Shatter Read online

  I slump on the bed, my whole body shaking. There’s a cluster of my own hair tangled between the fingers of my left hand. What do the keys mean—dotted with blood and fingerprints? How did Cordero get them? No wonder he had to trust me before he’d show me anything—the evidence incriminates him.

  The house alarm stops. I can’t hear Rick Thornton’s voice anymore, just the announcers on the television.

  Be careful around your father.

  “… just received news that police have found a handwritten note one block from the blast,” a male newscaster is saying. “It reads, Stop persecution or suffer an explosion in Sacramento Saturday.”

  A second announcer’s voice answers. “Do police think the person is threatening the Laborer’s Rally?”

  Did Dad kill Juan? Is he capable of that? I picture him angry. I picture him beating Juan to death and burying him in our orchard. Impossible. Even if Dad were involved, someone else must have delivered the blows. And then there’s Carrie and Cordero. Somehow their fingerprints got on Juan’s car keys. But Dad couldn’t have killed Carrie. That’s even more impossible than him killing Juan. Although, he is wracked with guilt that he caused her death. What if his mistake in getting her involved got her killed? Is that why he feels such guilt?

  No, I refuse to believe my father is involved.

  Footsteps pound against the tile in the entryway. “Salem? Salem?” Dad’s frantic voice calls.

  I scramble off the bed, tucking the newspaper into my pocket. “I’m here! Dad!”

  Rick’s shouts echoes from the front of the house. “Stop!”

  “Dad?” I run into the entryway across glass fragments that crack underfoot.

  Dad is in the doorway, his hands up. Rick is on the landing of the stairs with his gun aimed at my father. When Rick hears me, he swings the gun from Dad to me, his eyes red with fury.

  I skid to a halt, screaming, staring up into the barrel of a handgun.

  Dad’s yelling, “That’s my daughter! That’s my daughter!”

  Rick sees me and jerks the gun up. “I’m not shooting. I’m not!”

  Our breaths are audible. The announcers on the television are loud.

  “Organizers of the Laborer’s March say they plan to gather for a rally at five o’clock on the steps of Sacramento’s capitol building, threat or not,” one of them says.

  I lower my arms. Saturday at five o’clock. That’s right around the time the mock trial will end. Our class will exit the courthouse just a few blocks from where the bomb will be.

  “Put that gun away,” Dad commands Rick as he runs to me.

  Rick leans forward to set the safety on his gun. “Easy for you to say. You and the mayor are staging these break-ins.”

  I throw my arms around Dad, feeling his fear. Dad could never be involved in break-ins or murders.

  He pulls back slightly. “Salem, are you bleeding?”

  “Just a little.”

  “What else am I supposed to think you’re doing?” Rick’s voice trembles with anger. “Having secret meetings. Planning a counterstrike. Same time. Same place.” He mocks the words Mr. White used while talking in private to Dad and Bill.

  His phrasing triggers my memory. I stay in Dad’s embrace, fighting mental images. Rick, at the pizza restaurant, outnumbered by Mayor Knockwurst, Mr. White, and Dad, who were planning secret meetings to beat the strike. Growers with secret meetings apparently fabricated Dad’s alibi. Who’s to say growers with secret meetings couldn’t plot a murder? Mr. White's words were same time, same place. The grower’s counterstrike could be at the same time and place as the Laborer’s Rally next Saturday, in downtown Sacramento. That’s exactly where the next explosion has been threatened.

  What if the counterstrike Dad and his friends planned is the threatened explosion?

  Terrified, I retreat from Dad, glass snapping against the entryway tile under my shoes.

  “What happened? Salem?” Dad reaches for me. On the stairs, Rick secures his gun behind his back.

  I sprint to the bathroom and lock it.

  I don’t know what to do. I hug myself. I’m getting blood on my shirt. Blood. Is any of it Cordero’s? I don’t remember him bleeding. If he was, he may have gotten some on me. I need to get rid of it before police test it. I can’t let anyone know Cordero is digging into the secrets of the growers and their hush-hush meetings.

  Tossing my phone onto the sink’s counter, I turn on the shower and step fully clothed into the water. My white capris are dingy and dotted with blood smears. Shallow cuts from the mirror burn my face and arms as the water runs pink down the drain. I’m shaking. Cordero thinks Dad is dangerous.

  Dad calls from outside the door. “Salem, it’s okay. Open up.”

  “Faking an alibi doesn’t make him a murderer,” I say with chattering teeth into the warming shower stream. Anyone facing a murder charge would try to get away from police suspicion. Of course he coaxed his grower friends into remembering he was with them.

  The water is hot now. I turn it off. The front side of me is soaked. I pat my back pocket and retrieve the damp newspaper picture of Carrie accepting her award from the mayor.

  Mayor Knockwurst didn’t need Dad in order to kill someone.

  “Salem,” Dad calls outside the bathroom door.

  But if I’m wrong and Dad is involved? What then?

  “Salem?” The door handle jiggles.

  If I’m going to keep Dad from suspecting I know more than I’m telling, I’ll have to be rational, calm.

  I rip the newspaper into small pieces and run water over them in the sink.

  “I’m all wet.” Shoving the destroyed newspaper into my back pocket, I unlock the door and dodge having to face him by kneeling to search for a towel under the sink. “I was washing off the blood. It was such a dumb idea.”

  “Salem?” Dad kneels down behind me and puts his hand on my shoulder. “Everything’s okay. Stop.”

  Somehow I do it. I give him a hug and tell him that I’m not very hurt, that I’m not very frightened. Paramedics invade the house in a haze of iodine wipes. Elena arrives. She’d been outside, checking for a defect in the alarm and then detained by the police who entered before her. She gets me a change of dry clothes while Rick corners Officer Haynes.

  “How could you take so long to get here?” Rick demands. “Elena could have been hurt.”

  “Your security system has had several false alarms, Rick,” Officer Haynes responds.

  “The young lady here—she was hurt.”

  “And you must have heard about the explosion at Mission Plaza downtown,” Haynes continues calmly.

  I stare at the officer as a paramedic wallpapers me with tiny Band-Aids. Officer Haynes could be the one Cordero thinks is bad. Does it really take two weeks for a forensic expert to arrive or is he trying to delay so the details of her death don’t come to light? I’m so drained. I can’t tell what I think.

  All patched up, I find myself sitting at the kitchen table giving a play-by-play of events that seem surreally possible. I was studying alone in the main room after AddyDay left. I heard something upstairs and ran to the bedrooms on the second floor to check. I heard a guy yelling.

  “I—I was scared,” I say. Officer Haynes is taking notes next to me. Dad is seated on my other side, with Elena and Rick looking uncomfortable next to each other across the table. “I pushed a panic button in the bedroom. I was trying to go downstairs, but a guy was on the balcony, blocking the path to the stairwell. So I … I hopped the balcony railing. I knocked the mirror down and it—it got glass everywhere. I don’t know where the guy went. Then Rick got here.”

  I describe the perpetrator with ease. He was medium height with medium-colored hair. He had a mask on.

  Dad turns to me, serious and worried. “Was it that guy you were talking to at the festival? Mr. White says he’s a gang member. Cordero Vasquez.”

  My pulse kicks into high gear. “No.”

  Rick looks upset as he glances from
Dad to me.

  Dad shakes his head, but doesn’t press the issue. Why doesn’t he make me tell him the truth? I’ve always been an open book. Does he not want to know if I’m consorting with gang members? The real question is why doesn’t Dad want me around Cordero? Because he’s a bad influence or because of what he knows about Carrie’s murder?

  The answer could well be recorded on the audiotape of the grower’s meeting. A recording now at AddyDay’s house—the house of the mayor, the house of the man who threatened Carrie.

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  Iwake up Sunday thinking how Cordero suspects Dad. He has to be wrong. Mayor Knockwurst is the one who threatened Carrie. He should be hauled to the police station this second—and arrested this second and sentenced to jail for life this second and maybe executed tomorrow. I’m not even sure of my views on the death penalty, but I figure one day is plenty of time to decide.

  I stew on questions. If the mayor is the killer, I can trust Dad, right? What about the police?

  I get through breakfast fueled by physical pain. My cheekbone only hurts when I put pressure on it, but my hip and shoulder throb no matter what. Bits of antibiotic goo from my shallow cuts get stuck in my hair, so I shower twice. The lady who treated me kept saying I might have been exposed to the blood of the perpetrator, who surely has all sorts of diseases. I prefer to think this is inaccurate, but don’t protest when Dad takes me to the hospital for a battery of blood work.

  We get home to a message from Officer Haynes that police have lifted perfect fingerprints from Elena’s house, but don’t have the match in their system. I’m relieved. Seeing Cordero is as important as getting my hands on that grower’s tape. We’re a team now. AddyDay is on my side too. Ordered to rest for the day, I’m unable to go to her house. I leave a voicemail for her explaining the official version of the house break-in in case her mayor stepdad intercepts it. She doesn’t respond, which worries me.

  Monday morning finally comes. I tell Dad I want to go to school.

  “You sure?” he asks, nodding at my face.

  “The cuts have sealed. I think makeup will mostly cover them.”

  “Well, okay.” He’s been cautious around me since the break-in. Willing to give me anything I want, even space and silence.

  I put on twice my usual amount of foundation, a pair of quick-dry running pants, and a long-sleeved cotton tee. I stare at my reflection. I look puffy and red, but more boy-troubled than assaulted.

  At school, I find out both community leaders are at the gym to meet with the prosecution team—Rick Thornton and Officer Haynes. Both the men who were with me Saturday night.

  Mr. White calls to me the moment I step into the gym. “Salem, get ready to record a round of witness questions.”

  Nodding, I sit next to AddyDay on the bleachers. We glance at each other significantly, but we have no privacy for chatting.

  Cordero doesn’t arrive by the time the bell rings. Mr. White begins class.

  “Team, your community leaders are here to help you hone your courtroom skills,” he announces. “In this scene, Officer Haynes will be a prosecution lawyer and Rick will be Lee Oswald, the suspect accused of killing JFK. Officer Haynes will deviate from the script written by your team and ask his own questions. Take notes on what kind of information he digs for. Uncover strategies you haven’t thought of. I’ll play the role of the judge. The mock trial is Saturday. That’s in only six days, people.”

  The Laborer’s Rally in Sacramento is in only six days, also. Plus, by then it will have been two weeks since Officer Haynes requested a forensic expert to come. By Saturday, I could know with certainty if Carrie was even murdered at all.

  “Men, start the court scene.” Mr. White gestures to me. “Salem, record.”

  I start filming. Officer Haynes appears on screen, seated in uniform on a folding chair next to Rick Thornton.

  “Did you beat your wife, Lee Oswald?” Officer Haynes asks Rick.

  Rick squirms. Officer Haynes remains steely-eyed. Behind me, the students on the bleachers go quiet at the incendiary start to the witness questions. AddyDay takes notes.

  I have to tell her about her stepdad.

  I don’t want to tell her about her stepdad.

  “Did I beat my wife?” Rick looks up from the script in his lap. “The answer to Officer Haynes’s question isn’t here.” He’s right. I know because I wrote the script. “What do I say if I don’t know the answer?”

  AddyDay answers without looking up, writing with furious speed. “During the trial, say so—that you don’t know. For now, say yes.”

  “Yes, I hit Marina.” Rick straightens against his folding chair, perhaps uncomfortable with his role as an abusive husband.

  “Interesting that she didn’t leave you and end the marriage,” Officer Haynes replies.

  I glance over my shoulder at the double doors. When is Cordero going to get here? I can trust him, but I can’t feel relaxed around him, not even at the thought of him. What kind of expressions will he wear now that we trust each other? I keep trying to picture treating him like any other friend and failing.

  The officer continues. “So, Oswald. You married Marina in Russia and she stuck with you even in the States. Why? Did she value your fight for communism?”

  “Objection,” Mr. White calls from his observation point under the basketball hoop. “Speculation. The witness doesn’t know what was going on inside Marina’s head.”

  I watch Mr. White lace his hands behind his back. If Dad doesn’t have an alibi during Juan’s murder, neither does he. If he was involved, he’s a more skilled actor than I imagined.

  “Salem,” AddyDay whispers.

  I glance at her. She’s holding out her phone so I can see an unsent text message to me from her.

  Come 2 my house today after cross country practice, it says.

  I shake my head. I’m not going any place where her stepdad could find us.

  I type her a text I don’t send, simply showing it to her. Meet in orchard behind your house. I’ll call.

  She frowns, but nods.

  “How can you object to that question?” Officer Haynes asks Mr. White. “Oswald was married to Marina. Wouldn’t he know her views on politics?”

  “Like a husband cares what his hot wife’s thinking,” Jeremy calls out from the bleachers behind me.

  “You’ll keep that opinion to yourself, Jeremy,” Officer Haynes fires back with a policeman stare down.

  A few students snort. I’d love to watch Jeremy squirm, but lean into AddyDay instead. “Have you listened to the tape, yet?”

  “I couldn’t.” She’s not really paying attention. She’s looking between Jeremy and the officer with her lip in her teeth.

  “Officer Haynes, just ask Oswald his opinion,” AddyDay says. “Did you think Marina believed in communism? That sort of thing.”

  The officer mutters that he’s glad he’s usually on the other side of courtroom questions, and then turns to Rick. “Oswald, did you think Marina believed in communism?”

  “Objection,” Mr. White calls again. “Relevance.”

  Officer Haynes blows air out of his mouth.

  “All right,” Mr. White says, coming to center court. “I’ll stop picking on you. Students, don’t forget. The real mock trial is in front of a real judge. I’m giving you a hint of the standards Judge Steele will have.”

  “Steele?” Jeremy asks with sudden interest. “The judge who’s going to rule on the peach strike?”

  I look up from the video display. Just this morning, I read some of the reports on Judge Steele myself. The peach strike is headed for the courts, and he’s the assigned judge. The growers are all up in arms. They want their case to land before someone else’s bench because of a lenient ruling the judge made on immigration last year. Growers like Mayor Knockwurst specifically. His name is on the lawsuit.

  “That’s the judge,” Mr. White confirms. “Now, Salem. You’ve got your teams ready to split into two?”


  “Um.” I turn off the video camera and lower it. “Well, we’re doing three groups today, not two. I thought Slate would be here to lead a team. And … well … Cordero too.”

  Mr. White checks his watch. “Follow your plan. Slate will be here. And the third group can move ahead without Cordero.”

  “Okay.” I stand and face the bleachers, hating every minute of the class’s attention. “You guys know which witnesses you’re in charge of. So … finalize the order of the questions we’ll be asking and make sure the phrasing is admissible in court.” I turn back to the community leaders. “Um, Rick, why don’t you go with Marissa’s group? Officer Haynes, you’ll be with Jeremy for the Oswald questioning. AddyDay and I will go with Slate.”

  The students separate by group. AddyDay and I head for the far end of the bleachers.

  “You didn’t have to put Jeremy with the mean officer,” she pouts as soon as we’re away from the others.

  “I don’t understand why you think Jeremy’s your friend.” I set my backpack down and take a seat. “So, what happened yesterday? The recording’s safe?”

  Sitting, she sends an elaborate look around the gym to make sure no one’s watching. She starts whispering, her eyebrows going up and down.

  “I can’t hear you,” I say.

  “… so, so sorry,” she says upping her volume. “I mean, everything’s fine, but we’re Mormon. Sundays are like … church, hymns, no computers—and no phones. Not in my family anyway. Mom’s very proud of that rule. I couldn’t even explain why I couldn’t talk to you. Are you ready to kill me? What happened? Your cheeks are kind of puffy.”

  I tell her that Cordero took something from the bedroom and wouldn’t show it to me. “I tried to follow him to see what he’d taken. A mirror sort of fell on us.”

  “Ouch.”

  I get my laptop out so it looks like we’re working. I explain what happened, hesitating when I get to the part about Cordero retrieving the keys. I decide I can fully trust her, filling her in completely.

  “I have to know why Cordero has the victim’s keys and why his and Carrie’s fingerprints are on them.” I say when I finish. “And the tape recording—I need to listen to it.”