“No, I started, like, crying.” Jason kept his head down, his lower lip trembling. “I was trying not to, but I couldn’t help it and then they started laughing harder, so then I dropped my tray and I shoved Richie, and he shoved me back.” Jason wiped his eyes with the palm of his hand. “Next thing I knew, I was on the ground and he was on top of me, and they called the police.”
“Did you tell the cops?”
“No.”
“The judge?”
“No, I was too scared. The courtroom was so big it looked like a castle!” Jason’s glistening eyes went wide again, this time with fear. “And the judge was sitting on this big tall desk, way up high like a king, and he started yelling right away. He came to our assembly last year, he goes to all the schools and he tells them, if you make trouble or break the rules, I’m going to put you in juvie.”
Bennie wasn’t completely surprised to hear that the judge had spoken at school, because the judiciary in Pennsylvania were elected instead of being chosen by merit selection. One of the unfortunate results of the antiquated system was that judges frequently spoke at schools, Rotary Clubs, and even farm shows, pandering like common politicians, instead of guardians of the law.
“Yeah, and then they just put me in handcuffs and they even put them around my legs.”
Bennie still couldn’t wrap her mind around putting shackles on a seventh grader. In the Philadelphia criminal system, shackles weren’t even used for accused murderers anymore.
“I felt like I was going into a dungeon.”
Bennie didn’t interrupt him, but from the looks of the detention center, a dungeon would’ve been an upgrade.
“I couldn’t even walk, and I felt so bad. They got me out and I didn’t even get to say good-bye to my dad. He musta been embarrassed in front of his boss. All the people from his work, they came to my mom’s funeral…” Jason’s voice trailed off and he bit his lip. “I feel like I’m a bad kid, now.”
“No, you’re a good kid—”
“But I’m in jail. They lock us in our rooms, and the other kids in here, they’re bad kids. And they’re big, they’re all bigger than me. I’m the youngest. Even Richie is older than me.”
“Richie is here, too?” Bennie questioned the wisdom of sending a bully to the same detention center as his victim. With adult offenders, she could have asked for a separation order, requesting a court to assign them to two different prisons.
“Yes, he’s on my hall.”
“Is he giving you a hard time?”
“Yes.” Jason shook his head, still facing down.
Bennie felt her blood boil. “Stay away from him. Try to avoid him, as best you can.”
“I’m going to be here, like, forever. I’m gonna miss Christmas.” Jason bit his lower lip hard, but it trembled nevertheless.
“I’m going to try my hardest to see what I can do about that. I’ll be here tomorrow to talk to you and tell you what’s going on.”
“Okay. Thanks.”
“Good, you hang in here.” Bennie collected her pen and legal pad, and slid them back into her messenger bag. “You’re not too old a kid for me to hug, are you?”
“I guess not,” Jason answered, with a shaky smile. He got to his feet, and Bennie went over and gave him a hug, though she couldn’t remember the last time she’d hugged a child. She couldn’t deny a surprisingly maternal twinge she felt, especially when she realized that Jason was clinging to her, longer than necessary.
“You’re gonna be okay, buddy,” Bennie said softly.
Praying she was right.
CHAPTER SEVEN
Bennie drove along, the case weighing on her mind and heart. She hated seeing Jason in juvie and when she’d dropped Matthew off, she tried to reassure him without raising his hopes—or her own. Meanwhile, the snow was falling too hard for her windshield wipers to keep up. The radio was full of storm predictions, but she had one last thing to do. She stopped the car and cut the ignition in front of the house.
GRUSINI, read reflective letters stuck on the black mailbox. Matthew had given her the address, which was in Slocum Township, adjoining Rice Township to the west, but even more rural. Bennie grabbed her purse, got out of the car, and hurried through the snow to a narrow house of white clapboard. The porch ceiling sagged, and the glass housing of the fixture beside the door was missing, exposing its bare bulb and illuminated peeling paint of the façade. Saran Wrap had been duct-taped over the front window, but lights were on inside, coming through sheer curtains.
Bennie climbed onto the porch and pressed the doorbell, but didn’t hear it ring, so it must have been broken. She opened the screen door and knocked hard, and after a moment or two, the front door was answered by a woman with short, dark brown hair and a weary smile.
“Yes?” she said loudly, to be heard over the background noise of children. She had a pretty, if lined face, with lively dark eyes, a strong, hawkish nose, and a broad mouth, and she was wiping her hands on a white sack dish towel. Her petite frame seemed lost in an oversized blue Nittany Lions sweatshirt, with jeans.
“Doreen Grusini? I’m Bennie Rosato, and I’m wondering if I could come in and talk—”
“No, I’m busy.” Doreen cut her off with a hand chop, holding the dish towel. “I’m fine with my religion and I gotta bake cookies for my son’s school. Thanks for stopping by.”
“Doreen, I’m a lawyer, and I’m here about what happened with your son Richie and Jason Lefkavick.” Bennie fished in her wallet for her business card and handed it over. “I represent Jason, but the way I see it, the boys are in the same boat. Neither of them belongs in juvenile detention for a school fight.”
“Hmph.” Doreen arched an eyebrow, squinting to read the card in the light from the porch fixture, then looked up scowling. “You’ve got some nerve! Jason started it, you know. He shoved Richie for no reason.”
“I’m not here to argue with you, I’m hoping we can help the kids.”
“I don’t need your help. My son wouldn’t be in jail but for your client!”
“I’ll just take fifteen minutes of your time—”
“I don’t have fifteen minutes and I don’t know what the point is.”
“It’s just to talk about the boys, and see if we can figure out a way to—”
“Oh, I get it, you’re looking for me to hire you, but I have news. There’s no way in the world that’s happening.” Doreen started to close the door.
“No, not at all, please.” Bennie stopped the door from closing. “The boys aren’t against each other anymore, they’re both against the prosecutor. Please, I’ll take five minutes. Five minutes.”
“What kinda name is Bennie?” Doreen frowned.
“Short for Benedetta.”
“You’re Italian?”
“Through and through.” Bennie could pander if it would help Jason.
“My ex was Italian, and I hate him.”
Arg. “This is about your son, not your ex.”
“Well, all right then.” Doreen pocketed the card and opened the door. “Come in, you’re letting in cold air.”
“Thank you, so much.” Bennie stepped inside the small house, looking around as Doreen closed the door behind them.
The children weren’t in sight, but their noise reverberated through the walls. The living room was to the left and the kitchen to the right, the same layout as the Lefkavicks’, but the two interiors couldn’t have been more different; while the Lefkavick home was neat and orderly, albeit empty-feeling, the Grusinis’ was vaguely chaotic, cluttered with children’s toys, clothes, and games. The living room was stuffed with worn plaid furniture, but DVDs and video games lay open all over the brown rug next to joystick controllers, and ice-hockey sticks sat against the wall, with a pile of ice skates, black gloves, and helmets.
“Mommeeeee!” a child yelled, from upstairs. “He’s hitting me! He’s hitting me!”
“Don’t make me come up there!” Doreen yelled toward the stairwell, and Bennie fol
lowed her into a toasty kitchen with sunny yellow walls. It was shaped like a cozy U, which ended in a rectangular wooden table on which a small TV played Third Watch. Shiny cookie sheets sat next to a large mixing bowl on the table, and the aroma of baking sugar cookies made her mouth water.
“Smells great,” Bennie said, to show she came in peace.
“I suppose you want a cup of coffee?”
“No, I’m fine, thanks. I just had some.”
Doreen cocked her head. “You’re from Philly.”
“Does it show?”
“Like you’re wearing a sign. South Philly?”
“No, west.”
“Does that make a difference?”
“Believe it or not, all the difference in the world.”
Doreen smiled, seeming to warm up. “Okay, well, sit down. Oh, wait!” Her smile disappeared as she picked a blue backpack off the chair, then dropped it on the tile floor. “I tell them not to leave their crap on the chairs, but do they listen? Here, sit.”
Bennie sat down.
“You’re going to have to talk while I bake the cookies, because if I stop, I’ll never get the twins bathed and in bed.”
“That’s fine. Can I help?”
“No, thanks.” Doreen was already stabbing the cookie dough with a teaspoon and dropping it onto the cookie sheet. “I’m no Martha Stewart. They’re holiday cookies because I say they’re holiday cookies. They’re not red, they’re not green. They’re not shaped like reindeer, Santa, or any of that happy horseshit, but they taste good.”
“That’s all that matters.”
“Right. Kids don’t know the difference. If it’s sugar, they eat it.”
Bennie hadn’t expected to like Doreen, but she was beginning to. “You got your hands full.”
“That’s one way to put it. I hate the holidays. You know why? Whatever you have going on, there’s just more of it at the holidays. You have to buy more food. You have to do more errands. You have to buy more presents. If you bake, you have to bake more. If the kids are busy in school, they’re more busy. Every single thing is more.” Doreen paused as more yelling came from upstairs, then she resumed making the cookies. “I worry when they’re quiet. If they’re loud, they’re alive.”
“So I guess Richie has siblings?”
“Two brothers, six-year-old twins.” Doreen dropped another ball of batter onto the sheet, making a neat row, and Bennie was getting the sense that Richie wasn’t uppermost on Doreen’s mind.
“So about Richie. Were you there, at the courthouse?”
“Yes, it was ridiculous.”
“I heard they put them in shackles.”
“Right, ridiculous,” Doreen said again.
“I just came from River Street. It’s horrible to think of them being there. They’re too young for an out-of-home placement, in any event. Were you considering getting a lawyer? I’m going to file a petition on Jason’s behalf, and if you do the same thing, that makes our position much stronger.”
“How? Jason’s a nerd. They butt heads all the time. They’re not friends.”
“It doesn’t matter, at this point. They’re both in the same situation vis-à-vis the Commonwealth.” Bennie caught herself speaking legalese. “They have a common enemy now. The system.”
“Hold on, let me see if the first batch is done.” Doreen stuck the spoon in the batter, crossed into the kitchen, and grabbed a quilted pot holder in one hand while she opened the oven door with the other. She squatted, eyeing the cookies, and the light from the oven illuminated her strong, if pretty, profile. She closed the oven door, stood up, and tossed the pot holder back on the counter. “This is what I hate about making cookies. You take them out too soon, they’re gummy, but if you leave them in another minute, they burn.” Doreen came back to the table and picked up the spoon. “So you were saying…”
“I was curious what you’re going to do about Richie. I think his and Jason’s civil rights were infringed, their constitutional rights. Did Richie have a lawyer? They have a right to counsel.”
“No, they told us we didn’t need one.” Doreen dropped another cookie on the sheet.
“They were wrong.”
“How would I know? I’m a hockey mom, not a lawyer.”
“Did you sign a waiver form?”
“Yes, it’s around here somewhere.” Doreen dropped another cookie, finishing another row.
“So, about Richie, what sentence did he get?”
“Sixty days.”
“Jason got ninety.”
“Told you, he started it.”
Bennie let it go. “Did the judge know that? Did you get a chance to present Richie’s side of the story?”
“Are you kidding? No way. We were in and out of the courtroom in five minutes. The judge gave Richie a lecture, then sentenced him to River Street.” Doreen frowned as she scooped out some cookie dough. “I don’t even know how the judge knew about the fight, I guess from the probation lady. We told her that Jason started the fight. He pushed Richie and he should’ve known better. My son’s not going to take that crap and he’s twice Jason’s size.”
Bennie couldn’t let it stand uncorrected. “You know, it’s true that Jason pushed Richie first, but Richie was teasing him, saying his mother was fat and that’s why she died.”
Doreen looked up sharply. “Is that true?” she asked, her lips set in a firm line.
“Yes.”
“How do you know?” Doreen forgot about the cookies for a moment, resting the spoon on the edge of the bowl.
“Jason told me. He owned up to pushing Richie, but that’s tough for a kid to deal with, the death of a mother. He started crying and just lashed out.”
“Christ!” Doreen spat out, disgusted. “I’m sorry about that. That’s horrible, that’s really horrible. Richie didn’t tell me. Tell Jason’s father, I’m very sorry about that.”
“Thank you, and I will tell him that. He’s grieving, too, they both are. You can imagine.”
“Of course I can.” Doreen picked up the spoon and scooped out the cookie dough, practically throwing it at the cookie sheet, like paintball. “You know, Jason’s mom, Lorraine, was a sweetheart, always at the school, helping out. I never do that crap, I don’t have the time, but she was the one, making the phone calls, running the canned-goods collections, doing the bake sale, whatever it was, she did it.”
Bennie had no idea how many extra things mothers did these days. Or maybe they did them in the old days, too, but her own mother had opted out, because of her illness.
“Poor woman, so what, she was fat, but you gotta die of something. I just quit smoking, I got the patch, but it’ll kill me in the end, if my kids don’t.” Doreen kept throwing cookie dough at the sheet. “I swear, I don’t know what to do with Richie, I just don’t. He’s angry, we never know what mood he’s gonna be in when he comes home. Last week I had to break up a fight with one of the twins. I swear, I thought Richie was going to choke him.”
Bennie tried not to act as shocked as she felt.
“They say ‘boys will be boys,’ but this is way beyond that, and the thing I worry about, besides when he beats up on his brothers, is when they start acting like him. If they grow up thinking they should be like him, then they’ll start bullying everybody, even me.”
“That sounds tough.” Bennie felt for her. “I’m not a mother, I don’t know what I would do in that situation.”
“You know what?” Doreen looked up from the cookies, her dark eyes flashing. “You wouldn’t do anything, because there’s nothing you can do. When Richie was little, I could punish him, I could make him take a time-out. I could take stuff away from him. Or I could beat his butt with the belt. But now, he’s way bigger than I am. He pushes me back. He doesn’t listen to a frigging thing I say!” Doreen threw up her hands, still holding the spoon. “He’s mad because his father left, so am I! Welcome to the club, kid! You think I wanted to be on my own with three kids? Or what else, he’s a bad seed, he gets it from h
is father, that’s possible, too! What am I, Dr. Phil? I don’t know what to do with him! And to be honest, sometimes I can’t stand him.”
Bennie fell silent, and for a moment the only sound was the children upstairs, but Doreen seemed not to notice, gesturing at the front door with the spoon.
“And when I hear him out there, his footsteps on the porch, I tense up. The twins do, too.” Doreen’s dark eyes blazed as she gazed down at Bennie. “It’s the truth, the absolute truth. I’m on eggshells. I thought of sending him to military school, but now he gets arrested, he’s a juvenile delinquent!”
Bennie could see how much Doreen loved her son, but at the same time how deeply she was troubled by him.
“Here’s the silver lining, maybe they can turn him around at River Street, scare him straight. Maybe he’ll listen to them because he sure as hell won’t listen to me!”
“MOMMMEEEE, OWWWW!” yelled one of the kids upstairs, his cry unmistakably urgent.
“Oh no!” Doreen dropped the spoon, turned away, and hustled for the stairwell. “Sorry, you’d better go!”
CHAPTER EIGHT
Bennie headed back to Wilkes-Barre toward the hotel, more determined than ever to get justice for Jason, since he’d been so clearly victimized by Richie, a boy troubled enough to victimize even his own family. She followed the street around a curve and spotted a lighted sign for Larry’s Beef ’n Brew, a long rectangular building of pine paneling plastered with white plastic banners advertising Miller Lite, Yuengling Beer, and the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series Schedule. Bennie realized she hadn’t eaten dinner and doubted the hotel would have room service this late, so she pulled in.
She cut the engine, grabbed her purse, and got out of the car, hustling into the building through the snow. She yanked open the door, and the men at the bar turned to see who’d come in, every expression telegraphing: YOU’RE NOT FROM HERE, AND WE SUSPECT YOU HAVE OVARIES.
Bennie smiled back politely, deciding where to sit. The place was a medium-sized room, dimly lit by recessed lighting in a dropped-tile ceiling. Beer bottle caps the size of hubcaps shared the paneled walls with mounted deer antlers, photographs of the Rat Pack, and sketches of Frank Sinatra that looked hand-drawn. The kitchen was at the back, there were a few tables on the right and a U-shaped bar with a TV on the left, where an older bartender served a handful of male patrons hunched over bottles of Rolling Rock. One man wore a baseball cap with an embroidered revolver above the words I DON’T CALL 911. Bennie decided not to sit at the bar, as she had no problem calling 911.