The Fear in Her Eyes

by Grant McKenzie

  The car had barely stopped moving before Molly pulled open the passenger door and climbed into the front seat.

  “Yo, Mr. Q.”

  “Yo yourself, Molls. How you feeling today?”

  “Bummed.”

  “Why?”

  “InvisiLass Four died.”

  “Your fish?”

  “Yep. She was cool. You could see right through her skin to her organs and stuff.”

  “That’s a shame.”

  Molly shrugged. “No biggie. It happens.”

  “Still—

  “Are we going?” Molly interrupted, ending the conversation.

  “Seat belt,” said Ian.

  Molly rolled her eyes and fastened the safety belt across her lap and shoulder.

  A flash of silver caught the light, and Ian pointed to a small stud protruding from the girl’s left nostril. The area around it looked tender and sore. “Is that real?”

  Molly grinned, showing a wide, adolescent gap between her front teeth. “Yep. Got it pierced on the weekend. Gushed blood and everything.”

  Ian sighed. “And the parlor didn’t ask how old you were first?”

  “What the fuck do they care? I had cash.”

  Ian winced at the profanity. It always sounded a thousand times worse from the mouth of a child.

  “And where did you get the cash from?” he asked.

  “Around.”

  “What did your foster parents have to say?”

  Molly shrugged again. “What’s the big deal? My ears were pierced before I even had my first diaper change.” She touched her left lobe where a tiny gold star glistened. In her right lobe was a Dan Dare–style rocket ship. The earrings were pure gold, a surprise present from Ian when he had discovered both her ears were badly infected because of cheap jewelry.

  “Is it nickel-free, at least?” Ian asked.

  “Yep. Sterilized surgical steel. I knew you’d have a hairy shit if I didn’t do it proper.”

  “You did, huh?” Ian grinned.

  Molly tried to be stoic and not grin back. “Are we going or what?” she asked impatiently. “Enough with the third degree.”

  Ian flicked on his indicator and pulled away from the curb. “You excited at all? It’s been a long time since you’ve seen your mother.”

  “Are you jerking me?” Molly folded her arms tightly across her flat chest and clenched her jaw. “The bitch can rot for all I care. Let’s just get it over with.”

  IAN PARKED outside Molly’s grandmother’s house and studied the eastside neighborhood. This was his first visit to the home, and as such he liked to get a quick lay of the land before proceeding.

  Molly’s mother had been out of jail for two weeks and, according to her parole officer, had made every assurance that she didn’t plan to go back inside anytime soon. When Ian pressed the officer for his off-the-record opinion if that was a likely goal, he had been shut down. Fresh out of college, the young officer had been on the job for less than a month. He still believed the professional rules of conduct were in place for a good reason.

  Ian gave the rookie another few weeks before he came to the cold realization that interagency favors, bartered for future and past considerations, were the only ways to cut through the bureaucratic bullshit and make any kind of difference—no matter how small.

  “Do you remember this place?” Ian asked his passenger.

  Molly looked out her window at the small, postwar bungalow nestled in a row of nearly identical houses with their neat square lawns and low, knee-high picket fences.

  “Kinda,” she said. “Is there a dog? I remember a dog. Ugly little fucker with a fat pink tongue that stuck out the side of its mouth like it had had a stroke or something.”

  “Nobody mentioned a dog.”

  “Huh. Maybe I’m thinking of someplace else.”

  “This is your grandmother’s place,” Ian continued. “Your mother is staying here while she gets settled. If things work out today, you’ll visit her once a week and then we’ll go from there.”

  “Go from there?” Molly sat up in her seat and glared at him. “What the fuckety fuck does that mean?”

  Ian winced, picturing his own daughter if she had lived to see this age. “Do you have to curse?”

  “Yeah, I do. You got a problem with that?”

  “I’d prefer if you didn’t. At least not around me.”

  “And I’d prefer not to fucking be here.” Molly’s cheeks glowed red and her eyes narrowed into angry slits. “This bitch put out her fucking cigarettes on my arms and laughed when I screamed. When I was a baby, she mixed heroin in my formula so I’d sleep through the fucking night. I suffered my first overdose before I could walk. When other kids were in kindergarten, I was in hospital going through withdrawal. But she’s done her time, so all’s forgiven? I have a problem with that, but there’s nothing I can fucking do about it, right?”

  Ian stared into the girl’s eyes, seeing far more years there than her age implied.

  “Sorry,” he said. “You reminded me of someone else for a minute, but you’re right, you’re not her.”

  “Damn right, I’m not,” Molly said. “I wouldn’t wish this bitch on anyone.”

  Ian sighed and opened his door. “You ready?”

  Molly glared at him. “What do you think?”

  “We’ll go anyway.”

  Molly almost smiled again, but it turned into a petulant sneer as she opened her own door and slid out.

  WHEN THE grandmother answered the door, Ian’s first instinct was to turn around and leave. He could smell alcohol on her breath.

  Wearing hip hugging, Lycra-infused blue jeans and a shiny pink polyester blouse—unbuttoned far enough to show off a black lace, push-up bra and the stretchmarks across her generous bosom—the woman flashed a lipstick grin around a lit cigarette and batted false eyelashes of such length she would have to be careful her face didn’t fly away. Like Molly, she appeared far older than her birth date implied. Not for lack of concealment or effort, but there was a lot of wear and tear that makeup couldn’t disguise.

  “Is this my Molly girl?” the grandmother asked. She bent at the waist and squinted to get a better look. “It’s been so long. What’s wrong with your hair?”

  Molly frowned. “Nothing.”

  “It’s horrible,” said the woman. “Don’t you dye it?”

  “No.”

  The woman exhaled cigarette smoke through her nostrils. “You should. It’s just nasty.”

  Molly turned her head to look up at Ian. “Do we have to stay?”

  Before Ian could answer, the grandmother laughed and straightened up. “Just like her mother. No time for teasing.” She winked at Ian. “I’m Doris. Come in, come in.”

  “Is Molls’s mother here?” Ian asked.

  “Sure, sure. Francine is just freshening up in the bathroom. Be out in a sec.” She led the way to a table in the kitchen with four wooden chairs, two coffee cups, and two overflowing ashtrays. “You want coffee? I made a pot.”

  Ian nodded. “Sure. Splash of milk if you have it.”

  “What about you, missy?” Doris asked Molly. “I have Coke. It ain’t cold, but I can add ice.”

  “Do you have juice?” asked Molly.

  “Juice?” Doris scratched her chin in contemplation. “I have orange. Made a jug from frozen this morning. That do?”

  “Sure.”

  “You take it straight?” When Ian glowered at her, Doris laughed again. The jiggle in her jaw made cigarette ash drop onto her blouse. “Just teasing.” She flicked the ash away with the tip of a false fingernail that could be easily classified as a dangerous weapon.

  Ian chose a spot at the table to sit down, but rose again instantly when a skinny blonde appeared in the doorway. Like Molly’s dead fish, Francine’s flesh looked nearly transparent. There was no layer of fat beneath to hide the frail muscle and bone. Her hair was bleached, with dark roots, and hung past her shoulders, but it was as limp as seaweed. Beneath l
ong bangs, dark eyes surveyed the room, taking in the strangers. It took a moment for her to focus in on the child. When she finally did, she squatted down on her haunches and held out sticklike arms in a waiting embrace.

  “Hey there, baby doll. Remember me?”

  Molly stood stock still beside the table, barely breathing.

  “What? No hug for Mommy?”

  Molly didn’t move, but Ian did.

  “These things take time,” he said, trying to sound reassuring as he placed himself between the mother and child.

  The woman looked through him as if he wasn’t there. Her full attention was focused on her daughter.

  “Just want a hug, baby,” she said. “I been in a bad place for a long time.”

  Molly’s fierce gaze locked onto her mother’s. “Me too,” she spat. “And you’re the bitch who put me there.”

  “Ah, Christ!” Doris groaned from beside the sink. “Here we go. It’s one fucking pity party after another around here.”

  “Mom!” Francine yelled.

  “Oh, don’t ‘Mom’ me, Francine. I’m fucking sick of it. You’ve been out two weeks, and it’s one drama after another. Next thing you know you’ll be inviting that son-of-a-bitch husband of yours back into your bed.”

  “Mom, stop it! Randy’s dead, you know that. I ain’t even seen his grave—

  “Then whose boots were at the back door last—

  “MOM!”

  “Ah, screw it. It’s too damn early to be civilized.” Doris picked up the glass of orange juice she had poured for Molly, topped it up with vodka from a gallon jug on the counter, and stormed out of the kitchen.

  A moment later, the television clicked on in the adjoining room, and the women of The View could be heard discussing the latest Hot Topics.

  Francine stood up and scratched her arms. Her fingernails left bright pink trails across her pale flesh. She moved to the table and lifted one of the coffee cups that still contained the remains of a half-finished drink. There wasn’t the slightest hint of steam rising above the rim, but she lifted it to her lips and swallowed it down without complaint.

  Ian touched Molly on the shoulder. “Why don’t you sit at the table. I’ll get you that juice.”

  “We could just go,” she said.

  “Let’s give it a minute,” said Ian.

  Molly huffed and moved to a chair on the opposite side of the table from her mother. Francine had sat down without a word and now stared deeply into her empty cup.

  Ian poured Molly a glass of juice and brought it to the table along with the coffee pot. He showed the pot to Francine. “You want a refill?”

  She didn’t answer or even acknowledge his presence.

  Ian poured himself a cup and sipped it black. He didn’t feel up to looking for the milk.

  When the silence continued to stretch, Molly sighed with world-weary exaggeration. “What’s wrong with her?”

  Ian put down his cup and slid his hand across the table until it was within a fraction of an inch of the woman’s. Francine flinched and pulled her hand away, but as she did so her chin lifted and her eyes focused on his. Her pupils were barely visible, twin microdots in murky brown puddles of unfocused interest.

  “You’re fucking high,” he said.

  She instantly turned her face away and began to cry. “You have no idea,” she said. Snot bubbles burst from her nostrils as the crying intensified. “No fucking idea.”

  A dam of rage burst deep inside as Ian clenched his teeth and shoved his face close to hers, knowing he was crossing a line.

  “You’re the one with no idea,” he hissed. “You have every reason to get your shit together sitting right in front of you, and you’re too fucking selfish to appreciate just how special that is.”

  The woman started to wail and shake as Ian stood up and held out his hand to Molly. “We’re leaving,” he said.

  “About fucking time,” said Molly, taking his hand.

  “Don’t curse.”

  “You did.”

  “Fuck.”

  Molly giggled.

  6

  Oregon State Penitentiary is located on a twenty-six-acre parcel of quiet countryside on the outskirts of Salem. When it originally moved from Portland in 1866, the modern, redbrick prison—each brick manufactured by the prisoners themselves—offered its nearly three hundred inmates the opportunity to work its two-hundred-acre farm, toil in the foundry for Northwestern Stove, or learn the trades of tailoring, carpentry, shoemaking, harness making, and food services.

  Today, the prison houses over two thousand maximum-security inmates and is enclosed by a reinforced concrete wall averaging twenty-five feet in height with ten watchtowers. The wall also extends a further ten feet beneath the earth to where the water table starts. Escape tunnels and water don’t mix. In addition to the high walls and armed guards, every truck leaving the grounds is scanned by a super-sensitive electronic ear that can detect the faintest of heartbeats.

  The farm has grown to a thriving dairy industry covering two thousand acres, while manufacturing switched from stove building to furniture making and the state’s third-largest commercial laundry. The prison’s wooden gallows have also been replaced. Its death row inmates now face execution by lethal injection.

  Pulling into the prison parking lot, Ian was thirty minutes ahead of his scheduled appointment with inmate Tyler Young. He turned off the vehicle’s engine, listening to the hot metal tick as it cooled, and stared across gray asphalt at the imposing front gates.

  The bleakness of concrete, steel, and razor wire didn’t fill him with the sense of satisfaction he had hoped. Even that stark landscape was too good for the man who had murdered his daughter.

  Exiting the vehicle, he turned up the collar of his jacket against a harsh wind that, with the exception of a stand of trees on the eastern edge of the parking lot, found little foliage to break its path. The empty fields surrounding the wall gave the prison’s sharpshooters a clear view of anyone foolish enough to attempt escape. The prison had learned a painful lesson from its early, more trusting, history: Give a killer an inch and he’ll stab you in the throat.

  Ian presented his visitor’s pass and photo ID at the front gate and was allowed to proceed onto a bare patch of no-man’s-land between two secure metal barriers. There he waited for the inner gate to open, an action that occurred only after the outer one had slammed shut again. The clang of metal on metal brought a strange sense of claustrophobia and a queasy feeling of dread, as if he was the one being locked up with no possibility of parole.

  Entering the walled grounds, Ian followed a wide concrete path across the groomed prison lawn where a gaggle of geese had decided to mock the wingless captives by crapping on their picnic area and the playground equipment set up for visiting families.

  In the summer months, prisoners who had earned the privilege could enjoy a rare moment of outdoor playtime with those loved ones who still stuck by their sides. Ian was thankful for the day’s drab weather; the sound of laughter and joy would have been too much.

  He was already unsettled by the cheery yellow paint that dominated all of the looming institutional buildings and massive residential wings. If he had his way, he would paint the walls in blood and revert the prison back to medieval times, when the heads of murderers and rapists were stuck on sharp poles as a warning to any who dared follow. How easy it is, he thought, to turn a pacifist into a hangman—all it takes is the proper motivation.

  Ian glanced over his shoulder and saw a uniformed guard high up in the gate tower staring back at him through tinted glasses. For a moment he imagined himself up there, a rifle hard against his shoulder, as Tyler Young took his first steps to freedom. He wondered if he would even hesitate to squeeze the trigger.

  And yet, less than two years earlier, his wife, Helena, used to tease that he couldn’t hurt a spider. In Portland, the multilegged pests grew to the size of a bruised thumb and had a penchant for skittering across the bathroom floor at inopportune tim
es. When Helena’s shrieks brought him running, Ian always captured the predatory arachnid in tissue or under glass and released it into the garden unharmed. But that was then …

  Inside the reception area, Ian presented his pass and photo ID to a lanky guard with a sheen of hair cut so close to the scalp it looked more like polish on an ebony burl. His nose was flat and crooked, suggesting the losing end of more than one altercation, and he possessed a disturbingly lazy eye, which, deserved or not, served to instinctively lower his perceived IQ.

  The guard scrutinized Ian’s driver’s license and silently mouthed the name as though to unlock a hidden memory. When he looked up again, his lips formed an oddly crooked grin made more prominent by the size and brightness of his two front teeth. If the Oregon Department of Corrections ever designed a new staff recruitment poster, Ian guessed this man would be at the bottom of their list of in-house models.

  The guard’s right eye focused in on Ian’s face, while his left seemed to drift somewhere over Ian’s shoulder.

  “First time?” The guard’s voice was deep and held an authoritative tone that one expected from a more substantial, heftier man. It seemed ill suited to the man’s lanky frame.

  “How’d you guess?” Ian asked.

  The guard grinned wider, and the lazy eye floated from Ian’s shoulder to a spot nearer his ear. “You ain’t a lawyer, and this dumbass only ever gets visited by lawyers. Never seen no family ever bother.”

  Ian bristled. “I’m not family.”

  “No, didn’t reckon you was that either.” The guard chewed the inside of his cheek in concentration. “Your name’s familiar to me though. Where do you work?”

  Ian looked down at his pass and ID still being held in the guard’s large hand, wondering if the questioning was all part of the security procedure or if he was just trying to be friendly.