Paper Snowflakes

“Did you know I was on a jury that sentenced a man to death?”

Isabel paused, halting her movement. She stood on the counter in the small, convenience store. It wouldn’t be open for another twenty minutes, and she was rushing to stick paper snowflakes to the ceiling. Christmas was around the corner, and tacky winter decorations were already expected of the business. 

Isabel had not worked at the convenience store for long, only a few weeks. She was seasonal help. Most people who worked at the convenience store were seasonal help. No one stayed long. Isabel figured it was because the owner, Mr. Andor, was so cold. The only time he ever spoke to her was to yell at her for doing something wrong. Not that she figured she ever did anything horrible enough for his dramatic reactions. He had a crazy mind, which always drifted to the worst scenarios. If she did not clean up a spill fast enough, Mr. Andor would accuse her of personally tripping customers. 

He was a hushed, callous man, who kept to himself as long as possible. So Isabel was surprised he came out to watch her put up the decorations. His sudden question was the first thing he said. His voice, when he spoke, was the softest she had ever heard. 

Isabel had been stapling the paper to the ceiling, but withdrew her outstretched hands to look down at him. 

“...No, Mr. Andor. I didn’t.” 

Isabel had never been in a jury before. She was young, and had only been called to jury duty a few times prior. She was always excused for school. 

Mr. Andor was a man in his late fifties. He always spoke with the volume and confidence of a much younger man. At that moment, however, you could hear the stress in his voice, caused by his years of aging. 

“Are you a teenager, Isabel?”

She blinked, and frowned slightly. “No, I’m twenty-three.” She thought he would know that, seeing as he’s the one that processed her application, which clearly stated her age. She couldn’t help but glance down at her outfit, wondering if it caused her to look too young. 

“I was a teenager. Nineteen. Still a kid. It seems cruel that they put a man’s life in the hands of a nineteen year old kid.”

Isabel did not know how to reply, and she could not think of what he might want her to say. Isabel did agree with him. Deciding to put a man to death must be a huge burden, especially to someone that young. 

“I think they’re a lot stricter with who can serve on a jury like that,” Isabel told him, suddenly feeling awkward standing so high up. “They would probably dismiss a nineteen year old now.”

Mr. Andor smiled slightly. “I’m glad for that. Nineteen year olds...they have a lot to prove. I had a lot to prove. I wanted to be a man already. I tried to act like one.”

Mr. Andor stepped closer to the counter. He held out a hand. “You should get down from there. I can put those up myself later. I’m good at balancing.”

Isabel did not think balance had anything to do with it. The counter was wide and flat. However, she still took Mr. Andor’s hand, and slowly crawled off the counter. 

He gestured to the refrigerated section of the store. “Why don’t you grab a soda? It’s awful warm in here.”

It was warm because the heater was in. Outside, it was freezing. It would probably snow that night. But Isabel was thirsty, so she grabbed the drink. She came back to the counter with the register, unsure if she would be paying or not. 

Employees always had to pay for what they took. Although, Mr. Andor made it seem like she wouldn’t be. He too got a drink, a soda, and began just drinking it, not bothering to ring it up. Isabel suddenly felt anxious. She wondered if she did something wrong. Would this story turn into some kind of lecture? Would Mr. Andor end up telling her not stocking the shelves quick enough was like sentencing someone to death?

“It was a thirty-something man. He had killed his pregnant girlfriend. And he killed a man he found out she cheated with. Shot the girl in the stomach, the chest. And then shot the man in the head. 

Isabel winced, but tried not to show a change in her facial expression. If this was not a lecture, she wondered why he brought this up. Especially now, right before the store opened.

“It’s lucky he was caught,” Isabel told him, unsure of what else to say. The crime sounded horrible, and she understood why her boss would want to rule against him. 

“He wasn’t hard to find,” Mr. Andor continued. “He went to work the next day, like nothing happened.”

It was odd, but understandable to her. Maybe he would try to plead ignorance of the crime. She watched enough crime shows to know some people played dumb when arrested. 

“Did he confess?” Isabel inquired. Her interest peaked as she realized he may give the whole story. A murder trial interest her more than putting up paper snowflakes. 

Mr. Andor chuckled. It caught her off guard. “No. He said he was sleeping when it happened. His mother backed him up. She’d been staying with him that week.”

Isabel bit her lip. “Sometimes mothers lie.” 

Mr. Andor’s eyes lit up. He pointed, smiling. “Exactly. And it’s too convenient, right? She hadn’t seen him for years, but she’s there the one week he needs an alibi.”

The man must have been planning it for a while to bring someone home just to be an alibi. That was what Isabel figured, anyways. 

“Did the mother admit he did it?” Isabel wondered. Wouldn’t that be an exciting conclusion?

Mr. Andor sighed, and leaned back against the counter. “No. She never did. Neither of them admitted anything. But no one believed them. It was too convenient. Too convenient.” He kept repeating that phrase. “You ever hear about trials taking weeks to end?”

Isabel just nodded. 

Mr. Andor told her, “This one took months. It started in July. He wasn’t ruled guilty until October. By then, the families had their funerals, and the victims were already buried. The only thing left was justice. Or else they’d never be able to move past what happened to them.”

Isabel could not imagine being on a jury for months, having to put your entire life on hold, for the sole purpose of focusing on a violent crime. 

“So you all voted guilty?”

“Absolutely,” Mr. Andor told her, standing a bit taller. “Sentenced him to death. It was unanimous, in a way. There was an older woman who thought he should just go to jail, but we weren’t allowed to change sentencing. Just guilty or not guilty. And everyone thought guilty. I said guilty. The jury was not out for very long. There was no fighting. I think we were all tired. Months is a long time to have to hear someone describe a brutal murder over and over again.”

Isabel cringed just thinking of it. She wondered if they showed crime scene photos of the bodies, like they did on TV. 

Isabel subconsciously glanced at the time. The store would open in less than ten minutes. 

“I’ve heard of people spending decades on death row,” Mr. Andor brought up, casually, as though he was telling her a fun fact of the day. “He didn’t. He was killed two years after the verdict. His mother drove herself off a bridge a week later.”

Isabel’s mouth dropped open. The story took a turn she did not expect, and she was unprepared for it . “On-On purpose?”

Mr. Andor nodded, and took a sip of his drink. He spoke so casually, so nonchalantly. “Yeah. She left a note with her sister. I never read it, but I heard from another juror that kept in contact that it contained something along the lines of ‘I couldn’t protect my own son’. I think she felt guilty that she couldn’t hold up his alibi.”

Isabel could not hide the depressed look that came across her face. “That’s-That’s terrible.”And dark. Almost too dark of a story to be told at work.  

“It was,” Mr. Andor agreed, “It was in all the newspapers. A lot of people were asking me how I felt about it.”

Isabel could not imagine how he could feel anything besides misplaced guilt. 

“I was sad,” he continued, before she could ask. “I felt bad. I felt really bad.”

Isabel noticed that it was five minutes until the store opened. She wondered if that was it, if his story was over. She figured it was, because he walked over to the door, slowly, and flipped the sign to ‘OPEN’. 

“I’m always brought back to that every winter,” he told her. He grabbed another beverage. This time, a beer. He opened it with a keychain. He took a sip, right there in the middle of the store. 

He began walking back to his back office. He grabbed one of the snowflakes off of the counter. “You know, I like paper snowflakes a hell of a lot more than real snowflakes. Real snow brings me back to it too, I never understood why.”

Isabel dared to ask, “Did he die in winter?” She could not figure out what winter had to do with it at all until then.

Mr. Andor stopped, and turned back around to face her. “No, winter is when they reopened the case.”

Isabel felt herself lean back, shocked. “Reopened it for what?”

Mr. Andor shook his head. “They didn’t have all this fancy tech back then. All these gun experts, all these hidden clues.”

Hidden clues?

As if reading her mind, Mr. Andor continued, “I guess, while he was on death row, a detective wrote some notes, made some theories. Half a decade later the state ruled him innocent.”

Isabel felt herself freeze in place. “What?”

“Something about where the bullet went in, something about placement. They decided the man that was killed, the one the woman had an affair with...they said he killed the woman and then himself. I don’t know, it doesn’t make as much sense to me. I don’t understand why he would do that. The other story made a lot more sense.” He was no longer looking at Isabel. Instead, he looked past her. It was as if he was daring real snow to start falling, like the snow that fell the day he learned of the overturned conviction.

It did not make sense to Isabel either. However...a judge overturned the case. A judge ruled a dead man innocent. That kind of thing did not happen unless the judge was absolutely certain.

“Yes...the original story made a lot more sense. I think some lawyers were just grasping at straws. Someone probably got a payday for it.”

The wind blew on the door of the convenience store. It almost sounded like someone had opened it, a customer perhaps. Isabel did not look, however. She was entranced. She stared at Mr. Andor, wondering what he was thinking. Why did he tell her this story? Why did he subject her to this horrible, horrible tale? Even if he was right, and the man condemned to death had been guilty, why did he share it with her?

It would haunt her. She felt haunted already. 

“To think....some people are on death rows for decades. He only needed five years.” Mr. Andor shook his head, and sighed. “But maybe if he was still alive, they wouldn’t be able to spin the tale.”

Isabel’s head replayed his words over and over. And the story she saw in her head, of an innocent man and grieving mother being killed, would not stop repeating itself in her mind. 

“Don’t you worry about it now, Isabel. I worried about it, back when I was a young man. I worried about it a lot. No point in it. I’m sure he was guilty.”

He spoke with assurance, but his eyes showed the regret of the younger man he had once been. There was an edge to his voice, and it was obvious. His lies were obvious, even though he repeated them with determination, over and over. 

“Yes...he was guilty. I’m sure he was guilty.”