No Escape

Read his story: The two blue books are each 3 inches thick. The first chapter in one is titled: "The Day I Killed My Best Friend." Each one rests on a courtroom table with a family seated in the row behind it. Each one is a biography of a beautiful girl. Each is crammed with awards, journals, report cards, sports triumphs, scholarships, photos taken when the girls were, as one of them said, "sickeningly happy."

The issue before the court is whether both books should end with a burial. One beautiful girl already is buried at Calvary Catholic Cemetery in Clearwater. Should the other beautiful girl, as her lawyer phrases it, be buried under the jail?

The search for an answer will involve the surviving girl, all four parents and many others from the netherworld of drunken driving victims and perpetrators. Two parents will beg for mercy. Two parents will demand no mercy. A boy will tell how he once took a life while drunk and got a second chance. A sobbing college girl will give testimony that could help condemn her "sweet and beautiful" friend to prison.

A question will dangle in the air, one for every parent dreading a phone call from the police at 3 a.m. and every girl and boy testing the unearned, woozy freedom of adulthood: "What is justice?"