Triptych

CHAPTER TWELVE

John couldn’t remember being arrested-not because he was in shock at the time but because he had been semiconscious. Woody had come by that morning to check on him and hooked him up with some Valium. John had taken enough to tranquilize a horse.

Apparently, the cops had come to his house with an arrest warrant. His father had led them up to John’s room and they had found him passed out on his bed. John remembered coming to, his face on fire where his father had slapped him. The cops dragged him out of the house, handcuffs biting into the skin on his wrists. He passed out again on the lawn.

He woke up in the hospital, the familiar taste of charcoal in his mouth. Only, this time, when he tried to move his hand to wipe his face, something clattered against the bed rail. He looked down at his wrist, his eyes blurry, and saw that he was cuffed to the bed.

A cop was sitting by the door reading a newspaper. He scowled at John. “You awake?”

“Yeah.” John fell back asleep.

His mother was in the room when he next came around. God, she looked horrible. He wondered how long he had been asleep because Emily looked like twenty years had passed since he had climbed up the stairs to his room, turned Heart down low on the stereo and taken a handful of the little white pills his cousin had given him.

“Baby,” she said, rubbing his forearm. “Are you okay?”

His tongue was lolled back in his mouth. His chest hurt like he had been slammed in the sternum with a sledgehammer. How had he managed to breathe all this time?

“You’re going to be okay,” she said. “It’s all a mistake.”

It wasn’t though-at least as far as the police were concerned. The district attorney came in an hour or so later, Paul Finney standing behind the man, glaring at John like he was ready to jump onto the bed and throttle him right then and there. The cop must have picked up on this, too, because he was staying close to Mr. Finney, making sure nothing got out of hand.

The DA made the introductions. “I’m Lyle Anders. This is Chief Harold Waller.” The cop by Mr. Finney was holding a sheet of paper. He cleared his throat, looking down at it like he was reading from a script.

John looked at his mother. She said, “It’s all right, baby.”

“Jonathan Winston Shelley,” Waller began. “I’m arresting you for the rape and murder of Mary Alice Finney.”

John’s ears did that thing where he felt like he was underwater. Waller’s lips were moving, he was definitely saying something, but John couldn’t understand him.

Lyle Anders finally reached over and snapped his fingers in front of John’s face. “You understand what’s happening, son?”

“No,” John said. “I didn’t-”

“Don’t say anything,” his mother shushed, putting her fingers to his lips. Emily Shelley, PTA sponsor, den mother, baker of brownies and master of Halloween disguises, straightened her back and addressed the three men in the room. “If that’s all?”

They loomed over his small mother, Paul Finney especially. He was a big man to begin with, but his rage made him larger.

Anders said, “He needs to make a statement.”

“No,” she said, this woman who was his mother. “Actually, he doesn’t.”

“It’d be in his best interest.”

“My son has been through a horrible ordeal,” Emily answered. “He needs rest.”

Anders tried to speak directly to John, and even when Emily blocked his way, he still made an attempt. “Son, you need to get on top of this and tell us what happened. I’m sure there’s a reason you-”

“He has nothing to say to you,” Emily insisted, her voice firm. John had only heard her speak this way once, when Joyce was ten and she’d tried to walk on the railing to the top deck at the house.

One by one, Emily looked them all in the eye. “Please leave.”

Paul Finney lunged for John, but the cop caught him. “You son of a bitch,” Mr. Finney spat at John. “You’ll fry for this!”

Mr. Finney had been an all-state wrestler. Anders and Waller had their hands full trying to keep him off John. In the end, they had to physically pick him up and carry him out of the room. As the door closed, he screamed, “You’ll pay for this, you fucker!”

His mother’s bottom lip was trembling as she turned back to John. He thought, oddly, that she had been upset by Mr. Finney’s language.

He asked, “Where’s Dad?” Richard was the one who took care of things, cleaned up the messes. “Mom?” John asked. “Where is he?”

Her throat worked, and she reached out, taking his hand. “Listen to me,” she said, urgent. “They’re going to come back any minute and take you to jail. We only have a few seconds.”

“Mom-”

“Don’t talk,” she said, squeezing his hand. “Listen.”

He nodded.

“Don’t say anything to the police. Don’t even tell them your name. Don’t tell them where you were that night, don’t tell them what you had for dinner.”

“Mom-”

“Shush, Jonathan,” she ordered, pressing her fingers to his lips. “Don’t talk to anyone in jail. No one is your friend in there. They’re all looking out for themselves and you should, too. Don’t say anything on the phone because they tape the conversations. There are snitches everywhere.”

Snitches, John thought. Where had his mother heard that word? How did she know about any of this? She wouldn’t even watch Kojak because she thought it was too violent.

“I want you to promise me, John,” she insisted. “Promise me that you will not talk to anyone until your aunt Lydia shows up.”

Aunt Lydia. Barry’s wife. She was a lawyer.

“John?” she prompted. “Do you promise? Not a word? Don’t even talk about the weather. Do you understand me? This is the most important thing I have ever told you to do and you must obey me. Do not talk to anyone. Do you hear me?”

He started crying because she was. “Yes, Mama.”

The door opened and Waller was back. He glanced at the scene, mother and child, and John saw part of him soften. He sounded almost kind when he told Emily, “Mrs. Shelley, you’re going to have to step outside now.”

Her hand tightened around John’s. She looked down at him, tears spilling out of her eyes. For some reason, he had been expecting her to say that she loved him, but instead, she mouthed, “No one. ”

Talk to no one.

Anders let Emily leave before he reached into his pocket and pulled out the keys to the handcuffs. The moment of softness was gone as quickly as it had come.

He told John, “You listen to me, you little bastard. You’re gonna get out of that bed, get your clothes on and put your hands behind your back. If you give me a millisecond of trouble, I will come down on you like a ton of bricks. Do you understand me, you murdering piece of shit?”

“Yes,” John said, breathless with fear. “Yes, sir.”