Chapter 5

The drive to Coach Jefferson’s house was long but Brock hardly noticed. He was rehearsing his speech in his head and occasionally aloud.

The coach answered the door with a smile which quickly became a look of concern when he saw how tired Brock looked. Brock didn’t even wait for the coach’s questions before he took the lid off the box and started in.

“My name is not Brock Miller,” he began. “Well, it is. But it hasn’t always been. Until the first of June my name was Jordan DeVoe. I spent from the end of November two years ago until early April of last year in Emery Facility for Youthful Offenders when bond was denied. From April of last year until May 22nd of this year I was housed at Wallingford Maximum Security Penitentiary.”

Brock looked at the floor. No matter what the truth, he was ashamed of what he had to say next.

“I was convicted of attempted rape, attempted forced gross sexual imposition, two counts of aggravated assault with a deadly weapon...”

He met his coach’s eyes.

“And felony murder. My sentence was 40 years to life in prison. My conviction was overturned in May and the county decided not to retry me. I was released from prison on May 22nd. I changed my name, was granted emancipation and moved here in June.”

Alex Jefferson had grown up in inner-city Detroit where everything that the boy across from him had said was commonplace. He’d met rapists and thugs and murderers in his life. He prided himself on being a good judge of character and Brock’s confession didn’t jibe with the boy he’d gotten to know in recent months. But it certainly explained the thousand-yard stare his quarterback often got on bus trips or before games. He just seemed to disappear inside his own head during those times. Alex remembered thinking to himself during one of those times: “That’s the look cons get after a while.”

“I think you should tell me the whole story, son,” Coach Jefferson said. “I think there’s more to it than what you’re telling me if the amount of documents in this box is any indication.”

Brock nodded.

“I was the starting quarterback at Lafayette High School two years ago,” he said. “If they win this weekend, we’ll play them in the second round of the playoffs. I wanted to tell you and the team about it before the news folks got hold of it.”

Coach Jefferson motioned for Brock to continue.

“It started the day after Thanksgiving two years ago,” he said. “I was walking in the woods behind the house in Lewis County I lived in with my mom. I heard some kids running through the woods and a few minutes later I came upon them in the clearing.

“There were three boys and a girl. I recognized the girl as my neighbor from about a mile or so away. She was a year younger than me. But I didn’t recognize the boys. They were older. By the time I got to the clearing the girl was almost naked. She was struggling with the boys but two of them were holding her down while the third boy tried to get undressed. She was screaming and calling them by name and yelling for them to stop.

“I grabbed a fallen limb from a tree and ran toward them. The boys were focused on the girl and didn’t even notice me even when I yelled at them to leave her alone. I hit the boy who was standing in the back of the head with the piece of tree and he dropped to the ground. Then I hit the boy closest to me across the face. He fell over, too. But the wood broke and the third boy got to his feet and tackled me.

“During the struggle I saw an opening and I punched him in the throat. He clutched his neck and stopped fighting me. By the time I got to my feet I saw the girl running toward the trees. I waited for the police to come but then I had to run home and call them myself. The second boy had a broken jaw and a concussion. When I hit the first boy it caused severe damage to his neck and spinal cord. He was left paralyzed. The boy I hit in the throat died on the way to the hospital. I had crushed his larynx.

“I told the police who the girl was but by the time they got everything sorted out at the scene and went to her house, she and her parents were gone. When the police took statements from the two attackers, their version was far different from mine. Well, it was the same but the roles were reversed.

“They told the police that they came upon me attacking the girl in the meadow. When they tried to intervene I attacked them with the broken limb. When the cops tracked down the girl and her parents a few days later, for some reason she told the police the same story: that I was the one who tried to rape her. Her parents told the cops that she was so scared of what I’d done to the guys who’d tried to help her that she convinced her parents to take her to her aunt’s in Nevada.

“I was arrested and charged on Monday morning just before school. My mom tried to hire an attorney but no one would take the case. It wasn’t until my arraignment that I found out why. The boy I paralyzed is the son of the county sheriff and the second boy is the son of a prominent local businessman.

“I found out later that the boy I killed was the illegitimate son of the county prosecutor, but I didn’t know it at the time. They were all college students home for the holiday. The girl essentially disappeared. My attorney filed motion after motion to force her to come forward and testify but the state didn’t call her as a witness and we could never locate her to serve the subpoena. She was just gone.

“There was little or no physical evidence. By the time the cops located the girl the only thing she had were a couple of scratches. The only skin under my fingernails was from the guy who died, but that didn’t matter. At the trial it was essentially their words against mine. I guess you know who the jury believed.

“We immediately appealed the conviction. The original judge denied it but we filed again to the next level. In October of last year an appellate court threw out the rape conviction and the murder charge went with it because without a predicate felony it wouldn’t stand up.

“In December I was appointed a new attorney by the appellate court. My original attorney bailed when the money ran out. My new attorney really started the ball rolling. By March we found out who the father of the boy who died was. The appellate court ate that right up and ordered a new trial on everything--and granted a change of venue that had been denied twice before.

“My attorney also found a couple of interesting money trails that led back to one of the other boys’ fathers. By the time she was done the whole thing unraveled.

“It seems that the local businessman had paid off the cops and the judge and even a couple of jurors on the case, not to mention my first attorney. The sheriff had destroyed evidence that was found under his son’s fingernails--the girl’s skin--and hidden the fact that the boys were high on crystal meth when the incident occurred.

“My new trial was set to begin in May but Lewis County decided not to retry me. I filed a lawsuit against the City of Wilkins, Lewis County and each individual involved in the case.

“That’s still pending, as are the bribery and conspiracy charges against the parents and the attempted rape charges against the boys. This is all probably going to come out in a week or so. I should have told you earlier, but I didn’t think it had any bearing on anything.

“As it stands now, I’m completely exonerated. The rest of it is private.”

Coach Jefferson nodded.

“I wish you felt you could have confided in me,” he said. “I understand why you didn’t, though. Why were you emancipated? If you don’t mind my asking.”

Jordan nodded grimly.

“My mother died of a heart attack a year ago in September,” he said. “She was the only person who stuck by me during this whole thing. The people I thought were my friends deserted me. No one stuck up for me. No one believed in me. I wrote my girlfriend from jail and she didn’t even bother to write back. She just left without even a word. The whole town used to cheer for me on Friday nights. But they completely turned their backs on me when I needed them.