by Britt Morrow
“She’s my fiancé, the mother of my future child.”
“Yet she didn’t mention to you that she was being sexually abused by her father?”
This is probably another technique: creating strife between co-conspirators.
“It’s not exactly uncommon for sexual abuse victims to conceal their abuse.”
“So, you just happened to have a loaded gun with you when you encountered your fiancé’s father raping her?”
“It’s his gun. It was propped beside the door.”
“How did you know it was loaded?”
“I didn’t. I just grabbed it.”
“That was lucky.”
“Not for him.”
He shakes his rectangular head. I can’t tell if he’s disgusted with me or if it’s to conceal amusement. Blockhead probably knew Earl. He was the only mechanic for thirty miles, at least. They’re around the same age, might have even gone to school together. If he didn’t know Earl personally, I’m sure he at least knew of him. There have been at least a few calls to the authorities over the years about the way he treated Colt. The booster moms never had much to do in between attempting to raise paltry funds and making shitty potluck casseroles other than judging others’ parenting.
He stops the recorder. “You seem like a decent kid. Get yourself a lawyer,” he advises.
The first night is the worst one, at least that’s how it’s always portrayed in the movies. I certainly hope that’s true because I can’t imagine feeling any more awful. Kid brought me to a holding cell, seemingly for lack of anywhere else to put me. It’s nearly midnight by the time Blockhead is through with me, so there’s no time to book me in properly to a real jail, which is where I assume that I’ll be headed next.
Charlie must have divulged some really awful stuff during questioning because I can tell that he’s shaken. Either that or he’s really nervous about being in the company of a murderer.
It seems like it’s the former, though. Before he shuts the door - an awful clanging sound that echoes my now dismal future - he moves close to me. “An officer took her home. She seemed calm by the end of the interview,” he tells me, his voice barely above a murmur as if he shouldn’t be confiding in me.
I’m not sure if that’s reassuring or not. Her place might be overrun by crime scene technicians like you see on TV. Or, more likely, the call came through after they’d already gone home for the night, retreated to their sagging sofas and microwave dinners. In that case, she’s going home to a dingy trailer, empty aside from a horribly massacred body and the ghost of its sins.
My stomach is in knots. Not because I killed someone a few hours ago though, but because of the impact it will have on Charlie. It would have been enough of a struggle to raise a kid and support ourselves together; there’s no way she can do it if I’m in prison. I can only bear to think of it in hypothetical terms right now. If I go to prison. There has to be some kind of loophole for crimes committed in order to prevent other crimes, right?
Despite Blockhead’s advice, I haven’t yet gotten the chance to speak to a lawyer. By the time Blockhead finished grilling me, all the reputable lawyers would have long since called it a day. Instead, I’ll have the pleasure of tossing and turning all night on a bench that has probably been reclined on by countless unwashed men while I contemplate all of the bleak fates that could potentially await me.
Even more worrying than my own fate though, is Charlie’s. Even though I was working hard to appear unruffled in front of Blockhead, his question about Charlie not having revealed the abuse to me is tormenting me.
There were signs that I probably should have recognized: her sexual experience despite never having had a previous boyfriend, her mercurial feelings towards intimacy, her occasional reluctance to be seen naked. I’m disgusted by the fact that I was oblivious to her pain, but even more distressed by the fact that she felt compelled to hide it from me. No one has ever understood me in as profound and all-encompassing a manner as Charlie, and it turns out that I don’t know her at all.
I can’t even picture what she’s doing right now. Whether she’s at home sleeping blissfully for the first time without worrying about her father slipping into her room. Whether she’s sitting in the darkness somewhere, upset with me for having acted so impulsively and ruining everything that we’ve been working towards, maybe even resentful at me for having destroyed the only family she’s ever known. I hope that, like me, she’s lying awake, restlessly wracking her brain for resolution. Or maybe I don’t. I probably don’t deserve that kind of consideration from her.
I have a lot of time to ponder it, considering I won’t be getting any sleep tonight. Even if I hadn’t experienced a nightmare evening to agonize over, sleep would be impossible to achieve. Laying down on a bench doesn’t bother me - I have years of truck bed camping under my belt - but it’s apparently extremely bothersome to the drunk in the cell next to mine. He only lets up on the expletives when he passes out and begins snoring loudly enough to make me regret ever having complained about Jeremiah’s relatively restrained snorts.
He’s still sawing logs by the time an officer, neither Blockhead nor Kid, comes in to bring us both bologna sandwiches and bananas. I haven’t eaten since yesterday, so I wolf it down with the same enthusiasm I would one of Gabrielle’s home-cooked dishes. Right now, it tastes almost as good. At least it does until I realize that stale bologna is probably the only thing I’m going to have to look forward to anymore.
When the officer returns some thirty minutes later to collect our plates, I ask him about making a phone call. He looks at me dispassionately. “Is it important?”
“I killed a man, and I don’t have a lawyer yet.”
He appears unmoved. He’s probably in his mid-thirties and at least fifty pounds overweight. I wonder if I would get a more favorable reaction if I had a donut to offer in exchange. “Simmons can take you when he gets in.”
Apparently, Kid’s real name is Simmons, and escorting prisoners to the phone is a job befitting only his low-man-on-the-totem-pole status. He leads me to a small booth with a wall-mounted phone and lingers nervously while I dial, his hand poised above his gun. I wonder if his nervousness is solely because he’s green or if he really thinks that I’m some cold-blooded killer.
I dial slowly, praying that I have all of the numbers correct.
“Hello?” She sounds uncertain, and I briefly consider just hanging up. I’m sure she wasn’t expecting to start off her Sunday with a phone call from a correctional institution. I’m even more sure that she wasn’t expecting it to come from me.
“Mrs. Johnson?”
“This is she.”
“It’s Levi.”
“Oh, Levi,” she exhales, no doubt relieved that it’s not Jeremiah calling her from the drunk tank.
“Is everything alright?”
“I made a mistake. An unforgivable one. The kind that requires a lawyer.”
“What’s going on, Levi?” Her voice rises slightly, betraying her concern.
“I shot a man.”
I need her help, the least I can do is be honest with her. It will be on the news anyway. There are plenty of murders around here, but they all follow one of two storylines: junkie shoots another junkie in a drug deal gone wrong, or man stabs woman in a love affair gone awry. Man shoots fiancée’s pedophile father is unique and salacious enough to garner a lot of media attention.
“Accidentally?”
“I didn’t go there with the intention of killing him. He was raping Charlie.”
“He died?” she whispers, not waiting for an answer before continuing. “Is Charlie alright?”
“He’s dead. Charlie’s going to be okay, I think.”
“Are you alright?”
That’s the one question I hadn’t anticipated when I played out this conversation in my head repeatedly last night. The fact that I just admitted to murdering someone and she’s still concerned about my wellbeing brings me to tears. I’m sure the men
tal anguish that I’ve been in for the last twelve hours and the lack of sleep are probably contributing to the sudden burst of emotion too. It’s been years since I’ve cried. Aside from my breakup with Charlie, the last time that I cried was probably when I got the shard of Jack Daniels embedded in my foot. I learned pretty early on that crying only enraged Brandi further and made the situation worse. Evidently, I’ve been storing up over a decade’s worth of tears to shed in front of a motherly figure though, because it takes a few minutes before I regain control. I can tell that Kid’s embarrassed by the display of emotion; he takes a break from staring intently at me to look away.
“No. I don’t think there’s any way that this situation is going to turn out alright,” I finally manage.
“Jesus.”
That more than anything solidifies the hopelessness of my predicament. I’m pretty sure that only something as dire as murder would cause Gabrielle to take the Holy Son’s name in vain.
“Have you spoken to a lawyer?”
I was hoping she’d ask that. I could have asked Kid to call a public defender for me, but my impression of free lawyers is that of the harried, inattentive ones in the movies. Government workers have never done shit for me. I’m hoping Gabrielle can convince some ambitious young lawyer to take my case pro bono. Or maybe that’s also something that just happens in the movies.
“No, I don’t have one yet.”
We’re interrupted by an automated message telling us that only one minute remains for us to talk.
“I’ll make some calls,” she promises. “We’ll sort this out. Keep faith, Levi.”
I don’t share the same faith that she does. I’ve never been more convinced that there’s no God. Not even the most punitive of deities would inflict this senseless a fate. Unless I was a rapist in a past life, I can’t imagine how I could possibly deserve this. I don’t believe in reincarnation either, though. I do, however, have the utmost faith in Gabrielle and the fierce protectiveness of her motherhood. If anyone can find me an equally fierce lawyer, it’s her.
Chapter 23
My second night in the holding cell does, in fact, prove to be better than the first, if for no other reason than the drunk has been released, so I can at least lay down in silence. I wasn’t actually anticipating getting any real rest, but the sleep deprivation must be catching up with me because I do end up dozing off.
I’m awoken by a clanging sound, disoriented and with the sinking feeling in my gut that usually accompanies a particularly bad nightmare - except it’s not just a nightmare this time. When I come to this sobering realization and manage to focus, I realize that the clanging sound is coming from the same officer who refused to take me for a phone call yesterday, banging his coffee mug against the bars. I’m immediately incensed by the fact that he’s treating me like some kind of zoo animal whose attention he’s trying to gain.
“Your lawyer wants to speak to you,” he drawls.
He takes me back to the wall-mounted phone, where I spoke with Gabrielle yesterday. I’m not sure if he’s more confident than Kid in his ability to subdue me should I try to make an escape, or if there’s some kind of rule protecting the privacy of detainees’ conversations with their lawyers, but he leaves me alone in the room.
“Hello?”
“Is this Levi?” The voice is male, clipped and matter-of-fact. I immediately imagine a middle-aged man in an oak-paneled office that contains a stash of expensive scotch and probably a first edition or two on the shelves - books that his wife gave him as a gift, but that he won’t ever have time to read.
“Yes.”
“Gabrielle Johnson contacted me. She’s a friend of mine from church; she mentioned that you’re in need of a lawyer.”
“Yessir.”
“My name is George Sadler,” he states by way of introduction. “Why don’t you tell me what happened the other night.”
I repeat the events of Thursday night to the best of my ability in between his pointed questions. He’s grilling me even harder than Blockhead did.
“So, you grabbed a gun that happened to be conveniently placed beside the door?”
I’m guessing that he’s never been outside the city. Shooting squirrels off of his front porch probably wasn’t one of his pastimes as a youth. I don’t think that sarcastically enlightening him is going to prove helpful, though.
“Yes.”
“Not even knowing if it was loaded?”
The fact that even my own lawyer doesn’t find my story credible isn’t boding well for me. He fires off another question without even giving me a chance to respond.
“What if it hadn’t been?”
This confirms my theory of him never having been outside the city. In the city, a gun might sit in a bedside table on the off-chance of a home invasion, unloaded as a defense against the much higher chance that a child might mistake it for a fun toy. Out here, we need to be constantly at the ready in case a suspicious-looking pickup pulls up the drive. Privacy and the Second Amendment are valued a lot higher than children’s safety.
“I probably would have knocked out the window with the butt of the gun, whatever it took to get him off of Charlie.”
He’s silent for so long that I worry that he hung up. I wonder if he’s making notes.
“I would have taken this case on as a favor to Gabrielle, but I do think there’s a good case to be made here. The state is seeking second-degree murder charges, but I think we can get it reduced to voluntary manslaughter.”
I don’t understand the difference between those concepts. I wasn’t able to process anything after the second-degree murder charge. I’m being charged with the murder of my fiancée’s father. Probably ex-fiancée. Now that the m-word is officially being used, any hopes that I might have had about some kind of defense of the innocent loophole that might get me out of captivity in a timely manner have been dashed. With that, any hopes of maintaining a relationship with Charlie or my unborn child have also been crushed.
“Now that they’ve brought the charges against you, you’ll be transferred to the county jail. The conditions are marginally better there; you’ll actually have a bed and visitation privileges. I will visit you as soon as you’re settled in so that we can discuss the next steps.”
“Okay, thank you. Please also thank Gabrielle on my behalf if you speak to her.”
I’m making an effort to be polite and express my gratitude despite my plunging spirits, but I’m obviously not doing a particularly good job at disguising my morose humor.
“I will certainly do so. And Levi? Don’t lose hope, I have faith that we can improve the outcome of this thing.”
I try to take his advice and remain optimistic after we hang up, but lose that battle almost immediately when Kid notifies me that I’ll be moving to the county jail to await trial. Despite George’s assurance that county will be an improvement upon the holding cell, I can’t suppress my agitation. In holding, the worse thing you’ll probably encounter is an angry drunk - a character I’ve been dealing with my entire life. I have no idea what I could be confronted with in county.
I’m handcuffed and led out to a cruiser by Kid, my babysitter for the evening. I’m going to miss him. He gave me a second bologna sandwich before we left, making me wonder if I’m in for another long night. He says nothing to me on the ride over, but shoots frequent glances in the rearview mirror. He can’t be more than a year or two older than me, and I wonder whether he’s imagining himself in this position or if, like I was, he’s so smugly confident that he’s well above the kind of characters who end up like this.
We pull up to a relatively small brick building, nothing like the imposing, barbed-wire-surrounded structure that I’d been expecting. It’s small and looks more like a school than an edifice to house criminals. The only jail-like feature is the bars across the small windows.
Kid retrieves me from the back of the cruiser and leads me to the front door. “Hi Martha,” he greets the lady glowering from behind the front
desk. “I’m gonna need you to book him in.”
I wonder if she’s an ex-inmate. Her skin has the grey pallor of someone who’s unacquainted with the outdoors, and her teeth are the rotting black of someone who’s well-acquainted with crystal meth. It could be just sugar though, she also looks well-acquainted with Little Debbie snack foods and Mountain Dew.
Kid hands her a few papers, and she begins typing the information, heaving an almighty sigh as if he just asked her to run a marathon. He thanks her for her efforts before heading back towards the door. He pauses when he reaches it, hand poised above the handle.
“Good luck, buddy.” He doesn’t look at me when he says it as if he’s embarrassed by the sentiment.
“Thanks.”
“We need to take your picture,” Martha barks, unmoved by the exchange.
I never thought I’d be the subject of a mugshot. If anything, I expected to be self-righteously scrutinizing my high school peers’ mugshots and congratulating myself for having pursued a higher calling. And yet, here I am, staring down the lens of the camera, not much differently than how Earl stared down the barrel of his own gun, posing for a picture that will likely accompany a headline much worse than any I would have expected - even from Colt or any of his delinquent friends.
After taking my picture, Martha fingerprints me and instructs me to wait in a small room, empty aside from a metal chair.
With nothing to do, the time stretches on interminably. I wonder if this is what I have to look forward to for the rest of my life: empty rooms with nothing to entertain me except the distressing thoughts I’ve been fighting hard to keep at bay. I regret every self-pitying thought I had about my formative years with Brandi. It turns out there are infinitely worse fates.
After what seems like hours, but is probably closer to thirty minutes, a heavy-set man lumbers in.
“Take off your clothes,” he orders gruffly, pulling on a pair of rubber gloves.
I was hoping that I would be able to forgo this particularly dehumanizing step in the booking process. I’ve spent the last forty-eight plus hours in a holding cell, and it’s therefore extremely unlikely that I could still be holding any contraband. The man - obviously a guard based on his uniform - has at least fifty pounds on me though, so I’m not going to debate the necessity of squatting and coughing.