That’s How I Roll: A Novel (17 page)

But the judge was ready for that. He read off a whole long string of different cases where what he called a “vulnerable witness” was allowed to testify under special conditions. The one I remember most was when they let a little girl who’d been raped by her stepfather take the stand with a dog sitting right next to her. The dog was trained to be with kids when they testified; she helped them be calm when they had to talk about terrible things that had happened to them.

The lawyer for the Beast still wasn’t satisfied. He switched gears, said I could be giving Tory-boy the answers, signaling to him in some way.

“Let me understand, counsel,” the judge said. “Are you saying that a child whose testimony you sought to bar on the ground that he was mentally incapable of distinguishing the truth from a lie has now acquired the power to translate some secret signals from his brother into answers to questions you ask him under oath?”

“No, Judge. I’m not saying that. But, still, even the appearance of impropriety—”

“There
is
no such appearance,” the judge chopped off whatever the lawyer was going to say. “Unless you can show this court that the witness is some kind of ventriloquist’s dummy in the hands of his caregiver, your motion is denied.”

The DA jumped to his feet. “Your Honor, may the record reflect that, regardless of any ludicrous claims by defense counsel, the
matter is moot, as the witness’s caregiver is sitting well beyond the sight line of the witness?”

“So ordered,” the judge said.

I’d never heard myself called a “caregiver” before, but, from the way the judge had leaned so heavy on that word, I knew it had to have some special legal meaning. I even forgave him for using the word “dummy.”

ll the DA did was to stand close to Tory-boy, making sure the jury could see he wasn’t coaching, just treating a child the way you’re supposed to. He didn’t have but one question:

“Can you tell us what happened that night, son?”

And Tory-boy spoke right up: “Mommy was on the couch. Daddy made her get down. Then he took his gun and shot her. In the face. Bang!”

The Beast’s older lawyer was some geezer the County had paid for; the Beast himself didn’t have any money, so they had to do that. Even so, that lawyer really tried, but he couldn’t move my little brother an inch. Once Tory-boy had something in his head, it stayed there. Unless I moved it out. I was the only one who could ever do that.

“No, no, no,” Tory-boy kept saying. Over and over again. Then he started crying a little, because the lawyer was being mean to him, and he knew it.

Everyone in the courtroom knew it.

But every time the lawyer tried to stop asking Tory-boy any more questions, everyone saw the Beast raging at him to get back in there and try again.

The harder that lawyer tried to push Tory-boy, the more you could feel the anger against him vibrating through the courthouse. Especially from the women. What kind of lowlife would scream at a poor little retarded boy, making him cry and all?

That lawyer wasn’t local—the county covers a lot more territory
than the town where we lived—but he wasn’t from that far away. When he felt those waves hit, even the Beast couldn’t make him ask Tory-boy one more question.

hen they put me on the stand, both of the Beast’s lawyers had a turn, and they didn’t have to hold back. But every question they asked me was giving me a chance to put another spike in the Beast’s chest. And I hammered those spikes like I was John Henry himself.

“You hate this man, don’t you?” the younger lawyer shouted at me, pointing to where the Beast was sitting.

“You mean for beating us all the time? I may have hated him while he was doing that, especially to my little brother, sir. I admit that. I keep working on forgiving him, and I believe I might be able to do that, someday. But I don’t know if I can ever forgive him for killing my sister—”

“Objection!”

“Invited error, Your Honor,” the DA shouted back.

“You opened the door, counsel,” the judge told the Beast’s lawyer, barely able to keep the smile off his face.

I was grateful the jury couldn’t read my thoughts then. I didn’t even know a half-man like me could have a battle cry, but I could hear it ring out inside my mind:
Yeah, you opened that door, Beast. And I just rolled right on through it, didn’t I? Now what?

I felt powerful enough to knock that lawyer out without ever leaving my chair, but I didn’t let it show on my face. It didn’t matter what that man said, it didn’t matter what tricks he tried, the jury never took its eyes off me. And they all listened like I was sanctified.

ven with all that, the Beast still might have gotten off with only a few years. The DA about threw a fit over it, but the judge told the jury they could consider lesser charges. He read a whole list of them: manslaughter, involuntary homicide … even felonious assault, which sounded like nothing more serious than a slap on the face.

If the Beast had admitted he’d just plain shot Rory-Anne, it might have come out differently. If he’d said he was so drunk he hardly remembered that whole night, the jury might well have believed him.

It’s not that anyone liked him, but, in their eyes, there would have been a lot of truth being told in any story the Beast could make up. The men knew what kind of temper he had, especially when he was drunk. And the women, well, they knew all about Rory-Anne.

The Beast knew I wasn’t ever going to tell anyone about what he’d been doing to Rory-Anne for all those years. How could I? If he had told some sad story about how his wife had run off and left him to raise Rory-Anne all on his own, and she had just gone wild after that, he knew I wouldn’t call him a liar.

He knew if I disputed his story it would be just the same as telling the whole town the truth about me and Tory-boy. Folks may have suspicioned, but I’d never allow them to turn that suspicion into truth out of my own mouth.

Maybe the Beast was scared they’d finally start looking for his wife’s body. Or … Well, I’ll never know why, but he got right up on the stand and insisted he was stone-cold sober the night it happened.

He
still
swore he’d just been trying to stop Rory-Anne from killing me with that butcher knife. He told the whole courtroom that all he’d done was try to protect his crippled son from that crazy, drunken whore.

But all the while he was telling that pack of lies, he never
stopped glaring at me. The whole courtroom could see those vile threats flash, as if someone was striking his flinty eyes with a piece of steel.

he State always has to go first, so the Beast had already heard Tory-boy and me tell the jury a different account entirely. But he stayed stuck to his story, as if he couldn’t get that seed I had planted out of his head.

Just like I could never get the seed he planted in Rory-Anne out of my body.

ith Rory-Anne dead, I was in charge. Before, even though me and Tory-boy each got Disability checks, they came to her—that’s how they do it with children. But Rory-Anne touched those checks just long enough to sign them over to the Beast.

Probably another reason he’d never killed us.

Or maybe he thought Rory-Anne would do it for him. She’d thrown knives at me more than once—it really drove her crazy whenever I would try to keep her off Tory-boy.

But even though the government considered me disabled, there wasn’t a soul in town who thought there was anything wrong with my mind. So, with the Beast and Rory-Anne gone, both checks came to me directly.

Maybe they bent a law a little bit to do that; I’m not exactly sure. I know they made me what they call an “emancipated minor” before the Beast was even put on trial. But they didn’t stop there; they made me Tory-boy’s legal guardian as well.

The judge said that was only right, seeing as I was the only family he had, what with my mother gone, my sister dead, and my father sure to be in prison for life … if he got lucky.

“The whole town knows you raised that child since he was born, Esau,” he said. Talking to me direct, not even glancing at that “Rural Services” lawyer who was supposed to be helping me. She was an outsider. We didn’t need any such people telling us how to take care of our own business.

“We’re all proud of the job you’ve done. Tory’s never been a bit of trouble to anyone. And, you know, some of those … slower ones, they can fall in with the wrong crowd. But this court is satisfied that if there’s one person he minds it’s you.”

That was true. Nobody ever did deny that. Not even the Beast.

knew the first thing we had to do was get some money. Magic be damned, that shack would always hold memories Tory-boy might not be able to deal with.