House Rules (40 page)

We are in Jess‘s dorm room watching a TV movie about the JonBenét Ramsey murder case,
which of course was one in which Dr. Henry Lee was involved. I tell Jess what is true and
what Hollywood has changed. She keeps checking her voice-mail messages, but there
aren‘t any. I am so excitedabout the movie that for a while I don‘t realize she is crying.

You‘re crying, I say, the obvious, and I don‘t get it because she didn‘t know JonBenét and
usually people who cry at someone‘s death knew them very well. I‘m just not very happy
today, I guess, Jess says, and she stands up. When she does, she makes a sound like a dog
that‘s been kicked. She has to stand on a chair to reach a high shelf where she keeps her
extra toilet paper and Ziploc bags and Kleenex. When she grabs the box of tissues, her
sweater rides up on the side and I can see them, red and purple and yellow like a tattoo, but
I‘ve watched enough CrimeBusters to know bruises when I see them.

What happened to you? I ask, and she tells me she fell down.

I‘ve watched enough CrimeBusters to know that‘s what girls always say when they
don‘t want you to know that someone is beating them up.

We ordered pizza, Mark says, the kind that Jacob can eat, without wheat in the crust.

While we were waiting for it, Jacob asked Jess out. Like on a date. It was hilarious, but when I laughed at him, she got pissed off at me. I didn‘t have to sit around and take that, so I left.

Even worse than Mark‘s stare, it turns out, is my mother‘s.

Did you talk to Jess at any point after that? Helen asks.

Yeah, on Monday. She called me and begged me to come over that night, and I did.

What was her state of mind?

She thought I was mad at her

Objection, Oliver says. Speculation.

The judge nods. Sustained.

Mark looks confused. What was her emotional state? Helen asks.

She was upset.

Did you continue to argue?

No, Mark says. We kissed and made up, if you get my drift.

So you spent the night?

Yes.

What happened on Tuesday morning?

We were having breakfast and we started to fight again.

About what? Helen Sharp asks.

I don‘t even remember. But I got really angry, and I … I sort of shoved her.

You mean your fight became physical?

Mark looks down at his hands. I didn‘t mean to. But we were yelling and I grabbed her and pushed her against the wall. I stopped right away, said I was sorry. She told me to leave, so I did. I only had my hands on her for a minute.

My head snaps up. I grab the pen in front of me and write so hard on the legal pad that it rips through the paper. HE IS LYING, I write, and I push the pad toward Oliver.

He glances at it, and writes: ?

BRUISES ON HER NECK.

Oliver rips off the piece of paper and tucks it into his pocket. Meanwhile, Mark covers his eyes, and his voice cracks. I called her all day long, to apologize again, and she wouldn‘t answer her phone. I figured she was ignoring me, and I deserved it, but by Wednesday morning I was getting worried. I went over to her place, figuring I could catch her before she went to class, but she wasn‘t there.

Did you notice anything unusual?

The door was open. I went in, and her coat was hanging up and her purse was on the table, but she didn‘t answer when I called. I looked all over for her, but she was gone.

There were clothes all over the bedroom, and the bed was messed up.

What did you think?

At first, I figured she might have left on a trip. But she would have told me that, and she had a test that day. I called her phone, but no one answered. I called her parents and her friends, and no one had seen her; and she hadn‘t told anyone she was leaving. That‘s when I went to the police.

What happened?

Detective Matson told me I couldn‘t file a missing person‘s report for thirty-six hours, but he came with me to Jess‘s place. I didn‘t get the sense he was taking me seriously, to be honest. Mark looks at the jury. I skipped class and stayed at the house, in case she came back. But she didn‘t. I was sitting in the living room when I realized that someone had organized all the CDs, and I told the police that, too.

When the police began a formal investigation, Helen Sharp asks, were you cooperative in giving them forensic samples?

I gave them my boots, Mark says.

The prosecutor turns around and looks at the jury. Mr. Maguire, how did you find out what had happened to Jess?

He sets his jaw. A couple of cops came to my apartment and arrested me. When Detective Matson was interrogating me, he told me Jess was … was dead.

Were you released from custody shortly thereafter?

Yes. When they arrested Jacob Hunt.

Mr. Maguire, did you have anything to do with Jess Ogilvy‘s death?

Absolutely not.

Do you know how she sustained a broken nose?

No, Mark says tightly.

Do you know how her tooth got knocked out?

No.

Do you know how she got abrasions on her back?

No.

Did you ever strike her in the face?

No. Mark‘s voice sounds like it is wrapped up in wool. He has been looking down at the floor, but when he lifts his face now, everyone can see how his eyes are wet, how he is swallowing hard. When I left her, he says, she looked like an angel.

As Helen Sharp finishes, Oliver stands up and buttons his suit jacket. Why do lawyers always do that? On
CrimeBusters,
the actors playing lawyers do it, too. Maybe it‘s so that they look professional. Or they need something to do with their hands.

Mr. Maguire, you just testified that you were actually arrested for the murder of Jess Ogilvy.

Yes, but they had the wrong guy.

Still … for a little while, anyway, the police believed you were involved, isn‘t that true?

I suppose.

You also testified that you grabbed Jess Ogilvy during your fight?

Yes.

Where?

On her arms. He touches his biceps muscle. Here.

You choked her, too, didn‘t you?

He goes beet red. No.

You are aware, Mr. Maguire, that the autopsy revealed bruises around Jess Ogilvy‘s neck, as well as on her upper arms?

Objection, the prosecutor says. Hearsay.

Sustained.

You are aware that you‘re testifying here today under oath?

Yes …

So let me ask you again if you choked Jess Ogilvy.

I didn‘t choke her! Mark argues. I just … put my hands on her neck. For a second!

While you were fighting?

Yes, Mark says.

Oliver raises his eyebrows. Nothing further, he says, and he sits back down beside me.

Me, I duck my head, and smile.

Theo

I was nine when my mother made me go to a therapy group for siblings of autistic kids.

There were only four of us two girls with faces that looked like ground over a sinkhole, who had a baby sister who apparently never stopped screaming; a boy whose twin was severely autistic; and me. We all had to go around a circle and say one thing we loved about our sibling, and one thing we really hated.

The girls went first. They said they hated the way the baby kept them up all night, but they liked the fact that her first word had not been Mama or Dada but instead Sissy. Then I went.

I said that I hated when Jacob took my stuff without asking and how it was okay for him to interrupt me to give some dinosaur fact nobody cared about but that if I interrupted him he‘d get really angry and have a meltdown. I liked the way he said things, sometimes, that were hilarious even though they weren‘t meant to be like when a camp counselor told him swimming would be a piece of cake and he freaked out because he thought he‘d have to eat underwater and surely would drown. Then it was the other boy‘s turn. But before he could speak the door burst open and his twin brother ran inside and sat down on his lap.

The kid reeked and I mean
reeked.
All of a sudden their mom poked her head into the room. I‘m so sorry, she said. Harry doesn‘t like anyone but Stephen to change his diaper.

Sucks to be Stephen,
I thought. But instead of getting totally embarrassed, like I would have been, or pissed off, like I also would have been, Stephen just laughed and hugged his brother. Let‘s go, he said, and he held his twin‘s hand and led him out of the room.

We did other stuff that day with the therapist, but I wasn‘t concentrating. I couldn‘t get out of my head the image of nine-year-old Harry wearing a giant diaper, of Stephen cleaning up the messes. There was one more thing I liked about my own sibling with autism: he was potty-trained.

At our lunch break, I found myself gravitating toward Stephen. He was sitting by himself, eating apple slices from a plastic bag.

Hey, I said, climbing into the seat next to him.

Hey.

I opened the straw of my juice pack and poked it into the cardboard box. I stared out the window, trying to figure out what he was looking at.

So how do you do it? I asked, after a minute.

He didn‘t pretend to misunderstand. He picked an apple slice out of the bag, chewed it, swallowed. It could have been me, he said.

Mama Spatakopoulous can‘t fit into the witness chair. She has to push and wedge, and finally the judge asks the bailiff to get a seat that might be more comfortable. If it were me up there, I‘d want to hide under the stupid chair in embarrassment, but she seems to be perfectly happy. Maybe she thinks it‘s a testimonial to how good her food is.

Mrs. Spatakopoulous, where do you work? asks the Dragon Bitch, a.k.a. Helen Sharp.

Call me Mama.

The prosecutor looks at the judge, who shrugs. Mama, then. Where do you work?

I own Mama S‘s Pizzeria, on Main Street in Townsend.

How long have you run the restaurant?

Fifteen years this June. Best pizza in Vermont. You come by, I‘ll give you a free sample.

That‘s very generous of you … Mama, were you working the afternoon of January tenth, 2010?

I work every afternoon, she says proudly.

Did you know Jess Ogilvy?

Yes, she was a regular. Good girl, with a good head on her shoulders. Helped me salt the walkway once after an ice storm because she didn‘t want me to throw my back out.

Did you speak to her on January tenth?

I waved to her when she came in, but it was a madhouse.

Was she alone?

No, she came with her boyfriend, and the kid she tutored.

Do you see that kid in the courtroom today?

Mama S. blows my brother a kiss.

Had you ever seen Jacob before January tenth?

Once or twice, he came in with his mama to get pizza. Got celiac problems, like my father, God rest his soul.

Did you talk to Jacob Hunt that afternoon? the prosecutor asks.

Yes. By the time I brought the pizzas they had ordered, he was sitting alone at the table.

Do you know why Jacob Hunt was sitting alone? Helen Sharp asks.

Well, they were all fighting. The boyfriend was angry at Jacob, Jess was angry at the boyfriend for being angry at Jacob, and then the boyfriend left. She shakes her head.

Then Jess got angry at Jacob, and
she
left.

Did you hear what they were fighting about?

I had eighteen take-out orders to fill; I wasn‘t listening. The only thing I heard was what Jess said, before she left.

Which was what, Mama S.?

The woman purses her lips. She told him to get lost.

The prosecutor sits back down, and then it is Oliver‘s turn. I don‘t watch cop shows.

I don‘t really watch anything, unless it‘s
CrimeBusters,
since Jacob hogs the TV. But being in court is kind of like watching a basketball game one side scores, and then the other takes the ball back and scores, and this goes on and on. And just like basketball, I bet it all comes down to the last five minutes.

So you really don‘t know what the argument was about, Oliver says.

No. She leans forward. Oliver, you look very handsome in your fancy suit.

He smiles, but it looks a little painful. Thanks, Mama. So, you were in fact paying attention to your customers.

I‘ve got to make a living, don‘t I? she says, and then she shakes her head. You‘re losing weight, I think. You‘ve been eating out too much. Constantine and I are both worried about you …

Mama, I kind of need to get through this? he whispers.

Oh. All right. She turns to the jury. I didn‘t hear the argument.

You were behind the counter?

Yes.

Near the ovens.

Yes.

And there were other people working around you?

Three, that day.

And there was noise?

The phone, and the pinball, and the jukebox were all going.

So you‘re not really sure what upset Jess in the first place?

No.

Oliver nods. When Jacob was sitting alone, did you talk to him?

I tried. He wasn‘t big on conversation.

Did he ever make eye contact with you?

No.

Did he do anything threatening?

Mama S. shakes her head. No, he‘s a good boy. I just left him alone, she says. It seemed to be what he wanted.

My whole life, Jacob‘s wanted to be part of the group. This is one of the reasons why I never brought friends home. My mother would have insisted we include Jacob, and frankly, that would have pretty much guaranteed the end of the friendship for me. (The other reason is I was embarrassed. I didn‘t want anyone to know what my household was like; I didn‘t want to have to explain Jacob‘s antics, because even though my mother insisted they were just quirks of his, to the rest of the free world, they looked freaking ridiculous.) Every now and then, though, Jacob managed to infiltrate my separate life, which was even worse. It was the social equivalent of when I once built a house of cards using all fifty-two of them and Jacob thought it would be funny to poke it with his fork.

In elementary school I was a total social outcast because of Jacob, but when we got to middle school, there were people from other towns who didn‘t know about my brother with Asperger‘s. Through some miracle I managed to become friends with two guys named Tyler and Wally, who lived in South Burlington and played Ultimate Frisbee. They invited me to play after school, and when I told them sure and didn‘t have to even call my mom to check if it was okay, that only made me seem cooler. I didn‘t explain that the reason I didn‘t have to call was because I spent as much time away from my house as possible, that my mother was used to me not coming home until it got dark out and, half the time, probably didn‘t even notice I was gone.

It was, and I am not just saying this, the best day of my life. We were flinging the Frisbee around the softball field, and a few girls who had stayed after for field hockey practice came to watch in their short skirts, with the sun all caught up in their hair. I jumped extra high, showing off, and when I worked up a sweat, one of the girls let me have a drink from her water bottle. I got to put my mouth where hers had been a minute before, which was practically like kissing her, if you want to get technical.

And then Jacob showed up.

I don‘t know what he was doing there apparently it had to do with some kind of testing that was being administered at my school instead of his, and he was waiting with his aide for my mother to come pick him up. But the minute he saw me and called out my name, I knew I was screwed. At first I pretended I didn‘t hear him, but he ran right onto the field. Friend of yours, Hunt? Tyler asked, and I just laughed it off. I whipped the Frisbee in his direction, extra hard.

To my surprise, Jacob who couldn‘t catch a freaking
cold
if he tried nabbed the Frisbee and started to run with it. I froze, but Tyler took off after him. Hey, retard, he yelled at Jacob. I‘m gonna kick your ass!

He was faster than Jacob, big surprise, and he tackled my brother to the ground. He lifted his hand to deck Jacob, but by then I was on his back, yanking him off and straddling his body as the Frisbee went spinning into the street. You don‘t fucking touch him, I yelled into Tyler‘s face. If anyone‘s going to beat up my brother, it‘s going to be me.

I left him in the dirt, coughing, and then took Jacob‘s hand and walked him to the front of the school, where I couldn‘t hear the girls whispering about me and my dork of a brother, where there were enough teachers milling around to keep Tyler and Wally from jumping me in revenge.