House Rules (27 page)

I guess I could go along with the metaphor, Emma murmurs. My ex‘s cooking could be considered contraception.

Would it be rude to ask how long you‘ve been a single parent?

Yes, Emma says. But the short answer is, since Jacob‘s diagnosis. She takes some milk out of the refrigerator and pours it into a pan, then begins to whip the contents with a hand mixer. He‘s not involved with Jacob or Theo, except for the monthly child support.

Well, you should be proud of doing it all on your own.

Yeah, I‘m proud. I have a son accused of murder. What mother wouldn‘t think of herself as a huge success after that?

I look up at her. Accused, I repeat. Not convicted.

For a long moment she looks at me, as if she is afraid to believe there could be someone else who believes Jacob might not be guilty. Then she begins to make up individual plates. Jacob, Theo! she yells, and the boys file into the kitchen.

Jacob takes his and immediately returns to the living room and the television. Theo thunders down the stairs, takes one look at me sitting at the table, and frowns. Shouldn‘t he be buying
us
lunch? he asks.

It‘s lovely to see you, too, I answer.

He looks at me. Whatever.

As he shuffles back upstairs with his meal, Emma fixes plates for the two of us.

Usually we all sit down to dinner together, she says, but sometimes it‘s nice to have a break from each other, too.

I imagine that‘s hard when you‘re all under house arrest.

It‘s pretty sad when the high point of my day is walking to the end of the driveway to get the mail. Leaning down, she sets a plate in front of me.

There‘s a block of white fish, creamy white mashed potatoes, and a tiny hill of white rice.

Meringues for dessert? I guess.

Angel food cake.

I poke at the food with my fork.

She frowns. Is the fish undercooked?

No, no it‘s great. I‘ve just, um, never seen anyone color-coordinate a meal before.

Oh, it‘s February first, she says, as if that explains everything. The first of every month is a White Food Day. I‘ve been doing it so long I forget it‘s not normal.

I taste the potatoes; they‘re out of this world. What do you do on the thirty-first?

Burn everything to a black crisp?

Don‘t give Jacob any ideas, Emma says. Would you like some milk?

She pours me a glass, and I reach for it. I don‘t get it. Why does the color of his food matter?

Why does the texture of velvet send him into a panic? Why can‘t he stand the hum of an espresso machine? There are a million questions I don‘t have answers for, Emma replies, so the easiest thing to do is just roll with the punches and keep him from having a meltdown.

Like he did in court, I say. And jail.

Exactly. So Monday‘s food is green, Tuesday‘s is red, Wednesday‘s is yellow …

you get the idea.

I think for a moment. Don‘t take this the wrong way, but it seems like sometimes Jacob‘s more adult than you or me and other times, he gets totally overwhelmed.

That‘s him. I truly think he‘s smarter than anyone I‘ve ever met, but he‘s also more inflexible. And he takes every little thing that happens to heart, because he‘s the center of his universe.

And yours, I point out. He‘s the center of your universe, too.

She ducks her head. I guess.

Maybe my Scandinavian parents knew what they were doing, because maybe it‘s the fish and maybe it‘s the way she looks in that moment surprised, and a little flustered but to my shock I realize I‘d like to kiss her. However, I can‘t because she‘s my client‘s mother, and because she would probably knock me flat on my ass.

I assume you have a plan of attack, she says.

My eyes widen is she thinking the same thing about me? I tamp down an image of me pinning her to the table.

The quicker the better, Emma says, and my pulse triples. She glances over her shoulder to the living room, where Jacob is slowly shoveling rice into his mouth. I just want this whole nightmare to be over.

And with those words, I come crashing back to my sad little reality. I clear my throat, totally professional. The most damaging discovery is the confession Jacob made.

We need to try to get rid of it.

I thought I was going to be able to sit with Jacob in the interrogation room. If I‘d been there, it would never have gotten this far, I just know it. They had to be asking him questions he didn‘t understand, or firing them at him too fast.

We have a transcript. The questions were pretty straightforward, I think. Did you tell Matson that Jacob had Asperger‘s before they started talking?

Yes, when he came to interview Jacob the first time.

First time?

Emma nods. He was going through Jess‘s appointment book, and Jacob‘s social skills lesson was on it, so the detective asked him a few questions.

Were you there to help translate?

Right here at the kitchen table, Emma says. Matson acted like he completely understood Jacob‘s issues. That‘s why, when he told me to bring Jacob to the station, I assumed it was going to be the same sort of interview and that I could be part of it.

That‘s good, actually, I tell her. We can probably file a motion to suppress.

What‘s that?

Before I can answer, Jacob comes into the kitchen with his empty plate. He sets it in the sink and then pours himself a glass of Coca-Cola. Under the Fifth Amendment of the U.S. Constitution, you have a right to remain silent, unless you waive that right, and in certain circumstances if the police don‘t read you your Miranda rights or properly ask you to waive them, anything you say can be used against you. A defense attorney can file a motion to suppress in order to prevent that evidence from coming before the jury. Then he walks back to the living room.

That‘s just plain wrong, I mutter.

It is?

Yeah, I say. How come
he
gets to drink Coke on White Food Day?

It takes a moment, and then, for the very first time, I hear the music of Emma Hunt‘s laugh.

Emma

I did not expect to feed Jacob‘s lawyer lunch.

I didn‘t expect to enjoy his company so much, either. But when he makes a joke about White Food Day which is, let‘s face it, as ridiculous as everyone in the fairy tale pretending the emperor is beautifully clothed instead of stark naked I can‘t help myself. I start to giggle. And before I know it, I am laughing so hard I cannot catch my breath.

Because when you get right down to it, it‘s funny when I ask my son,
How did you
sleep?
And he answers:
On my stomach.

It‘s funny when I tell Jacob I‘ll be there in a minute and he starts counting down from sixty.

It‘s funny that Jacob used to grab my collar every time I came home, his interpretation of catch you later.

It‘s funny when he begs for a forensics textbook on Amazon.com and I ask him to give me a ballpark figure and he says,
Second base.

And it‘s funny when I move heaven and earth to give Jacob white food on the first of the month and he breezily pours himself a glass of Coke.

It‘s true what they say about Asperger‘s affecting the whole family. I‘ve been doing this for so long, I forgot to consider what an outsider would think of our pale rice and fish, our long-standing routines just like Jacob has no capacity to put himself in the shoes of someone else he encounters. And, as Jacob has learned one rebuff at a time, what looks pitiful from one angle looks absolutely hilarious from another.

Life‘s not fair, I tell Oliver.

That‘s the reason there are defense attorneys, he replies. And Jacob‘s right about the legal jargon, by the way. I‘m going to file a motion to suppress because the police were on notice that they weren‘t dealing with someone mentally able to truly understand his Miranda rights

I know my Miranda rights! Jacob yells from the other room. You have the right to remain silent! Anything you say can and will be used against you in a court of law

I‘ve got it, Jacob, I‘m good, Oliver calls back. He stands up and puts his plate on the counter. Thanks for lunch. I‘ll let you know what happens with the hearing.

I walk him to the door and watch him unlock his car. Instead of getting into it, though, he reaches into the backseat and then walks toward me again, his face sober.

There‘s just one more thing, Oliver says. He reaches for my hand and presses a miniature-size Milky Way into it. Just in case you want to sneak it in before Brown Thursday, he whispers, and for the second time that day, he leaves me smiling.

CASE 7: BLOOD IS THICKER THAN WATER

Ernest Brendel‘s sister didn‘t believe her brother‘s friend, who came to tell her, one fall
day in 1991, that Ernest had been kidnapped along with his wife, Alice, and young
daughter, Emily as part of a mafia scheme. But Christopher Hightower insisted that they
needed ransom money, and as proof, he took her outside to Ernest‘s Toyota, the car he‘d
driven there. He pointed to the backseat, which was soaked through with blood. There was
more blood in the trunk. Eventually, police would match that blood evidence to Ernest
Brendel. But they‘d also prove that Hightower not the mafia was to blame for Brendel‘s
death.

To most people, Chris Hightower was a commodities broker with ties to his Rhode Island
community. He taught Sunday school and worked with at-risk kids. But one fall day in
1991, he went on a murder rampage, killing his friend Ernest Brendel and Brendel‘s
family. Facing financial trouble and estranged from his wife, Hightower purchased a
crossbow and drove to Brendel‘s house. He hid in the garage and fired an arrow into
Brendel‘s chest when the man arrived back home. While trying to escape, Brendel was shot
twice more. He managed to crawl into the second car in the garage, a Toyota, where
Hightower smashed his skull with a crowbar.

Hightower then picked Emily up from an after-school program at the YMCA by
offering Brendel‘s license as proof that he was a family friend who could be trusted to take
the girl home. When Alice Brendel arrived home that night, she and Emily were drugged
with sleeping pills. It was the last time anyone from the Brendel family was seen alive.

The next day Hightower bought a brush, a hose, some muriatic acid, and a
fifty-pound bag of lime. He scrubbed the garage with muriatic acid to clean up the blood.

He cleaned the carwith baking soda and washed away more blood.

Six weeks later a woman walking a dog stumbled over two shallow graves. One
housed the remains of Ernest Brendel. The second held Alice Brendel found with a scarf
wrapped around her neck and Emily, who was believed to have been buried alive. In the
grave was an empty bag of lime. In the Toyota that Hightower had been driving, police
found the torn corner of that bag of lime, as well as the Home Depot receipt for the lime
and the muriatic acid.

Hightower was convicted and is serving three life sentences. With friends like that,
who needs enemies?

7

Theo

I‘ve done the math: eventually, I‘m going to be the one who has to take care of my brother.

Don‘t get me wrong. I‘m not such a colossal ass that I‘m going to totally ignore Jacob when we‘re grown up and when (I can‘t even imagine this) Mom isn‘t around. What sort of pisses me off, though, is the silent assumption that, when Mom is unable to pick up after Jacob‘s messes anymore, three guesses who‘ll have to take over.

Once, I read this news story on the Internet about a woman in England whose son was retarded big-time retarded, not disabled the way Jacob is disabled but, like, unable to brush his own teeth or remember to go to the bathroom when the urge strikes. (Let me just say here that if Jacob wakes up one day and needs an adult diaper, I don‘t care if I‘m the last person on earth I‘m not changing it.) Anyway, this woman, she had emphysema and she was slowly dying, and it got to a point where she could barely sit up in a wheelchair all day, much less help her son out. Then there was a photo of her with her son, and although I was expecting a kid my age, Ronnie was easily in his fifties. He had a chin full of thick stubble and a potbelly poking out from his Power Rangers T-shirt, and he was giving his mother this big, gummy smile while he hugged her in her wheelchair, where she sat with tubes running into her nose.

I couldn‘t take my eyes off Ronnie. It was like I suddenly realized that one day, when I was married with a houseful of rug rats and doing the corporate thing, Jacob might still be watching his stupid
CrimeBusters
episodes and eating yellow foods on Wednesdays.

My mom and Dr. Moon, Jacob‘s shrink, always talked about this abstractly, as evidence of why they thought vaccines had something to do with autism, and why autism was a relatively new phenomenon (
If it‘s really been around forever, where are all the autistic
kids who‘ve grown up and become adults? Because believe me, even if they‘d been
diagnosed as something else we‘d know who they are.
) But until that very second I hadn‘t made the connection that, one day, Jacob would be one of those adults with autism. Sure, he might be lucky enough to hold down a job like all those Aspies in Silicon Valley, but when he had a meltdown and started destroying his cubicle at said job, we all know who they‘d call first.

Ronnie clearly never had grown up and never would, and that was why his mother was being featured in this newspaper, the
Guardian
: she had placed an ad asking for a family that would take in Ronnie and treat him like their own when she was dead. He was a sweet boy, she said, even if he still wet the bed.

Good freaking luck,
I had thought. Who takes on someone else‘s crap willingly? I wondered what kind of people would respond to Ronnie‘s mom. Mother Teresa types, maybe. Or those families that you always see in the back pages of
People
magazine who foster-parent twenty special needs kids and somehow manage to shape them into a family.

Or, worse, maybe some lonely old perv who figured a fellow like Ronnie wouldn‘t realize if he was copping a feel every now and then. Ronnie‘s mom said a group home wasn‘t an option, since he‘d never been in one and couldn‘t adapt to one at this point. All she wanted was someone who might love him the way she did.

Anyway, the article got me thinking about Jacob. He could handle a group home, maybe, if he were still allowed to shower first in the morning. But if I tossed him into one (and don‘t ask me how you even go about getting a spot), what would that say about me?

That I was too selfish to be my brother‘s keeper, that I didn‘t love him.

Well, still,
a little voice in my head said,
you never signed on for this.

Then I realized: Neither did my mother, but it didn‘t make her love Jacob any less.

So here‘s the deal: I know that, down the road, Jacob will be my responsibility.

When I find a girl I want to marry, I‘m going to have to propose with this contingency that Jacob and me, we‘re a package deal. When I least expect it, I might have to make excuses for him, or talk him down from his freak-out session, like my mom does now.

(I am not saying this out loud, but there is a part of me that‘s been thinking if Jacob is convicted of murder if he‘s imprisoned for life well, mine gets a little bit easier.) I hate myself for even thinking that, but I‘m not going to lie to you.

And I guess it doesn‘t matter if it‘s guilt that gets me to take care of Jacob in the future, or love, because I‘ll do it.

It just would have been nice to be asked, you know?

Oliver

Mama Spatakopoulous is standing at my office-apartment door with the day‘s offering.

We had a little extra rigatoni, she says. And you‘re working so hard, you look skinnier every day.

I laugh and take the container out of her hands. It smells incredible, and Thor starts jumping around my ankles to make sure I don‘t forget to give him his cut of the bounty. Thanks, Mrs. S., I say, and as she turns to leave, I call her back. Hey what food do you know that‘s yellow? I‘ve been thinking about how Emma feeds Jacob, according to his color scheme. Hell, I‘ve been thinking about Emma, period.

You mean like a scrambled egg?

I snap my fingers. Right, I say. Omelets, with Swiss cheese.

She frowns. You want me to make you an omelet?

Hell no, I‘m sticking to the rigatoni. Before I can explain the rest, my office phone starts to ring. Excusing myself, I hurry back inside and pick it up. Oliver Bond‘s office, I say.

Note to self, Helen Sharp replies. That line‘s a little more effective when you hire someone else to deliver it.

My, uh, secretary just stepped out to use the restroom.

She snorts. Yeah, and I‘m Miss America.

Congratulations, I say, my voice dripping with sarcasm. What‘s your talent?

Juggling the heads of defense attorneys?

She ignores me. I‘m calling about the suppression hearing. You subpoenaed Rich Matson?

The detective? Well … yeah. Who
else
was I supposed to subpoena, after all, in a motion that would try to suppress Jacob‘s confession at the police station?

You don‘t have to subpoena him. I have to have Matson there, and I go first.

What do you mean you go first? It‘s my motion.

I know, but this is one of those weird cases where, even though it‘s your motion, the State has the burden of proof, and we have to put on all the evidence to prove the confession is good.

For practically every other motion, it‘s the other way around if I want a ruling, I have to work my ass off to prove why I deserve it. How on earth was I supposed to know the exception to this rule?

I‘m glad Helen‘s not in the room with me, because my face is bright red.

Well,
jeez,
I say, feigning nonchalance. I know that. I was just seeing if you were on your toes.

While I have you on the phone, Oliver, I have to tell you. I don‘t think you can play this case both ways.

What do you mean?

You can‘t claim your client‘s insane
and
that he didn‘t understand his Miranda rights. He recited them from memory, for God‘s sake.

Where‘s the conflict? I ask. Who the hell memorizes Miranda verbatim? Thor starts to bite my ankles, and I spill a little rigatoni into his dog dish. Look, Helen. Jacob couldn‘t do three days in jail. He certainly can‘t do thirty-five years. I‘m going to negotiate this case any way I can to make sure he doesn‘t get locked up again. I hesitate. I don‘t suppose you would consider letting Jacob just live with his mom? You know, put him on probation for the long haul?

Sure. Let me get right back to you on that, after my lunch with the Easter Bunny, the Tooth Fairy, and Santa, Helen says. This is
murder,
or have you forgotten that? You may have a client with autism, but I‘ve got a dead body, and grieving parents, and that trumps
everything.
Maybe you can toss the special needs label around to get funding in schools or special accommodations, but it doesn‘t preclude guilt. See you in court, Oliver.

I slam down the phone and look down to find Thor lying on his side in a happy pasta coma. When the phone rings again, I grab it. What? I demand. Was there some other legal procedure I‘ve managed to screw up? Did you want to tell me you‘re going to tattle to the judge?

No, Emma says hesitantly. But what legal procedure did you screw up?

Oh, I‘m sorry. I thought you were … someone else.

Apparently. There is a beat of silence. Is everything okay with Jacob‘s case?

Couldn‘t be better, I tell her. The prosecution‘s even doing my homework for me. I want to change the topic as quickly as possible, so I ask after Jacob. How are things in the Hunt household today?

Well, that‘s sort of why I‘m calling. Do you think you could do me a favor?

A dozen favors run through my mind, most of which would greatly benefit me and my current lack of a love life. What is it?

I need someone to stay with Jacob while I run out to do an errand.

What errand?

That‘s sort of personal. She draws in her breath. Please?

There has to be some neighbor or relative better suited to the task than I am. But then again, maybe Emma doesn‘t have anyone else she can ask. From what I‘ve seen these past few days, that‘s one hell of a lonely household. Still, I can‘t resist asking, Why me?

The judge said someone over twenty-five.

I grin. So all of a sudden I
am
old enough for you?

Forget I even asked, Emma snaps.

I‘ll be there in fifteen minutes, I say.

Emma

Asking for help doesn‘t come easily to me, so you‘d better believe that, if I actually do make a request, I‘ve exhausted all other options. Which is why I don‘t feel great about making myself even more beholden to Oliver Bond by asking him to stay with Jacob while I run out of the house for this appointment. Even worse is scheduling the appointment, which feels like the physical manifestation of conceding defeat.

The bank is quiet on a Wednesday. There are a few retirees meticulously filling out deposit slips, and one of the tellers is talking to another about why Cabo is a better vacation destination than Cancún. I stand in the center of the bank, eyeing the banner advertising twelve-month CDs and a small table filled with logo paraphernalia a stadium blanket, a mug, an umbrella that can be mine if I open a new checking account.

Can I help you? a woman asks.

I have an appointment, I say. To see Abigail LeGris?

You can take a seat, she says, and she points to a bank of chairs outside a cubicle.

I‘ll let her know you‘re here.

I‘ve never been rich, and I‘ve never needed to be. Somehow, the boys and I have cobbled along on my writing and editing income, and the checks that Henry faithfully sends each month. We don‘t need much. We live in a modest house; we don‘t go out on the town very often or take vacations. I shop at Marshalls and a local thrift store that has recently become trendy for teenagers. The bulk of my expenses involve Jacob his supplements and his therapies, which aren‘t covered by insurance. I think I got so used to making those accommodations fiscally that I stopped seeing them as accommodations and instead view them as the norm. But that said, sometimes I have lain awake at night and wondered what would happen if, God forbid, there was a car accident and we had medical bills that skyrocketed. If some remarkable therapy became available to Jacob that required a payout we could not afford.

In my laundry list of contingencies, I never thought to include the legal fees incurred when your son is accused of murder.

A woman with dyed jet-black hair and a suit that‘s wearing her instead of the other way around steps out of the cubicle. She has a very tiny nose stud and doesn‘t look much older than twenty. Maybe this is what happens to snowboard chicks whose knees get arthritic, to Goth girls whose eyeliner aggravates dry-eye syndrome they are forced to grow up like the rest of us. I‘m Abby LeGris, she says.

When she shakes my hand, her collared shirt gaps a little, and I can see the edge of a Celtic tattoo on her neck.

She leads me into her cubicle and gestures for me to take a seat. So, she says.

How can I help you today?

I was hoping to talk about a second mortgage. I, well, I need a little extra cash. As I say the words, I‘m wondering if she can ask me what I‘ll use that cash for. If it‘s illegal to lie to a bank about that sort of thing.

So basically you‘re looking for a line of credit, Abigail says. That means you only pay us back for the portion you use.

Well, that sounds reasonable.

How long have you lived in your home? she asks.

Nineteen years.

Do you know how much you owe currently on your mortgage?

Not exactly, I say. But we got the loan here.

Let‘s look you up, Abigail says, and she asks me to spell my name so that she can find me on her computer system. Your home‘s worth $300,000, and your first mortgage was for $220,000. Does that sound right?

I can‘t remember. All I can see is the night Henry and I danced through the house that was ours, our bare feet echoing on the wood floor.

The way it works, banks lend a portion of the equity of a home, around eighty percent. So that‘s $240,000. Then we subtract the amount of the first mortgage loan and

… She looks up from her calculator. You‘re talking about a $20,000 line of credit.

I stare at her. That‘s all?

In today‘s market, it‘s important for the client to have a vested interest in the house. Makes them less likely to default on the loan. She smiles at me. Why don‘t we fill in some of the other blanks here, Abigail says. Starting with your employer?

I‘ve read statistics that say references aren‘t checked more than fifty percent of the time, but surely a bank must fall in the other half. And once they call Tanya and realize I‘ve quit, they‘ll be wondering how I‘m going to pay
one
mortgage, much less
two.
Saying I am picking up the slack with self-employment won‘t help, either. I‘ve been a freelance editor long enough to know that, for institutions like banks and future employers,
self-employed
translates to nearly jobless but scraping by.