by Lisa Lutz
“Oh,” Rae said, looking confused. She was under the impression I had a trifecta of punishments. I did but managed to convince the unit that my final blow had to be a blindside. It also required some careful planning and some hard labor. It would have to hold for a while.
I turned to leave; my business was done for now. But I remembered that there was one last thing nagging at me that I needed to know.
“What happened to you on the bus?” I asked. “I think you owe me that answer now, since you used your ‘ride home’ excuse to lure me into that trap. Tell me and we’ll be mostly even.”
Rae stared at the floor for a moment, but she was too beat to argue this time around.
“I was taking the bus home from Henry’s—sitting in the back, minding my own business. A frat boy sits down next to me and the next thing I know, he vomits. All. Over. Me. Next to my night in juvie, it was the worst experience of my life.”
“Thank you,” I replied. I was thanking her for the insight and, frankly, for her new nickname. “I’ll see you later, Barf Bag.”
BACK TO WORK
Tuesday night I parked in front of Shana Breslin’s home and waited for the trash to be put out front. The garbage bins were already out, but the recycling was nowhere to be found. I got out of my car to see if maybe the bin was empty, but when I checked alongside the house, where the receptacles are stored during the week, the green bin was in plain sight and clearly stuffed with goods.
Even though opening the gate and snatching the bags would have taken less than ten seconds, it was out of the question. This basic law of garbology cannot be broken. It’s been drilled into me from the start. The trash must be left out for the public. So I returned to my car.
Out of the corner of my eye, I saw movement in a parked sedan approximately fifty yards away. I scanned the area, trying not to draw attention to my discovery. There was a man in a parked car and he didn’t appear to be doing anything but sitting there. At eleven o’clock at night. And he just happened to have a clear view of the apartment and me.
I casually walked back toward my car and then abruptly switched directions and darted directly at the suspicious sedan, running at top speed. When the driver saw me coming, he immediately started the engine and pulled out of the parking space. It didn’t matter. I was close enough to get his license plate number and I had a feeling that was all I’d need.
I didn’t bother waiting any longer for the recycling. I returned home and went straight to bed.
At work the next morning my mother had the nerve to mention that she’d chosen a lawyer for my next date. I was certain being locked in a file room overnight would gain me at least a temporary reprieve. But she reminded me that appropriate restitution had been made and a deal was a deal. It occurred to me that I might be able to get out of lawyer dates if I informed my mother that Connor was officially Ex #12, but I still wasn’t ready to reveal that information, so I continued to play her game. Although I was seriously toying with the idea of coming clean—about everything, including Prom Night 1994.
Midmorning, I went into the restroom and pulled the door closed behind me, linking my finger through the hole where the doorknob used to be. The piece of tape holding the latch shut must have broken, because I soon realized I had locked myself in. I went into an immediate panic and began pounding on the bathroom door and shouting, “Let me out of here!” over and over again. I am happy to report that Dad freed me within seconds.
“What is going on in this house?!” I impatiently shouted when I returned to the office and had both of my parents’ ears.
Dad gave me a blank stare; Mom answered.
“We’re thinking of replacing all the doorknobs and light fixtures,” Mom said. “Only we can’t decide on a design theme.”
I turned to my father for his reaction. When he saw me looking, he chimed in.
“Decorating is hard,” Dad said.
“This is ridiculous. I’m not buying a word either of you are saying,” I said.
“Relax, Isabel,” Mom said. “It’s just a doorknob.”
“Here’s the thing, Mom. Doorknobs are useful and I like to come and go as I please!”
Mom promptly walked up to the whiteboard and wrote our next rule:
Rule #58—Carry an extra doorknob with you at all times
My dad then opened his desk drawer and handed me an old brushed-metal knob.
“Here” Dad said. “I have an extra.”
“Me too,” Mom said, pulling her own personal doorknob out of her desk, trying to make it all sound ordinary.
I snatched the doorknob from my dad and glared at him.
Then I returned to my desk and e-mailed my father the license plate from the previous night.
“What’s this?” Dad asked.
“Probably nothing, but I need to check. The car was parked outside Shana Breslin’s home the other night. I need to see if there’s a connection.”
“I’ll get right on it,” Dad replied, as if to appease me after the whole doorknob incident.
My father called in the plate number with his police source and the rest of the morning passed in silence until my dad turned to my mother and said, “Did you feed the prisoner yet today?”
“Al, of course I fed her. I’m her mother. I want her to suffer, not starve.”
“When’s the meeting with her lawyer?” I asked.
“On Friday,” Mom replied. “She’s going to plea out. We think she’ll get bombed with hours of community service but no time.”
“Good,” I replied.
“I think some of the anti-Rae1 faculty at her school might notify the colleges where she applied. I think we can safely say that Yale is out. Berkeley might take her. They like students who have a cause, don’t they?”
“Isn’t it time for another room check?” Dad asked.
Mom looked at her watch. “Close enough,” Mom replied. While Mom was looking in on the prisoner, Dad got a call back from his police source. He wrote down the information and then stared at the piece of paper instead of passing it on to me.
I cleared my throat to get his attention.
Dad looked at me with that quizzical expression I have grown so accustomed to and said, “The car is owned by Wallace Brown. Doesn’t he work for Harkey?”
I was too busy turning this information over in my head to respond.
“Isabel?”
“What? Yes. He does work for Harkey.”
“What’s going on?”
“I don’t know,” I replied.
Then the phone rang. I turned to my father and said, “Your turn.”
Dad answered the phone, leaving me to my thoughts, but only briefly. No one’s allowed to think too long in the Spellman home.
Mom returned to report that the prisoner needed my ear.
“Did she actually use that phrase? ‘Need my ear’?”
“Actually, yes,” my mother replied.
“Are there any sharp objects in her room?”
“You’re not as funny as you think you are,” Mom said.
“So I’ve heard.”
I climbed the stairs to my sister’s cell and knocked, even though in a true jailhouse situation, there would be no pretense of privacy.
Rae politely opened the door. Inside, the floor, her dresser, and her desk were covered with an assortment of assembled pages from (I can only conclude) Shana Breslin’s recycling.
“You’ve been busy,” I remarked.
“It wasn’t easy,” Rae replied.
She squinted as if trying to refocus. This kind of work certainly doesn’t improve anyone’s vision.
“Anything I should know?” I asked.
“Yeah,” Rae answered. “This isn’t any original screenplay.”
“How do you know?”
“It’s Shrek!” Rae shouted. “Why would someone shred Shrek? That makes no sense at all!”
She was right. It didn’t.
“Did you find anything else?”
“There’s another parti
al page and I think it’s from Reservoir Dogs, but I can’t say for sure. I know that there’s a Mr. White in it and a few lines sound right.”
“Mr. White? Could it be a feel-good Christmas movie?”
“I doubt it. I’ve never seen a Christmas movie that heavy on the F-word. Why would someone shred screenplays that are already made?”
“Don’t know,” I replied. “But I’m going to find out.”
PRATTFALL
These were the facts: Jeremy Pratt wanted me to do a garbology on recycled screenplays that were shredded just for show, as far as I could tell. On the one night Shana’s recycling was impossible to access, a car was following me, a car driven by a man who worked for Enemy #1, Rick Harkey. Was this a coincidence? I don’t think so.
I spent my afternoon researching Jeremy Pratt. From his credit file I could pull his last known addresses. The first on record was in San Diego. I followed up with a property-owner search and discovered that the San Diego residence had been owned for the last twenty years by Deborah and Tom Pratt. I then searched for Deborah Pratts in San Diego and matched her credit file to her address. From Deborah Pratt’s credit file, I got her maiden name. Harkey.
First, I drove to Jeremy’s apartment with my short file of the shredded Shrek.
“Hi, Jeremy,” I said pleasantly when he answered the door. “Sorry I didn’t call first, but I was in the neighborhood. Do you have a minute?”
“Uh, okay.”
I entered his apartment without being invited, which is perfectly fine if you’re not a vampire.
“Out of curiosity, I pieced together a few pages of the screenplays Shana has been kind enough to shred for you. I won’t trouble you with my comment on the sheer wastefulness of it. God knows how many trees have been destroyed for this prank. But that’s neither here nor there.”
Jeremy looked confused, as if he were only partially in on the con.
“Why don’t I make this simple for you?” I said, handing him his final bill. “I’ll expect this to be paid in full. Otherwise, you’ll be seeing me again, and I don’t think you want that.”
“Anything else?” he asked.
“One little thing. Can you do me a favor and phone your uncle Rick for me?”
Pratt just stared at me. He didn’t make a move.
“Or give me your phone and I’ll make the call.”
Pratt took his phone out of his back pocket. Within seconds he had Harkey on the line.
“It’s Jeremy. Isabel Spellman is here and she wants to talk to you.”
A moment passed and Jeremy handed me the phone.
“Hi, Rick,” I said. “How you been?”
“What can I do for you, Isabel?” he replied.
“Let’s meet in a public place for a drink. I have a proposition for you.”
“Really?”
“Yes.”
“Your usual bar?”
“My new usual bar. You’ll like it. It’s much more convenient. The Hemlock, off Polk.”
“I’ll see you there in an hour.”
An hour later
I arrived early and was already on my second beer before Harkey showed. I find the happy-hour prices hard to resist.
Harkey entered, casting a shadow in the doorway, making this whole meeting seem like a showdown in an old Western. He ordered a drink, not knowing that our meeting would be brief.
“What do you want, sweetheart?”
“World peace.”
“What do you want from me?”
“I want you to stop calling me ‘sweetheart.’”
“Anything else?”
“A truce, I think, is the best we can hope for.”
“You’re ready to call off your witch hunt?”
“Did you really think you’d catch me in a garbology infraction?”
“Women with their hormones and all—you never know what they’ll do.”
“Which is why you want me off your back.”
Harkey said nothing at first. He swallowed his shot in one gulp to show me what a man he was. I would have matched him, only I was drinking Guinness and I had almost a full pint left. And I was wearing a clean shirt.
It was Harkey’s turn to speak and so I waited patiently. If I tried to convince him a truce was in order, he would hold the power. I needed to see how much he wanted it.
“I think it’s time we ended this thing,” Harkey replied.
“Glad to hear it,” I said.
Then we shook hands. I wished that part wasn’t necessary. His hand was clammy and he had that bad habit of trying to crush you with his grip.
“I have a parting gift for you,” he said, getting to his feet.
The human slug handed me a manila envelope and said, “No need to thank me. See you around, sweetheart.”
Harkey exited the bar and left me alone with the mystery envelope. I didn’t crack the seal right away. For some reason, I knew that what I’d find inside wouldn’t be pleasant. I finished my drink so that I could be at least buzzed for the unveiling. Then my patience gave out and I opened the envelope and emptied the contents on top of the bar.
Spread out before me were three eight-by-ten glossy prints of Connor kissing another woman. On first viewing I thought it was the same woman, but I looked again and realized there were three different women. Huh.
FREE MERRIWEATHER—
CHAPTER 1
I arrived at Maggie’s office the following morning. She seemed surprised to see me.
“This is the last place I’d expect to find you.”
“Do you mind if I look at something in your file room?” I asked.
Maggie met my gaze, trying to read what was going on in my head. “Sure. I’ll even let you leave when you want to. You know where to find me.”
I knew what I was looking for, so I made my return visit to the chamber of nightmares quick. I pulled a thick yellow file and brought it into Maggie’s office. I slid it across her desk.
“Do you mind if I make a copy of this?”
Maggie looked through the documents and turned to me with a sober expression.
“I don’t mind, but you know it won’t be easy.”
“I know.”
“And you know what else won’t be easy? Fitting the name ‘Merriweather’ on a T-shirt.”
“Don’t worry,” I replied. “I’ll find a way.”
• • •
Demetrius Merriweather had a rap sheet a mile long, as the saying goes. Yet his crimes of choice appeared to be petty larceny1 and marijuana possession. Coincidentally, these were also my crimes of choice, back when I was committing crimes. You could say that I chose Merriweather because he was a kindred spirit, and maybe he was. But I’ll tell you the truth right now: My agenda was even more personal than that.
Merriweather, back when he was a free man, liked to steal things—cars, jewelry, guitars, leather coats, computers, bicycles, once a coffeemaker, a ladder, and one purebred dog. He would pinch anything that had a resale value over $15. However, what Demetrius liked to steal most was televisions. And stealing TVs was his undoing.
Currently Demetrius was doing life for the first-degree murder of his elderly neighbor, Elsie Collins, who was stabbed fifteen times in her sleep twenty years ago. Merriweather had always vehemently claimed his innocence, but since his fingerprints were found in Elsie’s house and Elsie’s TV was found in Merriweather’s apartment, he became the prime suspect and eventually the only suspect. While the cops never found the murder weapon or signs of violence in Demetrius’s belongings, they did find a spot of Mrs. Collins’s blood on the television,2 and he was convicted based on eyewitness testimony. Elsie’s neighbor had seen Demetrius leave her house, carrying a television, sometime before her body was discovered. Demetrius claimed that all he was doing was stealing her TV. He assumed she was sleeping upstairs. He knew she went to bed at ten P.M. every night. He knew that because he could see the lights in the bedroom turn dark with clockwork precision.
I’m a firm believe
r in consistency. If a man liked to steal things, and small things at that, what would make him escalate to murder? There was a step missing in between. If a man can lose a murder weapon and all evidence of a murder, why would he keep a television around that tied him to the crime? The evidence against Demetrius was unfortunate but utterly circumstantial. He was convicted because he stole the wrong TV at the wrong time, but it was an epic leap to call him a murderer.
In Demetrius’s file was a letter from the prison chaplain calling Demetrius a peaceful man who had found God while incarcerated (I know, what a cliché) and seen the error of his ways. But the chaplain insisted that he didn’t believe Merriweather could have committed such a crime even before he found God. Merriweather had been a model prisoner from the start and had no infractions against him except for stealing a fellow inmate’s rosary beads. But that was at the very beginning.
I drove to San Quentin the following week, after memorizing every detail of Merriweather’s file.
He was in a maximum-security cell block, which meant we talked on those phones through a thick plastic barrier. The first question I asked him was this:
“Did you murder Elsie Collins?”
“I’ve never murdered anyone,” Demetrius replied.
Some people know how to lie. They can do it with remarkable conviction. Sociopaths do it best because they believe the lie. It’s possible that Merriweather was fooling me, but the moment he answered that question, I believed him and I said so.
“I want to look into your case, Demetrius. I think there might be a way to reopen it. First, I’d like to go over some of the details I found in your file.”
“Ask away.”
“You admitted to being in Ms. Collins’s home the night of her murder, correct?”
“Yes.”
“Tell me exactly what you did.”
“I climbed through her back window—”
“What time?”
“Around midnight. I unplugged her TV and left through the back door. Couldn’t have taken more than five minutes.”
“So you left the back door open?”
“Right. I know what you’re thinking. If I didn’t kill her, I certainly made it easier for the real killer to break in.”
