“Did you take steps to help Jacob adapt better to social situations?”
“Yes,” Emma says. She pauses, clears her throat. “I hired a private tutor to help him practice those skills-Jess Ogilvy.”
“Did Jacob like Jess?”
Emma’s eyes fill with tears. “Yes.”
“How do you know?”
“He was comfortable with her, and there aren’t many people he’s comfortable with. She got him to do- She got him to do things that he wouldn’t normally…” Emma breaks off and buries her face in her hands.
What the fuck?
“Ms. Hunt,” I say, “thank you. Nothing fur-”
“Wait,” she interrupts. “I just… I’m not finished.”
This is news to me. I shake my head just the tiniest bit, but Emma is staring at Jacob. “I just… I wanted to say…” She turns to the jury. “Jacob told me he didn’t want her to die; that it wasn’t his fault-”
My eyes widen. This is unscripted territory, dangerous ground. “Objection,” I blurt out. “Hearsay!”
“You can’t object to your own witness,” Helen says, delighted.
But I don’t have to give my own witness enough rope to hang herself, either, and the rest of us as well. “Then I’m finished,” I say, sitting down beside Jacob, suddenly afraid that I’m not the only one.
She told them.
My mother told them the truth.
I look at the jury, at each of their expectant faces, because now they must know I am not the monster that all these other witnesses have made me out to be. Oliver cut my mother off before she could say the rest, but surely they understand.
“Before we begin the cross-examination, counselors,” the judge says, “I’d like to make up some of the ground we lost yesterday with an early dismissal. Do either of you object to finishing out this witness’s testimony before we adjourn for the day?”
That’s when I look at the clock and see that it is four o’clock.
We are supposed to leave now, so I can be home in time for CrimeBusters at 4:30.
“Oliver,” I whisper. “Say no.”
“There is no way I’m leaving your mother’s last words in the jury’s minds all weekend long,” Oliver hisses back at me. “I don’t care how you deal with it, Jacob, but you’re going to deal with it.”
“Mr. Bond,” the judge says, “would you care to let us in on your conversation?”
“My client was just letting me know the delay in adjournment is agreeable to him.”
“I’m tickled pink,” Judge Cuttings says, although he doesn’t look tickled or pink. “Ms. Sharp, your witness.”
The prosecutor stands up. “Ms. Hunt, where was your son on the afternoon of January twelfth?”
“He went to Jess’s house for his lesson.”
“What was he like when he came home?”
She hesitates. “Agitated.”
“How did you know?”
“He ran up to his room and hid in the closet.”
“Did he exhibit any self-destructive behaviors?”
“Yes,” Emma says. “He hit his head against the wall repeatedly.”
(It is interesting for me to hear this. When I have a meltdown, I don’t remember the meltdown very well.)
“But you were able to calm him down, weren’t you?”
“Eventually.”
“What techniques did you use?” the prosecutor asks.
“I turned off the lights and put on a song that he likes.”
“Was it Bob Marley’s ‘I Shot the Sheriff’?”
“Yes.”
(It’s 4:07, and I’m sweating. A lot.)
“He uses a song called ‘I Shot the Sheriff’ as a calming technique?” Helen Sharp asks.
“It has nothing to do with the actual song. It happened to be a melody he liked, and it would soothe him when he was having a tantrum when he was little. It just stuck.”
“It certainly ties in to his obsession with violent crime, doesn’t it?”
(I’m not obsessed with violent crime. I’m obsessed with solving it.)
“Jacob’s not violent,” my mother says.
“No? He is on trial for murder,” Helen Sharp replies, “and last year he assaulted a girl, didn’t he?”
“He was provoked.”
“Ms. Hunt, I have here the report of the school resource officer who was called in after that incident.” She gets it stamped as evidence (now it is 4:09) and gives it to my mother. “Can you read the highlighted passage?”
My mother lifts the paper. “A seventeen-year-old juvenile female stated that Jacob Hunt walked up to her, slammed her against the lockers, and pinned her by the throat until he was forcibly removed by a staff member.”
“Are you suggesting that’s not violent behavior?” Helen Sharp asks.
Even if we leave now, we will be eleven minutes late for CrimeBusters.
“Jacob felt cornered,” my mother says.
“I’m not asking you how Jacob felt. The only person who knows how Jacob felt is Jacob. What I’m asking you is whether you would categorize slamming a young woman up against a locker and pinning her by her neck as violent behavior.”
“This victim,” my mother says, her voice hot, “is the same charming girl who said that if Jacob told his math teacher to go fuck himself she’d be his friend.”
One of the ladies on the jury shakes her head. I wonder if it’s because of what Mimi did or because my mother said fuck.
Once during a ratings sweep episode of CrimeBusters that was aired live, like a Broadway show, an extra dropped a hammer on his foot and said the f-bomb and as a result the network was fined. The censors bleeped it, but for a while it was circulating on YouTube in its full blue glory.
CrimeBusters is airing in thirteen minutes.
Oliver nudges my shoulder. “What is the matter with you? Stop it. You look crazy.”
I look down. I’m slapping my hand hard against the side of my leg; I haven’t even realized I am doing it. But now I’m even more confused. I thought I was supposed to look crazy.
“So this girl was mean to Jacob. I think we can both agree on that, right?”
“Yes.”
“But that doesn’t negate the fact that he was violent toward her.”
“What he did was just,” my mother replies.
“So, Ms. Hunt, you’re saying that if a young woman says something to Jacob that isn’t very nice or that hurts his feelings, he’s justified in acting violent toward her?”
My mother’s eyes flash, like they always do before she gets really, really, really mad. “Don’t put words in my mouth. I’m saying that my son is kind and sensitive and that he wouldn’t intentionally hurt a fly.”
“You’ve heard the evidence in this case. Are you aware that Jacob argued with Jess two days before she was last seen alive?”
“That’s different-”
“Were you there, Ms. Hunt?”
“No.”
Right now is the last commercial for Law & Order: SVU, which is the show that is on the network before CrimeBusters. There will be four thirty-second spots and then the opening bars of music. I close my eyes and start to hum.
“You said that one of the behaviors that’s indicative of Jacob’s Asperger’s is that he gets uncomfortable around people or circumstances he doesn’t know, correct?”
“Yes.”
“And that he sometimes withdraws from you?”
“Yes,” my mother says.
“That he has a hard time expressing his feelings to you verbally?”
“Yes.”
It’s the one where a child falls into a well and when Rhianna is lowered in to save the little boy, she shines a flashlight and there is a complete human skeleton there are pearls there are diamonds but the bones belong to a man it’s an heiress who disappeared in the sixties and at the end you learn that she was actually a he-
“Wouldn’t you agree, Ms. Hunt, that your other son, Theo, exhibits every single one of these behaviors from time to time? In fact, that every teenager on the planet exhibits them?”
“I wouldn’t exactly-”
“Does that make Theo insane, too?”
It’s 4:32 it’s 4:32 it’s 4:32.
“Can we please leave now?” I say, but the words are as loose as molasses and they don’t sound right; and everyone is moving slowly and slurring their words, too, when I stand up to get their attention.