“I understand an agreement has been reached between the DA’s office and the defendant,” the judge said.
“Yes, Your Honor,” Swanson said, and there was a murmured “Yes, Your Honor” from the prosecutor’s side as well.
The judge looked at Bunny with a strange glint in his eye, as though she interested him. “Do you understand that by entering into this plea you are giving up your right to defend yourself with your own testimony?”
“Yes, Your Honor,” Bunny said, her voice loud and ringing as a bell.
“Is this what you want to do?”
“Yes, Your Honor.”
“Do you further understand that by entering into this plea, you are giving up your Fifth and Sixth Amendment rights, your right to refuse to testify against yourself, and your right to a speedy trial. By entering into this plea you are giving up very important, substantial, constitutional rights. Do you understand?”
“Yes, Your Honor,” she said, and again her voice was a bell. I realized the entire court was hushed. They were all interested in this girl, in this girl murderer with the pink sweater and the crystal voice.
“Are you entering into this plea freely, voluntarily, and understandingly?”
“Yes, sir,” she said. And I felt I could not breathe. What if she copped to the murder charge? Ray’s voice was ringing in my memory. Do you think the DA would make the arson go away? And I worried we were making an incredible mistake. I wished this was like a wedding and the judge would ask if anyone had any objections, but it was not and he would not. It was too late for that kind of thinking.
“On the afternoon of October twenty-eighth, did you involve yourself in an altercation at North Shore High School wherein you attacked another student, Ann Marie Robertson, causing her to sustain injuries that ultimately led to her death on December tenth?”
“Yes, Your Honor.”
“To the charge of involuntary manslaughter, how do you plead?”
“No contest, Your Honor,” she said.
The judge looked at her for a moment more, then rolled on. “I find waivers knowingly intelligently made. I sentence her to three years state prison. Bailiff, please remand the defendant.”
And then the bailiff handcuffed her and led her out a door on the side of the courtroom. There was a window into the hallway the door led to, so I could see them even after the door had shut on her. Her hands were cuffed in front of her and the bailiff was steering her down a hallway, and he seemed to be talking to her, and she seemed to be nodding, and then she was gone.
* * *
—
It took me about three days to understand that Bunny was gone, and when understanding finally overtook me, it was like breaching the surface of the water after a near drowning, desperately gulping for air. What was I doing in Ray Lampert’s house? What was I going to do next? I began, haltingly, to claw myself toward a life.
I walked to Rite Aid, huddled into my sweatshirt, and every house I passed seemed ominous to me, as though there were people inside watching me. When I stepped inside the Rite Aid, I felt like I was home. Terrence let me into his little office, which had a one-way mirror so he could spy on the cashiers. It was all so straightforwardly Orwellian that it seemed a little sweet, from an older, more authoritarian time.
“Oh my god, oh kid,” he said when he saw me. “How you doing? How’s all your—guts?” He motioned around his own midsection.
“Well, a lot better. I mean, physically. I just—I’m so embarrassed, but I need help.”
“Tell me.”
The problem with telling him was that my eyes involuntarily produced tears, even though I was not sad about these things exactly. I explained that Jason had been one of the boys who beat me up, but that I hadn’t wanted to tell anyone, and I hadn’t told Aunt Deedee. I don’t know why, but when I was talking to Terrence, it was easy to say it was Jason and to be sure. Everything was really very simple, there inside the Rite Aid manager’s office. Maybe because I knew he would believe me. My questions and explanations came in little thorny bursts that were extremely physically painful in a way that bewildered me, but with each piece I got out, I felt lighter and calmer.
He immediately agreed to my request to come and live with his family. He immediately