The Confessions of Frances Godwin

by Robert Hellenga

  What would Scipio Africanus do with a punk like Jimmy? Scipio, Scipio who defeated Hannibal. What would Pompey do? Pompey the Great, who rid the Mediterranean of pirates in three months. What would Caesar do? Caesar . . . Well, Shakespeare got Caesar all wrong. Caesar was a real jerk. He walked around with a body guard of gladiators. No question about it, though, guys like Scipio and Pompey and Caesar wouldn’t have put up with Jimmy.

  But going back a little farther. Remember Cato the Elder: Carthago delenda est. Carthage must be destroyed. That’s what I was feeling: Giacomo delenda est. Jimmy has to be destroyed. Or at least warned off.

  Camilla rode shotgun during the ninety-minute drive. I left her in the car at the truck stop.

  It took me a while to find Jimmy’s truck—GAGLIANO BROS. PRODUCE— which was parked between two refrigerator trucks—reefers—in a long line of semis. Big rigs. They were making a lot of noise, emitting blue petroleum fumes. Their engines were running, making the ground tremble, and the refrigeration units were running.

  I waited for Jimmy. I had to pee but I didn’t want to go into the restaurant, so I squatted and peed by the truck. The .38 was tucked in my purse, like a good luck charm.

  I gathered my strength, my nerve, while I waited, wiping my hands on my shirt before touching the pistol in my purse, holding my nerves tighter and tighter, crouching mentally, crouching in order to spring forward, like a sprinter with one foot on the starting block. Wanting to see Jimmy before he saw me, before he knew I was watching.

  He finally showed, coming around the cab. High on something. He didn’t see me at first. And then he did.

  “What the hell are you doing here?” Had he forgotten? “Where is she?”

  “Nice to see you, Jimmy. Let’s just sit in the truck for a few minutes. We need to talk.”

  “Where’s that crazy wife of mine?” We got in the truck.

  “You mean my daughter?”

  “Your crazy daughter, then.”

  “Jimmy, tell me what happened. I want to hear it from you.”

  “You got a lot of nerve messing in my business, you know.”

  “Just tell me what happened.”

  He hesitated, as if he’d just changed his mind about what he was going to say. “She jumped out of the truck, you know. What the fuck did she think she was doing? She just opened the door and jumped out. Good thing I was only going about forty. On the ramp.”

  “That was really lucky,” I said. “And lucky that somebody stopped and picked her up.”

  “I figured somebody would. No way I could stop. The next exit isn’t till Mendota. By the time I got back she’d of been gone.”

  I shook my head. “Jimmy. That was my daughter you shoved out of the truck and left on the highway. My daughter.”

  “She really knows how to push my buttons.”

  “What does that mean, ‘push my buttons.’ What buttons are you talking about? I never saw any buttons on a man.”

  “You’ve got some nerve. That woman you’re talking about is my lawful wife, and if you think—”

  “She was my daughter before she was your wife, and she’ll be my daughter after she stops being your wife.”

  “Fuck you.”

  “Jimmy, I’m not here to negotiate. I’m here to tell you what the score is. Stella’s going to file for a divorce, and you’re going to say yes to everything she asks for. And don’t forget the chandelier. That chandelier was worth sixty thousand dollars. I took photos. I kept the dangles with your fingerprints on them. And I’ll tell the police how her spleen got ruptured. It was a blow to her lower left chest.

  “One way or another you’ll be looking at some serious prison time. You’re a convicted felon, out on parole. You never would have gotten your commercial driver’s license if it hadn’t been for your uncle.”

  “What the fuck’s a spleen?”

  “It’s a Greek word, Jimmy. If you were big-spleened, that meant ‘big-hearted.’ She was big-spleened. She had to be to put up with you. And she was pregnant. She miscarried, so you’ll be looking at a murder charge, too. ‘Murder one,’ isn’t that what they say on the cop shows?”

  Jimmy was having trouble speaking. It was as if he had run out of words. I knew how he felt. There was nothing more to say. I’d been planning to threaten him, to scare him, but now I was hoping he’d lunge at me. But he just sat there, dumb as a stone. And then he recovered himself and said, “You are so full of shit I can’t believe it.”

  “Jimmy,” I said. “I have something to show you.” I took the long-barreled .38 out of my large purse in one smooth motion, one I’d practiced.

  The sight of the revolver revived Jimmy. At least he started to laugh. More like honking than laughing.

  “Jimmy,” I said, “put your hands on the steering wheel and keep them there.”

  “You know what,” he said. “You haven’t got the nerve, and I don’t give a fuck.”

  “You’re looking at murder one, Jimmy,” I said. “Now tell me about the chandelier.”

  “Hey,” he said. “If your stupid dick of a husband hadn’t been so uptight about the fucking car, none of this would of happened. He couldn’t drive it himself, and so he couldn’t stand to have anyone else drive it.”

  “Did you use a baseball bat on the chandelier?”

  He laughed. “I pulled that fucker out of the ceiling with my bare hands and then I stomped all over those little dangly things. It felt good.”

  “That’s what I wanted to know. Now keep your hands on the steering wheel.”

  “Mrs. G,” he said, “I’m going to count to ten, and we’re going to get out of this cab and we’re going to walk over to your car and get Stella. And if you give me any grief you’ll be sorry for the rest of your life. You’ll find out that what Stella went through was like a Sunday school picnic. Like a walk in the park. Like going swimming in a lake when the water’s just right, real still and a little bit cold, not too cold, but cold, you know what I mean?”

  “This was my dad’s gun,” I said. “He used it to shoot hogs. After we got married Paul used to do the shooting . . . Hogs, Jimmy. One shot, right behind the ear. Once a year for fourteen years. He put those hogs right down. One shot.”

  “One,” he said. “You can just get out of the cab. We’ll go over to your car and get Stella and you can head back home, and Stell’n I’ll be on our way. I had a couple of pills a while ago. They’ll get me to Milwaukee, but I don’t want to fuck around here too long.”

  “Jimmy,” I said. “Stella’s not in the car, she’s in the hospital.”

  “Two.”

  I no longer felt like the director of this drama; I was one of the actors, and we were improvising. I was a swimmer who’d been caught up in a strong current that was carrying her out to sea.

  “Three.”

  “And then I want you to leave her alone. That’s what it’s going to take right now. You’ve got to give me your word that you’re going to leave her alone. No telephone calls. No showing up in Galesburg.”

  “Four. She’s got too much of a hold on me for that. All I got to do is touch her and she’s ready to go, you know what I mean? Maybe you still remember what it was like?”

  “She’s not here,” I said. “She’s in the hospital.”

  “Sometimes it’s like the cars coming at me on the other side of the highway are animals, wolves. You know what I mean?” He paused and held up five fingers. “Then I’m sure she’s getting looked after okay. Tell her I’ll be coming for her soon as she’s out.”

  “She’ll be there a week, Jimmy.”

  “Six. You gonna shoot me or what?”

  I cocked the hammer to let him know I was serious. “I’ll shoot you when you get to ‘nine.’ How’s that? Either that or you give me your word that you’ll never see her again.”

  “Seven. Right here,” he said, touching his forehead with the tip of his middle finger and sticking his head forward.

  “Eight.”

  I kept my eyes o
pen and didn’t argue with myself before squeezing the trigger. The hammer was already cocked. I didn’t want to wait for “nine.” I could see him tensing up to make a move, and I didn’t think he’d wait for the full count. As I squeezed the trigger I could feel every moment of my life leading up to this point. (Of course, whatever point you’re at, every moment of your life has been leading up to it.) I shot him in the chest the first time, because I didn’t want to take a chance on missing, and because I didn’t want to get spattered with blood. And then I put a second bullet in his heart. The reefers on either side of us were generating so much noise no one could have heard the shots.

  Afterward I couldn’t breathe and I thought for a minute I’d been shot myself. I put my hand on my heart and kept it there while I wiped the door handle with a handkerchief that I clutched in my other hand. I didn’t take a breath till I got back to my car and put my hand on Camilla’s head and my heart started to slow down.

  I looked her in the eyes, wondering what she was thinking, would think if she knew. I looked up at the sky, but there was too much light pollution in the parking lot for star gazing.

  I realized with a shock that I’d left the gun in the cab of Jimmy’s truck. I went back for it, put it in my purse, and put a handkerchief over my finger and locked both doors. Jimmy hadn’t moved. I tried not to look at him through the window as I wiped the door handle on the passenger side.

  I pulled over at the next rest stop on I-80 to let Camilla out to pee. I could hear the grass growing, the trees leafing out, creating a dark canopy, blocking the stars. An owl hooted, and I thought of the owl that Camilla hears in Book XI of The Aeneid, as she prepares to kill herself. I could smell the dampness of the earth. I could hear Camilla (the dog) sniffing, then disappearing for a moment behind a tree. For a minute I couldn’t see her, and then I did see her, sniffing another dog, a little white border collie on a long lead. On the one hand I didn’t want anyone to see me; on the other, I needed some human contact, if only for a moment. Contact with another dog person. It was very dark; I couldn’t see this person, but the dog itself stood out against the darkness.

  I talked briefly with the owner, trying to keep my breathing steady. She had the dog on a retractable lead. A woman my age. She was crying.

  “I didn’t see you pull in,” she said. “But I always feel safe with dog people.”

  “I just stopped to let the dog out,” I said.

  “He doesn’t run away?”

  “She,” I said.

  “She doesn’t?”

  “No. At least not yet. Are you all right?”

  “Not really,” she said. “Sometimes I just need to cry.”

  I felt like crying too, but I was too keyed up.

  “Toby’s started jumping the fence,” she said. “And then he’s off. The neighbors are wonderful, but sometimes he goes pretty far afield. And crosses some pretty busy streets. I tried tying him up, but that just makes him miserable. I probably need to get a higher fence.”

  “You might try spending more time with him out in the yard. You can’t play with him when you’re inside and he’s outside.” This was something I’d read in the dog training book that Paul ordered from Amazon. It seemed like good advice. “I know it’s a pain, but you don’t want him to get bored. If stuff’s going on at home, he won’t be so eager to run away.”

  “Thanks,” she said. “Come on, Toby.” The retractable lead made a ratcheting sound as Toby came running and jumping. “Have a good trip.”

  “Safe home,” I said.

  I stayed in the rest area for a while. It was very dark and the stars, which you could see from the side of the road, where the trees had been cut back, were very bright. Praeterea tam sunt, I said out loud, Arcturi sidera nobis. I made the students in Latin 2 memorize this passage from Book I of Vergil’s Georgics: Praeterea tam sunt Arcturi . . .

  The star of Arcturus, and the days of the Kids, and bright Draco the Serpent, are as much ours as theirs, who sailing homewards over stormy seas, brave the Pontic sea, and the straits of oyster-rich Abydos.

  It was two o’clock in the morning. Arcturus was low in the west, and I, Frances Godwin, was sailing homeward over stormy seas. Instead of getting off I-80 onto I-74 and heading south, I kept on going west to Rock Island, then crossed the Mississippi into Iowa on the Centennial Bridge, which had low railings on the sides, so it was easy to pull over and drop the gun off the bridge into the middle of the main channel. I followed 67 east on the Iowa side till I got to 74 and then headed south, back across the river and home to Galesburg. I still had a quarter tank of gas.

  8

  Vigil (June 1997)

  I woke up in a panic. Everything had changed. I couldn’t imagine a future, couldn’t even see ahead to the end of the day. I didn’t want this one act to define me for the rest of my life, perhaps forever. The blood pouring out of Jimmy’s chest. On the other hand, I couldn’t deny that I was glad that Jimmy was dead, and when I heard Ruthy in the kitchen, making little clicking sounds, the vision of blood faded. She’d made a pot of tea and was holding a large blue cup in her hands when I came into the kitchen. Or I should say kitchen area. Small, but designed very cleverly. I’d already disposed of my clothes, even though they weren’t spattered with blood, and was in my pajamas.

  “I see you found the tea pot,” I said, “and the tea cozy.” I was looking for a sign that she knew I’d gone out in the night. She was wearing a blouse that had been washed so many times you couldn’t tell what color it was.

  “Sleep all right?” she asked. Did she know something, suspect something? I was feeling hung over, confused, disoriented.

  “I got up once to take the dog out,” I said. “She doesn’t usually need to go in the night, but I forgot to take her out before I went to bed. Just down to the courtyard.”

  We ate soft-boiled eggs and toast and then went to see Stella in the hospital. I was too tired and too overwhelmed with anxiety to think about the murder, if that’s what it was. I thought that if I pretended not to be anxious, after a while I wouldn’t be anxious.

  Stella was doing okay, but she was going to have to stay in bed for a while. She spoke mostly to Ruthy. She wouldn’t look at me, and she flinched when I tried to touch her.

  The police didn’t come to notify Stella till the next day. They hadn’t found Jimmy’s body for a while, and then they hadn’t known where to find Stella.

  What Stella told them was that they’d been arguing and she opened the door to get away from him, and he’d pushed her out onto the highway. What she didn’t tell them, till Ruthy prompted her, was that Jimmy had been trying to force her to go down on him.

  The police detective, Detective Landstreet, questioned me at the apartment afterward. He knew that I had bought a gun and had been taking shooting lessons. He knew that the gun that had killed Jimmy was a .38, the same caliber as the gun I’d bought at the gun shop across the street. The police had recovered two bullets.

  “Jack Ruby used a Colt .38 to kill Lee Harvey Oswald,” he said. “You remember that.”

  I indicated that I remembered.

  “That was a little one, though. A Cobra.”

  By the time he was done he had a pretty good understanding of the way things stood between Jimmy and me, but the more he questioned me, the stiffer became my resistance, my resolve not to be pushed around. I told the truth about everything—all the little things—knowing that little lies point toward larger truths. I didn’t want to be caught out. That left one big lie, of course, at the center, like a big arrow pointing right at me. Detective Landstreet thought he could see it, but he couldn’t see it clearly. He kept coming back to the gun I’d bought at Collector’s, which I produced for him, nestled comfortably in its wood-grained box.

  “Are you sure you don’t have anything to add right now?” he kept asking. “You know, Mrs. Godwin, no one would blame you for plugging that lowlife. I might have done the same thing myself, someone did that to my daughter, you know what I mean?”r />
  “I know what you mean,” I said, “but I’m sure I don’t have anything to add.”

  Ruthy was sure, too. She held up under intense questioning. Detective Landstreet was determined to break my alibi for the night of the murder.

  “Could Mrs. Godwin have gone out in the night?”

  “Anything is possible.”

  “You were here the whole time?”

  “I was at the hospital till about nine o’clock.”

  “And Mrs. Godwin was here when you came back?”

  “Yes. We had a cup of tea.”

  “You would have heard her go out?”

  “The dog makes a tremendous racket every time she goes out. She whacks her tail against the wall.”

  “And you didn’t hear anything like that?”

  “Not at all.”

  “You’re sure about that? Because if you’re not . . .”

  “Look,” she said. “There are a lot of truck-stop guys who’ve got beefs with Jimmy.”

  “We’re looking into that, too,” Detective Landstreet said.

  The police took the gun with them, the new gun, not the one I’d used to kill Jimmy. And that’s the way it ended.

  Stella came home on Saturday morning. In the afternoon Ruthy and I filled the window boxes on the railing of the deck with geraniums; we filled five of the seven Italian pots with petunias and two more with basil and parsley.

  Stella sat in a deck chair, a recliner, and watched me watch her. She didn’t seem to have anything to say, and she didn’t want me to touch her.

  Later she took a nap, and Ruthy explained, “She’s ashamed of herself. Shame can be very powerful. Give her time. She’s not ready to face you.”

  “I’m her mother,” I said.

  “That’s the problem.”

  “Oh.”

  “How can she feel that she has to ‘face’ me?”

  “She’s embarrassed. She knows she’s in the wrong. She didn’t come home when her dad died. She barely made it to the memorial service and then she left right away. She wants to make it right, but she doesn’t know how. Just don’t fuss at her.”