Worship You

Chapter Five-A. Reality Check

"So I've been looking over the statement you made to the police..." One-Way Goff was handling the sheet of paper as if it carried a disease. He was waiting for me to say something. I shrugged. One-Way put the paper back in the folder with the rest of the stuff he was given by the prosecutor.

Goff said, "So you're sticking with that story?"

I shrugged again and picked at the flaking polyurethane varnish on the table. Just like a hundred other doomed assholes who had sat at this table with their bad lawyers: Scraping the table down to the bare wood with our fingernails rather than dealing with the problem at hand. I stopped doing it and put my hands in my lap. One-Way was waiting.

I said, "What do you want me to say?"

"I want you to say you'd like me to plea-bargain this down to man-slaughter."

"No thanks."

"They're going to enter this statement into the record."

I shrugged again. "What's wrong with it?"

"You say you and Cassie entered the house and found her father dead on the floor."

"That's right."

"So then the two of you go to New York City for the weekend? Why didn't you call the police?"

I almost shrugged again but doing it was even starting bug me.

"We were scared."

Goff stared at me like I was Big Foot. "Lloyd, your fingerprints are on the murder weapon."

"I picked the poker up to see if there was blood."

"And. There was a speck of Mr. Cioukowsky's blood on your jeans."

"It must have gotten on me when I picked up the fireplace poker. I said this all in the statement."

"There was a big struggle at the crime scene. You had marks on your body."

"I had a fight in New York in a bar."

"But you don't remember where?"

"I was pretty drunk. And hey, if there was such a big struggle, why wasn't I covered with blood?"

"You tell me."

"I didn't do it, that's why."

The prosecutor will just say you changed your clothes."

"He has proof of that?" I said.

"Not yet."

Goff rubbed at his neck, at a big red boil-thing on his neck.

I said, "You should stop rubbing that thing on your neck. It looks infected."

Goff raised his voice. "Never mind that! This statement is going to get you lethal injection! Do you understand that, kid?"

Like a punk, I shrugged again. Jesus. I was behaving just like a teenage murderer.

"It's the truth," I said.

One-Way leaned over the table to me and whispered. Even though they're not supposed to bug these lawyer-client conferences, One-Way is sure that they do. Maybe he knows something.

"Miss Cioukowsky says almost the same thing, verbatim. It's such a dumb story. This is a total lie. And everyone knows it."

"I can't help how the truth sounds."

There was a scream in the hallway. It was far away but it was definitely a scream. Even here in County Jail, in Juvee, there's some nutty violent people. There's a kid in here that killed an old lady while robbing her. I mean, Jesus, an old lady.

"Lloyd, I can't put you on the stand to tell this story. Nobody will buy it."

"That's cool. I don't want to testify."

"The cops who took the statement will testify. The jury will believe them! They have video of you telling them this. I won't be able to keep it out. Let me plead this to the judge. Don't let this go to trial."

"I'm innocent."

"Excuse me, Lloyd, but bull shit. I don't know what went on, but--" He opened the folder and took out the copy of my statement to the cops and waved it under my nose. "THIS is going to get you the death penalty. They want to execute you. Everybody hates kids right now. Because of that trouble in Elkins. And the DA is up for election. He wants the death penalty and they'll give him what he wants."

Some kids had rioted after a football game in Elkins. They burned a Seven-Eleven. So they wanted to execute me. I knew football was going to be my downfall one way or another.

"Could you do me a favor?" I said. "Please don't call me 'Lloyd?'"