Harlan Coben - The Woods

"Are we done here?"

He took a long pull on his drink.

"I will give that girl a hundred thousand dollars," Jenrette said. "I will give your wife's charity another one hundred thousand."

"Great. Do you want to write the checks now?"

"You'll drop the charges?"

"No."

He met my eye. "He's my son. Do you really want him to spend the next ten years in prison?"

"Yes. But the judge will decide the sentence."

"He's just a kid. At worst, he got carried away."

"You have a daughter, don't you, Mr. Jenrette?"

Jenrette stared at his drink.

"If a couple of black kids from Irvington grabbed her, dragged her into a room and did those things to her, would you want it swept under the rug?"

"My daughter isn't a stripper."

"No, sir, she isn't.

She has all the privileges in life. She has all the advantages. Why would she strip?"

"Do me a favor," he said. "Don't hand me that socioeconomic crap. Are you saying that because she was disadvantaged she had no choice but to choose whoredom? Please. It's an insult to any disadvantaged person who ever worked their way out of the ghetto."

I raised my eyebrows. "Ghetto?"

He said nothing.

"You live in Short Hills, don't you, Mr. Jenrette?"

"So?"

"Tell me," I said, "how many of your neighbors choose stripping or, to use your term, whoredom?"

"I don't know."

"What Chamique Johnson does or doesn't do is totally irrelevant to her being raped. We don't get to choose like that. Your son doesn't get to decide who deserves to be raped or not. But either way, Chamique Johnson stripped because she had limited options. Your daughter doesn't." I shook my head. "You really don't get it."

"Get what?"

"The fact that she's forced to strip and sell her self doesn't make Edward less culpable. If anything, it makes him more so."

"My son didn't rape her."

"That's why we have trials," I said. "Are we done now?"

He finally lifted his head. "I can make it hard on you."

"Seems like you're already trying that."

"The fund stoppage?" He shrugged. "That was nothing. A muscle flex." He met my eye and held it. This had gone far enough. "Good-bye, Mr. Jenrette." He reached out and grabbed my forearm. "They're going to get off."

"We'll see."

"You scored points today, but that whore still needs to be crossed. You can't explain away the fact that she got their names wrong. That will be your downfall. You know that. So listen to what I'm suggesting."

I waited.

"My son and the Marantz boy will plead to whatever charge you come up with so long as there is no jail time. They'll do community service. They can be on strict probation for as long as you want. That's fair. But in addition, I will help support this troubled woman and I will make sure that JaneCare gets the proper funding. It's a win-win-win."

"No," I said.

"Do you really think these boys will do something like this again?"

"Truth?" I said. "Probably not."

"I thought prison was about rehabilitation."

"Yeah, but I'm not big on rehabilitation," I said. "I'm big on justice."

"And you think my son going to prison is justice?"

"Yes," I said. "But again, that's why we have juries and judges."

"Have you ever made a mistake, Mr. Copeland?"

I said nothing.

"Because I'm going to dig. I'm going to dig until I find every mistake you ever made. And I'll use them. You got skeletons, Mr. Copeland. We both know that. If you keep up this witch hunt, I'm going to drag them out for all the world to see." He seemed to be gaining confidence now. I didn't like that. "At worst, my son made a big mistake. We're trying to find a way to make amends for what he did without destroying his life. Can you understand that?"

"I have nothing more to say to you," I said.

He kept hold of my arm.

"Last warning, Mr. Copeland. I will do whatever I can to protect my child." I looked at EJ Jenrette and then I did something that surprised him. I smiled.

"What?" he said.

"It's nice," I said.

"What is?"

"That your son has so many people who will fight for him," I said. "In the courtroom too. Edward has so many people on his side." "He is loved." "Nice," I said again, pulling away my arm. "But when I look at all those people sitting behind your son, you know what I can't help but notice?"

"What?"

"Chamique Johnson," I said, "has no one sitting behind her."

I would like to share this journal entry with the class," Lucy Gold said.

Lucy liked having her students form a big circle with their desks. She stood in the center of it. Sure, it was hokey, her stalking around the "ring of learning" like the bad-guy wrestler, but she found it worked. When you put the students in a circle, no matter how large, they all had front-row seats. There was no place to hide.

Lonnie was in the room. Lucy had considered letting him read the entry so she could better study the faces, but the narrator was female. It wouldn't sound right. Besides, who ever wrote this knew that Lucy would be watching for a reaction. Had to know. Had to be screwing with her mind. So Lucy decided that she would read it while Lonnie searched for reactions. And of course, Lucy would look up a lot, pausing during the reading, hoping something would give.

Sylvia Potter, the brown noser, was directly in front of her. Her hands were folded and her eyes were wide. Lucy met her eye and gave her a small smile. Sylvia brightened up. Next to her was Alvin Renfro, a big-time slacker. Renfro sat the way most students did, as though they had no bones and might slide off their chairs and become a puddle on the floor.

"This happened when I was seventeen," Lucy read. "I was at summer camp. I worked there as a CIT. That stands for Counselor In Training…"

As she continued to read about the incident in the woods, the narrator and her boyfriend, "P," the kiss against the tree, the screams in the woods, she moved around the tight circle. She had read the piece at least a dozen times already, but now, reading out loud to others, she felt her throat start to constrict. Her legs turned rubbery. She shot a quick glance at Lonnie. He had heard something in her tone too, was looking at her. She gave him a look that said, "You're supposed to be watching them, not me," and he quickly turned away.

When she finished, Lucy asked for comments. This request pretty much always followed the same route. The students knew that the author was right there, in this very room, but because the only way to build yourself up is to tear others down, they ripped into the work with a fury. They raised their hands and always started with some sort of disclaimer, like, "Is it just me?" or "I could be wrong about this, but," and then it began:

"The writing is flat…"

"I don't feel her passion for this P, do you?…"

"Hand under the shirt? Please…"

"Really, I thought it was just dreck."

"The narrator says, 'We were kissing, it was so passionate.' Don't tell me it was passionate. Show me…"

Lucy moderated. This was the most important part of the class. It was hard to teach students. She often thought back to her own education, the hours of mind-numbing lectures, and could not remember one thing from any of them. The lessons she had truly learned, the ones she internalized and recalled and put to use, were the quick comments a teacher would make during discussion time. Teaching was about quality, not quantity. You talk too much, you become Muzak-annoying back ground music. If you say very little, you can actually score.

Teachers also like attention. That can be a danger too. One of her early professors had given her sound and simple advice on this: It's not all about you. She kept that front and center at all times. On the other hand, students didn't want you floating above the fray. So when she did tell the occasional anecdote, she tried to make it one where she messed up-there were plenty of those anyway-and how, despite that, she ended up okay.