The Broken Ones

by Ren Richards

  ‘Here is the safest place for me,’ Lindsay said. She moved to the drawer where the silverware was kept and extracted a .48-caliber pistol. Then, she lovingly laid it back amid the spoons. ‘They’re all over the house. I’ll be fine.’

  Nell laughed. She didn’t know why; there was nothing about any of this that she found funny. But it was all so absurd that she couldn’t help herself.

  Lindsay scooted her chair closer and wrapped her arms around Nell’s shoulders. ‘I won’t blame you for being weird about this.’ She was talking about her pregnancy, something that hadn’t existed in Nell’s world five minutes ago. Something she never would have deemed possible.

  What surprised her most was that Lindsay hadn’t been able to go through with the abortion. They had that much in common. Nell understood the exact feeling her sister had described: the idea that there was no certain path to true happiness, but there was, at least, a path of despair to avoid.

  ‘We shouldn’t tell Bonnie,’ Nell said. ‘Next year we should just show up with a kid on your hip and watch her hit the floor.’

  Lindsay snorted a laugh.

  ‘Linds,’ Nell said, and her tone sobered them both. ‘Please come and stay with me and Bas. At least for tonight while we sort this out. There’s round-the-clock security and I’m in the penthouse. No way anyone is going to breeze into the lobby to leave dead shit in the mailbox.’

  ‘Your couch sucks for sleeping on,’ Lindsay said.

  ‘Yeah,’ Nell said. ‘But that’s Sebastian’s problem.’

  Lindsay smiled. It was her first genuine smile since her revelation about Matthew, and it warmed Nell to see it. ‘So you’ve decided to stop being an idiot and go back to him.’

  ‘Yeah,’ Nell said. ‘I guess I love him enough for that.’

  ‘There is no “love him enough”,’ Lindsay said. ‘You love someone or you don’t. Love is an emotion, not a unit of measurement.’ She dispensed her casual brilliance, and Nell’s heart went back to hurting. Nell had been the one to go to college and have the career; she had a boyfriend who loved her, an agent who emphatically waved pompoms around her efforts, and thousands of emails from adoring readers.

  But Lindsay was a genius; from the moment Nell was first placed in her arms, Lindsay allowed herself to go without if it meant Nell could have the best their circumstances allowed. The softest side of the bed, the one chicken nugget in the carton that was shaped like a heart, the chance to rise above their station. It was Lindsay who sat on the floor with her after school, teaching her fractions and punctuation. It was Lindsay who tested Nell’s intelligence by feeding her the lessons from her own homework sheets, three grades ahead, and ruffling her hair and saying ‘that’s my girl’ when she got them right.

  Lindsay was brash and calculated, and in anyone else’s story she would be the villain. But to Nell she had always been everything.

  THEN

  The morning after the incident on the overpass, two policemen knocked on the door. Lindsay was the one to answer, and when one of the officers asked if Nell was home, Lindsay planted her hand on the doorframe, using her arm to bar entry. ‘Do you have a warrant?’

  Matthew put his hand on her shoulder. ‘It’s all right, sweetheart,’ he told her. Then he nodded to the officers. ‘What is this about?’ He guided Lindsay out of the way so that the policemen could step inside.

  Nell was standing on the threshold of the kitchen, a half-eaten carton of yoghurt in one hand and the spoon still suspended between her lips. At the sight of the officers it began to churn in her stomach.

  ‘Penelope Wendall.’ One of the officers stepped towards her and the other followed suit. ‘You’re under arrest for the murder of Reina Eddleton.’ He drew a pair of handcuffs from his belt, and Nell could only stare at them. Somehow, the spoon and the yoghurt container were gone, and she had the vague sense that she had just destroyed the carpet by dropping them.

  The officer grabbed her shoulder and spun her around, so that her hands were behind her back. ‘You have the right to remain silent,’ he said. ‘Anything you say can and will be used against you in a court of law. You have a right to an attorney—’

  ‘Lindsay,’ Nell whimpered. But Matthew was gripping Lindsay’s arm so tightly that her skin was turning red.

  ‘If you cannot afford an attorney, one will be provided for you. Do you understand the rights I have just read to you?’

  ‘Don’t say anything,’ Matthew called out as Nell was shoved through the door, out into the breezy winter air. ‘Don’t say anything at all! I’ll be right behind you.’

  Yesterday, the Ambien had left a fog in Nell’s brain, even after the overpass incident. And now she felt like she was trapped in another delirium. The cold black upholstery in the police cruiser. The smell like cigarettes and coffee and crisp linen uniforms and leather belts. The jingle of keys, the gleam of their badges. The way her shoulder immediately cramped when she fell against the seat with her arms behind her. Lindsay standing in the doorway, her messy gold hair burning around her like a wild sun. Matthew mouthing ‘say nothing’ as Nell stared helplessly back at them through the glass, as the car pulled out of the driveway.

  34

  NOW

  Nell drove her new rental car to Royal King’s State Penitentiary, and eased up on the gas when she realised she was going ninety miles per hour.

  Lindsay was beside her, staring intently at her phone. Each time she flicked her thumb there was a small victory trill from whatever game she was playing. A cartoonish voice said things like, ‘Great shot!’ and ‘Triple bonus!’

  Nell didn’t mind. She didn’t feel much like talking. Lindsay had insisted on coming along and had already decided she would wait in the car.

  It was a bright day. The sun was candied in its blue winter sky, and it made the interior of the car feel warm, despite the wind chill outside.

  Lindsay didn’t bother looking up until Nell had navigated the prison parking lot and found a space.

  ‘Sure you don’t want to come in?’ Nell asked. ‘You could visit your best friend Bonnie.’

  Lindsay snorted and turned back to her phone. ‘No thanks. Have fun interviewing the murder twin.’

  ‘You’re amazing!’ came the voice from Lindsay’s phone, accompanied by the sound of victorious trumpet music.

  ‘I’m leaving my keys in the ignition. Don’t drive off and leave me here,’ Nell said.

  ‘Uh-huh.’ Lindsay didn’t look up, and Nell rolled her eyes.

  It only took half an hour for Nell to reach Easter today. As she stood to have the contents of her purse inspected, she saw a group of teenagers exiting the hallway that led to the visitation areas. They were quiet, despite their gleeful smiles. Their carefree stride and bright-eyed expressions told Nell that they were not visiting a loved one. Rather, they had the flustered excitement of someone who’d just met their idol backstage at a concert.

  Prison groupies were a phenomenon few would understand, but Nell had seen it dozens of times. Even Bonnie had fielded letters, calls and visits from hundreds of them over the years. In Bonnie’s case, it was mostly men. The groupies got the thrill of racy phone calls from a real-life cult celebrity, and Bonnie got a few extra dollars in her commissary; it was a win-win.

  Prison groupies weren’t always about romance. Sometimes it was an intense fascination that caused them to project their own ideals onto the inmate. And for commissary dollars and something to break up the monotony, inmates were good at catering to such delusions.

  Nell couldn’t fault anyone who found crime and punishment fascinating. It wasn’t every day that you met someone capable of shooting her husband or murdering his neighbour after their extramarital affair. She supposed her own fascination with high-profile crimes wasn’t much different; she just took the time to see more of the details, and then she wrote them down.

  When Nell sat before the glass and picked up the phone, Easter greeted her with a smug smile. ‘You’re my third visitor this week,’ s
he said, favouring her Russian accent.

  ‘Oh yeah?’ Nell said. Being in a prison might have set most people on edge, but Nell found it oddly calming. From the time she was a child, she learned that any emotion she betrayed in a prison could be exploited. Inmates used to call out from behind their bars when she came to visit her mother. They only ever honed in on Nell, never Lindsay.

  Finally Lindsay told her, ‘It’s because they want to see what you’ll do. They can tell how scared you are. Just pretend it doesn’t bother you.’

  On their next visit, Nell walked down the corridors with her gaze fixed ahead of her. She thought about movies and song lyrics and the stray cat she’d been feeding behind the school. She learned that Lindsay was right; if she betrayed no emotion then no one could touch her.

  She did this now as she faced Easter, thinking about how to best approach today’s line of questioning. There were things she needed to know, but she couldn’t let on how important they were. Easter relished whatever power she could get.

  ‘Have you had visits from adoring fans?’ Nell asked.

  Easter sat back in her chair and let out a small laugh. It had the croaking quality of an old desk chair. ‘My parents,’ she said, ‘and my brother.’ Easter nodded to Nell’s empty pad. ‘Are you asking for your book?’

  ‘I could be,’ Nell said. ‘Would you like to tell me what they had to say?’

  Easter shrugged. ‘I haven’t seen my parents since the trial. Oleg visits, but they never do. My mother only stared at me, but my father – he was in tears.’ Easter said this without any emotion. Perhaps she didn’t feel anything for the people who had raised her, or perhaps she was playing the same game as Nell.

  ‘My father has always been an emotional man,’ Easter said. ‘Here in America, I guess you’d call that sweet. In Russia, nobody respects a man who weeps like a little girl. But my mother’ – Easter sat back in her chair – ‘my mother is a stoic woman when she needs to be.’

  Nell thought back to her one and only visit with Mrs Hamblin. Stoic had not been the word. Nell found her to be warm, loving and deeply hurt. But she utilised that hurt in a productive way. It was true that she didn’t break down into tears, like so many others Nell had interviewed. Her home was tidy, she was well-dressed, and she spoke about her girls in a way that was honest and beautiful and practical, not sentimental. If Easter admired her mother, Nell could see why.

  ‘My father begged me not to let you go ahead with the book,’ Easter went on. ‘Apparently the parasites are back to give them more trouble.’

  ‘Parasites?’ Nell asked.

  ‘Yes,’ Easter said. ‘And I don’t mean the press. My parents think it’s those little shits with their laptops in their parents’ basements, making prank calls and playing games.’

  Nell sat very still, but her heart was pounding. Easter was talking about the mannequins left in the pool. This was the very thing Nell had wanted to ask her about, and now she had an opening to let Easter think this subject matter was her own idea.

  ‘People have been giving you trouble?’ Nell asked.

  ‘It’s all Autumn,’ Easter said simply. ‘I told you. It’s always been her.’

  ‘Does Autumn ever try to contact you?’ Nell asked.

  ‘Of course,’ Easter said. She tapped her fingertip against her temple. She had small, dainty hands, which were in contrast to the rest of her haggard frame. She looked as though she had been assembled using pieces from both the elderly and the young.

  Nell afforded Easter a quizzical expression. She knew that Easter wanted this reaction.

  ‘I bet you think we’re like psychic twins you’d read about in a horror novel,’ Easter said. ‘But the truth is we were more like an old married couple than anything. You spend every day literally joined to someone at the hip, you get to memorise each other, and then it doesn’t matter that you’ve been cut apart like a string of paper dolls.’ Easter cradled the bottom of the phone in her palm and leaned closer to the glass. ‘I get letters in here,’ she said. ‘Most of them are garbage, but some of them are from Autumn. She doesn’t sign them, but I know they are from her, even if no one believes me, not even Oleg. They say things only she would know.’

  ‘What does she say in her letters?’ Nell asked, trying her best not to sound sarcastic.

  ‘Maybe one day I’ll show you.’ Easter stared at Nell, considering. ‘I don’t know for sure whether or not you’re guilty. But that’s fitting, isn’t it? I don’t know whether to believe you, just like you don’t know whether to believe me.’

  35

  THEN

  On the morning of her arraignment, Nell stood, shivering, in a corner of the courtroom, partitioned by metal mesh. She was in a cage, her hands cuffed before her.

  Not five yards away, Nell spotted Lindsay seated in the wooden pews. She met Nell’s eyes, and her expression was stony and guarded; she was trying to coach Nell to do the same. Nell did her best.

  Several rows behind Lindsay, she saw Ethan, and she thought she felt her heart go still. To his right sat Mrs and Mr Eddleton. None of them looked at her.

  The judge banged her gavel, and Nell flinched. She hadn’t opened her mouth and yet she’d already let Lindsay down.

  Nell tried to focus on the judge. She was a middle-aged woman with jowls and a disinterested gaze.

  ‘Penelope Wendall,’ the bailiff said, his voice echoing in the tiny courtroom. ‘Case number S9 dash 839218.’

  ‘Is council present?’ the judge asked.

  Matthew raised two fingers of his left hand. ‘Yes, your honour.’

  ‘Read the charges,’ the judge said.

  A woman in a grey pantsuit read from a stapled stack of papers in her hand. ‘Reckless endangerment resulting in the death of a child under the age of eighteen, which is a felony under Missouri state law, obstruction of justice and first-degree murder.’

  ‘How does the defendant plead?’ the judge asked.

  It took Nell a moment to realise everyone was looking at her. ‘Not guilty,’ she managed, her voice hoarse.

  Matthew took a step forward. ‘Your honour, defence requests the accused be released on bail to her family. The defendant has no passport or contacts outside of the state of Missouri. There’s nothing to indicate that she’s a flight risk.’

  The woman in the pantsuit was quick to argue. ‘The defendant is accused of murdering her child and hindering the investigation.’

  ‘I’m aware of the charges,’ the judge said. Her flat expression indicated that she heard terrible things all day and she was unmoved by one more. ‘Bail is set at one million dollars, with the defendant to be released to a blood relative and monitored by an ankle bracelet.’

  ‘Thank you, your honour,’ Matthew said. The judge slammed the gavel again. ‘Next case on the docket, bailiff.’

  Nell was transported back to the county jail and shoved into her cell. She had spent her first night in solitary confinement because her face was all over the news on the TV in the lounge.

  She had just sat down on her bunk when a CO came to get her. ‘Let’s go, Wendall. You made bail.’

  Nell was rushed through processing and changed back into the clothes she’d been wearing when she’d been arrested: pink cotton pyjama pants with sheep on them and a grey men’s hoodie that said GAP across the chest in large white embroidery, which belonged to Ethan and still smelled like him even now.

  ‘There you go, tagged and tracked,’ a female CO said, after fitting a black monitor around Nell’s ankle. ‘It’s waterproof, shatterproof, idiot-proof,’ she said, clearly giving a memorised spiel. ‘If you try to break it, it beeps. If you step outside to get the newspaper, it beeps. If you go anywhere without court approval, it beeps.’

  Nell was escorted out into the lobby, and when she saw Lindsay standing there with teary bloodshot eyes, Nell ran faster than she ever had in her life. They clung to each other, and Lindsay kissed the top of her head. ‘I’m so sorry,’ Lindsay whispered. ‘I posted bail
as fast as I could.’

  ‘You had a million dollars?’ Nell sniffed.

  ‘No, kiddo.’ Lindsay drew back and wiped Nell’s tears, and then her own, with her sleeve. ‘You only have to put down ten per cent. We’ll get it all back when you make your court appearance.’

  She hadn’t called Nell ‘kiddo’ since they were children. Nell realised now that she hadn’t felt like a child in years and years. Before Reina was born, she had been someone entirely different. Motherhood had only been a small fraction of her life, and yet what motherhood lacked in quantity it made up for in volume. Even now without a child to reach for, she was drowning in it, like a mosquito in slow-drying resin.

  Outside it was raining, and it was so dark that Nell wondered if the sun would ever come out again. As she ran for the car, with rain making her sweatshirt cling to her shoulders, she thought of Reina. Was she out there? Was she cold? Did she still think that her mother was coming to find her?

  Matthew was in the driver’s seat, and Lindsay climbed into the passenger seat next to him. The second the door was closed, he started driving. They had an hour to get home before Nell’s ankle monitor would sound the alarm. She was being tracked in case they tried to take any detours.

  ‘You did good in there,’ Matthew said, though there was no kindness in his voice. ‘The press will be all over our house by morning when they realise you made bail, so the blinds stay closed from now on. No looking outside for any reason, got it?’

  Nell nodded, suddenly too exhausted to speak.

  ‘Good,’ he said. ‘We’ll start going over your defence tonight. Once the jury has been selected, I’ll get a better read on which angles to play.’

  Lindsay reached into the back seat and grabbed Nell’s hand, giving it a hard, reassuring squeeze. But Lindsay didn’t offer any words of comfort. Of the two of them, Nell had always been the storyteller, and Lindsay had never learned how to spin an ugly truth into a pretty lie.