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?
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.
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.”
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.
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.
I was looking forward to Mr. O’Hara’s cross-examination. He promised us an entertaining afternoon overlooking the gladiatorial pit. Of the two gladiators before us, Mr. O’Hara is the dirtier fighter. He may betray a close relationship with and knowledge of, the sword family. I certainly hope so.
Under an impartial sky, the man who dares anything should win. But this is not an impartial sky. Alas, for my purposes Mr. O’Hara needs to lose. That makes him a loser and I was beginning to wash my hands of him already. Is Mr. O’Hara’s card the Hierophant? Naïve people think Death and the Hanged Man are the dangerous cards. They are not. Death represents transformation; the Hanged Man is taking charge of forceful, radical change.
The Hierophant is born to suffer, because he is a rigid thinker prone to errors in judgment. The Hierophant is born to suffer because he can’t adapt to changing conditions. He attempts to impose static values on dynamic situations. On my card he hangs suspended from a roadside stake shaped suspiciously like a cross.
Mr. O’Hara’s Bond girl set up a large, white piece of pasteboard on an easel and handed her boss a big black marker. She wore an attractive miniskirt, expensive looking boots, and a cropped jacket.
I began sizing her up to be a victim. She would be more fun than O’Hara. And in those fashion magazines she’d donated, hadn’t I found a piece of junk mail bearing her address? I promised myself to take a careful look.
Mr. O’Hara came out swinging. “Mr. Haymaker, you’re a murderer, isn’t that right?” Obviously the witness was loath to agree.
“Aren’t you pleading guilty to ordering a hit?”
“If that makes me a murderer, I guess I am,” said Reuben Haymaker finally. O’Hara wrote the word MURDERER in black magic marker.
“And you’re a thief. Isn’t that what you just testified to?”
“My intention was always to replace it the money.”
“Was that money YOURS to TAKE?” demanded O’Hara.
“No.”
O’Hara wrote THIEF under MURDERER. “Presumably insurance agents take some sort of ethical vow through their professional organizations, as part of their training, isn’t that right?”
“We’re bonded,” agreed Mr. Haymaker with sour humor. “We’re not supposed to pocket the client’s money.”
“And you didn’t take your marital vows any more seriously than your professional ones, did you? Did you?”
“I guess not.”
“You lied to your wife, you lied to your clients, you lied to the police when they first questioned you. Didn’t you?”
Mr. Haymaker looked out into his courtroom in search of a savior, some fearless knight to ride into battle bearing his colors. But none among us took him up on it.
O’Hara wrote LIAR, ADULTERER, CON MAN on his chart.
“Did you report that money you stole on the income tax? You’re supposed to, you know.” The witness made an explosive little noise that might have been incredulous disgust.
“I think we can take that as a no,” said O’Hara, adding CHEATER to his column. “Now didn’t I hear something about offering your wife to some businessman in order to get a break on your foreclosure problems?”
“It didn’t happen exactly like that,” objected the witness.
“Oh, so you’re weaseling now,” said O’Hara. “Let’s add “weasel” to this list. The formal word is “prevaricator” but I think “weasel” says it so much better. Would you like the court reporter read back to you exactly what you said?”
“What word are you trying to write?” asked the witness.
O’Hara wrote PIMP. “You have a problem with that? You want to object?”
“I’ll let it stand,” said Haymaker. “But we didn’t actually get any money for it.”
“What?” roared O’Hara. “What was that? I dare you to repeat that to this courtroom.”
“WE DIDN’T GET ANY MONEY FOR IT,” shouted Haymaker back at him. “They were sex parties. Sex play. Nobody got hurt.”
“You’re also not getting away with murder or thievery and you’re still a murderer and a thief,” said O’Hara. “The fact that you didn’t benefit the way you’d hoped is immaterial.” He wrote the word PUSHER and ADDICT. “I understand as soon as your wife emerged from rehab she divorced you.” “She had to,” said Haymaker. “Because of the lawsuits.”
“I think we can take it for granted that you’re not making your court ordered support payments,” said O’Hara, writing, DEADBEAT DAD.
“How can I?” shouted the witness. “They’re insisting on restitution first!”
“And we both know that won’t happen, don’t we?” O’Hara asked sarcastically. “Anyone betting on you is looking at disappointment.”
“There isn’t any money left,” Haymaker grumbled.
“Didn’t you take a video of yourself and Karen Sivarro having sex – without her permission, I might add – and post it on the Internet?”
Sensation in the courtroom! Haymaker hesitated.
Mr. O’Hara uttered an explosive sigh. “Are you really going to force me to show it in this courtroom? It’s Item I-115 in evidence.”
Did that mean we were going to get to see it? Several jury members licked their lips. “I was high at the time,” whined the witness.
“Is that a yes?”
Probably realizing that no video of himself in the nude could possibly make him look good, Haymaker folded. “It’s true,” he said.
O’Hara wrote PORNOGRAPHER. We were getting quite a list. And O’Hara wasn’t finished yet. PERJURER. “In your first sworn statement you said you had nothing to do with Zanelli’s death. Didn’t you? Will you admit it or do you want me to introduce that statement into evidence?”
The witness held himself rigidly. “The death penalty was on the table,” he said.
“So you made a deal,” O’Hara proffered. “You’d deliver another victim to the state to save your own neck, isn’t that what you said? Another woman you’d sworn to love? They’re an unlucky crew, those women, aren’t they?”
“Your Honor, I object,” Wilmot vaulted to his feet. “He’s making an argument! Sounds like a closing argument to me.”
“I was asking a question,” responded O’Hara mildly. “What’s the question?” The witness was at sea.
“Ask your question, Mr. O’Hara, dismissed the judge. I wondered if they golfed together. His Honor teed up so perfectly for the defense counsel.
“What I’m asking, Mr. Haymaker,” said O’Hara, laying his arm confidentially along our jury rail, “Is this. You tried addicting Ms. Sivarro to cocaine the way you addicted your wife and that didn’t work. Did it?”
“She was addicted to high living,” barked Haymaker, fighting back.
“I guess that will serve as testimony that you tried to addict her to something, didn’t you? If you needed to keep her at your side, what better way than to kill the man she was came into the office crying about and tell her she was involved in the crime?”
“She told me to do it,” said the witness stalwartly. “I never would have dine it without her.”
“And who are you?” demanded O’Hara. “You’re a proven MURDERER, THIEF, LIAR, ADULTERER, CON MAN, CHEATER, PIMP, WEASEL, PORNOGRAPHER, DRUG ADDICT, DRUG PUSHER, DEADBEAT DAD, and PERJURER.” O’Hara tossed down his marker in exaggerated disgust. But he let the poster stand. “Character is destiny, and chickens come home to roost. Why should we believe anything you say? No more questions, your Honor. I think the jury got the picture.” Character is destiny, all right. Or destiny makes character, how about that? As to whether “chickens come home” – that’s a ridiculous cliché. Some chickens get eaten and nothing’s left but the wishbone. Stupid chickens crossing the road are hit by cars. Other chickens are buried down so deep they can’t be found.
I think I can say the whole jury was so stunned by the simplicity of this cross-examination; we barely minded that Mr. Wilmot had dragged all attorneys and clients into one of their boringly endless sidebars so we could think it over. Surrendering his swords and becoming a whiney, complainy, endlessly post-adolescent is not a good look for our prosecutor.
Still, it gives me a chance to fill up this ugly juror notebook with my letter to you; kike a lovestruck girl. I have been assured the notebooks are ours to keep, that they go home with each of us, and will remain forever confidential. Unfortunately, being a juror, it seems, means I have to stick to this courthouse whenever they want me. And my beautiful book would attract too much attention. Mr. Wilmot might have no further questions to ask, but you better believe he hustled that poster down fast. O’Hara had some impressive swordplay with which to entertain us. Each and every one of us jurors had a lengthy opportunity to copy down his list of pejoratives against the state’s star witness, right into the notebooks we will take into the jury room. Which I’m sure was O’Hara’s intention.
Because really, what else is there to do? Watching justice is like watching paint dry. Such is the desperation of their competition, I’m sure they’re both counting on pure boredom to turn us. One way or the other.
Sitting over coffee in the jury room I assessed my fellow jurors in a new light. Every day with you is an adventure and every adventure changes me. They might forbid us to talk about the case all they want but I could plainly see that the state’s star witness had collapsed in everybody’s eyes. What if this group wanted to let Karen Sivarro go!
That’s not my plan, but I didn’t get this far playing a Hierophant. I can make adjustments. I pledge to you now, if they insist on freeing Karen Sivarro, she will be our Substitute Sacrifice.
Mr. Babbish answers his own phone. Clearly, Mr. Babbish drinks too much. He threw me off because he didn’t say “BloodProof”, which are the words printed on the card I was holding right in front of my face, but some other name. Some name with “windows” in the title.
“Babbish? Is this Arnold Babbish?”
“That’s right.”
“Hello, my name is Whitney Quantreau and I’m calling you because I understand you wanted to spray for blood in Charmian Carr’s old residence?”
“Well, that was then,” he said shortly. “I lost my client.” Then, apparently realizing that he was not making the best of his opportunities, he said hopelessly, “I could text you a price list.”
I zeroed in on the client he had lost. “What happened to your client?”
“Well, seven years passed,” he said. “The family had their missing person declared dead. I guess they wanted her benefits or some such thing.”
The family wanted her benefits. The county wanted her house. And Pearleen wanted her dead. Looks like Charmian Carr was out of luck in every way that counted.
“You want I should text you that price list?” Mr. Babbish asked me perkily. I could hear him pouring Dutch courage in the background. “What did you say your name was?”
“Mrs. Quantreau.” I gave him my stepmother’s phone number.
The courthouse was abuzz with excitement because today we would get to hear Haymaker’s testimony. I, alone, was bored by the burly man brought before us in an ill-fitting oatmeal linen suit. Imagine allowing yourself yo be shackled. To be caged! I despised him. Rather than testify before a packed courtroom about how “my beloved made me do it” I would take my own life. The tiny gold dagger I wear around my neck is razor sharp, but I could accomplish my goal in a thousand ways. Even if I had to eat a bedsheet. Cleopatra had the right idea. Anything other than become a trophy to be displayed as a triumph for the Other Side. Anything rather than grovel before those gawkers, allowing them think – even for a moment – they’d gotten the better of me.
Today’s card was the Chariot. Any Major Arcana card is exciting. The Chariot symbolizes control. Take control. From her flight above the cold world the Goddess peers down, planning where she will alight. Her eyes glow with the power of ideas, her hair ripples with glory. Even the horses that power the chariot gaze back at her adoringly.
What would she say if she could see the creature before me; a tie-less worm with the three-day beard? A man, once vain, now brought low. A man who no longer has any need for mirrors. “State your name and address, please, spelling your name for the record,” said the clerk after the witness had been sworn in.
“Reuben Haymaker – H – A – Y – M – A – K – E – R,” he said in a raw voice that crackled as if rarely used. “Colorado State Prison.”
The courtroom leaned collectively forward. Karen Sivarro gazed at him plaintively. “Mr. Haymaker, how do you know the defendant?” Wilmot bearded the monster.
“She was my personal assistant at my insurance agency for four years, from 2003 to 2008. Well, actually she started out as an agent, but she wasn’t much good at that.” So you thought you’d take it out in trade. The joke’s on you.
“And what were your personal circumstances at the time?”
“It was a growth period. We were making a lot of money. I opened a new office in Boulder and I hired two agents to man it. We wrote all kinds of policies, personal and corporate, and it looked as if business could only get better. Unfortunately I wasn’t making very good decisions at the time.” “What do you mean by that?” Wilmot fixed him with that “confession is good for the soul” look. “I started using cocaine on weekends, at parties. I thought it was part of the good life. Everyone was doing it. I didn’t realize until later how much it impaired judgment.”
“Where did you get your cocaine?”
“Barry Tobin. I was spending about a thousand a week.”
I suppose if they’re going to talk about your dad I should force myself to listen. I’d so much rather fill up my juror’s notebook with lovesick scrawls to you.
“Did the defendant ever use cocaine with you?”
He looked at her for the first time. I assume he would look at her with hatred. Not only had she gotten him into this mess, she’s the one who turned him in. But he looked at her with sadness. Love? He still felt something. A heart still beat in the ruins of that body.
“Never.” “Did you do it in her presence?”
“No. Not after the first time. I tried giving it up but…when I emerged from my coma, the news sent me right back in. My business was starting to dry up. My fourth wife and I had bought a huge home on the mountain and she had just given birth to twins. Some of my agents went into business for themselves so I started a lawsuit against them. My wife and I were threatened with foreclosure… I just couldn’t pay the mortgage. I was borrowing from clients. We were having group sex parties at our house on weekends. I thought inviting bankers and loan officers might help with our foreclosure problems.” He choked. “That was a fantasy!”
He tried opening his own sex club! I’m not sure a sex club whose only slave is a soccer mom is going to get the job done. What an idiot. And these are the people everybody envies! I gave a sidelong glance to Lacey to see how she was taking this. She was paying close attention but keeping her face immobile. I could tell from their rigid poses the other members of the jury that they were shocked and disgusted by our witness. Good. Make it easier to condemn Karen and get this over with.
“The sex parties stepped up our need for cocaine. I had to keep my wife supplied.” “Tell us again why you hired Karen Sivarro?”
The witness shrugged. I saw a blush creep up Sivarro’s neck.
“I thought she was gorgeously beautiful. In sales, that can only help. I admired her upscale tastes. She was the kind of person who can always encourage the people she’s with to spend more than they planned.” He chuckled hollowly. “It certainly worked with me.”
O’Hara stood up as if he were going to object, then sat down. “Never mind, your honor.”
“She did better with men rather than women…but most insurance decisions are made by men, so that counted in her favor.”
“She tell you about her family custody case?”
Haymaker grimaced. “It was difficult to shut her up on the subject. The very first day of work she was crying about it all over the office.”
“Crying?” Wilmot encouraged. Karen whispered to the Bond girl who squeezed her shoulder comfortingly.
“Something had happened. She told me her sister had married this very sleazy guy who got off tormenting her family. Said the guy was abusing her niece but the courts move too slow and the kid was being ruined.”
“I’m assuming she didn’t ask you for a hitman?”
The witness smiled faintly. “No, not on that first day. She waited until we were sexually and emotionally involved.”
Frantic whispering at the defense table but O’Hara did not object. How I wished you were in the courtroom so we could laugh about this together! But the clerk says witnesses are “sequestered.” They hear only their own testimony.
“When did the affair actually start?”
“November 2004…I had frequent out of town trips. Karen said she would be glad to go along. I took it as a proposition.”
“And you took her up on it?” “I did. We went to Chicago.”
“After that, what happened to Ms. Sivarro’s work product?”
“Oh, that was just a disaster… Straight downhill. She just couldn’t seem to get anything done. I have no idea how she managed to finish school. She couldn’t generate new business. She was very poor at follow up, and she was constantly losing files. She seemed to spend an inordinate amount of time at the gym, the hairdresser, the tailor… But once I fell in love with her I didn’t care. I put her on salary, so she could be my personal assistant. I was obsessed with her.”
“What else did you do for her financially?”
“She was living with her folks. I got her an apartment at Tyrolean Villas. I had a fantasy that she would lose interest in the situation with her niece.”
“And did she?”
He laughed ruefully. “Not a chance.”
Control! Control! You should have been consulting the cards, Mr. Haymaker. She had you right where she wanted you. She’s still scheming to slide out from under.
The defendant glanced down, her face hidden by her sheet of hair. Was she consulting astrological promises temptingly tattooed upon her inner thigh? I had already cast her fortune. Venus in Cancer; what can she hope for? She is clingy, weak-willed. Gluttonous. She will, like any parasite, soar over the cliff with any creature to whom she becomes attached.
Wilmot had the floor. He checked his quiver for another sword. “You described yourself as “obsessed.” Anything she asked for, you felt compelled to give her?”
“Objection!” shouted O’Hara sarcastically. “This is just a bald-faced attempt on the part of the state to smear the defendant with anything he can get into the record. Plus, what does he know about compulsion? This man hasn’t been qualified as a psychiatrist.”
“He can give evidence as to his own state of mind,” said Wilmot.
“The jury will decide whether or to what extent his testimony self-serving. Overruled,” said our flounder-faced judge.
I felt a cold thrill of excitement. The jury will decide. Yes.
“I’d say so, yes.” Haymaker answered the original question.
“Cast your mind please, to January of 2009. What notable events occurred then? What specifically did she ask you to do?”
“She told me her father said, “this problem could be completely taken care of for about ten thousand dollars.” But no one in the family possessed ten thousand dollars. I took it that we were discussing a possible hit.”
“Did you think she was looking to you for the money?”
O’Hara stood up wearily but Wilmot forestalled him. “Just his impression, your honor!” “I took t for granted. But she also asked me, did I have any idea where to get a hitman?”
Get more people involved, I thought cynically. These two were made for each other. She wanted someone else to take the heat and so did he. What could possibly go wrong? You and I will do our own wet-work ourselves.
“What did you say?”
“I told her I had a connection who was always bragging about the murders he’d committed. I asked her to get me a picture of her brother-in- law, his addresses both home and work, and the marker numbers on his vehicles.”
“What did the defendant do?”
“She pulled them right out. She had everything in her purse in a manila envelope.” “She was well-prepared wasn’t she?” asked the beady eyed prosecutor.
“Your Honor, please!” shouted O’Hara.
“Withdrawn. So what did you do next?”
“The next day I drove by Barry Tobin’s house. He was usually there in the mornings, and we never wanted to talk about… things over the phone. Anyone with a baby monitor can listen in on a cell phone conversation.”
“He was home?”
“He was. We went outside because he said his girlfriend was upstairs, asleep. We sat in my car.” “What did you say exactly?”
“I said I knew somebody who needed a hit. I said this guy was abusing children and it was obvious he would never stop.”
“What did Mr. Tobin respond?”
“He said right away, “I’ll do it for eight thousand dollars.” “Was that figure acceptable?”
“What did I care? I was stealing from escrow funds at that point. I told him to drop by the office. Then when I saw Karen next, I said, “It’s all arranged.”
“What did she do?”
“She jumped up and down. She hugged and kissed me. Showed her appreciation…” his voice roughened. The broke. “Right there in my office.”
The poor bastard. He never had a chance. “So what happened next?”
“Tobin came by and I wrote him a three thousand dollar check.’ “From a client fund account?”
“Yes.” “Your honor, I would like to submit this check into evidence.”
The check was solemnly passed among us; touched carefully as if written in poison ink. An ordinary little document on green “safety” paper. So much for advertising. “Did you hear any reports from Tobin on his progress?”
“He used to call me once a day. He was full of ideas, trying to acquire an old car, an untraceable gun. I thought he was treating it a little too much like a kid’s game. I warned him to be careful, to never to come to the office. “
“Why not?” “I was trying to protect Karen.”
Karen’s eyes widened. She stared at the jury with a “Who-me?” glance.
Haymaker went on, “I saw him one day while we were dining. He was dressed in a full camouflage outfit, with black smears under his eyes, like he had just come out of a jungle. He looked ridiculous. I went out on the street and yelled at him, told him never to go through town looking like that. But he’d already seen her. He said, “She’s the one, isn’t she?”
If we needed any more evidence that you’re the one who pulled the trigger, that your father was too much of a loser, this was it.
“My wife threw me out when she found out about the affair. I didn’t think she had grounds for jealousy after the group sex stuff, but she saw it differently. By March I was living at Karen’s. We got a call one Sunday morning, about six a.m. Karen’s mother said she heard it on the news: Zanelli was dead. Karen said we better go over to her parents’ house. When we arrived the cops were there. Two state police cars blocking the driveway. Said they were from “major crimes” Asked a lot of questions. They knew all about the bad blood between the families.” “What did you tell them?”
“Karen and I had an alibi. We were at the Hotel Boulderado till ten, and then we stopped for gas at ten-thirty. Using plastic everywhere. Karen’s neighbor saw us entering the condo at eleven. The police took Mr. Sivarro’s hunting rifles. We gave them our business cards and left. I went straight to the Best Western to give Barry the rest of the money and tell him to get out of town.” “Did you and Karen discuss the situation?”
“She refused to talk about it. She seemed to me to be having a mini-meltdown. She worried that the car was bugged. She said she was planning to act like we had nothing to do with it and that should be my policy, too.”
“That’s what she said?”
“That’s right. She said maybe it was time for the two of us to take a breather.” “When did you see or hear from Barry Tobin next?”
“Two weeks after the murder he called me on my car phone. Said he lost every dime I gave him in Miami and he had to borrow money to get home. I went to the bank and got him thirty five hundred dollars.”
Everybody was lying to everybody! And all the liars expecting the other lairs to be telling them the truth. It was reality show entertaining. All trials ought to be televised. All executions, too.
“Didn’t he tell you something else when he gave you that money?”
The witness paled. “Said he’d had his son along for the hit! Fifteen-year-old kid! So there was a witness, and it was a child! I just about gave up then. I realized it was hopeless. All of us were going down.”
Three people can keep a secret. If two of them are dead.
“Karen was doing what during this time?”
“She said we ought to leave the country. I really couldn’t afford it. I’d bled everybody dry. I sold my wife’s jewelry to buy Karen a plane ticket to France.”
“Did you maintain phone contact with the defendant?”
“I did. We talked every day.”
“What was going on in the Zanelli case?”
“Barry said the police showed up with a search warrant. He was hanging around town like he promised me not to. His girlfriend spent just enough time in jail to tell them everything she knew.” “And what did you do?”
“I went to California.”
“But you were still calling Karen?”
“I couldn’t live without her voice.” The witness looked like he might break down. The courtroom hushed as we all studied him. Romantic love. Isn’t that what everybody wants? But you have to have a soul to be a soul mate. “Parasite mates” is not very romantic.
“I told Karen Tobin was already in jail and there was no way he would stay clammed up. I said we needed new identities. Could she join me in Mexico.” “What did she say?”
“She played me! Told me she’d call me January 5th, 2010 eight p.m. my time, at the phone booth outside my motel.”
“Was she there for that phone call?”
“No. The feds got me. That’s when I knew.” “What did you know?”
“That she set up.” He was quivering with rage. Karen sank down behind her table. “No more questions!” Triumphant, the prosecutor caromed away from his witness. I studied the audience, searching for a perfect sacrifice.
It was encouraging to see that Mrs. Greenbelt was right about everything. 37 Culpepper Heights was the nicest house with the nicest elevation (maybe a hundred feet?) at the top of the block. Believe me, it was no tower, the way my childhood house used to be. A single storey, a white stucco ranch house at the top of a pathetic miniature hill. Behind it, a spectacular view of dirt plain full of dead trees. If you like dead trees.
In spite of fact that it was now 120º with no shade (I swear that’s what it felt like) there was a woman digging up the front garden. I pulled up my truck and she stopped her work to look up at me. She had dyed, stiff red hair and the kind of plaster makeup that works a lot better in more intimate lighting. On someone digging up a garden, it looks distinctly clownish.
I turned off the truck but continued sitting there indecisively, listening to Pink’s Family Portrait to help me figure out what to do. I felt kind of hampered by the fact that I drove a truck, because surely an insurance professional would have a company car, or a rented Taurus or a Saturn at the very least. Also I was in a bad mood after my “it’s a free country and you’re a jealous bitch” lecture from Ignatz. He tried to be subtler but after all my education I have pretty much mastered subtext. I tried pushing that aside and concentrating on what Charmian would do. Charmian loves lying. She thinks it’s a fun opportunity to get “one over” on the other person, like those strange men who try to snow you in bars. My problem is that I get inside the other person’s head and feel for them. Feel their feelings. Charmian never bothers to do that. She doesn’t want to be anybody else because she sees the rest of us as weaklings. She doesn’t want to stoop to our level.
I can’t even call her Charmian any more since that isn’t who she is. And she doesn’t seem at all like a Pearleen! Bitch, that’s who she is. That’s what she is. Back at school we called them BB’s. “Born Bitches”. The kind of bitch that’s born not made. (All of us stoop – or rise – to bitchery on occasion. I mean, it’s a desperate world.) So what would a BB do, in my position? I can usually psych Charmian out. Her problem – weakness, really, is that she’s too predictable. That refusal to live in anyone else’s head makes her vulnerable. She doesn’t know what I‘m doing right now, for example. Probably doesn’t consider me capable of proving who she really is; what a liar she is. I should write a book about it. Maybe after this is over, I will.
A tapping on the window startled me. It was the gardener lady holding a water bottle. I admit sitting there, without air conditioning, sweat, tears and God knows what running down my face. Listening to The Way of the Fist. By Five Finger Death Punch, if you want to look it up.
“Are you all right?” she inquired anxiously, offering the bottle. The health index is bad today. Would you like to come inside and cool off?”
I exited the truck and took the proffered water bottle. Under the clown makeup and the wig – it was an obvious wig – this woman obviously had some kind of serious health condition. She had no hair – not even eyebrows – and her skin color was ghastly. Maybe it was cancer, like my own mother. Here I was trying to think up a lie she might believe and she had offered me the keys to the castle. I astonished both of us by bursting into tears. She patted my shoulder.
“You come on, now,” she said. “Let’s get you right.”
“I think it’s too hot for anybody to be outside,” I gasped as I drank the water.
“I’m used to it,” said the lady. “I was born in Baja.”
She was wearing one of those glittery satin tracksuits with silver facings that no one actually runs in. “You must be a member of that Charmian Carr’s family,” she said. “They used to come here crying! Oh, my Lord!” As we passed the rock garden where she’d been at work she said, “For the last time, I’m not digging anything up.”
I was a little surprised. She was digging, so if you’re digging, why say you’re not digging? Her arms were akimbo, and it’s a hostile posture so my mother’s training kicked in. Always apologize for causing the other person’s negative emotions, even if there’s no way it’s your fault. “I’m so sorry,” I said.
She relaxed a little. Sometimes my mother’s advice works. We had reached the shade of the portico and we looked back at her work.
“So what are you doing?” I inquired.
“I’m putting a fountain into the rock garden,” she said. “Well, WaterPro is doing it. I’m just making a place for it.”
She as panting from the short walk as she opened the door for me. I felt really guilty. So not the way BB’s think. The house was blessedly cool. Cold, really.
“Are you from the family or the county?” she asked.
“I’m not from either,” I said. “What do they want you to dig up?”
My eyes were growing accustomed to the darkness. Every window was draped in six or seven layers of fabric. If you wanted to open a window around here, it would be like undressing a nun. “I have to sit,” she gasped. “I’m so sorry.” She fell into a chair and threw off her gardening hat, leaving her wig somewhat askew.
And I took this woman’s water bottle! I felt just ghastly! But aware of germs and all that stuff I really couldn’t give it back.
“May I get you something?” I asked. So awkwardly. My mother rose right out of her grave to give me a dope slap.
“Water, please,” she said, pointing. “In the refrigerator.”
I scarpered in the direction of her finger. The house had that indefinable sixties quality. You know, when designers were so in love with Formica and light fixtures that look like Sputnik. Retro. The kitchen had all copper-faced appliances, and the refrigerator was full of labeled Tupperware and prescription pill bottles. Not making me feel any better. I grabbed a water bottle and hurried back. She seemed much better, leaning back in her armchair and looking around her with considerable satisfaction.
“I’m not digging anything up,” she repeated forcefully. “Get a warrant.”
Light dawned. “Oh, I get it,” I said, sitting down on a matching yellow velvet armchair, “They think Charmian Carr’s body is around here someplace.”
“They want me to make a wreck of this place,” she said. “They can’t get a warrant because they don’t have probable cause.” She touched my arm with her cold water bottle. “My husband and I bought the place at sheriff’s sale and all this stuff was still inside.” She nodded forcefully. “It was the deal of the century.” And she drank a mighty drink.
I’m not so sure. The artwork was kind of oppressive. Floor-to-ceiling gilt-framed paintings of God as an angry, white bearded Caucasian dude with falling-off clothes. Sprites, fairies. Demons? Most unsettling. In fact the hair was standing up along my arms. On the other hand, it was freezing in here. I made out engraved words at the foot of the painting closest to me: “The Tigers of Wrath are Wiser than the Horses of Instruction.” It was the only thing left of my stepmother in this middle class attempt at an opium den. She’s a real Wrath Tiger, all right.
But my interlocutor was drawing strength. “It was a second marriage for both my husband and me,” she said, “And our kids didn’t want to part with their family homes. This was the perfect solution.” It’s a solution all right. “I’m just a friend of a friend of Charmian’s,” I said. “I don’t have anything to do with her family or the county.”
Her eyes glittered at me as she drained her bottle. “They brought a guy in here who wanted to spray for blood.” She snorted. “Who cleans up afterwards, that’s what I wanted to know. I sent him away with a flea in his ear. Could you fetch me that ottoman?”
I brought it to her and helped her get her feet up. She shrank so low in her chair she looked like a pile of bones already.
“So how come you let me in?”
“I’m a Christian person, or so I hope,” she said. “You were crying.” I wanted to deny it. There’s something very shaming about getting what you want through tears. No BB would be caught dead weeping all over her perfect makeup. Or would she?
“If there was a body anywhere,” she went on, “Wouldn’t it smell?” “You couldn’t live on top of a decaying corpse and not find out about it. And if she’s buried deep, why disturb her?” She shrugged. “Bodies are unimportant. It’s our spirits that matter. Everybody dies.”
That is what you’d think if you had some terrifying health condition. I thought about all the horror movies I’d sat through where it turns out the house is built on an ancient burial ground. Or haunted by some spectre who wants a grave in sacred ground.
“No ghosts?” I inquired.
She laughed out loud. “I told you I’m a Christian,” she chastised me. “There are no such things as ghosts!”
Aren’t there? I wasn’t convinced. I felt something. But what was it? Impossible to be sure in a place frozen like a meat locker.
“The blood guy left a business card,” she said. “If you want it.”
I did. She retrieved it from beneath the phone. The card was yellowed and dog-eared. I wondered if he was a fake like me. Babbish, with a number in New Mexico. I thanked her and left. I never even found out her name.
Back at the motel I got weepy. I hate motel rooms; they make me feel like I’m in a gerbil cage. I don’t know how anybody can sleep on sheets that smell like disinfectant. You get to wondering what they’re disinfecting from. I imagined the guy who wanted to spray Charmian Carr’s house for blood standing in my room carrying a hose canister and wearing plastic goggles. This room would probably light up like a galaxy. People have probably been murdered sand dismembered in here. That lucky lady might not believe in ghosts, but what kind of person has never been haunted?
Tennessee Williams’ definition of happiness is: “insensitivity.” I feel my father – the way he used to be – pulling at my sleeve all day long. And now maybe I had Charmian Carr – the real one – begging along my other side.
The horrible part was, my father wasn’t begging for justice. He was begging me to leave him alone, to let Charmian be the Queen he’d elevated her to. To back up his denial and not make him “look bad”. My sisters were willing to give him that. I wasn’t.
He was never angrier than when I accused him of being a hypocrite. He knew he was one, and he was angry with me for challenging him, even though he raised me to challenge him. He had a picture of himself he wanted to leave to the world. He was the man who conquered everything with reason; and I was the one who could prove that wasn’t so. He attacked all my rationalizations but wanted me to support his. The only way he was superior was in the depth of his denial.
He sent me to a religious school and sneered at everything they taught me. Am I a Christian? Hardly. My sisters think I want revenge, Ignatz thinks I want money and of course, I do want those things. But it’s more complicated than that.
One of Dad’s rationalizations was about Mom’s money. I know he felt bad about needing it. He always tried to pretend her investments were all the wrong ones, that they’d gone horribly downhill and required his intelligence to make us truly rich. It might have been true, if I hadn’t known that my mother was one of those old-fashioned women who earnestly believed that you have to pretend to be “less than” so the man can feel bigger.
So she’s the fourth ghost hanging off of me. Bugging me. Telling me to leave it alone and not expose my father. Should I just leave the dead to stew in their unresolved lies and hypocrisies and fakery? Leave Charmian the demon to live large in her big house on the lake, flourishing like the green bay tree in the Bible, an emblem of successful evil to all who see her?
No. Because there are some things I do believe in. I know when I uproot that green tree up, something disgusting will crawl out.
My father’s position on “justice” was that, since it’s subjective, and anyway we never get it right, it can’t exist. It must remain, like romantic love, an idea. To keep the peasants honest. An unachievable ideal.
I dried my tears and called Mr. Babbish in New Mexico. Justice is bigger than our ideas. It’s bigger than time, it’s bigger than history; it’s larger than anybody’s flesh-bound ego. Maybe Ignatz was right and I should go to law school. There is an objective reality: I insist. The truth is real. Just the Fact’s ma’am, no exciting falsehoods need apply. What really happened will always be superior to anybody’s fake. And I can find the truth. Murder’s probably addictive, like anything else that gets rewards! No guarantee Charmian-Pearleen won’t go shopping for that buzz again. I listened to the ringing phone and prepared my speech. My father always said you can accomplish anything if you just put every iota of your will, your intelligence, your education and your resolve into it.
That night I dreamed about you. In the dream you were a rowboat and I was the ocean; I was a castle and you were a massive, cut-glass chandelier. I was the moon and you were the stars. It was one of those pleasurable dreams you think you can control, a dream where I sat on my throne and said “Show me. Please me.”
But your spirit invaded my dream and took control. I saw you as a child; I became you, but I was also an observer above the scene. I felt your terrible fear as I saw your devil-worshipping father holding a frog gigger like a miniature pitchfork. I felt the pain and he used it on you head. I felt the warm blood running down my face. When I forced myself to wake up, the blood turned into tears. Do you know how long it’s been since I wept? When a Queen weeps, a universe sorrows with her. I felt the yearning of your heart that your father must die.
I awoke a different person. I had already traveled a small way towards rescuing you, and I will go further. I owe it to you. Last night transformed me, freed me; more than the death of my stepfather, more than leaving home, more than the extinction of mentor, more than coming into my money or even buying my perfect house. These had were just steps on a ladder – you are flight. Neither of us needs “steps” once we are airborne. Our throne is of the air. It was as if I had lasik surgery and no longer needed a crutch. The Queen weeps. The Queen can fall in love. For the first time in her life, when she finds a worthy knight.
I used to see my loneliness as freedom. It isn’t. You want a gift from me; the gift of your father’s death. He’s locked up in a SuperMax so that’s a conundrum I haven’t yet solved. But by the time the trial ends, I will have. Sometimes you simply have to cut your way through a troublesome problem. I long to introduce you to the power of magic. The power of magic is the power of substitution. We must agree on a vessel acceptable to you into which your father’s spirit can be drawn. And we must arrange a time, a place, a method for sacrifice. Believe me, you must trust that that will heal you. It will be your father’s own blood with which I will adorn your face.
Alysse Aallyn 