Aftershock

by Andrew Vachss

  “It’s still early—”

  “I have to make sure whatever lawyer they assign asks the judge to allow me in to see her.”

  “I don’t know how that works.”

  “This is only Saturday. By the time they bring MaryLou to court, you could find out.”

  The way Dolly said it, I knew she wasn’t talking about what I could do.

  We were still talking when the early light started to crackle the darkness. Nobody saw me leave.

  It took a little more than two hours to get to a city where I could ask around.

  Actually, I didn’t have to ask, just listen. I felt my way into a section of the city where the bars would open early. Plenty were talking about the shootings—I guess it had been on the news—but I never heard a single lawyer’s name mentioned.

  Most of the talk was about whether the trial would be on TV.

  So I drifted back over to another part of town, where I could find coffeehouses, bookstores, outdoor-supply stores. Closest thing to intel I could pick up was a kind of general agreement that the girl must have been bullied at school.

  Although nobody that far away from the scene claimed to have witnessed any bullying of MaryLou, I only had to listen to learn that there were other ways to bully schoolkids than by slapping them around. Bullies could write ugly things about the target on their Facebook pages, send nasty e-mails, even use Tweets—some kind of Internet darts. But it seemed those kind of kids ended up killing themselves instead of anyone else.

  And no way a girl they called Mighty Mary was getting bullied, especially in a place where girls’ softball was such a big thing.

  So I took the shortest route in. Dolly asked MaryLou’s best friend, Megan, to get one of her parents to put “Aunt Dolly” on the visiting list.

  “They were kind of weird about it,” Megan said when she got back, “but I took Franklin with me, so they didn’t argue. You can visit today. Is that soon enough?”

  “Sure it is, honey,” Dolly told the girl. “You did a great job.”

  The girl smiled like she’d never heard those words before.

  Nobody noticed me sitting in an easy chair in the living room. I knew that, if people aren’t expecting anyone to be around, and you don’t make sounds or move, you might as well be invisible.

  I didn’t learn that in La Légion—the Americans taught me. Well, one American. He was an Indian, which is what they call the people they took this country from. In Oregan, they pay restitution for that by allowing Indians to open all kinds of casinos. To preserve their culture.

  “It is less than a second, that space where you have to decide if you have been detected,” he told me. “If you can be completely calm inside that second, they will show themselves before they see you. There is no guesswork. This”—he tapped his nose—“must always match. If your own scent is the same as what surrounds you, you will not alert those who search only with their eyes.”

  All I knew about the Indian was that he was called Ira, and that he never made it back to wherever his home was.

  The jail had a women’s wing. A small one, but with conference rooms for the lawyers, and a much bigger one for visits.

  “I don’t see your name on the list,” the guard said, nodding at me.

  “This is my husband,” Dolly told him. “I couldn’t … handle this without him there. I just can’t believe little MaryLou would …” Her voice went fluttery, showering tension like a glass butterfly in a brick cage.

  I stayed silent and still, right hand grasping my left wrist, covering the scar, which was bigger than any wristwatch I’d ever wear. I put a dull look on my face, selling it as best I could. The guard had to think that if they let me in on the visit I’d just sit there like a lump, maybe go get some of whatever they were selling out of the vending machines.

  But he never looked up, so he didn’t see my eyes. He just waved his hand, like a prince allowing a commoner to cross his land.

  MaryLou was sitting at one of the tables. As soon as I saw her, I remembered seeing her before, though she’d never been one of those who wandered back into my den. Her table was in the corner farthest away from the door where we walked in.

  There’s no magic to it. And it’s not a movie script, this back-to-the-wall stuff. Your body naturally puts itself wherever it feels safest. MaryLou may have been scared, or just acting on instinct. For me, it was perfect: I sat facing her, so all anybody could see was the back of my head. Hard to make an ID from that, especially since I never took off the fisherman’s cap I was wearing.

  She stood up and hugged Dolly. Her pale eyes were clear and peaceful. I’d seen that look before, right after a firefight. La mission est sacrée. Whatever she’d wanted to do in that school, it was already done.

  “Oh, sweetie, what happened?”

  I shook my head as I pressed a thumb inside Dolly’s hand.

  “Don’t say anything about this case,” I told MaryLou. “Not to us, not to anybody.”

  She turned her head a few degrees. Made sure Dolly agreed with what I’d said. Then she nodded an okay at me.

  “Especially not to anyone you meet in here. Some of them would trade you for a snort of meth. And that’s not the biggest bullet you have to dodge. Some of the other women in here are facing heavy charges, and they’d be happy to swear you said anything that would help the DA, in return for some time off the years they’re facing.”

  Another nod. Her eyes were that same pale blue, but I was checking for something else, and I found it. Now they were focused, hard, and sharp.

  “Don’t say anything to whatever lawyer they give you, either.”

  Her eyes widened a bit at that, but her posture didn’t change; she stayed as relaxed as if I were talking about the weather.

  “When you see me again, I’ll be with a lawyer. Could be the same one they give you, or one you’ve never seen. Point is, you see me, you’ll know it’s all right to talk. Talk then, not before. Not even in court. Never volunteer anything.”

  “I got it.” Her voice was firm, not annoyed.

  Dolly took that as her cue to start talking. Did MaryLou have enough clothes? Was she on any special diet? And a hundred more, all wrapped around the “Did you need any medications brought over?” that would tell Dolly what we were dealing with.

  “I don’t know what I’m allowed to have,” MaryLou told her. One answer, covering all the questions with the same blanket.

  “I’ll find out,” Dolly promised her. “And I’ll have everything ready for the lawyer tomorrow.”

  “When I go to court?”

  “Yes, honey. But when it comes to medications, just tell me your doctor’s name and I’ll get them to you before that.”

  “Like what?” MaryLou asked, an edge to her voice that I could feel more than hear.

  “Oh, like, if you were a diabetic. Insulin isn’t something you can—”

  “Nothing like that,” MaryLou assured her, the edge gone from her voice.

  “Honey, you know your friends are all behind you.”

  “Yeah. And they all just want to know why, right?”

  “That’s only natural,” Dolly told her, as if defending the motives of MaryLou’s friends. “And Megan was the one who got your parents to say I was your aunt Dolly.”

  “No way Megan went over there alone.”

  “She said she was with Franklin. I’ve never met him, but he must—”

  “He’s my friend,” MaryLou said. “Maybe my best friend. If my father took one look at him, he’d give up whatever Megan asked him for.”

  I hadn’t been planning to say anything more, but I could see this was starting to run off the rails. Too much talking. “Not now” is all I said.

  I guess that was enough. They switched gears, but kept talking for another hour or so. I don’t know what about—I wasn’t there. Inside my head, I played out the little bit I knew: MaryLou wasn’t crazy. Which meant she had some reason for doing what she did. Especially the way she did it.

/>   Killing the enemy? Sure, that made sense. But you don’t take them all out, throw away your weapon, then sit down and wait for their reinforcements to show up.

  You don’t waste time covering your trail, either. They’ll know who killed their comrades. Your job is not being there when they find the bodies.

  I ran through other things that might have explained what happened, but I stopped when I realized MaryLou hadn’t saved one of the bullets for herself.

  So not a planned suicide, with dead bodies serving as the goodbye note. And she’d only had the one weapon, so not a kamikaze move, either. Back to where I’d started—whatever mission she’d been on was over the second she was done shooting.

  Dolly had contacts all over the place at the hospital, so I already knew that MaryLou’s tox screen had come back negative. They were probably looking for some sort of speed or hallucinogen, but the only unusual finding was her being way too over-percentage in red blood cells. That puzzled the hospital, so one of the ER nurses, a pal of Dolly’s, called.

  Dolly had told her there could be a hundred reasons for that, leaving the door open.

  When I came back from wherever I’d gone to, MaryLou was telling Dolly, “Yes, I’m sure.”

  “I’ll be there tomorrow,” Dolly said, hugging her again. “And some of your friends, too. But I can pick one to sit with me. Do you care which?”

  “No. But please tell Franklin—Megan has his cell—not to come. If he sees them take me away, he could get all … confused. Anyone else is okay, but I need you to make the pick, Dolly. Then nobody’s feelings get hurt.”

  “I’ll handle it,” Dolly said. Nobody hearing her voice would have doubted that.

  “What’s with the red blood cells your nurse friend told you about?” I asked Dolly on the drive back.

  “If MaryLou had an infection—and there’s all kinds of infections women her age can pick up—you’d expect to see a high count on white cells, not red.”

  “Maybe they should have looked for EPO.”

  “I thought you never paid attention, Dell.”

  She was talking about that Tour de France bicycle race they show on TV every year. Dolly is addicted to it, never misses a single one. I only watch it to be with her. “Just enough to learn,” I told her. “Not enough to say anything.”

  “But why would MaryLou have had EPO in her blood? She’s not—”

  “Big game coming up? College scouts? Scholarship?”

  “Dell!”

  We didn’t say a word to each other the rest of the way.

  That evening, Dolly finally let loose what was building inside her.

  “Why did you tell MaryLou not to speak to a lawyer? Even if he was some sleaze the county assigned to her, he couldn’t repeat anything she said. There’s this lawyer-client privilege, right?”

  “Right.”

  “And that whole EPO thing. You’re thinking that maybe she overdosed, or mixed a bad cocktail? Or she was blood-doping on her own?”

  I didn’t say anything.

  “When MaryLou did … what they say she did, it was on a Friday, the last day of school. The last day of that school forever for MaryLou. There’s no way she was partying the night before, so it couldn’t be the aftereffects of someone slipping a date-rape drug into a drink.”

  I knew she had more to say, so I just shifted my body enough to tell her I was listening.

  “And she’s not a violent girl. The only time I ever heard of her hitting anyone was when she beat up her little sister.”

  “How did you hear—?”

  “Oh, everybody heard. It wasn’t any big secret. Last year, Danielle showed up at school with raccoon eyes. So the nurse called the Child Protective people. Her parents said they had no idea what happened. Her father’s a confirmed slug—he just watches his big-screen all day and night. And her mother, when she’s not working, she stays drunk. So, with Danielle saying she fell down the stairs the night before, there was nothing they could do. But everyone knew MaryLou had really smacked her around.”

  “You know why?”

  “I don’t have a clue. I mean, teenage girls get into fights over nothing, but MaryLou is twice Danielle’s size, and Danielle was only in middle school then. Some of the clique girls tried to rumor it as all about jealousy, but that never took root.”

  “Why would MaryLou be jealous of her kid sister?”

  “Well, supposedly, it was because Danielle’s so much smarter. I mean, she’s already skipped two years in school. And she’s very cute, too. Doesn’t look anywhere near her age … but that happens a lot more now than it used to.”

  “Wait! What happens?”

  “Puberty, Dell. It’s not even a little bit surprising when a ten-year-old starts menstruating. And they … develop right along with it.”

  “Oh.”

  “And MaryLou, well, you’ve met her, Dell. She isn’t what you’d call … pretty. She’s bigger than most of the boys, too.”

  “Ever happen again? Her beating up her sister, I mean.”

  “No. I would have heard if it did.”

  I nodded agreement—I knew what Dolly was saying was true. It’s not just that this is such a small town, it’s that the pipeline runs right through our house.

  “Dell, do you think …? I mean, do you think MaryLou was on some kind of drug?”

  “Me? No. A lawyer might, though. There’s no other way to beat this case except some kind of temporary insanity, right?”

  “Well, she must have been on something.”

  “No. She went in there with a job to do, and she did it.”

  “How can you possibly say that?”

  “Dolly … Dolly, you know what I did. What I did my whole life, before I gave it all up.”

  “We don’t talk about that.”

  “And we don’t have to now, either. But you asked me—remember?—how could I know that she was on a mission, how could I know that once it was over nothing much else mattered to her?”

  “But that’s like saying she meant to do it.”

  “She did. And she got it done. That’s why nothing else matters to her anymore.”

  “It matters to me, Dell. Maybe I don’t know what actually happened. But, whatever it was, all that matters is what happens to MaryLou now. And what is that going to be?”

  “I don’t know. Not yet, anyway.”

  “Dell, you’re scaring me.”

  “That’s the opposite of what I’m trying to do. How would you expect me to help MaryLou? Go to law school?”

  “You don’t have to talk to me like that!”

  “Dolly, you want me to try and do something, or you don’t. If you do, I will. If you don’t, I won’t. But if you want me to help, you can’t help me, understand?”

  I couldn’t help thinking how truly beautiful she was. From the moment I met her, Dolly’s face was always surrounded by a soft, rose-colored kind of light. I thought that aura was her own kind of perimeter. I knew her grayish eyes could go from love’s soft glow to laser strikes in a blink. But I’d never seen this kind of glow that was always around her change colors before. Now it looked like a darkening evening sky, the way it gets just before the thunderbolts come.

  “I couldn’t stand to lose you, Dell.”

  “You won’t. If it gets ugly, I’ll just walk away. And nobody will know I’ve ever been wherever I walk away from.”

  “But MaryLou—”

  “She’s yours, not mine.”

  Dolly just sat there for a few minutes. Then she reached out and took my hand.

  “She is mine. But if there was any risk to you, I’d walk away, too, Dell. I’ll do it right now, if you say so.”

  I squeezed her hand. Just hard enough so she’d know we had a deal.

  Monday, the courtroom was like the last bus out of a town facing a hurricane. It wasn’t big enough to hold all the people who were there when it opened, never mind those who kept trying to get in.

  I scanned them quickly, but it looked like a c
ross section of the town. Nobody stood out. Nobody looked at MaryLou with what I’d been watching for.

  Dolly squeezed my hand twice: “No.” So MaryLou’s parents weren’t anywhere to be seen.

  MaryLou herself was sitting at a table close to the judge’s perch, a man I didn’t know next to her. I could see him whispering to her, more and more urgently, but she never so much as turned her head in his direction.

  A good soldier, I thought to myself. Takes it in, acts it out.

  A bailiff told everyone to quiet down and stand up, but he was more asking than telling. And nobody was willing to give up their seat, anyway.

  The judge came in. Sat down. Made an imperious little motion with his hand. The bailiff told everyone to be seated, as if they weren’t doing that already.

  I guess that second order didn’t apply to MaryLou, or the man next to her. Or the guy I guessed was the DA at the other table. He looked more nervous than anyone else. His fat face was already greasy with sweat.

  The judge started talking. I tuned him out so I could focus on faces. But I refocused on him when I heard his tone change.

  “Counsel,” he said to the man standing next to MaryLou, “are you telling this court that your client refuses to enter a plea?”

  “She refuses to speak at all, Your Honor.”

  “Is that correct, young lady?”

  MaryLou didn’t move.

  “Are you dissatisfied with your representation?”

  MaryLou stood like a statue.

  “Counsel?”

  “Your Honor, under the circumstances, I have no choice but to move for a—”

  “I don’t want to hear any motions until I hear a plea, counsel.”

  “Yes, Your Honor.”

  Silence took over. The judge broke it: “Very well, as defendant prefers to stand mute, the court will enter a not-guilty plea on her behalf. Additionally, in view of the gravity of the charges, the defendant will be remanded without bail.”

  A couple of female court officers bracketed MaryLou as they walked her out a side door. Probably a tunnel straight into the jail, I thought. I filed that away. I couldn’t expect any of the guards to give me a tour, but maybe there were architectural blueprints still around—the jail itself looked as if it had been built fairly recently.