Miracle Creek: A Novel

by Angie Kim

  “That won’t change anything.”

  “Fine. If you still feel like this tomorrow, we can go to the judge. But you need to really think this through. You owe me that much.”

  Elizabeth nodded and said, “Okay. Tomorrow,” even though she knew she wouldn’t change her mind. They could throw her in prison and melt the key into a metallic puddle and she wouldn’t care. Thinking this, knowing everything would end soon, Elizabeth felt her panic of the past moments lift, restoring her senses. It was like when your foot falls asleep, the numbness turning to tingling, itching, then pain as it awakens, except it was happening to her whole body. Suddenly, she was aware of her sweat, the stickiness around her hairline, the wetness under her arms. “I’m going to the bathroom. I need some water on my face.” She left without waiting for a response.

  She saw Young almost immediately, in a phone booth a few steps away. From her angle, she could see the side of Young’s face, sallow and pasty, the way her shoulders drooped like a marionette with cut strings. She thought of Young pushing Pak’s wheelchair into court, the man who became paralyzed because he tried to help Henry and Kitt. And now her own lawyer was vilifying him, all to divert blame away from her.

  Elizabeth stopped and waited for Young. After a few minutes, Young hung up and came out. The moment their eyes met, Young gasped, her eyes widening in surprise. No. It was more than surprise. It was fear. And something else she couldn’t quite make out—lips quivering, knitted brow, eyes drooping at the outer edges. It looked like sorrow and repentance, but that didn’t make sense. She must be misreading it, like when you stare at a word too long, and even a simple word like are looks foreign and you no longer know how to pronounce it. The expression on Young’s face had to be pure hostility for putting her family through misery.

  Elizabeth stepped toward her. “Young, I want you to know how sorry I am. I didn’t know that my lawyer was going to blame Pak. Please tell him how sorry I am. I wish this week had never happened. I promise this’ll be over soon.”

  “Elizabeth, I am…” Young bit her lip and looked away, as if unsure what to say. “I hope this will end very soon,” Young finally said before walking away.

  Tomorrow, Elizabeth wanted to call out. I’m pleading guilty tomorrow. The words were bursting out of her. “I’m pleading guilty tomorrow,” she said, softly, but aloud. It was ridiculous. She was getting sent to death row, not getting married. Still, now that she’d decided, her relief was ballooning into excitement, making her wish she had a friend to share it with. Plus, apologizing to Young had siphoned out some of her guilt. This confirmed it. She was right to want to end everything as soon as possible.

  She went into the bathroom, took some toilet paper, and wiped the sweat off her face. On her way out, she ran into Shannon and Andrew, who were going to meet with the judge. Anna was still in the room, on the phone. When she walked in, Anna closed her laptop and mouthed, “One minute—I’ll be right outside,” and left.

  Elizabeth sat at the table and put her hands by the fan to cool off. Anna’s laptop was sitting on some papers, and she was tempted to read it. No. None of it mattered. Their strategies, arguments, witnesses—irrelevant. She looked around and saw her purse next to Shannon’s purse and briefcase in the corner. She’d been wondering where she left that. As she went to get it, she saw a legal notepad in Shannon’s briefcase pocket. It was crooked, and a partial phrase peeked out. GUILTY PLEA CH—

  Guilty plea change? Guilty plea chance? Guilty plea chat?

  Elizabeth moved the notepad with one finger, just enough to make out the phrase. In Shannon’s neat handwriting, on the top left corner, read GUILTY PLEA CHALLENGE? She lifted the notepad out. It was a bullet-point list in Shannon’s handwriting:

  • VA guilty plea req.—“knowing, voluntary & intelligent” met if mentally incompetent? (Anna)

  • Precedent for challenging own client’s guilty plea on competence grounds (Andrew) (Pull cases re: guilty plea as “fraud on the court”)

  • Conflict of interest, need to withdraw first?—ethical rules (Anna)

  • Mental competence evaluation—mtng Dr. C tonight! (Shannon)

  Guilty plea. Mental competence. Challenging own client’s guilty plea. Her throat tightened, the collar of her blouse pressing into her neck, making her gag. She undid the top button and breathed in deeply to take oxygen into her lungs.

  Let’s sleep on it, just to make sure, Shannon had said. If you still want to, we’ll go see the judge tomorrow, she’d said. But she wasn’t planning to let Elizabeth plead guilty. Not tomorrow. Not ever. Shannon was launching an offensive against her own client. She was planning to say Elizabeth was crazy, she was defrauding the court—anything she needed to keep the trial going. She was going to drag Elizabeth back and make her watch the rest of Henry’s video. She was going to force Teresa to testify about the shameful thoughts they’d shared in secret. She was going to lie about Victor or whoever was convenient and accuse them of abuse. She was going to blame Pak and drag him through the mud, and worse, she was going to use the protesters to do it.

  The protesters. Ruth Weiss. ProudAutismMom. Thinking of that woman, she felt the familiar punch of hatred so strong that she got dizzy, had to touch the wall for balance. That woman had burned Elizabeth’s little boy, all because she wanted to make a point, to proselytize her “autism theory” (nothing more than a justification for her own parenting style, in reality). And it was Elizabeth’s own fault for not stopping her. That woman had stalked her on autism chat boards, threatening and bad-mouthing her, even going to CPS, and Elizabeth had ignored the escalation and let it get out of control, enabling that woman to take extreme action without fear of consequence. And now, because of her own inaction and cowardice, Ruth Weiss had gotten away with murder and was poised to bring more pain to another of her victims, Pak.

  No. She couldn’t let that happen.

  She stood up and paced. She needed to get out, but there was no window to climb out, and Anna was right outside the door. Even if she could somehow get out of the building, what could she do? She didn’t have a car, and it wasn’t like taxis were roaming the streets. She could call one, but it might not get here before people realized she was gone. Still, she had to try.

  She went to get her purse. As she reached, Shannon’s purse next to it moved and its contents shifted. It was as if the jangling inside loosened some deep-seated image in Elizabeth’s mind. An image of herself doing something she should’ve done long ago.

  She gripped Shannon’s purse and stood up. She knew exactly where she needed to go and what she needed to do. She just had to do it. Quickly, before anyone caught her. Before she could change her mind.

  MATT

  MATT AND JANINE WAITED FOR ABE outside the judge’s chambers standing side by side. Another couple stood nearby, younger, and from their frequent kissing and joint admiring of her ring, he guessed they were waiting to be married. They probably thought he and Janine were getting divorced—Janine’s face was all frown, and she kept whisper-yelling, “Tell me right now. What the fuck are we doing here?” while he stayed silent, shaking his head.

  It wasn’t that he didn’t want to tell her. The problem was, he knew Janine. Knew she’d argue for not telling Abe the full truth—her being there that night, for example, or his smoking with Mary. Knew she’d tell him to plan and practice his exact wording. And the thing was, he was sick of it, the hiding, scheming, enumerating facts, and on and on. He needed to face Abe and spew it all out, fuck the consequences.

  Abe and Shannon walked out, each with an underling. “Abe, I need to talk to you, right now,” Matt said.

  “Sure, we’re adjourned for the day. We can use this room.” Abe opened the door to a conference room across the hall.

  Shannon raised an eyebrow, and it occurred to Matt: she needed to know, too, even more than Abe. But how much of his confession would survive Abe’s legal-technicalities filter and actually reach her? And wasn’t that why he hadn’t told Janine first, to
bypass any conspiratorial shenanigans? He said, “Ms. Haug, you, too. I need to talk to you both, together.”

  Abe shook his head. “That’s not a good idea. Let’s first—”

  “No,” Matt said, sure more than ever that Shannon needed to hear this. “I won’t say anything unless we’re all in the same room. And trust me, you want to hear this.” He walked into the room, pulling Janine along, and Shannon followed. Abe stood in the doorway, glaring and fuming.

  Shannon positioned her legal pad and said, “Shall we get started?” She said to Abe, “If you’re leaving, would you close the door behind you?”

  Abe’s eyes scrunched into an I’d-like-nothing-better-than-to-kill-you-right-now look before he stepped in and sat across from Matt. He didn’t take out a pad or pen, just leaned back, crossed his arms, and said to Matt, “All right, let’s have it.”

  Matt reached for Janine’s hand under the table. She snatched it away, pursing her lips like she tasted something bitter and was trying not to spit it out. Matt took in a deep breath. “The insurance call. You know, the one about arson.”

  Abe uncrossed his arms and leaned forward.

  “I remembered something. Mary had access to my car. She knew where I kept a spare key.” He looked at Abe. “English with no accent.”

  “Wait,” Shannon said. “Are you saying—”

  “Also,” Matt said, afraid he wouldn’t be able to continue if he stopped, “Mary smoked cigarettes last summer. Camels.”

  Abe said, “And you know this because…”

  “We did it together. Smoking, I mean.” Matt felt heat burst in his cheeks, and he willed his capillaries to constrict and stop the blood from rushing to his skin’s surface. “I’m not a smoker, but one day, on a whim, I got cigarettes and I was smoking before a dive and Mary happened to show up and I gave her one.”

  “So just once, then,” Abe said, more a statement than a question.

  Matt looked at Janine, her face infused with dread and hope, and he thought about last night, his telling her it was just that once. “No. I got in the habit of smoking by the creek, and she was out there sometimes, so I’d see her. Maybe a dozen times the whole summer.”

  Janine’s mouth opened in an O at her realization that he’d lied last night. Again.

  “And you both smoked, every time?” Shannon said.

  Matt nodded.

  “Camels?” Shannon said.

  Matt nodded. “And yes, I bought them at a 7-Eleven.”

  “Jesus,” Abe said, shaking his head and looking down like he wanted to punch the table.

  Shannon said, “So the Camels and matches Elizabeth found—”

  “Allegedly found,” Abe said.

  Shannon swatted the air like Abe was a gnat, keeping her focus on Matt. “What do you know about those, Dr. Thompson?”

  Matt felt a surge of gratitude toward Shannon for not asking the questions he was dreading, about what else happened during these “meetings” (sure to be said with tonal quotes) and exactly how old Mary was. He looked Shannon straight in the eye and said, “The cigarettes and matches were mine, what I bought.”

  “And the H-Mart note about meeting at 8:15?” Shannon said.

  “Mine. I left that for Mary. I wanted to stop. Quit, I mean. The smoking. And I figured I should let her know, and apologize, you know, for getting her into a bad habit, so I sent her that note, and she wrote ‘Yes’ and left it for me the morning of the explosion.”

  “Jesus frigging Christ,” Abe said, looking at a blank spot on the wall and shaking his head. “All those times I brought up the H-Mart note, and you…” Abe shut his lips.

  “So how did they get out into the woods where Elizabeth found them?” Shannon said.

  This was where he had to tread lightly. It was one thing to purge yourself of your own story, damn the consequences, but this next part was Janine’s story, not his. He glanced at Janine. She was staring blankly at the table, her face drained of color like a refrigerated cadaver. “I’m not sure why that’s relevant,” Matt said. “She found them where she found them. Why does it matter how they got there?”

  “It matters because the prosecution here”—Shannon glared at Abe—“has said repeatedly that the cigarettes and matches Elizabeth had were used to set the fire. So we need to know who else had them and could’ve used them before discarding the rest for her to find.”

  Matt said, “Well, I was sealed up in HBOT, so I couldn’t—”

  “I took them. I gave them to Mary,” Janine said. Matt didn’t look at her, didn’t want to see her eyes welling with fury at him for putting her in this situation.

  “What? When?” Shannon said.

  “Around eight, before the explosion.” Janine’s voice had a slight shake to it, like she was cold and shivering, and Matt wanted to take her in his arms and transfer his warmth. “I suspected there was something … someone Matt … Anyway, that day, I went through Matt’s car—glove box, trash on the floor, trunk, everything—and I found them.”

  Matt reached for her hand and squeezed it. She could’ve just said she found the note, but she didn’t. It felt like forgiveness, her admitting to snooping through his stuff, giving details. Like she was saying it wasn’t all his fault; they both did stupid things.

  “Are you saying you went to Miracle Creek that night?” Shannon said.

  Janine nodded. “I didn’t tell Matt. I just wanted to see what this meeting was. Anyway, the dive was running late—Matt called to let me know—and I saw Mary, so I stopped her and gave her everything and told her she was a bad influence and to leave him alone, and I left.”

  “Let me get this straight,” Shannon said. “Less than thirty minutes before the explosion, Mary Yoo was by herself, close to the barn, in possession of Camel cigarettes and 7-Eleven matches. That’s what you’re telling me?”

  Janine looked down and nodded.

  Shannon turned to Abe. “Are you dropping the charges? Because if not, I’m moving for a mistrial.”

  “What?” Abe stood, the color that had drained from his face returning. “Don’t be melodramatic. Just because there was some hanky-panky going on here doesn’t mean your client’s innocent. Far from it.”

  “There was deliberate obstruction of justice, not to mention perjury. On the stands. By your star witness.”

  “No, no, no. Whose cigarette it was, whose note—these are fun little side mysteries. Your client wanted to get rid of her son, and she was alone with the weapons in hand at the time the fire was set, and nothing that’s been said here changes any of that.”

  Shannon said, “Except that Mary Yoo is now—”

  “Mary Yoo is a kid who almost died in the explosion.” Abe pounded his fist on the table, sending Shannon’s pen rolling. “She had no motive whatsoev—”

  “No motive? Hello? Have you heard anything they’ve said? A teenager, having an affair with a married man. Gets jilted, confronted by the wife. Totally humiliated, furious, wants to just kill the guy who, oh, by the way, happens to be inside the thing she sets an explosion to. Are you kidding me? It’s classic murder-mystery stuff, not to mention the nice little side benefit of 1.3 million dollars from the insurance she herself called to verify.”

  “We didn’t have an affair,” Matt managed to say, though not loudly, and Shannon whipped her head his way. “What?”

  He started to repeat himself, but Janine cut in, said something, but quietly, looking down, almost murmuring, something about the call.

  Abe seemed to have heard. He stared at her, said, “What did you say?” Shock flowed through his words, his face.

  Janine closed her eyes, let out a deep breath, and opened them again. She looked at Abe. “I made the call. It wasn’t Mary. You were right; Matt and I switched phones that day.”

  Abe’s mouth opened, in slow motion, then froze, no words coming out.

  Janine turned to Matt. “I invested a hundred thousand dollars in Pak’s business.”

  Invested $100,000? Janine calling about
arson? These were so far afield from anything he’d expected that his brain couldn’t make sense of them, couldn’t process how they fitted into any of this. Matt stared at his wife’s lips through which those words had come, the dilated black pupils covering almost the entirety of her irises, the earlobes that dangled bright red from her cheeks, all the elements of her face tilting in different directions like one of those Cubist portraits.

  Janine continued. “I thought it was a good investment. He had patients lined up, and they’d all signed contracts and paid deposits, and—”

  Matt blinked. “You took our money? Is that what you’re saying? Without telling me?”

  “We’d been fighting a lot and I didn’t want another fight. You were so against HBOT, you were irrational about it. I thought you’d say no, but it seemed like such a no-brainer. Pak was going to pay us back first, so we’d have all our money back in four months, before you even missed it, and then we’d get a share of the profits going forward. We had all that money just sitting in our accounts, and it wasn’t like we needed it.”

  Shannon cleared her throat. “Look, I can give you the name of a good marriage counselor to work this out, but let’s get back to the arson call. What does all this have to do with that call?” she said, and Matt felt another wave of gratitude to her. For forcing his attention away from the fact that his wife had lied yet again, all because she didn’t want the bother of a potential fight. Was that better or worse than why he’d lied—because he didn’t want to stop meeting a girl?

  Janine said, “A few weeks after the dives started, Pak said he found a pile of cigarette butts and matches in the woods. He figured it was just teenagers, but he was worried about them smoking near the barn, and he wanted my advice about whether to put up warnings about oxygen and smoking being forbidden. We discussed it and decided against it, but it made me nervous about our money. In the beginning, Pak didn’t want to get insurance, and I had to tell him I wouldn’t invest unless he did. And it occurred to me—what if he got some bare-bones policy to appease me, and it didn’t cover random kids setting fire to the barn for the hell of it? So I called, and the guy assured me arson coverage is included in all their policies, and that was that.”