“He and his friends at the Bull Run beat me up last night pretty good,” I say, removing my sunglasses and baring the gap in my teeth. It ought to be good for something.
“All I did was sit down at the bar for a few minutes.”
A few yards off the path, Charlene points to a vacant bench, and I nod gratefully. Her voice, surely a product of the Ozarks, cracks slightly as she sighs, “When he’s had a couple, Leon’s pretty good at that.”
Though we have been walking only a few minutes, I am ready to sit. The back panels of the wooden bench, painted Astroturf green, creak as I collapse against them. Fortunately it is in the shade.
“Did he ever hit you?”
From where we are sitting, apart from a few old people with their brown canes and white heads, the predominant color is, though this is September, a lush green. The park, a sanctuary of hardy survivors, is neatly hidden from the town.
Charlene must come here to escape the bleakness of her apartment. Her unpainted lips press against teeth I still haven’t seen. Questions like this when asked by strangers are never innocent. Finally, she says, “Only when he was drinking. If I could of kept Leon from his friends, we would have done all right.”
The old phrase “If wishes were horses, beggars would ride,” flits through my head. I have never understood it, but somehow it seems to apply to Charlene Newman. If Hot Springs is Camelot, she seems destined to spend her life fishing for carp with the “gentlefolk” in the moat. Out of the corner of my eye, I notice to my left an old man who reminds me of how my father would have looked had he lived to be an old man. A Harry Truman look-alike, his eyes (unlike my father’s, whose soupy lenses were troubled by the paranoia that often accompanies schizophrenia) gleam with small-town self-satisfaction behind gold-rimmed eyeglasses.
Sure, I dropped two atomic bombs, but it was either us or them. Yet, I remind myself, I don’t need or expect a complete surrender from Charlene.
“At the probable cause hearing a few weeks ago, Leon started crying when he talked about Pam,” I say, hoping for the right note of empathy. “I think he felt guilty for turning her loose.”
Charlene squints at me as if I had asked her to do long division in her head.
“Why would he have jus’ let go of her?”
Harry, who apparently has no need at this stage of his life to be concerned with appearances, lays a forefinger against his right nostril and shoots the contents of his left onto the bench beside him, his message being, I suppose. If you don’t like it, don’t watch. Too late, I turn my head back to Charlene, but somehow not until I am reminded of the tobacco-stained brick streets freshly spotted each Saturday in my eastern Arkansas hometown of Bear Creek by fanners of both races. Poor woman. I can see the emotion in her eyes.
Like the fools most women are about men, she still cares about him. “I think your ex-husband hates blacks so much,” I say as gently as possible, “he’d do a lot of things if he thought he could get away with it, even if for a moment it meant hurting somebody he really cared about.”
Charlene’s long legs push out against the grass underneath the bench, making me fear I have offended her.
“Leon wouldn’t kill nobody,” she says, her voice stubborn, suggesting I have indicted her as well-and I have. Who wants to have married a murderer? “I don’t think Leon ever intended for a second for her to die,” I say quickly, holding her gaze to establish my own sincerity.
“I just think he let the girl go, hoping she would attack my client.”
Charlene ponders this possibility.
“How did you know,” she says, lowering her voice though we are at least a good fifteen feet from Harry, who is using a clean handkerchief to wipe the corners of his mouth, but not his nose, “Leon’s got a thing about niggers?”
Niggers. She says the word as easily as her own name.
Though not a candidate for membership in the Rainbow Coalition either, out of loyalty to my client (or is it to Rosa or even frayed values from a more idealistic time in my life?), I flinch at the word but try not to show it.
“Somebody told me,” I lie, “that he’s a member of the Trackers.”
For the first time since we’ve been seated on the bench, she won’t meet my gaze. Watching Harry stand up, she asks, slipping out of her natural twang, her voice too guarded for it to be an idle question, “Who told you that?”
Pretending indifference, I stand up and jam my hands in my pockets.
“It doesn’t matter.” For the first time it clearly occurs to me that Leon, like Yettie, knew Andy and Olivia were having an affair. As a member of the Trackers, he was enraged by it and had every reason to punish Andy.
Charlene, her voice listless, hunches her shoulders. “What do you want with me?”
I stand over her like a father reprimanding a child.
“Only to tell the truth at my client’s trial if you’re subpoenaed to testify about Leon being a member. If he admits it, you won’t even have to take the stand.”
Charlene bites her lip but doesn’t cry.
“I thought I was away from him for good.”
Marriage, I’m finding out from my divorce clients, is forever.
I look back over at Harry, who is now watching us suspiciously. I could use a good caning for upsetting this girl, his expression says.
“This won’t get him in trouble,” I say, too glibly. Lawyers tell people this all the time, when, in fact, we may be setting off an avalanche that will maim them for life.
“It’s not him,” she says, still no inflection in her voice, “I ‘m worried about.”
But it is, I think, as I watch Harry dodder toward us.
Through his thin white shirt I can see the outline of the straps of his old-fashioned ribbed undershirt, which again reminds me of my father, who fascinated me as a small boy by the painstaking way he tucked his shirt into his pants each mo ming before going off to his drugstore. All Charlene had to do was hang up, keep the chain in place, or even lie to me in a convincing manner. Humans are even worse than canines when it comes to hanging on to bad relationships.
“How long were y’all married?” I ask, curious about the amount of violence in their relationship. Maybe in private Leon was as cute as a French poodle, and she laughed her head off, but somehow I doubt it. Raised to be polite to my elders, I nod at Harry, who stares at us with the frankness that is only permitted to certain groups of our society. Disgusted, he shakes his head. Thirty years ago, he might be standing over this young woman, but he wouldn’t be making her cry.
Charlene, perhaps unnerved by such interest (or maybe just bored) stares at the ground.
“I was fourteen when he and I made it legal. I’m twenty-one now.”
Charlene, the tease. I do not ask, but I wonder how old she was when she first had sex.
“Any kids?” I ask. What other reason would a girl have for giving up her youth?
Now that Harry is past us, it is our turn to stare at him.
From the rear he is trim as Nancy Reagan and is nattily attired in white bucks and blue seersucker pants. Maybe there is a Bess at the Arlington restlessly checking her watch. Time for a massage and then, who knows? After Charlene he seems a little pumped. Her forearms resting against the bench, Charlene shakes her head.
“My mama and daddy had so many yard apes runnin’ around, I swore I wouldn’t never have a one, and I haven’t,” she says proudly.
“Good for you,” I say, wondering how she has managed it. Leon doesn’t seem the type to accept rejection well.
Though I doubt if Charlene was social chairman for the Saline County Planned Parenthood Board, I have detected a spunkier side to her than I thought existed. She may tell the truth about her husband in court yet. “He may come looking for you,” I say.
“The women at the bar may have told him I was looking for you.”
Charlene shrugs and says, more bravely than she surely feels, “I’ll worry about that when I have to.”
At exactl
y seven o’clock Kim Keogh, dressed in baggy jeans, a shapeless gray man’s shirt with the tail hanging out, tennis shoes, and white athletic socks, opens her door to me.
“God!” she exclaims. “Somebody didn’t just get mad-they got even, maybe a little ahead.”
Perversely, I am a little disappointed. Though I wasn’t expecting her to run down to a beauty salon this afternoon, I guess I wanted her to make more of an effort. After all, we did go to bed together, didn’t we? Instead, she has barely run a comb through her normally stunning hair and could stand some lipstick. Damn, I’m awful, I think. Presumably I’m here on business, and I want her to look as if this is our wedding day. I move on into her living room and still an urge to gather up the Sunday papers, which are scattered on the couch, and to pick up a dirty coffee cup and spoon and take them to the kitchen. The movie stars are still up on the walls.
dark, what do you think? I nearly ask aloud. Would your feelings be a little hurt by such casualness? He probably didn’t give a damn about that either.
Kim, shoving the Democrat-Gazette aside to make a space for me, doesn’t seem to be aware of the impression she is making.
“Have a seat,” she says absently. She sits down across from me on the one chair in her living room. I’m glad I’m not hungry or thirsty, since it doesn’t appear I’m about to be offered anything.
“Did you talk to your client?”
“Can’t get hold of him,” I confess, having tried three times before I gave up.
“I’m in though,” I tell her.
“And I’ll do my best to convince him this is in his best interest.”
I am afraid I will miss out on something important if I play this too cool. Kim is holding the only card available. If my only chance is Charlene Newman, I’m in deep trouble.
She is leaning forward on her knees as if she were a hungry animal trying to decide if the meat she sees is real or part of a trap.
“Why should I trust you when you wouldn’t even call me back?”
Good question. Why should she? My face warm, I begin to fold up her papers to try to stall for time.
“I’m much more trustworthy when the subject isn’t women,” I mumble.”
“Actually I’ve been involved with this other …”
She cuts me off.
“You don’t have to explain that.” Leaning back against the back of her chair, she folds her arms under her breasts.
“I’ve been given a tip that Olivia Le Master had a child taken from her several years ago because of child abuse, but since the records in juvenile court are confidential, I can’t get them.”
Another child? I touch my lower lip, measuring its puffiness. Olivia, to the best of my recollection, has never even mentioned another marriage. A lot could have happened since she had Pam. People don’t stop living their lives because of a single catastrophe.
“How do you think it’s relevant?”
I ask.
Kim, now slightly defensive that I’m not reacting more positively, says, “The word on the street is that the prosecutor would love to charge Olivia Le Master with murder but she needs more evidence. If she intentionally abused one child, wouldn’t that be relevant in showing her state of mind toward the one that died?”
I have my doubts about its admissibility. If it were admissible, it could be dynamite. Unfortunately, it might hurt Andy as much as Olivia if a jury believed he was a part of a plan to kill Pam. The one thing I know it will do is make Andy rethink the possibility of a plea bargain. Somewhere a noose is slowly being tightened around somebody’s neck: if it’s Andy’s, he’d better take the opportunity to slip his head out of it while there is still time. Simply screaming “racism” in this case won’t be enough.
“I don’t know whether a judge will admit it or not,” I say candidly.
“You can be sure Jill would try her damnedest.” As I watch Kim nod, a satisfied look on her face, I realize what she is doing does amount to blackmail. Probably Jill Marymount would find this information more useful in court than I would. As far as I’m aware, she might already know. Kim is way ahead of me, but I’m beginning to think it doesn’t take much.
“What year was this supposed to have happened?”
My inattentive hostess shrugs.
“I’m not sure, and don’t ask how I found this out. I can’t reveal anything.”
After a few more minutes during which I learn exactly nothing, I head back home, having promised my story in exchange for a rumor. What I have learned, however, is exactly how little I know about Olivia Le Master. I have assumed she was what she seemed: a woman caught in a seemingly endless nightmare that her desperate effort to end turned into a tragedy. Instead, for all I know she could be a sadistic bitch who has never blinked once in her life.
In the car on the way home I decide to verify this information before I tell Andy. I have a theory that he doesn’t know everything about Olivia either. Knowing Andy, he will discount it as gossip unless I confront him with some evidence.
As an old social worker for the Department of Human Services in Blackwell County, I have a friend who, if she will, can speed up my research.
20
"You", Sarah says, bringing me the phone from the living room, “It’s Mr. Bailey. I think something’s wrong. He sounds weird.”
Clan must be drunk, I think, putting down my pen to take the phone. I am working in the kitchen on direct examination questions for my Mississippi expert. With the trial only three days away, I have begun to panic. Though Olivia seems intent on testifying and not invoking the Fifth Amendment, that has been my only good news. Andy has become uncharacteristically morose and distant, which has had the effect of further convincing me that he knows more than he is telling me. While he continues to maintain his innocence, it is as if he realizes he has been fooled by Olivia but can’t quite bring himself to admit it. I put the odds at his implicating her at the last minute at fifty-fifty. It is still not too late to cut a deal with our prosecutor.
“Gideon,” Clan says in an agonized voice after I speak his name into the receiver, “I’ve been arrested, and I’m down here at the police station.”
I nearly drop the phone. Clan, I realize, is my best friend.
Despite his juvenile nature (or maybe because of it), he and I have become as close as brothers this summer. What on earth could he have done? He doesn’t sound drunk. An argument with Brenda that led to a shooting? Clan is a gun nut and has a workshop in which he makes his own ammunition.
“What’s happened?” I ask, trying to keep my voice normal, “They say I shoplifted a Twinkie!” he says, his voice screeching against my ear.
“Can you come down here?”
For God’s sake, I think, looking at Sarah and rolling my eyes back in my head to indicate this phone call is surely more nutty than tragic. What next? I look at my watch. It’s almost nine.
“I’ll be down in fifteen minutes.”
“What’s wrong?” Sarah asks, as I hand her the phone. If she hadn’t already washed her hair and wasn’t in her robe, I’d take her with me. Every kid ought to see a jail at least once.
“Middle age,” I groan.
“Dan’s gone middle-age crazy.”
I tell her what he told me.
“Don’t you gossip about this,” I warn her.
“I’m sure it’s all a misunderstanding.”
Unfortunately, it is not.
“I ‘m guilty as hell,” Clan confides as I drive him back to his car, which is still parked in front of the Quik-Pie, an all-night convenience store five minutes from his house.
“All of a sudden I just scar fed it up before I had paid for it,” he says miserably.
“A little piece of the wrapper was even hanging from my mouth when this security guard pops up out of nowhere and starts screaming as if I was gonna try to crawl up through the ceiling. I must be nuts.”
Turning to the Quik-Pie parking lot, I agree but do not say so. Clan would have been released on his
own recognizance if he hadn’t given the cop, who had just pulled in to get a cup of coffee, so much lip. With Brenda out of town and five dollars in his pockets, I have had to put up a minimal bond for him.
“Obviously, you had no intent to steal it. They should have waited until you were out of the store. You can sue ‘em for a million bucks for false imprisonment.”
Clan leans his head against the window on his side of the Blazer.
“You can’t go in and suck down a package of Twinkies and expect to get away with it.”
I turn off the engine which has begun to shudder in neutral and listen to ominous sounds coming from the hood. From the noise it sounds as if someone is trying unsuccessfully to shut down a nuclear power plant.
“Why in the hell did you do it? Maybe we can get a doctor to testify that you suffer from some eating disorder.”
His head still against the glass, Clan cuts his eyes to me.
“I do,” he says grimly.
“I eat too much damn food.”
I look through the window at Quik-Pie and see a good-looking blonde in shorts at the magazine rack. She must be looking for something to read before bed. For a society as obsessed with sex as the United States, we don’t spend much time actually doing it.
“That’s not a crime,” I say, losing the thread of our conversation.
“Stealing is,” Clan says wearily, as he opens the door.
“Look, why don’t you just go in there and ask her to come home with you. You can tell Sarah this woman was going to have to sleep down at the jail and you took pity on her.”
I laugh and him to look at Clan who, incredibly, seems about to cry.
“We’ve got to do something,” I say, now ashamed that I let myself be so easily distracted.
“This could be really humiliating if they make it stick.”
Dan’s eyes are red.
“Thanks for that insight,” he says dryly.
“Well, damn it,” I argue, “you just can’t plead guilty.”
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