AHMM, November 2006

by Dell Magazine Authors

  "And you don't think she did it?"

  He shrugged. “Unless we come up with someone else that the D.A. likes better...” He let the sentence hang.

  I wanted him to come home with me, but he told me he was going to his youngest daughter's band concert later that night; he'd been divorced for many years, but he tried to stay involved with his kids as much as he could. He suggested that I come along, but I decided on the spur of the moment to take in Roxy's show. Which meant that I had some time to kill. I went back to the office with all good intentions of knocking back a big chunk of the paperwork that sat in an ever-present pile on my desk. Instead, I leaned back in my chair and thought about Roxy's father.

  Paul Ryan had been a hunk. Tall, good looking, with dark hair that curled tightly around his head, and a pair of the most magnetic blue eyes I'd ever seen. Even though I knew he wasn't interested in me, those eyes, resting on my face, could make me believe I was the only woman in his life. God knows what those eyes could do to a woman he really wanted. The bar was always full of sweet young things and the men who inevitably flocked around them. Any one of those men, or a few of those sweet young things for that matter, could have whacked him in a fit of jealousy.

  Problem was, I didn't know him or the crowd well enough to have any thoughts about which one it might be. Besides, knowing the way Steve worked, I'm sure he had covered that angle. I sighed, leaned forward and rested my elbows on the desk. Which put me eye to eye with the pile of paperwork. Since I could find no more excuses, I buckled down and got to work. Before I knew it, it was time to leave.

  The Crooked Peg was located in an old warehouse a few blocks away from the river. Not too long ago, I wouldn't have felt safe walking around the neighborhood that late at night because all the well-intentioned people were safely at home, and only the drug dealers and muggers were out and about. But the young, hip singles moving into the neighborhood were night creatures; they streamed through the streets, cell phones stuck to their ears, like some electronically plugged-in nomadic tribe.

  A couple of very young teenaged girls were lounging around outside the metal door of the building. They were dressed in standard goth fashion—greasy black hair, black leather, dead-white makeup—refugees from a castle in Transylvania. Their little button noses and still-pudgy faces were pierced by an assortment of silver rings, crosses, and studs. They were both sucking greedily on cigarettes, as if they were determined to develop lung cancer by the time they were twenty. As I went by, I caught the glance of one of them, and she looked at me with surprise and a little defiance; I realized I was old enough to be her mother.

  As I was about to open the door, a skinhead came out of the shadows. Dressed in the requisite black, with tattoos covering every visible spot on his body, including his shaved skull, he put himself right in my face. “You wanna get in, you gotta make a donation.” He gave me an aggressively leering look, which peeled the clothes right off my body, and said, “Twenty bucks."

  I stood my ground and handed him a ten. He took it and I went in. The space inside was vast and very dimly lit, except for an area dotted with tiny tables around a small stage at the other end of the room. The crowd looked to be anywhere from their early teens to their late thirties and were mostly male. I sat down at a small table and was soon joined by a young guy dressed in denim who, I gathered, was trying to pick me up. He bought me a beer, and he talked to me nonstop. But I never learned his name, nor much about him because the canned music blasting through the speakers was so loud I could hardly hear a word he said.

  After a while, Fredo and a couple of look-alikes appeared on the stage and began setting up equipment. Fredo and one of them picked up guitars that were propped against the back wall. The other one sat down behind the drums. Someone turned off the canned music. The abrupt absence of sound was so total, I felt like I had been dropped into the depths of the ocean. Then Fredo and friends started playing, and Roxy walked onto the stage.

  She didn't walk, exactly. She suddenly appeared, like a force of nature. She was dressed in a tight purple blouse so low cut it almost met the waistband of her tiny, neon pink skirt. With her spiky blond hair, that outfit, and the pistol tattooed on her breast, she was the height of punk allure. And she was the show—the band behind her might as well not have been there. She cajoled, she berated, she seduced, she thrust herself right into the heart and soul of her audience and had them screaming for more. She was her father's daughter, big time.

  They wouldn't let her stop, and I was as entranced as they were. Usually, I don't like punk rock, but something about her performance thrilled me. It was as if Roxy, in her total takeover of the audience, was speaking for her mother and all the other victim women who'd learned to keep their mouths shut and not ask anyone for anything. I would have liked to stay for another set, but I knew I had to get to work the next morning. So as the lights went on, I got up and left. The young guy who'd been trying to pick me up didn't even notice me leaving.

  The next day, mid morning, I got a call from Divinia. “I'm on my cell phone out in the hall,” she said breathlessly. Mrs. Bauer wouldn't let her talk on the phone during work hours. “Miss Madeline, she's been arrested."

  "I'll be over as soon as I can,” I said.

  She must have heard my footsteps coming up the stairs because she met me outside in the hall with a flood of words. “It happened this morning, just before I got here. I don't know what I'm going to do with Mrs. Bauer. And the little girl, well, she didn't go to school this morning. You gotta see her."

  Mrs. Bauer was sitting in her chair with a spoon in her good hand with which she was eating a bowl of cereal. She looked up and said angrily in her slurred voice, “I always told her that no good would come from that marriage.” She made a noise that sounded like “Phht” and slammed her spoon into the bowl.

  I had a momentary image of that hand with a baseball bat in it ... Nah, couldn't be, although she was pretty mobile in that wheelchair.

  "Who's supposed to take care of me when Divinia leaves?” She made that noise again and said contemptuously, “Penny is as useless as her mother."

  Divinia pulled me into a back bedroom. Penny was cowering in a corner of the bed with a look of sheer terror on her face. I knelt down so as to make eye contact with her and said gently, “Penny, your mom wants me to make sure you're okay."

  No response.

  Idiot! I thought to myself. She's so not okay. I looked up at Divinia, the mother of three, seeking inspiration, as children are not my forte. But Divinia, while she might have known what to do with her own children, was standing back with her arms folded across her chest, looking to me, the professional, for my expert advice.

  "I'm going to have to call Children's Services,” I said to her.

  That did it. Penny sprang to her knees and howled like a feral creature, “No! Don't call them! Call the police and tell them to take me away. I did it! I killed him. Not her."

  Whoa! What the hell was going on here? “What are you talking about, Penny?” I asked

  She wrapped her arms around her skinny chest and rocked back and forth for a minute as tears collected around her eyes. Finally, in a low voice, she said: “I followed her over there. He was yelling at her, calling her a ... a ... leech and a bloodsucker.” She rocked harder, the words bubbling like escaping steam through the tears that were now running down her face. “I waited till she left, and then I picked up the baseball bat and ... and ... did it."

  "Why did you do it?"

  She gave me a look of pure anguish, threw herself face down onto the bed and began beating her fists against the blanket. “I did it! I did it! I did it!"

  I was afraid that frail little body would snap in half. I sat down next to her and gently began to rub her back. “It's okay, Penny,” I murmured softly. “It's okay."

  I tried to lift her onto my lap, but I wasn't the one from whom she wanted comfort. She wrenched herself away from me and started sobbing again.

  "It's okay, Penny,�
�� I murmured again, and then added because I didn't know what else to say, “I'll call the police."

  I got Steve on my cell phone and told him what happened. “I don't really believe she murdered him,” I added. “But I think she needs her mother so desperately, she's willing to go to jail for her if it will keep Madeline safe."

  "This I need?” Steve said, as if appealing to the capricious God of Cops who was giving him a particularly hard time. “Give me a nice, clean drug whack any day. Dealers offing dealers. That's what I like. This domestic stuff drives me crazy."

  "How about getting her a psych eval, Steve?"

  He sighed. “Yeah, I already thought of that. I'll see you soon."

  Later, after Steve and his partner, Bobby Ortiz, had been and gone, taking Penny with them, I decided to pay a visit to Roxy. Somebody had to look out for that little girl.

  It was a cold and cloudless day, and the sun shining directly overhead made the pieces of broken glass and used crack vials that were lying all over the vacant lot glitter as though they were on fire. I picked my way through it all and knocked on the door. “Roxy! Are you in there?"

  "If you want to come in, you'd better open the door,” I heard her say from inside. “I can't."

  I slid the door open and went in.

  The inside of the van was a techie's delight—amps and speakers and sound equipment as far as the eye could see. Roxy was standing just to the side of a thick metal ring, which was screwed into the wall of the van, slightly above her shoulder. But it was a different Roxy, a slender, delicate Roxy, her face scrubbed clean of the layers of punk-style makeup I had always seen it covered in. She was wearing jeans and a thin black sweater. Her wrists were tightly handcuffed together and she was holding them under her chin, almost in an attitude of prayer, like the bas relief of the Virgin Mary that hung on the wall of Our Lady of Perpetual Sorrows Church a few blocks away. The handcuffs were attached by a very short chain to the ring, making it impossible for her to sit, or even move more than a couple of inches.

  "Would you get me a muffin from the bag on the floor?” she said when she saw me. “I'm famished."

  I stared at her, shocked and bewildered. Did Madeline know just how dysfunctional her family really was? Roxy must have seen my expression because a corner of her mouth went up and she said, “Oh, this is just something Fredo and I do."

  "Roxy, this goes beyond fun and games. It's still dangerous around here. Anyone could walk in and really hurt you, or kill you. Don't you realize that?"

  "There's no safe place in this world,” she declared, as if this should have been obvious, even to a dimwit like myself. “If someone wants to do something to you badly enough, they'll find a way to do it."

  What was she talking about? What kinds of things did Fredo do to her?

  "Besides,” she went on with a sigh. “I get so tired always having to be responsible for everything—the music, the PR, the bookings, the band, life—everything. When I'm like this,” she gestured with her cuffed hands, “anything that happens is on someone else's head. It's, like, so relaxing."

  I heard a noise behind me. I whirled around and there was Fredo. He shot me a look of pure malice, pulled a knife out of his pocket, flipped it open, and came toward me. “What are you doing here?” he growled.

  I stepped back, and then realized I couldn't go anywhere since he was between me and the door.

  "Oh, Fredo, stop being such a Neanderthal,” Roxy said sharply. Her words stopped him in his track. She turned her head in my direction and repeated the question: “Why are you here?"

  "Can he put that thing away?” I asked nervously.

  "Fredo, lose the damned knife!” she commanded. He flipped the knife closed and reluctantly put it back into his pocket. “So?” she asked, shifting her shoulders to ease the strain on them. “What do you want?"

  My eyes kept darting back and forth between the two of them. Whatever was going on here was way beyond me. Better just stick to my agenda. “Did you know your mother was arrested?” I asked.

  "Oh God!” she wailed. “Can't she do anything right?” She turned her head toward Fredo. “Can you please get me a muffin?"

  Fredo looked around, his eyes finally resting on a greasy paper bag that was lying on the floor.

  "I asked her for one,” Roxy gestured with her chin in my direction, “but she's too freaked out."

  Fredo reached over to the bag, pulled out a muffin, and began to tear off pieces, which he then fed to Roxy as if he was performing a sacred act.

  "Penny was supposed to call me if Madeline got arrested,” she said after she had wolfed down most of the muffin. “But did she?” Her voice was a scathing indictment of Penny's failures.

  "Penny's in a bad way,” I said.

  "When isn't Penny in a bad way?” she snapped. “Why do I always have to clean up after everyone?"

  "Roxy,” I said, “it's a little more serious than that. Penny confessed to the murder of your father this morning."

  "What?” she exploded.

  "She's already in custody. She's with a police psychiatrist right now."

  "Oh God!” She lifted her eyes up to the heavens and clasped her cuffed hands more tightly to her chest. If you ignored the handcuffs and the chain, she could have been the Virgin Mother praying for the deliverance of her Son. “Fredo, unlock this thing. I gotta get down there and get her out."

  "Why does it always have to be you?” he growled. “Why don't you let them all drown in their own shit?"

  She ignored him and went on as if delivering a list of grievances: “Madeline would get herself arrested: That's her karma. Penny does one dumb thing after another, like starving herself and playing the martyr. And grandma eats them all up and spits them out for breakfast. What is it with that family?” She shook her wrists and the handcuffs rattled. “Come on, Fredo,” she said sharply. “I gotta get down to the police station before some idiot psychiatrist traumatizes my poor little sister any more than she is already."

  Reluctantly, Fredo unclipped the handcuffs from the ring, took a key ring out of his pocket, and unlocked them. She rubbed her wrists a few times and rotated her shoulders.

  "How will you get her out?” I asked, realizing with a jolt that I didn't question for a minute Roxy's ability to accomplish anything she set her mind to do.

  She shrugged. “I'll have to tell them what really happened."

  I stared at her. “You know what really happened?"

  "I should. I killed the bastard myself.” She took a deep breath and let it out. “It was the only way to stop him."

  That stopped me. I sank down into an old plastic chair after throwing the coils of cable that covered it onto the floor.

  Roxy peered at me anxiously, then said to Fredo, “Get her some water. She looks like she's gonna faint, for God's sake."

  "Get it yourself!” Fredo growled. But he could no more disobey her than he could voluntarily stop breathing. There was a bottle of spring water standing on a pile of amps. He began routing around a small metal cabinet for, I could only assume, a cup or glass.

  "I'm okay,” I said. “I don't need any water. I'm ... I just can't wrap my mind around this.” Was she telling the truth? “Why did you do it?"

  She picked up a black leather jacket that was hanging on the back of another chair and thrust her arms into it. Then she looked at me for a moment, as if deciding whether or not she should tell me about it. “He was a pig!” she finally said. “He started coming onto me as soon as I started developing tits. ‘You should learn about love from someone who loves you,’ is what he used to say to me.” For a moment she stood stock still and her eyes filled with pain. “He was my father, for God's sake!” Then she shrugged, as if it was just plain silly to expect anything more from her father than she did from anyone else. “So I got out of there fast and went as far as I could. I wasn't worried about Penny because she wasn't hot enough for him, if you know what I mean."

  I nodded.

  "A couple of months ago
he came out West to see me perform. Afterward, he came backstage and started on me all over again.” Her lip curled again in total disgust. “You can imagine what I said about that.” She took a deep breath and let it out. “Then he got real cute and told me he'd start on Penny if I didn't let him ‘do it to me.’ He was past the ‘making love’ stage. He just wanted to ‘do it to me.’”

  "Oh God!” The whole thing made me sick to my stomach.

  "And that stupid Madeline!” she went on, her voice full of contempt. “What a wimp! I knew she couldn't protect Penny if Paul really set his sights on her. So what else could I do?"

  "You could have gone to the police, or the courts, or ACS, or something,” I said in my best social worker voice.

  "Yeah, right,” she said. “And they would have helped how?"

  I couldn't really think of an answer to that one. So I changed the subject. “Everyone thinks you came East for the funeral, but you actually came before then."

  "Yeah,” she shrugged. “I wanted to talk to the bastard. But it was nobody else's business. So I borrowed a friend's ID and took a flight to New York."

  "So what happened?"

  Fredo, who'd been leaning against the wall chewing on his lip, suddenly came to life. “Don't tell her anything!” he barked at Roxy.

  She rolled her eyes at him. “Use your head for once. I'm going to confess, for God's sake. The whole thing is going to come out anyway.” She rubbed her wrists a few times and said: “I think we should loosen up on those handcuffs a little next time. My damn wrists are burning."

  "So, Roxy, what happened?” I needed to get away from that image of her in those handcuffs that I still found so disturbing.

  She opened a jar of something and rubbed it into her short blond hair, spiking it up. Then she contemplated me for a moment and said, “People tell you things, huh?"

  I nodded. “I'm a social worker."

  She shook her head. “I don't mean you, the social worker. I wouldn't tell most social workers the time of day. I mean you, personally. People tell you things."