Then he says, “Do you know what we want to talk to you about today, Quentin?”
I say, “I heard it was about that man who was killed.”
Detective Tanner nods. He says, “You don’t have to answer any questions if you don’t want to, Quentin. I want to make it clear that we do not consider you a suspect at this time.”
At this time.
“But if you agree to answer our questions, Quentin, anything you tell us can be used against you as evidence in a court or other proceeding. Do you understand?”
I nod.
“You also have the right to have a parent here with you. Do you want a parent here?”
I say, “No.”
He asks if I want anyone else here with me. I say, “No.”
He says, “Do you want to answer our questions?”
I say, “Sure.” The whole time that he’s talking and I’m answering, I’m trying to think of what I’m going to tell them.
He says, “Can you let us know where you were at three o’clock on Sunday afternoon, Quentin?”
I say, “I was down at the beach with a friend of mine.” I don’t say it because I want to get JD into trouble. I say it because it’s more or less true. I say it because they’re looking for one guy and I was with someone else. They can ask that person. I say I was at the beach because I was at the beach. Maybe I wasn’t there at three o’clock, but I was there earlier. Maybe someone will remember seeing me there. I’m pretty sure no one will remember when I left. There were a whole lot of people at the beach that day.
He asks me when I left the beach. I think a minute, like I’m trying to remember. If I was at the beach at three, that means I was at least a half hour away from where I really was. I decide not to make things too complicated. I say, “I’m not really sure. It must have been around then, around three o’clock. We went back to my friend’s house.”
He asks me if I knew Richard Braithwaite, the man who was killed.
I say, “No.”
He asks me the name of the friend I was with. I tell him. He asks me if JD goes to this school. I say, “Yes.”
He says, “Thank you, Quentin. You can go now.”
And that’s it.
I get up and leave. I feel sick inside. I think, Maybe I should just tell them the truth. But I’m too scared. I was stealing from the guy when he was shot. If they find out what I did, even though I wasn’t the one who pulled the trigger, I will be in big trouble. And there’s still a good chance they won’t find out I was there.
I’m surprised that JD isn’t waiting for me after school. I don’t find out why until later, when I’m at home eating some microwave pizza while my mother is at work. I hear someone knocking on the door. I freeze up because I think it might be the police. It isn’t. It’s JD, his backpack over his shoulder, a mad look on his face. As soon as I open the door, he pushes his way inside. He says, “I told you not to mention my name.” He’s mad.
I explain to him why I did it. I say, “In case they want to talk to you, we can back each other up.”
He says, “In case? They called me down to the office, Q.”
“Okay,” I say slowly. “And you backed me up, right?”
He gives me a sharp look. “When people back each other up, they usually know what each other is going to say,” he says. “And when the cops talk to you, they don’t tell you what anyone else said.”
Oh.
“They asked me where I was at three o’clock on Sunday afternoon,” he says.
I’m standing there on the carpet inside the door, but I feel like I’m not really there. JD is right. If he was going to back me up, first he’d have to know what I said to the cops. And he didn’t know. He still doesn’t. That means I could be in big trouble. I look at JD.
“What did you tell them?” I say.
“I don’t look anything like the description they put out,” he says. “So I figured the only reason they wanted to talk to me was because you said something. That pissed me off, Q. I didn’t know what you might have told them. I didn’t know if you fell apart in there or if you managed to stay calm.”
I start to feel sick all over again. “What did you tell them, JD?”
“I said I was with you.”
That surprises me. “Did they want to know where we were?”
JD nods.
“And?”
“I said we were at the beach,” JD says. “I said I wasn’t sure exactly when we left. Maybe three fifteen or three thirty. I figured that was safe. It was about four o’clock when Leah walked in on us. We could have ridden back to my house by then, right?”
I want to hug him. So far we’re okay.
He says, “You got any more pizza? I haven’t eaten yet.”
“I can nuke some for you,” I say.
He says, “Great. I have to use the bathroom.”
He’s back a few minutes later. He eats his pizza. We talk about what to do if the cops want to talk to either one of us again. Then he leaves. Afterward, even though we are in the clear so far, I think again that maybe I should just go to the cops and tell them what happened. Mostly, I want it to be over with. I want the whole thing to go away.
It doesn’t.
Chapter Eleven
For once, JD does not pick me up for school. I don’t even see him for the first part of the day. But that isn’t unusual. He’s only in one of my classes.
When I finally do see him, he’s quiet. Serious. He tells me he has to go right home after school. He tells me his father has been giving him a hard time about his homework habits.
That night, after supper, someone knocks on the apartment door. My mother, who has the night off, answers. I hear a male voice. I hear the word “police.” I hear the words “search warrant.” I hear my mother say, “I don’t understand.” Then the living room is crowded with people.
There are two cops in plain clothes. One of them is the homicide cop who was at my school earlier. There are also four uniformed police officers. The homicide cop from my school, Detective Brian Tanner, is showing my mother the search warrant. When he sees me, he asks me for my name. I tell him. My mother says again, “I don’t understand.” She looks at me like she’s waiting for me to explain.
One of the uniformed police officers stands inside the door to our apartment. I get the feeling that’s so I won’t try to run away. Everyone else puts on plastic gloves. Detective Tanner asks my mother where my bedroom is. He also asks where she keeps the laundry hamper. She still has a stunned look on her face as she answers. Then off they go to look. Because he asked about the laundry hamper, I guess they are looking for my clothes. Boy, am I ever glad that JD burned them and then buried them.
From down the hall where my bedroom is, I hear one cop call to Detective Tanner. A minute later, he’s back in the living room holding up a shirt and a pair of jeans. My shirt. My jeans. The same ones I was wearing on Sunday when JD shot that guy. There’s blood all over the shirt. I don’t get it. JD put everything in the washing machine. Did he forget to put in detergent? Why do my clothes look like they were never washed? And—biggest question of all—how did they get in my room?
The next thing I know, Detective Tanner is telling me that I am under arrest for the murder of Richard Braithwaite. I am handcuffed. My mother stands there, stunned. Her mouth hangs open a little as she listens to Detective Tanner tell me about my rights. I’m listening. I hear words. But nothing sticks in my head. Nothing except that one question: How did those clothes get into the apartment?
They take me downtown. They tell me my rights and they make me sign a piece of paper that says I understand. They ask me if I want my mother in the room. I say no. They ask me if I want a lawyer or another adult. I say no. They tell me they’re going to videotape the interview. They ask me why I lied to them. They say I should tell them now exactly what happened. I tell them. I say, “I stole from the guy, but JD shot him.”
They just look at me.
“It’s true,” I say. “
JD is the one who shot him.”
Finally Detective Tanner says, “Someone saw you in the park the day before Richard Braithwaite was shot. That person says you were arguing with Mr. Braithwaite. That person saw you make a gesture with your hand, as if you were shooting him.”
I try to remember, and then I do. JD wasn’t around when that happened. He was behind the building where the change rooms are.
“Someone saw you go into the alley where Mr. Braithwaite was shot,” he says. “Just you.”
“But JD was there.”
“JD says he was at home when it happened,” Detective Tanner says. “He says you were at the beach together earlier in the day, but then you split up. He says you came to his house around a quarter to four and told him you shot someone. He says you begged him to help you and that he lent you some clothes so that you could get home. He says he also helped you wash off your bicycle and that you left with your clothes in a bag. He says you threatened to harm him if he didn’t keep quiet. But he finally decided to come forward.”
“That’s not true,” I say. “He was there. Did you look for his clothes? Did you check them out?”
“He gave us the clothes he was wearing that day,” he says.
JD lied to me about washing our clothes and then burning them. He washed his. He probably got everything out. It was his word against mine now, and my clothes had blood all over them.
They don’t let me go home. Instead, I go to court and then I get transferred to a detention facility.
My mother comes to see me. I tell her the truth. All of it. I’m ashamed of myself, and I feel bad telling her I stole from the man who got shot. But I tell her I didn’t shoot him. She says she believes me, but she’s crying when she says it.
She cries the next day too, when she comes to see me again. She cries when she tells me what people in our building are saying about me and about her. I tell her, Don’t listen. I tell her, It’s not your fault. I tell her, I didn’t shoot that man.
Before she leaves, she hands me an envelope that she says JD’s sister gave her to give to me. I open it. Inside there is a photograph—this time it’s a picture of Leah and me. I didn’t notice it when JD was taking the picture, but I see it now. Leah’s head is turned just a little toward me and she’s smiling. She’s smiling at me.
In the bottom right-hand corner of the picture, put there automatically by the camera, is the time and the date. I stare at it and wish the day that Leah smiled at me like that wasn’t also the day that man died.
“She said to tell you that she believes in you no matter what,” my mother says. “She also said to tell you that JD feels terrible about going to the police, but that he had to do it.”
I stare at the picture. I wish I was in it, standing next to Leah. I wish I could stand next to her forever.
Chapter Twelve
After my mother leaves, I take the picture back to my room and tuck it into a book that they let me borrow from the bookshelf they call the library. Also inside the book is the picture of JD and me that Leah took. There I am in the denim shirt and jeans that the police have, only in the picture they aren’t splattered with blood. And there’s JD in the clothes he was wearing that day, also looking nice and clean. I think about what Leah told my mother, and I know it’s not true. JD doesn’t feel terrible. He feels relieved. Relieved that I am the one who is locked up and he is the one who is the good citizen. I want to rip up the picture, but I don’t. Instead, I stare at JD standing there beside his bike, smiling for Leah’s camera. In the picture, he knows he has a gun stuck in the back of his pants, but I don’t. In the picture, I’m also smiling at Leah, but for a different reason than JD.
The next afternoon, I am sitting in a big room where there is a TV, a couple of tables, and some chairs and couches. Guys are watching TV. Guys are playing cards. Guys are just talking. I am sitting in the corner with my library book. To people who don’t look closely, it would seem as if I’m reading. But really I’m looking at the picture of Leah and me. I close the book fast when one of the guards comes over to me.
“Quentin, the police are here to see you,” he says.
Finally. I called Detective Tanner first thing in the morning, but all I got was his voice mail. I left a message.
I stand up, holding the book. I don’t want to leave it in the room where anyone can take it, but I’m not sure if I’m allowed to bring it with me.
“Come on,” the guard says. So I follow him, carrying the book.
Detective Tanner is in an office, waiting for me. He tells me to sit down.
I sit.
He sits down too. He says, “What did you want to talk to me about, Quentin?”
“I wanted to tell you that I didn’t do it.”
He looks at me. “The man’s blood is all over your clothes, Quentin.”
“That’s because I was standing right next to him when JD shot him. I’m lucky he didn’t shoot me instead.”
“There’s nothing on JD’s clothes. They’re clean.”
“That’s because he washed his clothes. We went to his house right after it happened and we took off our clothes. JD sent me upstairs to get clean clothes. He said he was going to put our clothes in the washing machine, but he must have only washed his own clothes.”
Detective Tanner does not look impressed.
“He was with me,” I insist. “I took stuff from the guy’s truck. He caught me and was going to call the cops. That’s when JD shot him. I was going to tell you. But JD went to you first. He knows you were only looking for one guy. But he was there.”
“You’re not telling me anything that you haven’t already told me, Quentin.” Detective Tanner stood up. “You should do yourself a favor. Tell the truth. And tell us where the gun is. If there’s one thing we don’t need in this city, it’s another gun out there waiting for some other kid to use it.”
I get up too. “Wait,” I say. I forget that I have a book in my lap, and it falls to the floor. The pictures fall out and slide across the floor to where Detective Tanner is standing. He bends to pick them up. He glances at them, and then he starts to hand them back to me. Then he looks at them again and frowns.
He says, “Tell me again what you and JD did that day. Start at the beginning.”
So I tell him I went to JD’s house.
“What time?” he says.
I tell him. I say we got our bikes out and we rode a few blocks away to smoke up.
“Before you did that, what did you do?” he says.
“Before?”
“Before you left JD’s house.”
“We didn’t do anything. Leah took our picture and then we left.”
“This picture?” he says, holding it up.
“Yeah.” I tell him again everything we did that day—my version. The true version.
“Did JD change before he left the house?”
“Change?”
“Change his clothes. Before you left his house, after this picture was taken, did he change his clothes?”
I’m really confused now. “No,” I say.
“What about later? Did he change his clothes later?”
“Sure,” I say. “We both did. After we got back to his house, we took off our clothes and put on clean clothes.” I tell him what I put on and what JD put on.
“I’m going to need this picture,” he says. He hands me back the other one, the one of Leah and me.
“What’s the matter?” I say.
But he doesn’t tell me. Not right away, anyway.
Chapter Thirteen
I’m surprised when they let me see JD. I am also surprised that he smiles at me when I come through the door. I go over to the table where he’s sitting, and I sit down opposite him. I get another surprise when he says, “How’s Leah?”
“You don’t know?” I say. “She’s your sister.”
“She hasn’t come to see me. She won’t even talk to me. I don’t know if it’s because of the guy or because of you.”
; “It’s both,” I tell him. I know because Leah told me. But she didn’t tell me that she hasn’t been to see JD. “She says she can’t believe you would carry a gun around. She can’t believe you would shoot someone. And she can’t believe you’d put all the blame on me.” I look at him. “Why did you shoot him, JD?”
He shrugs. “He pissed me off, that’s all. And he was going to screw things up for me with his stupid citizen’s arrest. I just got mad, that’s all. I just thought, no way is he going to screw things up for me.” He shakes his head. “You know what I’ve been thinking, Q? I’ve been thinking that all those anti-gun nuts are maybe right. If I hadn’t had that gun with me, I never would have shot that guy. My sister wouldn’t be acting like I have the plague. And I wouldn’t be in here while you’re out there.”
He’s right. I am out. Not completely out of trouble, but at least out of detention while I wait to see what happens next. Because what happened was this: When the cops said that JD had voluntarily given them the clothes he was wearing that day, I assumed that was really what he had done.
It wasn’t.
He gave them clothes that were similar. He had been wearing black jeans with a belt that had a big square buckle on it and a white T-shirt with a dark blue stripe across the chest. He gave them a different pair of black jeans, and a T-shirt with a light blue stripe across the chest. He didn’t think anyone who might have seen him would notice the difference.
But Detective Tanner has been a cop for a long time and I guess he is a good one because first he noticed the time and date that Leah’s camera had automatically put at the bottom of the photo. And then he noticed that the clothes JD was wearing in the picture weren’t the same ones he gave to the police. So he got a search warrant and searched JD’s house. He didn’t tell JD about the picture Leah had taken, and he didn’t find the black jeans, or the shirt with the dark blue stripe that JD was wearing in that picture.
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