“Yes, I do. I’m going to need to borrow them for a few days.”
“That’s okay,” Jamie said. While looking at his mother for approval, he removed his sneakers.
“Jamie, do you remember what clothes you were wearing the night you went swimming with Kerry after her party?”
“Yes, I do. My mom bought the shirt for me.”
“Can I see it?”
“Sure,” Jamie said as he walked over to the dresser and opened and closed two drawers. “Mom bought it in Disneyworld,” he said proudly as he unfolded it and showed it to the detective.
“Do you remember which pants you wore when you went in the pool with Kerry?”
Jamie appeared confused as he looked in his closet. “I have a lot of pants.”
“That’s okay, Jamie. So that’s the shirt you wore in the pool when you went swimming with Kerry?”
“Yes,” he said smiling. “It’s dry now.”
“Did you wash it, Jamie?”
“No, my mom did.”
Tony Carter had said that on the Sunday morning he and Jamie talked at the Acme, Jamie had told him that he wasn’t wearing his new sneakers because they had gotten wet.
“Jamie, this is Detective Nerlino. Would you bring the shirt and sneakers downstairs? He’s going to give you a bag to put them in.”
“Okay,” Jamie said as he followed Nerlino out of the room.
When they were alone, Marge went on the defensive. “You can ask Father Frank. I was planning to call the police and tell them what Jamie saw. The lawyer Father Frank got for Jamie and me is in Atlanta. I was going to talk to you after I spoke to him in two days. Father Frank is going with me to see the lawyer. Then we can talk.”
“Mrs. Chapman, let me be clear. Are you saying that you and Jamie have an attorney?”
“Yes, we have one.”
“It’s your right to have one.”
“I want to talk to him before Jamie or I talk any more to you.”
“Okay. There will be no more questions today, but we will be executing the search warrant.”
Jamie yelled from downstairs. “It was okay to tell them our secret, right, Mom?”
“Yes, Jamie, it was all right,” Marge called back.
Her tone was weary, and she was short of breath as she came down the stairs.
The phone rang. It was Father Frank. “Marge, I’m just calling to check in and make sure you are okay.”
60
For Marge, the two days before attorney Greg Barber returned from Atlanta were interminable. She had told Father Frank that Detective Wilson had insisted on talking to Jamie without her being in the room. “I don’t know what Jamie told him or how the detective could have twisted it,” she said, “but I’m so frightened.”
“Marge, the appointment with Greg Barber is the day after tomorrow at ten o’clock. I’ll pick you up at nine-thirty and we’ll ride over together. Greg is a top-drawer defense lawyer. I can assure you of that. I know you’ll feel better after you speak to him.”
Jamie intuitively knew she was upset. Three or four times he asked her, “Mom, are you mad at me because I told our secret? Mike said it was all right.”
“I’m not angry at you, Jamie,” Marge repeated each time. When he asked her that, it reminded her of how trusting he always is, and how easily he could be led when questioned.
As he had promised, Father Frank picked her up promptly at 9:30. “Greg Barber’s office is around the corner from the courthouse,” he explained.
When they passed the courthouse, Marge looked at it and cringed. This was where they brought Alan Crowley, she thought. She recalled seeing the pictures of him on television in the orange jumpsuit. She imagined Jamie wearing it and couldn’t bear the possibility.
They arrived ten minutes early, but the receptionist brought them immediately into Greg Barber’s private office.
Marge liked his appearance. He was about fifty years old, with thinning gray hair. His horn-rimmed glasses made him look more like a schoolteacher. He walked out from behind his desk to greet them and motioned them to a small conference table.
After they sat down, Barber came directly to the point. “Mrs. Chapman, Father Frank gave me some information about your son. I understand he has special needs, an intellectual disability?”
Marge nodded, then burst out, “Father Frank and I were planning to go with you to the police and tell them what Jamie saw, but then that blabbermouth Tony Carter started bragging about the fact that he had solved the murder, that my Jamie had killed Kerry Dowling. Because of that, the detective came to our house and insisted on talking to Jamie in his room upstairs while I was downstairs. God only knows what he tricked Jamie into saying.”
“Mrs. Chapman, I’m sure you’ve heard of the Miranda warnings. Did the detective ever tell you or Jamie that you didn’t have to speak to him?”
“I don’t remember him saying anything about that. I have no idea what he said to Jamie upstairs.”
“How old is Jamie?”
“He’s twenty.”
“Did Jamie go to school?”
“Oh, yes. He went to the local high school, Saddle River. He was in special classes the four years he was there.”
“What is the nature of his disability?”
“When he was born, it was a difficult delivery. He was deprived of oxygen. The doctors told us he has brain damage.”
“Jamie lives with you now?”
“Of course. He couldn’t be on his own.”
“Jamie’s father?”
“He died when Jamie was fifteen.”
“Does Jamie work?”
“Yes. He bags groceries five days a week, four hours a day, at the local Acme. That’s where he told Tony Carter that he went swimming with Kerry the night of her party.”
“Mrs. Chapman, parents of children who have intellectual disabilities often make a decision around the time the child turns eighteen. To protect the child they apply for a guardianship which makes their child, in the eyes of the law, a permanent child. Did you do this on Jamie’s behalf?”
“At school they suggested I apply for a guardianship. I did.”
“So you went to the courthouse, appeared in front of
