by Jay Brandon
So what Edward greatly preferred, and what Linda mostly let him have, was the illusion that the two of them constituted their own family, complete. Edward had even proposed marriage once and Linda had put him off so gently she hadn’t answered at all. Edward came and went from her house and it sometimes seemed Linda was as happy to see him go as to see him in her bed.
One change in the last few weeks was that they talked about his family again. Linda was the first person with whom he shared the new news about his sister, for example.
She had a view of the news he hadn’t considered.
‘I don’t see what difference it makes,’ Linda said, frowning to concentrate. March had passed into April. The high temperature of the day had been ninety. Linda wore cut-offs she’d probably had since high school and a T-shirt from Colorado; she wore no bra underneath, so the Colorado shirt seemed to feature a view of the Rockies.
‘So she goes into her friends’ houses sometimes when they’re not there. So what?’
‘It makes her a criminal, see? It lets them argue that killing her husband wasn’t just a one-time fit of rage that doesn’t show her character at all. She’s someone who has no regard for any laws or anyone’s feelings.’
‘Why? Did she break anything? Did she take anything valuable? You said they have her fingerprints on a jewelry case, but no jewelry was missing. She just looked at it. She was just curious.’
‘It’s a series of crimes,’ Edward repeated, wondering how she could not get that significance.
‘Sounds more like a sickness to me.’
That was interesting. A sickness? Edward saw everything differently for a moment. Was there something wrong with Amy? What psychological deprivation made her unable to resist breaking into the houses of people she knew? Was this a strange strain of something like kleptomania? What led to that? A sort of emptiness that could never be filled? That quickly, he saw his sister completely differently from the way he always had. What kind of sad, deprived person was she? In the moment of Linda’s remark the whole story had changed, which was good. The prime goal of criminal defense was changing the narrative. The prosecution’s story line was always simple: depraved killer (rapist, robber, whatever) acts without restraint on her own desires, heedless that the act will deprive her victim of his life. To counter that, the defense needed to change, in jurors’ minds, the simple view of the act. Change the identity of the murderer or the character of the victim, or just the circumstances. Make the act a mistake, or self-defense, or an uncontrollable impulse.
He had to get Amy psychologically evaluated, by someone very good. Because whatever else she was, his sister was a very smart woman with medical training. Could anyone catch up to her on the twisty pathways of her mind?
‘Edward?’
He realized Linda had said his name more than once. He blinked at her, coming back into her living room.
‘Where did you go? Is that how it happens?’
‘How what happens?’ But he knew what she meant. Was that how he went absent when inspiration struck? ‘That was good,’ he said. ‘What you said about Amy. Good insight. Thanks, babe. You’re hired.’
Linda smiled. He smiled back. He leaned forward and their mouths eased into each other. But Edward was still living at a slight remove. Still turning over what Linda had said. He was looking forward to seeing Amy again, seeing if he saw her differently in real life now he knew this secret of hers.
Linda watched him with a secret smile of contentment, thinking she’d gained her own insight. Wondering how many people had seen Edward in moments like this. Her expression told him what she was thinking, her pride, her satisfaction. And he was glad to have given her that.
Amy looked about the same. Still that mix of tightly-pulled-together professional and surprised little girl look of pleasure as she opened the front door to him.
‘Come in, come in. Let’s go to the kitchen.’
She didn’t wait for an answer, just led him deeper into her house. It seemed to him more feminine now, with light, airy curtains over the windows. He glimpsed a flowered sofa as Amy led him down the hall; the place just had an overall lighter look. So he wondered if she was secretly glad to be rid of her messy, masculine husband. He detected no trace of the late Paul.
‘We need to talk about your case.’
‘Of course. You talked to the prosecutor.’
‘I did.’
‘So what’s the problem?’
Edward thought, Other than that they think you’re a murderer and a career criminal? He remembered what he’d learned in private practice, that he much preferred representing someone who knew himself to be a crook, instead of a regular citizen who couldn’t believe he’d blundered into the world of criminal law and kept insisting he didn’t belong there.
‘Your burglaries, Amy. That’s the problem. The fact the D.A. has evidence that you’ve been breaking into houses for years. That’s what they think takes you from being an ordinary angry-wife husband-killer to being someone worthy of a death sentence.’
He’d spoken harshly on purpose, to get her out of this confused-suburban-professional act she was pulling on him, but when he saw Amy’s face starting to crumple he added quickly, ‘Which they don’t expect to get, by the way, they don’t think there’s a chance, so I might be able to talk them out of the idea of trying you for that altogether.’
But it was too late, the damage was done. Her eyes filled with tears that quickly spilled over and ran down her cheeks. Amy brought a hand up to her mouth. He noticed fleetingly that her nails were bitten down.
‘What burglaries?’ she managed to get out.
He said gently, ‘That’s what they call it when you go into someone’s house without her permission when she’s not there. That’s what it looks like to a prosecutor, Amy.’
He took her other hand and held it, feeling the warmth grow from the joining of their flesh. In that moment he remembered comforting her as a child when no one else could. When she’d skinned her knee or lost a pet fish, when her parents couldn’t do what her big brother could; convince her that things were going to be all right. Bactine and affection had worked wonders for Amy, and no one could apply them like Edward could.
‘How do they—?’ She quickly skipped that question. Amy pulled her hand away from his, stood up and turned away. He realized she was embarrassed.
‘Amy.’ He said her name both to draw her back and to reassure her that he didn’t condemn her. This was one of a defense lawyer’s first jobs, to convince a client that he saw her as a human being, a good one, in spite of whatever charge she was facing, even in spite of whatever guilt she might admit to him. ‘We have to talk about this, Amy.’
‘OK,’ she said with her back to him. Then turned back around and sat, but now with her hands in her lap and her eyes watchful.
‘They have one report from one of your friends who actually found you in her house. She decided not to report you at the time, but apparently she’s come forward now. This was about three years ago, a woman named—’
‘Louise Donaldson.’
‘Yes.’
‘I went to a party at her house the night before and I’d lost an earring. Didn’t discover it until I was home, so the next day I went by to ask her if she’d found it, but nobody was home. I’d been out on her terrace at one point, so I went back there, through her gate, looked around, then tried the back door just for the hell of it and it turned out Louise had left it unlocked. So I went in to look around and she came home and found me.’
Edward just looked at her for a few seconds, then said what he’d say to a regular client. ‘That sounds like the cover story you had ready if someone came home while you were in the house.’ Amy looked down, so he continued. ‘So I assume your friend Louise bought the story, since she didn’t call the police.’
Amy shook her head, still looking down. When she answered she was almost whispering. ‘No, she didn’t. I could tell by the way she looked at me. “I never leave doors unlocke
d,” she kept saying. I said, “Well, you did this time. Or maybe one of the kids came out just before you left for school or whatever.” I could tell she didn’t buy it. But nothing was missing and I was someone she knew, so she just let it go. But she looked at me differently from then on. I wondered what she told people we knew.’
‘Now D.A.’s office investigators have examined the lock and found scratches that indicate it was picked.’ Edward said this very quietly, trying not to sound judgmental. He had a sudden urge to show her his own set of lock picks, see if she’d compare, but he hadn’t had them for years. ‘Which doesn’t mean much, this long after the fact. The scratches could have happened any time.’ After a pause, for a response from her that didn’t come, he asked, ‘What were you really looking for?’
Amy continued watching him, her eyes searching his face.
‘That’s a technique, isn’t it?’ she said to him. ‘Ask a question that assumes the client committed the crime, skip right over that big question and go to other issues like motive or something that also assumes the crime.’ Amy continued to study his face for another few seconds, then smiled slightly. ‘All right, I’ll let your technique work. I didn’t know what I was looking for. Just something to know about Louise besides that she was a wonderful hostess who made everything look easy and gracious. Some evidence that she had a child locked in a closet, or masturbated to Victorian porn, or just dropped her used Kleenexes on the floor. That’s all it was, Eddie, just a peek backstage.’
‘Did you find what you wanted?’
Amy just continued to smile at him. It was her secret, what she had on her friend; she had paid for it. He hadn’t.
So he tried another technique. ‘That wasn’t your first time, was it? How did you get started?’
Amy let enough silence pass to tell him she knew what he was doing but was still going to indulge him.
‘I had a boyfriend in college. You never met him. I was a little ashamed of him, actually. He was kind of crazy. But in a fun way, I thought. You know those early romances; you don’t quite know what’s normal yet, so bad crazy can look a lot like fun crazy?
‘Anyway, one time we went to see these friends of ours, who turned out not to be home. But Ben really wanted to get in, he thought there was … well, it doesn’t matter, but he wanted in, so he took me around the house. It was one of those little houses in Hyde Park in Austin. He went to the back, to a bedroom, looked around, then raised the window. I said, “How did you—?” and he grinned and said, “I unlocked it myself, last time I was here.”’
‘Was this daytime?’
‘Yes, it was a daring daylight break-in. But it was college, nobody had anything worth stealing. Ben looked around …’
For pot, Edward assumed.
‘… but then he just wanted to show me what a thrill it was. I was scared to death. Ben wanted to make out, or more, but I insisted we get out. But, just before we went back out the window, I opened a little wicker bedside table, I don’t know why and I found something. The people who lived here were three girls and I thought they were all kind of mean girl bitches, but I opened this drawer of this bedside table and found a Bible. A white Bible like for a child and I opened it and saw an inscription. The girl’s grandmother had given it to her. It made me see her in a different light. See, I’m not just looking for bad stuff, Edward, and certainly not for anything I can use on anybody. Just insights.’
She just wanted to know more about everyone than anyone else did, Edward realized. He who had sat in his office so many times and had people spill their guts certainly understood the urge.
‘What did the inscription say?’
Amy paused a minute, then decided to tell him. ‘It said: “You need to read this every day.”’
‘Jesus.’
‘Yes. That’s what her grandmother told her, that she was worried about her soul. Or maybe she meant it in a nice way. But I didn’t think so. I wanted to look around for more clues, but Ben was already outside. But he hooked me, I understood. I looked at that girl differently from then on. She had a grandmother who thought she was destined for hell. How would you react to that?
‘Then there was just being in the house. Like I said, I was scared to death the whole time, but maybe that was just because …’
‘It was your first time.’
‘Yeah.’ She smiled at him. ‘My virgin burglary. Too scared to enjoy it. But later I realized it could feel good. Because I had just a touch of that feeling, just before I went out the window, when I could see safety but I was still inside. I felt like I owned the place.’
‘So you kept at it.’
‘Oh, no. Hell no. I was completely creeped out. I broke up with that boy right after that. I didn’t want to see him again. I felt dirty. When I heard his voice I felt worse. It’s like …’ She glanced at him almost shyly. ‘… to continue the analogy, you’re so ashamed after the first time that you don’t do it again for a long time.’
‘So?’
Amy hesitated. This was an interesting, racy conversation they were having, unlike any before, even though he’d thought they had a close relationship. But not a lawyer-client one, this one required her to reveal a deeply hidden side of herself.
‘Even though I quit, for a long time, I didn’t forget that feeling. After college – remember that year I took off? – I was deciding what I was going to do. Whether I was going to go on to medical school and be daddy’s little doctor, or do something else entirely like you did.’
He hadn’t known he and his father had been competing role models for her.
‘Mainly I was just tired. I’d been working so hard for so long and was so worried about grades, and class rankings, and who loved who and who was mad at who. I needed a break.’ She laughed. ‘Imagine now thinking that high school and college had been hard work. And just the worry all the time. It didn’t seem like that for you, Eddie. Nothing seemed to bother you.’
He smiled slightly, ruefully. But this session wasn’t about him. He didn’t say anything and Amy resumed.
‘So when I came back and did go to medical school, I felt like I was behind. Remember when a year’s difference made you feel old as the oceans? I guess I had a little bit of an inferiority complex at that point. One day, I was home for a few days in the summer and went with Mom and Dad to a pool party, at one of their friends’ houses. Their daughter had been a friend of mine in high school but, by then, she was already married and pregnant and I felt even farther behind. But I remembered my skills.
‘I excused myself, went into the house and went straight to the room where she was staying while she was visiting and I searched her suitcase. Then the parents’ medicine cabinet and the mother’s bedside table. And came out feeling great, feeling like the image of normality. I just smiled at everybody and relaxed and got a little tipsy and felt great.’
Edward wondered briefly what she’d found: anxiety medications, sex toys, a diary? But it didn’t matter, he realized quickly. It was being the holder of secrets again. The secret itself didn’t matter much.
‘So I took up my second career again. Just once in a great while, Eddie. When I was feeling down, or mad at somebody, or just bored. It was a thrill. It made me feel powerful and less weird myself, to know everybody else’s weird hidden business.’
Everyone’s weird, Edward thought. It took some people longer than others to realize that. Some people never did. Maybe most people thought there was a golden adulthood of placid striving and family happiness that nearly everyone reached, except them. He looked around the beautiful kitchen with its white surfaces and pastel accents, like something from a magazine. Almost anyone looking at this room, at Amy’s whole house, would think this homeowner had reached that successful, happy plateau of normality.
Amy turned to him. She was wound up now, he saw. She had never told anyone what she was telling him.
‘It’s addictive, Eddie, finding out about people’s secret lives. Getting inside them. It’s like performing surg
ery on them. Even the purest have secrets. Some are ridiculously mundane, some are pathetically weird. But you never look at the person the same way again. And they’re not all bad. I found out someone I thought was cold and emotionless loves his children more than his own life. He’s sacrificed for them in a way no one else has.’
‘How?’
‘I’m not going to tell you. I’m going to keep his secret. But usually it was more like revenge. I’d go to a party or a dinner at one of these mansions (like Louise Donaldson’s) and the hostess would come down all done up, with a little smile because she was coming from the secret part of the house. All the rest of us got to see was how perfect her life was, no matter what kind of mess she’d left up there. And if she irritated me during the evening I’d think, “Just wait, bitch, I’m going to see your secrets. Even if it’s just that her bathroom is disgusting.”’
After a moment Amy added slyly, ‘That was my reason for the so-called breaking and entering. I guess other people have other reasons.’
She turned, leaning back against the sink. Edward looked straight at her, his mouth twisted ruefully. Yes, the irony hadn’t been lost on him: for years Amy had been committing the conduct that had sent him to prison. The family crime.
She made a small indication with her head and he got up and followed her to the living room. This was a beautiful room too, but colder than the kitchen. They just stared at each other for a long moment, knowing each other better than they had an hour before.
She cleared her throat and said, ‘That’s what it was all about, just learning people’s secrets. And the thrill. I’ve hidden under a bed while a man and woman made love over my head. And not the man who lived in that house. So I could have popped out from under there and they would have been more scared than I was. But I’d rather hold onto the secret.’
‘And you only got caught that one time?’
‘Only time.’ She said it with pride and smiled at him ironically.
That returned them to the painful subject at hand. When Edward glanced at her, Amy was staring at him. It seemed as if the rapport they’d just developed went both ways. She knew what he was thinking.
