The Necklace

by Matt Witten

  Out loud, Susan said, “Family stuff,” and shrugged. She lifted the glass of water to her lips, hiding the bottom part of her face with it.

  Lisa gave a short laugh. “Yeah, me too, in a way. What kind of family stuff?”

  Without even thinking, Susan said, “A wedding.”

  “God, I wish I was going to a wedding.” Lisa had a gulp of coffee, and Susan saw for the first time that her movements were a little jittery, like she was on edge. Her next words were proof of that. “I’m such a mess. I’m going to an execution tomorrow.”

  Susan wished she were anywhere but here. “Really.”

  Lisa nodded. “That’s why I’m too tense to eat.” Putting down her coffee cup, she leaned forward and said confidentially, “It’s my brother. He’s getting executed for killing somebody.”

  “I’m sorry,” Susan said.

  “Yeah.” Lisa rubbed her cheek, looking suddenly tired. “It happened twenty years ago, but I still can’t believe he did it.”

  Susan eyed Lisa and blinked, trying to figure out what she meant by that. Does she still think her brother’s innocent—or did she change her mind?

  She leaned closer to Lisa. “Do you think he really did do it?”

  Lisa looked at the coffee in her cup and swirled it around, as if searching for wisdom in the coffee waves. “He confessed to the FBI. But then he took it back.”

  Susan felt guilty for trying to trick Lisa into talking. When Lisa saw her at the prison tomorrow and recognized her, what would Susan say?

  But she was desperate to know if Lisa had some kind of proof her brother was guilty. So she asked, “What did he say to you about it?”

  Lisa waved her hand, looking self-conscious. “You don’t really want to hear all my troubles.”

  “I’m interested.”

  Lisa had a sip of her coffee, then looked up at Susan. “My brother was a real troubled kid,” she said. “Dyslexia and ADD. Couldn’t read, couldn’t sit still. Now they have treatments for that, but back then …” She shook her head before continuing. “He acted out. Got caught stealing when he was sixteen, went to juvie and never looked back.” She gave Susan a beseeching look. “But he was a real sweet big brother, you know? When our parents were out getting drunk or whatever, he would always cook my favorite meal, spaghetti and meatballs. So I couldn’t believe he’d ever hurt a girl like that.”

  Lisa frowned, bewilderment crossing her face. “But I guess he did. He did kind of confess to me.”

  What the hell does that mean? Susan felt a jolt of excitement, and realized she was desperately hoping Curt was guilty after all and Danny was innocent. “He kind of confessed?”

  Lisa nodded. “It was three years ago. I was visiting him in prison and crying about how unfair it all was, and he told me to let it go. He said he deserved it. Deserved the death penalty. So I guess he really did it.”

  Susan was afraid to look into Lisa’s eyes, because that might help Lisa recognize her, but she had to understand what this woman was really thinking. So she gazed directly at her and said, “You don’t sound too sure.”

  “Really I think Curt was just trying to make me feel better,” Lisa said. “Like if I believe he’s guilty, then it’s not so horrible him being put to death like a dog.”

  She looked down at her coffee again. “I guess I’ll never know the truth. He’ll die tomorrow and that’ll be it.”

  Then she raised her eyes to Susan. “Sorry to lay all this on you. I guess I needed to talk.”

  Susan nodded awkwardly, feeling like a shit. “It’s no problem.”

  Lisa peered more closely at Susan, at her face beneath the baseball cap. “You look kinda familiar. Where are you from?”

  Susan’s mouth opened. She had a sudden powerful urge to tell Lisa everything.

  But what if she couldn’t prove Curt Jansen was innocent? What if he’s actually guilty? It would be incredibly cruel to get Lisa’s hopes up, and then have her brother get executed anyway.

  Susan couldn’t do that to her.

  “I’m from Boston,” she said.

  “Never been there. Always wanted to go.”

  Susan was afraid Lisa would ask for details about Boston, a city she had never been to either. But luckily a voice came over the loudspeaker. “Bus for Jamestown, Bismarck, Hodge Hills, and points west ready for boarding.”

  “Shall we?” Lisa said. She pointed down at Susan’s half-sandwich, which lay on a napkin, mostly uneaten. Susan had been so hungry before, but now her appetite had disappeared. “Don’t forget to bring that.”

  The two of them got up and rolled their suitcases to the loading area, where they got onto a local Dakota Northern bus that looked way more rickety than the Greyhound and Trailways buses Susan had been riding. But for the first time in this entire trip, her bus was packed. In addition to the usual random passengers, there were thirty or so ladies in their sixties boarding the bus too, maybe some church group going to a convention, or a social group going to a casino. So there were no two empty seats together. Susan was relieved; it meant she wouldn’t have to sit with Lisa and keep lying to her. She took an aisle seat next to a quiet-looking young woman, and Lisa sat a couple rows back.

  But then Lisa stood up again and stepped forward. “You want to sit together?”

  Susan couldn’t figure out how to say no, and before she knew it, Lisa and the quiet woman were switching places. Great.

  Susan moved over to the window seat and Lisa sat down next to her. “How come you’re not eating your sandwich?” she said.

  Susan forced herself to eat it, even though it seemed tasteless to her now.

  Lisa put her purse in her lap and said, “You know, the truth is, I always kind of thought it was the father.”

  Susan didn’t understand at first. “What?”

  “The girl who got raped and killed. I thought her father did it.”

  Susan gagged on the bread and started coughing.

  “You okay? Can I get you a cough drop?”

  “I’m fine. What made you think it was her father?”

  “It’s usually somebody the victim knows. And he seemed kinda creepy.”

  “How did he … seem creepy?”

  “Well, there was a lot of really disgusting stuff in the trial. Testimony about his daughter’s rape and all these gross pictures. Sometimes I’d look at him, and he didn’t seem as upset as he should’ve been. I mean, he had a frown on his face, but somehow he almost looked intrigued, you know?”

  Susan made herself nod. How could I be so stupid that I didn’t know about Danny, when this woman figured it out right away?

  But then she thought, How could I have known? Danny was a football star in high school, clean cut, a popular guy. He was the only man she had ever made love to. The schoolgirl uniform thing seemed a little odd, sure, but she just figured it was probably … well, a normal fantasy for a lot of guys. And what did she know about men?

  She had been so glad Danny was such a loving dad, from the very beginning. He wasn’t like other men, who wouldn’t change their baby’s diapers—

  Oh God, I can’t go there, I can’t. She felt about to vomit and began coughing uncontrollably.

  “You sure you’re okay?” Lisa said. Susan doubled over a little, and Lisa put a hand on her back.

  “I’m fine,” Susan said again, straightening up, but then she coughed even harder.

  Lisa brought out her cough drops and made Susan take one, and finally her fit subsided. She told Lisa she needed to sleep for a while.

  Anything to avoid talking.

  She shut her eyes and pretended to fall asleep. The bus was freezing, the lousy shock absorbers made her feel every bounce in her bones, and she was sitting next to a woman whose brother she might have wronged beyond belief. This bus ride to hell would last four hours, but it would feel like forever.

  But then she heard Lisa’s breathing grow steadier, and she cracked her eyes open to check on her. Sure enough, Lisa was sleeping. At least now Susan
wouldn’t have to pretend to be asleep herself.

  She gazed out the window. The bus was riding up into the raw, primitive badlands of North Dakota. The steeply sloping rocks and the array of colors were unlike anything Susan had ever seen. But she couldn’t enjoy them. Lisa shifted restlessly, perhaps sensing her seatmate was awake, and Susan froze, not wanting to wake her. Then Lisa’s head fell onto Susan’s shoulder and rested there.

  This was torture. It got even worse when the thirty elderly ladies sang “A Hundred Bottles of Beer on the Wall” for the next half hour.

  When they were down to four bottles of beer, the bus crested a rocky hill. Outside the window, Susan saw three rows of twenty-foot-high barbed wire. Behind them was a complex of squat, windowless, concrete buildings, accompanied by several tall watchtowers. In the nearest tower, a man in a gray uniform had his rifle laid out in front of him in the turret.

  The bus came to a driveway with a brown metal sign: “Hodge Hills Federal Penitentiary.” This is where I’m coming tomorrow, Susan thought. Somewhere inside one of these buildings, Curt Jansen is counting down the hours.

  Just at that moment, she felt the pressure on her shoulder lighten as Lisa woke up and lifted her head.

  Susan watched Lisa gazing out the window at the prison. A tear formed in Lisa’s right eye and slid down her cheek.

  Susan was relieved when the bus drove on and left the prison in the distance, and Lisa dried her eye. “So who’s getting married?” Lisa asked.

  Susan blanked for a second, then remembered her lie. Once again she had an impulse to tell Lisa everything, but repressed it. “My cousin,” she said.

  “Oh, what’s his or her name?”

  “Molly,” Susan said, and changed the subject, asking Lisa questions about herself. She learned that Lisa taught fourth grade in western Pennsylvania and liked to bake gingerbread cookies for her class. She was divorced with two grown daughters in California.

  Susan hoped Lisa would forgive her tomorrow for lying. If I save her brother, she’ll definitely forgive me.

  As they rode past a couple oil derricks into the town of Hodge Hills, population 7,362 according to the road sign, Lisa started talking about the execution again. Her two girls barely knew their Uncle Curt. They’d only visited him in prison once, and it upset them so much she never brought them again. They offered to come to the execution to support her, but she said no.

  “I have to come,” Lisa said. “I don’t have a choice. But there’s no reason they should be traumatized for the rest of their lives by the sight of Curt dying.”

  Susan thought about how eager she’d been to see him die, how hard she’d pushed the judge to give him the death penalty.

  The bus went over the Sasquit River, which was more of a stream, and arrived at Main Street. Hodge Hills seemed a little better off than Luzerne, maybe because of prison jobs, or the oil. The trailers they passed looked mostly well kept. There was a cheerful-looking tattoo parlor called Loved N Hated and a couple of Chinese restaurants. They stopped in front of a bus station that was painted bright blue and looked like an old ’50s diner.

  Susan and Lisa got out along with several other passengers. As they took their suitcases from the luggage compartment, Susan looked around and wondered again where she would stay tonight.

  “Is your cousin picking you up?” Lisa asked.

  “Yeah, she’s always late, I’m sure she’ll be here soon.”

  Lisa pulled down the hood of her parka against the wind. “I guess I’ll hit the hotel and see if they let me in before check-in. I got a nice rate with Triple A.”

  Susan needed to be rid of Lisa so she could get to work finding Agent Pappas already. “Good luck,” she said.

  But Lisa didn’t leave; she kept on talking. Maybe she wasn’t ready to be alone yet. “I get a contact visit with Curt tomorrow. It’s been years since I’ve hugged him.”

  Susan just nodded.

  “They don’t let you bring in homemade cookies, but I got him a box of really good chocolate macadamia cookies made in Hawaii.”

  Susan couldn’t take any more. She put her hand on Lisa’s shoulder and said, “I know this sounds weird, but if there’s anything I can do to help you and your brother, I’ll do it.”

  Lisa looked at her. “Unless you can get a pardon from the president, forget about it.”

  A rusty gray cab came around the corner and Lisa hailed it. “It’s just a half-mile to the motel, but I’m gonna treat myself. You sure you don’t want a lift somewhere?”

  “I’m good. Take care.”

  “Thanks. You’re a sweetheart.”

  Lisa hugged Susan. Then she got in the cab and drove off, waving goodbye through the window.

  Susan took a deep breath, relieved to finally be alone. She brought out her phone and the worn piece of paper from her back pocket. Blowing hot air onto her fingers to warm them, she made a call.

  The phone rang twice and then a woman with a cheerful, young-sounding voice picked up. “Hi, this is Public Relations. May I help you?”

  “Yes. Is this …” They had spoken on the phone before, but she’d forgotten the woman’s name, so she checked her paper. “Pam Arnold?”

  “Yes, it is. How can I help you?”

  “This is Susan Lentigo.”

  “Ms. Lentigo!” Pam said joyfully, as if Susan were a long-lost pal. “I’m so glad you called. Where are you?”

  “I just got into Hodge Hills.”

  “Terrific. I hope you had a nice trip?”

  “Yes, I did, thanks.” She was about to say more when Pam—Susan pictured her in her late twenties, bubbly, a little plump—broke in.

  “Ms. Lentigo, I want you to know. Tomorrow is a big day for all of us. It always feels extra special to send a child killer on his way.”

  Susan shut her eyes, feeling a headache coming. “I wanted to ask you something—”

  “Just so you know, everything is going nice and smooth.”

  “I’m sure it is—”

  “We got the Pavulon shipped in this morning. That’s the most effective drug on the market—it causes muscle paralysis and respiratory arrest. So now we’re all locked and loaded.”

  Susan rubbed her forehead, pained. No human being should be allowed to be as chipper as this Pam Arnold person. “Who else is coming to see the execution?”

  “Well, for the condemned man it’s just his sister. And the chaplain, of course. But for you? You’ll have lots of company in your viewing room. I’ll be there, along with the warden, two ADAs, and, there’s a special guest. You’ll never guess who it is.”

  “Robert Pappas?”

  “Oh my goodness! You smashed it right on the nose!”

  Susan said, “I’d like to thank him for coming. Do you have his cell phone number?”

  For the first time, Pam’s relentless effervescence fizzed out. “I’m sorry, I’m not really allowed to give that out.”

  Shit, now what do I do? Susan thought. Hunt for him in all the motels? I don’t have time. Curt Jansen gets executed tomorrow!

  Trying to sound casual, she said, “I just want to thank him for everything he’s done for me.”

  She pulled at her hair, waiting for Pam to respond. The seconds went by. Finally she heard a loud theatrical sigh over the phone, and Pam said, “Well, seeing as it’s you, I’m sure he won’t mind. 518-403-3653.”

  “Thank you so much,” Susan said, writing it down.

  Pam’s bubbliness returned. “Let me know when you’re coming tomorrow. I’ll meet you on the front steps of the admin building, so you can talk to the media.”

  “Sure.” Susan just wanted to get off the phone.

  “There’s always lots of TV reporters at an execution, especially for a really horrible crime like this one. You’ll be the star tomorrow.”

  That was the absolute last thing Susan was interested in. “Okay. Thanks.”

  She hit the off button and shut her phone. Then she picked up her suitcase and turned around.
<
br />   Danny was standing right there.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO

  FRIDAY, DECEMBER 3, PRESENT DAY

  SUSAN GASPED, TOO terrified to scream.

  Danny said, “Hi, Susan.”

  She got a sudden fear he’d kill her. But they were on a main street in the middle of the day with a lot of people around.

  Maybe he’d grab the necklace and run off. Her coat was loose so she couldn’t feel the necklace against her body, but it was in there, in her inside pocket. What if he reaches in and snatches it?

  But how would he know it was there? Maybe he’d think it was in her suitcase—

  “You okay?” he asked with a smile. “I didn’t mean to scare you.”

  Was that an amused smile or was he angry underneath it? His eyes were shiny, but she couldn’t tell what they were saying. She let go of the suitcase and buttoned her coat up tight, then got scared he’d guess from that where the necklace was.

  “What are you doing here?” she said.

  Danny lifted his shoulders. “Thought you might be on that bus. Figured I’d offer you a ride.”

  Was he making fun of her? He held up his hands in apology. “Sorry, I shouldn’t mess with you.” He paused. “Even if you did break into my daughter’s bedroom and steal her necklace.”

  He smiled again. She blinked, even more confused. She couldn’t read him. Maybe she never could. Behind him the bus pulled away. The freezing wind was picking up and driving people inside, and she realized the street was growing deserted. She took a step back from him.

  His smile disappeared and his eyes aimed at hers like lasers. “Susan, what on earth were you thinking? You scared the shit out of me. I thought you were a fucking pedophile trying to kidnap Emily, just like Curt Jansen—” He stopped and shook his head, horrified. “For God’s sake, I could’ve killed you. I was shooting at you. How could I ever have lived with that?”

  “I’m sorry,” Susan said, and then thought: Why am I apologizing? How do I know he’s telling the truth? Maybe he saw it was me and shot at me on purpose!