Red Kayak: Chapters 24–28

“A lawyer? You think we need a lawyer?” Mom asked, incredulous.

So, sitting on that slippery couch between Mom and Dad, I went over it all again, including how it was me who, months before, had suggested we put holes in Mr. DiAngelo’s canoe, which gave my friends the idea to steal Dad’s cordless drill and sabotage the kayak.

“Just coming up with the idea isn’t enough to convict someone,” he explained. “It could be considered conspiracy, I guess, but even conspiracy has to include a first step, and that has to include some action, not just talking about a crime.”

“Just to be sure,” Mr. Anderson continued, “I think we should proffer this information in exchange for the state’s attorney’s agreement for immunity from prosecution. I’m sure they’ll accept it—they don’t have a case without Brady.”

“Just to be sure,” Mr. Anderson continued, “I think we should proffer this information in exchange for the state’s attorney’s agreement for immunity from prosecution. I’m sure they’ll accept it—they don’t have a case without Brady.”

“Just to be sure,” Mr. Anderson continued, “I think we should proffer this information in exchange for the state’s attorney’s agreement for immunity from prosecution. I’m sure they’ll accept it—they don’t have a case without Brady.”

So it looked as though I wasn’t going to get in trouble after all. Still, it was not a jubilant moment.

“The judge will make that decision,” he said. “There won’t be a trial by jury. No juries in juvenile court.”

He put his legal pad up on the desk, and we looked at one another. “It’s pretty serious, though. My guess is that your friends will be charged with manslaughter—maybe even second-degree murder.”

“Which one is worse?” I asked timidly, almost not wanting to know.

The law defines manslaughter as killing someone, but without malice aforethought, which means you didn’t intend to harm anyone.

The lawyer reaffirmed my question with a nod.

Vaguely, I was aware of Mom’s hand on my back.

From there, we went to the police station, where I was told to step into a small, stark room that had nothing but a table, a couple chairs, and a computer in it.

I was getting worn down by telling it over and over, but I plodded through it, the detective prodding me with questions: When did you find the drill? What did your friend Digger say when you confronted him? Who was the other boy?

“When they set a date for the trial, Brady, you’ll be subpoenaed to appear in court as a witness.”

As I soon found out, no one in juvenile court would refer to Digger as Digger—nor even very often by his first name, Michael. Mostly, he was Mr. Griswald. Just as J.T. was Mr. Tyler. Oddly, I found this small slice of protocol comforting.

She took a couple steps up to a large chair behind a desk built into a tall wooden podium.

“Jeremy Tyler, Michael Griswald,” Master Williams addressed my friends in a clear, direct voice that was neither harsh, nor sympathetic, but somewhere in between. “Do you understand that you are being charged with murder in the second degree in that you did feloniously and with malice aforethought kill and murder Benjamin DiAngelo?”

Like Digger, he wore blue jeans and an untucked T-shirt and didn’t appear to have shaved or in any other way attempted to spruce up his appearance.

“That’s it, then,” Master Williams announced. “I’ll see you both back here in thirty days for your adjudication.”

She was just trying to bolster my mood and keep my spirits up—and maybe my courage, too.

But see, even that gesture drove a dilemma through my heart. Because I also felt that I should have given all that money back to Mrs. DiAngelo.

The weeks between the hearing and the next court date dragged by slower than any doldrums I’d ever encountered.

It was really hot and humid that day. Stifling.

But what I remember most about that wait is not the heat and how I was still mustering the courage to stand up in front of everyone and testify without breaking down.

As soon as I spotted them, I kept my eyes averted and spent the rest of the time moving one foot back and forth and staring at a crack in the tile floor.

While I was still reeling from the fact that I didn’t have to get up in front of everyone and tell my story, Master Williams was asking J.T. and Digger, “Do you understand that by admitting to this charge, you give up your right to testimony on your own behalf?”

“That’s the bailiff,” Mr. Anderson whispered. “He’s got all their background information.”

“None of this is any excuse for what happened to Benjamin DiAngelo,” the young public defender continued, “but I want the court to know that Michael has harbored a lot of resentment and anger toward his father, and has never had a healthy escape valve. Never any counseling of any kind. Never anyone to talk to, or go to for help, except for his grandfather, who recently has become frail and was placed in a nursing home.”

“None of this is any excuse for what happened to Benjamin DiAngelo,” the young public defender continued, “but I want the court to know that Michael has harbored a lot of resentment and anger toward his father, and has never had a healthy escape valve. Never any counseling of any kind. Never anyone to talk to, or go to for help, except for his grandfather, who recently has become frail and was placed in a nursing home.”

“The most important thing you boys need to learn is that what you did was so reckless and so unthinking that a little boy lost his life...."

There was some legal jargon, but I grasped this: She committed J.T. and Digger to the custody of juvenile services—to nine months in a forestry camp for juvenile offenders out in western Maryland.

There was some legal jargon, but I grasped this: She committed J.T. and Digger to the custody of juvenile services—to nine months in a forestry camp for juvenile offenders out in western Maryland.

In fact, on my way there just recently I noticed how the path J.T. and I had tramped down through the soybean field was mostly grown in now, and yet you could still see it, a narrow sandy line between my house and his.