{"product_id":"the-silence-of-murder-isbn-9780375872938","title":"The Silence of Murder","description":"\u003ci\u003eWinner of the Edgar Award\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003ci\u003eThe story of a teen's struggle to prove her brother innocent of murder.\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThe Crime: The murder of John Johnson, beloved baseball coach. \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThe Accused: 18-year-old Jeremy Long, who hasn't spoken a single word in 12 years.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eWitness for the Defense: 16-year-old Hope Long, the only person who believes her brother is innocent.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eOther Suspects: The police have none. But Hope's list is growing.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eFrom author Dandi Daley Mackall comes a gripping murder mystery and a dark yet powerfully redemptive story of love, secrets, and silence.\u003cp\u003eDANDI DALEY MACKALL has written many books for children and adults. She has held a humorist column and served as freelance editor, has hosted over 200 radio phone-in programs, and has made dozens of appearances on TV. Dandi conducts writing assemblies and workshops across the U.S. and keynotes at conferences and young author events. She writes from rural Ohio with her husband, three children, and their horses, dogs, and cats. \u003c\/p\u003e1\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThe  first time Jeremy heard God sing, we were in the old Ford, rocking back  and forth with the wind. Snow pounded at the window to get inside,  where it wasn’t much better than out there. I guess he was nine. I was  seven, but I’ve always felt like the older sister, even though Jeremy  was bigger.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eI snuggled closer under his arm while we waited for  Rita. She made us call her ‘Rita’ and not ‘Mom’ or ‘Mommy’ or ‘Mother,’  and that was fine with Jeremy and me. Pretty much anything that was fine  with Jeremy was fine with me.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eWe’d been in the backseat long  enough for frost to make a curtain on the car windshield and for Rita’s  half-drunk paper cup of coffee to ice some in its holder up front.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eJeremy  had grown so still that I thought he might be asleep, or half frozen,  either one being better than the teeth-chattering bone-chilling I had  going on.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThen came the sound.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eIt filled the car. A single  note that made it feel like all of the notes put together in just the  right way. I don’t remember wondering where that note came from because  my whole head was full of it and the hope that it wouldn’t stop, not  ever. And it went on so long I thought maybe I was getting my wish and  that this was what people heard when they died, right before seeing that  white tunnel light.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThe note didn’t so much end as it went into  another note and then more of them. And there were words in the notes,  but they were swallowed up in the meaning of that music-song so that I  couldn’t tell and didn’t care which was which.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThen I saw this  song was coming from my brother, and I started bawling like a baby. And  bawling wasn’t something you did in our house because Rita couldn’t  abide crying and believed whacking you was the way to make it stop.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eJeremy sang what must have been a whole entire song, because when he closed his mouth, it seemed right that the song was over.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eWhen I could get words out, I turned so I could see my brother. “Jeremy,” I whispered, “I never heard you sing before.”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eHe  smiled like someone had warmed him toasty all the way through and given  him hot chocolate with marshmallows to top it off. “I never sang  before.”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“But that song? Where did you get it?”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“God,” he answered, as simply as if he’d said, “Walmart.”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eI’d  just heard that song, and even though it seemed to me that God made  more sense than Walmart for an answer, I felt like I had to say  otherwise. I was the “normal” sister, the one whose needs weren’t  officially special.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“Jeremy, God can’t give you a song,” I told him.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eJeremy  raised his eyebrows a little and swayed the way he does. “Hope,” he  said, like he was older than Rita and I was just a little kid, “God  didn’t give it to me. He sang it. I just copied.”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThe door to the  trailer flew open, and a man named Billy stepped out. Rita was breaking  up with Billy, but I don’t think he knew that. We’d stopped by his  trailer on our way out of town so Rita could pick up her stuff, and  maybe get some money off her ex-boyfriend, who didn’t realize he was an  ex. Billy stood there in plaid boxers, his belly hanging over the  elastic like a rotten potato somebody’d tried to put a rubber band  around. If I hadn’t been so cold, I might have tried to get Jeremy to  laugh.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eRita squeezed up beside the potato man. She tried to slip  past him and out the door. But he took hold of her bag and grabbed one  more kiss. She laughed, like this was a big game. Then she stepped down  out of the trailer, wiping her mouth with the back of her hand.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eI would have given everything I had, which I admit wasn’t so very much, just to hear Jeremy and God’s song again.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThe  tall heels of Rita’s red knee-high patent-leather boots crunched the  snow as she stepped to the car, arms out to her sides, like a tightrope  walker trying to stay on the wire. She jerked open the driver’s door,  slid into place, and slammed the door hard enough to shake the car worse  than the wind.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eWithout saying a word, she turned the key and  pumped the pedal until the Ford caught. Then she stoked up the defrost  and waited for the wipers to do their thing. I figured by the scowl on  Rita’s face that Billy hadn’t forked over the “loan” she’d hoped for.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eJeremy leaned forward, his knobby fingers on the back of the seat. “Rita,” he said, “I didn’t know God could sing.”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eShe  struck like a rattler, but without the warning. The slap echoed off  Jeremy’s face, louder than the roar of the engine. “God don’t sing!” she  screamed.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThat was the last time Jeremy ever spoke out loud.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eSometimes  I think if I could have moved quicker, put myself in between my  brother’s soft cheek and Rita’s hard hand, the whole world might have  spun out different.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e2\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“Your Honor, I object!”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThe  prosecutor stands up so fast his chair screeches on the courtroom  floor. He has on a silvery suit with a blue tie. If he weren’t trying to  kill my brother, I’d probably think he’s handsome in a dull,  paper-doll-cutout kind of way. Brown hair that doesn’t move, even when  he bangs the state’s table. Brown eyes that make me think of bullets.  I’m guessing that he’s not even ten years older than Jeremy, the one  sitting behind the defense table, the one on trial for murdering Coach  Johnson with a baseball bat, the one this prosecutor would like to  execute before he reaches the age of nineteen.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThe prosecutor  charges the witness box as if he’s coming to get me. His squinty bullet  eyes make me scoot back in the chair. “The witness’s regrets about what  she may or may not have done a decade ago are immaterial and  irrelevant!” he shouts.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“Sit down, Mr. Keller,” the judge says, like she’s tired of saying it because she’s already said it a thousand times this week.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eMaybe  she has. This is my first day in her courtroom. Since I’m a witness in  my brother’s trial, they wouldn’t let me attend until after I testified.  So I can’t say the whole truth and nothing but the truth about what’s  gone on in this courtroom without me.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“I’ll allow it,” the judge says. “Go ahead, Miss Long.”","brand":"Ember","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":46299732934885,"sku":"NP9780375872938","price":15.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1842\/7735\/files\/9780375872938.jpg?v=1767741514","url":"https:\/\/k12savings.com\/es\/products\/the-silence-of-murder-isbn-9780375872938","provider":"K12savings","version":"1.0","type":"link"}