After Before and After

Phase 4: Chapter 68

March 18, 1993. 10:42 AM.

There wasn't much Ralph Langley wouldn't rather be doing than sitting in court listening to grownups go on about Roger Conroy. It was second only to spending time with Roger himself, which Ralph would've given both his kidneys and his first born child to avoid. Ralph knew that Roger had an exhaustingly long rap sheet, and that it could take weeks to question just those who signed the plethora of disciplinary reports on Roger over the years.

Ralph tuned out the testimony as he tried to guess the number of write-ups Roger received in his going on sixteen years of life. Surely, it started in kindergarten or preschool, and continued steadily up until the time of the plane crash. There could be hundreds of reports, Ralph concluded, and if Barnes intended to dredge up every last one of them, it'd be a long road ahead of them.

Over the past several days in court, Barnes introduced short of a dozen incident reports on Roger Conroy, all of which spanned from his daycare days up until the third grade. The witness list was compiled of teachers, principals, parents of Roger's former classmates, and even managers of public places where young Roger caused a disturbance or two. Ralph was in no way surprised to learn that Roger had been banned from more than one McDonalds playplace. He got his entire family kicked out of a local amusement park during the summer between second and third grade. He got banished from summer camp two hours after being dropped off by his parents at the start of the week.

The jury was stunned to their cores by the looks of it, but Ralph could've easily predicted it all.

Today was Thursday, and Ralph couldn't wait for the weekend if only to not have to hear the name Roger for a whole forty-eight hours. This morning, Barnes questioned another teacher of Roger's; she who taught him in the forth grade. Rachel Leduc was a generalist teacher at Bainbridge Military Academy. She was young and fairly new to the profession, and had only been teaching four years, two of which were at Bainbridge Military Academy. She'd seen her fair share of poor behavior throughout her short time at the academy. Lots of parents sent their children to military school for that reason alone.

It was the beginning of her third year teaching at the academy when Roger Conroy entered her classroom. For a week, he was quiet and reserved, kept mostly to himself. Then halfway through week two, all hell broke lose and the Conroy boy was at the center of it. A physical fight that left the other child with a concussion, a broken nose, and three broken fingers. When Miss Leduc tried to intervene, she found herself on the receiving end of a bloody arm; three scratchs so deep she was sent down to see the nurse while Vice Principal Brandon took over the class.

In his cross-examination of Rachel Leduc, Reynolds asked if Roger was the only student involved in a physical altercation that ended with blood. Surprisingly, it wasn't; one of several, actually, even in less than four years. Reynolds was clearly trying to make it look like Roger wasn't the only kid with a bad temper and little to no impulse control, but Ralph could tell by the looks on the jury's faces that they weren't really buying what he was selling.

Good, Ralph thought. The world will be a much safer place with Roger Conroy behind bars.

After Miss Rachel Leduc was dismissed, Barnes called a witness by the name of David Edwards. The stranger approached the stand and was sworn in by the bailiff as were those who came before him.

"Mr. Edwards, do you or have you ever known a boy by the name of Roger Conroy?" Barnes asked.

"Yes, he was a classmate of my son, Scottie, back when he was in fourth grade" Edwards explained.

"Was your son friends with Roger at the time?" Barnes questioned.

"No, that's not how Scottie described it. They were acquaintances at most, for the first couple weeks of the school year. Until early September."