SINCE I’VE BEEN ARRESTED, I am entitled to have an attorney provided for me. The smart thing to do would be to hire a lawyer of my own, but I am incredibly short on funds right now, and whatever I do have, I’d like to save it to bail myself out. So I consent to use the freebie lawyer.
Right now, I’m supposed to be having a meeting with my lawyer. They have led me into one of the interrogation rooms lit by an overly bright bulb right over my head, and I’ve been sitting in an uncomfortable plastic chair for the last forty-five minutes waiting for an attorney named Archibald Ferguson that I’m increasingly certain will never show up. If only I had money to pay for my own lawyer. But I am pretty sure the constitution or something says that I have a right to an attorney. They can’t just say they gave me one and wash their hands of it.
Finally, the door to the interrogation room swings open, but my heart sinks when I see that it’s just some teenager. Probably a high school intern working at the police department, dressed in one of his father’s oversized suits. But I may as well make the best of it.
“Could I have some water?” I ask the intern. “My throat is really parched. And do you think you can ask them how much longer till my lawyer shows up?”
The boy clears his throat. “Actually, I’m your lawyer.”
I stare up at the kid, all thoughts of my parched throat flying out of my head. This has got to be some kind of joke. This is a child. He doesn’t even look like he’s old enough to grow facial hair. How could he be a lawyer? How could he be my lawyer?
“What?” I sputter.
“I’m your lawyer,” he repeats, although it doesn’t seem more plausible the second time he says it. “I’m Archie Ferguson.”
He holds out his smooth white hand, but I don’t take it. “How old are you?”
He flinches. “I’m twenty-five.”
I suppose that’s better than what I first took him for, which is sixteen. But not much better. This kid does not look like he is in any position to be defending somebody in a murder trial. He looks more like he should be working the drive-through at McDonald’s.
“You’re a lawyer?” I ask.
He nods proudly. “I’ve been practicing since June.”
Great. He’s been a lawyer for five months. I want to bury my face in my hands and burst into tears. But somehow, I manage to hold it together.
Ferguson settles into the chair across from me. His suit is at least two sizes too big for his skinny frame—it must belong to his dad or a big brother. He’ll grow into it, I suppose. By then, I’ll be serving twenty-five years to life.
“So let’s talk about your case, Ms. Farrelly,” he begins.
“Farrell.” I glare at him across the almost comically tiny table. “My name is Farrell.”
Ferguson frowns. He looks down at a stack of loose papers in front of him and starts shuffling through them. “Farrell? Are you sure? I thought—”
“I know my own name.”
“Right. Right, of course.” Ferguson’s voice cracks because he’s apparently still going through puberty. “Sorry. Ms. Farrell.”
I don’t say anything to that. “So…” he says.
I raise an eyebrow. “Yes?”
He clears his throat, which turns into a cough, then a series of coughs. Finally, he jumps up, explaining that he has to go get some water. He runs
out of the room, grabbing his sweaty stack of papers, and then he returns about ten minutes later.
“Sorry about that,” he says as he plops down in the chair across from
me.
I just stare at him.
“So…” He coughs again, and I swear to God, I am going to lose it if he
has another coughing fit. “Let’s discuss your, um, case.”
“Listen,” I say, “no offense, Mr. Ferguson, but this case is kind of a big deal. This is a murder trial. Is there anyone else who could help me? Like, somebody with a little more experience?”
Ferguson’s cheeks turn bright red. “I’ve been doing this for almost six months. I’ve tried lots of cases. Don’t worry. You’re in good hands.”
“I am worried though.” I chew on my thumbnail. “This is a murder charge, you know?”
He nods slowly. “Yeah, this is a tough one. They have a pretty good case against you. A lot of stuff.”
A lot of “stuff”? How could that be? How much “stuff” could they possibly have against me when I haven’t done anything? “Like what?”
“Like they got into that Schiff woman’s emails and she wrote all about the things you did to her.” He tugs at his tie, which doesn’t seem to be knotted correctly. “She cataloged the way you bullied her at work, and also that she caught you embezzling money from the company where you both worked. And that the two of you were supposed to meet that night.”
“That’s complete fiction.” My heart is pounding. “I was nice to Dawn. And we weren’t supposed to meet that night. I don’t know what she could possibly be talking about.”
“Also,” he says, “your fingerprints were on the handle of a knife in her house.”
“I explained that. I picked up a knife to defend myself in case there was an intruder in the house. And it wasn’t like she was stabbed to death.”
Ferguson smiles apologetically. “Also,” he adds, “the police found blood and hair in the trunk of your car. It matched up to what they found in Schiff’s house.”
My mouth falls open. They found Dawn’s blood and hair in my trunk? I can’t even begin to explain that one.
“Not to mention,” he goes on. Oh my God, there’s more? “Your boyfriend’s statement is extremely damaging. That’s going to be a hard one
to rip apart.”
“Is it really that bad?” I ask. “I mean, yes, we weren’t together that night.”
“And you lied about it.”
I wince. “Yes, I did. But have you seen that detective? He’s terrifying. And I didn’t make a statement under oath. I just didn’t have an alibi for that night. There are plenty of people who don’t have an alibi for Monday night.”
Ferguson gives me a funny look. “That’s not all your boyfriend said.”
“This completely isn’t fair.” I squeeze my right hand into a fist. “Santoro was harassing Caleb. He found him and forced him to say a bunch of things he probably didn’t mean.”
“No, that’s not what happened at all. Caleb McCullough came to the station voluntarily. He told them he wanted to make a statement, and they recorded it. I saw the transcript.”
I blink at him, wondering if I heard him right. “Caleb asked to make a statement?”
“That’s right.”
“But…” My thoughts won’t stop racing. This doesn’t sound right. “What did he say?”
“It’s, uh… not good.” Ferguson rifles through the pile of papers in front of him until I want to rip them out of his hands. “He said that you pressured him into lying about being together that night. He said that he left your house at around nine-thirty after you asked him to leave. Apparently, you told him you had somewhere to be.”
“What?” I cry. “That’s ridiculous! That’s a complete lie.”
“Well, that’s what he said. He also said that you and Dawn didn’t get along. That you were constantly picking on her. That the two of you hated each other.”
My head is spinning. Caleb said that about me? Why would he say that? He barely knew Dawn, and he wasn’t even around work that much. And even if he did think I was bullying Dawn, why would he say that to the police? That’s a pretty awful thing to say about your girlfriend.
“As you can see,” Ferguson says, “they have a strong case against you.
But there is some good news.”
“Like what?” I choke out. At this rate, I’m looking at life in prison. “Well,” he says, “they don’t have a dead body.”
My head snaps up. “What? I don’t understand. The detective said they found Dawn’s body.” Beaten to death.
“Actually…” He shuffles through the papers in front of him again. “They were having trouble identifying the body because she was beaten so badly and her teeth were destroyed, so dental records couldn’t be used. But DNA testing has now revealed that it was not Dawn Schiff.”
My head is spinning. Another girl about the same age turned up dead right in our neighborhood? It seems like a big coincidence, but I suppose a good number of people are murdered in big cities, and some percentage of them are going to be young women. “So… she might not even be dead?”
He gives me a look. Based on the amount of blood on the floor of her house, plus the blood in my car, and the fact that she has not resurfaced all point to the fact that she is almost certainly dead. And I am still very much the prime suspect.
“Can I be convicted of murder if there’s no body?” I ask.
“It’s harder, but still possible. I think you have a good chance of getting bail.”
That would be great news if I had any chance of being able to afford the bail. “But what about a conviction?” I press him.
He hesitates. “These are some really serious charges, Ms. Farrell. And the DA has a super strong case, like I said. Given the circumstances, your best bet is to confess and take a plea bargain.”
“Confess!” I cry. “But I didn’t do anything!”
Ferguson flashes me a skeptical look. “You know, we have that attorney-client confidentiality thingy. It’s better if you tell me the truth, so I can help you. I’m not allowed to tell anyone, so you should be honest with me.”
“I didn’t,” I insist. “I swear.”
Ferguson frowns. He might be young, but apparently five months of defending criminals have already made him jaded. “Fine,” he says. “But either way, it might be worth taking a plea bargain. Go to prison for a few years, then you’ll be out. If we take a chance and go to trial, especially if the body surfaces, you’ll be looking at life in prison.”
Life in prison.
Life in prison.
Ferguson starts talking about the bail hearing on Monday, but I can barely focus on what he is saying. Life in prison. Those three words keep
repeating in my head over and over. If this goes badly, I could be living in a cell until the day I die. Behind bars. That’s even worse than a cubicle.
Life in prison.
I can’t let that happen to me. I can’t.
If it looks like I’m going down for this, if it looks like I might spend the rest of my life in prison, I’m going to end it all. I’ll drive back out to Wollaston Beach, and I’ll throw myself off the pier in the middle of the night at high tide. Nobody will be able to save me.
But I hope it doesn’t come to that. There was a girl in my high school who died by suicide, and it was so incredibly tragic—something I couldn’t stop thinking about for years to come. Except now I get it. I finally understand the hopelessness that girl must have felt when she took her own life. The feeling that it would be better to be swallowed up into the abyss than continue to live life as you know it.
I can’t let that happen to me. I can’t.
