Conviction (17 page)

“But the state will show you that, despite his carefully constructed public facade, Mart Raynor is a callous man who holds whole swaths of people in contempt. The state will show that the
defendant acted with no regard for Officer Reyes’s life and that he willingly, barbarously struck Frank Reyes with his car and knowingly left him to die on the road.

“Officer Reyes died a tragic, senseless death, and this loss of a beloved family member and community servant will haunt us for the remainder of our own lives. You must not allow a guilty
man to roam free and, perhaps, to enact that same violence and brutality on other innocent lives. We must seek justice for our fallen officer and for our community.”

Someone in the audience coughs, and there’s a rustling sound, and Judge Scherr has Laila sit down. It’s all kind of anticlimactic. I guess that’s a good thing. Then Judge
Scherr calls Mr. Buchwald up to give his own statement. He nods courteously at the jury, paces up and down the floor once or twice, then clears his throat.

“Mart Raynor is a highly regarded community servant. A devoted single father. A man of faith.” His voice is quiet, calm, assured. He looks official and trustworthy on
screen—like a teacher, maybe, or maybe a pastor. “But because Mr. Raynor was at the wrong place at the wrong time, because he bore the brunt of a resentful, violent individual’s
anger, he is also a man whose good name is being sacrificed on the altar of vendettas both personal and communal.

“The night of February ninth, Mr. Raynor was enjoying an outing with his son. Like many other drivers in similarly dangerous road conditions, Mr. Raynor was struggling to maintain control
of his car. It was too foggy to even make out the lane lines on the road, and out of a concern for safety, he pulled over to the side of the road.

“The night should have ended there; Mr. Raynor waited out the fog and returned to the road when he deemed it safe. But when he was encountered by Francisco Reyes, the night took a severe
turn. Mr. Reyes’s unhinged, vengeful, and downright threatening behavior left Mr. Raynor understandably flustered, and he realized that it was necessary for him to risk the inclement weather
and the conditions on the road to safely get away. In trying to protect himself and his son from a violent individual threatening him with a loaded firearm, he was forced to leave the scene.

“Miss Shah would like you to believe that just because a man lost his life, he must be a hero and a saint. She would like you to believe that Mr. Raynor, who has no criminal history
whatsoever and holds an established record of community involvement, suddenly, out of the blue”—he snaps his fingers in a way that makes me think of a magician—“became a
different person. That, without provocation or logic, he became a murderer. The evidence will show you, the jury, the patent absurdity of this notion. It will prove to you that in fact Mr. Raynor
was correct to feel threatened by Francisco Reyes and that—while at no point did he intend for any harm to befall Mr. Reyes—he acted reasonably in self-defense and out of a desire to
protect his son.

“You have a difficult job ahead of you as jurors. You will no doubt hear, during the course of the trial, Miss Shah’s agenda to depict ­Francisco Reyes as a victim. You will
perhaps be tempted by Miss Shah’s maudlin sentimentalizing to assuage your own sense of grief at what has befallen a family in a nearby community. But Miss Shah would have you do this by
condemning an innocent man.

“As jurors you must remain clear-eyed and focused. What happened is truly a tragedy for the family, and Mr. Raynor shares in the pain of their loss. But as faithful Americans you must
acknowledge that Mart Raynor had no possible motive to commit this act, that he was unaware of the situation, and that he had the right to flee the scene in self-defense. You must acknowledge that
there is reasonable doubt and restore Mr. Raynor’s freedom and his life.”

T
rey’s twenty-eighth birthday—May 30—was on a Saturday last year, the day we played Brantley. When I came downstairs in the
morning, my dad had made breakfast and the Giants game was already on. It was early, because they were playing the Nationals in DC.

“Big game,” he said as I spooned eggs onto my plate. He meant Brantley; we were having a good year, but Brantley would be our first real test. We took our plates into the den so we
could watch the Giants while we ate, and on a commercial break, my dad said, “You know, B, I don’t think it’s too early to be thinking about scouting reports. I was going to start
making some calls, maybe make good use of the rest of the season.”

“Really, you think I’m ready for that?”

He thumped me on the back. “You’ve been good. I’ve been proud of you.”

I ducked my head so he wouldn’t see me grin. “Okay.”

“I figure we’ll get you right into the farm system,” he said. “Get things in motion to get you drafted right out of senior year, like I was, and start working your way
up. I’ll bet you won’t need more than a year or two in the minors.”

“Yeah, maybe. I don’t know.” I finished my eggs. “Or maybe I could go to college somewhere first to play. Like maybe New York. Or maybe LA.”

He looked at me sharply. “What’s in LA?”

I shrugged. “Nothing,” I said, even though he probably knew better. “Just thought it might be cool.”

“That’s it? You just thought it would be cool?”

“Yeah,” I said, “that’s it.”

We settled back and watched the game. In the third inning, Hunter Micca homered. My dad doesn’t like most Major League pitchers much—he’s too critical, even of the good ones.
But Micca, the catcher—that’s his favorite.

“Maybe you’ll play with him one of these days. He’s only six years older than you, B, you know that?” He studied my arms and torso. “Probably a lot stronger than
you, though. More meat on him. You’ve always been on the skinny side.”

I sighed. “Yeah, yeah. I’ll be sure to get you an autograph.”

That made him laugh, a grin that lit up his whole face. “Don’t you get smart with me, kid.”

“I’ll get you one of those mini wooden bats. ‘To Mart. Love, Hunter.’ You can hang it on your ceiling.” I spread out my hands a couple inches above my head.
“Just like this. So you can see it first thing every morning.”

He smacked me on the thigh and said, affectionately, “You watch that mouth of yours.” Then he said, casually, “It’s your brother’s birthday today.”

I nodded. “I know.”

He reached over and turned up the volume on the TV and stared fixedly at the screen. My dad hadn’t seen Trey for eight years. The last night he ever spent in our home it was Easter. He was
on his spring break from college; even though he lived in the dorms at Santa Cruz, his stuff was all at home still, and he came back on breaks and sometimes weekends, and I still thought of him as
living with us, just away most of the time. That night I woke up because there was yelling. I pulled a pillow over my head and covered my ears and kept my eyes closed until the yelling stopped.
There was a sound like something breaking, and a little while after, I heard footsteps outside my door, and my dad came across my room to my bed.

He reached for me, and I let myself be picked up and he gathered me in his arms and pulled me to him. He buried his head in my neck. I held myself very still. When he kissed my forehead, I could
tell he’d been drinking. He held me close against him, then he arranged my arms so they were wrapped around him and brought his own shoulders in tighter like he wanted me to hug him, which I
did.

He whispered, “Braden, I love you so much.”

Then he whispered, “Don’t go out there, B. The rest of the night. Just stay in here.”

Then he said, more urgently, “Braden. Do you love me?” And it was only when I nodded that his grip on me started to relax. He reached out and held my face in his hand, like he was
trying to memorize how I looked. I didn’t cry or talk or move. The next morning, Trey was gone. My dad didn’t come out of his room for two days, and when he finally did, he led me into
the backyard and set up a row of cans, then handed me his gun and put his hands on my back to brace me against the recoil and made me practice firing into the cans. I took six shots, and it was so
loud there was a ringing in my ears the rest of the night. I could tell I wasn’t supposed to ask my dad about what happened with Trey, so I never did.

Now eight years had come and gone without Trey setting foot inside the house. The Giants were trailing. We watched them walk two runners. They got out of the inning with a double play, and then
my dad cleared his throat again. “You talk to him?”

“I texted him this morning.”

“What’d he say?”

“‘Thanks.’” I made quotes with my fingers around the word. “All I said was happy birthday.”

He snorted. I wasn’t sure if that was meant for me or Trey. Then he got up and took our dishes to the sink.

We won the Brantley game, a 1–0 nail-biter, and I pitched one of my best games: eight strikeouts and no earned runs, and for the first five innings, I was throwing a perfect game. I
thought my dad would be disappointed when I gave up my first hit, but when he came over to talk to me between innings, all he said was, “You’ll get it next time. Just keep doing what
you’re doing, B. They’re yours tonight.” In the parking lot after the game, he clapped me on the back a bunch and talked excitedly with all the other dads, telling everyone this
was going to be our year.

“Let’s go out for dinner tonight,” he said in the car. After games my dad and I always had a ritual: we’d go home and order takeout from somewhere, and we’d go over
the game, and my dad would always pick out his favorite pitch. (Unless we lost, or I pitched badly—then we’d come home and avoid each other all night.) “What do you feel like
eating? We’ll go wherever you want.” He was in a great mood, grinning through the windshield, turning to me at stoplights like a little kid. “You want steaks? You want burgers?
Your choice. Wherever you want.”

“Actually, Dad, is it okay if I go out with the guys instead?”

“Is it okay if what?”

“We were going to go hang out and barbecue at Chase Singer’s for a while.”

“Oh,” he said. “Right now?”

“Yeah, just for a little while. The whole team’s going.”

“Oh,” he said again. He blinked. “That’s what you want?”

“Yeah, I—I mean, it’s just everyone’s going.”

“Oh. Well, then, okay, B. Go ahead and go.”

“I’ll come back early,” I said, because he sounded hurt. “Or I could—”

“No, no, you do whatever you want. You did good today. You deserve it. Go have fun.”

“You sure?”

“Yeah, yeah.” He’d stared through the windshield. “You go ahead.”

It was a good night with the guys. Chase’s parents weren’t there, so everyone drank a bunch and played beer pong. I played with glasses of water, which in the end makes you feel
about as sick. It was nice to relax and be a part of something, and it made me think for a while I was missing out just staying home with my dad so much. There were some girls there, too, and I
spent a long time out by the pool with Claire Kolpowski, laughing about stuff we remembered from when all of us were little kids, and when I told her she’d turned out well—I always
thought she was cute, and before Maddie, I figured I’d end up with someone from here, like Claire—she gave me a drunken kiss that was (I won’t lie) pretty fun. Around nine I kept
checking my phone, remembering what I’d promised my dad, and finally around ten thirty I went back home.

The house was dark when I came in, and I thought maybe he’d gone to bed. There were some takeout boxes on the kitchen table with a note:
Got extra in case you didn’t eat
enough.
I ate an egg roll and wiped my hands on my pants and went upstairs.

I found my dad in his room sitting on his bed, and there was something in his hands he was flipping back and forth the way I do with my glove. When I got closer—because he hadn’t
acted like he saw me when I went by—I saw it was his gun.

“Dad?” My voice came out high-pitched. “Dad, are you all right?”

He didn’t answer me. He had his Bible open on his pillow, and when I looked around, it didn’t take me long to find the glass on his nightstand, the bottle nearby. I said again,
“Dad? Can you put that away?” He didn’t move, and I said, “Dad, please. I don’t—” I swallowed. My heart was thudding. “I don’t like it when you
get like this.”

“You want to know something about God, Braden?”

I stared down at the gun. “Yes, sir?”

“He judges the whole world.”

“I know, Dad, I—”

“He sees
everything
. And you know what he sees? He sees how there are some people past forgiveness. You know that? You ever think about all the people he ever destroyed? Just wiped
out because he gave up on them?”

“Sometimes, I guess….” I figured he must have been talking about Trey. “But doesn’t it say he forgives everyone who believes in him and asks him to—”

“That’s what you think?”

“I just think—I don’t know. You can tell me if I’m wrong. But first can you just put away the gun? Please?”

“You think God forgets all the bad things you ever did? You think he doesn’t know it if you’re evil, Braden? There are people in the world God
hates
. No matter how they
try to cover it up, no matter how they try to lie to themselves, they’re his enemies and he hates them.”