Night Swimming (36 page)

“Time to go,” Makley said. “The plane leaves in an hour.” She still hadn’t seen Skip. They refused to let him visit her.

“You can’t take a felon on a plane,” Charlotte said. “I saw
Midnight Run.
Robert DeNiro couldn’t take Charles Grodin on a plane.”

This made Makley laugh. “It’s a special plane, Charlotte. A JPAT.”

“A what?”

“A JPAT. Justice Prisoner and Alien Transportation System. It’s a jet, a seven-forty-seven or seven-thirty-seven, depending, but it’s used for transporting prisoners.”

“You’ll be in good company,” the female FBI agent snarled. “There’ll be about thirty other felons on the plane.”

The harsh reality of that statement startled Charlotte. What she had done had suddenly hit home as it never had before. She was a criminal. She had committed a crime, a bad one. But she wasn’t a criminal. Not really. She hadn’t killed anyone for chrissakes. She had just gone off to live the last year of her life somewhere new, somewhere different, somewhere exciting. And now what? Now she was going to live, which was the worst possible news of all, because now she would spend the rest of eternity in jail. What a cruel turn of events, a hoax of the worst kind. A life sentence.

“Can I have a word with Mr. Makley?” Charlotte asked.

The female agent stood there, not moving.

“Privately?”

Makley and Charlotte stepped to the side. “I know this might sound ridiculous in the light of things, Mr. Makley, but I’m scared of flying. I’ve never been on a plane before.”

“There’s nothing to worry about. It’s safer than driving.”

“I know, I know... but nonetheless, I’m still freaked out.”

“Don’t worry. I’ll sit next to you. You can hold my hand if you need to.”

All this was of little comfort to Charlotte, but it was clear she had no choice in the matter.

She looked at what the policeman carried in his hands: shackles and handcuffs. He’d brought shackles and handcuffs with him. He gave them to the female agent to put on Charlotte.

“Is this really necessary?” Makley asked. It was, after all, just Charlotte Clapp.

“Yes, it is,” the agent hissed. “It’s regulation.”

How odd, how incongruous, Charlotte thought, walking down the corridor in chains. All she could think of was that movie with Sean Penn and Susan Sarandon.
Dead man walking; stand clear; dead man walking...

“I feel like Jacob Marley in these things.”

“Who?” the mean agent asked.

“You know, Jacob Marley, the ghost of Christmas past.”

The woman didn’t say anything, and Charlotte figured she probably didn’t know what Christmas was, either.
Joy to the world? Goodwill toward men? No? Halloween’s probably your big holiday. You’ll probably be flying beside the plane on a broom.

“Don’t worry, Charlotte,” Makely said, trying to comfort her. “It’s a short trip if the tailwinds are behind us.”

“Dolly would suggest these chains don’t work with what I’m wearing. Perhaps something simpler, something more understated, like a chain belt and a matching bracelet.”

“Shhhhh,” the female FBI agent warned.

“Is she coming with us?” Charlotte asked Makley.

“No. There’ll be several female marshals on board.”

“Pity,” Charlotte mumbled sarcastically, “she’s so much fun.”

And so Charlotte scuffed her way out of the federal prison, clanking away, trying to remember everything good that had happened during the past year and humming to herself, “They Can’t Take That Away from Me.”

CHAPTER 62

C
HARLOTTE NEVER EXPECTED IT
. No one did. And yet there they were, the crowds of women at the airport when she arrived, holding banners and flags welcoming her home. Short of a ticker-tape parade, she was greeted with all the celebrity of a quarterback who had single-handedly led his team to glory. Charlotte Clapp had become a local hero. But why? Because she had done what every woman in Gorham had wanted to do for years: escape the monotony, the dull, relentless throb of the ordinary, the terminal illness of the suburbs that offered nothing but Chef Boyardee and canned peas, corrugated carports and vinyl pools, decorative gnomes and cyclone fences.

Charlotte had done it. Realized something. Dared to pull down the proverbial wall of boredom, the wall that hermetically sealed in every woman living—or trying to—in Gorham.

Makley was shocked, as were the marshals. They entered the airport to an ovation of cheers and adulation.

The women were yelling, “You go, girl!” “Charlotte, you’re our hero.” “Charlotte, tell us all about Hollywood.” Even the local paper had turned out to cover the story. She was front-page news. Placards were held up heralding Charlotte, while the headlines read, CHARLOTTE BREAKS THE BANK, and BETTER CHARLOTTE THAN A CHARLATAN.

And then the felons who trailed behind her began rattling their chains with abandon, celebrating what, they weren’t sure, but it seemed at least something positive from one of their own.

“Balls out, baby.” “Kick ass, Charlotte.” “Shake that booty.” “Fucking A.”

“All right, all right,” Makley yelled, trying to calm the crowd as they walked through. “Hobbs,” he grumbled to himself. “I asked him to do one thing, one thing—keep his mouth shut—and he just couldn’t do it.”

Charlotte was escorted to a waiting van and whisked away to a federal court, which in this case also housed the jail that would serve as her home while she awaited sentencing.

She was immediately introduced to the lawyer who’d been appointed to the case. They would have a short time to get to know each other, and he would prepare a statement. The arraignment would be in two days, so there was little time to waste. The lawyer seemed nice enough, though a little untucked and harried: smudged glasses, a pocket protector, but smart-looking, as if he read lawyerly reviews for relaxation. Walter Bloomberg. Even the name sounded right to Charlotte. He was probably on the debate team and got good grades in school. She hoped Jewish lawyers were as good as Jewish doctors. It dawned on her that Jennings was clearly not Jewish—at least not practicing.

He made plans to meet with her in the morning to go over her case. Charlotte didn’t quite understand what he was talking about, since she had planned to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth. But she would save all that for tomorrow. In the meantime, Makley escorted Charlotte downstairs to the cell where she was to be incarcerated.

It was all a blur as she walked with Makley to her new home: the night with Skip, jail, the plane ride, the strange welcome home

she’d received. And then something occurred to her.

“Mr. Makley?”

“Yes?”

“I’m allowed one phone call, am I not? Every movie I’ve ever seen allows one phone call.”

Makley paused. “That’s right, Charlotte. You are allowed one phone call.”

“Well, I’d like to make that now, if you don’t mind.”

Whom was she calling? Makley wondered as he led her down the corridor to find a phone. He spotted one in an empty office.

“Go ahead, Charlotte,” he said, motioning to the phone. “Make your call.”

Charlotte dialed the number. She did not need a phone book or information. It was a number that had been indelibly committed to her memory for a long time now. The phone rang. Once. Twice. And then a man answered.

“Hello?”

“Hello.”

“Yes?”

“This is Charlotte, Tom. I’d like to speak to MaryAnn, please.”

“Charlotte? Charlotte Clapp?”

“Yes.”

“We thought you were dead.”

“Well, Tom, I’m not. Nor, it seems, will I be, for years and for possibly decades. So is MaryAnn there?” she asked again.

“Yes, hold on, I’ll get her.”

There was a pause, and she could hear Tom calling to MaryAnn to pick up the bedroom phone. However, he did not have the time to warn her that it was Charlotte Clapp on the phone. Moreover, Tom and MaryAnn had been in Florida, on yet another in a series of Sea World vacations, so MaryAnn knew nothing of the recent buzz in town.

“Hello?”

“MaryAnn... this is your old friend Charlotte. Charlotte Clapp.”

There was a scream on the other end, and a noise that sounded like a thud. MaryAnn had passed out and lay like a trout next to the receiver.

CHAPTER 63

T
HE NEXT MORNING
Charlotte met with her lawyer. She would be arraigned the following afternoon.

“I want to plead guilty as soon as possible, Mr. Bloomberg. In fact, if I could plead guilty today, that would be just fine with me.”

“You can’t plead guilty today.”

“Why not?”

“You haven’t been indicted yet. This is just an initial complaint.”

“Whatever that means. All I know is, I’m sick of lying, and I just want to get it over with.”

“Let me start by explaining a little bit about the procedure,” Walter Bloomberg began. “I want you to understand every aspect of your decision, and I especially want you to understand the consequences of a guilty plea. You don’t want to have to make more license plates than necessary.” His stab at humor was fruitless. Charlotte stared at him as if he were the last man she would want to see naked on a nude beach. Bloomberg tightened his tie uncomfortably and said, “I’m sorry, just a bad attempt at humor to put you at ease. I never was any good at putting people at ease.”

And Charlotte wasn’t of a mind to cut him a break. “I think it’s a bit ironic, Mr. Bloomberg, that the New Hampshire license plates rallying cry is ‘Live Free or Die.’ Don’t you?”

Bloomberg was clearly flummoxed. He stumbled in his answer, “Yes, that does seem like an oxymoron, Miss Clapp.”

“Yeah, well I’d like to meet the moron who thought of it.”

“Perhaps we’ll just continue with our business at hand.” He paused, took a breath, and soldiered on.

“Is there any money left from the original two million?”

“No.”

“None?”

“None.”

“Well, that’s not good.”

“How about plea bargaining? I saw that once on
Perry Mason.
”

“In this sort of situation, Miss Clapp, there is no plea bargaining. We just have to sort of go with the facts.”

“No plea bargaining? Why?”

“The crime you committed plays by different rules. While plea bargaining might affect what crime you plead guilty to, under the federal system, it doesn’t affect your sentence. The federal courts use a point system, and it supercedes the plea-bargaining possibility.”

“Great. So what kind of point system are you talking about?”

“It’s a set of sentencing guidelines governed by chapter eighteen of the United States code.”

“English, please.”

“Well, being that it’s bank larceny, we have to add up the points commensurate with your crime.”

“How much time could I get if I’m found guilty?”

“That depends on a lot of factors, Miss Clapp. Two things govern your sentence, and these sentencing guidelines differ radically from person to person.”

“Is the idea to get as many points as you can?” Charlotte asked.

“No. The idea is to get as few.”

“Like golf?”

“Now, everyone accused of larceny starts out with six points.”

“That’s not too bad.”

“But because you stole two million dollars, you get twenty-two more points.”

“Oh, that’s bad.”

“And because it was
bank
larceny, we add two extra points.”

Jesus, if I were bowling, I’d have a perfect score.

“Now, if we decide to go to trial, Miss Clapp...”

“Please, call me Charlotte; that personal touch will make me feel like I have a friend while walking to the electric chair.”

“If we decide to go to trial, Charlotte, and we lose, we’re looking at a sentence of anywhere from fifty-one to sixty-three months.”

“What’s that in years?”

“Four years and three months, maybe five years and three months. Now, if you plead guilty—and I’m not sure you should yet, but in the event you plead guilty—then the court drops three points off your total immediately. That brings your time down to anywhere from thirty-seven to forty-six months.”

I see you three months and raise you two.

“And there’s more good news. A lawyer can make a case for you. This is called a ‘departure from the sentencing guidelines.’ In other words, because of who you are, a decent human being who projects no threat to society, then there’s no need to protect the public from you. That’s also a positive.”

This made Charlotte laugh. What possible danger did the women of Gorham propose? She had a vision of mugging citizens with turkey thermometers and knocking them unconscious with soup ladles.

“We also ask the judge to consider your work history. For fifteen years you were an upstanding citizen with absolutely no previous record. You held a good job, worked for charitable causes, and donated time and money to civic interests. When you committed the crime, you used no guns or lethal weapons. Further, the crime was not drug-related. Lastly, we will ask the judge to consider the motivating factors. You were completely upset, and with good reason. You had just received news that you were going to die. Wham! You go bonkers. You’re in what we might call a ‘fugue state.’”

“A what?”

“Diminished capacity. Unable to control your impulses. Aberrant behavior.”

All Charlotte could think about was the movie
One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest.
She didn’t want all Gorham thinking she was a Looney Tune now.

Watch out for Charlotte Clapp. She runs after bakery trucks for prune Danish and barks at garbage cans.

“Diminished capacity? Is this really necessary?”

“That alone could reduce your sentence to under three years, Charlotte.”

“Oh, God, let me think about it.”

“Yes, think about it. I also need to talk to the prosecutor and see what she knows. After I have learned all the facts, I’m better prepared in planning your case. You may be right in wanting to plead guilty, but I just want to make sure. The more informed we are, the better decision we can make.”

“I didn’t know the prosecutor was allowed to share information.”