6

By the time Dad pulled up, Martinez and I had it all worked out. We’d set up an online video channel called Strudwick Puppy and Kitten Rescue. We’d start with the cutest, smallest animals, playing with fuzzy balls. Every video would have the address and phone number of the county animal shelter at the end, with directions on how to get there from Atlanta, Montgomery, and Panama City. A Twitter feed and Facebook page with links to the videos. If it caught on, we’d start posting videos of the older, scruffier-looking dogs, too.

“What if we put up a video of a dog and he doesn’t get adopted?” Martinez asked. “What if he, you know, turns out like Frankie? Do we keep the video up? That would be creepy.”

“Take it down,” I said. “If people want cute puppy videos, they need to support cute puppies. And if people ask, we’ll tell them that.”

I’d forgotten all about my other troubles until Dad walked into the animal shelter. 

“Come on, Atty, Martinez,” he said. “We’re going to jail.”

I should have told Dad right then and there about the visit from the sheriff’s deputy. I didn’t. 

As it turns out, we weren’t going to jail because of me. Dad had a new case, a big one, and he needed to meet his client at the jail. 

“Capital murder,” Dad said. “You know what capital murder is?”

I couldn’t say anything. The idea that I too could go to jail for something filled me with a kind of icy fear. What was this feeling, exactly? Shame?

“So he shot someone in Montgomery?” Martinez asked. “That’s the capital.”

“Capital murder is the most severe murder charge you can face,” Dad said. “If convicted, you could face the death penalty. And you won’t believe who the defendant is. The last person you’d suspect of murder.”

“Mom? You?” Martinez asked. “Atty?”

“Shut up, Martinez,” I snapped. 

Dad shook his head.

“Jethro Gersham,” he said. “You know. Mister Jethro from the Speedy Queen. What was it you used to call him? Matterfike?”

Jethro Gersham lived in a peeling-paint house near the Speedy Queen milkshake place on Galvez Road. Nobody knew exactly how old he was, but he sure seemed old. He’d been on Social Security for as long as anybody could remember, and he’d worked for decades as a farmhand harvesting shade tobacco in Florida. Dad said he must have been retired a while, because the tobacco farms in the Panhandle died out years ago. Yet Jethro was tall and slim and nimble and could be seen walking down the highway—always in tennis shoes and jeans and a windbreaker—on the coldest of nights and the hottest of days. When people asked Jethro how old he actually was, he’d just laugh and say that black don’t crack. But to me he seemed totally cracked. With his cloudy right eye, close-shaved white hair, and the deep grooves in his cheeks, he seemed to me like he was made out of wood or rock, cracked again and again by the hot sun until nothing could really hurt him.

If you stopped for a cone at the Speedy Queen, there was a good chance you’d run into him in the parking lot. He’d ask where you’re headed. You’d tell him, and ask if he needed a ride.

“As a matter of fact, I do,” he always said. He said “matter of fact” a lot. Thus the nickname Martinez and I always used behind his back. Matterfike this and matterfike that. 

Strudwick County fathers always lectured their daughters about how you never, ever, ever pick up a hitchhiker, because they’re dangerous. They had to preach extra hard, because in reality everybody made an exception for Mr. Jethro. So the notion of Jethro actually killing somebody really was a shocker. I could remember him sitting beside me in the car when I was seven, holding Nutter McNutters between his thumb and forefinger and examining the toy squirrel with his good eye, before smiling and handing him back to me. 

“Jeez, Dad,” I said. “Who did he kill? How?”

“Well, he’s alleged to have killed J. D. Ambrose, the guy who owns—well, owned—the pawnshop at the corner of Iberville and Galvez,” Dad said. “They found Jethro with a gun, and with a $225,000 lottery ticket that apparently belonged to Ambrose. Which makes for a tough case.”

In case you’ve never been to a pawnshop, here’s how it works. If you’re short on money, you take some of your stuff—maybe a TV or radio—and sort of sell it to the pawnshop. The shop gives you a little money, say $15 for a TV, and they put your TV out on the shelves for other people to buy, for maybe $30 or $40. If you can scrape up the money to buy your TV from the pawnshop before someone else buys it, you can get it back. Otherwise, you’ve lost your TV. It’s kind of like taking out a loan, but easier, and I guess sadder sometimes. I know about pawnshops because sometimes stolen stuff turns up there, and the pawnshop owner winds up calling my dad to defend him on a stolen property charge. 

“The police say Jethro hocked his pistol at Ambrose’s shop a while ago,” Dad said. “It was looking like he wouldn’t get it back. Early last week, other customers saw him arguing loudly with Ambrose at the pawnshop, saying God would punish Ambrose for being a crook. A couple of days later, a customer comes in and finds Ambrose dead in the back office, shot with a .38 pistol. The police look through Ambrose’s cell phone and find that Jethro’s the last person Ambrose called. They pick up Jethro to talk to him, and Jethro admits he was there, and that he picked up the pistol, and that Ambrose simply gave him back the pistol because he was feeling generous because he’d just won the lottery.”

“Wait,” I said. “I thought you said they caught Jethro with a lottery ticket in his pocket.”

“Yep. That’s the problem,” Dad said. “The bullet in Ambrose is from the gun Jethro was carrying. The ticket is a winner—$225,000 in Florida’s Fantasy Five.”

I shook my head. “So he’s guilty, then. He just shot Ambrose and took the ticket.” For a while I watched the landscape roll by and tried to imagine how the man who held Nutter McNutters in his hand could also be a killer. 

“I can’t believe it,” I said finally. “He sat right in this car with us, and he’s a killer, I can’t believe it.”

“Put a pin in that thought, Atty,” Dad said. “Keep that thought hanging there, where you can see it. Because nobody’s guilty until they’re proven guilty. And I’m going to be the one arguing that he’s not guilty.”

I could feel Martinez kicking the back of the car seat, the way he does when he wants attention.

“I just realized something, Dad,” he said. “If you’re a lawyer for people who are accused of crimes, if that’s all you do, then there are times when you’re going to defend people who have really done the crime. I mean, somebody killed Ambrose, and whoever did it, they’re going to have a lawyer. How can you defend someone who killed someone?”

“Easy,” Dad said. “Because I believe that everybody deserves to have an advocate. Every human being, no matter what they’ve done, needs one person on their side, to tell the story from their point of view. To make sure that justice is really done.”

“Come on, Dad,” Martinez said. “Even a murderer?”

“Even a guilty person deserves a day in court,” he said. “Suppose you got into a fight at school. Somebody came up to you and threw the first punch, and you punched back. What would happen to you?”

“Well, sheesh,” Martinez said. “I’d get kicked out of school. Everybody knows that.”

“Even if you didn’t start it?” Dad said.

“Of course,” Martinez said, as if Dad was a complete dummy. “It’s zero tolerance. The teachers talk about it all the time.”

“But what if somebody was there to speak for you?” Dad asked. “To say, Martinez is actually the victim, and the other guy attacked him?”

Martinez shrugged. “I don’t know. I don’t get in fights. I’ve never even thought about it. You know that.”

“That’s good,” Dad said. “But I think you see what I mean. Think of some other thing. Talking in class, passing notes, running in the hall. Haven’t you ever gotten into trouble in school?”

I put my hand up, so quickly that Dad flinched.

“Don’t answer that, Martinez,” I said. “Dad, I don’t see how this is relevant to the conversation.”

My dad looked at me with a smile. 

“You’re a born lawyer, Atty.”

The Strudwick County Jail creeps me out. It’s not creepy the way jails are creepy on TV. There are no bars on any of the doors. It’s not a dimly lit row of cells where the light of the setting sun climbs across the wall and some guy plays the harmonica. 

Think instead of a big flat building like some old high school. Inside, bright fluorescent light like a convenience store. Tan cinder-block walls and clerks who talk to you through a thick glass window. Sit in the waiting room, and you hear big steel doors opening and closing, and radios squawking about “B Pod open” and “B Pod closed” and so on. Outside, behind a tall fence with barbed wire at the top, guys in orange jumpsuits lounge around on picnic tables and stroll around a basketball court. Most of them look sad and tired. A few of them look scary. It’s like a giant version of the principal’s office at school, except people stay there for months.

I’d been here a couple of times before, with Dad, just to pick up paperwork. One time I held a baby for a woman who was waiting to visit her husband. She had two other kids, toddlers, running all over the waiting room. She had baby-barf stains all over her shirt and looked like she could use some sleep.

Martinez, however, had never been to the jail. He was excited.

“The slammer,” he whispered. “I always wondered what it looks like in here.”

The waiting room was empty this time. We went up to the little thick-glass window and Dad talked to the woman on the other side.

“I’m here to see Jethro Gersham. I’ve been appointed to represent him,” Dad said. “And if it’s okay, my kids are going to wait here in the lobby.”

As he spoke, one of the big metal doors opened, and out came two sheriff’s deputies in their tan uniforms. My heart almost stopped. Neither of them was Troy Butler—but what if Troy Butler was here? What if he came through the lobby while we were waiting for Dad? What if he ran into Dad in the jail and told him how he’d come to talk to me earlier today? The thought made me feel sick. I tugged on Dad’s sleeve. 

“Dad, we need to go in with you,” I said.

“What?” he said. “No way. This is a jail, and I’m having a conference with a client. It’s confidential.”

“We’re not staying alone here at the jail,” I said. “It’s creepy. And we’re just kids. I’d feel safer with you.”

All lies. Except there was a real chance Dad would run into Troy Butler here, and if that happened, I wanted to be there, too. Maybe I could steer Dad away from talking to the deputy. Maybe I could . . . I don’t know. When you decide you feel guilty about something, when you decide to hide something, all logic goes out the window.

“What about you, Martinez?” Dad said. “Are you nervous here in the lobby?”

“Oh, Dad, I’m so scared here in the lobby,” he said. “I’d rather be with you.”

When Dad turned back to the woman in the window, Martinez looked at me with an openmouthed face of joy.

“You’re such a bad actor,” I whispered.

“He bought it,” Martinez whispered back. 

And so we went in. Radio squawks, a buzz, and the sound of a big metal door opening. Into a little windowless room with one bare table. A deputy—thank goodness, not Troy Butler—walked in with Jethro. 

He didn’t look like the same person we knew. He wasn’t just handcuffed; he had chains on his arms, chains that attached to a set of chains on his legs, so he could walk only in a shuffle. Later I realized that his orange jail jumpsuit was way too big for him; they probably didn’t have the right size for a tall, skinny guy, so he was wearing a prison suit big enough for a football player. He almost tripped himself up, waving at us excitedly.

“Hey!” he said to me. “I know you! You the girl with the squirrel toy.”

I laughed. “I’m surprised you remembered.”

“Matter of fact, a guy don’t forget a white girl with a black brother,” he said. “You don’t see that every day in Houmahatchee, matter of fact.”

Dad motioned to the deputy. “Before you go, can you take the chains off? He’s got some things to sign.”

“No sir,” the deputy said. “He’s a capital murder suspect. And there are children here.”

“He’s my friend, and he’s innocent. And anyway, you’ll be just outside the door,” Dad said.

“We’ll scream in agony if we need you,” Martinez said. Dad glared at him; I punched Martinez on the arm. 

“He can sign with the chains on,” the deputy said. “I’ll be right outside.”

We all sat down at the table. Dad took a bunch of papers out of his briefcase and spread them out. 

“Here’s some paperwork you’ll need to sign so I can take you on as attorney,” he said. “We’ll need to do this before we get started. Normally, I’d talk to you about the circumstances of the case, but we’re not alone and we need confidentiality when we discuss those matters.”

“I got nothing to hide. I told the cops. He give me back my gun, and he even give me a ticket for it, and that’s all I know,” Jethro said. “I didn’t kill nobody. Matter of fact.”

Dad held up a hand. “That’s fine, we can talk about all of that later.”

But it wasn’t fine with me. “You’re saying he gave you a lottery ticket? He just gave it to you?”

“Atty, hush,” Dad said. “You’re not supposed to—“

“He give me a ticket, just like you get at the store when you buy something,” Jethro said. “I always take the ticket so they can’t say I shoplifted.”

“You mean a receipt,” I said. “He gave you a receipt and the gun.”

“Atty, you’re going to get me in trouble here,” Dad said. “These are things that are between me and Mr. Gersham.”

I leaned in. I couldn’t help myself. “Who gave you the receipt? Ambrose? The man who was shot?”

“No, some other guy,” Jethro said. “Guy in a red ball cap.”

“That’s it, Atty. One more word and I’m sending you to the lobby.” Dad pushed some papers and a pen toward Jethro. “You’ll want to read and sign these.” 

“I don’t need to read them,” Jethro said. “You tell me what’s in there.” 

“It gives me permission to be your attorney,” Dad said. “But you should read it on your own before you sign, and ask any questions you need to ask. I insist.”

Jethro bent down close to the page, turning his non-cloudy eye toward the words, and hummed to himself as he looked it over. 

While he read, I quietly slipped another paper off the desk. It was what they call the indictment, the list of charges against Jethro. And attached to it was a photocopy of Exhibit A—the lottery ticket that was found on Jethro.

It was clear from the copy that the lotto ticket was stapled to something. On the second page of Exhibit A was a photocopy of the thing that was stapled to the front of the lottery ticket: a slip of paper with a bunch of gobbledygook printed on it:

1234567
wefpoj
wf;l
qpweodfk
pfoj
‘sdlfkef

12345

Weird, I thought. What was that for?

Jethro signed the papers and we were done, for now. More buzzes, more squawks and we were out in the lobby of the jail. Almost home free. 

But as Dad stopped at the window to sign us out, I felt someone tapping me lightly on the shoulder. I looked up to see Backsley Graddoch, the county attorney. 

“Well, Ms. Peale, what brings a young girl like you to the county jail?” he asked with a grin. 

“It’s confidential,” I said firmly.

Dad turned and shook Graddoch’s hand. “Hey, Backsley, good to see you. Yeah, I’ve been appointed on the Ambrose case. We have first appearance tomorrow.”

“So you were here meeting your client?” Graddoch said. He was asking Dad, I guess, but he was looking straight at me. “Good of you to bring the kids along.”

Dad nodded. “So what brings you here, Backsley?”

Graddoch laughed. “Oh, nothing, really. I’m here to meet a deputy, Troy Butler. You’ve probably heard why already.”

“No,” Dad said. “Fill me in.”

“It’s confidential,” Graddoch said, winking at me. “But the rumor mill works fast. You’ll find out soon enough.”

Flags are popular in Strudwick County. Alabama and Auburn football flags, Marine Corps flags, the Confederate battle flag, and of course the American flag. Probably every third house has some banner hanging off the porch, or on a pole in the yard. 

And lots of them are faded and tattered. I’ve always wondered about that. If you’re patriotic enough to hang up the American flag, why do you leave it when it’s all ragged and faded into pink and light blue? 

As I watched trailers and porches and flags whiz past on the way home, I realized I already knew why. It was guilt. You realize the flag’s a little faded, and it fills you with embarrassment. So you ignore it. Weeks later, the flag is starting to look tattered. More guilt. So you ignore it even harder. Soon everyone driving by knows your flag is ragged and tacky. But when you look at it, the guilt pulls at you like the gravity on the surface of Jupiter. You can’t lift an arm to take the flag down.

That’s how I felt about the visit from Deputy Troy Butler. I knew I’d done nothing criminal, and I knew Graddoch’s charge was bogus. Why didn’t I just tell Dad as soon as I saw him? For some reason I didn’t, and that wasn’t like me. I’m not a sneak; in my family, we don’t keep secrets. 

But I did keep a secret, and the longer I kept it, the harder it pulled at me. The more I worried about getting into trouble—the more I wanted assurance from Dad that everything was okay—the less inclined I felt to tell him. By the time we got home, I decided that I’d never tell Dad. 

I guess we all want to look better than we are. Even when we’re innocent. I wondered how many people, accused of a crime, lied about it not because they feared jail, but just because they didn’t want to look so bad. 

The thought kept me quiet all the way to dinnertime. Frozen pizza, Dad’s go-to when Taleesa is out of town. 

“So who’s the man in the red ball cap, then?” I asked. “If he exists, we can find him.”

“He exists,” Dad said, with an it’s-my-client certainty. “I just haven’t found him yet. Ambrose, the store owner, had a partner, who runs the store now. But the partner has an alibi. He was fishing all day at Lake Rufus King. He’s got receipts to prove it, from the marina where he put his boat in.”

Fishing’s a big thing in Strudwick County. The whole state of Alabama is covered in lakes named after stodgy old white guys, lakes that were created like a hundred years ago when they dammed up the rivers. Without the Rufus King Dam, there wouldn’t be anything in Strudwick County but pine plantations and Red Creek. If you stop up the river with a dam, of course, all the water piles up on one side and makes a lake. Dad said Lake Rufus King was probably only four feet deep, but old guys always make a big deal about buying a house out there and living the good life. And on the other side of the dam, there’s just a trickle of a river, a pile of gray rocks on the creek bank where people fish, and some scraggly forest where nobody lives, I guess because it’s not safe to be there when they open the dam up and let water out. Taleesa says Alabama is all about dams. Everywhere you look, she says, they’ve drawn a line and put all the good stuff on one side.

“Did the cops even look for Red Hat Man?” I asked. 

“It’s our job to find him, I guess,” Dad said. “And to be clear, by our job I mean my job. You’ve got your own causes to work on. I’m thinking we could both get into hot water if you meddle in my work.” 

I gulped, nervous.

But I still wanted to know who Red Hat Man was. 

Sleep is great when you’re feeling anxious. I was dreaming that I was at the helm of a starship. My mom, Ilia, was there, in a Starfleet uniform like in her picture. Taleesa and Miz Megg were working at a computer panel. And Mario, from the video game, was in the back of the room, on hands and knees, rolling dice on the floor. And then everything shook. 

I opened my eyes. It was Martinez. 

“It’s a code,” my brother said. He was holding his phone, a square of painful light. 

“What on earth?”

“That piece of paper that was stapled to the lottery ticket. I took a picture of it.” He showed me the photo on the phone. 

“Ugh, that’s bright,” I said. “Why did you take a picture? I’m pretty sure that’s evidence. I don’t know if it’s something we’re allowed to take a picture of.”

“This is the key to the case,” Martinez said. “It isn’t just nonsense. There are repeating letters, like words. It’s a code and I’m going to crack it. And then I’ll solve the case.”

“What are you talking about? Why would Red Hat Guy give Jethro a message in code?”

“We won’t know until we crack the code, dummy,” Martinez said. “I’m going to crack it. Cryptology. That’s my thing. It’s my calling.”

I’d never heard him say the word “cryptology” before, but okay. 

“We can save Jethro like we saved Easy,” he said. “I’ll do the secret stuff. You do the legwork.”

“If we’re saving him like Easy, you mean life in prison instead of death,” I said. And I thought of all those dogs that were going to be put down at the shelter. Guilt sat on me heavy as a hippo. 

“Don’t be a jerk,” Martinez said. “Life and death, that’s a big difference. And if we don’t defend the defenseless, who will? Especially you. You’re a world-famous lawyer now.”

I sighed. But he was right. If no one else is doing the right thing, you have to stand up and be the one.

“Okay, we’ll take the case,” I said. “But we have to keep our work on the down-low. Now go to bed.”

Slowly I drifted off to sleep again, but Ilia and Taleesa and Mario were gone. Instead, I dreamed about yellowed pages with squiggles and nonsense words, just waiting to be decoded.