Shatter Read online

  His fingers twitch at his side, gesturing at the parking lot and the next set of students arriving from campus. “I’m not going to hurt you. I only want to set up a mock trial practice. We must meet as a team outside of the school. My home and your home will not be good for this.”

  Offended by his casual attitude, I look up at brown eyes framed by dark lashes. “Oh, I thought you wanted to talk about how someone left a Primero gang symbol on Carrie’s car right before my house burned down around her. Because that’s all I want to talk about.”

  His eyes harden. Stepping back, he masters his emotion. “Also, I wanted to make sure you were okay after yesterday.” His words become formal, exiting his mouth with the caution of one who wonders if they’re correct, who wants them to be correct. “I guess you are. Do not come to that house again.”

  He walks to the gym doors and goes inside.

  I don’t follow him. My body is trembling in fear. The muscles wrapping my ribs are sore. What was that? Some kind of bad-cop, good-cop routine? I’m ashamed of myself for freaking out. Cornering me on campus wasn’t a murder plan. I should have been kind and pretended to be his friend, so he’d want to talk to me. But even if I’d thought of that, I couldn’t have done it. I’m barely holding myself together enough to attend school, let alone pretend to care about someone who may have hurt Carrie. I have to wait. Make it through today and talk to him when I’m calm. Stop giving him reasons to dislike me.

  Squaring my shoulders, I enter the gym.

  The air smells of perspiration, but it’s somewhat cool at least. Cordero is at the top of the bleachers, left side. His focus is straight ahead, but I swear he knows I just arrived. He’s pointedly refusing to look at me.

  “Fear!” Mr. White announces as he strides toward the bleachers. At their base, I notice a video camera labeled with the words, “Prosecution Team Leader.” That’s me. I tuck the camera into my backpack.

  “What triggers the idea of conspiracy?” Mr. White asks.

  “Horror!” McCoy Case shouts, fisting both hands in front of his own face. The freckle-faced student is Jeremy’s partner. “White-knuckled dread!”

  A few students laugh.

  I climb to the top benches nearest the double doors, as far from Cordero as possible while still keeping him under surveillance. I came to class terrified of him. Now I’m embarrassed of that fear even though I still have it.

  On the gym floor, Slate jogs up to Mr. White with some urgency. “The community leaders can’t meet with the defense team today after all.”

  “One second,” Mr. White says to the class, bending over a clipboard Slate holds.

  Out of nowhere, one of my classmates, AddyDay, comes to the bleachers in front of me.

  “Hey, Salem. How’s … how’s everything?” Her pink fingernails rest on her side. A bandage extends from her left ear to her jugular.

  I should answer, but I just stare at her, wondering what happened to her neck. As I search for the right words to say, a pair of seniors comes across the gym toward us.

  “Hey, Marissa. Katelyn,” AddyDay says.

  Marissa is a pimpled, Hispanic Olive Oyl. She grabs AddyDay by the elbow. “What happened?”

  “What happened?” Katelyn echoes. She’s a short blonde with ribbons in her hair.

  AddyDay tries to laugh, like her injury is a joke.

  The girls take a seat, still talking about AddyDay’s neck. The attention of the entire class shifts to her. Classmates with brains say nothing. Jeremy asks if Jack the Ripper posts his hits on YouTube these days. AddyDay ignores him and sits next to me.

  Why don’t her friends stick up for her? I wish I were brave enough to.

  “Jeremy’s awful,” I say.

  Confused, she frowns. “He’s just kidding, Salem.”

  I shift on the bench, not liking her answer.

  Jeremy leaves us to join McCoy on the far side of the bleachers. They walk along a bench, stopping at Cordero. I watch in my periphery.

  “Well, howdy, pardner,” McCoy says.

  Cordero doesn’t acknowledge him.

  “I said howdy!” McCoy’s voice hits the corners of the gym.

  Shifting, I glance at Mr. White. He doesn’t look up, shaking his head at Slate and pointing at the clipboard.

  “Oh, you knew we were going to recognize you,” McCoy tells Cordero. “A bright-eyed little homeboy like you? You and your friend made trouble last time I saw you. Mission Plaza? Last May?”

  My ears perk up. According to Slate, Mission Plaza is where Carrie met with those Primeros. May is when Juan was killed.

  Ever the prankster, McCoy circles his fists in mockery. He jabs at Cordero. Cordero stands and shoves McCoy with both hands, sending the redhead into the bleachers on his butt. AddyDay yelps. McCoy scrambles up from the bench, ready to lunge but Jeremy holds him back, looking at Mr. White. Unbelievably, the teacher is still talking to Slate. Everyone else is watching the fight.

  McCoy breaks from Jeremy and pulls up three inches from Cordero.

  “All right, pardner.” McCoy breathes heavy into Cordero’s face. He’s trying to conceal his delight. “This’ll be real, real fun.”

  Cordero stares McCoy down, smart enough to stand one step above the taller redhead.

  With a final nod at Slate, Mr. White hugs the clipboard to his middle and addresses the class. “Welcome to your lair, prosecution team.”

  Cordero sits without a glance at McCoy. He and Jeremy sulk and move across the aisle, taking their seats.

  I want to shake all of them. Shake answers from them like coins from a piggy bank. How do Jeremy and McCoy know Cordero? What happened at Mission Plaza?

  “For the next two weeks, you will have total secrecy here in the gym while the defense meets in my classroom,” Mr. White continues. “Was President Kennedy’s killer acting alone? Prove it! There’s been a change on the schedule, so I’m going to go orient the defense team and Slate here will take you through witness questions.”

  Introduction complete, Mr. White strides toward the exit.

  “Well, we’ll start with good news,” Slate announces. “Because of the peach strike, US Senator Debbie Lethco has decided to speak next Saturday during Verona’s Festival Hispánico. You are required to attend.”

  The class groans.

  “Sorry.” He smiles. “Now, for today, we’re going to jump right in and put Oswald on the stand. Salem, let’s have you man the camera.”

  I come down the bleachers. AddyDay and Jeremy volunteer to star in the video we’ll be filming. There’s some confusion as AddyDay tells Slate that she didn’t know she should have written the answers to the witness questions she prepared the night before.

  “Let’s practice anyway,” Slate tells her.

  I’m supposed to be acting as a team leader, but it’s Slate who has the pair sit on the gym floor, facing the bleachers. Jeremy scoots close to AddyDay, who shifts away.

  “Tell us your name and about your childhood, Oswald,” AddyDay says.

  Rolling the camera, I pan out from her face. She’s sitting cross-legged, clutching a sheaf of binder paper.

  “I’m Lee Oswald, born in 1939.” Jeremy leans into the screen, wafting the smell of whatever he last ate into AddyDay’s face. I center the picture to include him. “And I was a butthead.”

  “Where did you go to school?” she asks.

  “You were too stupid to write the answers to the questions you wrote, so I don’t know where I went to school.”

  “Tell us about your personality.”

  “Is this a trial or a dating service?”

  “But that’s … you’re not answering based on any of the facts.” AddyDay’s face flushes, and she looks up from her paper. “There was other stuff. Like the kinds of books you read.”

  “Romance novels.” Jeremy pounces on the question. “The kissing kind.”

  “You said you were trying to find—what was it?” AddyDay abandons her paper and speaks from memory. “A key to your enviro
nment. ‘I dug for books in the back of library shelves,’ you wrote in your journal. ‘I became a communist by the time I was fifteen.’ Admit it, Lee Oswald.”

  Jeremy’s eyebrows soar as students stop laughing and focus. She just cornered a hostile witness with real-time questions.

  “Actually, if you’d read beyond Wikipedia, you’d know that my best friend, Edward Something-that-starts-with-a-v, claims that your little factoid is a lie,” Jeremy answers, proving AddyDay wasn’t the only one digging into research.

  I shouldn’t be surprised, but I am impressed. Jeremy and AddyDay are apparently in an AP class for good reasons.

  Jeremy continues. “I was a lying, stupid butthead. I didn’t graduate from high school. I was so stupid, I went to Russia even though the Soviets didn’t want me. I convinced this total hottie to marry me, but had to work in a factory. Lame.”

  Jeremy rolls his eyes, his frustration becoming Oswald’s aggravation. How the self-important extremist must have longed for a plot that would put him on the map of the powerful.

  A plot like murder.

  Slate has Jeremy and AddyDay switch roles. They debate, and before I know it, the bell rings. Cordero must have been watching the clock. He has moved to position himself in front of the closest exit, blocking the path out. His emotionless eyes survey the students now hesitating to approach him. He lifts his chin.

  “In whose house will we meet as a team?” he asks, examining our classmates one by one. None hold his gaze except Jeremy and McCoy.

  “How about mine?” Jeremy says. It’s a challenge.

  “At seven tomorrow.” Cordero turns to exit, becoming a silhouette as sunlight streams around him.

  I’m the only person he didn’t look at.

  Maybe he’s sending a message. Leave him alone and he’ll leave me alone. It’s not a fair trade if he killed Juan or Carrie. He gets away with murder and I get to escape without harm? Besides, he’s not the only person who might know what the union, growers, and gangs were up to. Jeremy and McCoy might know something. Granted, they might not be any easier to pry information from than Cordero is. Other kids hung out with Carrie, though.

  I’m willing to question every person on campus, but I need to be smart about it. No more dropping by gang member’s houses. Start with those I trust most and move out from there.

  And stay away from Cordero.

  CHAPTER TEN

  Idecide on Envy and Kimi as my best potential sources of information. The perfect time to question them is at a Students for Strike club meeting the next day. It’s the first meeting since Carrie died, and I’m nervous and emotional.

  Students hang out inside the classroom where the meeting is held, making chaos. Envy, now copresident with Kimi, sticks a laminated picture of Carrie on the chalkboard. It has text on the bottom that reads, “Always.” She rifles through a folder, pausing now and again to think.

  At the teacher’s desk Kimi notices me and waves tentatively. Envy looks over. Setting her folder down, she runs up to me. Her ponytail is like a dollop of black whipped cream on top of her head.

  “Is it okay to hug you this time?” she asks.

  Grateful, I nod.

  Envy’s skin is soft and brown. Kimi makes it a group hug.

  The club’s advisory teacher announces to everyone that a school counselor is scheduled to arrive soon for grief counseling. She chokes up as she speaks.

  “The accident that killed Carrie shows us how fragile and precious life is.”

  Anxiety shoots through me.

  “I can’t do this,” I whisper to Envy. If we talk about Carrie, I’ll cry—in front of all these people. Why did I come here?

  She must notice my unease. She leads me away from the crowd starting to surround us, taking Kimi too. We huddle near a supply closet in the corner. People glance at us in pity.

  “You don’t want to stay? You don’t have to,” Envy says in a low voice.

  Kimi smacks Envy’s arm. “Counselors are good for people.”

  “So?” Envy asks.

  “I can’t leave yet, I … I wanted to ask you two something,” I whisper. “Did Carrie ever mention Juan Herrera, the guy killed in our orchard? I just … it seems so strange, you know, that he was found so … so close to where she died.”

  They huddle closer for privacy from the classroom, their eyes serious.

  “I never heard her say anything about him,” Envy says.

  Kimi just shakes her head.

  “What about that new kid, Cordero?” I whisper. “You guys said you didn’t know him. Did Carrie?”

  “Not that I know of,” Kimi says. “Is that who vandalized her car?”

  “I don’t know. What about … did Carrie ever talk about plans or strategy—something straight from the union itself?”

  Envy looks at Kimi. “We never talked to anyone from the farm union, only Carrie did.”

  “I talked to President Benicio de la Cruz once,” Kimi brags in a low voice.

  Envy smiles her soft smile. “You just answered Carrie’s phone when he called her.”

  “Yes, and I said, ‘Hello, Mr. President. Here’s Carrie Jefferson.’ Carrie needed an introduction. It increased her aura.”

  “I remember that.” A laugh escapes me, which is better than a sob. When Carrie’s fundraiser earned all that money, we got a letter saying President Benicio wanted to thank us and would be calling us the following day. Carrie was so excited.

  “Carrie said she was going to name one of her kids after President Benicio,” Envy says.

  I take a breath. “What about … did she talk about … hiring someone?”

  Envy frowns. “We tried to get everything for the fundraisers by donation.”

  I need to clarify, but I weigh my words. “I mean for underground kind of stuff. Hiring a guy … or … I don’t know, like, a gang member to beat up a grower or something.”

  Kimi raises her eyebrows. “Excuse me?”

  Envy hits my arm. “If Carrie were here, girl, what would she say, listening to you talk like that? Anyway, you were at all the meetings. We talked about how to get more Facebook shares for the union. How to fundraise.”

  My shoulders drop. “You’re right. Of course.”

  “The counselor’s here,” Kimi says with a glance over her shoulder. “Want to stay?”

  “Girl, get out of here,” Envy tells me with a pat on my back.

  I go to leave and Envy stops me for one more hug. “You’ll come next time.”

  They escort me to the door, telling everyone I have a cross-country practice I can’t miss. Everyone knows they’re lying. I rush to a bathroom, fixated by the idea that I could go back to the club meeting and give up this obsession with learning about how Carrie died. Learn to accept she’s gone. Grieve. Is that what she would want me to do? I enter the first stall and sob, swearing I would do what she wanted. If only I knew it, I would do it. But that’s the point. She’s not here to tell me. She’s not here and I think someone took her from me on purpose.

  ...

  After cross-country practice the next day, I wolf down dinner, shower, and head to Jeremy Novo’s house for the mock trial practice. Dad lets me use the car because he has a bunch of technical papers to edit at home.

  There won’t be any teachers there, possibly no parents either, and Cordero is the one who set up the meeting. I have a vision of cornering him where he’s afraid and I’m not—the exact reverse of our encounter in his house.

  “Wi-Fi password is babesdigjeremy, no caps, no spaces,” Jeremy says when I arrive, walking me to an office nook. The dark walls are lit by sconce lighting. Heavy drapes obscure a wall of windows facing the backyard. AddyDay and her friends Marissa and Katelyn are already here. They wave to me as the doorbell of the house rings.

  Jeremy rolls his eyes. “You get it.” He points at me.

  I go to answer, picturing flashing, dark eyes. Instead, I find Slate waiting on the porch.

  His hair is so black and thick over his eyes
that their color would fade to nothing if they weren’t so piercingly blue. When he sees me, his full lips widen.

  “Heard about a mock trial meeting,” he says.

  I smile. “Glad to get help from our class TA.”

  He can’t know just how glad. Slate doesn’t trust Cordero any more than I do. It’s like having a person to help me.

  “Slate!” Marissa says when we reach the front room.

  “Slate!” Katelyn says louder, not to be outdone.

  They descend on the class TA, inviting him to pick a seat, pointing out water bottles provided by Jeremy’s mom, and alerting him to the fact that they would have worn more makeup if they’d known he was coming. McCoy shows up with other boys on our team, shouting about connecting his laptop to an outlet.

  Slate claps his hands together. “Hey, guys. Maybe we should turn the time over to Salem and get started.”

  Fourteen pairs of eyes land on me, annoyed.

  “Um, we … um, should split into teams to research different things,” I tell the group. “Oswald probably planned the assassination with the mob, the USSR, or the anti-communist Cubans living in America. So … um …”

  “I already have made assignments.”

  I turn.

  Cordero is standing in the open entrance to the living room with a black backpack hanging from one shoulder, cap gone, his gold necklace mostly hidden under the neckline of his t-shirt. His expression is confident.

  Smiling at Cordero, McCoy twists his fist into the flat of his opposite palm. “You showed up. Awesome.”

  Jeremy laughs.

  Becoming more guarded, Cordero ignores both of them and asks Marissa if the seat next to her is taken.

  She looks up, surprised. “Go ahead.” She grins at her friend.

  He sets down his backpack on the brown leather couch, and turns to scan the room. He lands on Slate as a potential source of trouble. The two exchange cool glances. Cordero keeps his body angled to see Slate, Jeremy, and McCoy as he addresses everyone.

  “Jeremy and McCoy will research the mob. You …” He nods to the boys surrounding the computer. “… will research the USSR like Salem. All of the others, the Cubans. I will research the forensics. Report to the class Monday. We will win. There was no conspiracy.”