Our teachers were looking grim, cautious. You could see them speaking together urgently, in the halls. But not to us.

Better to say nothing. Until all the facts are known.

I was frightened for my brothers, I was in dread of their being arrested. I would tell no one what I knew.

But already South Niagara police were making inquiries about my brothers, my cousin Walt, and Don Brinkhaus who was, like Jerr, no longer in school. Someone had provided them with the first three digits of the Chevrolet’s license plate and a partial description of the car which was traced to our father.

No possible way that Jerome Kerrigan could deny that he’d given the car to his oldest son Jerome Jr., since any number of people knew this; but there was the off chance, Daddy probably told himself, and the police, that the Chevrolet had been stolen and whatever had happened, his sons were not to blame . . . For police officers had allowed Daddy to think initially that the situation was just an accident, a hit-and-run.

Damn kids lost it and panicked.

Both my brothers were picked up by police officers and brought to headquarters for questioning. Jerr, just as he was arriving late to work, groggy and distracted, in the Chevrolet with the dented front fender; Lionel at school, disheveled and anxious and determined to behave as if nothing was wrong. We would learn later that Daddy met Jerr and Lionel at the police precinct in the company of the very lawyer who’d so successfully defended the boys against charges of assault against Liza Deaver.

At home our mother was preoccupied, nervous. Several times she hurried to answer the phone, taking it into a room where she could speak privately. By suppertime when Lionel and Daddy weren’t back I thought it would be expected of me to ask where they were? Was something wrong?—but my mother turned away as if she hadn’t heard.

Where was Daddy, and where was Lionel?—my sisters, my brothers Les and Rick seemed not to know.

In silence we sat with our mother to watch the local 6:00 P.M. news. The lead story was of a deadly attack on a local teenager by yet-unidentified assailants.

The victim was Hadrian Johnson, seventeen. Popular basketball player and honors student, South Niagara High. Beaten, critical injuries, witness driving along Delahunt Road has allegedly reported “four or five white boys . . .”

A likeness of Hadrian Johnson filled the screen, the photo that would be published with his obituary: young-looking, boyish, sweet smile, gat-teeth.

Our mother was moaning softly to herself. She’d been in an agitated state since we’d come home from school and even now the telephone was ringing, she didn’t seem to hear.