Amanda protested, saying she'd traveled three hours to see her son, only to be told now to disappear, to sit once more on the courthouse bench, so to speak. But Jaywalker insisted. He'd learned over the years that you didn't interview young people in the presence of their parents, not if you wanted the truth from them.
The aide found them an empty office and closed the door on his way out. There was a desk in the room, and several chairs. Jaywalker motioned Eric to sit, and then chose a chair nearby. He didn't want the desk to act as a barrier between them. He figured thirty-some years and his own lack of either a nose ring or orange hair were sufficient obstacles.
'How's school?' he asked.
'Sucks.'
So much for small talk.
'How's my dad?' Eric asked.
'Good,' said Jaywalker. 'Amazingly good, considering.'
'What's going to happen?'
'He's going to get convicted on some of the charges. Drunk driving, reckless driving, vehicular manslaughter, maybe leaving the scene. I think we've got a shot on the murder count, but it's going to be uphill.'
'What kind of time is he looking at?'
They were all normal questions, asked normally. What a psychologist might have termed appropriate, both in form and content.
'If he's lucky, ten or twelve years. If he's not…' Jaywalker found himself unable to finish the sentence. How did you tell a kid his father was in real danger of ending up with a sentence of twenty-five to life? Especially a kid who, despite the Halloween costume and the advance billing, seemed genuinely likable?
'I need to ask you a few questions,' he said instead.
'Shoot.'
'The evening you drove up to Nyack with your mother-'
'I didn't drive,' said Eric. 'My mom drove.'
'Right,' said Jaywalker. This kid would make a pretty good lawyer, he decided. 'She drove. But you went into the bar, the club. Right?'
'Right.'
'How did your father seem?'
Eric hesitated for just an instant. 'What do you want me to say?' he asked, turning his palms up.
'The truth. There's no jury here.'
'He seemed drunk. Drunk and belligerent.'
Jaywalker nodded, his way of telling Eric that was fine, he just needed to hear it. 'Tell me what happened,' he said. 'In as much detail as you possibly can.'
'There's not much to tell,' Eric said. 'My dad was pissed, and pissed off. He felt like the bartender had snitched on him. But he followed me out of the place. Once we got outside, I asked him for the keys. He asked me if it looked like daylight to me. Meaning I wasn't allowed to drive. I was still seventeen then, and all I had was a learner's permit. I said no, it didn't look like daylight. And he said, 'No fucking way, kiddo.''
'And?'
'And I said, 'Fuck it.' I walked over to my mom's car and told her to deal with him.'
Jaywalker nodded, but said nothing. He wanted this to be a narrative as much as possible, not a Q and A.
'So my mom got out and walked over to where my dad was standing, or staggering, and the two of them started arguing. Nothing new, it's what they do. Me, I got tired of listening to them, so I got back into my mom's car. After a while, my mom came over and handed me her car keys. 'Go straight to your father's,' she said. 'And don't you speed, or we'll all end up in jail.' Then she walked back over to my father. The last I saw of them, they were shouting at each other, across the Audi. Him refusing to give her the keys, she calling him a stupid asshole. Stuff like that. So I drove home to my dad's.
'Whoa. Y ou drove home to your dad's? In the Lexus?'
'Yeah. I do know how to drive, you know.'
'Yeah, I know. But…' Again Jaywalker stopped midthought. Both Amanda and Carter had told him that she'd given up on Carter, gone back to the Lexus, and driven Eric to Carter's place before driving herself home. This was a totally different version, one that put Amanda in the passenger seat alongside her husband.
And then he remembered Amanda's warnings. Eric has issues…he lies…he's very good at manipulating people…don't let him con you…he's not to be trusted, no matter how sincerely he looks you in the eye…he's very, very good at it.
So who was telling the truth here, and who was lying? Did you give the adults the benefit of the doubt? Was it majority rule? Did you discount Eric's version because of the nose ring and the orange hair? Did you heed Amanda's warning, or had she been deliberately trying to undermine her son's credibility in advance?
'Had you ever been up to Nyack before?' Jaywalker asked Eric. It was something of an occupational hazard, resorting to cross-examination to test a story. But he needed to know.
'No.'
'Did you know your way back to the city?'
'No, I didn't have a clue.'
'Did you stop to ask anyone for directions?'
'No.'
'Didn't you get lost?'
'No.'
'So tell me,' said Jaywalker, about to spring the jaws of the trap shut. 'How did you happen to get home, in the dark, without getting lost?'
Eric shrugged easily. 'My mom's car has a GPS,' he explained. 'I punched in my dad's address.'
Okay, score one for the kid.
'You had to cross the George Washington Bridge, right?'
It was one of those crossings that had a one-way toll. You were free to leave the city, but once you did, it cost you a bundle to get back in. Not exactly a welcome mat, but it did cut down on the number of tollbooths needed.
'So tell me. How much was the toll?'
'I haven't a clue.'
Jaywalker shot him his best gotcha look.
But Eric shrugged again. 'EZPass,' he said.
Okay, two for two. But wasn't three the charm?
'EZPass I know,' said Jaywalker. 'In fact, I subpoenaed their records a few months back, and I have here a photograph of the Lexus going through the tollbooth.' He reached into a file, withdrew a photo and studied it. 'It's taken from behind, so you can't see the faces. But there are two people in the car, and it sure looks like a woman's driving.' The photo actually happened to be the one of the rolled-up newspaper on the console of the Audi, but from where he was sitting, Eric had no way of knowing that.
'Nice try,' said Eric. 'But sorry. I was driving the Lexus. And I was alone. Whatever my parents may have told you, and whatever that's a photograph of.'
And the way he said it wasn't plaintive or insistent or argumentative. It was matter-of-fact, take it or leave it. The way you said something that was true.
So Moishe Leopold had been only half-wrong. He may have mistaken the Audi for a Porsche, which was understandable, given how closely the two resembled each other. And a moment later, when Julie Napolitano had asked him if it could've been just one person in the front seat instead of two, as he'd originally thought, he'd been willing to back off on that point, as well, and concede he was probably wrong. But he hadn't been wrong about that; he'd been right. It was Carter and Amanda who'd been wrong.
Not just wrong, lying.
They rode the first hour home in silence, Jaywalker driving, Amanda staring out the passenger-side window. The snow-covered hills along the Taconic Parkway drifted by. They saw deer, wild turkeys and a red-tailed hawk. There was little in the way of traffic. It was Saturday, and the skiers were off skiing, the shoppers were off
