A Good Neighborhood

by Therese Anne Fowler

  “Sure, hon. Out that door and around the corner, in the hallway on the right. You need anything?”

  Juniper smiled pitifully. “No, thanks. Probably just something I ate.”

  She went out the office door and out the main door, to the street. The library was just up the road, a quick walk to the place where she would finally be able to get some information.

  Inside the library, she found an available computer terminal and sat down, searched for “Xavier Alston-Holt”—and blanched at the results.

  She clicked and read, clicked and read, the stomach pain real, now …

  Arrest on assault, kidnapping, and rape. And the court of public opinion already had him tried, convicted, and ready to be hanged.

  He’d been assaulted, for real. “A prank,” the news story said. Perpetrators still at large, but the public should not fear other random attacks.

  Tony Evans, the DA, was quoted as saying, “The state will do everything in its power for the young lady who was victimized to ensure that justice is served.”

  A photo of Xavier at his bond hearing: the too-small orange jumpsuit. The shackles. The expression of weary terror. He faced twenty-five years in prison, maybe more. Lifetime sex-offender status.

  Juniper stared at the screen. No wonder they’d kept her on lockdown. They all wanted him in prison. Brad, her mother, Lottie, the Whitman grandparents—all of them. They thought he was scum and she was, what? A precious little doll, an angel, Junipure. No way that she, in her pure state, could see what a player Xavier was. They’d better protect her from her own soft nature, keep her isolated. Possibly they were planning to leave her there for as long as it took to get Xavier locked away. They were so invested in their wishful thinking that they’d let him go to prison for decades.

  “That can’t be happening,” she murmured, stunned.

  A woman at the terminal beside her said, “What’s that? Yours slow, too? We need those Google fibers here. I pay taxes.”

  “Sure,” Juniper replied, thinking of what to do next. After a minute, she looked up a phone number and wrote it down, then went back to the front desk. “Is there a telephone I could use?”

  The librarian gave her a skeptical look. “You don’t have a phone?”

  “It’s broken. Please, this is an emergency.”

  “A 911 emergency?” he asked, reaching for a telephone nearby.

  Juniper shook her head. “Not like that. A good friend is in serious trouble and I need to alert someone.”

  “Ah. In here,” he said, leading Juniper to a small glass-fronted office, then left her there, closing the door as he went.

  Her hands shook as she dialed the DA’s office. When a clerk answered, she said, “May I please speak with Mr. Evans? My name is Juniper Whitman. He knows me. This is urgent.”

  “Miss Whitman, I’m sorry, Mr. Evans isn’t available just now and will be in court all afternoon today. Can I take your number and have him return your call tomorrow?”

  “Where is he? Can I reach his cell phone?”

  “No, as I said, he’ll be in court—”

  “But where is he now? Maybe he can talk for just a second? I can’t have him call me back, I won’t have a phone after, like, three minutes from now. I’m not even kidding. This is an emergency.”

  “Let me put you on hold for a moment, all right?”

  A moment was a minute, was two minutes. She doodled in the margins of the desk blotter, a calendar framed with local ads. From the information desk, the librarian glanced at Juniper with raised eyebrows. She mouthed, It’s okay, and gave a reassuring half-smile.

  “Juniper?” A voice came on the line. “Tony Evans. What’s happening? Are you all right?”

  In a rapid burst, she said, “You have to stop this, all this stuff about Xavier, the charges. It’s not true. He didn’t kidnap me or rape me, okay? I told everyone that’s not how it was, but obviously you all don’t believe me. I mean, okay, he and Brad did get into a fight, but it wasn’t anything big, Brad didn’t get hurt. I wasn’t raped. Not even date rape. It was consensual, one hundred percent. You need to let him go, all right?”

  “Hey, hey, slow down, now. You sound really upset.”

  “I am! This is all wrong. I just found out—it’s, like, way out of control. I thought when I said it wasn’t rape, nothing bad would—”

  “Did Brad put you up to this?”

  “What? No. I haven’t even seen him since—”

  “Brad didn’t offer you something to get you to make this call? A little incentive? Trip to Paris, maybe? All the girls want to go there nowadays. Small price for him to pay for saving a hundred grand.”

  Juniper frowned in confusion. “I don’t even understand what you’re talking about. An incentive? How—?”

  “The defendant, then. He’s gotten to you and is pressuring or threatening you. Are you in danger right now?”

  “No, I’m fine—”

  “This sounds a lot like Brad’s handiwork, I’m not gonna lie—and if so, you should just tell me now. You won’t be in any trouble, I promise you. I’ll make sure of that.”

  “Brad has nothing to do with me calling you. I’m saying Zay is innocent, okay? I’m saying it. Me, the supposed victim, am saying it to you directly.”

  “Oh, I hear you just fine. What I’m trying to get clear on is why you’re saying it.”

  “And I just told you! He’s innocent.”

  “All right, let’s back up a minute,” Tony said. “You just decide today that you need to all of a sudden call me up to declare that boy innocent of everything, and you want me to accept that you’re doing this of your own accord.”

  “Yes.”

  “And you aren’t in any danger right now.”

  “No, none. I would have called you sooner but I didn’t know—I mean, nobody told me anything. So now you can let him go, okay?”

  “You have not been offered an incentive, nor have you been threatened with harm, from anyone.”

  “That’s right, yes, my God. Now will you drop the charges?”

  “So, all right, Juniper, I’m skeptical, but let’s say for the sake of argument that this is genuine on your part. Here’s the situation: You’re a seventeen-year-old girl who experienced a trauma. That event was witnessed by your stepdad, who intervened to stop it, and—”

  “No, see, that’s what I’m trying to say—”

  “Hold on, let me finish. Whatever is motivating you today—and right now I’m going to take you at your word that you haven’t been coerced—the situation remains just the same as it was the day of your report, and it’s the duty of the state to address it. I don’t mean to be condescending when I say this, but you’re still a child, a minor in the eyes of the law. There are good reasons why minors can’t vote; your view is myopic—it can’t be otherwise, that’s not your fault. And I’m saying it’s myopic now, with this. Whereas me, I’ve been dealing with bad guys for longer than you’ve been alive.

  “See, Brad wants me to work his angle, and you want me to make all this trouble go away—well, I understand it’s unpleasant and you’re concerned about Mr. Seemingly Nice Guy, but when you get some perspective, you’ll see that you don’t want him doing this same thing to other girls, nor do I.”

  The paternalistic tone grated, but Juniper, thinking she had some measure of power, said, “All due respect, Mr. Evans, you have it completely wrong, and I’m not going to be any part of this, no one can force me to—and without me, you don’t have a case.”

  “Now, see, that’s not so. You being contrary actually lends weight to my theory, is what it does. I believe I’m right about all of this, and I’ll be able to demonstrate it to a jury. As I told Brad: I’m working from the evidence, and I’m going to do the job the citizens have elected me to do.”

  Juniper wanted to scream. How incredibly smug he was. How righteous.

  In tears, she said, “I’m not some idiot child who doesn’t know her own mind. I was the one who was in the relations
hip. I know whether I was being manipulated. Xavier didn’t do anything wrong.”

  “Then he’s got nothing to fear from a jury and I’ll have to eat a big plate of crow. You see, sweetheart? Come on, now, don’t cry. That’s how justice is enacted in our country. If he chooses to stand trial, he’ll get a fair hearing based on the evidence and the laws of the land.

  “Now, I’ll be glad to put you in touch with a counselor who can help you with this difficult situation—I’ll have my assistant give your mother a call. I’m sorry to say I have to run. Will you be okay? Do you need help right now? I can get someone else on the line—”

  “No,” Juniper said. She slammed down the phone and was about to leave the office when she remembered an ad on the desk blotter: Tim’s Taxi. She considered for a moment, then called the number.

  When she hung up the phone and stood to leave, she saw a small crowd had gathered at the desk and were watching her with concern. Apparently she’d been loud. She left the little office, saying, “Sorry, I’m fine, nobody worry about me,” and was out of the building quickly, heading not for the dentist’s office but to the corner, where she’d get a taxi to Knoxville, for the nearest Greyhound depot. She might not have her phone or her car or the aid of one single person who could or would help, but she had the credit card her mother had long ago given her to use in case of emergency, and that was a start. She was desperate to see Xavier. She was going home.

  The taxi driver said he could get her to Knoxville, but if her plan was to get a bus, she was out of luck today. “Next one’s tomorrow, around six-thirty A.M.”

  “Seriously?” Juniper closed her eyes for a moment, collecting herself. Then she said, “Fine. A hotel near the depot, then.”

  When she arrived there later and checked in, she used the room phone to make the necessary call to her mother, who first thing jumped on her for the worry she’d caused her grandparents and how inconsiderate it was of her to leave that way and how she’d better turn right around and go back—

  “But, okay,” Juniper said, cutting Julia off, “just listen for a minute, will you?” She related her conversation with Tony Evans, then said, “Whatever you think of Xavier, never mind that for now. Brad did something shady—I don’t know what, exactly, but maybe you can find out?”

  Juniper was still trying to piece it together: Brad showing up at the park; his reaction when he caught them; his insistence on involving the police and then getting her out of town … and now Tony Evans thought Brad wanted her to intervene on his behalf? Which had to mean that Brad saw some big advantage for himself in getting the charges dropped. Possibly this had been his long game from the minute he found them.

  “Wait,” Juniper said. “I think … See if he’ll tell you this. I think he wanted to bargain with Xavier’s mom somehow. Since she’s suing him.”

  Julia said, “How would that even work?”

  “I don’t know. But I bet he meant to get her to drop the lawsuit in return for doing this huge ‘favor’ for her, since Tony’s his friend and all.”

  Brad trying to be a hero, when he was the one who’d caused all the trouble.

  She wished he had succeeded.

  “I can’t imagine…” Julia began. “I’ll talk to him. But go back to your grandparents while I sort it out.”

  “No, I won’t.”

  “Juniper, I know you’re upset, but I don’t want you traveling by yourself on a bus—”

  “Too bad. I’m done letting you all handle me. Every one of you is a racist. You’re willing to let an innocent person go to prison. Why should I listen to any of you?”

  Julia didn’t reply right away. Juniper waited, and when her mother spoke again, she said, “It’s not that I’m a racist. I’m a mom. Until you’ve had—”

  Juniper hung up.

  With this telephone at hand, she could now call Pepper. She could call Xavier, too. Except she didn’t know their phone numbers, and even if she’d known Xavier’s, she would have called it only to learn that the number he’d had was no longer in service.

  Tomorrow. Tomorrow she would make the hours-long trip home and then tell her mother everything—how Brad, with his kiss and his lust, had betrayed both Julia and her. How no matter what Brad said or did—or Julia, either, or Tony Evans, or anyone—she was going to go public with her side of the story, so Julia had better prepare herself.

  Juniper would get Pepper to help—in fact, she’d go downstairs to the hotel’s business center right now and email Pepper using their school accounts, get her on the job right away. They could use social media to bypass adults completely, get the word out, put some pressure on Tony Evans that way. Would it work? It had to have some effect, right?

  Tomorrow she’d be able to see Xavier.

  Tomorrow was so far away.

  She found the business center, composed the email, told Pepper to call her at the hotel if she saw the message in time; bought yogurt and a bag of chips and a bottle of chocolate milk, plus trail mix for tomorrow’s ride. Then, exhausted and heartsick, she returned to her room, showered, and burrowed under the sheets to sleep for ten restless hours, her dreams a mélange of stillborn actions and thwarted efforts and a Sunday school performance in which she was onstage getting ready to sing and she wet herself in front of everyone.

  * * *

  It was Rosa Morton, the octogenarian who lived next door to the Whitmans, who told us the Whitmans argued that evening. She’d been outside in the backyard watering her potted tomato plants, since the storms that had threatened all day failed to deliver more than a few fat raindrops. The Whitmans were in their garage, where Brad was busy waxing that flashy car of his. “I’d been talking with him about it not ten minutes earlier,” Rosa said. “How he likes to do the waxing himself when he has time—he made a joke about taking care of a car with the same loving care every woman deserves.”

  Rosa couldn’t hear everything he and Julia said to each other over the music Brad was playing out there, but she knew they were getting into it about something.

  Well, it happens that Julia Whitman, who didn’t yet know the full extent of Brad’s deceptions, understood enough to know she wasn’t pleased about her husband playing games with her daughter’s welfare, his trying to take advantage of the situation so that he could create leverage over Valerie Alston-Holt. She wasn’t sure what to think anymore about Xavier; maybe he wasn’t the “slick operator” they’d been so sure he had to be.

  Maybe it was Brad who was slick. Maybe she was the one who’d been manipulated.

  Even as the thought flitted into Julia’s brain, she pushed it out, rejected it. Brad couldn’t be as bad as that, because if he was that sort of person, what did that make her?

  48

  At the same time Juniper had been on the phone with Julia, Xavier was walking around in a former cigar warehouse. The building now held long rows of booths fronted by tables on which every manner of firearm and blade was displayed like candy for the paranoid homeowner, for the protectionist homesteader, for the violence junkie who liked to collect and pretend. Reasonable people buy weapons, too; we understand that. These shows, though, don’t tend to attract the ordinary weekend hunter or the individual who’s looking for basic effective self-protection and is willing to do the necessary hoop-jumping and training to be a safe and responsible gun owner. Some of the people who go to gun shows are angry. Some of them feel hopeless. They feel powerless, helpless, and are looking to fix whatever broke them. Some have a fire in their belly, a mission to fulfill.

  Xavier, who was not exactly afraid to be here but not exactly confident either, walked the aisles musing on his plans for more than twenty minutes. He knew he had to do this, this way, now, or he might never get another chance. Still, now that he was here, he felt nervous and out of place. Conspicuous.

  Finally he approached a table and asked the young man stationed there, “So how does this work if I want to buy a gun from you?”

  “Handgun or long gun?” said the man, who wasn�
��t much older than Xavier.

  “There’s a difference? Not in the guns. Obviously. In how it works to buy one.”

  The man seemed to be trying not to smirk. He said, “You want a handgun, I need to see a permit and ID.”

  “But not for the other?” Xavier said, and the man nodded. “Okay, then I’m looking for one of those.”

  “Well, you’re looking right at ’em.”

  With his good hand, Xavier picked up a smallish rifle. “How much for this one?”

  “This one here? This is a Ruger Mini-14, semiauto. It can take a twenty- or a five-round magazine, though why you’d want only five when you can have twenty is a question with no sensible answer. But if you’re looking for more than twenty, I’ve got its cousin here—”

  “No, twenty’s fine. How much?”

  “One-fifty.” The man squinted at him. “Hey, did I see you on the news?”

  Xavier’s pulse spiked. “The news?” he said as casually as he could manage. “For what?”

  “Like … I don’t know, you rescued a drowning kid or something? But obviously not, or you’d be like, ‘Yeah, you saw me.’”

  “Yeah, no. Must’ve been someone who looks like me. You said one-fifty. Does that cover ammo, too?”

  “No, that’s an add-on. How much you want?”

  “One … box?”

  “One box of .223 Remingtons. You got it.”

  “Credit card okay?”

  “Money’s money.”

  Xavier didn’t ask for instructions on how to load or shoot the thing. That’s what the internet was for.

  49

  Brad left his big, gleaming white house at his usual time, backing the Maserati from the garage and pulling onto the street while the sun was still well below the tree line.

  The engine purred politely while he eased through the neighborhood. Early as it was, there was no traffic on the surface roads and only a little on the highway. This gave him the chance to run through the gears. He enjoyed the engine’s growl, simultaneously dangerous and controlled. Same as him, he liked to think.