by Linda Kage
In the next chamber over, another convict groaned and clutched his abdomen before complaining about a stomachache. I turned my head aside on the cot where I lay flat on my back and watched him from my one good eye.
Yeah, just when one eye had healed from Melody’s boyfriend, the other one got jacked with. Karma hated me, apparently.
But karma didn’t seem to favor this dude either. His face was pale, and sweat poured from his temples. He actually looked like he really did hurt as he started to complain loudly, demanding help, before he was harshly told to zip it.
I returned my attention back to the gray concrete ceiling and tried to make myself picture some pleasant images swimming around up there, except my mind conjured nothing, just cold, lifeless gray concrete. But no one was kicking me in the ribs or bashing my skull against the floor, so it wasn’t too bad.
I smiled at that, then winced as I drew in too deep of a breath, making my chest fill with fire and pressure. I quickly exhaled and concentrated on shortening each breath. The grumbling by my neighbor began to grow monotonous until it became almost a rhythmic kind of background chatter and began to lull me into sleep. As soon as my eyes grew heavy and my head became muzzy, however, someone pounded on the bars a foot from my face, jarring me awake.
“Hey, Hilliard.”
My one working eye flew open and my startled heart slammed itself against my ribcage, making me gasp as my entire chest constricted.
“Your lawyer’s here. He’s coming in there with you, so don’t try any funny business, okay?”
I have no idea what business they thought I could even attempt in this condition that was remotely humorous, but I lifted my arm from the bed just enough to give the guard a thumb’s up. I wasn’t exactly planning on preforming any stand-up comedy, so all was good.
“He’s pretty much out of it,” the guard told someone next to him as he unlocked my cage and swung the door open. “Hasn’t said a word since they brought him in here half dead yesterday afternoon except to answer direct questions.”
“Thank you, Harold,” the guy next to him answered before I heard his footsteps echo across the floor as he entered my cell and then my line of sight. My lawyer looked young, like rookie young, or maybe he just had one of those pudgy baby faces and he was really fifty-five or something. I don’t know. But he seemed nervous as he eyed me, swinging his briefcase around like a shield to hold in between me and him.
I guess being beat half to death the day before made me look pretty badass, I don’t know, but my appearance sure seemed to intimidate the hell out of him.
“H-hey, Beckett,” he started haltingly as he latched his fingers around the back of the chair that was sitting at my bedside and then dragged it another five feet away from me before taking a seat in it and settling his briefcase on this lap.
“Hey,” I rasped back, my voice nothing short of a hoarse whisper. I cleared it before motioning to my bedside table. “I’d offer you a drink, but they only gave me one cup.”
The man let out a nervous chuckle as he glanced around my sparse cell.
“This is a first for me,” he admitted. “And definitely the most unorthodox visit I’ve ever paid one of my clients, but they assured me it was safe.”
I blinked, not sure how to take that. It was so bizarre for anyone to think of me as dangerous in the first place, but even doubly so because of the state I was in. The worst damage I could do right now was bleed on him.
Life had turned so strange in the past few days. This whole new world was foreign.
Instead of reassuring him, though, that I wasn’t a serial killer and wanted to eat his liver with some fava beans and a nice chianti, I asked, “You my lawyer?”
“Oh!” He jolted, and his face brightened as if embarrassed. “Yes, sorry. I’m Ron Stempy. I work for the state’s legal defense, and I’ve been assigned to your case.”
“This your first case?” I guessed.
He blinked, appearing surprised by the question. “It’s my seventh, actually.”
“Oh. Good,” I rasped, giving him a thumbs up. “You’re an old pro then,” while inside, I wept.
They’d sent a damn rookie to defend me? I was so fucked.
Stempy seemed encouraged by my sarcasm though. Maybe it’d sounded genuine to him. I’m not sure, but it made him shed some of his tension and reservations as he snapped open his briefcase and began to extract papers. “I’ve been going over your testimony and that of the victim, and I have a few more questions if that’s okay.”
I wanted to argue that Melody wasn’t exactly what I’d call a victim, but I still felt sluggish from the sleep that had just tried to claim me. I wasn’t in the right frame of mind to argue about shit. So I slurred, “Sure, I’d love to answer questions.” Not like I had much else to do. The gray ceiling I’d been so busy staring at wasn’t going anywhere.
Stempy’s smile looked forced. “Okay, then.” He drew in a deep breath. “Let’s start from the beginning. The room you and Miss Fairfield were found in together; it wasn’t yours. Was that her brother’s room? Did you follow her in there?”
“No.” I shook my head and winced when pain reverberated through my skull, like an echo of the way it had rung yesterday when they’d slammed me face first into the floor. “I don’t know whose room it was. And I didn’t follow her. She followed me.”
Stempy flipped through the report he was perusing before looking up and lifting a surprised eyebrow. “She followed you into the room?” He scratched out a quick note. “Then why did you go into that room to begin with if you didn’t even know whose room it was?”
“Thought I was following the girl with the rainbow hair.”
“Rainbow hair?” A frown creased Stempy’s face as he flipped a few more pages before pausing and reading. Then he said. “You mentioned a rainbow-headed girl somewhere else. In the initial investigation when the police questioned you, they asked if any other witness had been present. You said, ‘Yeah, the girl with the rainbow-colored hair. After it was over, I opened my eyes and there she was in the room with us, creeping through as if she didn’t want to get caught. When she saw me looking at her, she put her finger to her lips, asking me to keep quiet. She wasn’t a hallucination.”
Clicking his pen as he paused from reading the account, quoting me word for word, Stempy frowned. “Why did you say she wasn’t a hallucination?”
I shrugged. “Well, she couldn’t have been. I saw her. I talked to her. I spilled beer on her shirt and tried to help her pat it dry. I felt, you know, a live, corporeal person. She couldn’t have been a mirage. But then I followed her into that room, and suddenly she was gone, like, I don’t know, she disappeared into thin air. When Melody showed up, I asked her if she’d seen the rainbow-haired girl, but she seemed to think I was hallucinating things. But I wasn’t. Rainbow-hair girl was real. I saw her before, and then again after it was over, leaving the room. So she must’ve been hiding or something, behind the shower curtain, I don’t know. But she was there.”
I snapped my fingers. “And Melody very clearly locked the door when she came in, but her boyfriend opened it afterward, so someone—the rainbow-haired girl—had to have unlocked it when she left.”
“And what did this corporeal girl look like?”
“I just said, she had rainbow-hair.” Why would a person need any more information that that? But it got me a short frown, so I squinted my eyes, trying to remember more, except I only came up with a vague outline of her. “Short,” I added. “Full figured.”
“So she was fat?”
I frowned at Stempy, not liking that word because he made her sound bad. I hadn’t remembered anything bad about the way rainbow-hair had been shaped, so I settled for saying, “Not boney.”
“Chubby, then,” the lawyer decided, writing that down.
He didn’t notice the glare I sent him, which was probably for the best. I didn’t especially want to get on the bad side of the only guy willing to defend me. And yet I couldn’t handl
e him focusing on her weight when there had been so much more about her that seemed tons more prominent.
“She was very dynamic,” I said. “Energetic. Like a spunky little spitfire that could either be the life of a party and have you rolling with laughter, or your worst nightmare if you ever pissed her off.”
I’d only spent two minutes in her company, yet I knew what I said was true without a doubt. And also completely irreverent. The blank glance Stempy sent me told me personality was not going to help him physically pick her out of a line-up. But sadly, that was basically all I remembered about her.
Rubbing a spot on the center of his forehead as if a headache were growing, Stempy sighed. “How much did you say you had to drink that night?”
I narrowed my eyes. “I was fucked up. I know that. But I remember everything, and I didn’t hallucinate anyone.”
I felt as if I was being too adamant, which probably came across as really fake, but I couldn’t help it. My freaking attorney was looking at me like I was a total liar. My hopes sank and I found myself rubbing my own head as it began to pound miserably. Then I winced when I hit a sore spot, so I dropped my hand lamely back to the mattress.
No one was going to believe me, were they? I suddenly understood how Harrison Ford had felt on The Fugitive when he’d tried to convince everyone a one-armed man had killed his wife.
I kind of wanted to stand up and shout, “You find this man, er, rainbow-haired girl. You find this girl.”
She was obviously the key to everything.
“So, this girl,” Stempy was saying, shaking his head as if my answers were too complicated for him to comprehend. “You followed this girl—with the rainbow-colored hair—into the room, but you didn’t know her?”
“Right.” I nodded. See my answers weren’t confusing at all.
Stempy sighed. “If you didn’t know her, then why did you follow her into someone-else-you-didn’t -know’s bedroom?”
“I told you.” I stared at him as if he’d lost his mind. “I spilled beer on her. I was trying to apologize and offer to buy her a new shirt, but she veered off into that room, running away from me. I don’t know why it was so important to me; I just wanted to make everything right with her.”
Stempy lifted his hand to stop me. Then he said, “Okay, obviously we need to start further back than the beginning. When did you spill beer on the rainbow-colored hair girl?”
Oh, right. Maybe I did need to explain more. I could suddenly see why he was so lost. “Okay, yeah.” I nodded. “So my fraternity threw a party that night. Obviously I attended and drank alcohol there. I was really drunk, and at one point I needed to take a piss. I went to the bathroom, but when I came out, holding my beer, she was right there.”
“The rainbow-haired girl, not Melody?”
I nodded. “Right. And I mean, she was, like, right there. So we both jerked to a halt to keep from running into each other, but I lost hold of my cup and spilled my beer all down the front of her shirt. Cool shirt, too. It said This is my Day Drinking Shirt.”
When Stempy blinked at me blankly, not impressed, I added, “You know from the song ‘Day Drinking’ by the band Little Big Town?” I nodded respectfully. I totally meshed with Rainbow-Hair’s taste in music.
But Stempy obviously wasn’t a country music fan. I cleared my throat. “Anyway, I offered to buy her a new shirt.” And maybe get my own while I was at it. I really had liked that shirt.
“You offered to buy her a new shirt?” My attorney seemed dubious.
I shrugged. “Sure.” It seemed embarrassing to admit now that I’d wanted to find out where she’d gotten hers so I could get my own. So I added, “I was really drunk.”
Stempy nodded. “Ah.”
“But she seemed distracted, was looking for someone. And she took off before I could somehow make things right between us for getting her all wet. So when she went into the bedroom, I don’t know, I just followed her. It was dark in there, but the bathroom light was on further inside the room, so I thought she’d gone into the bathroom. But when I got there, nothing.”
Stempy looked up from his notetaking, his eyebrows raised. “Was there another exit from that bathroom?”
“No.” I said. “It was the strangest thing. When I turned to leave though, Melody was there, entering the room and turning the light on.”
“So Melody turned the bedroom light on, not you?”
I thought that was a weird question, but I nodded. “Yeah.”
“You’re sure?”
Blinking about how much of a big deal he was making over a light switch, I took a second to think it through, and I was still sure. “Yes.”
“And what did you say to her when she did that?”
“I didn’t say anything. She’s the one who talked to me, saying she thought it was me she’d seen enter the room.”
Nodding, Stempy scribbled more notes. “And how did you answer?”
“I told her I was looking for the rainbow-haired girl. And she asked what kind of drugs I was taking, like I’d hallucinated her. But I told Melody I wasn’t on anything, I don’t do drugs, I was just really drunk. And she said she was sober enough for the both of us. Or wait.” I frowned, trying to recall the sequence of events correctly. “Maybe she said that later.”
Stempy looked up. “But she definitely said it. She told you she was sober.”
“Yeah.” I bobbed my head. “She wanted me to sit down because I was so drunk I was weaving on my feet. She came over and nudged me to sit on the edge of the bed.”
“She’s the one who nudged you down?”
I watched him write all this, wondering why it mattered, but I murmured, “Right. And then…” I squinted, trying to remember. When Stempy lifted his face, I started talking again. “Then she ran her hands through my hair, telling me she knew why I was so drunk, because she’d heard my girlfriend and I had broken up, like I was drowning my miseries in alcohol or something.”
“And were you?”
I shrugged and looked up at the gray ceiling. “I don’t know. Maybe.” Among other reasons.
“Okay. And then what happened?”
“I’m not—” This was where things got a little foggier for me, but I didn’t want Stempy to think I had blocks in my memory so I hurried to say, “She said something really off, like she confessed she didn’t like Jana. That’s my ex I just broke up with. But her and Jana were supposed to be friends. It was just…” I shook my head. “It seemed skeevy to me. When I asked her what she meant, she said she was on Team Beckett. And then she reached for my fly and unzipped my jeans.”
Stempy gaped at me as if engrossed in some raunchy locker room talk. “What? Just like that?”
I shrugged. “Just like that. It shocked the shit out of me too.”
“How did you respond?” he asked, as if he were a fellow fraternity brother eager to hear what happened next, not so much like a lawyer mapping out my defense.
“I…” I snapped my fingers and pointed. “That’s when I told her I was too drunk to, you know, engage in such activities. But she assured me she was sober enough to take care of everything. I still kind of resisted, though. I didn’t want…”
When my voice trailed off, Stempy pressed, “You didn’t want what?”
I gulped, feeling bad about confessing this. “I’ve never really been that into her. So I didn’t want to do anything with her to give her the impression I wanted to start, you know, a relationship. But she distracted me by telling me Jana was somewhere at the party with this guy named Davon, and while I was digesting that, she went down on me.”
Stempy’s mouth fell open. “And when you say she went down on you, you mean…?”
I lifted an eyebrow. “She gave me a fucking blow job.”
He gaped at me a moment before shaking his head. “You didn’t stop her?”
“Uh.” I think that answer was obvious.
Stempy actually blushed before pointing at me and muttering, “Right. Freshly single, drunk co
llege guy. Why would you stop her?” Then he cleared his throat, straightened his tie. “So, uh, she instigated the actual…?” He motioned with his hands.
“She instigated everything. Before I could, you know, ejaculate, she stopped sucking on me and said she wanted to feel me come inside her. I kind of resisted again then, but she said she’d take care of everything, and she pulled a condom from her cleavage.”
“Wait. From her cleavage?” Stempy asked, and started writing again, as if he’d just realized he needed to take notes.
“Yes, from her cleavage,” I repeated. “Then she pushed me down onto my back, pinned one of my hand to the mattress and climbed onto my lap where she fucked me into oblivion.”
“So…” Stempy paused scribbling to wipe at a bead of sweat trailing down his temple. “She, uh, she was on top?”
“She was on top,” I confirmed. “The entire duration. We finished about the same time, and when it was over, she collapsed on me with her face, you know, right up there next to mine. Then she said something along the lines that she couldn’t believe she’d finally gotten to be with me and she knew I’d be as good as she’d heard I was.” I rolled my eyes. “Not that I believed her, but…” With a shrug, I admitted, “I mean, it wasn’t awful to hear, but it sounded kind of cheesy, like a lame line to me. So I closed my eyes to block her, and I passed out for maybe a few minutes. Not like a full pass-out, but like a half-out-of-it daze. You know, that downtime afterward, when it’s all quiet and peaceful and shit?”
When Stempy nodded vigorously, I grinned. “Yeah. Anyway, I was half out of it but thought I heard something at the door, except I remembered Melody locking it, so I looked up to make sure no one was coming in, when there she was.”
“The rainbow-haired girl?”
“Yes.” I nodded. “I think she was leaving, not entering. I don’t know where she’d been the whole time, but she had to have been in there somewhere with us, right, because the door had been locked. When she looked at me and realized I saw her, she froze and pressed one finger to her lips, asking me to keep quiet. So, hell, I don’t know why, but I put my finger to my lips too. And she left. I reclosed my eyes and slumped back onto the bed until my stomach revolted and I had to puke.”