Nineteen Minutes Read online

  Lewis stepped back from the blackboard, surveying his handiwork. Someone who was happy would have little need to hope for change. But, conversely, an optimistic person was that way because he wanted to believe in something better than his reality.

  He started wondering if there were exceptions to the rule: if happy people might be hopeful, if the unhappy might have given up any anticipation that things might get better.

  And that made Lewis think of his son.

  He stood in front of the blackboard and started to cry, his hands and his sleeves covered in fine white chalk dust, as if he had become a ghost.

  *

  The office of the Geek Squad, as Patrick affectionately referred to the tech guys who hacked into hard drives to find proof of pornography and downloads from The Anarchist Cookbook, was filled with computers. Not just the one seized from Peter Houghton's room, but also several from Sterling High, including the one from the secretary's main office and another batch from the library.

  "He's good," said Orestes, a tech that Patrick would have sworn was not old enough to have graduated from high school himself. "We're not just talking HTML programming. Guy knew his shit."

  He pulled up a few files from the bowels of Peter's computer, graphics files that didn't make much sense to Patrick until the tech typed a few buttons and suddenly a three-dimensional dragon appeared on the screen and breathed fire at them. "Wow," Patrick said.

  "Yeah. From what I can tell, he actually made up a few computer games, even posted them for gamers on a couple of sites where you can do that and get feedback."

  "Any message boards on those sites?"

  "Dude, give me an iota of credit," Orestes said, and he clicked onto one he'd already flagged. "Peter went by the screen name Death Wish. They're a--"

  "--band," Patrick finished. "I know."

  "They're not just a band," Orestes said with reverence, his fingers flying over the keyboard. "They're the modern voice of the collective human conscience."

  "Tell that to Tipper Gore."

  "Who?"

  Patrick laughed. "She was before your time, I guess."

  "What did you used to listen to when you were a kid?"

  "The cavemen, banging rocks together," Patrick said dryly.

  The screen filled with a series of posts from Death Wish. Most of them were entries about how to enhance a certain graphic or reviews of other games that had been posted on the site. Two quoted lyrics from the band Death Wish. "This is my personal favorite," Orestes said, and he scrolled down.

  From: DeathWish

  To: Hades1991

  This town blows. This weekend there is a craft festival where old bags come to show off the ticky tacky shit they made. They should call it a CRAP festival. I'm gonna hide in the bushes outside the church. Target practice as they cross the street--ten points each! Yee ha!

  Patrick leaned back in the chair. "Well, that doesn't prove anything."

  "Yeah," Orestes said. "Craft festivals do kind of suck. But check this out." He swiveled in his own chair to reach another terminal, set up on a table. "He hacked into the school's secure computer system."

  "To do what? Change his grades?"

  "Nope. The program he wrote broke through the firewalls on the school system at 9:58 a.m."

  "That's when the car bomb went off," Patrick murmured.

  Orestes pivoted the monitor so that Patrick could see. "This was on every single screen on every single computer at the school."

  Patrick stared at the purple background, the flaming red letters that scrolled like a marquee: READY OR NOT . . . HERE I COME.

  *

  Jordan was already sitting at the table of the conference room when Peter Houghton was brought in by a correctional officer. "Thanks," he said to the guard, his eyes on Peter, who immediately canvassed the room, his gaze lighting on the only window. Jordan had seen this over and over in prisoners he'd represented--an ordinary human could so quickly turn into a caged animal. Then again, it was a chicken-and-egg conundrum: were they animals because they were in jail . . . or were they in jail because they were animals?

  "Have a seat," he said, and Peter remained standing.

  Unfazed, Jordan started talking. "I want to lay out the ground rules, Peter," he said. "Everything I say to you is confidential. Everything you say to me is confidential. I can't tell anyone what you say. I can tell you, however, not to talk to the media or the police or anyone else for that matter. If anyone tries to contact you, you contact me immediately--call me collect. As your lawyer, I get to do the talking for you. From now on, I'm your best friend, your mother, your father, your priest. Are we clear on that?"

  Peter glared at him. "Crystal."

  "Good. So." Jordan pulled a legal pad out of his briefcase, a pencil. "I imagine you've got a few questions; we can start with those."

  "I hate it here," Peter burst out. "I don't get why I have to stay here."

  Most of Jordan's clients started out quiet and terrified in jail--which quickly gave way to anger and indignation. But at that moment Peter sounded like any other ordinary teenage kid--like Thomas had sounded at his age, when the world apparently revolved around him and Jordan just happened to be living on it as well. However, the lawyer in Jordan trumped the parent in him, and he started to wonder if Peter Houghton truly might not know why he was in jail. Jordan would be the first to tell you insanity defenses rarely worked and were grossly overrated, but maybe Peter could be passed off as the real deal--and that was the key to securing an acquittal. "What do you mean?" he pressed.

  "They're the ones who did this to me, and now I'm the one who's being punished."

  Jordan sat back and crossed his arms. Peter didn't feel remorse for what he'd done, that much was clear. In fact, he considered himself a victim.

  And here was the remarkable thing about being a defense attorney: Jordan didn't really care. There was no room in his line of work for his own personal feelings. He had worked with the scum of the earth before--killers and rapists who fancied themselves martyrs. His job wasn't to believe them or to pass judgment. It was simply to do or say whatever he had to in order to get them free. In spite of what he'd just told Peter, he was not a clergyman or a shrink or a friend to a client. He was simply a spin doctor.

  "Well," Jordan said evenly, "you need to understand the jail's position. To them, you're just a murderer."

  "Then they're all hypocrites," Peter said. "If they saw a roach, they'd step on it, wouldn't they?"

  "Is that how you'd describe what happened at the school?"

  Peter flicked his eyes away. "Do you know that I'm not allowed to read magazines?" he said. "I can't even go into the exercise yard like everyone else."

  "I'm not here to register your complaints."

  "Why are you here?"

  "To help you get out," Jordan said. "And if that's going to happen, then you need to talk to me."

  Peter folded his arms across his chest and glanced from Jordan's collared shirt to his tie to his polished black shoes. "Why? You don't really give a shit about me."

  Jordan stood up and stuffed his notebook into his briefcase. "You know what? You're right. I don't really give a shit about you. I'm just doing my job, because unlike you, I won't have the state paying my room and board for the rest of my life." He started for the door, but was called back by the sound of Peter's voice.

  "Why is everyone so upset that those jerks are dead?"

  Jordan turned slowly, making a mental note that kindness had not worked especially well with Peter, nor had the voice of authority. What had made him respond was pure and simple anger.

  "I mean, people are crying over them . . . and they were assholes. Everyone's saying I ruined their lives, but no one seemed to care when my life was the one being ruined."

  Jordan sat down on the edge of the table. "How?"

  "Where do you want me to start," Peter answered, bitter. "In nursery school, when the teacher would bring out snacks, and one of them would pull out my chair so I'd f