?”
“Because they can. Also the law hasn’t caught up with technology. Some states recognize that. In New York, a kid caught with a picture of a naked minor on his phone would have to participate in a counseling program warning him about the legal consequences of sexting. California and most other states haven’t gotten on board yet.”
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