I’ve done the math: eventually, I’m going to be the one who has to take care of my brother.
Don’t get me wrong. I’m not such a colossal ass that I’m going to totally ignore Jacob when we’re grown up and when (I can’t even imagine this) Mom isn’t around. What sort of pisses me off, though, is the silent assumption that, when Mom is unable to pick up after Jacob’s messes anymore, three guesses who’ll have to take over.
Once, I read this news story on the Internet about a woman in England whose son was retarded-big-time retarded, not disabled the way Jacob is disabled but, like, unable to brush his own teeth or remember to go to the bathroom when the urge strikes. (Let me just say here that if Jacob wakes up one day and needs an adult diaper, I don’t care if I’m the last person on earth-I’m not changing it.) Anyway, this woman, she had emphysema and she was slowly dying, and it got to a point where she could barely sit up in a wheelchair all day, much less help her son out. Then there was a photo of her with her son, and although I was expecting a kid my age, Ronnie was easily in his fifties. He had a chin full of thick stubble and a potbelly poking out from his Power Rangers T-shirt, and he was giving his mother this big, gummy smile while he hugged her in her wheelchair, where she sat with tubes running into her nose.
I couldn’t take my eyes off Ronnie. It was like I suddenly realized that one day, when I was married with a houseful of rug rats and doing the corporate thing, Jacob might still be watching his stupid CrimeBusters episodes and eating yellow foods on Wednesdays. My mom and Dr. Moon, Jacob’s shrink, always talked about this abstractly, as evidence of why they thought vaccines had something to do with autism, and why autism was a relatively new phenomenon (“If it’s really been around forever, where are all the autistic kids who’ve grown up and become adults? Because believe me, even if they’d been diagnosed as something else we’d know who they are.”) But until that very second I hadn’t made the connection that, one day, Jacob would be one of those adults with autism. Sure, he might be lucky enough to hold down a job like all those Aspies in Silicon Valley, but when he had a meltdown and started destroying his cubicle at said job, we all know who they’d call first.
Ronnie clearly never had grown up and never would, and that was why his mother was being featured in this newspaper, the Guardian: she had placed an ad asking for a family that would take in Ronnie and treat him like their own when she was dead. He was a sweet boy, she said, even if he still wet the bed.
Good freaking luck, I had thought. Who takes on someone else’s crap willingly? I wondered what kind of people would respond to Ronnie’s mom. Mother Teresa types, maybe. Or those families that you always see in the back pages of People magazine who foster-parent twenty special needs kids and somehow manage to shape them into a family. Or, worse, maybe some lonely old perv who figured a fellow like Ronnie wouldn’t realize if he was copping a feel every now and then. Ronnie’s mom said a group home wasn’t an option, since he’d never been in one and couldn’t adapt to one at this point. All she wanted was someone who might love him the way she did.
Anyway, the article got me thinking about Jacob. He could handle a group home, maybe, if he were still allowed to shower first in the morning. But if I tossed him into one (and don’t ask me how you even go about getting a spot), what would that say about me? That I was too selfish to be my brother’s keeper, that I didn’t love him.
Well, still, a little voice in my head said, you never signed on for this.
Then I realized: Neither did my mother, but it didn’t make her love Jacob any less.
So here’s the deal: I know that, down the road, Jacob will be my responsibility. When I find a girl I want to marry, I’m going to have to propose with this contingency-that Jacob and me, we’re a package deal. When I least expect it, I might have to make excuses for him, or talk him down from his freak-out session, like my mom does now.
(I am not saying this out loud, but there is a part of me that’s been thinking if Jacob is convicted of murder-if he’s imprisoned for life-well, mine gets a little bit easier.)
I hate myself for even thinking that, but I’m not going to lie to you.
And I guess it doesn’t matter if it’s guilt that gets me to take care of Jacob in the future, or love, because I’ll do it.
It just would have been nice to be asked, you know?
Mama Spatakopoulous is standing at my office-apartment door with the day’s offering. “We had a little extra rigatoni,” she says. “And you’re working so hard, you look skinnier every day.”
I laugh and take the container out of her hands. It smells incredible, and Thor starts jumping around my ankles to make sure I don’t forget to give him his cut of the bounty. “Thanks, Mrs. S.,” I say, and as she turns to leave, I call her back. “Hey-what food do you know that’s yellow?” I’ve been thinking about how Emma feeds Jacob, according to his color scheme. Hell, I’ve been thinking about Emma, period.
“You mean like a scrambled egg?”
I snap my fingers. “Right,” I say. “Omelets, with Swiss cheese.”
She frowns. “You want me to make you an omelet?”
“Hell no, I’m sticking to the rigatoni.” Before I can explain the rest, my office phone starts to ring. Excusing myself, I hurry back inside and pick it up. “Oliver Bond’s office,” I say.
“Note to self,” Helen Sharp replies. “That line’s a little more effective when you hire someone else to deliver it.”
“My, uh, secretary just stepped out to use the restroom.”
She snorts. “Yeah, and I’m Miss America.”
“Congratulations,” I say, my voice dripping with sarcasm. “What’s your talent? Juggling the heads of defense attorneys?”
She ignores me. “I’m calling about the suppression hearing. You subpoenaed Rich Matson?”
“The detective? Well… yeah.” Who else was I supposed to subpoena, after all, in a motion that would try to suppress Jacob’s confession at the police station?
“You don’t have to subpoena him. I have to have Matson there, and I go first.”
“What do you mean you go first? It’s my motion.”
“I know, but this is one of those weird cases where, even though it’s your motion, the State has the burden of proof, and we have to put on all the evidence to prove the confession is good.”
For practically every other motion, it’s the other way around-if I want a ruling, I have to work my ass off to prove why I deserve it. How on earth was I supposed to know the exception to this rule?
I’m glad Helen’s not in the room with me, because my face is bright red. “Well, jeez,” I say, feigning nonchalance. “I know that. I was just seeing if you were on your toes.”
“While I have you on the phone, Oliver, I have to tell you. I don’t think you can play this case both ways.”
“What do you mean?”
“You can’t claim your client’s insane and that he didn’t understand his Miranda rights. He recited them from memory, for God’s sake.”
“Where’s the conflict?” I ask. “Who the hell memorizes Miranda verbatim?” Thor starts to bite my ankles, and I spill a little rigatoni into his dog dish. “Look, Helen. Jacob couldn’t do three days in jail. He certainly can’t do thirty-five years. I’m going to negotiate this case any way I can to make sure he doesn’t get locked up again.” I hesitate. “I don’t suppose you would consider letting Jacob just live with his mom? You know, put him on probation for the long haul?”
“Sure. Let me get right back to you on that, after my lunch with the Easter Bunny, the Tooth Fairy, and Santa,” Helen says. “This is murder, or have you forgotten that? You may have a client with autism, but I’ve got a dead body, and grieving parents, and that trumps everything. Maybe you can toss the special needs label around to get funding in schools or special accommodations, but it doesn’t preclude guilt. See you in court, Oliver.”
I slam down the phone and look down to find Thor lying on his side in a happy pasta coma. When the phone rings again, I grab it. “What?” I demand. “Was there some other legal procedure I’ve managed to screw up? Did you want to tell me you’re going to tattle to the judge?”
“No,” Emma says hesitantly. “But what legal procedure did you screw up?”
“Oh, I’m sorry. I thought you were… someone else.”
“Apparently.” There is a beat of silence. “Is everything okay with Jacob’s case?”
“Couldn’t be better,” I tell her. “The prosecution’s even doing my homework for me.” I want to change the topic as quickly as possible, so I ask after Jacob. “How are things in the Hunt household today?”
“Well, that’s sort of why I’m calling. Do you think you could do me a favor?”
A dozen favors run through my mind, most of which would greatly benefit me and my current lack of a love life. “What is it?”
“I need someone to stay with Jacob while I run out to do an errand.”
“What errand?”
“That’s sort of personal.” She draws in her breath. “Please?”
There has to be some neighbor or relative better suited to the task than I am. But then again, maybe Emma doesn’t have anyone else she can ask. From what I’ve seen these past few days, that’s one hell of a lonely household. Still, I can’t resist asking, “Why me?”
“The judge said someone over twenty-five.”
I grin. “So all of a sudden I am old enough for you?”
“Forget I even asked,” Emma snaps.
“I’ll be there in fifteen minutes,” I say.
Asking for help doesn’t come easily to me, so you’d better believe that, if I actually do make a request, I’ve exhausted all other options. Which is why I don’t feel great about making myself even more beholden to Oliver Bond by asking him to stay with Jacob while I run out of the house for this appointment. Even worse is scheduling the appointment, which feels like the physical manifestation of conceding defeat.
The bank is quiet on a Wednesday. There are a few retirees meticulously filling out deposit slips, and one of the tellers is talking to another about why Cabo is a better vacation destination than Cancún. I stand in the center of the bank, eyeing the banner advertising twelve-month CDs and a small table filled with logo paraphernalia-a stadium blanket, a mug, an umbrella-that can be mine if I open a new checking account.
“Can I help you?” a woman asks.
“I have an appointment,” I say. “To see Abigail LeGris?”
“You can take a seat,” she says, and she points to a bank of chairs outside a cubicle. “I’ll let her know you’re here.”
I’ve never been rich, and I’ve never needed to be. Somehow, the boys and I have cobbled along on my writing and editing income, and the checks that Henry faithfully sends each month. We don’t need much. We live in a modest house; we don’t go out on the town very often or take vacations. I shop at Marshalls and a local thrift store that has recently become trendy for teenagers. The bulk of my expenses involve Jacob-his supplements and his therapies, which aren’t covered by insurance. I think I got so used to making those accommodations fiscally that I stopped seeing them as accommodations and instead view them as the norm. But that said, sometimes I have lain awake at night and wondered what would happen if, God forbid, there was a car accident and we had medical bills that skyrocketed. If some remarkable therapy became available to Jacob that required a payout we could not afford.
In my laundry list of contingencies, I never thought to include the legal fees incurred when your son is accused of murder.
A woman with dyed jet-black hair and a suit that’s wearing her instead of the other way around steps out of the cubicle. She has a very tiny nose stud and doesn’t look much older than twenty. Maybe this is what happens to snowboard chicks whose knees get arthritic, to Goth girls whose eyeliner aggravates dry-eye syndrome-they are forced to grow up like the rest of us. “I’m Abby LeGris,” she says.
When she shakes my hand, her collared shirt gaps a little, and I can see the edge of a Celtic tattoo on her neck.
She leads me into her cubicle and gestures for me to take a seat. “So,” she says. “How can I help you today?”
“I was hoping to talk about a second mortgage. I, well, I need a little extra cash.” As I say the words, I’m wondering if she can ask me what I’ll use that cash for. If it’s illegal to lie to a bank about that sort of thing.
“So basically you’re looking for a line of credit,” Abigail says. “That means you only pay us back for the portion you use.”
Well, that sounds reasonable.
“How long have you lived in your home?” she asks.
“Nineteen years.”
“Do you know how much you owe currently on your mortgage?”
“Not exactly,” I say. “But we got the loan here.”
“Let’s look you up,” Abigail says, and she asks me to spell my name so that she can find me on her computer system. “Your home’s worth $300,000, and your first mortgage was for $220,000. Does that sound right?”
I can’t remember. All I can see is the night Henry and I danced through the house that was ours, our bare feet echoing on the wood floor.
“The way it works, banks lend a portion of the equity of a home, around eighty percent. So that’s $240,000. Then we subtract the amount of the first mortgage loan and…” She looks up from her calculator. “You’re talking about a $20,000 line of credit.”
I stare at her. “That’s all?”
“In today’s market, it’s important for the client to have a vested interest in the house. Makes them less likely to default on the loan.” She smiles at me. “Why don’t we fill in some of the other blanks here,” Abigail says. “Starting with your employer?”
I’ve read statistics that say references aren’t checked more than fifty percent of the time, but surely a bank must fall in the other half. And once they call Tanya and realize I’ve quit, they’ll be wondering how I’m going to pay one mortgage, much less two. Saying I am picking up the slack with self-employment won’t help, either. I’ve been a freelance editor long enough to know that, for institutions like banks and future employers, self-employed translates to “nearly jobless but scraping by.”
“I’m currently unemployed,” I say softly.
Abigail leans back in her chair. “Well,” she says. “Do you have other sources of income? Rental property? Dividends?”
“Child support,” I manage.
“I’m going to be totally honest with you,” she says. “It’s not likely you’ll get a loan without another source of income.”
I cannot even look at her. “I really, really need the money.”
“There are other credit sources,” Abigail says. “Car title loans, loan predators, credit cards-but the interest will kill you in the long run. You’re better off asking someone close to you. Is there a family member who might be able to help?”
But my parents are both gone, and it is a family member I’m trying to help. I’m the one-I’m always the one-who takes care of Jacob when things are falling apart.
“I wish there was something I could do,” Abigail says. “Maybe once you get another job…”
I mumble my thanks and leave her cubicle while she is still speaking. In the parking lot, I sit in my car for a moment. My breath hangs in the cold air, like thought balloons of all the things I wish I could explain to Abigail LeGris. “I wish there was something I could do, too,” I say out loud.
It isn’t fair to Jacob or to Oliver, but I don’t go right home. Instead, I drive past the elementary school. It’s been a long time since I’ve had reason to go there-after all, my boys are grown now-but in the winter, they flood a front field into an ice rink, and kids bring their skates. During recess, little girls spin in circles on the ice; boys chase hockey pucks from one end to the other.
I pull over across the street, where I can watch. The kids who are playing outside are tiny-I’d say first or second graders-and it seems impossible that Jacob was ever that small. When he’d been a student here, his aide had taken him onto the ice rink with a pair of borrowed skates and had Jacob push two stack milk crates around. It was the way most toddlers learned to skate, and they’d quickly graduate to the tripod method, where a hockey stick provided a third leg for balance, before feeling confident enough to glide off without any props. But Jacob, he never did get past those milk crates. In skating-as with most physical things-he was clumsy. I remember coming to watch him, and seeing his feet splay out from beneath him, so that he’d land in a heap on the ice. If it wasn’t slippery, I wouldn’t keep falling, he said to me, apple-cheeked and breathless after recess, as if having something to blame made all the difference.
A sharp rap at my window makes me jump. I roll it down to find a police officer standing there. “Ma’am,” he says, “can I help you?”
“I was just… I had something in my eye,” I lie.
“Well, if you’re all right now, I have to ask you to move along. This is a bus zone; you can’t stay here.”
I glance at the kids on the ice again. They look like molecules colliding. “No,” I say softly. “I can’t.”
When I get back home and open the door, I hear the sound of someone being beaten to a pulp. Unhh. Ow. Ooof. And then, to my horror, Jacob’s laughter.
“Jacob?” I call, but there’s no answer. Still wearing my coat, I rush into the house toward the sounds of the fight.
Jacob stands-perfectly unharmed-in front of the television in the living room. He’s holding what looks like a white remote control. Oliver stands beside him, holding a matching remote control. Theo is sprawled behind them on the couch. “You so suck at this,” he says. “Both of you.”
“Hello?” I take a step into the room, but their eyes are all glued to the television. On the screen, two 3-D cartoon figures are boxing. I watch as Jacob moves his remote control, and the figure on the screen swings his right arm and knocks down the other character.
“Ha!” Jacob exclaims. “I knocked you out.”
“Not yet,” Oliver says, and he swings his arm without looking first, hitting me.
“Ouch,” I say, rubbing my shoulder.
“Oh, jeez, sorry,” Oliver says, lowering his remote control. “I didn’t see you there.”
“Obviously.”
“Mom,” Jacob says, his face animated in a way I haven’t seen in weeks, “this is the coolest thing. You can golf and play tennis and bowl-”
“And assault people,” I say.
“Technically, it’s boxing,” Oliver interjects.
“And where did this come from?”
“Oh, I brought it over. I mean, everyone likes playing the Wii.”
I stare at him. “So you didn’t think there was anything wrong with bringing a violent video game system into my house without asking my permission first?”
Oliver shrugs. “Would you have said yes?”
“No!”
“I rest my case.” He grins. “Besides, we’re not playing Call of Duty, Emma. We’re just boxing. It’s a sport.”
“An Olympic sport,” Jacob adds.
Oliver tosses his remote to Theo. “Take over for me,” he instructs, and he walks me into the kitchen. “So how was your errand?”
“It was…” I start to answer but become distracted by the state of the kitchen. I missed it when I first ran through, trying to find the source of the moans and groans I was hearing, but now I see that pots and pans are crammed into the sink, and nearly every mixing bowl we own is stacked on the counter. A pan still sits on the range. “What happened here?”
“I’m going to clean up,” Oliver promises. “I just got distracted playing with Theo and Jake.”
“Jacob,” I correct automatically. “He doesn’t like nicknames.”
“He didn’t seem to mind when I called him that,” Oliver says. He crosses in front of me to the oven and punches buttons to turn it off before grabbing a rainbow pot holder that Theo made me once for Christmas when he was small. “Have a seat. I saved you some lunch.”
I sink into a chair-not because he told me to but because I honestly cannot remember the last time someone cooked for me, instead of the other way around. He transfers the warmed food to a plate he removes from the refrigerator. When Oliver leans forward to set it in front of me, I can smell his shampoo-like fresh-cut grass and pine trees.
There is an omelet with Swiss cheese. Pineapple. Corn bread. And on a separate plate, yellow cake.
I look up at him. “What is this?”
“It’s from one of your mixes,” he says. “Gluten-free. But the icing Jake and I made from scratch.”
“I wasn’t talking about the cake.”
Oliver sits down at the kitchen table and reaches across to snag a piece of pineapple off the plate. “It’s Yellow Wednesday, right?” he says, matter-of-fact. “Now eat it, before the omelet gets cold.”
I take a bite, and then another. I eat the whole block of corn bread before I realize how hungry I am. Oliver watches me, grinning, and then bounces up just like his avatar did on the television screen after Jacob decked him. He opens the refrigerator. “Lemonade?” he asks.
I set down my fork. “Oliver, listen.”
“You don’t have to thank me,” he answers. “Really. This was way more fun for me than reading discovery.”
“There’s something I have to tell you.” I wait for him to sit down again. “I don’t know how I’m going to pay you.”
“Don’t worry. My babysitting fees are pretty cheap.”
“I’m not talking about that.”
He looks away from me. “We’ll figure something out.”
“How?” I demand.
“I don’t know. Let’s just get through the trial and then we can sort it out-”
“No.” My voice falls like an ax. “I don’t want your charity.”
“Good, because I can’t afford to give it,” Oliver says. “Maybe you can do some paralegal work for me or editing or something.”
“I don’t know anything about law.”
“That makes two of us,” he replies, and then he grins. “Kidding.”
“I’m serious. I’m not going to let you try this case if we can’t work out some kind of payment schedule.”
“There is one thing you could help me out with,” Oliver admits. He looks like a cat that’s devoured the whole carton of half-and-half. Like a guy waiting under the covers, watching a woman undress.
Where the hell did that thought come from?
Suddenly, my cheeks are burning. “I hope you aren’t about to suggest that we-”
“Play a game of virtual tennis?” Oliver interrupts, and he holds up a small electronic game cartridge he’s taken from his pocket. He widens his eyes, all innocence. “What did you think I was going to say?”
“Just so you know,” I say, grabbing the cartridge out of his hand, “I have a wicked serve.”
At the police station, Jacob admitted that chipping Jess Ogilvy’s tooth was an accident. That he moved her body and set up a crime scene around it.
Any juror who hears that is going to make the very simple and logical leap that he’s confessed to murder. After all, it’s not like dead bodies are lying around all over the place to feed the passions of autistic kids who are obsessed with criminology.
Which is why my best hope of keeping Jacob out of prison for life is to strike that entire police interview before it can be admitted as evidence. In order to do this, we have to have a suppression hearing, which means that-once again-Emma and Jacob and I have to face the judge.
The only problem is that the last time I had Jacob in a courtroom, things didn’t exactly go swimmingly.
This is why I’m wound tight as a spring beside my client as we watch Helen Sharp lead the detective through a direct examination. “When did you first become involved with this case?” she asks.
“On the morning of Wednesday, January thirteenth, I received information that there was a missing person from Jess Ogilvy’s boyfriend, Mark Maguire. I investigated, and on January eighteenth, after an extensive search, Ms. Ogilvy’s body was found in a culvert. She had died of internal bleeding as the result of a head trauma, had multiple contusions and abrasions, and was wrapped in the defendant’s quilt.”
Jacob furiously writes something down on the pad I’ve placed in front of him and tips it toward me. He’s wrong.
I take the pad from him, suddenly hopeful. An oversight like this bit of mistaken evidence would be just the kind of detail Jacob might have neglected to mention to anyone. It wasn’t your quilt?
It’s not technically internal bleeding, he scrawls. It’s blood pooling between the dura that covers the brain and the arachnoid, which is the middle layer of the meninges.
I roll my eyes. Thanks, Dr. Hunt, I write.
Jacob frowns. I’m not a doctor, he scribbles.
“Let’s back up a minute,” Helen says. “Did you speak to the defendant before finding Ms. Ogilvy’s body?”
“Yes. As we went through the victim’s calendar, I interviewed everyone who’d come in contact with her on the day she was last seen, and the ones who were supposed to meet with her. Jacob Hunt was due to have a tutoring session with Ms. Ogilvy at 2:35 P.M. on the afternoon of her disappearance. I met with him to inquire whether or not that meeting had taken place.”
“Where did you meet?”
“At the defendant’s home.”
“Who was present when you got to the house that day?” Helen asks.
“Jacob Hunt and his mother. I believe his younger brother was upstairs.”
“Had you ever met Jacob before this day?”
“Once,” the detective says. “He showed up at a crime scene I was working several days earlier.”
“Did you think he might be a suspect?”
“No. Other officers had seen him on-site before, too. He liked to show up and offer unsolicited advice about crime scene analysis.” He shrugs. “I figured he was just a kid who wanted to play cop.”
“When you first met with Jacob, did anyone tell you he had Asperger’s syndrome?”
“Yes,” Matson says. “His mother. She said Jacob had a very hard time communicating and that a lot of his behaviors which might look like guilty behavior to an outside observer were actually the symptoms of his autism.”
“Did she ever tell you that you couldn’t speak with her son?”
“No,” Matson says.
“Did the defendant tell you that he didn’t want to speak with you?”
“No.”
“Did he give you any indication on that first day you met that he didn’t understand what you were saying, or who you were?”
“He knew exactly who I was,” Matson replies. “He wanted to talk about forensics.”
“What did you discuss during that initial meeting?”
“I asked him if he’d seen Jess for his appointment, and he said no. He also told me that he knew Jess’s boyfriend, Mark. That was pretty much it. I left my card with his mother and said that she should give a call if anything else came up, or if Jacob remembered something.”
“How long did this conversation last?”
“I don’t know; all together five minutes maybe?” Matson says.
The prosecutor nods. “When did you next learn that Jacob Hunt knew something more about this case?”
“His mother called and said Jacob had some new information about Jess Ogilvy. Apparently he’d forgotten to tell us that, when he was at her house, waiting for her, he tidied up some things and alphabetized the CDs. The victim’s boyfriend had mentioned that the CDs had been reorganized, and that made me want to talk to Jacob some more.”
“Did Jacob’s mother tell you he wouldn’t understand you if you asked him questions?”
“She said that he might have trouble understanding questions that were phrased a certain way.”
“During that second conversation, did Jacob say he didn’t want to talk to you, or that he didn’t understand your questions?”
“No.”
“Did the defendant’s mother have to translate for him, or tell you to rephrase your questions?”
“No.”
“And how long did this second conversation last?”
“Ten minutes, tops.”
“Did you have another conversation with Jacob Hunt?” Helen asks.
“Yes, the afternoon after we discovered Jess Ogilvy’s body in the culvert.”
“Where did that conversation with the defendant take place?”
“The police station.”
“Why did Jacob come in to speak to you again?”
“His mother called me,” Matson says. “She was very upset because she believed her son had something to do with the murder of Jess Ogilvy.”
Suddenly Jacob stands up and faces the gallery, so that he can see Emma. “You thought that?” he asks, his hands balled into fists at his sides.
Emma looks like she’s been hit in the stomach. She looks at me for help, but before I can do or say anything, the judge smacks his gavel. “Mr. Bond, control your client.”
Jacob starts flapping his left hand. “I need a sensory break!”
Immediately, I nod. “Your Honor, we need a recess.”
“Fine. Take five minutes,” the judge says, and he leaves the bench.
The minute he’s gone, Emma steps over the bar. “Jacob, listen to me.”
But Jacob’s not listening; he’s emitting a high-pitched hum that has Helen Sharp covering her ears. “Jacob,” Emma repeats, and she puts her hands on either side of his face, forcing him to face her. He closes his eyes.
“I shot the sheriff,” Emma sings, “but I didn’t shoot the deputy. I shot the sheriff, but I did not shoot the deputy. Reflexes got the better of me… and what is to be must be.”
The bailiff standing in the room shoots her a dirty glance, but the tension melts out of Jacob’s shoulders. “Every day the bucket a-go a well,” he sings, in his flat monotone. “One day the bottom a-go drop out.”
“That’s it, baby,” Emma murmurs.
Helen is watching every move, her mouth slightly agape. “Gee,” she says, “my kid only knows the words to ‘Candy Man.’”
“Hell of a song to be singing when you’re on trial for murder,” the bailiff mutters.
“Do not listen to him,” Emma says. “You listen to me. I believe you. I believe you didn’t do it.”
Interestingly, she doesn’t look Jacob in the eye when she says this. Now, he’d never have noticed-since he’s not looking her in the eye, either. But by Emma’s own reasoning with the detective, if you assume that someone who doesn’t look you in the eye is either lying or on the autism spectrum-and Emma isn’t on the autism spectrum-what does that imply?
Before I can interpret this any further, the judge comes back, and Helen and Rich Matson take their places again. “Your only job here is to stay cool,” I whisper to Jacob, as I lead him back to the defense table. And then I watch him take a piece of paper, fold it into an accordion pleat, and begin to fan himself.
“How did Jacob get to the police station?” Helen asks.
“His mother brought him down.”
Jacob fans a little faster.
“Was he placed under arrest?”
“No,” the detective says.
“Was he brought in a cruiser?”
“No.”
“Did a police officer accompany his mother to the police department?”
“No. She brought her son in voluntarily.”
“What did you say when you saw him there?”
“I asked if he could help me with some cases.”
“What was his response?”
“He was extremely excited and very willing to go with me,” Matson says.
“Did he indicate that he wanted to have his mother in the room, or that he wasn’t comfortable without her?”
“To the contrary-he said he wanted to help me.”
“Where did the interview take place?”
“In my office. I started to ask him about the crime scene he’d crashed a week earlier, which involved a man who died of hypothermia. Then I told him I’d really like to pick his brain about Jess Ogilvy’s case, but that it was a little trickier, since it was still an open investigation. I said he’d have to waive his rights to not discuss it, and Jacob quoted me Miranda. I read along as he recited it verbatim, and then I asked him to read over it and initial it and sign at the bottom so that I knew he understood, and hadn’t just memorized some random words.”
“Was he able to answer your questions intelligibly?” Helen asks.
“Yes.”
Helen offers the Miranda form into evidence. “No further questions, Your Honor,” she says.
I stand up and button my suit jacket. “Detective, the very first time you met with Jacob, his mother was there, right?”
“Yes.”
“Did she stay the entire time?”
“Yes, she did.”
“Great,” I say. “How about the second time you met with Jacob? Was his mother there?”
“Yes.”
“In fact, she’s the one who brought him to the station at your request, correct?”
“That’s right.”
“But when she asked you if she could stay with him, you refused?”
“Well, yeah,” Matson says. “Since her son is eighteen.”
“Yes, but you were also aware that Jacob is on the autism spectrum, isn’t that true?”
“It is, but nothing he’d said previously had led me to believe he couldn’t be interrogated.”
“Still, his mother told you he had a hard time with questions. That he got confused under pressure, and that he couldn’t really understand subtleties of language,” I say.
“She explained something about Asperger’s syndrome, but I didn’t pay a lot of attention to it. He seemed perfectly capable to me. He knew every legal term imaginable, for God’s sake, and he was more than happy to talk.”
“Detective, when you told Jacob what happens during an autopsy, didn’t he quote Silence of the Lambs to you?”
Matson shifts in his chair. “Yes.”
“Does that indicate that he really understood what he was doing?”
“I figured he was trying to be funny.”
“It’s not the first time Jacob’s used a movie quote to answer one of your questions, is it?”
“I can’t recall.”
“Let me help you, then,” I say, grateful to Jacob for his verbatim memory of the conversation. “When you asked him if Jess and her boyfriend, Mark, fought, he said ‘Hasta la vista, baby,’ didn’t he?”
“That sounds about right.”
“And he quoted a third movie line to you at one point during your interrogation, didn’t he, Detective?”
“Yes.”
“When was that?”
“I asked him why he’d done it.”
“And he said?”
“Love means never having to say you’re sorry.”
“The only crime Jacob Hunt committed,” I argue, “is quoting from a movie as sappy as Love Story.”
“Objection,” Helen says. “Are we doing closings now? Because nobody sent me the memo.”
“Sustained,” the judge answers. “Mr. Bond, save the editorial commentary for yourself.”
I turn back to Matson. “How did that third interview, at the station, end?”
“Abruptly,” the detective replies.
“In fact Ms. Hunt arrived with me, saying that her son wanted a lawyer, didn’t she?”
“That’s right.”
“And once she made that announcement, what did Jacob say?”
“That he wanted a lawyer,” Matson answers. “Which is when I stopped questioning him.”
“Nothing further,” I say, and I sit down beside Jacob again.
Freddie Soto is a former cop whose oldest son is profoundly autistic. After working for the state police in North Carolina for years, he went back to school and got his master’s in psychology. Now, he specializes in teaching law enforcement professionals about autism. He’s written articles for the FBI Law Enforcement Bulletin and for Sheriff magazine. He was a consultant for ABC News on a 20/20 special about autism and the law and false confession. He helped develop the state of North Carolina’s 2001 curriculum about why law enforcement needs to recognize autism, a curriculum now in use in police departments around the globe.
His fee for expert testimony is $15,000 plus first-class plane fare, which I didn’t have. But we started talking on the phone, and when he heard that I had been a farrier, he divulged that he had partial ownership of a racehorse that wound up with flat feet. The horse meant everything to his son, so he had fought to keep the animal from being euthanized. When I suggested pads to keep the soles from bruising and wedges on the hooves with integral frog supports and a soft packing material underneath to realign the hoof pasterns by reducing the weight on the heels without crushing the horns and deforming the heels, he said he’d testify for free if I agreed to fly down to North Carolina and take a look at his horse when the trial was through.
“Can you tell us, Mr. Soto, would someone with Asperger’s syndrome have the same difficulties dealing with law enforcement personnel as someone who is autistic?” I ask.
“Naturally, since Asperger’s is on the autism spectrum. For example, a person with Asperger’s might be nonverbal. He might have a hard time interpreting body language, like a command presence or a defensive pose. He may have a meltdown if confronted by flashing lights or sirens. His lack of eye contact may lead an officer to believe he’s not listening. He may appear stubborn or angry. Instead of answering a question asked by an officer, he might repeat what the officer has said. He’ll have trouble seeing from someone else’s point of view. And he will tell the truth-relentlessly.”
“Have you ever met Jacob, Mr. Soto?”
“I have not.”
“Have you had a chance to review his medical records from Dr. Murano?”
“Yes, fifteen years’ worth,” he says.
“What in those medical records fits the possible indicators for Asperger’s?”
“From what I understand,” Soto replies, “Jacob is a very bright young man who has trouble making eye contact, doesn’t communicate very well, speaks in movie quotes from time to time, exhibits stimulatory behavior, such as flapping his hands, and sings certain songs repetitively as a means of self-calming. He also can’t break down complex questions, has trouble judging personal space and interpreting body language, and is supremely honest.”
“Mr. Soto,” I ask, “have you also had a chance to read the police reports and the transcript of Jacob’s recorded statement with Detective Matson?”
“Yes.”
“In your opinion, did Jacob understand his Miranda rights at the time they were given?”
“Objection,” Helen says. “Your Honor, Miranda is intended to prevent violations of an individual’s Fifth Amendment rights purposefully by the police; however, there’s nothing that requires the police to know all the inner workings of any particular individual defendant’s developmental abilities. The test under a motion to suppress is whether the police officer fulfilled his obligation, and that shouldn’t be flipped around to ask whether Jacob Hunt has some unknown disorder that the officer should have identified.”
There is a tug on the bottom of my suit jacket, and Jacob passes me a note:
“Your Honor,” I say, and I read exactly what Jacob’s written: “The test under Miranda is whether a defendant knowingly and voluntarily has waived his right to silence.”
“Overruled,” the judge says, and I glance at Jacob, who grins.
“It’s highly doubtful that Jacob truly understood Miranda, given the way Detective Matson behaved. There are things a law enforcement agency can do to make sure autistic people understand their rights in that sort of situation, and those measures were not implemented,” Soto replies.
“Such as?”
“When I go to police departments and work with the officers, I recommend talking in very short, direct phrases and allowing for delayed responses to questions. I tell them to avoid figurative expressions, like Are you pulling my leg? Or You think that’s bright? I suggest that they avoid threatening language and behavior, that they wait for a response or eye contact, and that they don’t assume a lack thereof is evidence of disrespect or guilt. I tell them to avoid touching the individual and to be aware of a possible sensitivity to lights, sounds, or even K-9 units.”
“Just to be clear, Mr. Soto, were any of those protocols followed, in your opinion?”
“No.”
“Thanks,” I say, and I sit down beside Jacob as Helen rises to cross-examine my witness. I am excited-no, I am beyond excited. I have just knocked it out of the park. I mean, honestly, what are the odds of finding an expert like this, in a field no one has even heard of, who can win your motion for you?
“What stimuli inside Detective Matson’s office would have set Jacob off?” Helen asks.
“I don’t know. I wasn’t there.”
“So you don’t know if there were loud noises or bright lights, do you?”
“No, but I have yet to find a police department that’s a warm and welcoming space,” Soto says.
“So in your opinion, Mr. Soto, in order to effectively interrogate someone who has Asperger’s syndrome, you have to take them down to Starbucks and buy them a vanilla latte?”
“Obviously not. I’m just saying that measures could have been taken to make Jacob more comfortable, and by being more comfortable, he might have been more aware of what was going on at the time instead of being suggestible enough to do or say whatever it took to get out of there as quickly as possible. A kid with Asperger’s is particularly prone to making a false confession if he thinks it’s what the authority figure wants to hear.”
Oh, I want to hug Freddie Soto. I want to make his racehorse run again.
“For example,” he adds, “when Jacob said, Are we done now? Because I really have to go, that’s a classic response to agitation. Someone who knew about Asperger’s might have recognized that and backed off. Instead, according to the transcript, Detective Matson hammered Jacob with a series of questions that further confused him.”
“So it’s your expectation that police officers need to know what each individual defendant’s triggers are in order to effectively interrogate them?”
“It sure wouldn’t hurt.”
“You do understand, Mr. Soto, that when Detective Matson asked Jacob if he knew his Miranda rights, Jacob actually recited them verbatim rather than waiting for the detective to read them aloud?”
“Absolutely,” Soto replies. “But Jacob could probably also recite to you the entire script of The Godfather: Part II. That doesn’t mean he has any real understanding of or emotional attachment to that particular film.”
Beside me, I see Jacob open his mouth to object, and immediately, I grab his forearm where it rests on the table. Startled, he turns to me, and I shake my head, hard.
“But how do you know he doesn’t understand his Miranda rights?” Helen asks. “You yourself said he’s very bright. And he told the detective he understood them, didn’t he?”
“Yes,” Soto admits.
“And by your own testimony, didn’t you also say Jacob is supremely honest?”
My brilliant witness, my stellar find, opens and closes his mouth without answering.
“Nothing further,” Helen says.
I am about to tell the judge that the defense rests when, instead, something else entirely pops out of my mouth. “Mr. Soto,” I ask, getting to my feet, “would you agree that there is a difference between a true understanding of the law and a photographic memory of the law?”
“Yes. That’s exactly the difference between someone with Asperger’s and someone who truly understands Miranda rights.”
“Thank you, Mr. Soto, you can step down,” I say, and I turn back to the judge. “I’d like to call Jacob Hunt to the stand.”
Nobody is happy with me.
During the recess I asked for before Jacob’s testimony, I told him that all he had to do was answer a few questions. That it was okay to speak out loud when I asked questions, or if the judge or Helen Sharp asked questions, but that he shouldn’t say anything other than the answers to those questions.
In the meantime, Emma danced around us in circles, as if she was trying to find the best spot to sink her knife into me. “You can’t put Jacob on the stand,” she argued. “That’s going to traumatize him. What if he breaks down? How’s that going to look?”
“That,” I said, “would be the best that could possibly happen.”
That shut her up pretty quickly.
Now, Jacob is visibly nervous. He’s rocking on the chair in the witness stand, and his head is bent at some strange angle. “Can you tell us your name?” I ask.
Jacob nods.
“Jacob, you have to speak out loud. The stenographer’s writing down your words, and she has to be able to hear you. Can you tell me your name?”
“Yes,” he says. “I can.”
I sigh. “What is your name?”
“Jacob Hunt.”
“How old are you?”
“Eighteen.”
“Jacob, do you know what the Miranda warning says?”
“Yes.”
“Can you tell me?”
“You have the right to remain silent. Anything you say can and will be used against you in a court of law. You have the right to speak to an attorney, and to have an attorney present during any questioning. If you cannot afford a lawyer, one will be provided for you at government expense.”
“Now, Jacob,” I ask, “do you know what that means?”
“Objection,” Helen argues as Jacob starts to hit his fist against the side of the witness box.
“I’ll withdraw the question,” I say. “Jacob, can you tell me what the Second Amendment to the Constitution says?”
“A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms shall not be infringed,” Jacob recites.
Atta boy, I think. “What does that mean, Jacob?”
He hesitates. “You’ll shoot your eye out, kid!”
The judge frowns. “Isn’t that from A Christmas Story?”
“Yes,” Jacob replies.
“Jacob, you don’t know what the Second Amendment really means, do you?”
“Yes, I do: A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms shall not be infringed.”
I look at the judge. “Your Honor, nothing further.”
Helen is already on the prowl. I watch Jacob shrink back in his seat. “Did you know Detective Matson wanted to talk to you about what happened to Jess?”
“Yes.”
“Were you willing to talk to him about that?”
“Yes.”
“Can you tell me what it means to waive your rights?”
I hold my breath as Jacob hesitates. And then slowly, beautifully, the right fist he’s been banging against the wooden railing unfurls and is raised over his head, moving back and forth like a metronome.
I was furious when Oliver pulled this stunt. Wasn’t he the one who’d said putting Jacob on the witness stand would only be detrimental to the trial? Even if it was a judge here, not a jury of twelve, Jacob was bound to suffer. Thrusting him into a situation certain to make him have a meltdown simply for the sake of being able to say to the judge, See, I told you so, seemed cruel and pointless, the equivalent of jumping off a building in order to command attention, which you’d be too dead to enjoy in the aftermath. But Jacob rose to the occasion-granted, with stims and tics. He didn’t freak out, not even when that Dragon Lady of a prosecutor started in on him. I have never been so proud of him.
“I’ve listened to all the evidence,” Judge Cuttings says. “I’ve observed the defendant, and I do not believe that he voluntarily waived his Miranda rights. I also believe that Detective Matson was on notice that this defendant has a developmental disorder and yet did nothing to address that disability. I’m going to grant the motion to suppress the defendant’s statement at the police station.”
Once the judge leaves, Oliver turns around and gives me a high five as Helen Sharp begins to pack up her briefcase. “I’m sure you’ll be in touch,” Helen says to Oliver.
“So what does it mean?” I ask.
“She’s going to have to make her case without Jacob’s confession. Which means that the prosecutor’s job just got a lot harder.”
“So it’s good.”
“It’s very good,” Oliver says. “Jacob, you were perfect up there.”
“Can we go?” Jacob asks. “I’m starving.”
“Sure.” Jacob stands up and starts walking down the aisle. “Thanks,” I say to Oliver, and I fall into place beside my son. I am halfway up the aisle when I turn around. Oliver is whistling to himself, pulling on his overcoat. “If you want to join us for lunch tomorrow… Fridays are blue,” I tell him.
He looks up at me. “Blue? That’s a tough one. Once you get past the blueberries and yogurt and blue Jell-O, what’s left?”
“Blue corn chips. Blue potatoes. Blue Popsicles. Bluefish.”
“That’s not technically blue,” Oliver points out.
“True,” I reply, “but it’s still allowed.”
“Blue Gatorade’s always been my favorite,” he says.
On the way home, Jacob reads the newspaper out loud from his spot in the backseat. “They’re building a new bank downtown, but it’s going to eliminate forty parking spaces,” he tells me. “A guy was taken to Fletcher Allen after he crashed his motorcycle into a snow fence.” He flips the page. “What’s today?”
“Thursday.”
His voice races with excitement. “Tomorrow at three o’clock Dr. Henry Lee is going to be speaking at the University of New Hampshire, and the public is welcome!”
“Why is that name familiar?”
“Mom,” Jacob says, “he’s only the most famous forensic scientist ever. He’s worked on thousands of cases, like the suicide of Vince Foster and JonBenét Ramsey’s murder and the O. J. Simpson trial. There’s a phone number here for information.” He starts rummaging in my purse for my cell phone.
“What are you doing?”
“Calling for tickets.”
I glance at him in the rearview mirror. “Jacob. We cannot go see Dr. Lee. You aren’t allowed to leave your house, much less the state.”
“I left the house today.”
“That’s different. You went to court.”
“You don’t understand. This is Henry Lee. This is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. I’m not asking to go out to a movie. There’s got to be something Oliver can do to get a furlough or something for the day.”
“I don’t think so, babe.”
“So you’re not even going to try? You’re just going to assume that the answer’s no?”
“That’s right,” I tell him, “since the alternative to having you under house arrest is being thrown back in jail. And I am a hundred percent sure that the warden would not have given you a day pass to see Henry Lee speak, either.”
“I bet he would, if you told him who Henry Lee was.”
“This isn’t up for discussion, Jacob,” I say.
“You left the house yesterday…”
“That’s completely different.”
“Why? The judge said you had to watch over me at all times.”
“Me, or another adult-”
“See, he already made exceptions for you-”
“Because I wasn’t the one who-” Realizing what I am about to say, I snap my mouth shut.
“Who what?” Jacob’s voice is tight. “Who killed someone?”
I turn in to our driveway. “I didn’t say that, Jacob.”
He stares out the window. “You didn’t have to.”
Before I can stop him, he jumps out of the car while I’m still pulling to a stop. He runs past Theo, who stands at the front door with his arms crossed. A strange car is parked in the driveway, with a man behind the wheel.
“I tried to get him to leave,” Theo says, “but he said he would wait for you.” With that information, he goes back into the house and leaves me face-to-face with a small, balding man with a goatee shaved in the shape of a W. “Ms. Hunt?” he says. “I’m Farley McDuff, the founder of Neurodiversity Nation. Maybe you’ve heard of us?”
“I’m afraid I haven’t…”
“It’s a blog for people who believe that atypical neurological development is a matter of simple human difference and, as such, should be celebrated instead of cured.”
“Look, this isn’t a very good time right now-”
“There’s no time like the present, Ms. Hunt, for those in the autism community to stand up for the respect they deserve. Instead of having neurotypicals try to destroy diversity, we believe in a new world where neurological plurality is accepted.”
“Neurotypical,” I repeat.
“Another word for what’s colloquially called ‘normal,’” he says. “Like you.” He smiles at me, but he cannot hold my gaze for more than a heartbeat. He thrusts a pamphlet into my hand.
MAJORITISM-An unrecognized condition.
Majoritism is an incapacitating developmental condition which affects 99% of the population in areas of mental function, including self-awareness, attention, emotional capacity, and sensory development. The effects begin at birth and cannot be cured. Luckily, the number of those afflicted by majoritism is decreasing, as a better understanding of autism emerges.
“You’ve got to be kidding me,” I say. I step around him, intent on getting inside my house.
“Why is it so delusional to think that a person who feels someone else’s grief or pain isn’t hampered by that excess of emotion? Or that imitating others in order to fit in to the crowd is more acceptable than doing what interests you at any given moment? Why isn’t it considered rude to look a total stranger in the eye when you first meet him, or to invade his personal space by shaking hands? Couldn’t it be considered a flaw to veer off topic based on a comment someone else makes instead of sticking to your original subject? Or to be oblivious when something in your environment changes-like a piece of clothing that gets moved from a drawer to a closet?”
That makes me think of Jacob. “I really have to go-”
“Ms. Hunt, we think that we can help your son.”
I hesitate. “Really?”
“Do you know who Darius McCollum is?”
“No.”
“He’s a man from Queens, New York, who has a passion for anything transit-related. He wasn’t much older than Jacob the first time he took over the E train headed from the World Trade Center to Herald Square. He’s taken city buses out for a spin. He tripped the emergency brakes on an N train and impersonated a transit worker in uniform in order to fix it himself. He’s posed as a railroad safety consultant. He’s been convicted more than nineteen times. He also has Asperger’s.”
A shiver goes down my spine that has nothing to do with the cold. “Why are you telling me this?”
“Do you know of John Odgren? At age sixteen he stabbed a student to death at a suburban high school in Sudbury, Massachusetts. He’d previously had knives and a fake handgun confiscated at school but didn’t have a history of violent behavior. He has Asperger’s, and a special interest in weapons. But as a result of the stabbing, the link between Asperger’s and violence was raised-when in fact medical experts say there’s no known link between Asperger’s and violence, and in fact kids diagnosed with the disorder are far more likely to be teased as victims than to be perpetrators themselves.” He takes a step forward. “We can help you. We can rally the autistic community to spread the word. Imagine all the mothers who’ll stand behind you, once they realize their own autistic children might be targeted by neurotypicals once again-not just to be ‘fixed’ this time around but possibly to be charged with murder over what might otherwise be a misunderstanding.”
I want to say that Jacob is innocent, but-God help me-I can’t make the words come out of my mouth. I don’t want my son to be the poster child for anything. I just want my life to go back to the way it used to be. “Mr. McDuff, please get off my property, or I’ll call the police.”
“How convenient that they’d already know the quickest route here,” he says, but he moves back toward his car. He hesitates at the door, a small, sad smile twitching at the corner of his mouth. “It’s a neurotypical world, Ms. Hunt. We’re just taking up space in it.”
I find Jacob at his computer. “Tickets are thirty-five dollars each,” he says, without turning to face me.
“Have you ever heard of a group called Neurodiversity Nation?”
“No. Why?”
I shake my head and sit down on his bed. “Never mind.”
“According to MapQuest, it will take three hours and eighteen minutes to get there.”
“To get where?” I ask.
“UNH? Remember? Dr. Henry Lee?” He pivots in his chair.
“You can’t go, Jacob. Period. I’m very sorry, but I’m sure Dr. Lee will be speaking again sometime in the future.”
Will you be in prison then?
The thought jumps into my head like a cricket onto a picnic blanket, and it is equally unwelcome. I walk toward his desk and stare down at him. “I need to ask you something,” I say quietly. “I need to ask you, because I haven’t, and I need to hear your voice saying the answer. Jess is dead, Jacob. Did you kill her?”
His face collapses around a frown. “I did not.”
The breath I have not realized I am holding rushes out of me. I throw my arms around Jacob, who stiffens in the sudden embrace. “Thank you,” I whisper. “Thank you for that.”
Jacob doesn’t lie to me. He can’t. He tries, but it is so blatantly obvious that all I have to do is give a beat of silence before he caves in and admits the truth.
“You do realize that keeping me locked up in this house for weeks or months could be considered criminal behavior. That good parents do not treat their children like caged animals.”
“And you do realize that even if we had Oliver go before the judge to ask for an exception, Dr. Lee’s speech would be over before the judge scheduled the hearing?” I point out. “I’m sure it will be recorded. We can listen to the podcast.”
“That’s not the same!” Jacob yells.
The cords of his neck stand out in relief; he is dangerously close to losing control again. I moderate my voice so that it spreads like a balm. “Take a deep breath. Your Asperger’s is showing.”
“I hate you,” Jacob says. “This has nothing to do with my Asperger’s. It’s about being made a slave in my own household.” He shoves me aside, heading for the hallway.
I use every ounce of strength I can to hold him back. I know better, but sometimes, when Jacob is being particularly supercilious, I can’t help but argue back. “You walk out that door, and you’ll be in jail before morning. And this time, I swear, I won’t try to get you out,” I tell him. “I may be six inches shorter than you and fifty pounds lighter, but I am still your mother, and no means no.”
He struggles against the restraint of my arms for a few seconds, and then all the fight goes out of him. Almost too easily, he sinks onto his bed and puts a pillow over his head.
Without another word, I back out of Jacob’s bedroom and close the door behind me. I lean against the wall for a moment, sagging under the weight of the relief his admission has brought me. I had been telling myself that the reason I hadn’t directly asked Jacob earlier if he had murdered Jess was that I was afraid he’d be disappointed in me for even believing it was a possibility. But the real reason I’d waited so long was that I was afraid to hear his answer. How many times, after all, had I asked Jacob a question only to hope for a white lie?
Do I have too many wrinkles?
I just baked these-it’s a new recipe. What do you think?
I know you’re angry, but you don’t really wish your brother had never been born, do you?
Even today on the witness stand, the expert Oliver had found said Aspie kids don’t lie.
Then again.
Jacob told me Jess didn’t talk to him that Tuesday he was supposed to meet with her, but he didn’t tell me she was dead.
Jacob told me that he’d been to Jess’s house, but he neglected to mention that he’d found it in a state of disarray.
And he never mentioned taking his rainbow quilt anywhere.
Technically, he had told me the truth. And at the same time, he had lied by omission.
“Mom?” Theo yells. “I think I set the toaster on fire…”
I hurry downstairs. By the time I am extricating the charred bagel with two knives, I’ve convinced myself that everything Jacob hasn’t told me has been an oversight, a typical Aspie side effect of having so much information that some of it gets lost or forgotten.
I have convinced myself that this could not have been deliberate.
The term stir-crazy comes from the early 1900s. Stir was slang for prison, based on the Gypsy word stariben. Stir-crazy was actually a play on an older expression, stir-bugs, which described a prisoner who became mentally unstable due to being locked up too long.
You can attribute my next actions to the fact that I was stir-crazy, or to the correct stimulus: the fact that Dr. Henry Lee, my idol, was going to be 188.61 miles away from me, and I was not going to be able to meet him. In spite of my mother’s assertions that if I went to college I would have to go somewhere local, where I could live at home and benefit from her help and organization, I had long assumed that, one day, I’d apply to the University of New Haven (never mind that as a high school senior I was already over a month past deadline). I would get into the criminalist program he’d founded there, where I would be plucked from undergraduate obscurity by Dr. Lee himself, who would notice my attention to detail and my inability to be distracted by girls or frat parties or loud music emanating from dorm windows and would invite me to help him solve a real current case and consider me his protégé.
Now, of course, I had an even more pressing reason to meet him.
Imagine, Dr. Lee, I would begin. You have set up a crime scene to point to someone else’s involvement and wind up a suspect yourself. And then together we would analyze what might have been conceived differently, to prevent it from happening the next time.
My mother and I argue about the same things over and over, such as why she refuses to treat me normally. This would be a classic example, where she is taking my desire to see Dr. Lee and twisting it into a pretzel so that it seems like an unreasonable Aspie request, instead of one grounded in reality. There are many instances where I want to do things other kids my age do:
1. Get a license and drive a car.
2. Live on my own at college.
3. Go out with my friends without her having to call their parents first and explain my quirks.
a. It should be noted, of course, that this would apply to a time when I currently had friends.
4. Get a job so that I have money for the above.
a. It should be noted that she did let me get a job, and unfortunately to date the only people who’ve chosen to hire me were completely unreasonable asses who couldn’t see the big picture, like whether being five minutes late on a shift is truly going to cause a global catastrophe.
Instead, I watch Theo sail out the door while she waves good-bye to him. Unlike me, he will be allowed to get his driver’s license sooner or later. Imagine how incredibly humiliating it will be for me to be driven around by my younger brother, the same child who used his own poop to paint a mural on the garage door once.
My mother argued that I could not have it both ways. I could not ask to be treated like an ordinary eighteen-year-old and also demand clothing with the tags cut out and refuse to drink orange juice because of its name. Maybe I did feel that I could have it both ways-be disabled sometimes and normal at other times-but then again, why couldn’t I? Let’s say that Theo sucked at growing vegetables but was really good at bowling. My mother might treat him like a slightly remedial student if she was teaching him to grow rutabagas, but when she hit the lanes with him, she’d ditch the slow voice. Not all humans have one standard, so why should I?
At any rate, whether I have simply been cooped up too long or whether I am suffering acute mental distress from my soon-to-be missed opportunity with Dr. Lee, I do the only thing that seems justifiable at the time.
I call 911 and tell them I am being abused by my mother.
It’s like one of those pictures in celebrity magazines I read at the dentist’s office: “What’s Different?” The first shot shows Jess Ogilvy with a big smile on her face and Mark Maguire’s arm draped over her shoulder. It’s a photograph we took from her nightstand.
The second picture was taken by my CSI team and shows Jess with her eyes closed and ringed with bruises, her skin frozen a solid, pale blue. She is draped with a postage-stamp quilt that looks like a painter’s color wheel.
Ironically, she is wearing the same sweatshirt in both photos.
There are obvious differences-the physical trauma being the biggest one. But there’s something else about her I cannot put my finger on. Did she lose weight? Not really. Was it the makeup? Nah, she wasn’t wearing any in either shot.
It’s the hair.
Not the cut, which would be easy. It’s straight in the picture of Jess and her boyfriend. In the crime scene print, though, it’s curled and frizzy, a cloud around her battered face.
I pick up the photo and study it at closer range. It seems likely that curls were the default setting for her hair, given that she would have gone to the trouble to style it when out with her boyfriend. Which means that her hair got wet while the body was out in the elements… something easily assumed, except for the fact that she was protected from rain and snow by the concrete culvert where she was dumped.
So her hair was wet when she was killed.
And there was blood in the bathroom.
Was Jacob a Peeping Tom, too?
“Captain?”
I look up to find one of the street cops standing in front of me. “Dispatch just got a call from a kid who says he’s being abused by a parent.”
“Don’t need a detective for that, do you?”
“No, Captain. It’s just… the kid? He’s the one you arrested for that murder.”
The photo flutters out of my hand, onto the floor. “You gotta be kidding,” I mutter, and I stand up and grab my coat. “I’ll take care of it.”
Immediately, I realize I’ve made a colossal mistake.
I begin hiding things: my computer, my file cabinet. I shred papers that are sitting on my desk and tuck a stash of journals from forensics associations in the bathtub. I figure all of these things can be used against me, and they’ve already taken so much of what was mine.
I don’t think I can be arrested again, but I am not entirely sure. Double jeopardy only refers to the same crime, and only after an acquittal.
I will say this for the boys in blue-they are speedy. Less than ten minutes after my 911 call, there is a knock at the door. My mother and Theo, who are still downstairs trying to reinstall the fire alarm Theo set off with some abortive kitchen snack, are caught completely unawares.
It’s stupid, I know, but I hide underneath my bed.
“What are you doing here?” Emma Hunt demands.
“Actually, we received a call through 911.”
“I didn’t call 91- Jacob!” she yells, and she turns on her heel and flies up the stairs.
I step into the house to find Theo staring at me. “We don’t want to donate to the police athletic league,” he says sarcastically.
“Thanks.” I point up the staircase. “I’m, uh, just going to… go…?” Without waiting for him to answer, I head toward Jacob’s room.
“Abusing you?” Emma is shrieking when I reach the doorway. “You’ve never been abused a day in your life!”
“There’s physical abuse and there’s mental abuse,” Jacob argues.
Emma whips her head in my direction. “I have never laid a hand on that boy. Although right now, I’m incredibly tempted.”
“I have three words for you,” Jacob says. “Doctor! Henry! Lee!”
“The forensic scientist?” I am completely not following.
“He’s speaking at UNH tomorrow, and she says I can’t go.”
Emma looks at me. “Do you see what I’m dealing with?”
I purse my lips, thinking. “Let me talk to him alone for a minute.”
“Seriously?” Her eyes widen. “Were you not in the same courtroom I was in three hours ago, when the judge told you accommodations should have been made when you questioned Jacob?”
“I’m not questioning him now,” I tell her. “Not professionally, anyway.”
She throws up her hands. “I don’t care. Do what you want. Both of you.”
When her last footstep fades down the stairs, I sit down beside Jacob. “You know you’re not supposed to call 911 unless you’re in serious trouble.”
He snorts. “So arrest me. Oh, wait, you already did.”
“You ever hear of the boy who cried wolf?”
“I didn’t say anything about wolves,” Jacob replies. “I said I was being abused, and I am. This is the one chance I have to meet Dr. Lee and she won’t even consider it. If I’m old enough to be tried as an adult, how come I’m not old enough to walk to the bus stop and travel down there on my own?”
“You’re old enough. You’ll just wind up with your ass in jail again. Is that what you want?” From the corner of my eye, I spy a laptop peeking out of a pillowcase. “Why is your computer under the covers?”
He pulls it free and cradles it in his arms. “I thought you’d steal it from me. Just like you took my other stuff.”
“I didn’t steal that, I had a warrant to seize it. And you’ll get it back, one day.” I glance at him. “You know, Jacob, your mother is only protecting you.”
“By locking me up in here?”
“No, the judge did that. By not letting you break your bail requirements.”
We are both quiet for a second, and then Jacob glances at me from the corner of his eye. “I don’t understand your voice.”
“What do you mean?”
“It should be angry because I made you come all the way out here. But it’s not angry. And it wasn’t angry when I talked to you at the police station, either. You treated me like I was just a friend of yours, but then you arrested me at the end, and people don’t arrest their friends.” He clasps his hands between his knees. “Frankly, people don’t make sense to me.”
I nod in agreement. “Frankly, people don’t make sense to me, either,” I say.
Why do the cops keep coming to our stupid house?
I mean, given that they’ve already arrested Jacob, shouldn’t they let justice take its course?
Okay, I get that Jacob was the one to summon them this time. But surely a phone call would have been just as effective to get him to call off his request for help. And yet, the police-this one guy in particular-keeps showing up. He chats up my mother, and now I can hear him yapping with Jacob about maggots that land on bodies within ten minutes of death.
Tell me how, exactly, this has any bearing on the 911 call, hmm?
Here’s what I think: Detective Matson isn’t even here to talk to Jacob.
He’s certainly not here to talk to my mother.
He’s come because he knows that in order to get to Jacob’s room, he has to pass mine, and that means at least two glimpses inside.
Maybe someone has reported missing the Wii game I took.
Maybe he’s just waiting for me to crack, to fall at his feet and confess that I was at Jess Ogilvy’s place shortly before my brother, so that he can tell that bitch prosecutor to put me on the witness stand to testify against Jacob.
For these reasons and a dozen more I haven’t thought of yet, I close my door and lock it, so that when Detective Matson passes by again, I don’t have to look him in the eye.
I would not have thought it possible, but Rich Matson is not a complete and utter ass.
For example, he told me that you can tell the sex of an individual by looking at the skull, because a male skull has a square chin and a female chin is rounded. He told me that he’s been to the Body Farm in Knoxville, Tennessee, where an acre of land is covered with corpses rotting in all different stages, so that forensic anthropologists can measure the effects of weather and insects on human decay. He has pictures and promised to mail me a few.
This is still not Dr. Henry Lee-worthy, but it makes a decent consolation prize.
I learn that he has a daughter who, like Jess, faints at the sight of blood. When I tell him that Jess used to do this, too, his face twists, as if he’s smelled something awful.
After a while I promise him not to call the police on my mother again, unless she is causing me dire bodily harm. And he convinces me that an apology to her might go a long way right now.
When I walk him downstairs, my mother is pacing in the kitchen. “Jacob has something to tell you,” he announces.
“Detective Matson is going to send me photographs of decomposing bodies,” I say.
“Not that. The other thing.”
I push my lips out and then suck them in. I do it twice, as if I’m melting the words in my mouth. “I shouldn’t have called the cops. Asperger’s impulsiveness.”
My mother’s face freezes, and so does the detective’s. Only after I’ve said it do I realize that they’re probably assuming Jess’s death was Asperger’s impulsiveness, too.
Or in other words, talking about my Asperger’s impulsiveness was a bit too impulsive.
“I think we’re all set here,” the detective says. “You two have a nice evening.”
My mother touches his sleeve. “Thank you.”
He looks at her as if he is about to tell her something important, but instead he says, “You have nothing to thank me for.”
When he leaves, a lick of cold air from outside wraps around my ankles.
“Would you like me to make you something to eat?” my mother asks. “You never had lunch.”
“No thanks. I’m going to lie down,” I announce, although I really just want to be alone. I’ve learned that when someone invites you to do something and you really don’t want to, they don’t particularly want to hear the truth.
Her eyes fly to my face. “Are you sick?”
“I’m fine,” I tell her. “Really.”
I can feel her staring at me as I walk up the stairs.
I don’t plan to lie down, but I do. And I guess I fall asleep, because all of a sudden Dr. Henry Lee is there. We are crouched down on either side of Jess’s body. He examines the tooth in her pocket, the abrasions on her lower back. He looks up the cavities of her nostrils.
Oh yes, he says, crystal clear. I understand.
I can see why you had to do what you did.