Jury of One (2 page)

He hears the squad car stop short of him. That seems odd, because there is nothing behind him that would draw their interest, no reason to stop. He doesn’t know how to respond. He listens a moment, slowing his pace. He hears another car drive by, on Bonnard Street north of the officers. That car, headed east, sounds like it’s moving quickly, which might normally catch the attention of police officers on a sleepy night. But he hears no response from the cops, which means something else—some
one
else—has their attention just now.

He tries to be casual as he turns and looks back at the squad car. The illumination of the street is decent, with the towering overhead streetlights, and he sees two of them inside the car. The driver is a thick man, an Italian; his partner is smaller and Latino. The driver is speaking into a radio.

The boy turns and continues walking, stifling the instinct to run. His heart is drumming now. Perspiration on his forehead, when it’s only ten degrees or so outside.

He hears car doors open, then close, one after the other.

He will not run, not yet. If nothing else, he will let them walk
a sufficient distance from the vehicle, so that if he does run, it will take some time before they can return to the vehicle, if that is their choice.

He looks straight ahead now. He is walking among high-rises, so there are few options. Buildings will be closed, or open only to the extent that he could approach a security guard. Wait—an alley, before the end of the block. His mind races as he taps his recall. The alley goes through to the next street. Yes. He can cross through the alley to the next street. Yes.

“Hey,” the officer calls out. It’s the driver, the bigger, older guy.

It has happened in a finger-snap. He has been identified and called out. Until now, it has been something of a game, the boy ignoring the police and the police not overtly approaching him. Now a line has been drawn.

The boy runs. He’s in the perfect outfit, sweats and court shoes, though a sixteen-year-old probably doesn’t need such advantages against a large man pushing forty. It takes him under thirty seconds to reach the alley. He hears the officer calling to his partner, something about the car, which means that the vehicle will be coming after him soon as well.

He looks down the alley. Bags of garbage next to full dumpsters, an old fire escape running up one wall. A parked car on the next street over. Something in the shadows, maybe his eyes playing tricks. It only takes a second to make the decision. He turns and runs into the darkness.

He hears the officer again, talking into the police radio as he gives chase.

“—in pursuit—”

He looks back for signs of the officer as he’s running. A mistake. He knows it before it happens. His foot catches something, a pipe probably, and he falls. His gloves rip against the uneven pavement. Worse, his knee. His kneecap, even with the protection of the wool coat, has landed awkwardly on the tattered concrete. He can’t diagnose the damage. It just hurts like hell.

He gathers his gym bag and manages to get to his feet. He is shrouded in the darkness of the alley, only indirect lighting from the street allowing him to see at all. He can’t run anymore, will probably need a moment before he can even put weight on his
leg. He is not even midway between the two streets now. He couldn’t possibly escape.

“I just want to talk to you, kid. Relax.” The officer is standing at the threshold, casting an ominous figure with the light behind him. One hand on his police radio, the other extending forward. But not holding a gun. The officer shakes his head, even shows the palm of his open hand, as if to decelerate the threat. He is moving cautiously toward the boy, shuffling his feet as each one eyes the other.

“See those hands,” he calls out. “Lose the bag.”

The officer moves slowly, his gaze alternating between the boy and the gym bag. The boy shows the palm of his free hand as he moves backward. It actually hurts less to backpedal, but he still moves with a limp. His heartbeat drums, not from the physical exertion. He swallows hard and feels a hot, sickening taste in his mouth. He asks himself, in a flash of a moment, how it could have come to this.

The officer pulls his radio close to his mouth, speaks urgently but quietly. Then he moves closer to the boy, his index finger still extended. Do-not-move.

“I said drop the bag,” he says to the boy. “Let’s just talk a minute.”

The boy drops the bag.

The officer’s right hand falls to his side, sweeping gently at his leather jacket, exposing for the first time the holster, his weapon. The boy waits another beat, looks into the eyes of the police officer.

“I haven’t said anything,” the boy says. “I won’t. I swear.”

The officer looks at him. Then he brings his radio close to his mouth. He mumbles something into the radio that the boy can’t make out.

“I repeat,” the officer says in a louder voice. “Suspect is armed.”

S
HE ALWAYS LOOKED
into the eyes of her clients to see if the hope was still there. She wanted to believe that, for some of these children, a legal victory was the road to a better life. She needed to believe, at the very least, that she was giving them a chance.

Shelly took the boy’s hand by the wrist. She would not pat it reassuringly or offer empty words of comfort. There was no need to condescend. It was a serious situation and everyone knew it. The teenager sitting next to her in the courtroom looked younger than his years, a quiet boy with coffee-colored skin, an elongated neck and small flat nose, with long eyelashes covering the wide, awed stare of his dark eyes.

It had been a three-week hearing, on and off. Over a dozen witnesses had testified, primarily for the city board of education. The school was trying to expel Rondell based on a pattern of violations of school policy. The acts alleged included acts of defiance—such as violations of the school dress code and misbehavior in class—as well as violent altercations on school grounds. Shelly, as the advocate for Rondell, had a two-tiered trial strategy. First, she tried to dismantle each of the acts in the “pattern” as not being adequately proven. Second, and in her mind more pointedly, she argued that Rondell shouldn’t be expelled but transferred to one of the city’s “alternative” schools, set up years ago to take in troubled students.

A chance. In the end, that’s all she wanted for Rondell. A
chance. If they kicked him out of school, he would retreat to the drug- and gang-infested streets. School was the only option for this boy. The school had expelled him without much of a hearing—in these post–Columbine days, schools were increasingly embracing the “zero tolerance” policy—and by the time Shelly caught the case, the act was completed. She had run to court and now sought a preliminary injunction against the school board, forcing them to keep Rondell in school until the issue was sorted out. Some would say she was buying time. What she was really doing was seeking leverage. If the judge leaned her way, the school might decide to give Rondell the alternative school option, which Shelly would take in a heartbeat. Her client was no saint. He probably didn’t belong in a traditional school. He just needed a chance.

Shelly had cross-examined school officials, students, and school security personnel. She could do it in her sleep by now. She had lost count, but in her time as an attorney representing students, she had tried over forty cases, including civil hearings such as these and about a dozen cases in juvenile court, which essentially meant criminal court for children. She felt good about her defense of Rondell, but the problem was numbers. One or two witnesses might not be credible, but over a dozen? Sheer numbers would seem to tip the balance against her client.

“All rise.”

The judge, the Honorable Alfred Halston, assumed the bench. His Honor was battle-worn, a weary man with snow-white hair, a lined face and gravelly voice. Shelly considered Halston a tough draw. He was presumably next in line for presiding judge, a politician’s politician who took the bench fifteen years ago after leaving the state’s House of Representatives. As an elected judge, he was no longer subject to popular election—a judge only had to run for “retention” once a decade, and no judge had been ousted in recent memory—but that didn’t erase political considerations. Everything was political in the city, and a judge hoping for elevation soon was always thinking two steps ahead of every ruling. Returning a violent boy to school was all he needed. If this kid turned around and shot someone, everyone would look back at the judge for blame.

Shelly had become adept at knowing the verdict before it was rendered. Look at the jurors’ eyes, look at the judge’s demeanor.
Judge Halston looked first at Shelly’s client, and she knew the answer.

“What we have here, young man,” he began, “are allegations of a very serious nature. You should be ashamed of yourself.”

That confirmed it. The judge wouldn’t begin in such a testy manner if he were going to rule against Rondell. If he were going to uphold the expulsion, he wouldn’t need to scold Rondell—the ruling would be punishment enough. Shelly nodded along, because she was never arguing that her client was a prince. Plus, when you’re ahead, you let the judge feel like Solomon himself could not have divined a more exquisite outcome. The judge continued on for several minutes, castigating Rondell Moten for taking the gift of education for granted, for vanquishing this opportunity to learn, improve, find a constructive place in this world.

The judge sighed. “Nevertheless,” he began.

Not a complete victory, though. The judge was only finding that Shelly had established a likelihood that she would win at a final trial—the judge was simply issuing an injunction keeping the boy in school until the matter was finally resolved.

Shelly knew what would come next. The attorney for the board of education would offer Rondell alternative school to drop the matter, to prevent the further draining of resources directed against a single student in litigation that could go to the state’s highest court. The attorney knew Shelly well, knew her resolve.

Rondell’s mother hugged her son. Shelly watched the mother nervously gather her child in her arms. Perhaps she was in need of a fix, or maybe she was simply fearful of what might have happened. Shelly didn’t know which, and she didn’t know whether keeping Rondell in some form of school would miraculously transform his life, currently straying down the wrong path. She certainly wasn’t in the guarantee business. She just gave them a chance.

After parting with Rondell and his mother, she reached into her bag for her cell phone and turned it on. She almost dropped the phone, which was ringing. She answered it and heard the voice of Rena Schroeder, her boss at the Children’s Advocacy Project.

“Shelly, do you know someone named Alex Baniewicz?”

She closed her eyes, standing in the hallway outside the courtroom. “Yeah.”

“You remember that police officer who was shot last night?” Rena asked.

Of course, Shelly remembered. It was the headline of the
Daily Watch
today, covered as the lead story last night on television. A city police officer had been shot in the face while in pursuit of a drug dealer. The city always noticed when one of its finest went down.

Shelly dropped her head.

“He’s asking for you,” said Rena.

J
UST A DREAM.
Go back to sleep.

A memory that is hardly a memory at all. A memory of dreams, of racing, wild, intoxicated dreams. Men running and shouting. Winter. Screaming. Crying. Stabbing. Grunting. Hands, cold hands. A voice, Shelly’s voice. Don’t. Stop. What are you doing? What’s—what’s this—? A man’s voice. Relax. The cold hands, again. She is flying through the chilly air, so cold, so very cold. She is suffocating. A weight on her, pressing down on her chest, her abdomen. Tobacco and alcohol and winter—

“Relax.”

Darkness. Where is she? She has forgotten. She feels the bed. She is spinning. She is nauseous. The bile rising to her throat. He is on her. Her shirt is open. Her—her bra is off. His face, whiskers scraping against her cheek. The smell. Alcohol, not like the kind Daddy drinks, cigarettes on his breath, his body odor, the flannel rubbing against her chest—

“Don’t.”

“Shut up and relax.” His voice. Her legs are spread and this is what it is. This is what she’s heard about. He is inside her, his penis is inside her, ripping into her, back and forth, in and out, and she’s not dreaming because she can feel his sweat on her face and his awful breath and he’s so heavy. She raises her hands but can’t make fists. She concentrates on what she can control. Her name. Her age. My name is Shelly. I am sixteen
years old. I took the train from Haley. My parents are out of town and don’t know. I don’t know where I am.

“Don’t,” she hears herself repeat.

Light, coming from her right. A voice, a man’s voice, then a female, then she hears the voice of the man on top of her. “We’re in the middle of something here.” Laughter, muted laughter as the door closes part of the way, reducing the light, then opens again.

She remembers the name Andrea. She remembers Mary and Dina and—

She remembers now. She remembers coming in here, thinking this might be the bathroom, but it was a bedroom and she was overtaken, simply overcome with drowsiness and she thought if she just sat for a second on the bed, just for a second, she might get the energy to get up and find the bathroom because she needed to go—

She looks into the blinding light and opens her mouth but the words don’t come. Laughter from the light, then darkness again. Harder now, and quicker, driving inside her. He is going to come. The phrase, she didn’t know what it meant when Brandon Ainsley asked her at lunch, sixth grade, in front of a table full of boys—“Do you come when you’re called?” and she said “Of course” and oh, how they laughed and now he’s going to come, this person whoever he is, he’s making the noise and she feels him shiver and moan, she feels it shooting inside her and she wants to return to the dream, she wants him to leave, it hurts and she wants him to leave but it’s over now, he’s off her, and she catches her breath and shuts her eyes and she’s crying. She hears him zip up his pants and she doesn’t know what it means when he chuckles and says, “Nice to meet you,” and then, “Go back to sleep, it was just a dream.”