“That’s family business,” Holten said.
“I agree. But fair is fair. I’ve kept a lot of stuff out of court for you. Now the Rae girl wants to be heard. We’re going to hear this petition, and we’re going to hear from Mr. Neiben.”
“That man is a liar,” Holten said, backing away from the bench and glancing at the exit. “I’m calling my attorney.”
Kristen touched Marydale’s hand.
“You’re making a mistake, Kip,” Relington said before following Holten toward the door.
When the door closed behind them, Judge Spencer said, “Now, Mr. Neiben, if you’re ready, come forward.”
Neiben walked slowly down the center aisle, his feet barely lifting off the worn carpet. He took the stand like a man on the gallows.
“I am.” He wiped his forehead, then rubbed his hand on his pants.
“How are you related to the case?”
“I was Marydale…Ms. Rae’s public defender.”
“And in that capacity, did you do your due diligence to effect a positive outcome for Ms. Rae’s case?”
Neiben looked around the courtroom. Marydale felt his gaze dart away from her. Above Judge Spencer’s head the wall clock froze between seconds. Eric Neiben was going to lie. Marydale’s head throbbed. Her ears rang. She wondered if the adrenaline coursing through her body could actually poison her. There was no proof. There was no paperwork. No one wrote a receipt for a bribe. Neiben would say no, and the judge would believe him.
Then Kristen would clutch her hand, not knowing when they would touch again, or maybe she would just look down at her papers. Neither of them would cry. It was all too big, too final. Kristen, Portland, the distillery, the Tristess: Marydale felt it all slipping away. In their place was a cell and then life in a county where she’d be lucky to find someone willing to rent her a filthy apartment at double the price because no one wanted a felon living around decent, law-abiding citizens.
She hung her head. The second hand strained, then clicked forward. Neiben cleared his throat.
“I took a bribe to lose Marydale Rae’s case,” he said.
Marydale looked up sharply. She waited for a clue that she had misheard. Kristen mouthed, Yes.
“And who offered you that bribe?” Spencer asked.
“Ronald Holten.”
“How do you know it was him?”
“I met him. He gave me five thousand dollars in cash before the case went to trial and again after Marydale was convicted. My daughter was…She’d been in an accident. We needed the money.”
“Can you describe how you perpetrated this fraud on the court?”
Eric Neiben took an index card out of his shirt pocket and proceeded in a monotone. His explanation took a long time. “Any good defense attorney would have called for a forum non conveniens…have investigated the police department’s reports on the case…”
While Marydale did not understand all the terminology, she understood the story.
“Intent was determined based on Ms. Rae’s alleged invitation…Her seduction of Aaron Holten was no more than hearsay…If she had taken the stand…”
When Neiben had finished, Spencer asked, “I find it hard to believe that Mr. Holten specifically told you to lose. He’s a man of his word and a pillar of this community.”
Neiben checked his index card. “He said he wanted the right result. He made it really clear what that was.”
“Do you think you achieved the right result?”
Neiben’s voice grew rough. “I always thought Marydale was the victim, not Aaron.”
“That is also what your written testimony suggests,” Spencer said. “Mr. Neiben, you may sit down.”
Kristen stood up quickly. “Your Honor, may I question Mr. Neiben?” Kristen asked.
Judge Spencer held up his hand. “I think you’ve done enough, Ms. Brock.”
“Your Honor, I have a right to—”
“Hold your horses, Councilor. Sit down.” Judge Spencer took out a laptop from beneath his table and typed something.
“I will file a due-process complaint,” Kristen said.
Marydale felt Kristen clutch the back of her chair.
Judge Spencer closed his laptop and propped his elbows on the table in front of him.
“Ms. Rae?” he began, looking directly at her.
“Yes, sir?”
“Stand up when I’m talking to you.”
Marydale stood up.
“Aaron Holten was a young man. He wasn’t a perfect man, but he was a young man with a future ahead of him, and you took that from him. He never had a chance to raise a family, to carry on his name, to make amends. Do you understand what that means?”
Marydale lifted her chin, feeling her hair drape over her shoulders, unkempt but golden. She could feel Trumpet’s saddle beneath her. If you lose, she heard her mother whisper, you ride out tall. She took a deep breath. She knew what happened in courts, in jails, in prisons, in one parole office after another.
“Yes, sir,” she said.
“And your…ways, your life choices, made it very difficult for some people in this town to accept you. You can’t burn a flag or spit on a Bible and not expect someone around here to step in and say that’s just plain wrong.”
“I would never burn our flag,” Marydale said. “And I would never defile a Bible.”
“Oh, I think a lot of people would say you already have, Ms. Rae…metaphorically speaking.”
Judge Spencer paused, looked at his laptop, then hit one more key. “But,” he added with a sigh. “The law is the law, and I am sworn to weigh the facts and make just findings given the evidence presented.”
He looked past Marydale to the small group of people assembled behind her. “And while I know there isn’t one father or uncle out there who wouldn’t do what Ronald Holten did to get justice for that boy, I find substantial denial of Ms. Rae’s constitutional rights. On account of her attorney’s failure to provide effective council and in light of Mr. Neiben’s confession of tampering with the court, I hold the original verdict in the State of Oregon v. Marydale Rae void. Ms. Rae, your post-conviction relief is granted. You are released from your obligations to the state. I will draft my official statement by the end of the week. You are now free to go.” He nodded to the transport guard from the penitentiary. “I have alerted Holten Penitentiary that you will be returning without Ms. Rae.”
The guard rose, thanked Judge Spencer, and walked out. The judge gave a curt nod and stood up. A moment later he had disappeared into the judge’s chambers. The court was silent.
“Is that it?” Marydale asked. She was waiting for Spencer to reappear, to say that there was an exception, a loophole, a technicality. She was still guilty. Holten Penitentiary owned her, and they were taking her back
“Yes,” Kristen said, and hugged her. Marydale could feel her strength and smell the faint hint of sweat. “We did it,” Kristen said, her voice warm with tears. She pulled away. “Thank you,” she said to Neiben.
He sat facing the bench, his index card clutched in one hand. He glanced over. “I’m sorry.” Neiben sank his head in his hands.
“What’s going to happen to him?” Marydale asked quietly.
Kristen put her hand on Marydale’s back. “Come on,” she said. “He did what he had to do.”
A moment later, Aldean and Sierra and her friends crowded around them.
“We won!” Kristen said.
Aldean flung his arms around Marydale. “Star of the show,” he said. “Just like old times.”
Beside them, Sierra hugged Kristen. “I knew you could do it,” she exclaimed.
As the group congratulated each other, Marydale slipped out the side door, unconsciously scanning the area for Gulu or Holten or a guard. She knelt down to touch the brown grass that pushed through cracks in the pavement, then pulled a blade and touched it to her lips.
Kristen appeared at her side. “I told them you might need a minute,” she said.
Marydale wanted to tell her how grateful she felt and how stunned. She felt like she could breathe in the whole sky, and she felt like she should sit down lest she fly away into the atmosphere. But she didn’t have the words, so she flung her arms around Kristen and squeezed her and picked her up for a second.
“I can’t believe it,” she said.
Half an hour later, Marydale rolled down the window of Kristen’s car. There was a spring dampness in the air. In a few weeks the wildflowers would bloom on the Summit, hidden among the rocks where the frost didn’t reach them. The birds would migrate through the wetlands on the Harney County line. Then would come calving season, then the rodeo. She could see her mother riding out on Trumpet, his white tail swirling behind him.
They said nothing until they reached the Firesteed Summit and the world stretched out beneath them like a quilt.
“This is where we released my father’s ashes.” Marydale felt the wind blowing up through the gorge. “He said you can’t bury a cowboy in the yard behind the church. And Aldean and I…we threw my mother’s ashes here, too.”
Tentatively, Kristen slipped her fingers through Marydale’s.
“I think Tristess is changing,” Kristen said. “No matter what Ronald Holten thinks. I don’t think what happened to you would happen again.”
“I don’t know,” Marydale said.
“Do you ever want to move back?” Kristen asked.
“I was seventeen when I was convicted,” Marydale said. “I don’t even know who I’d be if I was still here.”
Kristen squeezed her hand. “I’m so sorry.”
“It’s life,” Marydale said. “‘The past is the past,’ that’s what my mother used to say.” She picked through the words carefully, trying to remember the saying her mother had stitched onto a sampler in the living room. “‘The present is a gift…’”
When Marydale looked over, Kristen was crying.
“What is it?” she asked.
Kristen dropped her hand. “Don’t you see?” Kristen’s tears were at odds with the perfect whisper of blush on her cheekbones, her perfect taupe lipstick, her tiny pearl earrings, everything controlled and arranged.
“See what?”
“I should have stayed.” When Marydale didn’t speak, Kristen said, “If I’d have stayed, maybe you wouldn’t have had to go through all this. I should have fought for you then. Maybe we could have done all this five years ago.” She took off her glasses and rubbed her eyes, smearing her perfect makeup.
Marydale put her hands on Kristen’s arms, holding her and holding her away at the same time. She examined Kristen’s face, her thin lips, her restrained beauty, like the tiny wildflowers, at first indiscernible and then breathtaking. Then she pulled Kristen close.
“We don’t know what would have happened.”
Kristen leaned into Marydale’s embrace. “When I first got back to Portland, I had this clock in my mind,” she said. “A day. I knew you could forgive me for leaving for a day. Maybe a week? I don’t know when it tipped, but one day I was running down by the river. It was rainy. Everyone was out, biking and running with their dogs. And it hit me. I’d waited too long. I can’t even remember how long it was. Three months? Six months? I just sat down on a bench and cried. And now you can have any life you want. You can go anywhere you want.”
Marydale stroked Kristen’s hair, gazing over her shoulder out across the land. “I’ve been to Nevada. I’ve never even been to Vancouver, Washington.”
“It’s not great,” Kristen said.
“But you are,” Marydale said. “You were meant to be a lawyer and not here in Tristess. We don’t know what would have happened if you’d stayed. Maybe we would have been totally dysfunctional. Maybe we’d have adopted a couple of babies and then decided we hated each other. Maybe Eric wouldn’t have come forward. Maybe Judge Spencer would have said no. Maybe we wouldn’t have won five years ago. We don’t know.”
“But…” Kristen began.
“You lost your job. You were going to be partner.”
“It doesn’t matter.”
“It does,” Marydale said. “You did that for me. You beat the odds…for me.” She leaned in and kissed Kristen gently. “You’ve already put in a day’s work. How about we crash at the Almost Home and then head back to Portland tomorrow?”
Kristen hesitated. “Sierra told me something,” she said. “We don’t have to do this, but the couple who bought your house, they’ve turned it into a bed-and-breakfast. It just opened, and they’ve invited us all to stay.”
20
Gulch Creek Road had been paved all the way to Marydale’s driveway, only it wasn’t Marydale’s anymore. A sign at the end of the drive read TRISTESS B&B, and someone had planted a profusion of crocuses at its base. Kristen slowed the car and put on her blinker.
“Is this okay?” She tried to read Marydale’s face. “You sure you want to do this?”
“I don’t know.”
Kristen searched her face for a clue. “We could just stay at the Almost Home,” she offered. “If it’s too…hard. You should never have lost this house.”
They were idling in the middle of the road, but no one was coming.
Slowly Marydale shook her head. “I loved this house,” she said. “That was my parents’ house. I grew up there.”
Kristen flicked off the blinker. “We’ll go back to town.”
“No.” Marydale touched her leg. “No, I…I don’t know if I’ll ever come back here. Let’s go. Let’s see it.”
Kristen pulled to a stop in the freshly graded driveway. The HumAnarchists’ SUV was already parked in front of the house. She and Marydale got out of the car, and a woman appeared at the front door, wiping her hands on a faded apron, her long, gray-blond ponytail swinging behind her.
“Marydale Rae,” she called out, and her face bore such a look of tenderness, Kristen thought, for a moment, they knew each other. She hung back as Marydale approached the woman.
“I’m Annette,” the woman said. She put a hand on Marydale’s back, ushering her into the house as though Marydale were an old friend who had been lost in a storm and had now returned. “Please, come in,” Annette murmured to Marydale. She nodded to Kristen to follow.
Inside, the interior had been repainted in shades of sky blue with yellow and red accents along the molding and around the windowsills. Annette led Marydale into the kitchen and urged her to sit.
“Your friends are already here,” she said.
A tall, skinny man appeared in the doorway. He, too, had a long gray ponytail, although the top of his head was bald.
“This is my husband, Henry,” Annette said.
“We heard about what happened today.” Henry held out his hand to Marydale. “I’m so glad someone finally came up with the right verdict.”
“You heard?” Marydale asked.
“Small town. News travels.” He pulled up a chair. “I’m sorry.”
Annette placed a pitcher of ice tea on the table. Kristen felt as she sometimes did when interviewing witnesses; she didn’t want to breathe lest she disturb the moment unfolding before her.
“I used to teach up at the Correction Center in Gig Harbor,” Henry went on. “I know how a lot of those women got there. They weren’t all innocent, for sure, but I heard a lot of stories like yours. I realize it’s not right, the way we came by this house. You losing it because of that conviction.”
Marydale looked around the kitchen. Kristen thought she looked like someone waking from a coma, searching the walls for a clue as to just how much she had lost.
“It was nine hundred dollars,” Marydale said quietly.
“Nine hundred dollars?” Annette sat down across from her.
“That’s what I owed in taxes. I didn’t have the money. Aldean would have given it to me, but I didn’t get my mail. I was in jail for hanging out with this woman from Burnville. She wasn’t even gay, but my PO thought something was going on between us.”
Annette covered Ma
rydale’s hand with hers. “I’m sorry.”
Marydale pulled her hand away. “Did you know? Did you know what happened? Did you know why the house was for sale?”
Annette and Henry glanced at each other.
“We didn’t know,” Annette said, “not about you, not about the taxes. But I guess we did know, too. I come from a ranching family out in Avon, Montana. You don’t get land without taking it from someone else. You see a ranch for sale, especially a foreclosure or a government sale, and you know. I saw a lot of people lose their dreams that way.”
“And if you look back,” Henry added, “we all took it from the Indians. But you have a place here if you’ll take it. You can come here anytime you like. You and your friends. Free of charge. This is still your house.”
“Always,” Annette added.
“A bed-and-breakfast,” Marydale said. “Who wants to stay in Tristess?”
“Birders. Mountain climbers. We get a few bikers. We want folks from the city to come out here and see how beautiful it is. Maybe we can even bring some new folks into the area, like Sangheeta, who manages the Almost Home. She and her husband came out for a camping trip. They just loved it here, so they stayed.”
Kristen heard laughter outside the kitchen window. Sierra, Moss, and Frog were tromping across the yard with bundles of sticks.
“We sent them out to collect some juniper for the fire pit,” Annette said. “The Bureau of Land Management did a big juniper cut—it’s invasive—and the piles are just there for the taking. We try to recycle as much as we can.”
Sierra burst through the door, talking rapidly about a snake they had seen and a wall hanging she was planning on making out of juniper twigs.
Aldean followed a minute later, but his lack of twigs suggested he had not been among their party. And he had someone with him. It took Kristen only a second to place her: Aubrey. She stood a few paces behind Aldean, the baby in one arm, her little boy at her side. Marydale stood up, almost knocking her chair over in the process.
For Good Page 26
