After Before and After

Phase 4: Chapter 66

From the 15th until the 25th of February, Dana Barnes did her very best to incriminate Sam and Eric. As the twins told Ralph beforehand, there was only one disciplinary write-up on either one of them in existence, and sure enough it was the little spat Eric had at camp with a bunk mate between second and third grade. Of course, Barnes brought in the camp's director and Eric's cabin leader in an effort to milk the incident for everything there was to it.

Which in the end, wasn't much.

It didn't take very long for Barnes to finish working through her list of character witnesses she had lined up to testify against Sam and Eric. She attempted to back most of them into a corner, with the only way out being to admit that they twins are pathological liars who've gotten away with more incriminating things than they'd ever care to admit. But unfortunately for Barnes, it wasn't the strongest case she'd made so far. In fact, it was miniscule in comparison. No matter how shark-ish of a lawyer you are, it's hard to work with no convincing testimony. Ralph was feeling better about the twins' case by the time Barnes was finished grilling all their acquaintances.

Next on the roster was little Peter Campbell, the one whose mother screamed out in the middle of the initial testimony about Captain Benson. The man's daughter was testifying about his good character when poor Peter's mother stood up in front of everyone and declared that her own son was a victim of Patricia Benson's father's negligence; the plane crash being the real crime that was committed here. In all the months that have passed since that incident, the court hadn't heard from Beverly Campbell at all before she was up there testifying for the prosecution. Ralph could tell it was hard for her to speak ill of her son, even through force. She was obviously one of those mothers who believed her son could do no wrong and his involvement in any kind of incident was really someone else's fault. Ralph remembered Peter mostly from being one of the sweet little ones who just wanted to go home, and he even stuck with Ralph until his camp was basically bare. He wondered now who Peter was shaping out to be two years later with a monster mom like Beverly making scenes left and right.

Because of young Peter's age at the time in which the deaths on the island occurred, his case was wrapped up pretty quickly. He was the second youngest only to Percy Madison, who was a whole twenty-four days younger than he. Dana Barnes had to know that the defense was going to argue that Peter's age would shield him from most of the criminal responsibility the older boys would be more likely to face. The little ones were followers, too young to really think for themselves or understand the concept of right and wrong even under normal circumstances. Barnes did her best with what she had, which was significantly less than what she had against the twins. Peter was an average seven-year-old when the plane left for England. There was very little in his records that suggested otherwise.

Barnes finished questioning the witnesses she had in relation to Peter before the noon recess on the 8th of March. It was that afternoon that she moved onto a classmate of the boy's, Gregory Collins, number five on the roster. His witnesses took even less time to go through; the duration of that week. By Friday the 12th, Barnes was set to move onto the next boy.

Number six on the roster would be called in to question starting on Monday. He so happened to be none other than Roger Conroy.

The weather was starting to get warmer by the time Barnes was through the character witnesses for the first five defendents. It was mid-March, and Ralph was evidently falling behind on his schoolwork. He was receiving a lot of leeway from the teachers in East Point he was communicating with electronically from Savannah, but ninth grade wasn't third grade. Ralph really did have to do the work, and with little to no teacher guidance. He was doing well considering, but Ralph had always been an above average student. He wondered how the other older boys were doing academically.

Specifically, he wondered how Jack was doing.

Ralph and Jack had little to no contact for the second half of February and the first half of March. Jack's and Roger's wounds from their brawl back in late January were completely healed now, and so their families returned to sitting in different places throughout the courtroom. Ralph and Jack would occasionally lock eyes with one another in the courthouse or during the trial itself, and it was always tense and uncomfortable for the both of them. Ralph missed Jack like hell, but he was genuinely used to it now. He sat up at night thinking about that strange kiss they shared behind the hotel in January. Sometimes, Ralph would even wander around the hotel boredly hoping to run into Jack. He almost never did. The only time they did cross paths at the hotel, Paige was with Jack, and she was the only one of the two to acknowledge him.

Little did Ralph know, his parents were still quite involved with the Merridew kids. Paige called Jeffery or Laurie for advice on a weekly basis when things came up like Jack acting out, or Evan being Evan, or Jack's deteriorating grades, or his video game addiction, and even his court case from time to time. One of Jeffery and Laurie had dinner with Paige to talk over things in person biweekly, if not weekly. Jeffery reached out to Jack directly on occasion too to provide fatherly support. The Langleys somehow managed to keep all this from Ralph, who Zoey was prepping for his own case, which would be the face of the trial before he knew it.

Luckily, the little ones' cases didn't have any noteworthy impact on Ralph's, or so Zoey claimed to believe. Most of them weren't able to place Ralph at the scene of Simon's death in their Flag State interviews, and those who did claimed to have no recollection of him participating in killing the boy.

But this coming week would be different. The boy whose actions were about to come into question was Roger. Ralph made a compromising deal with him back in February; if Roger left Jack alone, Ralph wouldn't testify against him. As time inched closer to the introduction of Roger's case, Ralph was starting to get closer to nervous. He wouldn't be testifying until the case was turned to the defense, but even hearing Dana lay out Roger's guilt on the table was going to be daunting for the brunette boy who promised to protect his enemy. Despite the fact that he had no intention of keeping that promise even in the moment he made it, it starting to feel more real everyday. His deal with Roger was just another thing Ralph couldn't tell Zoey about. And as she continuously reminded him, the more he kept from her, the weaker their case would be.

Ralph was feeling pretty weak going into next week already. How could it possibly get any worse?