Braving the Boneyard

Chapter 3-2

Over the next half hour with Jerome, he repeatedly said he didn’t belong there. But throughout his protesting-too-much groove, I could tell he didn’t really believe it either. It was just what he was supposed to say. I didn’t ask for his version of the events. Instead, I let Jerome talk about whatever came to mind, trying to get a sense of him and of his relationships with the people I’d be contacting. We didn’t spend much time on his background on this first visit. He’d shut down immediately if he thought I was only interested in trying to get him a more reasonable sentence, rather than simply “getting his ass out of here.” Honestly, unless I stumbled across something dramatic in the next week, I thought his chances of either were pretty damn slim.

Since it was a prison visit day, I’d made the effort to dig out a watch and wear it. Within ten minutes of Jerome leaving, the same guard arrived at the door escorting my next visitor. It was another black man in prison blues, but where Jerome had been whip-thin and all compressed energy, this man had a softness about him. He wasn’t fat, but the slight roundness of his cheeks and long, full eyelashes made him seem less threatening, more empathetic. It was the kind of face men would underestimate and women would fall for.

“Kevin Moore?” I asked.

Although it was unlikely that they’d bring the wrong inmate out for me, I always felt compelled to ask. He nodded.

“My name’s Sydney Brennan. I’m here about Jerome Adams. I’m an investigator working on his case. Did you see him on your way here?” Sometimes inmates were kept in small holding cells—basically metal closets with seats and doors—while waiting for a scheduled visit.

“Just for a second, passing in the hall. It’s been a while,” he said. “I’m not sure I should talk to you.”

“I checked, and you haven’t filed an appeal. You don’t have a lawyer working on one now, do you?”

“No. I’m done with lawyers.”

I flipped to the page Jerome had written on and slid the legal pad over so Kevin could read it. He laughed.

“Yeah, that’s Jerome all right. Through and through. Okay, so what do you want to know?” he asked.

“What happened that day?”

He shrugged. “We were stupid. We were high, and it seemed like a good idea at the time.”

“He been using a long time?” I asked.

Kevin snorted. “Long as I’ve known him. Since we were what … maybe thirteen? Mostly just weed.”

“What about the day you robbed the convenience store?”

“He was pretty messed up, so he might have been on something else, too. You know, it’s been a couple of years. Hard to remember that kind of stuff.”

“Why’d he have a gun?” I asked.

He looked at me as if he wondered how I’d dressed myself without help this morning. “Like I said, seemed like a good idea at the time.”

“Not to you.”

“Maybe I’ve got a little more discretion than Jerome does.”

“I don’t think that’s saying much,” I said, and Kevin grinned. “Did he usually carry a gun?”

He shook his head. “First time. And no, I don’t know where he got it.”

The decisiveness in his voice meant it was time to shift gears. “Tell me about his family,” I said.

“Don’t know anything about his dad—died when he was little—and I didn’t see a whole lot of his mom, but she was good to me when she was around. Jerome always said she worked too damned hard to just keep falling behind.”

“But she’s married now, right?”

“She married some rich guy—a banker—not too long before all this s**t went down. I hear she moved out of the neighborhood, which probably made Jerome happy. He was afraid something was gonna happen to her. I guess that’s where the lawyer money’s coming from now—the husband.”

“She have any men in her life before that?”

“I’m not saying nothing against Jerome’s mom.” His eyes held a fierceness when he spoke that made me think he’d downplayed her role in his life. Or maybe he was just the last chivalrous man in WFC.

“I’m not asking you to,” I said. “There’s nothing that says a widow has to be alone all of her life. I just want to know if there were any other men in Jerome’s life when he was growing up.”

His face relaxed again, and he shrugged. “Nothing serious from the time I knew him. There was somebody that lived with them when he was younger. But he was more a topic Jerome and his mom didn’t talk about than one they did, if you catch my meaning.”

“You don’t know anything about the guy? Not a name? Nothing?” I asked.

“Just that Jerome’s mom was scared of him, and Jerome wished he could kill him.”

I tilted my chair back before quickly realizing I didn’t have the same confidence in my prison furniture skills while wearing high heels. Instead, I leaned across the table on my stable elbows. “What happened that day? Why did Jerome shoot?”

Kevin dropped his cuffed hands to his lap so he could lean forward as well. “I wish I knew. I was almost to the door—Jerome was behind me—and then the guy says something. He pulls out some kind of stick.”

“Like a baseball bat?” I asked.

“No, then I’d have said a baseball bat. It was some kind of stick. Not like, off a tree. It didn’t have branches or bark or nothing. It was smooth, about as big around as my thumb. But I don’t know what else to call it but a stick.”

“Did Jerome think it was a gun?” I asked.

“I don’t know. I don’t think so. And Jerome didn’t shoot him then. It was after that. Jerome turned to look at him, and the guy said something else but I still couldn’t hear him. Then Jerome shot him—bam, bam, bam! We got arrested before we were half a block away, and I haven’t spoken to Jerome since, so I really got no earthly idea why he shot the man. Now that I’m in here, I don’t know if it matters anymore.”