Dandi Mackall - The silence of murder

I sense someone behind me before he speaks. “I’m sorry. You need to clear the courtroom.” Sheriff Matthew Wells has the gravelly voice of an old-time Wild West sheriff.

I turn to face him. He’s about Rita’s age, tall with a beer gut. The sleeves of his light brown shirt are rolled up to the elbow, showing a purple tattoo of a star, or maybe a badge. His black hair has a circular dent where his hat must belong when he’s not in court. There’s a gun in his holster. “Need to move along, folks.”

“Of course,” Raymond says. “Sorry, Sheriff.” He snaps his briefcase shut and looks over at me. “Hope, I’ll see you tonight, all right?”

I nod. But that sick feeling in my stomach comes back. Raymond wants to prepare me for tomorrow. More testimony, including the prosecutor’s cross-examination. How do you rehearse for that?

“Miss?” Sheriff Wells touches my arm, and I automatically pull away. “You really do need to leave now.”

I hear footsteps and wonder if he’s called in reinforcements. A posse? A SWAT team?

But it’s only T.J., coming to my rescue. “She was just trying to talk to her brother’s lawyer, Sheriff.” Thomas James Bowers is a couple of inches shorter than I am, about half the size of the sheriff. Everything else about T.J. is too long-his nose, his jaw, his hair, which flops over sturdy rectangular glasses. He swore he’d stick with me through this whole trial, and he has.

“She can talk to her brother’s lawyer outside the courtroom,” Sheriff Wells snaps.

Shouts flood the courtroom as the main doors open and Raymond exits. He’s swarmed by reporters. Before the doors close again, I see Raymond duck, like he’s dodging tomatoes.

“Let’s go, Hope,” T.J. says. “I got us a ride home.”

I nod, grateful. Rita dropped us off this morning, but she’s not coming back for us. I don’t feel much like walking seven blocks to the station to catch a bus back to Grain, especially since buses don’t leave that often.

Following T.J. to the big doors that swallowed up Raymond, I feel Sheriff Wells’s gaze on my back. It’s the same invisible shove Rita uses to make sure I do what she tells me to.

As soon as I step out into the hall, cameras click. I keep my head down and rush through the courthouse. Half a dozen reporters follow me, shouting questions: “Hope, why won’t your brother speak?” “Did you know he did it?” “What did he-?”

I try to block out their voices and focus on the clatter of our footsteps on the hard floors, the echo that reaches the high ceiling and bounces off marble walls. I make it to the front doors and am amazed how dark it is outside. And the temperature must have dropped twenty degrees. August should be dry-bones hot, and usually is around here, but the gray clouds and west winds are promising rain.

I stop on the top step of the courthouse and glance around for T.J. He must have gotten lost in the crowd of reporters. A couple of them close in on me. One has beautiful red hair, which she pushes behind her shoulders while signaling to the cameraman beside her. “Hope, Mo Pento, WTSN. Can you tell us if you think-?”

I push past her. My head feels like it’s floating off my shoulders. I think I might vomit. How’d you like that, WTSN?

A horn honks. A blue Stratus is parked at the foot of the steps. A window lowers, and Chase Wells peers out. Green eyes, sun-blond hair. He doesn’t look a thing like his dad. Everything about him screams East Coast, from his khaki pants to his navy polo shirt. Chase is not just cute; he’s beautiful.

I feel a hand on my back. “Sorry.” T.J. guides me down a step or two. “They had me trapped back there. You okay?”

“Where are we going, T.J.?” I shout because it’s too loud out here. Reporters are crowding in again. I smell sweat and perfume and cigarettes.

“There he is!” T.J. exclaims, pushing too hard from behind. I have to struggle to keep from falling down the steps.

“There who is?” I know he’s trying to help-he always tries to help. But I think I should have made a run for it on my own. I could have been at the bus station by now.

Chase’s car is still at the bottom of the steps. He honks his horn again and shoves the back door open. T.J. waves at him and keeps pushing toward the car.

I stop short on the bottom step. “Wait. Who did you-?”

“I-uh-I talked Chase into giving us a ride back to Grain.” He takes the last two steps down, but I don’t follow him. “Hope?”

I shake my head.

T.J. tosses a smile to Chase and whispers up to me, “You know Chase. He plays ball with me.” He lowers his voice. “His dad’s the sheriff?”

Do I know Chase Wells? I’ve watched him for two summers and thought about him in between.

“Hope?” That reporter with the hair sticks a microphone in my face. “Can you tell us why your brother-?”

I reach for T.J.’s hand. We make a dash for the car, dive into the backseat, and shut the door as Chase Wells takes off, tires squealing like they’re in pain.

The second Chase pulls away from the courthouse, I know I’ve made a big mistake. I have to get out of this car. “Listen, we… I can walk to the bus station from here. Thanks.”

T.J. elbows me and makes a face. We’re in the backseat, being chauffeured.

Chase doesn’t slow down. “That’s okay. I’m headed to Grain anyhow. I can drop you guys off.”

“Thanks again, man. I didn’t know who else to ask. Dad’s stuck at work.” T.J. fastens his seat belt and nudges me to do the same.

“I really want to walk,” I insist. There’s an edge to my voice, like metal on metal. I reach for the door handle.

“You want to walk fifteen miles?” T.J. says, trying to make a joke of it.

“I get it,” Chase says. He lets up on the gas. “Sorry about that.”

But it’s not speed that terrifies me. It’s definitely not his driving, which could never be worse than Rita’s after half a bottle of vodka. It’s him. Chase Wells. The guy I’ve worshipped from afar-or at least watched from behind my bedroom curtains-as he’s jogged by every summer morning, regular as sunrise.

“My dad’s always on me about driving too fast,” he admits.

Dad. As in Sheriff Dad. I didn’t hear the sheriff testify, but Raymond said he did a lot of damage to our side. So what am I doing in a car with his son? What was T.J. thinking?

“Pretty sure you two know each other from Panther games,” T.J. says, reaching across me to fasten my seat belt. I let him. His voice is thin, with that tinny laugh he gets when he’s nervous. “Hope, Chase. Chase, Hope.”

I’m thinking Chase knows my name. He just heard me swear on a Bible that I’m Hope Leslie Long.

As for him, there’s not a human being in Grain who doesn’t know who Chase Wells is. I’ve sneaked peeks at him while waiting for Jeremy to collect bats and balls for Coach Johnson at games and practices. Chase was hard to miss, with Bree Daniels hanging all over him, and guys like Steve and Michael and half a dozen of their crowd cheering him on.

Chase glances at us in the rearview mirror. Smiles. His eyes are framed, deep-set, the color of green sea glass, like the smooth, translucent chunks in my desk drawer at home.

I collect sea glass, or at least I used to. It’s how I met T.J.

I stare out my window and remember a rainy day just like this one, when T.J. and I first got together. It was about three years ago, a month after I’d started school at Grain. T.J. brought in some pieces of sea glass he’d found by Lake Erie, near Cleveland. He used them for a science project. I knew all about sea glass because Jeremy and I used to walk the Chicago shoreline hunting for it. We called the pieces mermaid tears. T.J. had reds that came from the lanterns of old shipwrecks. And pink from Depression-era glass. Broken pieces of history worn smooth by years of violent waves and rough sand. I had to gather all my courage to go up to T.J. after class and ask him about his collection. When I told him I made jewelry out of sea glass, he wanted to see it. Before long, he started bringing me pieces to work with. He still brings me some now and then, even though I’ve stopped making jewelry.