For a long time I wondered if LaShawn Tompkins’s case would ever surface. One of the last profiles developed was that of a fourteen-year-old rape victim, Jonelle Lenora DeVry, who claimed she had been attacked and raped on her way home from school by an unidentified gangbanger.
It took us a while to track down Jonelle DeVry Jackson, but we finally did. That was how, two months later, Mel and I came to be sitting across from a young black woman in the neat living room of a small house on the outskirts of Ellensburg, Washington, where Jonelle now works in the admissions office for Central Washington University.
“We wanted you to know the case is finally resolved,” Mel said tentatively. “That we’ve finally learned the identity of the boy who raped you.”
Jonelle studied Mel for a long hard minute. “Is this going to come out in the newspapers?” she asked.
“No,” I said. “Not at all. You were a juvenile at the time. There’s no reason to reveal your name now.”
“Good,” Jonelle said with a relieved sigh. “I always knew who raped me,” she added. “And it wasn’t rape, either. LaShawn Tompkins was five years older than me, but I loved him to distraction, and I thought he loved me, too. I told my parents it was somebody else because I knew my daddy would have killed LaShawn if he’d known. And then, about the same time, LaShawn got caught up in that other case…”
“The one he went to prison for?” Mel asked.
Jonelle nodded. “Yes,” she answered. “But once he went to jail for that, I knew not telling had been the right thing to do. And it still is. DeShawn has no idea who his father was. I want to keep it that way.”
That stopped me. “DeShawn?” I repeated. “You had LaShawn’s baby and kept him? You named him after LaShawn, but you raised him without ever telling him who his father is?”
“My parents raised him,” Jonelle corrected. “They raised both of us. They helped me get through school, the same way I’m helping DeShawn right now. It hasn’t been easy, but he’s a smart boy. He earned a full scholarship to Gonzaga. He’s studying premed. With all that, what was the point of telling him his father was in prison? And by the time LaShawn was released…” She paused and shrugged. “There wasn’t any point then, either.”
“You knew LaShawn was raised by his grandmother?”
“I knew Etta Mae,” Jonelle replied. “Our old house is gone now. They tore it down and built an apartment building there, but we lived on Church Street, too. Etta Mae and my mother were good friends.”
“You knew LaShawn turned his life around while he was in prison?”
“I guess,” Jonelle said.
“And Etta Mae stood by him the whole time, believing in him, loving him.”
A single tear slid out of the corner of Jonelle DeVry’s eye and trickled down her cheek. “She would do,” she said. “That’s Etta Mae.”
“She’s an old lady now,” I continued. “She’s old and frail, and she’s lost LaShawn, the boy she raised from a baby.” I left the sentence hanging in the air and waited.
“And you’re thinking I should tell her?” Jonelle retorted angrily. “You think I should drag my DeShawn over there to Seattle and tell him here’s your other grandmother—your great-grandmother—and sorry I didn’t tell you because your real father was locked up in prison and now he’s been murdered and have a nice day?”
“I’m not telling you what you should or shouldn’t do,” I said. “But it sounds like you’ve raised a good kid, and I think knowing DeShawn exists would give a dying old woman a precious gift beyond her wildest imaginings.”
Jonelle studied me for a very long time. “I’ll think about it,” she said finally. “But I’m not making any promises.”
A week or so after that, I was due to go to court for a hearing in the Thomas Dortman matter. In the corridor outside the courtroom I ran into DeAnn Cosgrove. The ponytail was gone. Her hair was cut short and her makeup was deftly applied. She was wearing heels and a skirt and blazer. There was only the vaguest resemblance to the overwhelmed young woman I had seen juggling her three children in that messy living room or standing angry and silent next to her husband’s hospital bed.
“DeAnn,” I said, taking her hand. “I almost didn’t recognize you.”
She smiled. “I’m working,” she said. “At Microsoft, so it’s practically just up the street.” She paused and then added, “Did you know Donnie’s moved out?”
“No,” I said. “I’m sorry to hear that.”
“I kept trying to pretend he didn’t have a problem,” she said. “But that day in the hospital you knew, didn’t you.”
“Yes,” I said. “I guess I did.”
“Finally I just couldn’t pretend any longer. If he was so drunk that he’d just leave people to die, I had to give him a choice. Us or booze.”
“I see,” I said, knowing without having to be told which choice he had made.
“But don’t worry about the kids and me, Mr. Beaumont,” DeAnn continued brightly. “I have a roommate now, to help with the kids and expenses. And once Jack’s and my mother’s estate is settled, we’ll be fine.”