Defending Jacob(65)

I calmed myself. I said in a soft voice just short of despair, “Please, Derek. Please tell me.”

“I just told him, you know, some things that have been going on in school.”

“Like what?”

“Like Jake was getting picked on. Ben Rifkin was, like, the leader of this group of kids. Like slacker kids. They were kind of giving Jake a hard time.”

“About what?”

“Like saying he was gay, that was the main thing. Just, like, rumors. Ben just made stuff up. And, you know, I don’t even care if Jake is gay. I really don’t. I wish he’d just say it if he was.”

“Do you think he’s gay?”

“I don’t know. Maybe. But it doesn’t matter, because he didn’t do any of the things Ben said he did. Ben just made it up. He just liked tooling on Jake for some reason. Like it was a game for him or something. He was kind of a bully.”

“What did Ben say?”

“I don’t know. Just, like, starting rumors. Like he said Jake offered to blow a kid at this party—which he didn’t. Or that he got a boner in the shower after track one day. Or that one of the teachers went back into school during recess one day and caught Jake jerking off in one of the classrooms. It was all totally not true.”

“Why did he say it, then?”

“ ’Cause Ben was a dick. There was just something about Jake that Ben didn’t like, and that kind of got him excited, you know? It was like he couldn’t help himself. If he saw Jake, he gave him a rash of shit. Every time. I guess he figured he could get away with it too. He was just a dick. To be honest? Nobody likes to say it because he got killed and everything? But Ben was a mean kid. Whoever did this—well, I don’t know, I don’t want to say—whatever. Ben was just a mean kid.”

“But why was he mean to Jacob? I don’t get that.”

“He just didn’t like him. Jake is like—I mean, I know Jake, okay? And I like him. But come on. I mean, you have to know Jake isn’t, like, a normal kid?”

“Why not? Because kids thought he was gay?”

“No.”

“Then what does ‘normal’ mean?”

He gave me a searching look. “Jake has a mean streak of his own.” Derek held his eyes on me.

I tried not to betray any emotion. Tried to stop my Adam’s apple from bobbing down and up.

Derek said, “I think maybe Ben didn’t know that. Ben kind of picked the wrong little freak to pick on. He had no clue.”

“So that’s why you went on Facebook and told everyone about the knife?”

“No. It was more than that. I mean, it was like, the whole reason he got the knife was he was afraid of Ben. He thought Ben was going to go after him someday and try to mess him up, and then Jake was going to have to defend himself. You never knew about any of this?”

“No.”

“Jacob never told you about any of this?”

“No.”

“Well, I told because I knew Jake got the knife and I knew it was because he was afraid Ben was going to try something. Maybe I shouldn’t have said anything. I don’t know. I don’t know why I told.”

“You told because it was the truth. You wanted to tell the truth.”

“I guess.”

“But that knife wasn’t the murder weapon. The knife you saw, that Jacob had? It’s not the one that killed Ben. They found another knife in Cold Spring Park. You know that, right?”

“Yeah, but who knows? They found a knife.…” Shrug. “Anyway, it was like, at the time everybody was still talking about ‘Where’s the knife?’ And Jake always used to say, like, ‘My dad’s a DA and I know about the law,’ like he knew what he could get away with. Like, if anyone ever accused him? You know?”

“Did he ever say that?”

“No. Not exactly.”

“So is that what you told Logiudice?”

“No! ’Course not. ’Cause, like, this isn’t stuff I really know, you know? This is just, like, what I think.”

“So what exactly did you tell Logiudice?”

“Just that Jacob had a knife.”

“The wrong knife.”

“Well, if that’s what you want to say, whatever. I just told Logiudice about the knife and that Ben was kind of bullying him. And that the morning it happened, Jake came into school with blood on him.”

“Which Jacob admits. He found Ben. He tried to help him. That’s how he got the blood on him.”

“I know, I know, An—Mr. Barber. I’m not saying anything about Jake. I’m just telling you what I told the DA. Jake came into school and I saw blood on him, and he told me he had to clean it up because people wouldn’t understand. And he was right: they didn’t.”

“Derek, can I ask you something? Do you really think it’s possible? I mean, is there anything else you’re not telling me? Because what I’m hearing, it still doesn’t make sense that Jacob did this. It just doesn’t add up.”

Derek squirmed. His body corkscrewed away from me.

“You think he did it, don’t you, Derek?”

“No. I mean, there’s like a one percent chance, you know? Just, like, a little bit of”—he held up his fingers a millimeter apart—“I don’t know.”