Gibbon's Decline and Fall (18 page)

She heard her own teeth grinding and stopped, appalled. Anger was a defense. There was nothing here in this room, at this moment, to defend against. There were ways to relax, ways to control panic and rage. It could be done. If one really wanted to do it.

“Sorry,” she breathed, concentrating on the flow of air: one slow breath in, one slow breath out. Another one, in and out, and another yet while deciding what to say. “I'm sorry, Lolly. I can't make them leave you alone. I can try to get you out of here if you talk to me. Or I can go away. I'm only here because my daughter asked me to come.”

The girl's eyes flicked toward her. “She the one with the doctor?”

“That's right. She talked to you, and you told the guard you wanted to see me. That's why I'm here.”

Silence. Then: “Her. The redheaded one.”

Carolyn breathed. “Yes. The redheaded one.”

“She knows.”

Carolyn let out the last of the breath and folded her hands on the legal pad, careful not to clench them. “What is it she knows, Lolly?”

“She knows what I was tryinna say. That doctor don't know shit. Din' even let me talk!”

“Tell me. Maybe I don't know shit, either, but I'll listen.”

Carolyn waited, watching. The girl shook her head, so strongly that her lips flapped with the motion, a comic look, chimpanzee lips. Her nose was a mere lump, reddened at the end. Ms. Potato Head, Carolyn thought. Nothing strong, nothing angular, not the nose, not the jaw, not the brow. A wholly forgettable face surrounded by an uncombed mess of pale-brown
hair. The girl's skin was her best feature, pale, thick, and flawless, though unnaturally yellow. It could be genetic, but perhaps she had jaundice. Perhaps she had hepatitis. Carolyn took up the pen, wrote “jaundice?,” looked up once more. The girl's eyes were fixed on the pen, suddenly narrowed. It bothered her to have things written about her.

“Tell me,” Carolyn urged again, putting the pen down.

The girl's head came up. She looked through Carolyn, speaking to the wall. “I dowanit wrote down.”

“All right. I won't write it down.”

“The Fourtha July.”

“What about it?”

“When they did it. To me. It was the Fourtha July, and they all had firecrackers and they was puttin' 'em in cans and throwin' 'em in windows and stuff. And I wen' out and said, hey don't throw that stuff in here.”

“They were doing it? They who?”

“Those boys. And one of 'em says come on, Lolly, we got some beer.”

“They knew your name?”

“Sure. They live there, where I live. I know 'em.”

“Can you tell me their names?”

“Henry B., he's sort of my cousin. And the one he calls Crank. And Crank's brother.”

“Three boys?”

“No.” She frowned in the effort at recollection. “More than that. Sommathem Messicans was there. Geel-bert, he was there. And Hay-soos. All those Messicans, they live down the block.”

“Mexicans?”

“Don' speak English yet, you know.”

“How old are these boys?”

“Geelbert, he's ony a kid. Haysoos, he's maybe nineteen or twenny, I guess. Him an Henry B. Crank's as old as me.”

“How old are you?”

“Fifteen. Las' month.”

“So you were fourteen when you went with the boys. Where did you go?”

“I said where we goin', and they said they got beer hid. An I said you sure hid it far enough, and they said it was hid inna alley. So we got to kinda the alley place, behind some stores. And first they said they had beer, and then they said they din' have no beer, they had this firecracker they was
gonna put up me and light it on fire so it'd go off, and Haysoos says sure they do, they all got firecrackers like that.”

A long silence. Carolyn breathed and breathed, searching the face opposite her own. Nothing. Only a leak of tears, a slow seep, unconsidered, perhaps unfelt.

“What happened?”

“Henry B., he got me on that old mattress and they was all over me, and they was shoving things in me, and Hay-soos, he was yellin', and one of 'em put his hand over my face, and I couldn' breathe.…”

Carolyn reached for the pen, remembered, put it back down, stared out through dirty glass and metal grill toward the sky, lost in sun-dazzle, not looking at the girl. She couldn't look at the girl.

“They raped you? All of them?”

“I dunno. Maybe. I couldn' hardly breathe, and ever'thin' went kind of red, and Hay-soos kep' yellin'.”

Carolyn tapped the pad thoughtfully, a slow thrum of fingers. Silence was the usual concomitant of rape. Silence, secrecy, the knife at the throat, the threat, don't yell or I'll kill you. Perhaps gang rapes were different, particularly if the participants were not afraid of discovery. “What was he yelling?”

“He was goin', ‘Lookit me, I'm doin' it.' Or maybe that was Crank. I dunno.”

“So he was raping you?”

“I dunno which one. Maybe it was all of 'em. But one of 'em was yellin'.”

“Then what?”

“I dunno what! Ever' thing was red an' black an' it hurt. They wen' away, an' it got dark. An' I was there, an' it was dark, and there was this thing hurtin' me, an' I pulled it out.”

“What was it?”

“A bottle. Some old wino's empy bottle, all bloody. Blood all over my—” She stopped, searching for a word nicer than the word she'd been about to use.

“On your body,” Carolyn said firmly. “Between your legs.”

A sniffle of agreement. “I felt around for my panties, and I found 'em, but they was ripped all up, so I threw 'em away. An' I went home.”

“Did you tell anyone what happened?”

“Tell who? My mom wasn't there. An' her boyfriend, he wasn't there. An' I went over to my grandma's house, but she
was gone to the hospital. An' when I got back, Henry B., he was there, and he went like mean, and he said if I told, he'd kill me, or Hay-soos, he'd kill me, and he put his face right in my face an' his hands on my neck.…”

“So. You decided not to tell anyone.”

“Henry B., he goes mean like a snake. He kills folks. He does drive-bys, you know, for kicks. He says he gonna kill me, he prob'ly will. He says forget it, so I do. It didn' hurt too long. But I didn' get my period, you know, an' I thought it was because I was bleedin' so much when they did it.…”

“When did you find out you were pregnant?”

“I started to get all, you know, throwin' up all the time. There's a woman lives downstairs, she said I was pregnant.”

“You didn't know until she told you? What about your mother? Didn't she know something was wrong?”

“Yeah, well. She don' notice much.”

“So you didn't know, and your mother didn't know, but the woman who lives downstairs told you you were pregnant.”

“And then I stopped throwin' up, so I thought maybe it was all okay, an' I forgot about it. But then I got the pains, an' all this water came out, an' I took the paper towels to wipe me, an' I went back there, to the alley where they did it to me.”

Carolyn looked at the girl, puzzled. Why there?

“The mattress was there. Nobody was there, an' it was a place I could lie down an' I didn' wan' anybody hearin' me yell. Because if they heard me, maybe they'd take me, an' maybe I'd say something, an' then Henry B., he'd find out. An' the pain just came and came and came, an' after a while the stuff came out of me. An' then more stuff came out. An' I just wrapped it all in the paper an' put it in the Dumpster. An' I put a wad of the paper in my pants, because I just kept bleedin' and bleedin', after all that time not …”

Carolyn raised her eyes. “Did you know it was a baby, Lolly?”

“It was all bloody mess. A blobby thing. Not like a real baby.”

“What do you mean, not like a real baby?”

“Not … you know. Like a baby. Pampers an' little shoes. All that.”

Carolyn took another breath. Slowly. “You didn't expect a baby just born to have Pampers on, did you?”

“I'm not stupid,” she snarled. “But they'd be there,
wouldn' they? If somebody has a real baby, they have the stuff, don' they? You can't have a real baby without the stuff for it. How's it gonna grow up without the stuff?”

Carolyn found her hand atop her head again, stroking, massaging, amazed at the pertinency of this. If someone planned a baby, they had the stuff. “Who told you that, Lolly? Your mom?”

A snort in reply.

“Your grandmother, maybe?”

“She died!” It was an accusation.

“I'm sorry. Did she tell you that before she died?”

No answer. A sullen silence, all the words used up, all the anger spent. Well, she had told what she had to tell. Later one would have to ask if she'd had sex before. Later one would have to ask if she knew about birth control. Later one would have to know why she really went with the boys, what had been in her mind. Loneliness, perhaps. Desire to be liked. Flattered to be asked. It didn't matter right now.

“Lolly, listen to me. This is important.”

A sullen look.

“Don't talk to anyone about what happened. Don't talk to the police about it, or the people here at the jail. Don't talk to the lawyer the court appointed. Don't talk to anyone except me about it. No matter what they say, you just tell them talk to Carolyn Crespin, she's my lawyer. No matter what they promise you. Understand?”

“You gonna get me out?”

“I'll do what I can. If you don't talk to anyone but me.”

Another sullen look, but no disagreement. Carolyn pushed the packet of gum across the table, opened the briefcase, restored her pad and pencils, flicking off the recorder in the process, took out her purse, and put the strap across her shoulder. “What will you say to them?”

“Talk to my lawyer, Carolyn Crespin.”

“That's right. And don't talk to any of the other women in here, either. They may be snitches. If someone else says he's your lawyer, tell him no, he's not. Ms. Crespin's your lawyer. Don't let them get a word out of you but that. I'll see you soon.”

The wardress was slouched against the wall outside, smoking a forbidden cigarette and regarding Carolyn with complacent contempt. “Report me,” the look said. “See what happens to your client then.”

Carolyn took no notice. This wasn't the place, and the woman was only doing her job as she saw it, which was first to survive and second not to get injured too much in the process. And there were good guards like Josh, people old enough to have outworn their ideals without compromising their ethics, ones who had reached a credible detente between using and withholding force. She'd met good cops and good district attorneys, though too many were like Jake Jagger, courting power far more passionately than they courted justice.

Who would it be in the Ashaler case? Surely not Jagger himself. Not unless he thought he could get some media exposure out of it. Which he could if he played into the fears, hates, and resentments of the voting public. Jagger didn't give a shit for justice, but he was in love with publicity. Still, for a case like this it would probably be Assistant DA Emmet Swinter.

Speak of the devil. A minor demon, at least. Emmet Swinter himself, standing at the reception desk and leaning toward another man in intimate converse. The other man caught sight of her, turned from the counter, and came at her with his head thrust forward, like an attacking animal. His eyebrows squirmed like tortured caterpillars over bloodshot eyes, and she remembered his name: Vince Harmston. Stace's mentioning the Army of God should have told her who he was.

“You're Carolyn Crespin.” It wasn't a question.

She nodded, breathing in very slowly, concentrating on the breathing.

“What the hell you think you're doing interfering with my client.” It wasn't a question. He bristled with antagonism and self-righteous fervor.

Carolyn made herself take a deep breath before she replied, made her voice stay low and level though she wanted to scream at him. “She didn't hire you, Mr. Harmston. You were appointed to defend her, but she's chosen to have me represent her instead. She has that privilege.”

He turned an angry red. “You shouldn't tangle with me, counselor. I can keep pickets outside your house twenty-four hours a day. Tell all your neighbors what kinda person you are!”

Her eyebrows went up in actual surprise. “What kind of person am I?”

“We both know the answer to that question,” he sneered.
“Emmet says your relative there in Washington told him all about you, you … subversive!” He turned to stamp away from her, charging the computer-operated door with such vehemence he almost collided with it.

Carolyn fought off the momentary blankness, the responsive fury his words had caused. So Albert Crespin, damned Cousin Albert, was still at it! She turned and stared pointedly at the guard, who looked quickly away, feigning interest in his paperwork. Emmet Swinter had disappeared. Both men showing up here at the same time probably wasn't coincidence. She'd bet anything the guard had been told to let the DA's office know if anybody showed an interest in Lolly Ashaler.

Which didn't explain Swinter's being in touch with Cousin Albert. Or vice versa. Did the DA's office intend to make a circus out of this case? She shook her head at herself, full of old, familiar emotions: fire in the belly, acid in the throat, heat across the head, muscles tight, adrenals pumping, rage running through her veins instead of blood. The knot in her chest that frightened her, that shut off her breath and seemed ready to stop her heart.

Now, now, here she was, jumping the gun, as Hal would have said. She wasn't even sure the DA's office had definitely decided to prosecute Lolly Ashaler. What had their tame psychologist told them?