Alysse Aallyn

Category: #BestRevenge

  • Queen of Swords: a novel

    Charmian:
    Chapter XXXIII – Judgment

    As we, the jury, filed out, the whole courtroom rose to their collective feet – everyone except the judge – who looked at us as if he had never seen us before.


    With the door closing behind us Roccam rubbed his hands with the infernal busybody’s pleasure. “Shall we order dinner?” he asked, reveling in his appointment as foreman. “Let’s get right to it. We can get a couple of hours in anyway.”


    He wasn’t fooling me. He just wanted to see that video. They all did. The judge’s clerk wheeled in the audiovisual cart, but we weren’t going to play it with her around.


    They insisted on watching it twice; Howling Woodchuck had the nerve to slow it down and follow it frame by frame. The jerky stop-motion didn’t do the participants any favors. I rolled my eyes.


    My husband considered himself as a “serious” collector of pornography. Art, he sometimes had the nerve to call it. Did you know that all women’s bodies are considered Art? He was a silly, silly man. Of course it had to be a great big secret – one of many of Papa’s nasty little secrets I was deputized to keep. Secrets of the diaper, secrets of the catheter. The precious daughters weren’t to know. Porn served as his instructional and physical therapy textbook, unfortunately, and since he was so disabled it was up to me to do all the work.


    After he died, mouth open, hands coiled around the pillow, I tossed out most of his collection with a sense of considerable satisfaction. All but a few choice pieces I positioned for Whitney to find. Time she was apprised of the extent of Daddy’s distinctly unwholesome breast fixation.


    In the jury room, at last the TV was turned off and the binders of evidence handed round. We each received our own. At that point the sandwiches and Snapples arrived; just in time for an “amuse bouche”; making such a nice counterpoint with the apparently endless crime scene photos and the autopsy report. The rest of them picnicked carelessly atop their evidence binders. Luna and Bea squabbled, in an intense yet polite way, over the sour cream versus the onion potato chips. Bea won. Age before Obesity, my dear.


    I couldn’t eat. These people were savages. I know I had to go through this for you, but whatever compromise I must invent to keep me from up and murdering the lot of them, I will just have to pursue. I have the self-control. I have the power. Eyes on the prize. The prize, of course, being you.
    “I’ll take notes,” I offered. Now they won’t question your presence in our midst. If they ask me what any one of them actually said, I’ll make up any old damn thing I please. Our notes are ours alone – nothing else could be so private. I’ve been told we take them home. No one else will read them, except for you. They’ll just have to trust me. Har, har.


    “Guilt and innocence,” said the crone, whose name was Bea. “It’s a big responsibility.”


    The guilty and the innocent? I wrote. Or the detected and undetected? How many of the innocent wish they were guilty, would be, if they could only summon up the nerve. The worms. Yawn.


    “Fortunately we don’t have to deal with such unfathomable concepts,” said C.D. in a superior way. “We only have to decide if the state has proved its case.”


    I was rifling the fashion magazines for the Bond girl – Selina Kavanaugh’s address. Just in case. Oh! Found it!. 14-B, Pierce Point Acres. I secreted it gracefully in my bag.


    “Maybe we should take an anonymous vote,” said Roccam. “Just to see which way everyone is leaning. It would be more democratic.”


    “I don’t know what’s so democratic about anonymity,” I contributed, unable to resist. “Surely people should stand up for what they believe.” So I know what I’m up against. My husband was not much of a democrat. He prided himself on being an “elitist.” He used the word “Kantian” pejoratively, trying to force me to agree that if Kant’s theorem came true and we actually behaved the way we wanted other people to act the world would be simply unbearable; a miserable place where everyone was the same. That’s “democracy” for you. Fortunately, the thing’s impossible.


    “I don’t think we should vote yet,” said one of the clone-men. “We gave an oath to pass judgment after due deliberation, not off the top of our heads.”


    I could tell he was really just annoyed at Roccam for winning foreman.


    “I think she’s guilty,” said Luna boldly. “That girl’s the manipulative type. You can see her twining herself around the whole defense table like some sort of Virginia creeper. That poor old Haymaker was in enough hot water already, why would he borrow trouble? I understand he was all coked out, but really. If she really had nothing to do with it, why did she act so guilty? Why run away? Why not turn him in immediately after the crime?”


    “She talked to this guy nonstop about her problems,” objected Howling Woodchuck, “And suddenly the problem’s removed. She goes rushing off to Europe? The way I see it, she’s afraid to dump him, she’s afraid to turn him in, but she’s also afraid to be with him. Maybe he was going to have her offed, for all she knew! I mean, he knew where to find hitmen and she obviously didn’t. I have to say her behavior looks like innocence to me.”


    “She did turn him in,” said, Bea, and Luna joined in, “Because the FBI made her. They said to her, like, it’s either him or you.”


    Honestly these people don’t have a pair of working brain cells to rub together. I began to think maybe it was my best gambit to let them talk and talk until they all got sick of each other. When they were ready to go home they would be ready to listen to reason. But can I stand it?


    “I believe Haymaker,” said one of the alternates. “People tell the truth when they’ve nothing left to lose.”


    “Heck no, that’s nonsense” said a white haired trucker leaving most of his meatball grinder in his beard. “People act the way they’ve always acted. Selfish people continue to act selfish. People who like throwing a wrench into the works – what do they call them – saboteurs – continue to throw wrenches. Sociopath, that’s what the doctor called him. He doesn’t want to see anybody win. Spread the grief around. Misery loves company.”


    “Are you sure you’re not feeling favorable towards the defendant just because she’s so good looking?” Bea asked acidly.


    The schoolmarm said, “You can’t believe Haymaker because the defense got him to admit he’s a perjurer! How can we possibly believe a guy like that?”


    I looked daggers at her. What a jackass! If they were going to continue being so stupid I wouldn’t be able to stay out of it.


    And then the old black woman, who had never said a word, spoke up.


    “Well, you know what I think,” she said, “ I think that little girl doesn’t have the personality of a killer.”


    “How can you possibly know what a killer’s personality is like?” demanded Luna.


    “Well, you see,” the retired housecleaner – or whoever she was – offered shyly, “I read lots of true crime. It’s my favorite. And murderers can’t help bragging. They always brag. They think they’re the center of the universe and everything revolves around them! They want people knowing just how smart they’ve been. They’re so sharp they cut themselves! But she didn’t tell anyone. She refused to even talk about it with Haymaker. Don’t you think they would have caught her on tape if they could?”


    Now we had an authority on murderers! My pen jabbed right through the paper.
    “You know what I hate,” said Lacey, speaking up haltingly for the first time. I think she’s one of those agoraphobes. The more people present, the more trouble they have participating. “If we acquit her then she’s getting away with it. Then she’s committed the perfect murder!”


    Really, I had to speak up. You would have been proud of me. “Having someone commit your murder for you is hardly the perfect murder,” I objected. “If she’s guilty she involved no less than three people to get the job done! Not to mention Tobin’s girlfriend and God knows who else. It’s the mark of an idiot.”


    They all turned and stared at me, chewing with their mouths open.


    “I just didn’t believe that shrink,” said Luna, changing the subject in order to push her weight around. “All I know is, they’ll say anything to keep the paying customers coming. You don’t ever get well with one of those guys. They always keep changing their diagnoses. First it’s manic depression and then its bipolar and then it’s not bipolar and then it’s type one or type two. They’re the ones that should be on trial.”


    “So you’re saying that he’s not a sociopath,” said Woodchuck, folding his arms across his belly like it was going to be a long night. “So what is he? Just a mean, evil guy?”


    “He’s sick,” said Bea. “There must be something wrong with him, to do all the things he did.”
    I imagined tying them to their chairs and setting the room on fire, their piteous eyes and hysterical wails. Denial! Bargaining! Bribery! The exits barred. Should we let them go? Never! The two of us, laughing together. A good time had by all. Sick!


    The pleasure of being rich is that your voice, you will counts for so much more than anybody else’s. You get what you want, they stand in line. You don’t have to waste your precious time arguing with the little people. It was gong to be a long night.


    Eventually anybody will vote anything, just to get out of this room. These are the wolves, sniffing at each other’s behinds. Almost idly, I announced, “Not all murderers are sociopaths.”
    “Oh, that can’t be true,” the schoolmarm lectured me. “There has to be something wrong with a person who thinks they have the right to take another’s life.”


    Let them talk. In my mind I pulled a card. The Judgment card of course. Cosmic forces have been set in motion. My card displays a robed dignitary weighing a “blood payment” in his golden scales. Balance. Ancient justice was based on compensation, not punishment. What’s past is past. The Sivarros give the Zanellis a couple of cows, they throw a big party, and everybody’s happy. When bloodshed is necessary, it’s a balm for our rage, a force for change, the milk that nourishes our future.


    I looked at my watch. After eight already! Outside there was a commotion in the corridor and a series of knocks at our door. Rescue! I rose expectantly. Have you noticed how often when I desire something, it automatically appears? See how the universe continually confirms my royalty?

  • Queen of Swords: a novel

    Whitney
    Chapter XXXII – The Ace of Swords

    I was so full of delicious barbecue, berry cobbler and spinach lasagna that I could barely run. But Eight and I managed to power walk down the courthouse hallway. As long as we were hand in hand, my connection with this total stranger was strong and fierce. Mr. Wilmot, whom I recognized as the prosecutor giving the closing argument I listened to just this afternoon, thrust his head outside his office.


    “So Zach,” he asked, “What’s the emergency?”


    “We’ve got some facts about one of your jurors that you really need to know,” said Eight.
    I felt a strange exhilaration that the prosecutor, whom Eight called a “friend”, nevertheless didn’t know – or use – Eight’s secret name. The club I belonged to was way more exclusive.


    In the prosecutor’s office was a nightmarishly uncomfortable Danish “Oldern” sofa bearing a single needle-pointed cushion bearing the legend: “The meek may inherit the earth, but without you they won’t keep it very long.”


    “My wife made that,” said Wilmot. “Come on in. Have a seat.” I felt kind of guilty for bothering him, he looked so harassed. He wore his gray suit pants but no jacket, had removed his tie and his collar was undone. His pepper and salt hair stood up all over his head like a bulldog’s fur, and he peered at us over his bifocals as Eight said,


    “First tell him about your stepmother’s identity problems, Whitney.”


    But first I looked around. You are not lost; the trees know where they are. The walls were covered with plaques, awards, framed certificates and degrees. In a painting of justice the blindfolded goddess holding the scales pulled her blindfold down just enough for one eye to peek out. Made me think of Charmian’s mesmerizing tarot cards. I didn’t like thinking about them.


    We sat down together on the uncomfortable sofa. It was all right because Eight and I were together.


    “I’m Whitney Quantreau,” I said. “My stepmother’s on your jury. Charmian Quantreau. But that’s not her real name. I just came back from Cold Creek, Texas, where I found out that the real Charmian Carr has been missing for the past ten years. Her family just had her declared dead. I have a picture of her here,” I gave him my manila envelope with the copy of Charmian’s book and the Firewalker material, but he made no move to open it. “Her real name is Pearleen Purdy and I think she stole Charmian’s identity.”


    “She stole your stepmother’s identity?” he asked me.


    This was going to be a touchy story to tell. But I had Eight beside me. I swallowed, took a breath and went on, “She was pretending to be Charmian Carr seven years ago when she married my father. Now he’s dead and she killed him. She admits it all in this book.”


    “It’s a love letter to me,” said Eight. “She thinks I killed Rafe Zanelli. She thinks I’m a fellow spirit.”
    Wilmot sat down. I think he fell into his chair.


    “It’s all in the book,” said Eight. “She murdered her stepfather first, and then she cut Charmian Carr’s throat and buried her under a catalpa tree in Texas. Then she murdered Whitney’s father.”
    “I made a copy,” I offered. “It’s in there.”


    “I have a mistrial,” said Wilmot. Not looking happy about it. “Mistrials are expensive.”


    “Sorry,” I squeaked. More guilt!


    He recovered fast. He was a fast recoverer. Probably how you get to be prosecutor.


    “It has a good side,” said the prosecutor. “It’s like moot court. We get to find out how the jury was tending. Does anybody else know about this?”


    “Only my church elders,” said Eight. “They won’t speak to anybody.”


    Wilmot rose decisively. “I need the original. I always need the original.”


    So I had been right about that. Could it just be fate that I stole the book on the very day Charmian didn’t go home? The last day of the trial? I guess sometimes fate works one way, and sometimes another.


    Eight gave him the book. Now he had everything. It was literally out of our hands.
    “Excuse me,” said Wilmot, and he proceeded through a glass door into an inner office.


    Eight and I were alone. We looked at each other. I swear to you we recognized each other. But what did we see? Who did we recognize?

  • Queen of Swords: a novel

    Charmian
    Chapter XXXI – The House of Swords

    As I slept in my juror’s chair I was visited – tormented, I should say – by the strangest dream. I never even think about my husband, yet there he was, as the young man I knew he’d been from film and photograph, able-bodied, healthy, loading some dirty old truck with fishing gear. He wore one of those stupid hats festooned with hooks. Why those people don’t catch their own brains with those hats I’ll never know. I suppose it proves they haven’t any.


    He gestured to me to come over and I went very unwillingly because I knew he wanted to take me with him and I didn’t want to go. Then – here’s the horrible part – he swelled up all dark and horrible and tried to get a net over me. He turned into my stepfather.


    From beyond the grave he was laughing at me, thinking he’d got the better of me. My fear shot up; how many times would I have to kill him? But he will never capture me; I am too strong for him. I will never let go. The two of us can die here fighting but I will never give up. He leaped on my body as if, because he was my first, therefore he owned my spirit, but I wrapped the net around his neck and began to pull. It seemed my own air was cut off, I was choking, but even if I had to die to destroy him, it was worth it.


    And after death, what? Would I rule my captured souls in hell? We’ll see. Even if all I earned is oblivion, it would be worth that risk to spit out my final rage into the face of the cold universe.
    But where was I now? This was not oblivion, but eternal loneliness. Suddenly it seemed that I was shut away forever, out of the excitement, out of the light, in some dark, dank, dripping cell. Down at the bottom of the well, wrapped in an unholy embrace with my rotting stepfather’s corpse… Someone was shaking me. How dare they?


    It was Lacey. I woke up sweating and shivering and filled with rage. I could feel the drool – old people’s drool – hardening into crusts at the corners of my mouth.


    Lacey’s hand brushed my arm. “Are you OK?” Her face approximated some semblance of concern but I was certain I had caught a glimpse of the secret glee hidden behind her eyes; unholy joy that I, too, was human, aged, imperfect. That her disgusting fate, entropy was stalking me as well. Roughly I pushed her hand away.


    “Don’t ever touch me again,” I snapped at her. Unbidden human touch is so disgusting. Less majesty. The nerve of some people.

  • Queen of Swords: a novel

    Whitney
    Chapter XXX – The Lovers

    I left the courthouse at the break. Eight’s text told me to drive out to the country, so I had a lot of time to think. Charmian hadn’t reacted to my presence in any particular way, so I was feeling a little encouraged. But I knew her well enough to know she was mostly annoyed by my presence. She didn’t look like the plain old Disney lady who had tricked them into seating her on the jury, but she did look like she was “blending in”. As if she was determined to stay where she was. I played the Mountain Goats’ Up the Wolves to help me concentrate.


    The prosecutor’s closing argument really affected me. You would think as a psychology student I would know all about “antisocial personality disorder”” but I didn’t. It was as if I was hearing about it for the first time.


    Everything he said applied to Charmian! Adolescent crime? Like, does murder count? She had some excuse, but still. It was obviously premeditated so you couldn’t really call it self-defense. Even if it got reduced to manslaughter, anybody would have to count it as a crime. And, grandiose enough? Is Charmian-Pearleen-Purdy-Carr-Quantreau grandiose enough for you? How about, blames others? Doesn’t care about people? No kidding! Even her passion for poor Eight is really the same kind of “ownership” my wretched father in his fear and empty loneliness felt for her! She only wanted an audience to her own magnificent, because how can be the Queen be a Queen without a courtier? A body-slave. You can’t call that love.


    Eight told me she was a demon, and that sounded about right to me. Anti-social personality disorder, sociopath, psychopath – isn’t it all the same thing?


    Since I knew for certain now that my stepmother was the monster I had always feared, why was my spirit so light? Was it only because Eight had magically come into my life with all his intelligence and wisdom, with the beauty of his scars? No, it was because for the first time I was sure my stepmother and I were nothing alike, and that if we feared to study monsters because of the threat of becoming too much like then, monsters would rule the world.


    I turned on a dirt road marked “Church”. Eight’s text told me: “Drive to end” but I had to slow down to a crawl because the ruts were pretty deep.


    At the end of the road was a long low ranch house and a garden where people in sun hats worked patiently among the rows of flowers and vegetables. They didn’t look up, but I recognized some immature sunflowers. Didn’t Charmian say the sunflower is my flower? That’s all right by me.
    I parked with the other cars at a sign that said, Native American Church. Eight came running down the steps of the house.


    I searched his face for signs of disgust. “Did you read it?”


    “I read it,” he said. “She’s a demon, all right.”


    He guided me away from the house.


    “So is this your church?” I asked.


    He nodded. “My Mom’s Arapaho.”


    Behind the house was a little shack that I have to say, looked like an outhouse. It was painted a fading read, but it had no other markers on it at all. Once again I felt a ripple of fear. The trees are not afraid. The mountains aren’t afraid. We, the sunflowers, are not afraid. My new mantra.
    “So,” he asked me, “How did it go for you?”


    “I saw her. And she saw me. I listened to the prosecution’s whole closing argument. But she didn’t do anything. She’ll probably like it that I left.”


    “See?” he said. “She doesn’t recognize your power. You have the element of surprise.” He opened the door to the shack and fragrant steam jumped out.


    “Oh,” I said. “A sauna.” My father loved the sauna. We had one in our old house.


    “It’s a sweat lodge. You have to take off your clothes,” Eight directed.


    “You first.”


    “Done and done.” We both started to strip.


    “I usually don’t do this on the first date,” I joked nervously.


    “You have to be serious,” said Eight. “You have to tell the truth from now on.”


    So I was silenced. Did that mean he thought I did do this on the first date? Let’s hope not!
    The fragrant steam turned out to be a pile of wet grasses on the hot rocks.


    “Sage,” said Eight. He picked up a branch off the floor and began stroking me with it. “You do the same as me.”


    So we stroked each other with the fragrant branches. The tattoo Charmian couldn’t recognize was a pair of wolves. Eight saw me looking.


    “It’s the twin Wolf spirit,” said Eight. “A powerful spirit animal. What’s yours?”


    “Tattoo or spirit?”
    He laughed. “Either or both.”


    I thought. Tattoo was easy, I have a stupid hummingbird on my ankle Penn encouraged me to get. Spirit animal’s a lot more difficult. What animal hates its stepmother? The cuckoo?


    He helped me out. “Have you ever had another creature look at you as if it recognized you?”


    Brainstorm. “Sure,” I said. “A marmot. It stole all my food while I was camping. It hung around until I woke up. I think it was thanking me.”


    “Perfect,” said Eight. ”Spirit of the Great Marmot, Spirit of the Powerful Water Bird, we who are your children have much need of you. We summon you in all your majesty.” He took me by the elbow. “Now you sit down.”


    I sat on the wooden seat and hunched forward, trying to suck my belly in.


    “You’re beautiful,” said Eight, who really was. “Forget about yourself. You’re a marmot now.”
    “That’s me,” I echoed. A thieving marmot.


    “This is the hard part,” said Eight. “But it will be over fast.” He opened a box and took out some rabbity little vegetables and held them out in his palm. “You only get two,” he said, “Because you’re a beginner.”


    “What are they?” I asked, trying not to be scared.


    “Peyote buttons. Do you trust me?”


    “Is this all right with your church?”


    “It’s a sacred ceremony. As soon as I told them we were up against demons, they were first to suggest it. Don’t you trust me?” he repeated.


    I do. “I do,” I said, taking two strange little vegetables. Like smaller brussels sprouts. He extended a jar of water.


    “It might made you feel kind of sick,” he warned.


    I got them down. I’m a good pill taker. My vitamins are like horse capsules. I used to take diet pills before I got smart.


    “Wow,” I agreed, “I do feel sick. I’m afraid I’m going to throw them up.”


    He poured out the rest of the water on the floor and it steamed up at us. He handed me another jar.
    “It’s tea,” he said. “Drink it.”


    It wasn’t as good as his tea, but it was better than the peyote. At least I didn’t feel like throwing up any more, but I had to drink it all to stop from coughing.


    “Now tell the spirits of your problems,” said Eight. “Tell them everything.”


    I hesitated. It was so hot in here, I felt a little faint. Would I pass out disgracefully, like a drunken date? The only light came from the glowing rocks. I tried to focus on his face.


    “It helps to close your eyes,” said Eight, but he took my hand. I felt better immediately. “So we don’t lose each other,” he said. “Like the otters. You know they hold paws while they float sleeping, so they don’t drift apart.”


    I didn’t know. Don’t let us drift apart, I prayed.


    “Mother Spirit, Father Spirit,” said Eight, “Spirits of all the mothers, all the fathers, all the spirits gone before; Great Spirit who guides the universe in its right path, we come before you to defeat the machinations of a demon. She possesses the power of rage, the power of hate, the willingness to murder. We will need all your courage, all your cleverness to bring her down.”


    The “Father Spirit” part made me think immediately about my father. Eight said his spirit was safe and I wanted to believe that. I thought of him back when I was eight and realized, that’s the way I wanted to remember him. Teaching me how to fish, baiting a line with baloney. We had to sit all afternoon, because that’s what you do when you fish. But I was so proud of being with my dad. That was all right for me. I could have sat there, happy, forever.


    “He’s with us,” I said. “My father. I feel him.”
    “Talk to the Spirit,” said Eight.


    I was sweating so hard I wasn’t even certain whether I was crying or not. I felt definitely light headed. Had I had any breakfast? I couldn’t remember, it seemed so long ago. Didn’t I eat a piece of cold pizza, going out the door to confront my stepmother? I was brave then, wasn’t I? I definitely hadn’t had any lunch, rushing to meet Eight, and his text told me not to eat. That cold pizza lay in my gut like a rock. I began rocking myself, back and forth. “Dad,” I called, out loud, “Daddy? I want you to meet the man I’m going to marry.”


    What was I, out of my mind? I was so astonished by myself I fell into a shocked silence. Eight squeezed my hand encouragingly and I began to babble. The words just poured out of me.


    “I’m sorry I have to stop Charmian,” I said. “I know you wanted me to leave her alone, but she’s evil. She’s going to destroy and destroy until there’s nothing left. We have to stop her.”
    I hesitated.


    “He’s here,” said Eight. “I see him. Talk to him.”


    I was so thrown that I stood up. Eight stood up too. Suddenly the planks that formed the shack fell away outward, like the petals of a flower. The morning mountain air was cold on my naked skin.
    “Daddy!” I shouted.


    He was loading his fishing rods into his truck, the old blue Chevy.


    His face lit up at the sight of me. “I’m going fishing,” he said. ”Want to come?” He didn’t mind at all that I was standing naked there with some guy.


    “His animal’s the rainbow trout,” I said to Eight. “He loved them so much he couldn’t even eat them. He always threw them back.” I sobbed. “He’d kiss them, saying You’re so beautiful. And then he’d throw them back.”


    “Pleased to meet you sir,” said Eight.


    “Daddy, I need to destroy Charmian,” I said. “She’s a monster. She kills people.”
    “She rapes people,” said Eight.


    “But she has swords. I’m so scared of her. She’ll cut me.” I dug my fists into my eyes.
    “Swords are nothing,” My father said. “Her swords are mirrors.”


    Another childhood memory. I used to be afraid of mirrors after my mother died. My father cured that by showing me that the only thing in mirrors is what you put there.


    My father held up his fishing knife. It glittered in the sun. “She has fake swords,” he said, “But I have this.” It wasn’t a fishing knife, it was a scalpel. He used to show me his medical case, and tell me about all it contained. What each weapon could do. That was back when we thought medicine could fix everything. “You don’t need me,” he said. “You can do it by yourself with the help of this fine man. I’m going fishing.” He looked right at Eight. With approval. My father could be so charming when he was whole. And when he chose to be.


    “You take care of her now,” my father said. He was getting into the truck, whistling. He always whistled “Beautiful Dreamer.” He said it was his and my mother’s song.


    “He’s leaving,” I whined at Eight. “I don’t want him to go.”


    “He’s happy,” said Eight. “He has to go.”


    And if I ran after him, I would have to let go of Eight’s hand. I didn’t let go.
    “Sit down,” Eight encouraged. We sat down. “Close your eyes.”
    I closed my eyes.


    “Now lean your head on my shoulder. Everything’s going to be all right.”
    And I could tell that it was.


    We came out into the afternoon and my father’s truck was gone. The shack’s planks were back in place. There was an open shower behind the sauna and we washed away the sweat and the tears. Together.


    “Solar water,” Eight commented. The soap smelled wonderful. Like mountain thyme. That’s Eight’s deepest, most intimate scent. We soaped each other vigorously.


    “My father didn’t believe in an afterlife,” I said.


    “Luckily an afterlife believed in him. So how do you feel?”


    “I feel powerful,” I told him. “Like I can do anything.”


    “You can,” he said. “You know, you’re the most beautiful woman I’ve ever seen. You have so much power.”


    And I believed it, his eyes shone so. We kissed a long time.
    After we dressed, he checked his phone.


    “They’ve gone into deliberations,” he said. “They’re good for a couple of hours. Come on into the main house. The elders have a meal prepared specially for us. It’s time for you to meet them.”

  • Queen of Swords: a novel

    Charmian:
    Chapter XXIX – The Prince of Swords

    In the break between the prosecutor’s closing and the defense closing
    I saw that Whitney had fled. Good riddance! Maybe she showed up to see the porn tape, and when the prosecution failed to cooperate she got bored. The Princess of Wands will never know what she is missing.


    I thought smugly of my horoscope’s instructions: “Maintain aura of exclusivity. Follow your destiny. Good day to establish friendly relations with co-workers. You will impress skeptics. Feeling of confinement is temporary. You will learn what is going on behind the scenes.”


    O’Hara rose before us, his reptilian face newly shaven and pink with what might be the heat of battle or carefully applied rouge, his wild mop of hair freshly cut and styled. He wore a blue “power” suit; a white shirt and a red “power” tie in elegant contrast with the prosecutor’s staid government grays; armor each of us had paid for. He fixed every jury member with his penetrating glance while the Bond Girl hustled forth the poster board. MURDERER, THIEF, LIAR, ADULTERER, CON MAN, CHEATER, PIMP, WEASEL, PORNOGRAPHER, DRUG ADDICT, DRUG PUSHER, DEADBEAT DAD, and PERJURER. An impressive list. I never bothered to add up my own distinctions but I doubted I could outdo Mr. Haymaker. My fellow jurors also frowned in disapproval. The Prince of Swords left nothing to chance.


    “Ladies and gentlemen of the jury, the state and I certainly agree about one thing: Our justice system, both state and country, is the envy of the planet. And there’s a simple reason why: benefit of the doubt. Benefit of the doubt means that you don’t convict people because the police arrest them, you don’t convict them because other criminals say they’re guilty. You have to have actual, incontrovertible evidence. If another theory of the crime is just as probable, that’s doubt. And you give the accused the benefit of the doubt and let them go.


    This case could have been created just to exemplify that situation. Here we have a defendant who is accused of a crime – several crimes actually – and there is no physical evidence whatever to link her to them. Usually in a courtroom juries are listening to gunpowder evidence, blood evidence, fiber evidence, trace evidence, ballistics and DNA. There’s none of that here. Why? Because the only evidence linking her with the crime is the testimony of one person – one person – a man who has already been convicted of the crime and who made a deal – handed the prosecutors his ex-girlfriend’s head – to avoid the death penalty.


    I ask each and every one of you, would you execute a cat on that man’s evidence? On the evidence of a convicted murderer, thief, liar – well, you can read it right there for yourself. How could you? You must have at least some doubt that what he says is true. Now ask yourselves this, if you let this woman go free, what kind of threat to society do you think she is going be? Well, she’s going to stop complaining about other men and the problems they cause her and her loved ones, I can guarantee you that! Because that’s all she did – that’s all they can prove she did – and that isn’t a crime.


    Here’s where Dr. Loden’s evidence is of the greatest importance. I wanted you to hear that it’s the textbook definition of this man’s diagnosis that this kind of person never takes responsibility but, in fact, always blames his crimes on someone else. It’s never his fault. You probably know someone like him from your own lives. Even if you catch them with egg all over their face they insist someone else made them do it, someone tempted them, someone suggested it to them, someone more powerful tricked, trapped and teased them into splattering themselves all over the face with egg.
    Haymaker wants us to believe that Karen Sivarro – “ the defendant blinked innocently as he pointed in her direction –“ that little girl sitting right over there, is some kind of underworld genius, a Goddess of Men’s Destruction who engineered the whole thing. She’s is the reason he paid his drug dealer (with is client’s money) to shoot somebody. She’s the reason he’s in jail for the rest of his natural life. But we know for a fact that that man was a cocaine-abusing thief before he ever even met her. Long before he met Karen Sivarro he was headed for that jail cell. And that’s exactly what his own personal psychiatrist testified to you on this witness stand as the result of months of therapeutic assessments. He said that this man is a sociopath. This psychiatrist wasn’t anyone hired by Karen Sivarro’s team, this was Haymaker’s own doctor. Are you going to send this woman to jail for life – or to her death – on the word of a sociopath? I have every faith in you, ladies and gentlemen that you will not.


    You may not like her. You may think that she is just another pretty girl who knew how to get what she wanted by taking advantage of her beauty and her sexual attraction, that she is a snooty broad who thought pretty highly of herself, and possibly had some contempt for others who didn’t match up to her high standards. You may even have a scar on your heart caused once upon a time by somebody like her – but you also know that you took an oath not to convict on such reasons.

    Maybe she did give her brother in law – don’t forget there’s a dead man in this case – a hard time. Maybe she and her family actually threatened him. But with what? She didn’t shoot anybody. She didn’t hire anybody. You, on the other hand, ladies and gentlemen, each of you took an oath to convict on the evidence, and there isn’t any evidence.


    It’s my article of faith, members of the jury, that when you sit down with the evidence of this case in your hands, it will disappear like the mist that it is. And you will vote to acquit. That’s what the evidence dictates that you must do, that’s what the law dictates that you should do, and that’s what your own consciences will tell you to do. Thank you.”


    The judge’s instructions seemed calculated to put anyone to sleep. I was sleepy, and so I ignored him and took a pleasant nap. They call it a “power” nap.

  • Queen of Swords: a novel

    Whitney:
    Chapter XXVIII – The Knight of Pentacles

    Thanks to Charmian, I knew where Zach Tobin lived. I parked on the street and saw him sitting on the steps, white earbuds suggesting he was listening to music. But he looked right at me as I parked, and when I stepped out of the car, he stood up, picking up a backpack that seemed to contain schoolbooks. I was carrying both Charmian’s book and the copy I had made, but he didn’t look at them. He looked at me.


    “Can I help you?” he asked.


    Charmian’s description of him was surprisingly accurate. Maybe when she’s not looking at herself (which is rare) she actually sees. I knew he was my age but he looked older, a big soft-faced guy hiding his head under a bandana. Not any scarf that could ever have belonged to Charmian, I was glad to see.


    “I think so,” I said, my voice going all quavery at the thought of what these documents contained.
    “Let me call my ride,” he said, texting rapidly with his phone.


    “Am I interrupting something?” I asked, still feeling awkward because I knew so much about him that he didn’t know I knew. And he knew nothing about me.


    “No,” he said. “I was waiting for a ride to the courthouse but I’m telling them I’ll find my own way there.”


    “I can drive you,” I said. Thinking, that’s if you still want to go after reading this. A few more minutes and I might have missed him! I have to get this over with.


    “OK.” He said. “Come on back.”


    When he turned I had the nerve to study him. He wore a Bull Durham t-shirt and a pair of multi-patched jeans that had definitely seen better days – probably in someone else’s lifetime. Obviously if he was going to the courthouse, it was as a spectator.


    He had big muscles. His “bruiser” physique” and his youth, and I guess their original connection must be what had turned my hard-ass stepmother into a “lovestruck girl.”


    But there was also an aura about him I couldn’t put my finger on, an air of having come out of some other world. Some foreign place where things are different. That was what made Charmian see him as a knight.


    He took me back to the shack she had written about – more of a shed, really. I knew it had no running water but it didn’t look so unrespectable. In the back yard, a pair of basket chairs looked out on an unkempt jungle of yard and a panorama of distant mountains. Native American blankets were thrown over the basket chairs. He picked up mine, shook it out and flipped it.


    “My lady,” he said. On top of a rusty airconditioning unit was a miniature refrigerator. He took out a pitcher and two frosty glasses.


    “Sweet tea?” he offered.


    “Sure,” I said, still uncomfortable. The tea was full of mint. It was not too bad. I began to relax. When I sat down, so did he.


    “I guess you’re not serving me with papers,” he commented, “Or you would have done it already.”
    “So I look like a process server?” I was really upset.


    “No,” he answered. “You look like a person in trouble.” And he reached out and touched my hand.
    A galvanic thrill ran through me. I jumped.


    “So you felt that?” he said. “Wow.”


    “I did feel it. Are you – magic?”


    “No,” he said. “I’m definitely not magic. But you are.”


    I shook my head. “Can’t be,” I said. “Believe me.”


    “So,” he offered, “Maybe we’re magic when we’re together. My spirit touching your spirit.”
    Maybe so. I didn’t understand any of this. Did it make what I had to do harder or easier? I decided it made it easier. We seemed to need fewer words with this current of understanding that was passing between us.


    “I’m here about my stepmother,” I started, gesturing with the book, hoping it would take it from me. It lay in my lap like a stone.


    But he wasn’t looking at the book. He was looking at me with his deep, soft, liquid green eyes.
    “Do I know her?” he asked.


    “Unfortunately,” I admitted, “You do.”


    There was silence between us for a moment. But it was different from any other silence I have ever experienced. It was weirdly, as if we knew each other already and were both trying to remember. I felt more like a person coming out of a coma, who looks around for clues, trying to figure out who she is.


    I shook the book at him. “She wrote it down,” I said, “It’s all in here.”


    Still he didn’t take the book. Had he figured out that I didn’t really want him to read it? He said instead, “Tell me about her.”


    I looked out toward the mountains to break the connection between us, summoning up my nerve.
    “She’s a juror on the Sivarro trial,” I told him. “Your father introduced you to her on your fifteenth birthday.”


    His eyes widened, his faced reddened and he gasped. “What goes around comes around,” he said. “My father is a demon.”


    “Well my stepmother is a demon and that’s for sure,” I agreed. “In this book she admits murdering three people. It’s a love letter to you.”


    He looked at the book, appalled. I could see he really didn’t want to read it now.


    I went on, “One of the people she killed was my father. I stole this book from her house. And now I don’t know what to do. It was all so long ago, I’m afraid the police won’t investigate. She’s a very powerful person.”


    “A witch?” he asked me.


    His language – a word that revealed his understanding – was making this easier. What I had instinctively known – that only he could understand –was coming true. “Well, yes. She believes in magic anyway. She calls herself the Queen of Swords.”


    He nodded. “There’s only one way to defeat magic.”


    “How?” I asked helplessly.


    “You need bigger magic.”


    I breathed a relieved sigh. “And you’ve got … that?”


    He touched my hand again. “I’m sure I do.”


    When he was touching me I couldn’t think of anything but his skin, his lips, his strong thighs. It was all I could do not to launch myself at him. I began to shiver, as if the hot day was freezing cold.
    “So what do you want?” he asked me softly.


    “I want to erase the past,” I spat, “Before my father had his stroke, before she came into our lives. She was supposed to take care of him, but she ruined him. First she made him get rid of me and then she destroyed him. She robbed me. She stole everything I have.”


    Humiliatingly, I started to cry. Did I know he would hug me? Was I trying to force his hand? Over-thinking things again! I despised myself. It’s my usual feeling.


    He took me into his arms. His sweat smelled like a field of thyme. I sighed blissfully, feeling I could be safe there forever.


    “You want your father back before he began to suffer,” he said. “It’s the most natural thing in the world.”


    “She corrupted him,” I insisted, but feeling that I was lying. My father wanted to be corrupted. Still, it wasn’t fair.”


    “You know, your father’s perfect spirit still exists,” said Zach Tobin, holding me on his lap and rocking me – hideously huge old me, like I was a baby! He could lift me up as if I was a feather. “Concentrate on that. His spirit is bigger than his life.”


    I struggled with the concept, summoning up everything I’d learned at the prep academy, and at college.


    “Our spirit is bigger than our choices,” said Zach. “Our spirit weeps when we choose the wrong thing.”


    I wanted to have sex with him right there in that basket chair. Was that the wrong thing to want? But I didn’t feel confused. I was beginning to see that clarity was possible.


    “I stole this book out of her house,” I said. “I made one copy, but I’m afraid a copy has no value. It’s almost too crazy a story for anyone to believe. She’s stuck at the courtroom now – I looked at my watch – but when she comes home tonight she’ll see it’s missing and she’ll do something. Something awful.”


    “We won’t let that happen,” said Zach.


    “But you don’t know her. She’s powerful. She feels things. She’s fixated on you. She’s going to know that I interfered and drop everything to come after us!” My teeth chattered.
    “Stop being afraid of her,” he said. “It gives her power. Repeat after me, the trees are not afraid.”
    My teeth were still chattering. “They’re not?”


    “Repeat after me. I am not lost. The trees know where they are.”
    I repeated it. “I am not lost, the trees know where they are.”
    “The trees are not afraid.”


    “The trees are not afraid.” I did feel better. Imagine if I was a tree! What could Charmian do to me? It would take her a long time to cut me down. She probably couldn’t do it! She’d get blisters on her hands.


    “So,” I asked him, “No police?”


    “We need bigger magic than the police,” said Zach. “We’re going to get Mr. Wilmot, and Mr. Wilmot’s going to get the police. But first, we have to have a sacred ceremony.”


    “A sacred ceremony?” I repeated hopefully. A sacred ceremony! You bet that was just what we needed. Plus the police, and the prosecutor. Then we’d have everything covered. I liked this magic. Charmian could never be ready for this. Firepower.


    “And she will be destroyed?”


    “If she’s a demon,” he said,“She will be destroyed. Put your number in my phone. Your name is –“


    I flushed, painfully. Talk about not taking care of business!


    “I’m Whitney Quantreau,” I told him, taking his phone. And you’re … Zach Tobin?” I still knew too much about him.


    “My legal name is Zach Zanelli,” he said. “Because those people lost a son. Whatever can be repaired is repaired. Whatever can be made whole is made whole, even though the river rushes on. My friends call me Eight.”


    “Eight…” I breathed. I felt better that he had a magic name. Two names that Charmian didn’t know. “Why Eight?”


    “Because I was so happy when I was eight years old.” He smiled, and when he smiled he looked like an eight year old. “Until now.”


    “I need a magic name,” I said.


    “We’ll get you one,” said Eight.


    “She calls me the Princess of Wands. I don’t want to be the Princess of Wands.”


    “Well, she’d wrong right there,” said Eight. “You’re not the princess of anything. You’d be the Queen.”


    “I would?”


    “Look at your strength, going up against her. Hell, yeah!”


    “You’ve got better magic, right?” I stood up uncertainly. “I mean, you’ve got the trees. But –“
    “And I’ve got the mountains,” said Eight.


    “You’ve got the mountains?”


    “The mountains aren’t afraid. And I’ve got all the animals.”


    The tears came back in my eyes. “That is a lot,” I agreed. “She’d nothing but a pack of cards.”
    He pried the book from my hands.


    “You’re going to the courthouse,” he said. “Make certain she’s still there.”


    I didn’t want to tell him I was afraid after he’d worked so hard to build me up. But what can I say? I was scared. “Without you?”


    “I have something else to do. I’ll text you where to go. And when.”


    One look at my face and he repeated, “She cant touch you. I’ll tell Wilmot to keep her there.”
    He’ll tell…the prosecutor! This kid! This kid who had seen his father murder a man. Whose father tries to tell everyone who will listen that his son is the murderer!


    “We have right on our side,” said Eight.


    Hmm. True. Plus the trees and the mountains. And the animals. But in the courtroom…she will look at me.


    “It’s important to let her see you,” he said. “It will help the ceremony. If she’s shaken just a little bit.”
    It would surprise her.


    “It’s important to do what you fear,” he encouraged. “Face her. We’re going to take her down.”
    I shook my head a little. I’m not a knight. I’m not a queen.


    “If it’s any comfort to you,” he continued, “She can’t really see you. Because she is blind. If she’s made herself into a demon, the spiritual world is closed to her.”
    That did help.


    “Mr. Wilmot says this afternoon are closing arguments. Then the jury usually wants to start deliberating right away, and they have dinner sent in, because they don’t want their dinner ruined. Trust me. We’ll get her.”


    And he kissed me. That was where I received all my courage.

  • Queen of Swords: a novel

    Charmian:
    Chapter XXVII – The King of Swords

    Surprise! There was no defense! So often that’s the case. That’s why, when you’re in doubt, the best policy is always to attack, because quite often the defensive posture is a sham. The other side disintegrates into a hasty and undignified retreat. The defense’s only witness was Haymaker’s psychiatrist. Lacey would be disappointed. I know she hoped O’Hara would put Karen Sivarro on the stand.


    But the man is wily. He has the manner of a Prince of Swords; since he kills no one himself. I began to wish that I had googled his birthday, so that I could give him an astrological chart and a full reading. He must have realized that as long as sweet little Karen sits there at the defense table looking pretty and piteous she at least has some benefit of the doubt. If she gets on the stand Mr. Wilmot can trap her into admitting – or at the very least seeming to admit – that some of what Haymaker said was true.


    Mr. Wilmot stood up to give his closing argument. I wish you could have been there to see it. A king of Swords at bay is a magnificent sight, even though any knight worth his armor could cut him down in a moment.


    This must explain why the courtroom was more crowded than it had ever been, why even Whitney took an afternoon out of her boring schedule snoop through my spoor to bother to attend. It’s as if everyone has been notified by the press, here comes the “juicy stuff.” When Mr. “Push” – in the person of Mr. Wilmot – gets to go for the jugular of Mr. Shove! Who doesn’t enjoy a good hand-to-hand?


    “Your honor, ladies and gentlemen of the jury,” began the prosecutor, “You have heard an open and shut case of murder for hire. The state has conclusively proven beyond a reasonable doubt that Reuben Haymaker hired Barry Tobin to empty bullets into Rafe Zanelli until he was dead, and that in fact that is what happened. Reuben Haymaker got up on this stand to testify that the plot originated with his then-girlfriend, Karen Sivarro, that she asked him to do it, and that once the murder was accomplished she behaved in a manifestly guilty fashion, leaving the country as fast as she could go, and relying on extradition treaties to keep United States justice at bay.


    How likely is it that Haymaker, beset as he was with financial, sexual, family and addiction problems, suddenly decided to commit this crime for a woman who had already become his lover, merely as a surprise for her? Without informing her about it or keeping her apprised? If he really intended to bind the defendant to him for life, wouldn’t divorcing his wife be a more practical step? Yet we know he made no such gesture. I maintain the secretive murder that the defense is forced to posit is extremely unlikely. And that is what you have to consider.


    The defense, in their closing, will doubtless make much of the words, “reasonable doubt”. Ladies and gentlemen, we chose you because you struck us – both sides, I might add – as exceptionally reasonable, and it is to your reason. We expect no less of you when you assemble to deliberate together.


    The defense agrees that the murder was performed for Karen Sivarro. It is her culpability you will question, knowing that Rafe Zanelli had been a thorn in the side of her family for months and when he died, was threatening to take a loved child out of state – as was his perfect right. Mr. Haymaker would have never even heard of Mr. Zanelli if it hadn’t been for her. By the way, the beloved grandchild now lives under her grandparents’ roof. This murder achieved its aim. In the annals of murder, it ranks as a partial success. If Karen Sivarro is found guiltless by you, she will have gotten away with it. How reasonable is that?


    The defense in the person of my esteemed colleague, Mr. O’Hara, has leaned heavily on the blemished character of Mr. Haymaker. Ladies and Gentlemen, Mr. Haymaker will be in prison for the rest of his natural life. He will not even be considered for parole until he’s 82. That’s appropriate, because without him. Mr. Zanelli would never have died. The evidence you have heard makes it plain that Karen Sivarro refused to soil her hands to that extent. A pretty, adored and intelligent child, she has been accustomed all her life to finding someone else to perform all her messy, dangerous and laborious jobs.


    What Mr. Haymaker could not help but make plain as he sat on the witness stand, was that she owned him. He would have done anything for her. She gambled that the law would not hold her accountable; although this murder benefited no one but her family, she felt safe, because she thought herself too far removed from the bullets and the gun that fired them ever to face justice. Who would believe Reuben Haymaker, busy stealing from his clients, and drug dealing Barry Tobin over her?


    But who do you think sat in the saddle of this relationship, giving orders, and who do you think was the listener, the performer, who took directions? Mr. Haymaker paid for all her living expenses, he gave her a car, he pretended she had a cushy, well-paid job with no actual expectations. And when the time came, he found a hitman. Or a person who said he was a hitman.


    That person is in jail, now too. He has confessed. He won’t even get the chance of parole. The judge will explain to you that if you find her guilty, she is even more guilty than the man who fired the gun. In this state we punish the central conspirator – the one who set the murderous ball rolling – with death. But that will be up to you. You will have lesser included offenses to consider.
    What else but guilt explains her long flight through Europe, in search of a country that has no extradition treaty with the United State?


    The defense called Haymaker’s own psychiatrist to the stand to testify that he suffers from “anti-social personality disorder.” That was pretty much all Dr. Loden could testify to, since he knew nothing about the crime itself. He told us Mr. Haymaker is a liar and an addict. Well, we already knew that.

    A jury hears from a lot of liars in the course of the average case and it is the apex of their duty to sort the lies from the truth. We can pretty much assume that Haymaker said whatever he had to, to keep that supply of Adderall and Xanax coming. Dr. Loden is very free with his prescription pad.
    When his relationship with Karen Sivarro started to heat up, Mr. Haymaker had a new painkiller, and he didn’t need Dr. Loden any more. Dr. Loden has testified in this courtroom that there is virtually no treatment for what he deigned to diagnose as Mr. Haymaker’s “disorder”, yet he was apparently willing to keep treating him forever. “Keeping an eye on him,” he said, not simply to feather his own nest. Does that sound reasonable to you? I think in your good old-fashioned common sense all of you are familiar with practitioners like Mr. Loden. They regard whatever they have to sell as exactly what we need, and we pay the bill – or our insurance company does – but we don’t get a say in it.


    Dr. Loden admits people with personality disorders are never really cured. But does Mr. Haymaker even exhibit the formal markers of this condition? You will recall that I got him to admit on the stand that Haymaker does not match one of the central qualifications of anti-social personality disorder; adolescent crime. His career path is just the opposite: he was a pillar of the community until he discovered he couldn’t pay for his private thrills legally.


    Another one of the characteristics of anti-social personality disorder is a complete lack of remorse: is that how Reuben Haymaker appeared to you? I don’t think so. I think Mr. Haymaker is a narcissistic, opportunistic individual whose every crime was committed as part of a short-term effort to make his life easier. How likely do you think it is that a person who doesn’t care about other people – another marker, you note, of antisocial personality – would risk his own neck to personally personality mastermind a dangerous, expensive, secret surprise -which might – or might not — delight his current girlfriend, or would he simply give in to her pleas in order to get her in the mood for love? To turn off the crying machine? I assert that he did what he had to to keep her gratifying him, and he didn’t care one way or another about Mr. Zanelli, or even the traumas of the Sivarro family, except as if affected the availability and intensified the cooperation of his current sex partner.


    I think once his supply of joy-juice was cut off and it hit him how he had destroyed the lives of everyone around him in a short term quest for personal thrills he was damn sorry. But is that the way Mr. Haymaker struck you? Did he blame his wife or girlfriends for his financial situation? It seems to me he realizes the blame lies squarely with himself. He knows he’s in prison for life, and he deserves to be there. He admitted hiring Barry Tobin, he admitted planning the crime, but he’s also telling us is that he did it on the direct request of his girlfriend, who wanted help with her family situation. You need to talk that out, and decide how realistic, how reasonable that course of events seems to you. In that effort, you have an unexpected source of help: the testimony of the defendant herself.


    Our jury system is the pride of the world, and this is why: because it’s very hard to fool twelve ordinary hard working citizens. Abraham Lincoln says, “you can fool some of the people some of the time, and all of the people some of the time, but you can’t fool all of the people all of the time.” And that’s what any jury trial in this fair country of ours proves again and again. Some of you will be fooled, some of you will be forgiving, some of you will be doubtful and some of you will be generously inclined. But when the twelve of you get together and talk it out, I am confident that the true picture will emerge. Guaranteed. Your honor, the state rests.”

  • Queen of Swords: a novel

    Whitney:
    Chapter XXVI – The Ace of Wands

    As soon as I read the words she’d written about her stepfather‘s death I grabbed the book and ran the hell out of there. Once outside I realized I was trembling and I was also dripping sweat. Had I left part of myself behind? Of course I had. It was hopeless to play a game of deception with Pearleen-Charmian now. I trembled at the thought of facing her. She would torch me with her eyes; just for invading her innermost thoughts! And I might stay torched.


    Yet if this was the ace I had been longing for, how was I to play it? First I must make a copy of this astounding document. The original was just too precious, and too fragile. But Hayden Lake is out in deep country. It’s a good twenty minutes to the nearest Kinko’s! But once I was spastically copying the book – some pages twice because I was shaking so hard – I began to see a flaw in my plan. How could I ever take the book back? The risk that she would destroy it was just too strong.


    And what good, honestly, would a copy be? Like so many other things in life, in art, in love, in accomplishment, it’s only the real thing that possesses any value. Think of Heisenberg’s Principle. (I didn’t go to college for nothing, even if I didn’t finish.) Heisenberg says the very act of study, of measuring, of copying, of lighting an object so that you can even look at it – alters what you study. Irrevocably and forever.


    Still, I forced myself to continue copying; I had to at least get a complete copy. Next door at the Starbucks – desperately needing caffeine in my system – I forced myself to finish reading it.
    This Zach Tobin guy was a wild card. On the basis of this book alone, it didn’t seem that he had any idea was she was saying or thinking about him, but it was all I could do not to get dragged into her psychotic world where she could change his brain – his life – just by thinking about him. Somebody tell me that’s just not possible. Nobody has that kind of power.


    I needed an ally, but who could I trust? I couldn’t imagine taking this book to any cop or detective I could think of. Wouldn’t they pull her in, ask her to explain herself? With Charmian, that’s a fatal move. But this man she wrote about, the “Knight of Swords”, he was her victim too. I know in some men’s worlds its not even rape to be seduced by some anonymous woman in the middle of the night. I didn’t know what he would think when he understand who she was and what she had done, but I decided I needed to see.


    My favorite technique: play it by ear. Heck, it’s gotten me this far.

  • Queen of Swords: a novel

    Charmian:
    Chapter XXV – The Hermit

    After lunch I was astonished to see Whitney in the courtroom, sitting right up front in the “cheap seats” along with the rest of the public. I was so flooded with rage that if we had been alone you would have had your sacrificial victim right there.


    The defense was putting on its case beginning with the testimony of Haymaker’s psychiatrist, a bald-headed bumbler in a cheap suit who babbled on at length about what a psychopath Haymaker was; that in fact his diagnosis was “anti-social personality disorder.”


    I could barely focus on his nonsense. I attempted to calm myself by scrying – seeing distant or past events in my crystal ring. It’s a well-accepted form of astral travel for adepts. After a moment’s clarity I began to see how it could have happened. What if Whitney went to my house; found me absent and engaged the judge in conversation? She couldn’t have talked to the gardeners. They don’t know where I go each day. Judge Sugarman on the other hand is a born blabbermouth. That’s a problem with arriving at the top of the tree. Things become so easy for you there’s a tendency to forget how tentative a winning position really is. The fact that all your underlings are looking at you adoringly doesn’t mean they’re not plotting your overthrow.


    I also think the judge’s vision is defective. Whitney is sufficiently youthful to qualify as “pretty” in his book. She’s no dummy. Most likely she could get any fact out of him that she wanted to know. He might even have been stupid enough to suggest he had a hand in my privileged position.


    I should have been better prepared for this turn of events. My morning’s card was the Hermit, but I was distracted by my horoscope. My horoscope offered such a vision of joy and power: “Glimpse of future revealed. You will perceive possibilities and opportunities. Romantic relationship beckons. Do not give your trust to anyone who reveals a secret. What seemed a setback boomerangs in your favor.” And it could still be coming true, if I could put the Hermit in his rightful position.


    The Hermit is a special card others lacking gifts often interpret incorrectly. Beginners see his sad face, his rough clothing, hard path and cave dwelling and are frightened. They allow their intelligence to be clouded by fear. When terror threatens to rule you, its time to double down.


    In my case I know the Hermit card must mean a cycle of depression is ending and one of success is beginning. I am coming out of the sacred loneliness in which my power was ordained. I will leave the cave behind, drop my monkish disguise and assume my royal prerogatives. With you at my side.

  • Queen of Swords: a novel

    Whitney:
    Chapter XXIV – The World

    I few back to Denver with a sense of frustration and feeling a lack of resolution. I also felt very alone, but what else is new? The Carr family wouldn’t want to hear from me, and really, without a body, what could I prove? It seemed obvious to me that my stepmother Pearleen-Charmian, hadn’t activated the real Charmian’s caregiver’s license, filed taxes, or done anything else that would allow the authorities to locate her; otherwise Charmian’s family would have found her long ago. What she had done was fix her pit viper vision on my father and promise him heaven if he elevated her to partner. The kind of heaven he ultimately got, he didn’t expect.


    All I knew for certain was that the game had moved irrevocably forward. We were all different now. I couldn’t do nothing. Even sending an anonymous letter telling her someone knew that Pearleen Purdy and Charmian Quantreau were the same person was no longer enough for me. As an experienced salesperson I decided to do what I usually do when a prospect is an unknown quantity; I would play it by ear. See what hint I could drop. Scope out the situation.


    Knowing her routine, I planned to show up at exactly nine o’clock, when she would be having coffee on her deck and contemplating whatever mayhem her silly cards told her to inflict that day. She would be awake but totally unprepared. I know how she relishes her morning solitude. To nerve myself for our encounter I listened to the Decembrists’ My Mother Was a Chinese Trapeze Artist in my way over.


    But to my amazement, Charmian-Pearleen wasn’t home. Where could she possibly be at this hour of the morning? It must be an appointment she hadn’t been able to schedule at a more convenient time. Taking the risk that she had rushed out temporarily on some short-term errand, I hid my car and let myself inside.


    This was too good an opportunity to pass up. Now that I knew about Pearleen, about the real Charmian, there might be some evidence I would have previously overlooked that I could now find.
    Once inside the house I reveled in my momentary possession. There is something fascinating about studying another’s life when they don’t know you’re looking. I felt like a cop on one of those detective shows, assessing my competitor through a one-way mirror.


    There’s a spicy, musky smell that hovers over Charmian, and her house was full of it. Kind of an old potpourri, carpet-cleaner smell, as if someone was trying to cover up a disgusting effluvia of bodily odors. Or was it my imagination? All I knew for certain was, if my sisters and I ever inherited this house we would have to get rid of everything in it because Charmian ruins everything she touches. In converting it to her use, it’s as if she has destroyed its spirit and corrupted even its utility.


    The place was immaculate. Thick white carpeting, pink leather sofas, sequined Indian pillows, glossy brass lamps. The huge painting over the fireplace displayed “The World” – one of her silly Tarot tropes. That was a bit reminiscent of the paintings I had seen in Charmian Carr’s old house in Texas. Some of her taste must have been set then, and so even though she sought rebirth, she was forced by her very nature to drop little clues to her disavowed self.


    What I really wanted was the mauve suede book I had seen through the glass. It drew me like a magnet. And there it still was, on her fussy mother of pearl inlaid desk. When I opened it I was gratified to see that every page was ornamented with her looping green ink scrawl. It could have easily been empty or contained only bills. Most of what Charmian does is just for show, and if you take the trouble – as my father didn’t – to look beneath the surface, the demonic reality of her real self is all too evident.


    I picked a hard, uncomfortable chair that wouldn’t betray me by taking a mold of my ass – and began to read.