House Rules: A Novel Read online

  Jacob turns the duck upside down and pulls on a loose thread. It unravels a little, and some of the stuffing comes out in a clump. I poke my finger into the hole and feel something smooth and hard.

  “Is that where my Tupperware went?” my mother says when I pull it out of the chest cavity of the duck. Inside, there’s something I cannot quite make out. I open the lid and find myself staring at a pink iPod Nano. Gingerly, I pick it up, knowing even before I turn it over that Jess Ogilvy’s name is etched into the metal on the back.

  “Where did you get that?” my mother whispers, from somewhere on the other end of the vacuum I’ve fallen into.

  “You wanted it, didn’t you?” Jacob says, still excited. “You dropped it on the way out of her house that day.”

  I can barely move my lips. “What are you talking about?”

  “I already told you—I know you were there. I saw the tread from the bottom of your sneakers, the same ones I used here for my fake crime scene. And I knew you’d been taking other stuff from other houses—”

  “What!” my mother says.

  “—I saw the video games in your room.” Jacob beams at me. “At Jess’s, I cleaned up for you, so no one would know what you did. And it worked, Theo. No one ever found out that you killed her.”

  My mother gasps.

  “What the hell is going on?” Oliver asks.

  “I didn’t kill her!” I say. “I didn’t even know she lived there. I didn’t think anyone was home. I was going to look around, maybe take a CD or two, but then I heard water running upstairs and I peeked in. She was naked. She was naked and she saw me. I freaked out, and she got out of the shower and she slipped. She hit her face on the edge of the sink, and that’s when I ran. I was afraid she’d catch me.” I can’t breathe; and I’m sure that my heart’s turned to clay in my chest. “She was alive when I left, in the bathroom. And then all of a sudden the news says she’s dead and her body’s found outside. I knew I wasn’t the one who moved her out there … someone else had, someone who probably murdered her. I thought maybe she told Jacob about me, when he came for his lesson. And they had a fight about it. And that Jacob … I don’t know. I don’t know what I thought.”

  “You didn’t kill Jess,” my mother says.

  I shake my head, numb.

  My mother looks at Jacob. “And you didn’t kill Jess.”

  “I just moved her body.” He rolls his eyes. “I’ve been telling you that the whole time.”

  “Jacob,” Oliver asks, “was Jess alive when you got to the house?”

  “No! But I saw that Theo had been there, so I did what was right.”

  “Why didn’t you call your mother, or an ambulance?” my father asks. “Why would you set up a crime scene to cover up for Theo?”

  Jacob stares right at me. It hurts; it actually hurts. “House rules,” he says simply. “Take care of your brother; he’s the only one you’ve got.”

  “You have to do something,” my mother says to Oliver. “It’s new evidence. Theo can testify—”

  “He might be implicated or charged with withholding—”

  “You have to do something,” my mother repeats.

  Oliver is already reaching for his coat. “Let’s go,” he says.

  Jacob and I are the last ones out of the kitchen. The cake is still sitting on the table, along with my other presents. It already looks like a museum exhibit, untouched. You’d never guess that, five minutes ago, we were celebrating. “Jacob?” My brother turns around. “I don’t know what to say.”

  He awkwardly pats my shoulder. “Don’t worry,” Jacob replies. “That happens to me all the time.”

  Jacob

  Today is April 15. It is the day, in 1912, that the Titanic sank. It’s the day, in 1924, that Rand McNally published its first road atlas. It’s the day, in 1947, that Jackie Robinson first played for the Brooklyn Dodgers. It is also the birthday of Leonardo da Vinci, author Henry James, the girl who plays Hermione in the Harry Potter movies, and my brother Theo.

  I used to be jealous of Theo’s birthday. On mine, December 21, the most impressive thing that happened was the explosion of Pan Am Flight 103 over Lockerbie, in 1988. Frank Zappa was born on my birthday, but honestly, that doesn’t compare to da Vinci, does it? Plus, my birthday is on the shortest day of the year. I’ve always felt like I’d gotten shafted. Probably Frank Zappa did, too.

  Today, though, I was not jealous of Theo’s birthday. In fact, I couldn’t wait to give him the present I’d been keeping for him.

  Oliver says that, at the courthouse, Theo and I will both have a chance to talk. Apparently, it is not enough for the jury to know, as the medical examiner testified, that Jess’s facial bruises were caused by a basilar skull fracture in the periorbital region, blood dissecting along fascial planes and creating the appearance of contusion. Or in other words, what looked like a girl who was beaten might very well have been a girl who simply fell down and hit her own head. Apparently, the jury—and the judge—need to hear Theo and me explain the same exact thing in different words.

  I guess I’m not the only one who doesn’t always understand what’s been said.

  My mother is driving, with Oliver in the passenger seat, and I’m in the back with Theo. My father is at our house, in case the court happens to call in the twenty minutes it takes for us to get there in person. Every time the car goes over a frost heave it makes me think of jumping on a mattress, something Theo and I used to do together when we were little. We used to believe that, if we got enough bounce going, we could reach the ceiling, but I don’t think we ever did.

  After all those years of Theo sticking up for me, I finally got to be the big brother. I did the right thing. I don’t know why that’s so difficult for these jurors to comprehend.

  Theo opens his fist; inside it is the pink iPod that used to be Jess’s. From his pocket, he takes out a white tangle of wires—his earbuds. He sticks them in his ears.

  To all of those experts who said that because I have Asperger’s I can’t empathize:

  So there.

  People who can’t empathize surely don’t try to protect the people they love, even if it means having to go to court.

  Suddenly Theo pulls one of the earbuds out and offers it to me. “Listen,” he says, and I do. Jess’s music is a piano concerto that swirls behind my eyes. I bend my head toward my brother so that the wires reach, so that, for the rest of the journey, we stay connected.

  CASE 11: MY BROTHER’S KEEPER

  Theo Hunt had been engaging in risky behavior. His Peeping Tom excursions had escalated into entering empty homes and taking souvenirs—electronic games and MP3 devices. On the afternoon of January 12, 2010, he entered the home of a local college professor. Unbeknownst to him, the house sitter—graduate student Jess Ogilvy—was upstairs showering. He made himself a cup of tea and then heard noises overhead and went to investigate.

  It’s hard to know who was more surprised—Ogilvy, who found a strange boy in her bathroom while she was stark naked, or Theo Hunt, who realized that he knew the girl in the shower, who tutored his older brother, Jacob. Ogilvy reached for a towel and exited the stall, but she stumbled, striking her head on the edge of the sink. As she struggled to her feet again, Theo Hunt ran—overturning the CD rack, several stools, and the mail on the counter during his speedy exit.

  Two hours later Theo’s brother, Jacob, arrived for his weekly tutoring session. A student of forensic science, he was surprised to notice a familiar footprint on the porch—the Vans sneaker tread that matched a pair belonging to his brother. Upon entering the unlocked house, Jacob found it in disarray. He called out but received no answer. Further investigation upstairs led to the discovery of Jess Ogilvy lying naked in a pool of blood.

  Making the assumption that his brother was involved in her death—possibly during an altercation in the midst of a botched robbery—Jacob proceeded to alter the crime scene so that it would point away from Theo. He cleaned up and dressed the body and moved i