Page 22 of Echoes of a Muted Song

“How are you not a prosecutor?” I asked as we hit the highway on our way out of the city.

The man had done more than just show up in court for me. He’d picked me up at the airport and taken me home, so I could shower and get into one of the few suits I owned. He’d been so god damned confident when he picked me up this morning that he’d told me to pack anything I wanted to grab from my apartment to take back on the road with me, so I’d have it when he drove me back to the airport. Never any wavering, never any doubt, he’d said it with a confidence I hadn’t been able to argue with so I’d done as I was told and we’d locked my bag in his trunk before we’d headed to the courthouse.

“Because I didn’t fall for the hype they’re always showing on television about the noble prosecutor working tirelessly to rid his city of crime,” Oscar said. “I grew up on the South End the same as you did, and I know you saw the same things I saw growing up. Good people who got jammed up and never could find a way out of the system afterward. I wanted to be able to help the people in my neighborhood, not hurt them.”

“And cases like mine help you keep doing the pro bono work you’ve been doing in the community.”

“You know about that?” Oscar said, sounding a little surprised.

“It’s one of the reasons I hired you,” I admitted.

“What were the others?”

“You were from the neighborhood and came highly recommended by people I know and trust,” I said. “And you believed me when we spoke. You didn’t try and tell me what I needed to say to make things better for myself like other people tried to do when they were giving advice. You listened and you never asked me to adjust anything about my statement.”

“Because the truth, good and bad, is supposed to be what justice is all about,” Oscar said. “It does no one any favors to get someone off on a loophole or a technicality when they’re dirty as hell and at risk of hurting someone else in the future. I’ve got a lot of lines I won’t cross and a lot of cases I won’t take, for a variety of different reasons. I also know classic cars, and I’m hoping to get a few folks in jury selection who do, too. That Firebird you were driving would have spun, flipped and rolled into a fiery inferno if you’d swerved at the speed they claim you were going because the instinct would have been to slam on the brakes. You didn’t. You downshifted and kept control of that vehicle right until you hit that black ice. That’s the only way you and Rebel lived.”

I could almost feel the gear shifter beneath my fingers, the smooth purple raptor’s head that Rebel had specially made to replace the stock one. The way my fingers had wrapped around it, gripping as I worked the clutch and got us moving away from the van, fishtailing. That splitsecond of relief when the back end nearly evened out had been shattered when a rear tire hit ice and the whole thing spun. My old man had always said to steer into the spin and keep your foot off the brake, so that’s what I did. With a white-knuckle grip on the shifter and the wheel and the memory of strobe lights flashing before my eyes until we’d thudded to a stop against the McCalls’ vehicle. In the resulting stillness, after I’d somehow managed to straighten my fingers enough to let go of the shifter so I could turn the engine off, the only other sound I’d heard besides my heartbeat in my ears was the harshness of Rebel’s breathing, followed by his laughter when he’d realized that we were okay.

Holy shit, holy shit, bro, the metal gods were watching over us tonight.

I just wished they’d been watching over the McCalls.

I don’t remember the exact moment when Rebel and I became aware that it was not just a guardrail but another vehicle we were resting against, but later, we’d both recall Mrs. McCall screaming for her husband, and us fumbling with our door handles to get out and help, too stupid to think about calling 911 first. Was a good thing their SUV had done it for them after it had detected that they’d been in an accident, ‘cause all Rebel and I had been able to do was hold hands, put pressure on bleeding wounds and repeatedly ask the agent when the hell the EMTswere gonna get there.

I shook myself out of the memory and realized that we were almost to Fall River and damn, did I have a lot of good memories of playing shows there. I’d have to remind Draven to add a stop to the tour. It would be nice to spend a night entertaining my original fans. Provided I was still out.

Shit.

Today’s victory could easily turn into defeat when the case reached trial.

“Do you really think giving a press conference and telling my story could help things?”

“I’ve only been telling you that for months.”

“Then I’ll have my band’s new manager set something up.”

“Might be a good idea to contact that reporter who keeps reaching out to you, too,” Oscar said. “Local folks are gonna be more likely to trust their local reporter than news they get from clear across the country. You know how it goes.”

“Yeah. But the way they’ve been burying me in the papers, who’s to say they won’t misquote me or some shit? I’ve got no reason to trust them let alone want to talk to them.”

“The only reason they’ve been able to bury you is because you’ve steadfastly refused to sit down and give anyone your side of the story,” Oscar pointed out. “I told you from the beginning that was a bad idea.”

“And I told you from the beginning that I justwanted all of this to be over.”

“If I had a magic gavel, I’d wave it and dismiss this case in an instant, but the law doesn’t work like that.”

“Unfortunately.”

“Dust in the Wind”relaced conversation, but he kept the radio low when I would have cranked it up and sang along.

“Hey, I never told you about downshifting,” I blurted over the song’s chorus. “I didn’t even remember downshifting until a few minutes ago.”

“Like I said, I know cars and I know how they handle. Had a friend who taught me to drive stick shift on the same make and model car as you were driving that night. I know how they handle and I know what the steering column of one of those will do at the speed the cops want to say you were traveling. You’d have needed two hands to hold it steady meaning you’d have needed two hands to swerve. The odds of you cranking it without over cranking and flipping into a tree is damn near nil.”

“And that’s why you believed me.”

“That and having drag raced that stretch of road in my misspent youth. You insisted that you couldn’t go off the road to the left because there was a van in the way. Only guys who know that road know that it’s safest to go off left if you get in trouble out there. That gave me no doubt that you’d have taken that Firebird into the grass ifthere hadn’t been something there to prevent it, so let’s find that van, yeah, and then you and I are gonna sit down for a wicked seafood feast at the wharf to celebrate.”

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