Courthouse Whispers

Tree roots had pushed and cracked the sidewalk and the surface of the parking lot, and weeds had filled in many cracks. A tumbleweed rolled across the walkway to the double doors at the entrance and nestled in a corner. The cracked glass in the doors glinted in the light from the sunset. Each of the three floors had broken windows, and the shards remained in the shrubs and weeds along the perimeter of the building. Potted plants, dried up, leaned with cracked leaves. A small furry animal scurried from the bushes by the boys’ feet, hurried across the parking lot, and dashed into a drain pipe.

“Fifteen years,” Alex said. Tall and slender, he spoke with a slight lisp. His brown eyes brightened when the rodent ran by him. “This will be a kick. Fifteen years of history, and more, in this courthouse. It sure doesn’t take long for a building to fall apart.”

Jordan, short and stocky, stepped to the double doors and pulled a handle, which came off in his hand. 

“Why did they close this place?” Alex asked. “Your dad would know.” He paused as Jordan stiffened. “I’m sorry. I keep thinking he’s still with us.”

“It’s OK,” Jordan said. “You get over things like that. At least I have my mom, when she’s home.” He grabbed the jutting edge of a door and pulled. The door creaked open and the boys stepped into a vestibule.

“Hey! Hey!” Alex called. “Anybody home?” He chuckled to the tiny echoes that returned to him. He ran his flashlight along pictures on the wall and said, “Check this out, Jordan. This guy with the black beard and moustache–it gives your last name on the plate.”

Jordan stepped over rubble that included rocks, drywall fragments, and yellow newspapers and looked at the picture. His eyes lit up. “That’s my dad!” he said. “District Attorney Johnson. In the prime of his life.”

Alex said, “At least you had a father. I never knew mine.”

Jordan said, “Let’s go upstairs.” They kicked rubble out of the way as they mounted the stairs. At the top of the first flight of stairs, he stopped and said, “Did you hear that?”

Alex said, “Rats, rubble, and rubbish. They make noise, especially the rats.” He nudged his friend to go forward.

Jordan stayed in place. “No, I heard something different, like somebody walking on an upstairs floor.”

Alex said, “We stayed by the entrance for an hour. Nobody came or went. You think somebody lives in this wreck?”

Jordan said, “Let’s go to the third floor. I know I heard something.”

As he mounted the stairs, Alex thought of the hundreds, the thousands, of people who had entered the courthouse. The walls held stories. Children had come with single parents who fought for custody. Sheriff’s deputies had entered to testify about speeding tickets, traffic accidents, thefts, forgeries, embezzlements, and murders. Men and women had come to settle business disputes. Lawyers had guided their anxious clients to courtrooms where the outcomes were unpredictable. Clerks had received pleadings, took fees and fines. Court reporters had typed the words from lawyers, witnesses, and judges, and bailiffs had maintained order in the courtrooms.

Jordan stopped suddenly and Alex bumped his back.

“Third floor,” Jordan said. “This is where the two district courtrooms are. That’s where the judges heard child custody cases, high-value disputes, and felonies. I know the noise came from this floor.”

A gavel sounded. “Order in the court!” 

Both young men stared at the courtroom door. “Did you hear that?” Alex whispered. Jordan nodded. “Let’s check it out.”

Jordan whispered, “I told you I heard something up here.”

Alex put his finger to his lips, and they tiptoed to the double doors. Both of them grasped the handles. They looked at each other and whispered, “One, two, three” and opened the door.

They opened the doors. The room seemed to have a light of its own, though the overhead lights were off. The boys found seats on a pew in the front row, the only two seats available in the crowded courtroom. The District Attorney argued to the judge, “This murder was premeditated, carried out while kidnaping the woman and committed an aggravated sexual assault, then he committed arson by burning down the barn with her body in it. He deserves the death penalty. Thank you.” The District Attorney sat down at his table by two assistant attorneys.

Jordan said, “That’s my dad. The D.A.’s my dad!” He got up, ran through the waist-high doors dividing the courtroom from spectators, and tried to hug his father. He went through his father, the table, and the chair his father sat in. He stared at his father, who looked ahead, not noticing him. “Dad! It’s me, Jordan! I’m here!” His father continued to look at the judge’s bench.

Alex said, “He can’t hear you, man.”

Jordan explored the courtroom. He walked through the defense team and the court reporter. He scampered through the spectators and pretended to kick them. He made faces at them. None reacted. He somersaulted by the bailiff, who did nothing. 

“They’re ghosts,” Alex said. “Ghosts.”

“I can’t believe this,” Jordan said. “I want to talk to my dad. I miss him so much.”

The defense lawyer stood for his argument to the judge. “Your Honor, Mr. Cooper has had mental problems for years. He has shown remorse for what happened. He suffered childhood abuse and neglect, and he has a slim prior criminal record, so–”

The defendant rose and said, “I don’t have mental problems, your Honor. I don’t know what happened here, but I didn’t do it. I didn’t kill that woman. I had sex with her but it wasn’t forced. And I didn’t burn that barn. I wouldn’t do a thing like that. I shouldn’t be here!”

The judge rapped his gavel. “Order! Sit down, Mr. Cooper! You have counsel to speak for you.”

Mr. Cooper stayed on his feet. I don’t want my attorney anymore. He thinks I did it. I did not do it. I’ll represent myself.”

Jordan said, “That man looks a lot like you, Alex.”

Alex whispered, “My mom has a picture of a man who looks like him.” He scrutinized the man, puzzled.

Jordan asked, “Why are you whispering? Nobody can hear you.”

“That’s what you do in a courtroom, is whisper,” Alex said. “I guess I could scream and no one would notice.”

“We’re in a ghost courtroom,” Jordan said. “My dad is speaking to the judge.”

“I don’t care,” Alex said. “If that defendant is my father, I want to know it. I want the truth.”

Alex’s voice trembled with a mixture of hope and fear as he walked closer to the defendant’s table, his eyes locked on the man who might be his father. The courtroom, filled with the spectral remnants of a trial long past, seemed to warp around the edges of his vision, the ghost lights flickering with the emotional intensity of the moment.

Jordan, still reeling from his own spectral encounter with his father, watched Alex. He felt a pang of empathy mixed with curiosity. “What are you going to do, Alex? They can’t see or hear us.”

Alex, ignoring Jordan for a moment, reached towards the defendant, his hand passing through the man’s arm as if it were smoke. The sensation sent a shiver down his spine, but he didn’t pull back. “Mr. Cooper,” he whispered, though his voice carried no weight in this ethereal plane, “if you are my father, give me a sign. Anything.”

The courtroom continued its spectral proceedings, oblivious to the living boys in their midst. The judge, a stern ghost with spectacles perched on his nose, looked over the documents that the lawyers had submitted, his gavel poised for order. Alex, feeling desperate, decided to try something more audacious. He walked up by the judge’s bench, standing in front of where the judge would look if he could see him.

“Mr. Cooper, if you’re my dad, speak up now!” Alex’s voice, though a whisper to himself, carried a desperate urgency that echoed slightly in the ghostly hall.

Suddenly, the defendant, Mr. Cooper, paused. He turned his head slightly, as if he heard something, or felt a presence. His eyes, which had been downcast in despair, flickered with an alertness. He looked directly at Alex, though not seeing him, and whispered, “Is someone there?”

The courtroom fell silent, the ghostly attendees pausing in their spectral existence. Jordan’s eyes widened. “Did he . . . ?”

Alex, heart pounding, replied softly, “I’m here, Mr. Cooper. I’m your son, Alex. We never met before.”

The courtroom resumed its noise as if nothing had happened, but for Alex, everything had changed. The possibility that this man, accused and defending himself, could be his father, opened up a chasm of his emotions.

Jordan, moved by his friend’s plight, suggested, “We need to find out more, Alex. Maybe we can find a way to connect with him, to understand if this is really your father.”

Alex nodded, his mind racing. “Let’s search the courthouse. They must have records, something that could tell us more about him, about me.”

The two friends, now bound by their ghostly encounters, set off to further explore the abandoned courthouse . They rummaged through old, dusty files in the clerk’s office, where papers fluttered in a non-existent breeze. They found birth records, court documents, and old newspaper clippings. 

Hours passed as they pieced together the story. Mr. Cooper, indeed looking strikingly like Alex, had been accused and convicted in a trial that had ended with him being sentenced to life, not death, thanks to a last-minute plea deal his original attorney had managed before the judge let him fire the attorney. The case had made headlines, but over time, its details had faded into obscurity, overshadowed by newer scandals and tragedies.

As dawn approached, casting a pale light through the broken windows, Alex held a tattered photograph, the edges worn with age. It was a family photo, with a woman who looked eerily like his mother, and a man with the same crooked smile Alex saw in the mirror every day. The resemblance was undeniable.

Jordan, seeing the photo, said softly, “I think you found your connection, Alex. But what now?”

Alex tucked the photo into his pocket, his resolve hardening. “Now, we find out the truth. Not only about who he was, but what really happened. If he’s innocent, he deserves to be cleared, even if it’s in our memories alone.” 

Their ghostly adventure had turned into a quest for truth, one that would take them beyond the abandoned courthouse, into the heart of their fathers’ pasts.