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3 Lives in Jury
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This novel, 3 Lives in Jury, is delivered, a chapter or two, every Thursday.
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For The Underworld Vents, which includes short stories and bonus material related to 3 Lives in Jury, go here:
The Underworld Vents
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The sauce is broken, the wheels have come off
Chapter 18
MUD VALLEY THREE TO APPEAR IN YOUTH COURT.
JURY — Three Jury youths charged with the murder of Lawrence Reams pleaded not guilty in youth court in Gold Rush today. The three were released into the custody of their legal guardians.
The identities of the three cannot be published under provisions of the Young Offenders Act. The youths are charged with the murder of Reams while hiking in Mud Valley, a remote area west of Jury.
Details of the alleged murder have circulated in the media and online for months. Previously, the three publicly claimed self-defence in the alleged attack.
The three youths, two males aged 17 and 15 at the time of the incident, and one female aged 15 at the time, are to be tried together before judge alone. The trial is slated to begin Aug. 22.
If the accused are found guilty, the judge can sentence them as youths or as adults. Youth sentencing provides for shorter jail times and has shorter maximum allowable sentences than adult sentencing.
“This guy Reams, I don’t even know what we’re supposed to do. People will run us out of town for even talking about it.” Matt had been preaching from the altar of scotch-neat and the sermon tumbled out freely over the dinner party.
“I believe in proper respect for the dead and sticking to the rules and all that, but the public is acting like Lawrence Reams is Jesus.”
The Almas had invited a few friends to the house to share in Whit’s birthday cake and following the meal, they gathered in the living room. Matt sat in a brown armchair next to the fireplace while Wanda sat beside him on a chair she had moved in from the kitchen.
Samay Singh and his wife Alani, who lived next door, relaxed across from the Almas. A button in the middle of Samay’s shirt was undone, exposing the pink bulging stomach and a thick swirl of black hair. Alani fussed with the button, trying to close it, ignoring Samay’s brushing for her to stop.
Beside them on the four-cushion sofa, two more neighbours, Helmet and Olga Gross, sipped coffee from wide-mouthed porcelain latte cups, with a serving cart in front of them that held saucers on which to set their drinks.
Wanda jiggled Matt’s leg. “Be careful, honey.”
“Careful about what?” Matt pulled back in an imitation of surprise. “We’re just talking. There’s nothing wrong with talking about it. We’re all friends.”
Wanda nodded. She wished Matt would steer clear of talking about Whit and Lucy’s trial, but liquor boosted his defiance at the court-mandated publication ban. Not that Matt was wildly spreading his version of the truth like so many were doing online, but the Almas had been cautioned by their lawyer, who advised them that families and close friends of the three accused should not discuss details of the case.
“Besides, dammit,” Matt carried on, “the kids' lives are stake. The truth is Lawrence Reams is a degenerate hillbilly, who came after our kids. I’ve heard the guy has a closet full of skeletons.”
Samay perked up. “Like what?”
Matt nodded. “OK, for starters, I’ve read some old news stories from when Reams was a scoutmaster. This was like 15 years ago. He had five, six complaints from parents after kids were hurt. A couple of them got frostbite after Reams forced them to do push-ups in the snow as a punishment. Another time, Reams supposedly broke a kid’s hand; smacked him with a baseball bat when he caught him smoking.
“The temper on that guy, wow,” Matt went on. “His neighbours, schoolteachers, members of the gun club he goes to, they’ve all seen it.”
“Nobody is a saint, is all we’re saying,” Wanda chimed in. “Our lawyer says we have to be careful about victim blaming because it will turn people against our kids, but Reams honestly sounds like an animal.” She raised her hands, palms outward. “I’m just saying.”
Samay heard the innuendo before. It was talked about and trodden over many times around Jury that Reams wasn’t the innocent bystander some claimed. But even if he were an asshole, did he deserve a killing? No, he didn’t, Samay thought, but neither did Whit, Lucy and Frank.
Samay believed what the kids believed, their lives tipped near to the edge of a cliff that night. His allegiance lie with his friends, his neighbours (he considered Lucy to be an honorary Alma family member), and the community of Jury. Reams came from somewhere else.
Alani spoke what he was thinking. “Our justice system is out of control. The truth doesn’t matter, not one little bit. They want to pack all the good people off to jail; whoosh, whoosh. All they care about is finding someone to blame, whether it is right or not.”
Petra and Frank Kappens listened from chairs placed in front of the window. Frank was abnormally quiet this evening. He barely spoke a word and declined the invitation after supper to relax downstairs in the rec room where Lucy and Whit chatted in front of the TV.
He wasn’t exactly avoiding Lucy because they’d had sex that night he showed up drunk. He just didn’t know what to say. “Hi ya,” seemed lame. A kiss on the cheek or a handshake were clearly out. He wondered if was supposed to ask her out.
He remembered almost nothing about it, a great deal of fumbling and unzipping, a lot of rubbing and, bam, it was all over.
He felt it must have been incredible because he’d long been enthralled by Lucy. If he wasn’t moving to Frontier, he wouldn’t mind trying that a few more times. But he was moving, and it left him in an awkward place. Frank didn’t mind being called a guy who dined and dashed, one who never called the girl the morning after, but this was Lucy fucking Kloot. A lot of his Grade 12 friends would have given 10 years of their lives to be where he was.
Frank’s romantic illiteracy, his clumsiness over how to deal with Lucy, wasn’t the only issue he was avoiding. Frank was embarrassed by his pathetic prom-night escapades, at being ditched by his entire class and he wanted to bury it, not remind Whit and Lucy about that night.
His classmates denied the ditching, saying somebody suggested at the last minute to party at Trapper’s Lake and no one thought to text Frank. But that didn’t reduce the sting.
“The saddest part is nobody comes out of this a winner,” Petra said. “A man is dead and three kids are being dragged through hell. Their futures could be destroyed because of this. It’s a tragedy for all sides.”
“Here, here.” Matt reached across and clinked her glass with his. “Did I hear something about trouble at your office?”
Petra sighed. So that was all over town, too. “A couple of broken windows. Just stupid kids. It’s nothing I can’t handle.”
“Do you think it’s because of the case?” Wanda asked.
“Why else? We’ve had no trouble before. A lot of clients are cancelling appointments, too, but what are you going to do? I can’t force people to come for counselling.”
Helmut placed his cup down onto the serving cart. “These people, the long-timers, all they care about is their shiny cars. They won’t lift a finger to help you.”
“You got that right,” said Olga. “They act like we’re supposed to be grateful that they share the streets with us.”
“Present company excluded, of course,” Helmut interjected. “The Almas have been only generous.”
Alani cleared her throat. “We’ve got stories, I tell you. We got here eight years ago and the only people who ever helped us are in this room. I tell you that first year, when we were flooded out and water was coming into our home and into our machines and putting all our trees under water, nobody lifted a finger, but you and you.” She pointed to the Almas and Grosses.
“You didn’t live here then,” she nodded to Petra and Frank. “But let me tell you, people were awful. For years, we fought off the thieves every night. They’d break into our sheds. They broke into our home twice while when we were out. We couldn’t leave for anything. We had to stand guard.
“We caught the Kane boy trying to sell tires he’d stolen from our shed and the police said there was nothing they could do. We paid more than $1,000 each for those tires. Maisie Kane and that fat husband of hers, Artie, said their boy bought those tires himself from a salvage yard and was trying to earn a fair dollar. That is a lie, I tell you that right now. Those tires were marked and you could see the marks. The boy tried to wash off our initials, but the letters “SS” were clear. The police said the letters were too faint to read and could mean anything. Bah,” she threw her hands up, “they look after their own.”
She gave a final dismissive two-handed push into the air and slouched. “There, I am done. I’ve said my piece.”
Whit listened from the kitchen. He had come upstairs for cake refills, happy because he’d passed his driver’s test that morning. When you’re 16 and in Jury, a car meant freedom.
When the small party broke up, Whit stood beside the door as the guests filed out, and stopped Frank as he passed.
“Frank, are you OK?”
“Sure, I’m fine,” Frank said.
Whit tilted his head and gave Frank a quizzical look. He noticed Frank was acting weird and evasive; weirder than normal.
“I’m fine, really,” Frank repeated. “I’m just beat, you know?”
Whit nodded. “I just got my licence today and I got the go-ahead to take my mom’s car for a quick spin to the school and back. You in?”
Frank laughed at the absurdity that Whit thought he’d want to take a two-kilometre joyride down a road he travelled almost every morning.
“No, you go ahead,” he said, his spittle splatting Whit’s face. “Make sure you pack an overnight bag and safety supplies, you can never be too careful.”
“Fuck you, make fun.” Whit pushed him out the door. “Goodnight asshole.”
“Night.” Frank disappeared in his mom’s car, and it drove off.
“Ready?” Whit asked Lucy the moment the last guest car was out of sight. He convinced Wanda to let him take the car, despite being under court orders to remain on the property unless accompanied by his parents. The court agreed to let Matt and Wanda act as Lucy’s guardians, too, and she was bound by the same rules. Lucky for both of them, Wanda had more than a couple glasses of wine when she agreed to their plan.
They jumped into the Rav4 and drove off down the driveway before Wanda could change their mind.
“Whit?” Lucy said as soon as Whit pulled away from the house. “I need to ask you for a favour. Actually, it’s the granddaddy of all favours.”
“What?”
“OK,” Lucy bit her bottom lip. “But you can’t get mad.”
Wow. That set off Whit’s radar. “What do you want?” he said.
“First, you have to promise.” She didn’t really care about the promise but she didn’t know how else to begin.
“OK, I promise.” Whit turned the car onto the road and headed toward Victoria Secondary School.
She scanned the scenery out the side window and let silence settle between them.
Finally, she blurted: “I need a ride to Gold Rush tomorrow. You can drive me and we can be back by lunch. Matt and Wanda won’t even know we’re gone.”
“We can’t leave the property, Lucy. You know the court order.”
“Whit, you’re so,” she shook her head, “straight. They won’t throw us in jail for something like this. They think we’re children. If they catch us, we’ll say ‘oops’ and everybody will move on.”
“Yeah, but we can’t just leave and not tell anybody. What do you need that’s so important?”
“I got to go get an abortion.”
Whit, stunned, overshot the school without realizing it and drove a block farther before he pulled the car to the side of the road. “An abortion? You’re fucking pregnant?”
She nodded. “Doctor said I’m about four weeks along.”
“Jesus, Lucy, your timing sucks. In the middle of this shit, now we have to deal with an abortion, too.”
She laughed in his face. “There’s no we. Are we supposed to be a team now or something? You have nothing to do with this, Whit. I need you to drop me off for a medical appointment, that’s all.”
Ouch, Whit thought. “Fine,” he snapped, “since you asked so nicely, I’ll do whatever you need.”
He caught himself and paused. She was behaving like a twat but his sarcasm wasn’t helping. He regretted his tone. She must be feeling bad enough without him piling on.
Then he asked, “Who is the father?”
Lucy hesitated, unsure if telling him was wise. Fuck it, here goes, she thought.
“Frank.”
“What? Frank? As in Frank Kappens? Little sweaty, smelly Frank?”
“Fuck you.”
“What do you mean Fuck me? I didn’t do anything. I’m just asking.”
“I’m just asking,” she mimicked. “Fuck you. You’re not asking. You're being judgmental.”
“How am I judgmental by asking who the father is? Isn’t that the standard question for situations like this? Pardon me if it’s not, but this is my first time.”
Lucy put her feet up on the dashboard and kicked the windshield. “I’m not proud of it. Keep it quiet, OK.”
“Yeah, yeah, of course,” said Whit. “But Frank, really?
“Fuck you.” She dug around on the console between them for something to throw. Finding nothing, she took off a flip-flop and flung it at him.
Whit covered up, leaned toward the driver’s door and braced for the next object Lucy would throw. “Sorry, sorry.”
After a few moments, he muttered, “but honestly, how did that even happen? Do you even like the guy?”
“That’s none of your business.”
Whit raised his hands. “You’re right. It’s not my business. But you have to admit, it’s weird. I don’t know what I’m supposed to do with that information.
“You’re not supposed to do anything but give me a ride.”
“Yes, fine. I said I’d give you a ride. But I can’t just pretend we’re going for groceries. I just don’t get it. I mean, it’s fucking Frank, for God’s sake.”
“It’s Frank, for God’s sake,” she mimicked again. “Shut up. I feel horrible enough as it is. There is nothing good about this. I feel, fucking awful.” She started to sob.
Whit reached over the console and pulled her toward him. He felt knots in the pit of his stomach. She must feel 100 times worse, he thought.
“That night after graduation,” she breathed into his ear as her head rested on his shoulder. “When he came over all sad and drunk because his friends ditched him. I felt sorry for him. After you went up to bed, he woke up and we had a couple more drinks. He started to cry. I took him into my room. He didn’t ask.”
“Does he know?”
“That I’m pregnant? Oh, fuck no,” she pulled away to her side of the car. “And you can never tell him. He can’t know, ever.”
Whit nodded. “They might ask who the father is at the clinic.”
Lucy thought about this. “No way. They can’t, can they? If they do, you can just say you’re the father. Will you?”
Whit nodded again. “But they probably won’t ask. But what about mom?” he said. “She’s a nurse. She can help and it is the kind of thing she lives for.”
“Don’t tell her. She’ll make a huge fuss and I’ll have to explain everything and who knows what will happen then. What if she wants to tell Frank?”
“OK, OK, but still, we still can’t just disappear for the morning. Somebody is bound to notice.”
“Who? Wanda works in Gold Rush every Monday and your dad always takes her because he’s gone back to working from his office. We can take her car and be back before anyone has a clue.”
“And after? Do you intend to carry on as normal, like nothing happened?”
“That’s the plan.”
“There’s no drugs or follow-up care needed?”
Lucy scratched her head. “How about this? We’ll deal with that bridge when it’s burning. If we need to tell Wanda later, we deal with it then. But at least it will be done and over and there’ll be no questions about whether I should get it done, or if I should tell Frank.”
“Fuck,” Whit said.
“Yeah, Fuck,” said Lucy. “Look, think of it as an errand because that’s all it is. It could be anything. You’re just dropping me off for an appointment.”