Eight days passed in a cloud of recriminations and gut-shredding loss. Realizing that the image in the mirror is the monster and not the savior you’ve built yourself up to be. Recognizing that you truly belong in that jail cell for the rest of your life.
They weren’t calling my run at the fence an escape attempt, but I spent the next week first in the medical ward, then in an isolation cell so they could watch me. Every breath caused pain. They said I’d cracked a rib, but I knew it to be my newly burdened conscience, sparking to life every time I inhaled.
Raisa came by and expected a smile when she said, “I may be able to get you out of here.”
I toyed with the ragged sleeve of my jailhouse scrubs. “How?”
“The DNA results came in. You matched the pool of blood in the garage, but the cops also proved that Carlos had been dead almost a week by then. That, plus no witness ID, means they can’t hold you for Carlos’s murder.”
“No witness ID?” Sabin had been so confident after that lineup.
Raisa shook her head. “The neighbor didn’t ID you. Said she couldn’t be sure. She recognized the car but said she only got a look at the back of the driver’s head.”
“They’ll still hold me for the other guy—Reuben whatever.”
“Maybe not. They can prove you were there, but not that it was the same time Reuben Sanchez was killed. The time of death is too big a window.”
I nodded distractedly. Why hadn’t the cops followed up on the tip to check on the knife in Chaco’s car? That would have given them another suspect they could tie to Reuben’s death. Maybe Lisa’s mom never made the call.
“Sabin will probably stall,” Raisa said. “Use the arrest warrant as a lever to get you to talk about who else was there that night. You could be out of here today if you told him.”
I shook my head.
“Okay. Hold tight. He doesn’t have much of a case left. I’ll see if I can get a judge to dismiss.”
I shrugged, remembering the revelations in Catherine’s diary. If her words were true, I didn’t deserve to be set free.
It took another week for the dismissal to come though. When Corrections Officer Delta came to get me at two o’clock the next Friday afternoon, I handed over the scrubs and plastic shoes and they gave me back Catherine’s diary and twenty-nine dollars from my account. Damn. More money than when they booked me. But I had more crimes to my credit now, too.
I walked out to the road and waited for a bus back into town; back to join the living. First thing on the agenda was some real food. The kind that makes you chew before you swallow. Second, find Catherine’s therapist and get the truth.
My truck was still in front of Bonita’s house. I gathered up the flyers and junk mail that had arrived during my three weeks in jail, tossed them in the trash, then took a long, hot shower, trying to wash away my recriminations as well as the jailhouse funk.
I stopped at a hole-in-the-wall Mexican restaurant for a plate of tongue tacos, then headed east toward Cambria Styles’s office.
The building was one of three small bungalows on a cul-de-sac behind the Tucson Mall. Oleanders bloomed head high against the windows. It was close to five o’clock; I didn’t know if the therapist would still be there.
I crunched up the gravel drive and had raised my hand to knock when I read the sign on the door, PLEASE COME IN AND REMAIN IN THE WAITING ROOM. I’LL COME GET YOU WHEN I’M FREE. I let myself into a pleasant, quiet waiting area that contained a small secretary’s desk, three upholstered armchairs, and a glass-topped coffee table. Sierra Club, Arizona Highways, and Field & Stream magazines fanned out across the glass. Nothing there to stir a patient’s frantic mind.
I didn’t have to wait long. At ten minutes to five I heard a door open and footsteps across the front gravel. I peeked through the blinds and oleander leaves to see a walrus-shaped man trudging toward a black car at the curb. The interior door to the office opened and Cambria Styles caught me peering out.
“Did we have an appointment?”
Styles hadn’t changed much in the three years since I’d seen her—she still had dishwater-blond hair, poker-straight almost to her waist, and sallow skin like she was an underwater creature. I reintroduced myself.
“I was a friend of Catherine Chandliss’s. We met when I dropped her off here a couple of months before she died.”
Her eyes widened as she remembered the other associations with my name. Catherine’s friend, accused of killing her uncle. There would be no handshake.
“How can I help you?” she said, taking a step back. Clearly the woman thought I needed therapeutic help of one kind or another.
“Have you ever seen this before?” I held out the banded stack of pages from Catherine’s diary.
“What is it?” She stripped off the rubber band and flipped through it.
“Catherine’s notes. The ones you told her to write to tell herself the truth.”
“I didn’t think she’d even…” Her voice faded as she continued to read. She seemed fascinated by the pages. If she’d ever seen them before, she was putting on a good act.
“I want to know if what she wrote is the truth.”
“I don’t understand.”
“Is this the truth—or is it some kind of therapy game? That’s all I want to know.”
“I couldn’t possibly…without studying it…Catherine was—”
“Read it.”
Styles looked at her watch, then tapped the pages back into a stack on the desk. “It will take some time. Why don’t you make an appointment for next week and then we can—”
“I’ll wait.” I settled myself into one of the upholstered chairs.
She sighed and took the swivel chair behind the desk. She read a few pages, then stopped at one of the sections I’d marked with two dark vertical lines in the margin. “Excuse me a moment. I want to check something.” She retreated to her private office and came back a moment later with a file in her hand, then continued reading.
I studied photos of the Grand Canyon and trout. An unseen clock ticked like a loud, slow metronome.
After twenty minutes, she slapped her own file shut and restacked Catherine’s loose pages.
“You were tried for the murder of Catherine’s uncle.”
“Yes.” No need to go into the equivocation about being found not guilty.
“And you want to know if she was ever really molested, is that it?”
I nodded. I wasn’t breathing. Once again waiting for the verdict.
“What difference would that make? Either you killed a man or you didn’t. Either he was guilty or he was innocent. What are you going to do with the information?”
I tried to shrug, but the tension kept my shoulders tight up around my ears. “I have to know. Was Catherine molested? Was her daughter in danger?”
She put down the pencil she’d been chewing on and steepled her fingers.
“I’ll tell you what I told the police back then, when they were following up on your accusation about Mr. Racine. In all our months of therapy, Catherine never gave me any indication that her uncle had abused her. She never mentioned it.”
“Maybe it takes more than a few months of therapy to get around to it.”
“Sometimes. After you were arrested, I actually wondered if you’d seen something I hadn’t.”
“Had I?” I’d heard Catherine’s accusations in the weeks before she died. And I had seen Walter Racine with Katie in the playground. Wasn’t that proof of abuse?
She tapped the diary with a forefinger. “Not according to Catherine.”
I shut the front door quietly behind me. I’d forgotten to take Catherine’s notes, but that didn’t matter. I’d memorized all the important parts. They were words I’d never forget. A death sentence.
I got back to Bonita’s house and plugged in my cell phone. The battery had gone dead in the Corrections Center property closet and it wasn’t until it started charging that I heard the beeps for waiting messages.
No one had called during my early days in jail. Guillermo had called twice today. The last message, listed at 2:30 p.m., was from my father “Jessie, Raisa told us you’re getting out today. Do you need a ride home? Deke’s here at the house with me. Call me when you get this message.”
My fingers traced the familiar pattern of the buttons.
“I’m back at Bonita’s house, Dad.”
“We’ll be right over.”
I wasn’t sure if I could keep up a happy façade around him. And Deke hadn’t done me any favors. He’d stood by and watched Len Sabin railroad me into an arrest with insufficient evidence.
“No need. Everything’s okay.”
“Ten minutes.”
It was actually fifteen, but by the time they got there I hadn’t had a chance to do much more than throw out the spoiled food in the refrigerator and wipe the worst of the dust and grime from the few remaining pieces of furniture.
“I’m glad they dropped the charges,” my father said, enveloping me in a bear hug.
“I’m glad to see you home,” Deke said over my father’s shoulder.
No thanks to you, I wanted to say. Where were you when Len Sabin was filling out that arrest warrant? “Do you know any more about the kids?” I asked instead.
“Not yet.” Deke ducked his head and addressed his comments to the floor. “We picked up Ricky Lamas but he’s not talking.”
“It’s got something to do with Darren Markson and those day-care centers. I know it does. Have you checked them out? And did you test that car seat?”
“We got DNA from the seat, but we’ve got nothing to match it to. Jesus, Jessie. Don’t you know when to butt out? Didn’t three weeks in jail teach you anything?”
I didn’t have any evidence I hadn’t told him about except a wet kiss between two women in a parking lot, and that was hardly proof of murder. “Those day-care centers are the only things that tie everything—Markson, Felicia, Carlos Ochoa, Reuben Sanchez—together.”
“How do we know Reuben Sanchez had anything to do with the day-care centers?”
“We don’t,” I admitted.
“Maybe the whole thing is drug related, and Darren Markson was just in the wrong place at the wrong time,” Deke suggested.
“But Felicia worked for his attorney. That’s not just a coincidence.”
“Enough already!” my father interrupted. “We came by to see if you were okay, Jessie. Maybe go get some dinner.”
“I’m okay, Dad. Thanks. I just want to be alone tonight.”
I spotted a ballerina and a tiny skeleton through the open doorway, faces covered with masks and makeup, open bags in their arms. “Trick or treat!”
My heart caught in my throat. Jesus, it was Halloween. The third anniversary of my crime. But the first day that I truly knew to call it such a thing. Three years ago, I, too, had been a masked reveler on the street, but in my case, a killer hiding in a white sheet.
“I’m sorry, kids. I forgot. I don’t have any candy.”
Their shoulders slumped, losers at this new game their first time out. They were turning back toward their mother at the curb when my dad called out, “Here, I’ve got something for you!” He dropped two quarters into each bag.
“Thanks, Dad.” He saw the smile, but also the sadness in my eyes.
“I know this is a hard time of year for you, Jessie. Catherine’s accident…having to deal with the police. But you’ve got to put it all behind you.” Unwavering in his support, he misunderstood the reason for my grief.
“Does Mom have the altar done yet?” Although she wouldn’t light the Day of the Dead candles until tomorrow, I was sure she’d be populating the shrine by now.
“Almost.”
Would I ever have a place on my mother’s table of remembrance? Maybe she’d find my old adoption papers, fold them small, and tuck them between two candles at the back of the table. Maybe a bullet casing to memorialize the killer I’d become.
I walked my father out to the front porch and this time allowed Deke a hug as well. They got in the car and left it idling at the curb until a flock of small Halloween superheroes ran past them and reached the sidewalk safely.
Sighing, I stooped to pick up a palm-sized rock at my feet. It was a broken shard of agate, the dull brown exterior belying the shiny gray swirls inside. There was a notch on one side just big enough for my thumb and a razor-sharp ribboned edge, like lethal taffy, on the other. If I held it there, thumb cradled into the depression, I could be a cave woman, hollow out the trunk of a tree for a canoe, scrape the skin of a vanquished animal. Or I could rake that edge across my own flesh—a slow, purposeful stripe of pain—and make all the regret disappear.
It would be easy. Quiet. My blood would sink into the gravel and refresh some shallow-rooted desert plant. I’d get rid of the pain. I’d never hurt anyone or disappoint anyone again.
I caressed the dark edge with my thumb, identifying my own ridges and whorls with the stony blade, then turned to go back into the house.
Not yet. The blade would still be here tomorrow. I could wait.