Order in the Court (9 page)

Dr. Wagner nodded sympathetically, reaching out and offering me a box of Kleenex off her desk. I took one to stem the bleeding of my thumb.

“It can be hard, when others are ready to move on before you.”

“It’s not that,” I protested. “I just can’t help but think that Mary-Ellen is
benefitting
from Jessa being dead. And even though I
know
deep down that she’d give it all up to have Jessa back, a part of me thinks she’s enjoying it.” I dabbed and dug at the blood in the creases of my nail, but it wouldn’t come clean. “I just don’t think it’s fair that she’s happy right now.”

“How does Jessa’s sister benefit from her death?” Dr. Wagner seemed genuinely curious by my anger. “She’s lost her sister.”

“She’s the oldest, now, and the only teenager. Jessa was being groomed to take over the family business, but that’s going to be Mary-Ellen soon. She’s moving into the bigger bedroom that Jessa had by birthright, gaining a walk-in closet full of Jessa’s clothes, inheriting all of her things by default. Everything she coveted of Jessa’s belongs to her now. She was always jealous of Jessa.”

Dr. Wagner didn’t say anything, just looked at me sadly, nodding slowly. I continued, “She’s not greedy or spiteful or anything. I know she didn’t want her sister dead. But she’s definitely reveling in all the things she’s getting out of it. She’s enjoying being the center of attention. And I
hate
her for it.”

“You hate your friend’s little sister for being happy?” Dr. Wagner sounded surprised. “That doesn’t sound like you, Corey.”

I sighed again, giving up the battle to control the bleeding and sticking my thumb in my mouth to suck on like a child. “No, it doesn’t. And I don’t think I really mean that. But I am frustrated by it.”

“And that’s understandable,” Dr. Wagner said, and I felt a little more justified by my frustration. “What has caused you pain and anguish has given her a leg up in life. It’s not fair by any means, but it
is
reality.”

“I’M
GLAD
you could make it,” Mrs. Fuentes greeted me at the door. She was long and lean like Jessa, and her movements were always smooth and graceful. She had her long black hair pulled back in a braid down the middle of her back that swung like a pendulum when she walked. I was mesmerized by it as I followed her into the house.

My nose felt chapped and raw from the walk over, the weather having finally turned cold and mean just the day before. I took off my shoes in the foyer, hung my jacket on the guest hook, and followed Mrs. Fuentes through the house. She kept it so warm and cozy every day of the year, but in the weeks before Christmas, it was usually full of so much cheer you couldn’t help but smile.

I noticed they hadn’t yet decorated inside or out, which was unusual. I remember one year seeing nutcrackers lining their windows the night after Halloween, and a Nativity display on the front lawn the next morning.

“Say hello, Gracie,” Mrs. Fuentes admonished as we reached the upstairs hallway, and I was surprised to discover I hadn’t seen or heard the youngest Fuentes girl approach. She stood in the doorway to her room, wearing a sweet pink dress and white kneesocks. Her two braids, diminutive forms of her mother’s larger one, were tipped with pink ribbon bows. She had a meek look on her face.

“Hi, Grace,” I said, smiling at her friendlily.

Rather than repeat it back, Grace disappeared back into the bedroom she shared with Mary-Ellen, the door closing as quietly as it had opened. I looked to her mother, surprised.

Mrs. Fuentes shrugged. “She’s going through a shy stage,” she said. “I wouldn’t worry too much. If I didn’t make her have dinner with the family, I’m afraid I’d never see her at all.”

“At least she isn’t dressing all in black, wearing white makeup, and blasting rock ’n’ roll,” I joked, imagining what a rebellious phase would look like in the cookie-cutter Fuentes family. Mrs. Fuentes laughed and shook her head, her braid swinging dangerously.

“Heavens, no. I don’t even think she knows what those things are.”

The door to Jessa’s room was open. Mary-Ellen and her father were inside, sitting side by side on Jessa’s bed, a box of photographs open between them. Mr. Fuentes looked up when his wife and I walked in. His expression was unreadable.

“Hello, Corinna,” he said, and while he sounded perfectly pleasant, I found something in his demeanor quite cold. The room was a mess, half torn apart from where they’d already started cleaning it out. “We found this and decided to take a little break. Care to join us? This is actually quite therapeutic.” He didn’t sound convinced.

Mrs. Fuentes grabbed Jessa’s computer chair for me, and we made a makeshift circle around the box. It was a shoe box with birthday-themed wrapping paper glued onto it in a careful patchwork, no doubt a collection from actual gifts she’d received over the years. She always opened presents with precision, using a fingernail to break the tape lines and then carefully folding the paper before actually looking at what it covered. She was patient, hadn’t needed to rush and rip the paper.

Mr. Fuentes handed me a stack of photographs, printed on shiny paper, some of them old enough to have the old Kodak logo across the back, others printed at home with her ink-jet printer. Careful not to leave fingerprints on the photos, I thumbed through the images. A knife twisted in my gut. Of course Jessa was in all of them, but Ricky, Kate, and I were all in the box as well.

“We’ll make copies of any you want to have,” Mrs. Fuentes assured me when I paused over a photo of the four of us at a birthday party, no telling whose, all wearing pointy party hats and silly grins.

“Thank you,” I said, but it sounded strangled. I didn’t find it therapeutic at all to see how happy we’d been, how full of life. These were the memories Jessa found precious, the ones she’d chosen to pack away in a little decorated box under her bed, where they’d found it.

I set aside the pictures I wanted copies of. Pictures I couldn’t remember posing for, pictures of days I had vivid memories of or none at all—all kinds of pictures, from birthdays and dinner parties and sleepovers and days we’d just gone to the park to hang out. Pictures taken because we were happy, because we looked cute that day, because we wanted to, because we hadn’t a care in the world.

“Mind if I work on her closet?” I asked, feeling smothered. Mr. Fuentes nodded absently, still peeling glossy photographs apart to look at all that was left of his oldest daughter, her smiling face preserved in images.

“I already started on the clothes,” Mary-Ellen spoke up finally, grinning. Her mouth was full of metal, new braces on her teeth that I hadn’t seen before. They were linked with lime green elastic bands that matched the rubber bracelets on both of her wrists. “What won’t fit me or I don’t want to keep is in that pile. You can have those if you want. I’ve already taken most of what I want.”

I rolled my chair over to the pile of clothes she indicated, heaped together on the floor at the foot of Jessa’s standing lamp, the one with the Tiffany shade that had been a quinceañera present, I couldn’t remember from whom. I bit back a comment about disrespecting Jessa’s things. I had no right to discipline her, of course. Thirteen-year-old girls should know how to respect the property of others. I was sure her mother would have words with her when she saw the mess.

I brought some of the pile onto my lap and began to smooth and fold it carefully. Jessa had always dressed smartly. I folded a few blouses and skirts, a cardigan, a pair of dress pants. I set aside a sweater with our high school logo on it, a red blouse she’d always been trying to lend me because it looked nice with my skin tone, a pair of blue high-waisted shorts with gold buttons. They might be a little big on me, but I would try them on.

Mary-Ellen bounced past me and out of the room. She looked happier than I’d seen her look since before her sister’s murder. She’d been a sullen brand-new teenager last summer, hitting that awkward stage of puberty when everything is changing all at once and all you want to do is cry. I thought it strange that she was hitting her equilibrium so early. Jessa’s awkward stage had lasted well into ninth grade.

“Sorry about her,” Mr. Fuentes said when Mary-Ellen had disappeared around the corner. “She’s just excited about getting her own room for the first time. She’s been pushing us to clean out Jessa’s things since September.”

“That’s an odd way of coping,” I said, feeling sick to my stomach.

Mr. Fuentes nodded thoughtfully, piling Jessa’s school supplies into a cardboard box marked for donation. “God works in mysterious ways,” he said. “Mary-Ellen has decided to embrace our tragedy and look for the good, rather than dwell on the unfairness of it all. I think Grace is angry with her for being happy so soon, but Daniela and I are just trying to ‘go with the flow’ with her, as our Jessa used to say.”

“It doesn’t seem like there’s much to embrace,” I told him honestly.

“Perhaps not,” Mr. Fuentes agreed. “I’m having trouble understanding why God would do this to us, but maybe he needs our Jessa more than we do.” Mr. Fuentes rarely showed any kind of emotion, but I noticed his lower lip was trembling slightly. His voice was hoarse when he added, “We got eighteen years with her, and I count my blessings every day for that.”

I nodded, feeling embarrassed, as if I’d intruded on a very private moment. He and I packed up Jessa’s books and desk clutter in silence. Mrs. Fuentes knocked on the doorframe to get our attention not long thereafter and announced dinner was ready.

“You’re welcome to stay, Corinna,” she added. “I’ve made pot roast, and there’s plenty to go around. We can get the rest of this done after dinner.” Her smile suddenly seemed very fake to me.

“I couldn’t impose,” I said, but she hushed me and insisted I stay as payment for my help, though I hadn’t done much other than rescue some clothes designated for the next church donation collection.

I stayed for dinner, though it was an awkward affair covered with a thin veneer of normalcy. Grace put her elbows on the table and was admonished for her rudeness. Mary-Ellen excitedly told me of how she’d been put up a level in dance class and how she “didn’t even think they did it because of her dead sister.” The scrape of Mr. Fuentes’s knife on his plate cut the thick silence that followed with a deafening screech. The roast tasted amazing, as always; the gravy was an old family recipe.

When I left a few hours later with a box containing the few items I’d been permitted to take home with me, the strangling grip on my throat finally released, allowing me to gulp down a deep breath of icy night air. That house was suffocating. Mary-Ellen seemed not to notice in her newfound exuberance for life, but little Grace sure did.

I saw the youngest Fuentes girl pressing her nose to the window as I walked down the driveway. I shifted the weight of the box to my hip and waved at her, feeling incredibly guilty for leaving her behind when I turned and began the short walk home.

“NO FURTHER
questions, Your Honor.”

“Would the prosecution like to redirect their witness?” Judge Gillis asked.

“We would not,” Haywood answered, still looking a little green around the gills from the stunt I’d pulled on the stand. “Though we request a short recess to prepare our next witness.”

“Granted. We will reconvene in ten minutes.” The judge banged his gavel. I was escorted by the bailiff back to my parents. My father hugged me to his chest possessively for a moment, then seemed to gather his wits and held me at arm’s length by the shoulders.

“You did so good out there,” he said, and I didn’t even bother to correct his grammar. I sat between my parents, sandwiched between their warm bodies on the wooden bench. My mother was practically vibrating. She was in her element but unable to participate. It had to be a strange experience, not being able to yell “objection!” any time she wanted.

“That last bit was a risk,” she said, bouncing her knee irritably to burn off the extra energy. “You nearly gave Harry an aneurysm when you asked to answer that question. Do you know how lucky you are right now?”

“It’s the last thing the jury will remember. They’ll remember me saying that I wasn’t lying, that I knew in my heart that it was him, and that no one influenced my testimony. Isn’t that what we want to leave the jury with?”

My mother didn’t answer. Haywood had just returned. He passed by us on the aisle, and my mother leaned over the divider between the audience and the prosecution’s desk to speak to him in hushed tones before the court reconvened.

The prosecution called the city coroner to the stand. I had to take deep, calming breaths during his testimony as he described the injuries inflicted on my friends, their causes of death, how long it would have taken for each to bleed out from their wounds.

I forced myself not to think of how long I hid in the bathroom after Dustin walked out of it. A minute? Four? Fifteen? I didn’t know for sure. I tried not to think that if I’d gotten the courage up a little earlier, maybe I could have put pressure on the wound to Jessa’s back, staunched the bleeding enough to give her a fighting chance. She was the last to die, he said. I thought of her lying with her cheek pressed to the cold tile floor, her lips forming the words to the prayers I knew she must have said.

I nearly threw up in my mouth.

The police technician who collected evidence from the crime scene testified next. He testified to the position of the bodies, the trajectory of bullets and blood spatter, the size of the footprints. His testimony was less precise than the coroner’s, less scientific and practiced. He was young. This was his first murder trial.

When Haywood was done with him, having gotten all the useful information presented, Kovač slid out from behind the defense’s desk and approached the witness for her cross-examination, looking for all the world like a lioness stalking her prey.

“Were there any fingerprints left at the crime scene?” she asked sweetly, her voice dripping with insincerity.