Carolina Crimes

by Nora Gaskin Esthimer

  Dear Martha,

  Dad is begging me to visit you. Mom cries all the time. Her hair has turned totally white from all the stress. Dad could have a coronary any day, he worries so much. They think you’ve been railroaded, that Tony was indeed mobbed up, and his pals bribed some jurors to vote for conviction. Dad says that happens all the time in New Jersey. Or maybe the Mob bribed your lawyer to mount that shitty defense.

  I would much rather talk this over with you face to face, but if you won’t let me visit, I will continue to write. I truly believe that if you’re innocent, you should be doing everything possible to clear your name.

  Please let me help.

  —Lucinda

  Bossy Older Sister,

  What part of FUCK OFF don’t you understand?

  Dearest Younger Sister,

  I have hired an investigator to look at the trial record and see if there were any irregularities or anything else that might help you. Wallace doesn’t know this and would not approve. I haven’t told Mom or Dad either. I don’t want to get their hopes up.

  —Your loving older sister, Lucinda

  L—

  You might think you have my best interests at heart, but you seem to have forgotten what a lousy character witness you were! Dragging up all that old stuff from the past. Just because you were too goody-good to shoplift something you really, really had to have didn’t mean you had to rat me out. And so what if I didn’t ever return stuff to the library? Does that make me a murderer? Thanks to you, the jury certainly thought so.

  Leave me alone.

  —M

  Martha—

  I didn’t have a choice! I was under oath, sworn to tell the truth. How was I to know the prosecutor would drag up all that old business? If I had lied—and believe me, I was tempted—I’d be in prison, too! Imagine what that would do to Mom and Dad.

  If you blame me for your predicament, Marty, at least let me help you.

  —Lucy

  You can’t.

  —M

  Marty—

  Don’t be so defeatist, sis. We can fix this, but we need to meet. I could bring Cameron with me. He’s the investigator I hired. He’d like to hear your version of events. Then maybe he can take this thing further than that fool you had for a lawyer.

  Wallace is going to California for a Mercedes dealers’ convention in a couple of weeks. The timing would be perfect for me to visit you, and Wallace would never find out.

  Please say you’ll see me. Cameron, too. In case you need it for the prison officials, his full name is Cameron Bondurant (yes, those Bondurants), and he’s a licensed private investigator with a law degree to boot. Anytime the week of March 13 will work.

  See you soon?

  —Your hopeful sister, Lucy

  Dear Meddler,

  Save your money. Not to mention your marriage.

  Did it never occur to you that maybe I deserve being here? You see, I’m really not sure if I dropped the hair dryer on purpose or not. I was clearly not in my right mind. In fact, I was going ape shit. Tony accused me of neglecting him. He decided he was going to “cure me or die trying.” (His words.) I told him there was nothing to cure. I even got down on my hands and knees and begged him to understand where I’m coming from. But he was absolutely heartless.

  He locked my Kindle in the gun safe. It had Sarah Paretsky’s latest on it! He took my phone away, wouldn’t let me order anything from Amazon. He wouldn’t even go in to work just so he could keep an eye on me twenty-four/seven. That’s how he managed to keep me away from Farley’s Bookshop while they were having a three-for-one sale of Janet Evanovich, Sue Grafton, and Patricia Cornwell. I’ve never had to go three whole days without anything to read. You’ve always had this crazy idea that I’m suffering from some kind of addiction. Not true. In fact, you and Mom and Dad will never understand one simple thing about me: BOOKS ARE MY LIFE.

  Luckily, they seem to get it here at Edna Mahan Correctional. I even have a job in the library.

  Back to TOC

  Her Final Trick

  Robin Whitten

  “You might as well keep going.” She didn’t stop walking. She tried to put more distance between herself and the man who drove too close to her, the man who wouldn’t stop talking.

  “I really want to help you.” His voice rippled through the heavy air.

  “There is nothing you can do to help me. Please just go on.” When she first heard the car, her mouth watered, her skin tingled. She’d hoped he was a John, a little money for a fix. Then she saw his car.

  He crept along the dirt road in his Dodge Charger as she mostly staggered, sometimes tripped, her pace quickening over the railroad tracks that ran next to the road. She couldn’t get away.

  “Look, you’re about to get drenched.” His arm shot out of the window.

  She stepped back, ready to run until she realized he only meant to point to the sky ahead. Dark clouds, black against the green of the pines, threatened on the horizon. “Can’t you see where you’re heading? What’s about to happen?”

  She stared at the ground, at the nothing. “It’s already happened.”

  “What?”

  She turned toward him, frustrated that he was still there. She knew she was filthy. Her hands, caked with many days of dirt, pressed against her dress, its hem flapping loosely in the cooling air. She had seen her reflection in the broken glass at the train station. Her hair, the color of dust, hung in greasy strands around her swollen face. A bruise, yellow and green, perfectly round, surrounded her left eye. She felt its familiarity, accepted its price.

  The car drifted ahead of her a few feet and stopped. The passenger’s side door swung open. “Come on, get in the car.” She didn’t detect any threat in his voice. “I’ll take you wherever you want to go.”

  She tried to laugh but it came out a wheeze. “Officer, if it’s all the same to you, I don’t have any place to go.” She wanted him to leave, drive away, so she could find a John. Only ten dollars and she could be high. No one would even think of approaching her with him around. Besides, he made her nervous.

  She searched the sky, hoping for an answer, a rainbow maybe, but saw only dark billowing clouds. She looked to her left, toward the dense woods. Would the trees on the edge of the road provide any shelter? Maybe she wouldn’t need the trees if someone picked her up, someone with a car, someone who had a trailer. Then she could sleep, one night, sleep.

  “What’s your name?” His voice, soft, not accusing. The way he spoke startled her. His figure, a blue sculpture stood half in, half out of his car.

  “Amy,” she said. Lightening coursed through the darkness. It’s jagged edges razor like in the cool air. It was getting closer,

  “Let me take you to the shelter.” He stepped away from the car.

  Amy’s eyes traveled the length of the railroad tracks, up and back. She should run, now, but her legs wouldn’t move. Traitors, she thought. They never did what she asked of them, just like the people she let in, those few who saw the all of her. Like the men who held her close and said they loved her before they hit her. Traitors.

  The officer placed a hand lightly on Amy’s elbow and led her to his car. With the promise of warmth came uncertainty. She’d have a rough night at the shelter. She’d have to come down, become sober, without help. She’d done it before, sometime in the past. The memory of it was vague.

  Amy pulled her arm away. “I can walk on my own. Officer Perry, right?” The letters on his name tag blurred.

  He shrugged and followed her to his car. He bent close to her, close enough to smell her sweat soaked skin, and opened the back door. She knew she smelled bad, but he didn’t flinch.

  “Can’t I sit in the front with you?” She leaned toward him, hoping he might glance at her full breasts and pink nipples, hard and visible through the thin material of her dress. Maybe he’d take her home, to his home. Maybe he could love her, hold her without the promise of pain. Maybe he’d be her last trick.

 
“No, Amy. It’s against the rules.” His breath, minty, clean, brushed across her cheek. His hand touched the top of her head, lightly guiding her into the back seat.

  She shivered, surprised at how the warmth of the car crawled over her skin. She focused outside of her window. Was it cold out? What month were they in, October? When had Karin died? Karin, her best friend, pals since childhood. The last few days, her last fix, had helped her forget. Now, though, now she remembered.

  Karin’s face swollen, pasty, her lips purple. Amy had waved a hand over her open eyes hoping she might blink or turn her head. Blood ran in ragged lines from her nose. Amy always made fun of that nose, with its large nostrils, better to inhale more juice, pushed flat from being hit so many times. Karin’s nasal voice. Amy closed her eyes. She’d never hear her voice again.

  Officer Perry shut his door and turned on the ignition. The engine purred as the car bumped over the railroad tracks, pulling Amy out of her thoughts. She inhaled deeply, hoping she could keep it together. She really needed a fix. Her teeth chattered, her heart sent ripples through her chest. She poked his shoulder through the metal grate.

  “Listen, you can drop me off anywhere around here. That corner over there.” Amy pointed to an intersection, already occupied by three women dressed in short shorts and tank tops. Their hair piled on their heads like rats’ nests, red lips pasted on their faces. Is that what she looked like? What if her mother saw her? She leaned back on the seat and closed her eyes. Her mother dead now two years. Everyone who meant anything was dead.

  “Where do you live, Amy?” His voice, deep and soothing, sounded as though he cared about her. She knew better. They all acted the same, until they wanted something.

  “Nowhere now. Nowhere.” Everyone she loved gone.

  “So how did you get so far from town?” Amy searched Officer Perry’s dark blue eyes in the rearview mirror.

  Please don’t laugh at me, she thought. And don’t feel sorry for me. Treat me like a normal person. She might have said this. She might have, as she had so many times in the past. But Amy wasn’t normal. She couldn’t be normal, not like other people. Not like her mother. Her mother, who forgave her when she left with him, her first lover, her first mistake. Her mother, who always took her in, held her when she cried.

  Amy studied the houses, one by one, as they drove slowly down the main street of town. All of them had a porch, a front door, closed and locked, keeping in secrets, their own stories. Amy knew them, the men who lived in them. She’d been inside many of their houses, searching through their things, trying on their clothes, eating their food. Yes, she knew them. They were no better than she, with their lies.

  Her eyes drifted to Officer Perry’s neck. His hair was trim, no ragged edges. A spot behind his right ear caught her eye. The skin puckered, slightly pink, around a deep indentation. A small chunk of his ear was missing, leaving a slight divot in the cartilage. A scream, a man holding his head, blood dripping. The hair rose on her arms, her empty stomach turned. Her heart skipped a beat. Something about that scar stirred a memory, a thing. Amy stared at it. Her vision blurred. Her eyes felt tired, so tired.

  “There aren’t any lights on in the shelter yet.” His calm manner brought her back.

  Amy glanced out of her window at the large brick building that seemed wedged in by other buildings, pushing it back into a slight cul de sac, alone and hidden. It looked deserted, like every other building in this part of town. Deserted and unwanted like most of the people who ended up there. Like her.

  He examined his watch. “Do you want to get something to eat?” He peered at her through his rearview mirror. “I can kick off for a half hour or so.”

  “I don’t have any money.” She slid low in her seat. What did he want from her?

  “Well, then I guess I’ll have to buy. That okay with you?” His voice smiled, his reflected eyes seemed concerned.

  “You could just give me some money.” She stared at him, hoping she looked sincere. “For food, I mean.” She only needed a few dollars and she could feel normal again.

  “I’d rather eat with you,” the officer said. He studied the road.

  It seemed as though they drove another half hour before stopping at a small bar pushed all the way to the end of a dirt road. Five or six cars rested in the parking lot, all in a row, equidistant apart. A flashing sign over the front door read Open. He walked around to her door and gestured for her to get out.

  “Do I look too bad for a regular restaurant?” She tried to pull her hair back into a pony tail but had nothing to hold it with.

  Officer Perry raised a hand, as if to touch her, then let it drop to his side. “You look fine.” He studied the bar for a moment. “I just thought you’d feel more comfortable here.” She turned away, telling herself she didn’t care. His touch would end the same as all the rest.

  They sat in a booth in the back of the darkened bar, tucked behind the juke box. After they ordered, he placed his hands on the table. Her eyes rested on a green gem that filled the face of the class ring on his right hand. The ring on the hand holding the bloody ear. Was it the same? She jerked back into her seat, pushing away from the table.

  He studied her for a moment and smiled. “Sobering up a bit?”

  She clasped her hands together, her fingers turning white. Her body began to shake, then her chair. She thought her seat might break apart, so she grabbed its sides.

  The waitress came back with a beer for her and coffee for him. She studied Amy, then the officer, and shook her head. Amy pretended not to notice as she raised the glass to her swollen lips and took a sip. Her hands shook, her teeth chattered. Please God, she thought, make it stop.

  The man with the hole in his head, the ring on his finger, lay on his face. He groaned as the blood dripped through his fingers, over the ring with the green stone. The blood creating a ragged line that flowed into a small puddle on the ground under him. Amy closed her eyes. Maybe she was hallucinating. She did that often since Karin’s death.

  “I must confess, Amy, I’ve been looking for you for a long time.” Officer Perry wrapped his long fingers around the coffee cup.

  Amy tried to position herself for flight. She scooted her chair so that it sat at an angle from the table, facing the front door. She wasn’t certain if she could run, but wanted to be ready. She sipped on her beer, her anxiety increasing with each swallow.

  “You are definitely hard to find. Where have you been hiding?”

  Someone else’s hand, also covered in blood, held a handkerchief over the hole and pressed hard. Amy covered her face with one hand, held the bottle with the other and shook her head. The man with the gun lying on the ground nearby, still alive, groaning.

  “What do you want?” she asked. She knew what was coming. He bought her dinner, now she had to pay. With blood probably, her body would be too easy.

  “What do you mean?”

  She could barely see him through her fingers. “I guess we can get a room if you want.”

  He removed her hand from her face, slowly, his touch almost a caress. Amy pulled away, then turned to study his face. His eyes registered confusion.

  Officer Perry shook his head. “No, Amy. Listen.” He raised an eyebrow at the waitress as she set their food down.

  The angle of his head brought back another memory. His face turned to look at her, blood on his cheek, dried and dark. “Call for help.”

  “Amy,” he said. “Don’t you remember?”

  A sharp slap. A heavy blow to the back of her head pushed Amy away from him and across the room. She scrambled for her phone, tried calling 9-1-1, then harsh, blunt pain to her nose and upper lip. She tasted blood. Her eyes closed and she felt more pain, on her breasts, to her back.

  She looked back at the officer, the memory frightened her. “You’re the guy with the bullet wound to the head,” she said, her voice sounded flat, off key, even to her.

  “Yea.” He smiled, a dimple filling one cheek. “You saved my life.”
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br />   Amy felt sick. The beer churned, threatening to come up. With life came responsibility. “I didn’t.”

  “The doctor at the hospital said that if you hadn’t put that pressure on the wound to my head, I might have died.”

  A ripple traveled through her, like the rush after her first hit. Relief. She let out a long, ragged breath. “I thought I hurt you.”

  “No.” He touched her dirty hand, making her feel even worse about her appearance. “The guy who shot me almost killed you as well. He beat you so badly that you had to be hospitalized. Don’t you remember?”

  “I remember waking up in the hospital.” Amy smiled, finally relaxed, the urge for a fix fading. “That was three years ago, wasn’t it? Why haven’t I seen you on the streets before now?”

  “Two major surgeries,” said the officer, pointing to his head, “and a lot of rehab.”

  “I never knew what happened to him.”

  “You mean the guy who shot me?”

  She nodded.

  “He was killed trying to escape.” His voice trailed off.

  Her appetite returned. She picked up her hamburger and took a big bite. “I thought you were going to arrest me.” Ketchup ran down her chin, creating a line of red along her dress, spreading, seeping along the white fibers. She swiped at it with her napkin.

  “Listen,” he said, his eyes were steady on her face, his smile gone. “I want to help you get cleaned up, help you get a job or go to school, whatever you want.”

  She stood, too quickly. Her chair toppled, creating a loud bang. Other customers turned to look. She felt heat rise on her face. “I need to wash my hands. I’ll be right back.” She walked quickly, tremulously, to the bathroom. How many times had she heard those words, believed them, believed in them?

  Some time passed before Officer Perry stood and threw a few dollars on the table. The food, barely touched, sat in the same place the waitress had set it earlier. He made his way to the restroom and knocked on the one that read Dames.