Life Sentences (13 page)

GLORIA WAS ROLLING THE DICE
on her Eagle Scout, going for the psych evaluation in advance of the petition to move the case to juvenile court. She had mapped out the strategy with her client and his guardian. It was a little awkward, the guardian being the dead father's brother. He could barely stand to be in the same room as the boy. A well-to-do engineer, he had decided that standing by his nephew was the best way to maintain appearances. But he couldn't conceal his anger toward the boy, much less his fear.

He sat with Gloria now, waiting in the hallway of the county courthouse while the boy met with psychiatrists.

“He has to be crazy, right?” the uncle asked Gloria.

“I think it will be determined that he needs long-term psychiatric help,” Gloria said, knowing she wasn't really answering the uncle's question. “We don't
need
that finding to have him tried as a juvenile, but it could help.”

“What if he comes out with a clean bill of health?”

He won't,
Gloria wanted to say.
He killed his parents and his twin sisters, for no discernible reason, and he's been lying about it ever since, although not particularly well.
Instead, she said, “It won't prevent me from petitioning the court to have him tried as a juvenile. But he's sixteen, at the upper edge of the age limit, and if he's considered sane, such as it were, that will be tougher.”

“But if he's tried as a juvenile, they have to let him out—”

“At twenty-one,” Gloria said.

“So he gets five years. That's a little more than a year per homicide.”

“Even in the adult system, a first-time offender might draw concurrent rather than subsequent sentences.”

“But not five years.”

“You'd be surprised. I mean, no, I can't imagine a judge would sentence him to five years, but I wouldn't be shocked if he served less than ten.”

“He would be only twenty-six,” the uncle said. “Still a young man.”

“A young man who had served ten years in the Maryland prison system. If you believe in fresh starts, that's not the best way to get him one. Look, this isn't a gimmick or the exploitation of a loophole. He's entitled to be tried as a juvenile. He's under eighteen. A decade or so ago, that would have been the assumption, the only option. Have you read the emerging science on the adolescent brain? They shouldn't be driving cars, if you ask me. I know this is terrifying, but if your nephew did what he is accused of doing—and he has not confessed, please keep that in mind—it was not a decision born of sound reasoning, whatever they say in there.” She jerked her head toward the closed door.

“But as a citizen,” the uncle pressed, “would you want him on the street at twenty-one?”

“I'm his lawyer. I want the best outcome for him. The state takes care of the other citizens. It's a pretty good system, if you ask me.”

The uncle, looking vaguely nauseous, excused himself. Gloria was glad for the distraction of Harold Lenhardt, even if she knew he was on the other side, rooting for her to lose this round. She liked Lenhardt. Everybody did. Even some of the people he locked up ended up liking him.

“Smart strategy,” he said by way of greeting.

“Have you ever considered,” she said, “that it might be better for the family if this isn't dragged out in court?”

“Let me guess. He's working on these tales of amazing abuse, Mommy and Daddy doing horrible things to their kiddies. He killed them to make it stop, then killed his sisters because they could never be made whole again. Meant to kill himself, but found that it's actually hard to get a shotgun in your mouth. I say ‘working on' because it's all bullshit, but I'm betting that's where he goes next, after he finally lets go of the intruder story.”

Gloria had known that no decent murder police would be fooled by her client, and Lenhardt was considerably better than decent. She shrugged, giving nothing away. She hoped.

“Hey, did some writer call you?” Lenhardt.

“From the
Beacon-Light
? Of course.”

“No, not about this. That old case, whatchamacallit. She tracked me down, trying to get a lead on Teena. I figured she must want to talk to you as well.”

So Cassandra Fallows was trying to find Teena Murphy. Not that Teena would talk, but it was interesting. Teena, Reg, Gloria—could she find Calliope?

“Oh,
her.
She's been leaving messages. I've been ignoring them.”

“Gloria Bustamante, avoiding publicity. I guess they're ice-skating in hell right now.”

Gloria smiled. She loved being misunderstood. Let people think she was a publicity hound, let them think she was a not-so-closeted gay woman, let them think she was a drunk. She would rather have a million misimpressions stand than have anyone know who she really was.

“I ran into Teena. She looked like shit.”

Gloria barely remembered the detective's face.

“She didn't seem interested. In this lady or her book. But you know, Teena would dearly love to be vindicated.”

“Wouldn't anyone?”

“Ain't it the truth. Like your little Eagle Scout who's in there now, talking to the psychiatrists. He thinks he was right. His logic might not be our logic, but he has some sort of reason for what he did. The question is, does that make him crazy? Or just plain evil?”

“Pretty big philosophical questions for a Tuesday, Lenhardt.”

“Yeah. Is evil insanity? Or a really unpleasant version of sanity? Like, there's a part of me that thinks, a kid who did what he did—and the fact that we couldn't break him down into confessing only convinces me that he did do it—he has to be crazy. But maybe not according to the law, you know?”

“You been paying attention to that case in New York?” Gloria kept her voice as bland as possible. “The one where they're going to release the guy who
didn't
kill his parents when he was a teenager but got worked over by some really zealous homicide detectives who wrung a half-assed confession out of him? He served twenty years.”

Lenhardt waved his hand, refusing the change of subject. “At least when I sit in a room with a kid like that, I've got somebody nearby with a gun. I don't know how you do it.”

Gloria did, but it wasn't any of Lenhardt's business. It was easier, in some ways, to work with defendants like this, where she was sure of what had happened. Much easier than trafficking in the kind of ambiguity that Calliope Jenkins had presented. Everyone was so sure that she had killed her baby. Actually, Gloria was, too. But she had believed that telling the truth might be better for Callie, whereas everyone else
was adamant that she stick with the constitutional strategy. For a long time, Gloria hadn't understood why. When she did—when she did, she left the firm. Should Gloria break down, talk to this writer after all? But, no, she had nothing to say. She had suspicions, suppositions, but in the end, she had walked right up to the door and refused to open it, chosen another door, and walked out.

“Do you think Teena still blames Calliope Jenkins for everything that went wrong with her life?”

“She has to blame someone,” Lenhardt said. On this topic, his injured colleague, he dropped the glibness. “That case, it's like a curse, isn't it? Like something you'd see in an old movie or that episode where the Brady Bunch goes to Hawaii. First Teena, then the social worker—”

“I'd have committed suicide, too, if that happened on my watch.”

“Officially, an accident,” Lenhardt corrected. “Ran her car into a tree.”

“Freud said there are no accidents.”

“Bobby Freud? Good police, but he never worked traffic investigation that I know of.”

Gloria had to laugh. She knew better than anyone that life was full of accidents.

The doors to the hearing room opened and Gloria's client walked out, all smiles until he saw her. He adjusted his face into a more serious, thoughtful grimace, probably on the assumption that was what she wanted. On the assumption that she
cared
how he presented himself, which was wrong. He might be evil, whatever evil was. She really wasn't sure. She honestly didn't care.

HER CLOTHING QUOTA MET, CASSANDRA
ended up taking Teena to a nearby sushi place, a recommendation from another customer who overheard Cassandra say that she preferred protein at her midday meal. Teena, despite her long tenure at the mall and a residence a few miles south, didn't seem to have any idea where someone might eat in the area. Now that they were at the restaurant—Sans Sushi/Thai One On; Cassandra couldn't help thinking how her father would wince at
that
—it was apparent that Teena was one of those odd people who didn't care about food. However, she seemed almost too interested in the glass of white wine that had been set before her. Not that she was drinking rapidly, quite the opposite. She conspicuously ignored it, taking tiny sips,
then staring away. Yet she stole glances at the glass when she thought Cassandra wasn't looking and also studied Cassandra's little cup of chilled sake.

Although she had bought Teena's compliance, Cassandra did not feel she had permission to plunge right in, ask the questions she wanted to ask. The whole setup felt vaguely unethical. Was this checkbook journalism? Was she obligated to write about how she procured the interview? She had learned, in her second memoir, to keep her relatively cushioned lifestyle off the page, not to invite the reader's envy. Would the context make Teena look shrewd or greedy? And would it be unfair to describe the preoccupation with the wineglass and all that suggested?

“I don't usually drink at lunch,” Teena said out of the blue, as if reading her thoughts, but perhaps she was merely following Cassandra's eyes as they tracked hers.

“Hey, I'm having sake, which is more potent than wine. I often have a drink with lunch. Americans can be too abstemious.”

“I don't know that word,” Teena said, the kind of frank admission that was rare in Cassandra's circles. No one among her New York friends ever admitted ignorance. Most of her New York friends were men, however. Challenged on the word, she wasn't sure she could define it.

“Overly concerned with being good, virtuous,” she said, knowing she was probably wrong.

“That's one thing I've never been accused of. I do like to drink. But I'm not an alcoholic. There's a test you can take. I found it online. I drink alone, but then, I live alone. And I can't remember the last time I had a drink at lunch, and I wouldn't have risked this one if it weren't the end of my shift. As it is, I'll make sure I don't drive until at least an hour after I've finished that. At my size, I could blow the legal limit without being close to drunk. I
never
get drunk, but the blood doesn't always agree with the brain.”

Poor thing.
All those rules—didn't she know the score-keeping marked her more completely than her habits, whatever they might be? Had she struggled with alcohol before she left police work? Cassandra decided it was time to prod Teena toward the topic they had agreed to discuss.

“I thought ex-detectives ended up doing consulting, security and the like. Or private investigation. It never occurred to me that I would find you in Nordstrom's designer collections.”

“How long have you been looking for me?” There was a flattered wistfulness to her voice, as if she couldn't help teasing out the story of Cassandra's pursuit.

“A week or so? I found your name in the newspaper stories, the ones from back around the time…it happened. The archive on the local database only goes to 1991, but when I dropped your name into it, I found a small item. Something about an accident, a settlement.”

“I was injured on the job, but it wasn't exactly officer-of-the-year stuff. I was lucky to get anything. There are a lot of legal limits in those situations, according to the FOP counsel. In fact, it's kind of like
Let's Make a Deal.
They offered me the box—coverage of all related health issues for life, full pension although I was way short of my twenty—but I went for the curtain. And it looked like I was going to get the goat until the car manufacturer kicked in. I got luckier than I had a right to be. My colleagues thought I was greedy, trying to get money for an accident that everyone believes was my fault.”

“Was it?”

“
No.
I dropped my weapon while trying to subdue a suspect, she kicked it under the car, I reached in to get it, the parking brake popped. I'm lucky I even have the use of the hand, but those surgeons at Union Memorial are good. That's where you want to go for hands in Baltimore.”

Hard not to look at the hand under discussion, but it appeared normal enough, although Cassandra remembered the moment back in the
store, how difficult it had been for Teena to pluck Cassandra's business card from the carpet.

“It was curious to me—the article about your settlement didn't reference Calliope Jenkins.”

“Why is that curious?” Bristling, on alert.

“Well, it was a big deal, right? Like with me, no matter what I do—if I, say, saved a child from drowning—the writer will feel obligated to mention that I wrote
My Father's Daughter.
”

“Interesting.”

“Yes, I've written two more books since then and—”

“No, I mean it's interesting, the example you used, saving a child from drowning. I guess you think I failed to save a child.”

“No, no, no—”

“Because I
didn't
. What I failed to do is to get a sociopath to admit she killed her child. There's a difference. Calliope Jenkins's son is dead, was dead, long before my department got involved. That falls on others—Department of Social Services, the hospital personnel who sent a baby home with a crack-addicted mother who had already had one child taken away from her. Did you find
their
names?”

“Well, the one who died in the car accident. And there was a social worker who had to testify before a state legislative committee about why Calliope didn't get the mandated follow-up visits—”

“A supervisor, a boss, covering her ass and her employees' asses. They were almost as bad as Calliope, sitting there and invoking her constitutional rights, like she was Gandhi or Martin fucking Luther King.”

“Not to play devil's advocate, but Calliope didn't receive that much attention, didn't become the symbol of anything. One thing that interests me is that her story played out about the same time as Elizabeth Morgan's. Remember her?”

Teena shook her head. She was emotional, angry, but trying to calm down.

“Anyway, Morgan was white, educated, and accused her ex of abusing their daughter. She remained in jail rather than reveal her whereabouts. I knew all about Elizabeth Morgan but never heard about Calliope Jenkins until last month. I think that's part of what I'm writing here.”

“What are you writing, exactly?” Said with a squint, and Cassandra thought she might be catching a glimpse of the detective that Teena had once been.

“At this point, it's easier to say what it won't be. It's not true crime, not exactly. It's not just about Calliope. Still, I think there's a story there, about where we started out and ended up. Not just us, but the other girls in our group. One of them is married to the lawyer who defended Calliope—”

“Reg Barr, that pussy hound. I feel sorry for whoever married him. He landed the boss's daughter, right? I heard that was the only way he kept his job.”

Cassandra flushed, hurried on. “Yes, Donna Howard, also in our class. And he was the younger brother of yet another girl in our group, Tisha. Then there was a fourth girl who's apparently become a very proper church lady after a wild youth. I think our stories add up to something much larger than the parts.”

“Did you know Calliope well? Because I'd love any insight you have into her. I sat in rooms with her for hours on end. I was young, pretty raw, but I was
good
at what I did, and I couldn't break her. Was she that strong willed as a kid?”

Cassandra didn't know the answer, which was the stumbling block, the enormous hole at the heart of the project. She had written about her father, and however skewed her vision of him might have been, he was an open book to her. Ditto her two husbands, no matter how they might have chafed at her versions of them. But Calliope was an enigma, a quiet girl she had largely ignored. She had to report Calliope's life not only after Dickey Hill Elementary but during Dickey Hill Elementary. And for that, she needed Calliope.

“She was…kind of self-contained. Do you know where she is?”

“Not in Maryland, I know that much. I—look, this is illegal, you can't repeat this or write this—I used the credit department one time to try and track her down, using her old address. I think—I keep thinking that one day, I'll get a phone call or open the paper, and she'll be dead. And I'll be happy. At least, I think I'll be happy. But I might be angry, too, because she's the only one who knows.”

“Knows what?”

Teena looked at Cassandra as if she were an idiot. “Where she hid her baby's body, what she did to him. It's not really that hard to hide a body. You'd be surprised at the dead people who never get found. And regardless what people think, it's not that hard to try someone for homicide without a body. Look, I don't know how much you know about murder police, but the fact is, the obvious answer is the obvious answer. A kid disappears. His mother, a disturbed woman with a history of mistreating her children, won't say anything. She killed him. I want her to say that out loud, just once. On her deathbed, in a letter. I want—” She gestured limply with her right hand, the damaged one.

“What?”

“I don't know, actually. That's the problem. Calliope Jenkins isn't a person. She's a black hole, and I don't mean that in the nasty way it sounds. She sucks people in, you get inside her, and there's nothing there. She's dead inside, and she manages to kill anyone who comes near her, one way or the other. One kid abandoned to the system. One kid dead. The social worker who screwed up. And, okay,
me.
For seven years, Calliope drank up the attention like it was water or air. She loved it, she fucking loved it. She thrived. The rest of us fell apart.”

Teena had not eaten any of the teriyaki she had ordered. Now she pushed it around her plate while she slowly sipped her way to the bottom of her wineglass.

“What do you think happened?”

“Shaken baby, something like that, when she was high.”

“The record on whether she was an addict is in dispute. A user, yes, but not necessarily an addict.”

“If she wasn't an addict, she was insane.”

“Drugs, insanity—either one would make a charge of first-degree homicide unlikely, right?”

“Yeah.
Yes.
” Teena was shifting back and forth between her old cop persona and her present-day role as a proper Nordstrom sales associate.

“And seven years—that's probably as much time as she would have served for manslaughter, or whatever the lesser charge was? So she did the time, after all, perhaps more time than she might have.”

Teena lifted her eyes to Cassandra's, then lowered them, fixing her gaze once again on the sake, then reaching for the bottle, turning it around in her hand.

“Hatsumago,” she said. “Is it wine?”

“Actually, sake is a kind of beer.”

“I don't drink beer, never have. Now, see, that's another reason I know I don't have a drinking problem. There's a six-pack of Sierra Nevada in my fridge, been there almost a year. I bought it for a cookout, then decided I didn't want to go. But I would never drink it, even if there wasn't any other alcohol in the house.” A wry smile. “But then—there always seems to be some kind of alcohol in my house.”

Cassandra felt herself warming to Teena Murphy, something she hadn't expected. Her father had schooled her to be open-minded in most things, but he also had instilled an undeniable class snobbery. And he had been particularly disdainful of police officers. She remembered him sneering at the television during the '68 Democratic Convention in Chicago, his rage almost out of proportion to the events, appalling as they were. He was not the kind of man who would settle for a word like
pig,
not when he could say
cochon
and then make a joke about Circe. Of course, it was around the end of his marriage; he had left Cassandra's
mother by then. Cassandra knew firsthand now that divorce made people almost crazy with rage. In fact, she believed that the person who left was often angrier than the person who stayed behind.

“As I said, she did seven years. Isn't that a kind of justice?”

“Justice,” Teena repeated, musing over the word. “I confess, I was never much interested in justice. Maybe that shocks you, but that's not really a police's job. The state's attorney's office screwed up lots of solid cases we sent them; juries voted to acquit because they didn't like cops. I couldn't control justice. I lived for results. I was the third female homicide detective in that department. I told them if they put me on Calliope Jenkins, I would get her to crack. She cracked me. The day I got injured? The woman had eyes the same color as Jenkins's. That's the last thing I remember. I looked into those eyes and the next thing I knew, a car was rolling over my arm as I reached for my gun. You don't know, you can't know, how many times I sat there, staring at her. Calliope, I mean. We had staring contests. And every time, I was the one who broke. She could hold a person's gaze forever, all the time, saying the same things.
I take the Fifth. I have nothing to say.
Even her own lawyers thought she was a freak, especially Barr. You ask me, he was scared of her.”

“Scared of her?”

“He always seemed nervous when we went over to the jail to talk to her. But she didn't mind talking. That is, not talking. She was in jail; she could have passed word back that she wasn't going to talk, her lawyer could have blocked us. Don't you see? She
liked
it. She liked being in that room with me, liked fucking with me. She loved it. She was—I don't know, showing off.”