“Since kindergarten, I guess.”
“You went to elementary school together?”
“Yes.”
“Where was that?”
“Mason-Rice in Newton.”
“And you’ve been friendly ever since?”
“Yes.”
“Best friends?”
“I guess so. Sometimes.”
“You’ve been to each other’s houses?”
“Yeah.”
“Hung out together after school and on weekends?”
“Yeah.”
“Have you been in the same homeroom?”
“Sometimes.”
“When was the last time?”
“Not last year. This year Jake is not in school. I guess he has a tutor. So I guess two years ago.”
“But even in years when you weren’t in the same homeroom, you remained close friends?”
“Yeah.”
“So how many years is it that you and the defendant have been close friends?”
“Eight.”
“Eight. And you’re how old?”
“I’m fifteen now.”
“Is it fair to say that, as of the day Ben Rifkin was murdered, April 12, 2007, Jacob Barber was your best friend?”
Derek’s voice went quiet. The thought made him either sad or embarrassed. “Yeah.”
“Okay. Directing your attention to the morning of April 12, 2007, do you remember where you were that morning?”
“In school.”
“About what time did you get to school?”
“Eight-thirty.”
“How did you get to school that day?”
“Walked.”
“Did your route take you through Cold Spring Park?”
“No, I come from the other direction.”
“Okay. When you got to school, where did you go?”
“I stopped at my locker to put my stuff away, then I went to homeroom.”
“And the defendant was not in your homeroom that year, correct?”
“Yes.”
“Did you see him before homeroom that morning?”
“Yeah, I saw him at the lockers.”
“What was he doing?”
“He was just putting his stuff in his locker.”
“Was there anything unusual about his appearance?”
“No.”
“About his clothes?”
“No.”
“Was there anything on his hand?”
“There was a big spot. It looked like blood.”
“Describe the spot.”
“It was just, like, a red spot, like the size of a quarter.”
“Did you ask him about it?”
“Yes. I said, ‘Dude, what did you do to your hand?’ And he was like, ‘Oh, it’s nothing. Just a scratch.’ ”
“Did you see the defendant try to remove the blood?”
“Not right then.”
“Did he deny that the spot on his hand was blood?”
“No.”
“Okay, what happened next?”
“I went off to homeroom.”
“Was Ben Rifkin in your homeroom that year?”
“Yes.”
“But he wasn’t in homeroom that morning.”
“No.”
“Did that seem strange to you?”
“No. I don’t know if I even noticed. I guess I would have figured he was just out sick.”
“So what happened in homeroom?”
“Nothing. Just the usual: attendance, some announcements, then we went off to class.”
“What was your first class that day?”
“English.”
“Did you go?”
“Yeah.”
“Was the defendant in your English class?”
“Yeah.”
“Did you see him in the classroom that morning?”
“Yes.”
“Did you speak to him?”
“We just said hello, that’s all.”
“Was there anything unusual about the defendant’s manner or anything he said?”
“No, not really.”
“He didn’t seem upset.”
“No.”
“Anything unusual about his appearance?”
“No.”
“No blood on his clothes, nothing like that?”
“Objection.”
“Sustained.”
“Would you describe the defendant’s appearance when you saw him in English class that morning?”
“I think he was just wearing, like, regular clothes: jeans, sneakers, whatever. There was no blood on his clothes, if that’s what you mean.”
“What about on his hands?”
“The spot was gone.”
“He’d washed his hands?”
“I guess.”
“Were there any cuts or scratches on his hands? Any reason he might have been bleeding?”
“Not that I remember. I wasn’t really paying attention. It didn’t matter then.”
“Okay, what happened next?”
“We had English class for like fifteen minutes, then there was an announcement that the school was being put in a lockdown.”
“What is a lockdown?”
