When

11-24-2014

I COULD NOT GET OUT OF school fast enough on Monday. There'd been big changes waiting for me when I arrived that morning: Principal Harris had been suspended, my American Lit paper had been upgraded to a B, and I was now being escorted from class to class by the teacher assigned to monitor the hallways for that period. 

   I should have been glad for all of that, and I was to a degree, but everything that was being done to help me feel safe actually made me feel even more exposed and uncomfortable. There was a kind of tension around me from students and teachers alike, like a bubble of unease and hostility that I couldn't get away from until I was out of the building.

   So, the second the final bell rang, I bolted for the door. I had to get home and call Donny about Stubby's pretrial. To my surprise, when I rounded the corner to my street, I saw my uncle sitting in his car parked in the driveway. "Hey!" I said when I came up next to him.

   "Hey," he replied tiredly. It was then that I noticed he looked like hell.

   I knew immediately the pretrial hadn't gone well. Tensing, I asked, "What happened?"

   Donny didn't answer. Instead he rolled up the window and opened the car door. After getting out and locking it, he wrapped an arm around my shoulders and said, "Come on. Let's go inside and I'll explain."

   Once we were inside, Donny called out for Ma. She came into the kitchen warily, as if she sensed he was the bearer of bad news. "What's happened?" she asked.

   Donny motioned for us both to sit down. Ma took ahold of my hand once we were seated, and we waited for Donny to talk. He didn't sit down. Instead he got himself a drink of water and leaned against the kitchen sink. "I have a lot to tell you. Most of it's bad. You should brace yourself, Maddie."

   I swallowed hard and Ma squeezed my hand. I could feel my breath coming quicker. I wanted Donny to blurt it out so that I could begin to process the bad news. "Tell us," I begged.

   Donny sighed and set his water glass down. "Stubby's being held over for trial. His bond has been set at five hundred thousand dollars. I've talked to his mom and she doesn't have the fifty grand it would take to secure a loan from a bondsman, so she's trying to get ahold of his dad in California, but it's not looking good. Stubby may have to remain in jail until the trial."

   I sucked in a breath. "How long until the trial?" I asked. 

   "A year," Donny said. "Maybe eighteen months."

   I shook my head in disbelief. "Isn't there anything you can do?" How would my friend survive a year in prison?

   "I did everything I could for him today, Maddie, I swear, but the feds have dug up some compelling evidence."

   "What evidence?" I demanded. "All they had was that birthday card and my notebook and some witnesses who said they saw Stubs talking to Payton. How could they keep him in jail for that ?"

   Donny leaned over to grab a box of tissues, and he brought it to the table. I was having a tough time. "Here," he said, offering me the box. Ma got up and went to the cabinet to get a glass, which she filled with water and brought it back for me. She stroked my hair while Donny told me the rest.

   "The search warrant at the Schroder house produced some circumstantial evidence that the jury found compelling. In Stubby's nightstand they found a hunting knife with a blade sharp enough to inflict the wounds found on Payton Wyly's body. The knife also had dried blood on it with the same blood type as the victim."

   I gasped, shocked to my core that Stubby had something like that in his nightstand.

   Donny held up his hand. "Stubs told me the knife was a present from his dad and the dried blood is his. He'd accidentally cut himself with it, and his blood type is O positive, the same as Payton's. The feds should've run a simple test to determine if the blood is male or female, but they claim that they haven't gotten to that yet, and running a DNA test will take months because the labs are so backed up."