Category: #BestRevenge

Whitney:
Chapter XVI – The Magician

I was afraid to go back to the dean. This impersonation stuff is soul wracking; I don’t know how Charmian – whoever she is – can stand it. You can’t ever relax. More evidence that she doesn’t have a soul. I feared the dean might call the police on me, so I went instead to the college library, darting and lurking like Someone with a Secret. Like I think I said before, it was very small, and disappointingly, only incredibly young students stood behind the desk. But behind bulletproof glass I did notice a door labeled, Director, so I asked the nearest Goth child if it was possible to ask the Director a question.

Without looking up he buzzed me into the sanctum. I rapped upon the door.
“Come in.”

The harassed-looking woman behind the desk was on the phone. It gave me a chance to think of a cover story. Guilt gets in the way of everything. That’s what gives my dear old step mom her edge. A triumphant lack of guilt. For some enterprises – like transformations, say, or impersonations – salesmanship isn’t enough. You need actual magic. In sales you soon realize that a lot of being accepted has to do with whether you think you’re going to be rejected or not. In sales I’m comfortable, because it’s so impersonal. People might say they want American’s Next Supermodel salesperson but what they really want is someone they can be comfortable with and depend on. I can be that person.

In my private life it’s a different story. Since Penn and I went blooey and my official dating status is “desperate” I should be putting myself out there, but obviously I’ve been distracted. Some things I’ve gotta do.

Looking at the poor, exhausted library director groveling to some anonymous person about budget line items and “new collections” I suddenly had the weirdest memory of my mother. My mother could have pulled this off. Her big advice in life was, “Don’t think about yourself, just concentrate on the other person.”

Yeah, and we saw how that got her screwed over. I can’t stop thinking about how ludicrous I must appear to the other person – that’s if it’s anything personal that I want to get for myself. Am I feeling particularly unentitled? Or am I just ruined by seven years of knowing Charmian, whose feelers are oh so sensitive for anything you might want (or need) so that she can block it or obstruct it or mine it for a Shame Opportunity. Charmian the Beautiful, whose obstructive efforts are so graceful, so patently second nature, and so obviously pleasurable – to her. Why should anybody give me what I want?

You’ve got to hand it to me, though. I keep on trying. Whitney is a trier. “Whitney shows persistence in attacking her goals” was a typical teacher comment about yours truly. Attacking my own goals? Houston, we have a problem.

The woman before me with the tight curls and the loose dewlaps slammed down the receiver and barked, “What is it?”

I summoned up my inner magician. Nothing. OK, Sales. You say why you’re there and you wait for The Objection.

“I’m trying to trace Charmian Carr’s friends. Do you know of anyone who might be able to identify this person?” And I handed her the printout.

She didn’t look at it. She looked at me. Thoughtfully.

“Charmian Carr, eh?” she said. “We get a lot of inquiries about her. Maybe you should go to the police.”

I see we are at least talking about the same person.

“I have to find her first,” I said honestly. The real Charmian Carr. Or what’s left of her.

The woman shook out a pellet of nicotine gum and counted the few she had remaining. “Never had anyone looking for her friends before. It’s an interesting approach.” She gave my paper a cursory glance. “I couldn’t say,” she said finally. “I never get out of this damned hole. But I can tell you who would probably know. Mrs. Greenbelt. She’s our volunteer. She knows everything worth mentioning about everyone worth knowing.” She barked out an appreciative, reminiscent laugh, then shivered all over. Visibly reining herself in. “I was raised to believe gossip was a sin, Miss – er. Mrs. Greenbelt thinks it’s an art form.” She dismissed me. “I think she’s shelving in the basement today. Lucas or Mindy could buzz you down.”

Neither Mindy nor Lucas even looked up as whichever one of them it was – I swear I couldn’t tell – hit the buzzer. I was an unwelcome interruption to their intense conversation. Their warding, waving gestures appeared designed to tell me, “Take this whole library. Please.”

Down, down, down, into a world designated by wall art as a Civil Preparedness Bomb Shelter. I guess that’s a relief that the world won’t come to an end before I‘ve talked to Mrs. Greenbelt.

The stairs were strictly utilitarian, built of porous cement block in which antediluvian pebbles could still be seen. That theory that we are all breathing the very same air breathed by previous generations had never seemed so true to me before; this was definitely “used air: they were expecting me to breathe. Lucky I never got asthma, like Darby. Dad said I acquired my toughness from his side of the family. They had that kind of motion-triggered lighting that lights up as you approach and dies away the moment you leave. Not reassuring. Plenty of warning that I might well get stuck down here in darkness. If only I was a cast member on CSI I’d have one of those little flashlights. I cursed my total lack of preparation. No fake business cards, no miner’s helmet. I wasn’t even a good Girl Scout, much less a detective.

At the bottom of the stairs I was confronted by a pair of swing doors, so to escape from the spitting, hissing, sparking fluorescent light I pushed them slightly open and peered through. Just in case. If this was a more impressive institution of learning I would suspect I was an unlucky rat in a science experiment. I was hardly reassured by the musty, dusty, gloomy world before me. How could Mrs. Greenbelt stand it, unless she was the Cryptkeeper?

There she was at the end of a row of shelves, standing over a cart containing its own portable lighting unit. The buzz from the fluorescent light apparently did not bother her in the least, nor did she hear my call. I would have to take my chances and get closer.

She was a doll-size wisp of a person in a cardigan sweater set and an old tweed skirt. Her skimpy hair was encased in a hairnet and she wore huge thick glasses behind which her eyes revolved and swam independently of one another. She wore a magnifying glass on a chain of fake pearls and made liberal use of it. She took plenty time studying a book, checking her list, then looking at the book again as if she had already forgotten what she was supposed to be doing.

“Hello,” I said, loudly enough so that I could hear the echo.

She looked up annoyed. “No need to shout.”

Those big eyes swam over me, and her face lit up.

“What a pretty young lady,” she sighed. She consulted a watch pinned upside down on her sweater vest. “Tea-time!”

Not even the purblind have ever called me “pretty” so this must mean she had decided to be my friend. I followed her painful perambulation to a hidey-hole beneath the stairs. I wanted gossip and by repute she had raised gossip to an art form. We all know art takes time.

Very slowly she placed a tea bag in each of two thick diner mugs, and poured in water from a smoking electric kettle with such an unsteady hand I had to look away. She gestured me to a straight-backed chair of the kind schools have long since discarded, then settled herself down in a well-padded basket chair with an explosive sigh. I was afraid to ask for sugar.

I decided with Mrs. Greenbelt honesty had to the best policy if I wanted to keep explanation to a minimum, so I said, “I’m Whitney Quantreau, and I’m looking for somebody. They told me upstairs that you know everything.”

She continued to gaze at me beneficently. “You’re such a lovely, healthy-looking young woman,” she informed me. “Girls these days look so terrible. They just look terrible. They want to look terrible. It’s all I can do to keep from jumping back when I see one of them as if it’s a vision of the Antichrist. You on the other hand – ” she sipped her tea, completely unbothered by the fact that it was scalding hot. Pepper spray probably wouldn’t even work on her. “Are you a hockey player?”

I knew she meant well. I struggled to be complimented. I had the padding, what I lacked was the aggression. That “attack” so praised in school seemed to drain away when I hit the battleground.
“I was a left wing,” she went on. “But you can’t even say left-wing nowadays.”
“Not actually,” I temporized. “Do you know this person?”

I handed her the sheet with my thumb right next to my stepmother’s laughing face.
“Oh, goodness,” said Mrs. Greenbelt. She put down her tea mug and picked up her magnifying glass. “My, my,” she breathed as she studied the face. “I never thought I’d see her again.”
“Who?” I held my breath.

“Pearleen. That’s her name. She had a last name too. Probably. I could look it up for you.”
She touched the blurrily printed face and shook her head back and forth.

“Are you certain?” I inquired weakly. It seemed rude but her vision was so compromised and the picture was such poor quality. Maybe Pearleen was my stepmother like I was a hockey player.
“Oh, I’m sure nobody ever forgot Pearleen once they got to know her,” said Mrs. Greenbelt. “And look.” She pointed again to the picture, which under these lights was looking worse and worse, more of a Rorschach blot than an Identikit. “Here she is with Charmian Carr.”

“Charmian Carr,” I echoed, trying to damp down my excitement. “Didn’t she disappear?”
“Oh, yes,” breathed Mrs. Greenbelt, as big-eyed as a night-hunting lemur. “It was the scandal of the campus.”

A miracle. I had myself a genuine miracle. Here was someone who knew everything, liked to talk, and didn’t punch a time clock. I took a cautious sip of my tea. Dusty. Green. Tasted like that diet tea everyone was in such a frenzy about a few years ago. So bad it had to be good. But after a few musty sips, I felt it growing on me. It was a keeper, just like Mrs. Greenbelt. The Tea of Knowledge, from the Tree of Knowledge.

“Miz Carr — that’s how she liked to be known, she was very fussy about not being known by her marital connections or lack of them – worked up at the college. She was – ” she halted, whether struggling with political correctness, generalized politeness or a lack of vocabulary I couldn’t say.
“Miz Carr was one of them dykes,” she said finally. “Her hormones were all of a whack. Nowadays she’d just get her sex changed.” She waved the printout at me. “See? She had a mustache.”
I was afraid to point out that she was in costume. I just hoped Mrs. Greenbelt had some actual facts and knew what she was talking about.

“Oh, she kept it quiet. She had to be subtle. But we don’t have much to talk way out here. She had a nice big house out on the Heights. And she used to invite students – girl students – to “live” with her.” She gave the word expressive air quotes, making moony eyes at me. “Helping them out. The poor ones. Doing them a favor. Oh, she could see ‘em coming! No questions asked.” She chuckled richly. “You know they say being a dyke was never against the law because nobody wanted to explain it to Queen Victoria! So there she was with her little girl gang and along comes Pearleen.” She shook her head thoughtfully. “I know I must have a better picture of her somewhere. Even though she didn’t graduate.” She gestured behind my head. “Fetch me down a Firewalker. 2004.”

At first I thought we were talking about wine. Or malt liquor, at the very least. But no, The Firewalker was a yearbook, apparently. All the slimy vinyl volumes she had neatly ranked by number. I wondered if Mork and Mindy – no, his name was Lucas – knew how to do that. Maybe Mrs. Greenbelt was more than just than a charitable deduction and a fire hazard.

She leafed slowly through the pages, studying them with her glass while she spoke.

“Pearleen was a good deal older than most students. Word had it she’d been a stripper out of Branson, Missouri. You’ve heard of Branson, Missouri?” she hissed. I waggled my head nervously like a mongoose captured by a snake. Should I say I’ve heard of Missouri?

“Where anything goes.” She bobbed her head enthusiastically up and down so both of us could picture it. I tried envisioning Charmian as a stunt pussy. No surprises there, but it was just too much for me. Mrs. Greenbelt poked my shoulder suggestively and gave her throaty chuckle. “At the Brass Pussycat on our honeymoon my husband had a cigarette taken out of his mouth by a whip-wielding houri.” Her head bobbed. “He liked it better than the army.”

Most people like their honeymoons better than the army Or so I thought. But I’m a beginner, as I keep finding out. What do I know?

“Of course that was a hundred years ago,” said Mrs. Greenbelt dismissively. She poked me. “He gave up smoking but he died of cancer anyway. Still, he was almost a hundred. So, anyway, we get a lot of students the government pays for to transition.” She worked her dentures from side to side and poured herself a second cup of tea. I shielded my own mug protectively. How old could she possible be? I thought she might be looking at the magic three-digit number herself.

“They get trained to do something useful, something there’s call for, like asbestos abatement and wiping old people’s butts. If they’ve been in a line of business they can’t follow anymore. Pearleen was getting on in years.”

Mrs. Greenbelt was a hoot. Literally. She hooted ecstatically.

“Here she is!” she exulted. “I knew I could find her.” She swiveled the page toward me.
There, in the center of a black and white portrait of The Future Caregivers of America, was my stepmother, crowned by amber waves of hair. Lots and lots of hair. My eyes were blurring as I located her name. Pearleen Purdy.

“I had a cat – Beazley he was, short for Beelzebub – who wouldn’t let any of the other cats sleep on my bed,” said Mrs. Greenbelt. “He’d hiss and chase them off. He’d fight them if necessary.” She blotted her huge eyes with a yellowed handkerchief. She was a lot more worked up over the cat than the hundred-year-old husband. “It was really kind of flattering.” She sighed. “I miss that cat. Now Pearleen was the same way. Miz Carr had several young women living with her when she invited Pearleen in. Some people complained she was running an unlicensed boardinghouse. But Pearleen put a stop to it. Pearleen ran them off.”

“And then what?” I asked her. There wasn’t going to be a happy-ever-after at the end of this story. “What happened?”

Mrs. Greenbelt shrugged regretfully. “No one sees behind closed doors, but I think that they were boyfriend and girlfriend. If it had happened now, they’d take a trip to one of them elitist states and get married. Pearleen stopped attending classes regularly and started spending money. She didn’t want to be a butt-wiper! One look at her and you could see what she had come for. Designer clothes! She and Miz Carr took plenty of trips to Houston and Dallas.

She must’ve thought she’d hit Easy Street but maybe Miz Carr had problematic health conditions. I don’t know what was wrong. I was a cleaner then. I saw Pearleen in the Administration office, helping Miz Carr with her work. Doing her work, for all I know. Maybe she didn’t like it. Maybe the worm turned. Miz Carr used to say that she was bronchial, and the college was built on a swamp. I thought she must have died. If she didn’t leave a will, Pearleen must have cleaned her out and run away.” She smacked her shriveled thigh. “That’s what I think happened.”

“But why get rid of a body that died of natural causes?” I demanded. Answering my own question. To steal her identity. Duh.

“I think she murdered her,” I muttered rebelliously. I wasn’t giving Charmian-Pearleen an inch. I couldn’t wait to call her by her real name.

“And everybody else thinks they went to Rio and were happy-ever-after,” said Mrs. Greenbelt. “But the most interesting part was what happened after.”

“What happened after?” I was on the edge of my seat. That Mrs. Greenbelt is a born storyteller.
“Everyone who had ever known Charmian Carr started contacting the school. She still had parents and at least a pair of siblings – all of whom said they were comfortable with her lifestyle. But she ran away without letting them know! Nobody seemed to know where she had gone.”
“Odd,” I said.

“Very odd. Now Pearleen always wanted to see Europe. She wanted to go on a millionaires’ cruise. Maybe they went there.” She leaned forward. “But you know why didn’t they come back?”
“Why?”

“There was money missing. That’s what Mr. Butterbatch said. He was dead at the time.”

Mr. Butterbatch? I was willing to bet that name was slightly off, but otherwise Mrs. Greenbelt’s facts were irreproachable. No more Pearleen Purdy. Just a Charmian Carr with no right to the name. I longed to tell Mrs. Greenbelt the rest of the story, but I didn’t dare. Loose lips sink ships.
“So where’s the Heights?” I asked.

“It’s The Heights.” She corrected. “It’s just a dinky little hill but things are so flat hereabouts. It’s a cul-de-sac with Miz Carr’s old house at the top. It was sold at sheriff’s sale. Not too long ago, neither.”

“I’d like to see that house,” I said thoughtfully. I stood up. “I’m sure I can find it. Thanks for the tea.” I waved the book at her. “May I make a copy of this? I’ll bring it right back down.”

“You may NOT,” she said fiercely, glaring at me. “These are my own personal Firewalkers. You put that back. They have their own set in Reference.”

I mollified her somewhat by shelving the book carefully in its appropriate space.
Thanks a lot,” I said. “You have been really helpful. You really do know everything.”

She glowed. “Now you be careful,” she recommended. Whether she was referring to the perils of hockey or missing-person investigation, I couldn’t say. She walked me back to the swing doors on her way back to work.

“I love libraries.” She sighed. “Libraries are where it’s at.”

She hadn’t even noticed they’d relegated her to the basement. Maybe she thought crypts are where it’s at. Maybe she couldn’t see well enough to know where they’d put her. I wondered if she lived down here.

I had my foot on the third step when I heard her holler, “Number twelve! Get it right!”
She-Who-Knew-Everything was quite correct that Reference had Firewalkers. Lucas and Mindy allowed – even expected – me to Xerox one. For a price. They would have sold me a frame – any size – if I had wanted one. They seemed to be operating a nice little side business in memorabilia for people whose lives had been a straight slide downhill ever since the excitement of community college. But I wasn’t into recalling school triumphs to impress my friends. I wanted to impress a trustee into voiding my father’s will.

I enlarged Pearleen-Charmian’s face but it didn’t come out too well. Some people might have said it wasn’t her. Maybe she would say it wasn’t her. And what would I do then? I sighed. Contacting the Absent Miz Carr’s relations seemed the obvious next step.

Charmian:
Chapter XV – Justice

In order to escape and find you I had first to peel Lacey’s clutching fingers off my life.

“In my day children cemented a marriage,” Lacey was saying in such an alcoholically disconnected way that I was certain her “prescription meds” had to be some kind of downers. Making her even more easily manageable. Complainers are only looking for agreement. “Every marriage is shaky till there’s children. Without them there really is no reason on God’s green earth for any couple to stay together after the thrill is gone. I mean, don’t you think that’s what explains why gay people are always moving from partner to partner?”

All the gay people I’ve known were in a frenzy to find The Perfect One and settle down, but whatever.

“Sorry, Lacey,” I said. “You know the big problem with grandchildren? They’re constantly having events. Gotta go.”
“Well, “ she called feebly, “If you ever need a “plus one – “

I nodded and smiled, but really! As if! I separate people into two categories in life: driver’s seat or backseat passenger. You can imagine what category poor old Lacey’s in.

Moralists say “criminals” – whatever those are – long to be caught. There’s a comforting belief. Can’t be true of all of us. But risk and exposure opportunities for those of us who exercise permissionless power are out there, so it’s well to be aware.

We had been told not to investigate the crime, so of course that was what I was setting out to do. No less. But I would exercise appropriate care about it.

They’ve proved that the heads of major corporations all rank highly on the so-called “sociopath” scale. What’s that mean? It means that ruthless risk takers with a grandiose sense of self do a lot better in the world than bleeding hearts and sob sisters. So what else is new. It’s the law of the jungle. Evolutionary science. Survival of the fittest, as my husband used to say.

Power changes everything. That’s my motto. To seek power, you need control. You must know that already. Obviously this woman needs to be convicted. She’s going up, Haymaker’s going up, your dad is going up. That’s what’d got to happen to leave you free.

Here’s today’s horoscope for me: “Line up priorities: what was lost will be retrieved. Do not equate delay with defeat. Play waiting game: time is on your side. Rules, regulations prove irksome, but red tape ultimately lines up in your favor. Creative urges will be fulfilled.”
First I needed to see the place where you were “born.”

The rest stop itself was easy to find because it’s right before the bridge. More of a layby than a real rest area – it has no amenities, not so much as a picnic table. No chance mistaking the place: I knew it was the right one because wreaths of fading flowers were heaped there. Who had loved this pathetic Zanelli person so much? He sounded like a born loser to me.

I stepped out of my car to check out the offerings. Yellow and white roses, from “Your Wife”. A huge white heart of carnations with a bleeding slash of red. Ribbon said, Beloved Son. They did know he couldn’t be buried there, right? Some people are so primitive. Those flowers, those offerings, should have been for you. I saw what you had left there.

What would have happened if you’d shot your father too? The mentor must be destroyed so you can truly live. No, you played that exactly right. The courts have to dangle your father before they can convict Karen Sivarro because they want him to testify. After that, he’ll go down. As trigger man, though, he probably won’t get the death penalty.

There’s your problem. It drags it out. We’ll have to give you something to take your mind off it, that he’s plotting against you every second, sending waves of hatred to the one who was too strong.
The one who got away. It’s so much more satisfying to smash them yourself. To see the expression on their face when they realize their example “Took” too well. He’s the one who set you free. The King is Dead, Long Live the King. You stopped being a victim that day, and again the day you first spoke to the police, and once again today in court when you said about your father, “He knew what he was doing.” That was your message to him.

From my bag I took the Knight of Swords card and flipped it on the pile. At an angle I set the Justice card because the dead man had been tried in the Midnight Court and found wanting. Let those who have eyes, see.

Yet still I lingered. Your spirit had been freed from that place, yet something of you still remained. The connection between us is so strong. I have never felt the slightest impulse towards motherhood –in fact have taken care to dampen that possibility several times, and yet sometimes I am jealous of the power of the bond.

Was what I was feeling now something like what a mother feels, an emotion so physical, like a global positioning system has been permanently planted in my gut and tuned toward you? Or is it because I’m a beginner at love? I have so much to teach you, but you can teach me too. In that way, the vulnerability of need, I admit I am a beginner.

It was starting to get chilly. Felt almost as if it might rain. Bought a sandwich from a drive through and set my GPS for your address. Was I surprised to see the mailbox read Zanelli!!

What’s this? What is going on? I think I sat for twenty minutes in my car. Didn’t I say you had so much to teach me? About my own business, too, apparently! The Zanellis had lost a son. I knew from reading the newspapers that Rafe’s wife and the Disputed Child had actually gone back to live with the Sivarro family. So Karen Sivarro had achieved her end and she should quit her bitching.
But that meant the “shed” behind the Zanelli home – the one the social workers bitched about because it had no running water – was available. What better way to master the universe than to adopt your victim’s identity? It’s perfect.

The mark of my youth was longing. And the Empress – my mentor – had everything. She liked me. That was the first thing that amazed me. I took it for granted that she wanted me sexually. Everybody did. She was the first to take out the tarot deck and give me a reading. She was the Empress. I was the Queen of Swords. She’s the one who introduced me to my rich, dark heritage. She treated me like the two of us were allies, two people exactly alike from different universes. She worked for a college that licensed nursing home aides. She made fun of the other staff members, he made fun of the students, and when we went to nursing homes, she made fun of the patients and their visitors. She knew how to make giving enemas or inserting catheters secret maneuvers and meanings in our own private games.

She was so witty and well read. She wasn’t a snob like my husband. She reassured me that I could become whatever I wanted. Assume any mask or guise.

When I moved in I was so impressed by her house. It was full of artwork – not originals, but big and tasteful paintings in wonderful gold frames. She loved William Blake especially. All her furniture and rugs were the best quality. Not so good as I have now but still, better than anyone around there had reason to expect. She didn’t care for clothes and jewelry for herself but she would give me anything I wanted. She was going to take me to Europe. Take me all around the world.
When she told me she was stealing from the college I knew I had to kill her right away. It was so stupid! She was begging to get caught and I wasn’t going down with her.

One of her scams was a fake laundry company. All she did was drive the sheets from the nursing home to the cleaning plant – you wouldn’t believe what she charged for that. But she used her own car! So stupid. I got her to borrow a van from the college.

I gigged her with a box cutter. She died so fast. Her eyes were open but there was nothing behind them. She wasn’t special after all. It was kind of a disappointment actually, because I wanted her to realize how dumb she’d been. But I had to get her from behind and bleed outs go so fast.
There was all that blood but I was ready for it. Her whole body emptied out on piles and piles of sheets. But I was ready for that. We’d carefully lined the van with plastic! I undressed the corpse and separated the sheets and clothing into “medical waste” bags. Off to the “medical waste” dumpster. No one ever looks in there!

For the body I had just as good an idea. Better, maybe. The college had this tree-planting thing going on. Catalpa trees lining the entrance road, each given by a different owner. We got a little plaque! I got the Empress to buy one in honor of my stepfather! Of course she didn’t know what the secret meaning was.

Robert Garvin Junior. The backhoe digs a gigantic hole and tree sits in a bag beside it. I told them we’d fill it in ourselves. The Empress thought I was all worked up because my stepfather meant so much to me, and that was true! The best lies use the truth as well as the expectations of the victim. Line ‘em up and shut’em down. Nobody knew I’d ill the hole in at night with the Empress at the bottom of it. It’s just shovelfuls of earth. I’ve done harder jobs.

I bet it’s the healthiest tree in the line, because the Empress enjoyed her food.
I threw away the plastic and my clothes in the college dumpster and then returned the van. Off to new horizons. I had new identity, jewelry, gorgeous clothes and plenty of cash.

Not enough cash. I needed a nice millionaire with a hole in his life and such are my life skills, I found one. I’ve got plenty now for the both of us.

It feels so good writing all this down. I never thought I’d find someone to tell. Now I have told you all those spirits are released. Up, up and away. Gone forever.

My husband was very into Jung, the psychoanalyst philosopher. Basically the man said we are all figments of our own imaginations. Our desires give us birth. My poor husband liked the concept, without understanding its hidden meaning. We are all subjects or objects. Not both. In our short term across this planet plain, we must ordain our own beings as well as our own lives. When I needed you, you came.

Whitney:
Chapter XIV – The Empress

Walking through the little East Texas airport was like entering a time warp. It was one of those Sputnik-inspired sixties buildings whose a sloping ceiling was presumably meant to suggest “flight”; walls of randomly colored, randomly spaced tiles meant, I guess, to represent “art” and massive, bowing, tinted plastic windows meant to suggest “cost-savings.” I had a light truck reserved – you can rent those without having to be twenty-five. Armed with a suitcase and a Map Quest printout I was all prepared to get myself to Cold Creek Community College.

About an hour’s drive. Fortunately I brought along I Hate My StepMom CD so I could listen to Congratulations, I Hate You by Alesana and Nightmare by Avenged Sevenfold on my way there.
Cold Creek Community College is yet another poorly planned, unsightly mess; mushrooming its way out of a partially abandoned industrial park. As a freshly minted member of the intellectual elite I felt a ripple of concern about what they were passing off as “education” in this place. They had enough parking to satisfy the Pentagon, and a library the size of a laundromat. The gaudily huge entrance sign beneath rotating floodlights did not prepare me for a compound of cattle trailers circled like covered wagons against the sciroccan blasts.

The “main building” might have once been somebody’s private home. The inside of the residence had been enthusiastically gutted; I had to negotiate my way through a maze of fabric-covered cubicle dividers, with no other guide than a series of handmade signs designed to assist students in locating the dean; presumably so they could complain. I felt pretty secure in my cover story and proud of the way I looked. Small black-rimmed eyeglasses, a blue linen pantsuit, and a briefcase; two can play at the game of Let’s Pretend identities. I was an Insurance Official.

The woman seated outside the Dean’s office looked as if she had once majored in animal husbandry, or was even, considering her big bones, the product of some such union. The words “blusher,” “foundation,” even “mousse”, were utterly alien to her. Charmian had not learned her wiles here. But she was friendly enough. She came to me blinking and smiling as if my briefcase contained gold bars.

“I’m looking for someone who can tell me about Charmian Carr,” I said in my most confident way. “I believe she was a student here about a decade ago.”

She stepped backwards under this barrage, her face wiped clean of memory or thought. After a moment she said, “Well, Dean Inglesleeve has been here forever. He probably knows everybody.”
I looked a tad less confidently at his barred door; what would it take to get inside? But instead she plucked at the sleeve of a bearded, bespectacled, Birkenstocked man scuttling past with a cup of hot coffee, and queried, “Dean? Someone to see you.”

He sucked me into his wake as he entered his office, threw up his blinds, pressed the button on his blinking answering machine, and swung his gladiator sandals up to his desktop.

“Coffee?” he offered first, and at my denial said, “How can I help you?” in a folksy way. I figured he couldn’t be more than fifty but he certainly looked like a refugee from a very different era. Somewhere hidden around this room there must be a pair of bongo drums.

“I’m looking for Charmian Carr,” I said, “She graduated from the Allied Health program. She’s due an insurance payout and this is the last address I have for her.”

He was listening out of one ear to a considerably less interesting stream of complaints from his answering machine, all of which appeared to concern the failures of “the boiler plant”. He turned it off.

“Charmian Carr?” he echoed. “I’d like to know where she is myself.”

We looked at each other across his messy desk. I didn’t know where to take that one. So I sat down. He helped me out.

“We usually don’t lose track of people,” he said, rubbing his balding gingery head. “She worked right here, in this office. We offered her a faculty position. After she called in sick I discovered she had sold her house on the Heights and moved away. We discovered some – er – financial improprieties in her accounts. I’m not making any accusations, you understand,” he looked hungrily at my briefcase as if to suggest that any “payouts” must belong to him – “But it would be helpful if she could explain. I assumed we’d at least be contacted as references for future employers, but nothing. Hasn’t been a peep out of her. Our alumni department is very clever at keeping track of everybody, and we are the beneficiaries of a great deal of loyalty and enthusiasm from our graduates – but nobody’s been able to find her.”

We blinked at each other. It seemed incumbent upon me to say something. I said, “That’s weird.” Then I added, “Maybe she got married and changed her name.”

An odd expression flickered over his face. Cynicism? Maybe some kind of private joke. Was he really another of her victims? I tried to remind myself, when you’re lying to other people, you always have to assume that it’s at least possible that they’re also lying to you.

He said smoothly, “Maybe she’s in jail. Maybe she’s in a monastery in Tibet. People change. Who can possibly know the heart of another?” He picked up a rubber band and played with it, wrapping it round and round his stubby fingers. I watched mesmerized as he shut off his own circulation; the fingers swelling. Reddening.

I had the strongest sense that he telling me she was gay. Of course, with Charmian, who could be surprised? Charmian would do anything – if it was worth her while. What had she said to me?

Something about “containing legions”. Like those demonically possessed creatures in the Bible.
I tried not to fall out of “character”. My persona would be focused on one goal and not into character assessment. “You’d think she’d have some friends she’d keep in touch with,” you know, building up to asking him about them, but he said, “Or her family. But they keep coming to us. Last time I spoke to them they were thinking of having her declared legally dead.” He stopped with the self-torture and gazed at me strangely. I think I may have been open-mouthed at that point. Then he turned and raked the wall with a glance.

I followed his gaze. The wall was covered with eight by eleven color photos, dates beneath.
“Are these staff pictures?” I inquired, standing up.

“They are. Staff and faculty.” He shot his rubber band at one of them. “That was her last year.” He had good aim. I stood up to look at it. 1997. There were a couple of white haired women but no blondes. I didn’t see her anywhere. I peered closer, as if I might find her peeking out between others’ shoulder blades.

He came up behind me. “There she is,” he said. “Sitting in the front row.”

I gasped. This dumpy creature with the dark waterfall of Gina Lollobrigida hair and all the jowling couldn’t be Charmian. Even if she won the lottery and had every one of her bones and all of her skin replaced, this woman was just too short. It was impossible.

He was regarding me with wild surmise because of my gasp. I had to stop giving myself away. Focus. I was good at selling advertising because I was all about win-win. Figure out what they want and give it to them. Like a beginning con artist I couldn’t stop worrying that he would see through my interpretation. But he wanted Charmian too. If I had money – if she had money, and I knew she did – he wanted it. To keep the conversation going I said, “We only have a driver’s license photo but it doesn’t look anything like this woman.”

“Leave me your card,” he said. “We’ll make some inquiries.”

I hadn’t thought of that. I was planning to use my own name but my card doesn’t say anything about insurance. I felt I had lost him forever. I said stupidly, stiffly, hearing myself obviously lying, “I’ll get you one. They’re out in the car. ” And I got the hell out of there. Damn. I was bad at this. Was Charmian just naturally better at this kind of thing? Or was it simply because she’d had so much practice?

I checked in to the Sleep Inn along the highway and asked for the library. The desk clerk said the college had a library – except now I was scared of the college. But the nearest public library was in Kirkup, twenty-two miles away. To the soundtrack of Death of an Interior Decorator by DeathCab for Cutie, I drove there.

There had to be another record of community college doings other than their own. The librarian told me the local newspaper was the Hornet but everything was already on microfiche. Still, it was cross-referenced by subject matter. That could help me, right? I didn’t have to pretend to be anybody special. She didn’t look at me funny or even ask what I was up to. When I said I was searching for Charmian Carr, she taught me how to enter the name, then look up the resulting stories.

There were a lot of them. More than twenty. Some were only a mention, but others had pictures. Two stories were about her exclusively. Wow! I should have come here first!

“Turkish Vacation Turns Into Archaeological Dig,” read a headline. Here was a photo of the real Charmian, sitting in her office at the college. I scrolled down, searching for I don’t know what. This woman was never the Charmian I knew. It was impossible that there could be two Charmian Carrs out of Cold Creek Community College. My growing excitement was threatening to get in the way of my detective work.

It sure looked like Charmian had stolen somebody else’s identity, and that someone else had subsequently disappeared.

“Cold Creek Faculty Tackles Ionesco Play,” said the other headline, and there was the real Charmian Carr, dressed up in drag with a Groucho-like moustache and a tailcoat, bowing deeply for the camera. Behind her, laughing, stood my stepmother. Oh my God!

But who was she? The article gave the cast list but of course it meant nothing to me. I pored over the names, but nothing leaped out at me.

I asked the librarian if there was any way to get a copy of the article. Just like my father always said, as long as you’re willing to pay, you can get anything you want.

Charmian:
Chapter XIII – The Devil

And some think the universe is random! You looked so different in a suit. It couldn’t actually belong to you; you would never choose anything so greenish and old-fashioned. Your colors are power; black and red, sunset and midnight. Had I worn purple, you might have recognized me. Purple is the Queen’s color.

The suit’s padded shoulders made you look huge, hulking. Was your lawyer trying to conceal that mercenary’s roll I saw in your walk? He identified himself by lurking fearfully just at the edge of the prosecution table; a narrow man narrowly restraining his urge to dart forward and give you one final lick. If he asked you to take the six gold studs out of your right ear, you ignored him. Under the harsh court lights the scars on your shaved skull stood out like crop circles.

Who had scarred you with what horrid runes? I knew it for a message of possession in an ancient, forgotten language. You spoke in a deep, gravelly, rumbling voice. I cocked a fascinated ear. I had never heard more than your whisper.
“Zachary Tobin, T – O – B – I – N. 882 Spruce Court, Colorado Springs.”

I was stabbed by a stiletto of jealousy. You lived somewhere, slept in a real bed, perhaps with – some other one. Even mentally, I can’t bear to share you. But you looked at no one in particular as you gazed out over the audience with your sad, soft eyes. When you finished speaking you set your strong jaw with its dimpled chin as if waiting for the blow.
“How old are you, Mr. Tobin?”

“I’m twenty.” You looked older. But you are an old, old soul.

“And how old were you at the time of the crime that is the purpose of this trial?”
“I turned fifteen the week after.”

I was having difficulty concentrating on your words because your mouth is so beautiful. You drank root beer that night, don’t you remember? Root beer flavored vodka. Sassafras-scented kisses.
“What is your connection with this case?”

Your voice fell to a whisper, concealing its raw, coarse edge of power. Did you think you would frighten us? You were always so considerate. You offered me a condom. Only one! I have always regretted allowing you to use it.
“My father is the murderer.”

The courtroom swelled like the sea and expelled the seas’ gusty sigh.
“Do you mean the man who—“

“No leading questions, Mr. Wilmot,” barked O’Hara, pacing like an angry panther. Bypassing the astonished judge completely. Justice blinked at us helplessly with its flattened, flounder eyes.
You spoke again. “Barry Tobin is my father. He pled guilty to shooting Rafe Zanelli.”

Mr. Wilmot patted his pockets as if congratulating himself that his sleek, racecar construction had already bypassed a bump in the road. “Were you living with your father at the time of the murder?”

“No. I stayed over some nights but I never really lived with him. My parents never married, and although I only lived a few miles away from my father, I hardly ever saw him. But he did pay some my Mom some money and he always said he wanted me to have his name. When I entered high school, that’s when he really started taking an interest in me. He began lying in wait for me after school, giving rides home and offering me dinner.”

“What did he talk about on these trips?”

Such a slow lift of your sardonic brow! You looked straight into the prosecutor’s eyes as if you were alone with him. You never looked at us, the people you were sent to sway. Your body must remember me.

“He said I was a sucker to stay in school. That there was money to be made, things to do.”
“What was your reaction to this?”

“Mostly I tried to ignore him.”

“But you liked spending time with him, isn’t that right?”

“Sometimes. He wasn’t so bad when he was alone. He complimented me the way I looked, how big I had gotten, although he didn’t like it that I was taller than him. Said people would think I could take care of myself even if it wasn’t true. But get him around other people – ” A raggedy breath prevented you from saying more. My stepfather was just the opposite. He was awful all the time, but at his worst alone with me.

“How would he behave around other people?”

“Like he always had to put me down, like I was threatening him just by existing. Like he had me under his thumb. Then I’d find my own way home.”

Rebel! Told you!

“Did he ever actually offer you a job?”

“He did.”
“And what was it?”

“He wanted me to find someone.”

“Find who?”

“Rafe Zanelli. He had a picture and some addresses, but he said the guy was being elusive.”
“Did he tell you why he wanted to find Rafe Zanelli?”

“Yes. He said someone had put a contract out on him.”

“To kill him, do you mean?”

“That’s what he meant.”
“Did he say why?”

“Yes. He told me the guy was a dangerous child abuser and he said people like that never change and the child’s family wanted him dead. He said that when you have a pest, you come to the Exterminator. That’s what he called himself, the Exterminator.”

“Had your father ever killed anyone before?”

“He bragged a lot. He said he’d killed people for the Mafia.”
“None of this is binding on my client,” protested O’Hara.

“I’m getting there, your Honor,” said Wilmot. “Obviously the witness can repeat what his father said to him about murder. I don’t offer it for the truth of the matter.”

“Just don’t range too far, Mr. Wilmot,” said the judge, determined to assert whatever control remained to him.

Wilmot asked, “Did he ever mention the defendant in this case?”
You looked at her, I thought with some coldness, and she gazed piteously back at you.

“Not by name. But there was one time we stopped outside The Walnut Brewery. He pointed out Mr. Haymaker through the window. He was having dinner with a lady.”
“Can you identify that lady in court today?”

You gave her a long deep look, as a man who takes his obligations seriously. You did not make love to her with your eyes, the way you celebrated my naked body on your birthday night. I am still proud of what I have to offer.

“It was the defendant. My father said, “That’s the lady.” And I asked him, “What lady?” And my father said, “That’s the lady the hit is for.” Then he used a – vulgar word about her relationship with Mr. Haymaker. What she was to him.”

“We can imagine what he said. How long had you known Mr. Haymaker?”

“All my life. He was a good friend of my father’s.”
“Did he ever come over to your father’s house?”

“No. Not when I was there. They always met out somewhere. Sometimes when I was along.”
“Were you ever actually introduced to the defendant?”
“No. “

“So did you accept the job he offered you?”

“No.”
“Why not?”

“Well, I thought it was fake. And I didn’t want to get in trouble. What I told him was, I had no wheels. He gave me a motorcycle. But it was pretty unreliable. And I still wouldn’t look for that guy.”
“Why not?”

“I just didn’t believe him. He bragged so much.”
“What other kinds of things had he bragged about?”

“He had his girlfriend believing he’d been trained to kill by the Special Forces, but I knew they’d never take him because he was a felon. Once he told Mr. Haymaker he had offed two men who cheated him in a drug deal, but later I found out those guys were still alive. He told different stories all the time. It was hard to trust anything he said. He was high a lot.”
“You knew your father sold drugs, didn’t you?”

“Yes. He never made any secret out of that. He thought it was cool. He was wheeling and dealing the whole time we were driving around.”

“But you didn’t report him?”

“Me? No.”
“Why not?”

You shifted uncomfortably, and for the first time looked up at the exit. The marshals stood against the doors as if you might suddenly make a dash for it. They judged you guilty solely because of the way you look. That’s how important looks are. They make us think we know what’s going on. Welcome to the universe! It must be your size making everyone afraid of you, because you have such a sweet, sweet face.

“Because he was my father.”
“Did you use drugs with him?”

“He never gave me any. I guess that turned out to be a good thing, because I probably didn’t have the self-control then to turn him down. But at the time I thought it was all part of his ragging on me.”
“You saw your father use drugs?”

“He always kept reefers in the glove compartment, and sometimes, if we were at what he called “a stakeout”, he would light one. If I went to his house at night, he and his girlfriend used coke. Sometimes crack. Then they would get crazy. He would have sex with his girlfriend in front of me. Once he took me to a devil worshipper’s club. He said he was a devil worshiper. I kept trying to stop him hitting his girlfriend; but then she would hit me. He’d also get very paranoid. His slogan was, “Get them before they get you.” I learned if he took me to his place I’d have to get the hell out of there, even if I walked ten miles.”

“Did he ever hurt you physically?”

“When I was smaller. I was seven when he had a friend of his hold me down so he could carve this pentagram into my head. He called it the mark of Cain. It bled like crazy.”

“Did you go to the hospital?”

“My Mom took me to the emergency room. They said the scars could be lasered but the hair would never grow back. That’s why I keep it short.”

You rubbed your head as you spoke. I remember the feeling; like a blurred brand on an animal’s hide.

“What did your mother say about it?”

“She said not to have anything to do with him. Take money. Nothing else.”
“You didn’t listen, did you?”

“Nah.” Said sheepishly.

“So what was his reaction when you wouldn’t take his “job”?

“He took my motorcycle away. Got mad.”
“Did your father ever pull a gun on you?”

“Lots of times. He’d say, “I brought you into this world and I can take you out.” He had plenty of guns.”
“Did he carry guns in the car?”

“Always. He had guns everywhere. He loved going to gun shows. He was always buying and selling guns with sketchy people. “

“Tell me about the guns he kept in the car. Can you remember any specific ones? “
“He had a Tek9 he was very proud of, but it never really worked right. Kept jamming. A couple of Colts – one was a .38. A pearl-handled .22 he said belonged to somebody famous.”
“Who?”

“Some bad-ass. I forget. He wanted me to handle all of them, get a good look at them, try them out. It never occurred to me that he was trying to get my prints on them. He could be devious.”
“So you found yourself along for the ride while he was looking for Rafe Zanelli?”
“I didn’t really know he was doing it. He talked about it for so long before he did anything I figured he was just bleeding Mr. Haymaker. He would drive by a house and say, “There’s his house.” And I said, “Who?” And he said, “That guy we’re going to kill.”

“What did he tell you about the planned hit in January of ’09?”

“He told me Haymaker cancelled it.”
“Did he say why?”

“He said Haymaker wasn’t getting along too well with the ladyfriend. He said Haymaker was too smart a guy to risk everything for a girl who didn’t put out.”
“Then what happened on March 20, 2009?”

“He picked me up after school and we went driving, like usual. Stopped for some dinner.”

“Where?”

“Turley’s.”
“Did you stay in or takeout?”

“We took sandwiches out, so we were eating while he drove. When he was finished he lit a joint. I asked him to drop me at the Mall where I was supposed to meet my friends, and he said he would after he had an appointment with a guy.”

“Did he say what that was about?”

“An appointment about selling a motorcycle. I said “My motorcycle?” He said, “I got rid of that one.” He said I hadn’t done nothing to earn it. He said maybe he was going to buy another bike. Might give it to me. Like an idiot, I said, What do I have to do? I was getting sick of his rides and I wanted to be free of him. He clopped me on the side of the head and said, “Watch and learn.” So we pulled up at the Radisson just off I-25. A guy in a ratty green car was waiting for us in the parking lot.”

“What can you tell us about the car?”

“It was a green Yugo with the back seat missing. It had the battery out where you could see it. The outside was spattered with rust primer.”

“Did you recognize the man?”

“He looked familiar, but I didn’t place him at first. He stuck his head in my father’s window and said, “Want to see the bike?”

My dad said, “Let’s go.” He didn’t hide from the guy that he was smoking a reefer. The guy said, “Follow me” so we started driving down 25 south.”
“Had you figured out who he was?”

“As we were driving I put it together. I said, “That’s the guy. Isn’t that the guy you’re supposed to kill?” He just grinned at me. Didn’t answer directly. We were driving along the road – the guy’s car was making a hell of a racket, and suddenly my father pulled into the rest area, flashing his lights. So the Yugo stopped and backed up to us. The guy got out of the car. My father took out his gun.”
“Which gun?”

“The Colt .38. I said, “What are you doing?” He said, “I’m going to do him here.” Then he turned to me and asked, “You want to do it?”

“What did you say?”

“I said no. He called me a name.”

“What was it?”

“Can I say? Pussy.”
“Then what happened?”

“My dad got out of the car with the gun behind his back. I heard him say some words like “gas station.” Then he lifted the gun and shot Zanelli. Zanelli turned and my father shot him a lot more times. He fell.”

“How many times?”

“I don’t know. A lot of times. I think he unloaded the gun.”
“Were there cars driving by?”

“Not then. I’m sure nobody saw. He got into the car and handed me the gun.”
“Did you take it?”

Anyone could see the slow flush burn across your skull.

“Yes,” you said, seeming surprised that anyone expected you to do anything else. “He threw it at me. I had to take it. It was hot and scorching. I had never seen anybody guy really shot before. Up until that last minute I just didn’t believe it would happen.”
“Then what?”

“We drove right over the dude’s dead body. Two big bumps. My father kept driving, then when we got to the bridge he said, “Throw it out as far as you can.”
“Did you?”

“Yeah, right into the river. I realized as long as I was holding it my father would act like this was something we’d done together. I was relieved to get rid of it.”

“Mr. Tobin, you witnessed a murder. Why didn’t you report any of this to the police? Why make them come to you?”

You looked away. You said, “Afraid of my dad. He says his friends are everywhere. And it sure could be true. Everyone uses drugs. Even in the police.”

My fingers hurt from clutching the rail in front of me. Why don’t you tell? They always want to know that, after. If anyone asked me, I would have given the same answer.
“Did you see your father after that?”

“Not for a few weeks. I tried to stay away from him. Mr. Haymaker paid him and he went to–“
“Objection!” O’Hara up and shouting.

“Just tell us what you know of your own knowledge.” Mr. Wilmot purred.

“I didn’t see my father for two months. When he came back, he looked me up. He told me Mr. Haymaker paid him and he went to Miami. Then he lost the money and came home. At that point, I already knew I had to leave. I didn’t want him to know where I was going.”
“Which was where?”

“I had a chance for summer work construction on a hotel in North Carolina. I thought I might be able to figure out a way to stay down there. Drop out of school if I had to. The next thing I heard was my dad was arrested. The police came out to see me in North Carolina.”
“What did they say to you?”

“They told me my dad said I’d done it. I was scared to tell them anything. They brought me back in shackles. My Mom got me a lawyer through Legal Aid, and when I told him the story he made a deal; told them I was a witness but couldn’t say anything without immunity. Then I told them the whole story. I didn’t hold back. I didn’t have to turn my dad in, they already had him. And he is a very dangerous guy, so probably he should be off the streets. After what I said, they booked him.”
“You told them about getting rid of the murder weapon?”

“Yes. They dragged the river but they didn’t find the gun.”

“And you have cooperated with the investigation all the way along?”
“Yes.”

“Has anything you’ve said been revealed to be untrue?”

“No.”
“Your witness.”

Had you really the shooter? You didn’t seem like such a smooth liar, but of course that’s the way the best liars seem. I couldn’t make up my mind.

O’Hara stood looking at you, playing his “I know who you really are” game. You looked back, very brave. I was so proud of you.

“Mr. Tobin, you’re aware that your father still says you did the shooting?’

“I believe he’s told everybody a lot of different stories.”
“What’s your reaction to this current story?”

“He doesn’t like the jail he’s in. He’s trying to get out.”
“Do you visit him there?”

You laughed incredulously. “Hell no.”
“Why not?”

“Believe me, he doesn’t want to see me.”
“Do you hate your father?”

People did ask me that question. Sometimes they said father, sometimes they said stepfather. Doesn’t make any difference to them. The counselor asked that at school. Do you hate your father? I said no. That was easy. Easy to stop hating someone after you’ve killed them.

You said, “Not now.”
“But you did before?”

“I hated him when I was a little kid, when he hurt my head, when he went away. Later I tried to like him, because he seemed like he wanted to get close to me. When I realized he was just using me, that he used everybody, I hated him again. After the murder I was afraid of him. Now that he’s locked up, I feel sorry for him. I wouldn’t say I’ve forgiven him yet but I don’t hate him any more.”

I knew you must be lying then. What truck have we with “forgiveness?” That’s a bullshit word. Lucky for you O’Hara didn’t ask you what if your father was standing right before you now and you had the gun, what would you do then? What would you have said if he asked you that? You’ll never have to lie to me. I know how it really is.

“Have you heard your father thinks he should be judged insane?”
“Yes.”
“Is he insane?”

“Objection. Not qualified to answer.” Wilmot bristled forth.
“I’m just asking for his opinion,” O’Hara pleaded to the judge.
“He can give his opinion.”

“No,” you said flatly. That appeared to surprise O’Hara.
“But you’ve described the actions of a crazy man.”
“He knew what he was doing.”

“Let’s go back to the night you saw the defendant – ” he put his hand on Karen’s shoulder, “Dining with Mr. Haymaker. Did your father say at any point that she asked for the murder?”
You shook your head. “He said the hit was for her. That’s all he said.”
“And he never mentioned her again.”

“Just to say they were having a thing. An affair.”
O’Hara sat down, seemingly satisfied. But Wilmot wasn’t. He rose back up. He had a sword to wield.

“In your signed affidavit, didn’t you use slightly different words? “
“I can’t recall the exact words I used.”

“I draw your attention to the highlighted portion of this document. Will you please read what you said here?”

“I said my father told me, “She has Haymaker by the balls. He’s completely pussy-whipped. He’d kill his mother for her.”

“Thank you.” Wilmot sat. But O’Hara rose again.

“You have immunity, correct, Mr. Tobin?”
“That’s right.”

“What’s it predicated on? What do you have to do for it?”

“Tell the truth.” You shrugged. You were the only witness I saw during the trial that didn’t seem the least bothered or threatened by O’Hara.

“Not change your story, isn’t that it?”
“That’s it. Because my story’s the true one.”

And then they freed you. As I watched you blast through the swing doors, I was in a fever to see you again. I wrote down your address, but it was burned into my brain. Because a piece of me went with you. I know you did it. You took that gun from your father and you shot that man and now you’re killing two birds with one stone. Pretty smart. Your father recognized you as a killer, someone who could act instead of brag. If your father had it in him to be a killer, he would have done it long before.

But your secret is safe with me. This so-called “justice” system can do nothing for you. I am the only one who can free you.

Whitney:
Chapter XII – The Queen of Swords

So I studied her.

When she first moved in she certainly had a lot of very expensive clothes for someone with such a lowly job. Like she had cleared out an Escada sample sale. After she married my father, those clothes were thrown out and a Talbot’s and Saks thing were inaugurated as she tried futilely to impersonate my mother. Those were the places where we had accounts; that’s where my father thought women ought to shop. She learned those bills weren’t even looked at.

More regrets, more things to make up for. How can I be so young and have so much to undo? But I didn’t attend the funeral. I was still too angry. When my sisters tried strong-arming me, I went to Vegas. It was where Penn wanted to go. Even I had the perfect rationale; my father hated funerals and never attended if he could possibly get out of it. McKenzie gave the eulogy; she said something like “If my father were with us today he wouldn’t be with us today.” Meaning, I guess, that his mind was so destroyed he ought to be dead.

I know this because they posted the video online. I only came back when Charmian announced our childhoods were up for sale.

Penn and I were already on the outs. He had discovered upfront close and personal Texas Hold ’Em. Whoa! Something in real life he liked better than online! A step forward? I don’t think so. He’ll tell anyone it’s not gambling but a game of skill, and so I’d been alone in our hotel room anyway. Now I have a lifetime of pictures that are too painful to look at. Things I have to compensate for. My only friend was my diary. So I started in on these diaries. You have to have somebody to tell. I was twenty years old but I felt my life over.

Searing, almost unbearable pain chewing me up inside whenever I thought of my father or my mother. But why? That was the question that obsessed me. If I hadn’t done anything terrible, so why did I feel so guilty? My mother was probably in the heaven that rewards martyrs, some disembodied spirit loving everybody equally, and my father was lost in the oblivion he had always insisted was just fine with him. But they didn’t feel dead to me. They didn’t feel gone. In some horrible way, they were more alive than ever. Inside of me. I felt them, right there at my elbow, horning in between me and the blank page, gazing up in mute supplication.

I apologize for turning this into a horror story of the demonic and the possessed. But you have to tell the truth. What else is there? Penn said it was the fault of that “classical education” my father had insisted on. Everyone was guilty, guilty, guilty all the time.

Penn didn’t feel guilty. Not when he stole my PIN number and cleaned me out. Not when he cheated and got kicked out of the casino. Penn is not better off. It’s better to have behavior mean something. Otherwise you’re just clawing your way up in the crab bucket. Like Charmian.
At least I did some things right. I hadn’t legally tethered myself to this jerk. That’s because my father said it’s smart to rent before you buy.

Our childhood house was cold and empty. My room had long since been eviscerated. Charmian tossed “some items” for each of us in cardboard boxes labeled with our names, but what I needed wasn’t there. Justice. That’s what I wanted. Just the facts, ma’am. Nothing but the truth.

Who was this woman who stood so confident, shining like a goddess before us? Was she really even my father’s wife? I had some vague hope that if she had married him under a fake name, I could have the marriage set aside. Declared null and void. All that time I was studying psych I should have gone pre-law. There was way too much I didn’t know.

I couldn’t even hint to my sisters; they might try to block me. I went through my father’s desk but she’d cleaned out everything. I was too late. If there was any evidence left I’d have to drag it up out of my own brain.

Dad and I interviewed candidates for “personal care assistant” together. I’d looked right at her resume. What had it said? I struggled to dredge it up before me. My psych professor assured me everything – everything we saw is locked somewhere in our memory. Should I get myself hypnotized? Would that unlock the secret?

That night, the night Charmian closed on both houses she took us out to dinner before driving us to the lake to gloat over her new abode.

I spent the entire meal trying to assess her difference. She looked younger. Maybe she had had “work”, she was definitely letting her hair grow up. Instead of streaks, it was flat-out blonde. The upper-class wife was gone; suddenly she looked like a graduate-level art student in one-of-a-kind batik and handmade jewelry. Alone in the restroom, my sisters said it was the Boulder look. Charmian didn’t come with us. Charmian must have known that we would talk about her, but Charmian is superior to our girlish bodily needs. Charmian never steps from behind the curtain; she wants us to have no idea how the magic is done.

She was leaving Colorado Springs behind, they said. I thought I was looking at a satisfied vampire reveling in her victim’s blood. She had given herself new life by sucking my father dry.

I tried getting her to talk about her past, to give me anything to go on, but she was more than a match for me. All she wanted to talk about was me. She needed a new victim now, and she wasn’t subtle about it, either. Rebelliously I ordered Alfredo sauce for my shrimp; I got the lecture on The Ten Foods You Can’t Ever Eat. (All of them my favorites, of course. Mine and my father’s.) My sisters failed to back me up. They’re all for being skinny. I ordered dessert to spite her, but I was depressed. Who’s the loser here? The oinker with the whipped cream moustache or the goddess with the Centurion Amex card? My sisters exchanged that maddening “older-sister” look. Once again I was just too, too, outré.

But we were all shocked into silence by the new house; a battleship of wood and cedar lording it over the silent lake. All admit that I was jealous. That view, those windows, that dock, the privacy – why would you ever leave? She had done very well for herself. Charmian Carr, whoever she was, had arrived.

After a walk-through of the luxurious, marble-bathroomed chalet (it was filled with boxes and a jumble of new-looking furniture but not, I saw, my father’s desk) she insisted on driving us back to her hotel for a “nightcap.” If her plan was to amuse herself by getting me slobbering drunk, she failed. I had one lousy cognac, and then asked her what she was doing with my father’s desk. She said she’d sold all the furniture “nobody wanted” to an auctioneer. I wanted to yell at her that I hadn’t been given a chance but that would just get everybody started on the Daughter Who Skipped Her Father’s Funeral.

Alone at last in Darby’s car, McKenzie turned down my musical selection (Gone Daddy Gone by the Violent Femmes) and said, “Our only hope is if she marries again.”

“Why would she?” demanded Darby. “Why sacrifice all that money?”
“Because she might meet somebody richer,” said McKenzie. “Plenty of people are richer than Dad. There are billionaires out there. Somebody young and handsome.”

“You are both crazy,” I said. “She’ll never marry again. She can pay for all the men she wants as long as she doesn’t marry any of them.”

“This is Charmian we’re talking about, right?” Darby said, deadpan. “Greed-crazy Charmian? She’s only forty-three years old. I say she’ll marry two or three more times.”

“She says she’s forty-three,” I sneered. “Why believe anything she says? She’s probably a tranny.”
“Give it a rest,” said Darby, giving me a strange look. “You’re only going to become more like her.” Sisters say the meanest things.

That night I had a terrible dream. I was making out with this hot guy. I was so aroused; I well recall the lubricious richness of my own bodily fluids bubbling and boiling. His hands were everywhere, aggressively manipulating me, compressing and expanding, bending my previous stiffness into fantastic shapes. And I, who have always been so shy in bed – I mean, I don’t want anyone to catch some deal-breaking visions of my folds and layers – was just a helpless panting mass of “do me-do me-do me.”

He rolled me over on my back and – I don’t know how else to explain this – the top of his head fell away and Charmian’s face came spilling out. She grinned wolfishly like she had caught me out, as if she knew who I really was and had demonstrated to the universe than I was way, way, sicker than her.

I could re-experience that cold horror again right this minute, but I refuse. A dream so terrible you either die or you wake up.

But sisters aren’t a total loss. Trapped in the horrible meeting I was called to on the day I saw Charmian disguised as Harmless Old Lady Offering You An Apple in a Disney Pic, I texted both of them (under the table) Remember anything about Charmian’s resume? Where she came from? Anything? And braced myself for the storm of personal “get a life” abuse that was bound to follow.

They couldn’t say anything worse than what this guy was telling us now as he explained how print journalism was totally in the toilet. I could tell from the stricken faces all around that this was Unwelcomely Horrifying News, but I’ve never felt trapped in any one world. I sell advertising. That will never go away. Even in a nuclear winter we’ll all be selling each other gas masks.
My sisters are so old they hate to text. So I was not surprised to be trapped in a three-way conference call on the way out to my car.

“She had a degree from some funky community college in East Texas,” Darby said. “Don’t you remember, McKenzie? You said something about how they probably operated out of a pizza box.”
“Cricklewood,” suggested McKenzie.

“Too Dickensian,” said Darby.

I could have wept with joy. Three’s a charm. “Cold Creek,” I remembered. “Cold Creek Community College.” Shared Brain compensates for years or ridicule and childhood abuse.”

“They probably don’t exist anymore,” said Darby. “Some Fly By Night Correspondence School Like You’ve Seen on TV. Otherwise you could sign up and go back to school.”
“Get a degree in Mortuary Science,” McKenzie suggested.

“For pets,” said Darby.

But what I did was sit down in the front seat of my car, my laptop and start looking up flights.

Charmian:
Chapter XI – The Wheel of Fortune

The state’s first witness was the dispatcher who had taken the anonymous 911 call. She, the preposterously pink-haired sedentary with pitted cheeks of ghostly adolescent acne. A tape of the call, of such poor quality I was amazed it could be introduced, was played for us. We were given transcripts so that we could follow every word. The court reporter, a mousy blonde with a hawk-like profile made a hash of it on her laptop.

“Scratch – scratch – report a man lying by the side of the highway.”

“Has he been hit by a car?” the dispatcher wanted to know. “Is he conscious and able to speak? Are there the cars still at the scene? Who is this speaking, please?”

There was one car at the scene, said the caller, besides his own, but this man was very dead. He had been shot in the face.

The dispatcher had tried her best to keep the caller on the line. But when police arrived at the scene, Mr. Good Samaritan had moved on.

The next witness was a policeman, a large uniformed man obviously comfortable with appearances in court. He produced a miniscule notebook and flipped aggressively through the pages. The victim was “shot multiple times”, then sprayed with gravel as if by a fleeing vehicle. Three shells were recovered and two weren’t. A deep wheel trench was photographed in the grass verge but it was too muddy to take a formal impression. The Yugo found at the crime scene had its back seat missing and its driver side door ajar. Registered to Rafael Zanelli, who was subsequently identified as the corpse.

State medical examiner was a huge man over six feet tall, garbed in a strangely double-breasted shiny suit of yesteryear. Was he hanging on to it hoping it would return to style? He improved my boring morning with the crime scene photographs. I studied each for a good long time. My stepfather died in the dark with a bag on his head; he was my only gunshot victim. What would I have seen if I’d removed the bag?

Both were slight, dark men with an addiction to tattoos and hair gel. This victim lay on his back on the pavement, his blue no-iron shirt unbuttoned to reveal a t- shirt that once doubled as a shop rag. His eyes were open, giving his face an expression of surprise. Of course he was surprised – according to what I’d read in the newspaper someone he thought wanted to buy his motorcycle suddenly opened fire on him. He probably died wondering which casual act in a lifetime of unthinking rudeness could have triggered such a vengeance. The wheel of fortune says that progressing souls might be chosen for reincarnation, but those who scrape through a lifetime of denial will be turned away.

There were multiple full-color close-ups of scorched entrance wounds in the chest and the side of the victim’s head. You could see where part of his jaw had been blown away. The blood was as gaudily red and as sticky looking as the paint on a Mexican Jesus. Several jury members barely glanced at the photos. The Gray Panther peeked through a handkerchief. Some woman from the bench behind the prosecution (obviously a Zanelli) hurried from the courtroom choking, swing doors banging loudly behind her.

I felt the touch of a hand. Ron Roccam was trying to give me something. Glad of any excuse to touch me? I welcomed the chance to read his palm. Knuckle hair suggests an ugly nude; his long headline says he’s risk-averse and has trouble making decisions. His typical answer to any question would be “It depends.” Such a man could be managed. He handed me a bullet. With so many levels of awareness, I was in danger of falling behind.

The bullet was a .38, one of two recovered from the body. Both seemed very small and squashed looking; unlikely to have caused so much damage. My stepfather wouldn’t have accepted them even for sinkers; he would have struck them from my hand and sent me searching for something better.

After the shot to the chest, the victim turned as if to flee. “Drop shot” to the spine. Neither shot was fatal. The head wound did the worst damage, entering the back of the head and exiting through the mouth, smashing his jaw and splitting his lip in half, pulverizing several teeth (we saw their chips littering the pavement) in the process. Then as he lay on the ground two more shots, head again, chest again. Bruises consistent with the possibility that he had been run over by the fleeing car, but the victim had been a miracle of strength and health and so there were no broken bones.
That was our morning. The judge announced that it was time for the lunch recess.

Back in the jury room, several fellow jurors announced they were not in the mood to eat after seeing all the crime scene photographs. Personally I thought they all looked as if they could afford to skip a meal; skipping several would have served them better. A weeklong cleanse wouldn’t be too much.

We seemed divided naturally in two camps; smokers and eaters. The thrill of free restaurant food, (paid for by the state), lent our congress an excited, almost festive air. Red Roccam actually raised his arms and chanted, “Field trip!”

I suspected the “strong stomach” gang would prove to be the power jurors. This was the gang I would need to get close to. Lacey declared herself too affected by the photographs to swallow a morsel, but she had given up smoking twelve years before and was terrified of re-infection. Addicts also are easy to manage.

We chose an Italian restaurant named La Trattoria because it was the closest to the courthouse. I recognized members from the courtroom audience already ensconced when we arrived. They pointed at us and whispered just like we were celebrities, and one member of the press actually moved to a closer table as if to overhear anything we might say. Wish I could have given him an earful!

Actually, I have a phobia about eating with others. Too many hungers stir up at once. My mother used to bring special treats home from the diner but they were only for my stepfather. The smells leaking from tinfoil packages laughed at me as they danced around the room. When I succumbed, it was only to see how many crumbs I could steal unnoticed from the edges. Restaurants also remind me too much of dates. The dating scene. The nerve of some hawk-eyed stranger daring to appraise me. Counting every morsel that I eat and weighing up the cost. Easier to eat alone so that I could pick publicly like a bird. Now I would rather have sex with any stranger than eat with the man who bought me dinner.

I am impatient too, and restaurant meals take far too long. What does a woman who has labored all her life to maintain a svelte physique want with all those courses? If you do indulge, you end up with that pressured feeling that can only be relieved by vomiting. And there’s no way you can guarantee having the ladies’ room to yourself. Phobia number two.

The Empress, my old mentor, warned me about letting others see my vulnerability. Virtually everyone you meet has a motive for controlling you; (even if all they want is to turn you into their assassin); you just don’t know about it yet. According to her, King Louis XIV’s mistresses, vying for his favor, loaded his tea with menstrual blood and sprinkled fragments of aborted fetuses into his food. So amusing that the poor King of France, the Sun King, was eating the worst food in Paris!
I ordered a salad. Lacey went for the Mediterranean individual pizza, the men chose the lasagna and spaghetti special (no hand-torn pasta here) and Luna was drawn to the beer-batter shrimp as a moth to flame.

Lacey’s eyes look shadowed and sad and her skin needed ironing. When she saw me studying her she began picking reflexively at the moles on her neck. She’s one of those tragic women who has bought the cultural whimsy that society can’t see a woman past breeding age. That her best years are behind her. I would see if taking her in hand could benefit either of us. A night at the sex club dressed in dominatrix gear would be the making of her.

My salad was slimy with dressing, virtually uneatable. God knows what spume they attached. I sent back for a side of plain lettuce. Iced tea with plenty of lemon helped. Dessert was “included”, so Howling Woodchuck ate mine, a thick wedge of “Mud Pie.” I could visualize him actually making and eating many mud pies in his childhood. We agreed to try Harvey’s next time, a chophouse with a buffet where you don’t wait to be served. I was going to have to coat my stomach lining with zinc to hang out with this pack.

If only I had known what witness was awaiting us, I would have run back. I would never have left at all.

The prosecutor Wilmot himself addressed us. “The state calls Zachary Tobin.”
We all turned our heads to the swing doors. They split apart, and there you were. My beautiful Knight of Swords. Time stood still and the universe became clear to me in that instant. I saw you last at the convenience store, buying scratch lotto tickets for derelicts, but I had seen you once before. You are my perfect match, a Gemini. We met on your birthday. Don’t you remember me? Your father brought you to our club as your birthday gift. I told your fortune before I relieved you of your virginity. The Twins that battle within you must rebel against earth and its limits. Change jingled in your pockets as you walked but I heard spurs. Here in the courtroom you looked right at me – you’d never recognize me without my mask – but I like to think something within you – your manhood, probably – stirred. You seated yourself in the witness box. Within touching distance. So the Wheel of Fortune turns.

I was the Lady in Red who welcomed you into the universe of passion five years ago. Your father wanted to watch but I could tell you longed for me to get rid of him, so we were alone in our velvet cave. Only the Goddess saw you pour your spirit into me. I often wondered about you in the seven years since. How could you forget me? You belong to me.

Whitney:
Chapter X- The Emperor

I saw how cannibalistically my father looked at her. Like he wanted to eat her. Like he wanted to absorb those young eyes, young legs into himself any way he could get them. Charmian tease him, livened up his day. She made dressing and toileting flirtatious, erotic experiences. Practical pragmatist, he was happy to pay for it, only concerned to block her freedom. He was terrified she would someday “trade up”. With that reasoning, he had to marry her. And who can blame him? chorused my sympathetic sisters. What else does he have? Probably somewhere deep inside, he actually misses Mom.

But Mom was an “ux”. Mom was a fungible. Mom was a slot anyone could feel, the more youthful and sexier the better.

Dad had always introduced me to his girlfriends. It was “our little secret.” At first I enjoyed knowing something my sisters and my mother didn’t know. I knew where he really went on Saturday nights. I know who really sent the coded letters, phone calls, email. It gave me a certain sardonic pleasure as I stood stolidly through Mom’s endless lectures on compassion, temperance, sobriety, honor, honesty, self-denial, the fruits of the spirit, blah blah blah. The brutal truth of the matter is that there are those who have the facts and there are the clueless ones living in a cloud castle and the latter are supported by the former. Dad grumbled about the expenses of his double life but I could see he was really proud of it. It was an entitlement, a tribute to his station I life. He knew he had arrived when he could support both an Angel in the House, and a Slut in an Apartment.

The problem with the Angel in the House is that good mothers, clever hostesses and efficient housekeepers aren’t very sexy. Maybe the need to “clean up as you go along” that Mom was enthusiastically recommended to me was too ingrained. Yes, my father told me all about it. I was flattered when my father forgot I was a little girl. He refused to choose girls’ names for any of us (and of course my mother had no say). Mom said he always because he always hoped for a boy. He said he didn’t want to see us sidelined, marginalized, discriminated against. Not his daughters. I was named after his own father.

My father’s tastes ran to busty blondes with names like Honey and Ginger. When I became a teenager I despised him just a bit. He was too dismissive of modern art and music, telling me an “educated my taste” would favor timeless treasures; the things he liked. But in women his taste was decidedly third class.

I would have bet you anything Mom didn’t know a thing about his secret life. I thought she was happy; ensconced in her dream world until cancer came calling. I thought she must have been, to recommend that life to her daughters. Now that I’m older I see things are more complex. Maybe she just needed us to justify her life. McKenzie and Darby were happy to oblige.

After her death when we sisters were going through her things I found that letter Ginger had written Mom. I’m sure neither woman ever told Dad. It was a nasty letter. Dad had told Ginger he never loved Mom and that his marriage was a soulless sham. He said he would get a divorce if his wife would only step aside. Ginger concluded that my mother refused to let him go.

This is the part that haunts me. I get the sex thing; but why did he have to pretend for a moment – to anyone – that it was a love affair? He prided himself on logic and organized; he jeered at “emotional messes.” Did the love angle make it sexier, or did it just make it cheaper? To me he called her his “bit of fluff” as if she was so much static electricity picked up accidentally by contact with the carpet.

Another expression of his concerned the problem of undesirable eventualities: “cost of doing business.” That’s what they were, those women, the Ambers and Heidis. Quotidian lubricant and the cost of doing business.

Some things about the dead we’ll never know. We agreed to destroy the letter. None of us mentioned it to my father.

He explained why he hadn’t married Ginger after Mom died. Some women you just don’t marry. Our mother was the last of such a wealthy family that as far back as anyone could recall their sole means of making money was having money. (My father described himself as a clever immigrant upstart. An “arriviste”.) Mom was interesting but odd-looking; with a greyhound’s face and body and the kind of aristocratic education Dad signed us up for. That’s the sort of woman that gets married. My father wanted to forget how she’d endowed him, and she had so much money had always had so much money, she didn’t care about money. Yours, mine. Whatever. A man has to feel like a man. If that makes him a little raging tinpot lord, it’s your cross to bear.

When he invited my sisters to Sunday brunch and I saw Charmian wearing my mother’s jewelry, I knew what he was going to say.

What did we say? We said Congratulations.

The most awful thing was that he accepted her plan that I should become like her. He was totally happy with her dramatic upgrade of her tastes (and her expenses). He thought it showed how “classy” she really was. All it showed was how much money he had. Life at home got so bad I was relieved to go to boarding school. Makes me feel pretty guilty now.

I yearned for that thrill of a “new life”. Starting over, completely fresh. Of course it’s never really new because you drag your bad old self along. At least she’d have to stay out of my love life. I found her assumption that anybody’d have to be paid to take me was pretty insulting, especially since she was the one requiring payment. Any romantic distress she ever found me in, she threw in my face. Sometimes I wonder if I’m stuck with Penn because of her. To find someone new I’d have to venture out into obviously hostile terrain, and even though Penn is an online addict of everything you can be addicted to, he looks presentable. At least.

Coming home from school was so scary after a few months I didn’t even want to do that. Fell right In with her plan, unfortunately.

Things began to disappear. Charmian always had a “new look,” with my father in the background purple with bruises (“he’s so clumsy” ) yet glowing with pride over her. What a great student she was. Ambitious. Such a credit to him.

She sneered at poor Mom’s Early American antiques acquired at such cost. All that had to go. But it was what my father knew. How would he know where he was? Of course he was clumsy. She threw away all mine and my sisters “juvenilia” – she was certain we wouldn’t want to be reminded of how embarrassing we’d all been. She dropped plenty of conversational hints, letting me know she’d read my diary: “Is that the one that stood you up for prom?” That kind of thing. “Was he your third grade crush?” It was excruciating.

My father yelled at me to treat her with respect. He actually said, “She’s your mother.” I shudder to recall. Fungible. It meant I no longer had a home. I was effectively disinherited.

But I know, deep in my heart, he might have mixed up Darby with McKenzie and McKenzie with Darby, but to him I was not fungible. To him I was always different. He was cruel to me the way we’re sometimes cruel to our own selves. He needed me, wanted me, trained me to protect him, from himself if necessary, but I only acted on the “selfishness” memo. I failed him.

Was she secretly hating on him while sitting all fake-adoring at his knee, showing him catalogs, getting him to buy her this and that? He was such an eager instructor when he thought he had a captive audience. Was she planning his death while she pushed his wheelchair through art shows and fundraisers? I’m think he had been brought so low he may have loved her right up to the end, astounded that anyone so luminous would deign to change his catheter.

She must have thought she’d won the lottery when she found out about the will. Everything in trust to her for life. Scraps for us if the Queen ever acts like a mortal and dies.

But she had an Achilles heel. They always do. My father taught me that. One battle does not make a war. Flashy, overconfident generals forget about the backdoor where they are vulnerable to attack. Pain, guilt and rage are valuable allies that can be channeled into planning and strategy.

She never wanted to talk about her past. If I questioned her, my father barked at me to lay off. He thought he knew what I was getting at, attempting to degrade her. But I wanted facts, the way he taught me. Something actually happened, and it matters what it really was. That’s enshrined in law, in our very Constitution. The Constitution says its what you really did is that matters, not what you wanted or what you thought. Dr. King said we are the “content of our characters” and on that we can be judged.

But in his pathetically dependent way I think my father, poor foolish, naked Emperor, wanted her to have appeared from nowhere, as if she sprang fully grown right out of his need. But was that a capital offense? His desperation and his longing? He didn’t deserve to have his life snuffed out.
She had an irritating manner of answering questions with another question, cocking her head on one side and saying, “I wonder why you need to know.” Under that thin mask of superiority I thought I saw a lot of ill-concealed envy and hostility – often towards people she’d never even met, people who’d done nothing to her.

She was always status-checking too. The angriest I’ve ever seen her was when I told her gold lamé was out of date. That’s when I saw the visible scars of some desperately hardscrabble upbringing. To her, life’s a game called “who’s on top”. There has to be a winner; and the fastest way to get up there is to create a lot of losers. My poor patrician mother would have said that someone like that is insecure and we need to have compassion for her limited vision. Her suffering.

Because my sisters refuse to talk about her I had to use Penn as a sounding board. He’s a child of multiple divorces. Whenever he got close to a step-parent or sibling, his mother would dump that family. I thought he was being supportive when his contribution to my despair was usually, “I hate my parents too.”

I thought it was better than nothing. Both of us were psych students. Every personality disorder I read about smelled of Charmian. Narcissistic Personality Disorder? Check! The “not quite real” disorder. All her interactions with others are so ritualistic I got the feeling we are like ghosts to her. Figures on a chessboard. Sometimes I thought that creature looking out at me from behind her varicolored eyes was barely human; some demon who had killed, dismembered and eaten the real Charmian a long, long time ago.

Charmian:
Chapter IX – The Royal House of Cups

I awoke from a dream with the sensation of escaping noisy rooms, but I could neither remember the words nor distinguish the voices. That’s what thinking about the past does, it stirs the tranquil pool of my life until the waters are muddy. Yet they will settle down once more, though perhaps in some new, more exciting configuration.

It was a day of great significance in my life, the first day of the trial. As I drank my espresso and ate cantaloupe with strawberries I checked my horoscope: ” Refuse to be taken for granted. This could be the beginning of your winning streak. Trust your intuition honed to razor-sharpness. Events of timing and luck focus on you. Passion ignites: wear bright colors”. Maybe that’s why I chose an orange Chinese silk jacket and yellow linen skirt, and a pair of rose-pink granny glasses. I was still not quite used to my face in the mirror: I had never had my hair this short and I was also not used to seeing it so straight, but I had to admit that it was flattering. In my day, curls were the thing. Big, big hair. My once-upon-a-time much-admired frosted mop cost hours of labor, especially back when I was broke. No more. I had always feared short hair would make me look mannish. But it’s more like viewing Marlene Dietrich in a tuxedo – it only emphasizes how feminine she is. My face was so tanned I only needed a touch of concealer on my proud scar. Didn’t bother with makeup other than a slash of lipstick – break them in slowly to the evolution of the Widow Quantreau.

Before walking out the door I naturally pulled a card. The Lovers. How appropriate! In the Rossetti deck these beautiful young people are both naked, with only her flowing hair and his ripe thigh protecting their privacy. He holds her breast; she grasps his buttock as they gaze into each other’s eyes, reclining beneath a verdant bower ablaze with roses. The Lovers is not just sex, it indicates productivity, success, new creation and the unexpected. It is especially powerful with the number six, but I did not have time for a full reading this morning. It was too exciting, too evocative to leave behind. I tucked it into my breast pocket.

Driving my Mercedes through the gate – top up ready for underground parking – Judge Sugarman stopped me. The fussing he had been doing with the flowerpots around his mailbox was so obviously unnecessary I knew he had been lying in wait. My stalker! Well, I had turned even a stalker to my advantage! He put his big dinner-plate hands right inside my open window as if to take hold of me.

“I was wondering if we could have coffee later,” he asked, smiling ingratiatingly. “I’d love to hear about the trial.” A big man with a stomach that preceded him, he looked especially ludicrous in a pair of aging madras shorts and a puke-green golf shirt. He should get rid of those wisps and leave his skull proudly gleaming. He has a powerful jaw with a bulldog set; I wondered how dangerous enemy he would prove. His squashed nose suggested he had supported himself through law school as a boxer. Better to keep him dangling rather than to shut him down completely.
“I don’t think we’re allowed to talk about the case,” I averred, playing dumb.

His face was a study as he tried to figure out how to bring me into the “in” club without breaking his prosecutorial code. Pity he has such an uninteresting mind to read.
“Oh, I know all about it,” he gruffed bluffly. “Kozlowsky’s the judge on that one – no friend to the defense, and that’s for certain. Let’s plan dinner when you’re free. And call me Saul.”

“Sure thing, Saul,” I said, exulting in getting away so easily. “I touched his hand, giving him that electric thrill. It was all he stood to get from me. “And thank you so much for this opportunity.”
He reddened. I was talking about it again! The first rule of “In Club” is never talking about “In Club!!! I adjusted my seat belt forcing him to release his hands. He patted the side of my car as if blessing a horse and giving permission to depart. I didn’t run over his feet but I almost wished I had.

That repulsive man…imagine him thinking I would welcome his advances! Quid pro nothing! He was lucky to be allowed to gaze at me – fortunate in the extreme that I deigned to speak to him. How could he not realize how old and hideous he looked? I felt insulted by his attentions. When I thought of my pre-Raphaelite “Lovers” I quivered with indignation. It is an insult to the Goddess when ugly people mate with the beautiful. They should keep to their own kind. I began to amuse myself with a plan to send him anonymous letters! What fun that would be! It never would have occurred to me if I hadn’t received one of my own. What would it say? What could most shame him? Make a note to self – something to chew over when court gets boring – as we know it must. The government mills grind exceedingly fine. And slowly, so I’ve heard tell.

Closer to the courthouse I stopped at the Kay-Cup and made myself a soy latte. As I stood in the cashier line, there was something very familiar about the guy buying lottery tickets just ahead of me. He was huge, seeming to sway as he stood, giving off testosterone in waves. He was built so like my archer. I could almost imagine the quiver of arrows hanging off his flannel shoulder. He wore a colorful bandanna around his head, a pair of ratty jeans, a pinkish hanging flannel shirt that had evidently been used as a rag and a tattered t-shirt with the logo, Champion Motor Oil. I usually shun men who work with their hands – ever since my stepfather. Less than perfect hygiene gets a turndown at the sex club. After all, I made such an effort to get out of that world. But there was something about him.

The Goddess was speaking to me. I felt bathed in his maleness like a hot summer sun. His pale hair was grew back sketchily on his scarred head in a thin fuzz. What had happened to him? Really bad haircut from a Benihana wannabe? Brain surgery? It seemed ancient, cuts and scrapes like someone tried to scalp him. Obviously he wore the bandana to keep speculation such as mine to a minimum. When he turned he crashed into me, because I was standing right there, staring. I spilled coffee between us, like an offering.

“Sorry.” We both said it at once. He had a raw, grainy voice. Producing that sound from somewhere deep inside himself made his cheeks quiver, showing a single unlikely dimple. His eyes swiveled over me like camera lenses, pale irises expanding as if sucking me in appreciatively. He was just a kid. Where had I seen him before? I know I knew him. Intimately. Eager to say something, I gestured at the lottery tickets. “Are you a believer?”

It’s what people say about the cards. He smiled a beautiful, deep smile, shaking the colorful handful. “Oh these,” he said, in his gravelly burr, like a person unused to speech. “I give them away. To the panhandlers outside the courthouse. Maybe there are some believers there.”
Then he was gone.

The entire courthouse throbbed with the excitement of the first day of trial, even though there were other cases, this was The Case. The Press was out in force, The Times-Call, The Daily Camera, even the Denver Post. My fellow jurors – all wearing our distinguishing blue stickers – appeared to have dressed down for the occasion, though there was one overly tanned, well-kept older woman in a pencil skirt, who looked at me in a startled way. She’d plainly expected to be the belle of this particular ball, until I showed up.

There were several rooms off the long hallway in the bowels of the courthouse. We were shown our “deliberation room” – the judge’s chambers, the clerk’s room, and the prosecutor’s office. There was also a small cloakroom. I saw the defense attorney’s junior, a young highly-made- up faux platinum blonde so pretty my fellow jurors referred to her as “the Bond girl”. She tossed some used fashion magazines across our table. Her eyes met mine and she gave me a big smile. “Good morning!” she said. All this friendliness in aid of her client? Or did she favor every casual stranger with this desperation? A born pleaser. I recognize it because I can fake it. Takes one to know one.
She bustled away down the hall in her platform boots to the conference room given over to the defense. I knew she’s just wanted to get a look at us. No one else seemed interested.

People over-burdened with files, water bottles and huge cups of coffee rushed from their doorways and scurried like vermin along the hall. I caught sight of the judge, “Kozlowsky” very unimpressive without his robes, a fish-faced man with prematurely white hair dressed as if for a day of golf. No one would look at him twice when he wasn’t on the bench.

“I guess fashion doesn’t count as “news”, said my belle-of-the-ball juror I thought of as “the belle of the ball” juror, trying to be friends. Checking out the competition. “I hear we’re in for a long siege of boredom. They say this trial could last three months!”

“That is a long time,” I smiled. “But you know what?” I hissed conspiratorially. “People always break the rules a little.”

“Bend them anyway,” she agreed. “They’re rules because they’re hard to follow. Hi, I’m Lacey Morag.” Her lifetime honorific “pretty” was expiring. Fraying at the edges. I saw powder in soft drifts along the lines of her cheeks and her pale hazel eyes quivered with the need for approval.
I’ve got this one, I thought. I can make her do anything I want.

“I forgot to bring anything to read. In voir dire we had to sit around so much. It’s wonderful to have someone to talk to. I’m Charmian Quantreau.” We shook hands. I checked her loveline – one marriage. Possibly some love frustration.

I saw her visibly relax. Now we were confederates. We chose seats beside each other in the jury room.

“It’s going to be hard, living without any news,” I said. To say something.
“At least we’re not sequestered,” said a tall, pencil-necked man in a button-down shirt. Too bossy for an actuary. Probably some sort of accountant. “That would be hell.”

“Oh, I don’t know,” said Lacey, responding to him in spite of his wedding ring in a “take me I’m yours” sort of way. “I could use the vacation. And don’t you think the news is so artificial these days? It’s so partisan. When my kids were at home I used to sponsor a “Turn off the TV Week” at the schools. Life is about so much more than politics, gossip and titillation.”

Was she just ignorant, or the type of woman who subtly insults you and then disclaims intentionality? The reading I was getting was “stupid” and “fault-finding”. But I felt no need to flush out of cover yet. I can play one-up.

“I know exactly what you mean. I live on Hayden Lake and it’s so glorious at night. The silence! The stars are magnificent, and there are so many owls. Always something to watch and do. I sit out in my kayak pitying the addicts glued to their glo-boxes.”
Now she knew I was rich. Her face sharpened.

“Hayden Lake? Do you live alone?”

“I’m a widow,” I said comfortably, status was now assured. “But it was his time. I’ve been very lucky.”

“It must be so beautiful… I’d love to see it sometime.”

“Let’s have a party. As soon as this is over. It’s a wonderful place for entertaining. You know, I’ve heard jurors bond for life on these important cases. We’ll feel we deserve it after our deliberations.”

“That would be lovely,” she echoed faintly. One in the corner pocket! Now, who else could I get?
Appointing herself social director of our cruise, Lacey moved on to a shriveled old woman of the “proud crone” variety. I smiled at a swollen young man in glasses who wore a t-shirt depicting a howling wolf. He was hardly a wolf. He’d chosen the wrong power animal. Howling Woodchuck, I dubbed him. He told me he was a web developer between jobs, who lived with his parents at home. I started right in on how I was thinking of starting a foundation named after my grandchildren. Shouldn’t it have a presence on the web? Really, I was so ignorant. His eyes gleamed. He had lots of suggestions.

I kept sneaking peeks at the married accountant. He had clear leadership qualities. I suspected we would wrestle for jury control; but I am willing to be the power behind the throne. He is gifted with the sort of long, lean physique despised in high school that holds up well in middle age.

Ron Roccam was his name. He was nicely turned out in a sweater vest, tie and neatly pressed slacks to go with his button-down shirt. Had he mistaken our civic requirement for a job interview or did he always dress like this? Lots of men don’t know how easy it is to impress a woman with clothes. Certainly Roccam was the only male juror making any effort.

Now we were all showing pictures of our families. Ron Roccam had the sort of wife and two little boys that comes ready-made in a K-Mart frame: could he be a bullshitter? I’d find out of he tried to get me to invest in something.

I saw their expressions when I showed snaps of me and the late doctor who looked, as usual, like a Gila monster. I made a mental note to dump this photo – my stepdaughters and their children made a much more positive impression. Lacey’s eyes actually filled with tears while she told me how lucky I was to have grandchildren. Her own daughter was approaching thirty and working a sixty-hour week. It was starting to look hopeless.

I was startled to find out Roccam was actually laid off. He said otherwise he never would have accepted jury duty. He seemed to think they were lucky to get him. A plump retiree with a thin fringe of hair clinging to his pate like seaweed to an inhospitable rock jumped in and talked eagerly about the horrible economy and the nightmare of diminishing fixed income.

He told us all to call him “C.D. – the safe investment”. Talk about irony. Roccam cluck-clucked sympathetically. Didn’t try to sell him anything. Agreed no safe investment is worth anything any more. I ventured that I liked unpredictability. It makes life so more exciting. They gazed at me, bemused.

A jury room is not a place to get comfortable. I guess that’s so the taxpayer gets the quickest reasonable verdict. The room is dominated by a coffin-shaped table and the chairs are too stiff to sleep in. Between a coat rack and a coffee table stacked with decks of ordinary playing cards, crossword puzzle and wordsearch books and shabby sets of out of date games were connecting doors to a men’s room and a ladies room. At least it would be possible to be occasionally alone, which I have always found to be a necessity in life when others become too claustrophobically overwhelming. Three vending machines – coffee-tea-cocoa, juice and soda, snacks and fruit, and a miniature refrigerator containing a variety of creamers. Not Acceptable.

A plump young woman looking barely old enough to vote was rifling through the fashion magazines. Howling Woodchuck gestured to the cover and rolled his eyes. “I wish women would realize skeletons don’t turn men on,” he said. Flirting! The plump girl regarded him gratefully. Would love bloom in our lengthy sequestration?

“Turning men on isn’t the be all and end all of every woman’s existence,” snapped the crone. Retired schoolmarm? I wondered. Some sort of gray panther. I noticed her nubby-woven peasant vest was ornamented with cat hairs. Too bad the metal detector lacked a vacuum attachment! I wondered if my fake asthma would be flaring up. So far its kept me out of my stepdaughters’ dog-and-cat infested homes.

The very plump woman introduced herself as Luna. “All those pictures are airbrushed anyway,” she said. “Nobody really looks like that.”

I amused myself picturing Howler and Luna’s Dueling Bellies. I have landed smack dab into a meeting of the Royal House of Cups here! Imagine attempting to defend oneself with a cup! They do not realize they are being fattened for slaughter.

Pentacles are magic, Swords rule, even Wands possess the power of fire. But the Cups? Their collective motto is “I’ll have another.”

Yes, you will. It makes you so much easier to take down. You can be bribed with a cookie. If shared tastes are key, these two trencher-persons, Howling Woodchuck and Luna, surely are made for each other. How many couples got their romantic start as fellow jurors?
The Gray Panther introduced herself to me, but I missed everything she said while attempting to identify her strange scent. Mothballs? Penicillin? Saved by the bell – the court clerk, a settled woman with a hairband and large unfashionable glasses put her head around the door.

“Time, ladies and gentlemen.” She distributed a notebook to each of us as we filed past.
In the red upholstered jury box we were the cynosure of all eyes. Every body at the prosecution and defense tables rose. It’s nice to be treated royally. Doesn’t happen often in this democratic society. The defendant crossed her wrists in front of her as if they were still handcuffed, or as if she were praying to us: the Gods of the Courtroom. She wore a long skirted suit of drab autumnal tweed to conceal her electronic bracelet, but her form fitting pink sweater left nothing to the imagination. Some men admire that red hair, but the skin that goes with it is usually problematic. The eyes she swept over us were feverish.

Who among our number was born to save her? I couldn’t believe she found much comfort in our motley crew; most dressed as if for a sporting event, and too obviously handicapped in life by a love affair with the pleasures of the table.

Both the prosecutor and the defense sat with their juniors: the prosecution had a huge, shambling young man who looked at if someone with a sense of humor dressed him in the morning, and at the defense table sat our photogenic Bond girl, holding a protective arm around the defendant. The visitors’ benches were packed.

The judge admonished us about custody of the eyes and brain. No discussing the case, no reading the news, no email, no Facebook. No social networking. It was only by reading the newspapers when I was safe home that I discovered that I discovered the “pro-forma” motion heard in our absence was to dismiss the case for lack of other than circumstantial evidence. Righteously tossed out. And we were off. Mr. Wilmot, who has always looked to me like a high school kid disguised as an old man for a play, stood up to give his opening statement. As he stands before the defense table, trying to kill this woman, a little shrinking violet trying to vanish behind her defenders, shall we rank Mr. Wilmot a King of Swords? Being as he has chosen a career of at least attempting to put people to death, I think we must.

“Ladies and gentlemen, this is a case about a woman who is accustomed to winning. A woman who has always been successful at persuading others to do her dirty work. A woman who simply didn’t like her brother-in-law, and who so made the decision that his existence should be terminated. Her family did not want to lose control over her niece, and in the contentious litigation in which the two families were engaged, Rafe Zanelli declared he would move his family out of state rather than allow Karen Sivarro’s family access. For that threat he paid with his life.

You already know that she has pled not guilty to the charges of conspiracy, of murder and of accessory to murder with which she is charged. After all, she didn’t buy the gun and never touched it or its bullets. She didn’t use her own dollars to pay the hitman, and according to our evidence only met him once, although they may have seen each other on several occasions. But the man who was her lover will come and testify in this court that it was she who gave sole birth to this idea of murder, that she nagged him relentlessly into hiring the murderer, then continued to wheedle every day until the crime was accomplished.

Ladies and gentlemen, that is a crime, even though gunpowder never touched her fingers. This murder benefited the defendant and her family — and only them. It devastated many other lives, including the life of the man who will testify that she demanded of him as a test of love that he do this for her.

In trials, it often comes down to which witnesses you believe. I have every confidence that you will do an excellent job. Thank you.”

Mr. O’Hara rose, walked right over to our seats, placed his hand on the rail and gazed at ups with his crocodile eyes suddenly gentle in their bags of skin. I felt grateful to be in the back row. Those eyes were cynical; I could not read him. Under a thatch of sandy hair, those eyes were very old. Forget crocodiles; Mr. O’Hara is a dragon. Does he also wield a sword? Let us see.

“Ladies and gentlemen of the jury, I will not be making an extensive opening statement at this time, but I don’t want to let slip the opportunity to inform you that my client is absolutely innocent of these charges. The state has no case against her. Her crime has been to fall in love with a completely untrustworthy, drug addicted man who was cheating his clients and embezzling their money, a man who would stop at nothing to bind her to him, and for that she has already been heavily punished. No evidence connects her with this crime other than the most self-serving statements of this same man, who has by redirecting blame avoided the death penalty he so royally deserves. I have absolute trust that you will discharge your duty fairly and refuse to end the life of an innocent person. Thank you.” Slapped the rail and he was gone.

So we began.

Charmian:
Chapter VII – The Fool

Safely accepted for jury duty, I felt free to become…myself. How ecstatic are my beauty routines! I make love to myself with every unguent, every potion. No medieval knight encased in chain mail could feel as protected as I do, standing naked in front of the full length mirror with a paintbrush in my hand. I am I own greatest creation. I celebrate myself.

Every time I make myself beautiful, I am spitting on my stepfather’s grave. My stepfather, whose first gift to me was a spiral fracture of the arm when I was seven, was a skinny, worthless loser despised by the universe as well as by yours truly. I was eleven when he told me it was his duty to teach me about sex. He said that was what stepfathers were for. Don’t tell me my mother didn’t know what was going on; her cooperation (or at least her silence, she was too fat for cooperation) could always be ensured by a carton of Little Debbies.

Weirdly, he never wanted me to look beautiful, or even attractive. I suppose he feared I’d grow up and leave him. When my girlfriends and I streaked our hair one sleepover, he acted as if I had set the house on fire. Luckily it was the innocent kind that washes out; otherwise I think he really would have shaved my head.

I remember exactly how scared I felt the first time I decided to ignore my stepfather’s diktats about how I should look and dress. It was the kind of terror that makes you wet yourself; but what the enemy forgets is that can be the rocket fuel of rebellion. His own possessive rage became the engine of his death.

I recall my motivation, too; all those memories are crystal clear. Nothing that happened a week ago can retain that kind of power. It was my first day of high school, my first day among the Grown-Up People, and I wasn’t going in there looking like some Amish refugee. I knew I could make up my face and change my skirt at Deirdre’s house; her parents were never home. Contrary to what he tried to make me to believe, I knew in my heart my stepfather could not read minds, had no eyes in the back of his head, could not see through walls, did not have spies everywhere, was not connected to the Mafia and the CIA. He expected me to worship him. He apparently thought that if he could convince one poor slave that he was superman that would make him immortal.

But I discovered that what he didn’t know couldn’t hurt me. Makeup was not too radioactive a substance to keep me from shoplifting it – I built an impressive secret stash at Deirdre’s house. Deirdre’s parents didn’t care how much makeup she used or how trampy she looked. They wanted her gone and off the teat, and they welcomed the universal solution: transfer her grip to some poor guy.

In that year Saturn and Mars were equally fiery, it was dry and there had been a comet. According to Nostradamus such are times potent for revolution. In the first few weeks of school, Deirdre found her guy and I found mine. Paul. I have never forgotten him. I often wonder where he is and what he’s doing. To break the spell I try imagining him as a fat old businessman, but in the Eden of first love he will always represent manhood to me. You remind me of him.

I thought we would be happy ever after. I was too young to realize how expensive love can be. Dating I did not even aspire to: that would get my stepfather involved. All I wanted was someone else’s hand to take away the stain of his touch. It worked the very first time, and I could tell that, just as with any incantation, it would work better and better the more we practiced.

Paul had a car. This is probably the whole reason the sight of black leather so arouses me. Here in our time capsule we could be alone, and when I was alone with Paul, he was touching me, and I was touching him. Every caress added to the fund of courage I would need to kill the man who tried so hard to convince me of my imprisonment. Self-defense, your Honor.

I began by attempting to poison him with chokecherries, then yew berries. I would have tried deadly nightshade if I had known what it looked like, but our high school science teachers were beginning to look askance at all my questions. Mark Twain said, if the desire to kill and the opportunity to kill always came together, who among us would escape hanging?

Alas, he suffered no ill results. A horrible feeling crept over me that in some satanic way, these poisons were actually improving his health. He became more vigilant, and I noticed he was drinking less. Uh oh. But opposing him was beginning to become addictive for both of us. Our battles were escalating. I was as tall as he was now; he must have felt his fists and his penis were no longer sufficient to control me. One day he produced a gun. His idea was that we were now a threesome, little me, paralyzed with fear, and Superman with his two dicks. My idea was different.
He knew I was afraid of the cellar. He locked me down there as a punishment when I was little. I thought it was the mouth of hell; a dirt hole clawed beneath the bowels of the house that stank like a sewer. I never even passed the top step but clung to the doorknob, eye pressed to the light crack, wailing for release.

My expanding mind saw will as a muscle; you can train it just the way you train the body. I had transcended so many fears already; why couldn’t I outgrow this fear of confrontation? Previously I concentrated on making his death look like an accident; but what if he simply disappeared? He wasn’t employed, my mom was scared of him, nobody except his bar buddies would even notice he was missing. And they were way too fuzzyheaded to stage a meaningful inquiry. The only drawback I could see was that unlike poison, a gun guarantees your presence while he dies. I had to convince myself this was better, more immediate. Pop, pop, pop, you’re gone. I knew how to cock the pistol; I knew how to release the safety because I’d seen him do it countless times. If the cellar was dirty and stinky, and no one ever went down there, why couldn’t I bury him where nobody would ever look?

While my stepfather was out buying smokes I took a flashlight down to check it out. The wooden staircase rocked as if it would collapse, no problem, it had only to bear us up for two or three more times. Just as I had feared, there were bugs, centipedes and worms, but now I saw them as my friends. Let them eviscerate his corpse; if only they could chew the bones as well. The walls were rough stone, probably offering less support after all these years than the roots I saw sticking out between them. Then I saw the blessing of the Goddess. A wooden well cover, and I knew the time was now.

I was about six years old when the county forced us to go on public water and sewer. I recalled the furor as my stepfather raged against fluoridation and my mother pled abject poverty. Finally the town officials, after a desultory snoop into all our business or its lack, agreed to waive the co-pay.
And all this time that old well was down there. The water in the bottom reflected the flashlight as I leaned over. It was even set flush with the floor; what could be easier? I practiced moving the wooden cover; no problem. The only difficulty now was to get him down here with the gun.
No problemo. All I had to say was that there were rats down there; he was longing for something to shoot. At first he was a little suspicious, knowing how I avoided the place, but when I said I heard them scratching at the door, he was convinced.

He liked to be considered a man of surprises. I was surprised when he made me go down first, carrying the flashlight and a garbage bag. That meant I couldn’t push him from behind the way I’d planned. It also cut down on my time, because as I think I said before, the place was just a tiny hole.

But if he had surprises, I had ideas. The garbage bag gave me another one.
I’ve met people who believe that hauntings are triggered by scenes of desperate violence. If that is true, then that cellar is haunted forever by me in a red sweater, red kilt and matching tights and my stepfather wearing a garbage bag over his head, struggling with a gun. I had to drop the flashlight which shot its crazy, useless stream of light across the floor.

He was wiry and amazingly strong, but I had the gun two-handed and I would not have let it go if the world around me exploded into flames. I discovered in that moment the secret of power, which is that if you want something with your whole being, if you have not one cell of doubt, you are invincible. I had to stomp on his instep to loosen his grip, but the gun came to me pre-cocked. I shot him right through the bag. That gun kicked like a rattlesnake. I shot him again and again and again, and one of the bullets somehow came back to graze me in the face. Doesn’t bother me. I wear that tiny chip along my cheekbone as a badge of honor.

I hadn’t expected all the blood. I guess I thought the bag would somehow contain it, but the bullets tore through that bag like tissue paper. I rolled him to the well, tipped him in, threw the gun and what was left of the bag in after him. I put the wooden cover back on, and I fled up the stairs. I had to throw out all my clothes, even my bra and underpants. Put them right in the garbage. Then I took a hot bath, reveling in making it deeper than my stepfather ever approved of, hotter than he ever allowed, using so much bubble bath that if he had looked in the door he would have accused me of “playing with myself”. Well, he could never look at my body again. In my innocence, I thought it was all Paul’s now. I did not know the Queen has many courtiers.

My mother was cooking a double shift at the diner; she would be gone for hours. Once I redressed I looked around carefully, but there was nothing to see. A little dirt from the cellar was easily swept up, but I saw no blood. He probably went into the water with his truck keys in his pocket, but I knew where he hid his spare. I drove his truck to the bus stop and called Paul for a ride home. Ironically, that call marked the beginning of the end of Paul’s and my relationship; he never would believe my story about what I was doing there.

My mother never even reported him missing. She acted mad that he was gone, but she cashed his VA checks just the same. She must have realized something had happened to him when they told her the truck was in the impound, but instead of paying the fine she signed it over to the lot owner. She never mentioned it to me.

I walked out of that house a year later when I was sixteen years old, and I’ve never been back. Fled Louisiana for Texas where I even changed my name. Mom and I were not what you could call “close.”

Consulting the power of my second sight, I like to think my mom guaranteed herself a (short) retirement of unlimited Little Debbies by selling out to lake property developers, and when they uncovered the skeleton they weighed the opportunity to rename the property Skeletal Acres, rejected it, and sold the trophy to med students. I don’t feel the need to test the veracity of this vision, nor have I regretted what I did for one single second. My stepfather’s card is The Fool. He was a born victim. The universe constantly offers us the challenge to believe in ourselves. Acceptance, and creation of our new world, is the key to inner peace.