Just Mercy: A Novel

by Dorothy Van Soest

  Clarissa plopped back in her chair with a belly laugh. “Please be my friend again, Bernie. I need a saint in my life, heaven knows.”

  “Your friend, yes, but a saint, no.” Bernadette laughed along with her but then turned serious. “Sometimes I still want her to pay for what she did. Other times, well, other times I’m not sure.”

  “So why help her? What’s that about?”

  Bernadette looked down at her hands, unable to even try to explain. “Good lord,” she said, “where are my manners? Tell me about you. What are you doing these days? Are you and Hal still together?”

  “I broke up with that boy a few years back, or maybe he broke up with me. Whatever. No way that dog was going to hunt, nohow. I’m still working at the bank, putting in my time until Social Security clicks in so I can live the life of leisure I was meant to live. My love life’s another kettle of fish. I’m built for living alone, but everyone needs a little roll in the hay once in a while, don’t you think, and half a loaf is better than none, as they say. Genealogy’s my big thing these days. I tell you, girl, digging into your family ancestry makes you think you’re related to everyone in the entire universe. You wouldn’t believe what I’m finding. Some people you’re connected to, I tell you, you don’t want to know. Oh, yes, and I’m fixing to trade in my old clunker soon and buy me a new car. I’ll get around to it one of these days. Yup, that’s me in a nutshell. So why are you sitting there looking so anxious?”

  “What do I do if I can’t find Maxine Blackwell?”

  “Maybe you could ask your old adoption worker for advice.”

  That was it. That was the answer. Bernadette leaped from her chair, cupped Clarissa’s cheeks in her palms, and kissed each one in turn.

  “You’re a genius, Clar,” she said, “an absolute genius. I’m on it.”

  “Like smell on skunk,” she heard Clarissa say as she hurried away.

  TWENTY-SEVEN

  Talk about missing the obvious even when it’s right in your face, forest for the trees and all that, Bernadette thought as she rushed away from Central Market. She headed north on MoPac without paying any attention to the speed limit, without giving a thought to how out of character that was for her. Her car squealed onto the freeway and from there seemed to know the way by itself as it turned onto Wells Branch Parkway and then onto Summit Drive. She found a parking space right in front of the Travis County Health and Human Services Department building and ran toward the entrance, pushing against the stream of staff and clients going in the opposite direction. She reached the main intake area just as the receptionist was turning off her computer for the day.

  “I need to see Mary Jane Crenshaw,” Bernadette said, out of breath.

  “Sorry, ma’am, we’re closed.”

  Bernadette frowned and pointed to the clock on the wall. “In five minutes,” she said. “Is Mary Jane here?”

  The receptionist’s nails bobbed up and down like ripe red tomatoes on the ends of her arthritically misshapen fingers as she patted her puffed up and obviously dyed black hair as if she was considering whether or not to answer the question.

  “Please.” Bernadette would have gotten down on her knees if she’d had to. “It’s important.”

  With a roll of her eyes, the receptionist picked up the phone. “There’s someone here to see Mary Jane. Just a minute.” She paused and held her hand over the phone. “And you are?”

  “Mrs. Baker. Bernadette.” She rocked back and forth on the balls of her feet as the receptionist repeated her name into the phone.

  “Please, tell her all I need is one minute. That’s all. Just one minute.”

  The receptionist mumbled something into the phone that Bernadette couldn’t hear. Then she hung up with a disconcerting nonchalance, locked her desk drawer, and dropped the key into a bulky leather purse draped over her bony shoulder. She opened her mouth to say something, then seemed to think better of it.

  “What?”

  “I don’t want to say anything, ma’am.”

  “Will she see me or not?”

  “Maybe you can catch her on her way out,” the receptionist said with a shrug.

  Bernadette wondered if Mary Jane had refused to see her. Maybe she didn’t even remember who she was. And it was, after all, the end of a long day, so she would be tired. Bernadette turned to leave, thinking it might be best to come back first thing in the morning.

  “Hello? Bernadette?”

  Mary Jane Crenshaw’s hair was white now, a perfect match for her stylish linen suit. Her blouse, a pale pink, was the same color as the one she wore twenty-six years ago when she placed Veronica in Bernadette’s arms for the first time. How pink everything had been that day: Veronica’s scrunched up face—those tiny fists, fingers, and fingernails—miniature feet and toes—the soft blanket—Mary Jane’s pink lipstick and rouge, a perfect match with her blouse. Even the clouds in the sky had been tinged with pink.

  She gripped Mary Jane’s hand. “I have something to ask you,” she said. “It’s important.”

  Mary Jane Crenshaw’s face blanched. She glanced down at the floor, and when she looked back up, her eyebrows were knit together in a tight worry frown and she was biting at her bottom lip.

  “Please.”

  Mary Jane tipped her head, a gesture so tentative as to be almost imperceptible. Bernadette chose to accept it as an invitation to come with her.

  They walked in silence down the familiar hallway, its institutional gray walls covered with black-and-white glossy pictures of smiling children. Bernadette’s eyes filled with tears as she remembered the last time she and Marty were here. At the end of the long hall, a plaque on the door said Adoptions Supervisor. So, Mary Jane Crenshaw had been promoted, which meant she was in a perfect position to help. Her bright, sunny office was meticulous and efficient, further confirmation to Bernadette that she had come to the right place.

  They sat down at a round table with a bamboo plant in the middle. When Mary Jane pushed the plant to the side, her hands shook so hard that the vase filled with water and stones almost slipped onto the floor. Bernadette glanced at the stack of boxes in the corner.

  “Friday is my last day.”

  “But you don’t…” Bernadette stopped, thinking it might be rude to ask why Mary Jane was leaving. She wasn’t old enough to retire, so maybe she was going to a new job. Or maybe she was ill.

  After an awkward silence, Mary Jane said, “I feel horrible about Veronica.” Her face crumbled as she spoke, and her voice quivered. “I didn’t know how to… what to tell you.”

  “There was nothing you could have said that would have helped back then,” Bernadette said. “But you can help me now. I have to find out what happened to the siblings of the woman who killed Veronica.”

  Mary Jane’s eyes widened and her mouth opened, then closed. She looked frightened.

  “It’s a long story, but I think you’ll understand once you hear it,” Bernadette said, wanting to reassure her.

  When Mary Jane neither encouraged nor discouraged her, Bernadette launched into her story, going into much more detail than she’d intended about what it had been like for her, how she’d found Regis, what it had been like to work with him.

  “And then, when I met Raelynn Blackwell,” she said, “I felt sorry for her.”

  Mary Jane’s eyes opened wider.

  “It surprised me, too,” Bernadette said. “ I was convinced she had conned me, but it turns out she was telling the truth. And there was something about her. I don’t know what it was.”

  Mary Jane’s cheeks reddened. She covered her mouth with her hand, but a gasp or a muffled moan—Bernadette couldn’t tell which—escaped nonetheless.

  “I know, it amazed me, too,” she said. “I’m sure that’s why I felt I had to help her find her mother.” She went on to describe her visit with Maxine Blackwell and how she was unable to convince her to go see her daughter. As she spoke, Mary Jane seemed to regain some of her composure.

  When Be
rnadette said, “I guess I felt sorry for her mother, too,” she interpreted Mary Jane’s frown as disapproval. “I know she wasn’t a good mother, but she’s still a mother. Here are her children’s birthdates.” She slid the letter and form containing Maxine Blackwell’s request for information about her children across the table. “There was a baby boy, too, that she gave up at birth.”

  “These aren’t signed,” Mary Jane said, after a quick glance at the documents. “They need to be signed.” She shoved them back across the table. She looked as if she was about to faint.

  “That’s the problem,” Bernadette said. “You see, Maxine Blackwell is very sick. And there’s not enough time left.”

  Mary Jane Crenshaw expelled a long breath through her open mouth. “What if things didn’t turn out well?” she asked. “What if you found out something you’d rather not know?”

  “I have to find out. It’s for Rae.”

  In the silence that followed, Mary Jane stared out the window with an anguished look on her face. Then, with a quick nod of her head, she said, “Come back in a couple of days.”

  “I knew you’d help.”

  “I’m not promising anything, okay?”

  “I can’t tell you how much I appreciate this, Mary Jane.”

  “I feel horrible about what happened to Veronica.”

  “I know. I know you do.”

  TWENTY-EIGHT

  Fin had to talk to his mom in person. This was too good to tell her on the phone. He was sure she’d be as surprised as he was by what he’d found out today, although he doubted that she would be as happy, or as hopeful, about it as he was. He got on the #20 bus and paid his fare, wondering if the day would ever come when he didn’t think that if this same bus were always on time, then Veronica would still be alive today. He found a seat by a window and closed his eyes, turned his thoughts away from the past and toward what was possible.

  At his folks’ house, his stomach knotted up when he found his dad out back on the deck, sitting in a lounge chair, sipping a Coke. But when Marty looked up from his book and broke out in a normal smile, looking the way he always did—meaning not sick—Fin let out a sigh of relief.

  “Well, I didn’t expect to see you today,” Marty said.

  “Hey, you look good, Dad.”

  “I’m feeling fine. Why are you here?”

  “I have something important to tell you and Mom.”

  “So your phone doesn’t work now? Your mom went to Killeen this morning to see Maxine Blackwell again.”

  “Shouldn’t she be home by now? It’s after six.”

  “Like a dog with a bone, that’s your mom when she’s on a mission, you know. So what’s so important for you to take the bus over here during rush hour?”

  “I know how to stop the execution.”

  “Now, Fin…”

  “Come on, Dad. You’ll feel different when you hear what I have to say.”

  “Hello? Anybody home? Oh, here you are. What a day! I . . .” Bernadette’s outstretched arms halted in midair when she saw Fin leaning against the railing. She rushed over to hug him.

  “Sorry I’m so late,” she said, kissing Marty on the cheek. “Maxine Blackwell seems to have disappeared without a trace. But on my way home, I stopped at Central Market. Oh dear, I forgot the groceries in the car. Anyway, I ran into my old friend Clarissa, remember her, Marty? She looks the same. She suggested I talk to our adoption worker. I don’t know why I never thought about that before. So I drove out there. Talk about timing. Mary Jane Crenshaw is leaving her job at the end of this week, but she’s going to help me. So why are you here, Fin? I’m glad to see you, but it’s a bit unusual for a workday, isn’t it?”

  “He thinks he can stop the execution again.” Marty nodded toward Bernadette with a knowing glance that didn’t escape Fin’s notice.

  “Fin…”

  “Just hear me out, Mom. You won’t believe it. Remember what I told you about the sodium thiopental shortage? Well, guess what? Texas only has two doses left, and they’re about to expire.”

  “They’ll get more from another state,” Bernadette said, “or they’ll use a different drug.”

  “I figured you’d say that, but this is where it gets even better.” The words gushed out of Fin’s mouth now like water pumped from a well. “Over thirty other states are running short of the drug, too, and that’s not even the best part. Other countries are refusing to sell any drug to the United States if it’s used for executions. Italy was the first. Then Germany, the United Kingdom, Denmark. Even India. Who knows what other countries will follow?”

  “But Texas still has it,” Bernadette said, “and in time for Rae.”

  “Not if there’s another delay. Not if the governor stops it again.”

  “Fin—”

  “We can make a direct appeal to her. Come on, it’s worth a try, Mom. If the Supreme Court delays its decision in the Arizona case, that could be grounds for an appeal, too. And it wouldn’t hurt to contact the Innocence Project. You know better than anyone how many convictions they’ve gotten overturned.”

  “Rae is not innocent.”

  “She didn’t mean to do what she did. She didn’t even know what she was doing.”

  “That doesn’t make her any less responsible.”

  “Come on, you’re the one who always says all you have to do is scratch the surface to get at the reasons people do things.”

  “There’s no excuse for choosing to murder someone.”

  “Was it really a choice for her? Why isn’t the state responsible? If someone had protected her, she wouldn’t have ended up like she did.”

  “Haven’t we had this conversation enough times already?” Bernadette said with a sigh. “Life isn’t fair, Fin. It just isn’t.”

  “I hate it when you say that.” The childlike whine in Fin’s voice made him think about when he stopped believing in Santa Claus, who up until then had been the ultimate arbiter of justice, back when life was simple. If you were good, you got presents; if you were bad, you didn’t. He’d never forget the day he found out that Santa Claus didn’t bring presents to some children.

  “Those children are not bad,” his mom had said, much to his surprise. “They’re just poor.”

  “No,” he had insisted, “they did something bad. They had to.”

  “Sweetie,” she’d said as she folded him into her arms, “those children deserve presents just as much as you do.”

  “We have to tell Santa Claus they’re poor, then,” he had wailed, “so he’ll bring them even more presents.”

  At least, he thought now, something good had come out of that childhood trauma. It shaped the belief he held to this day that those who had less should receive more. But the real reason he hated it when his mom said life was unfair was because he hated that it was true.

  “The point isn’t to claim that the world is just,” Bernadette said now. “The point is to help make it so.”

  Fin rolled his eyes at his mom’s standard line and felt his body stiffen. “Being able to tell Raelynn Blackwell what became of her family isn’t going to do anything but make you feel better.”

  “We do what we can do,” Bernadette said.

  “It’s the way things are,” Marty said.

  “Don’t you care? Don’t either of you care?” Fin’s voice cracked. The whine was back.

  Bernadette took both of his hands in hers and kissed away a tear that fell onto the tip of one of her fingers. “It’s time to move on, Fin,” she said. “Sometimes we just have to accept life on life’s terms.”

  “I can’t,” he said, jerking his hands away from her with a sharp shake of his head, “and neither can you, Mom. Neither can you.”

  TWENTY-NINE

  Bernadette pulled off the highway and parked on the shoulder. A torrential downpour had hit full force, without warning, and the wind gusts shaking the car and the jagged lightning were way too close for comfort. She turned on the radio.

  “The storm is movin
g southeast at ten miles an hour,” a crackling voice reported, “with a flash flood warning along Shoal Creek until nine a.m.”

  So much for being on time. She rummaged through her purse and then dumped the contents onto the passenger seat in frustration when she realized she had forgotten her cell phone. She told herself to calm down. MoPac wasn’t going to flood. It wouldn’t be the end of the world if she was late. And fretting was not going to make the storm pass any faster.

  She rested her head against the back of the seat and tried to hold onto the cautious optimism she’d had before she left home. Though she didn’t dare to be too hopeful, one thing did seem clear: if Mary Jane Crenshaw had no intention of helping, she would have canceled their appointment today. But what if she said she would help, but only if the request came from Maxine Blackwell? Well, then, tomorrow was another day. She would have to go back to Killeen again and try to find her, that’s all. At the very least, she hoped Mary Jane would be able to cut through some of the red tape in the short time that was left.

  She thought about the advice she’d given Fin about accepting life on life’s terms, advice that she would be wise to take as well. But there was a big difference between what she was trying to do and what Fin wanted; Fin’s quest was hopeless, while hers at least had a chance of being successful. Nonetheless, just as Fin was going to do what Fin was going to do, whatever happened with Mary Jane today was going to happen, and all the worrying in the world wouldn’t make one iota of difference.

  Bernadette listened to the rain pelting the roof of the car, pouring down so fast and furious that it rendered anything beyond the windshield invisible. And then, in a flash, the car turned silent. The storm was over. It made her dizzy how like life the storm was, how it could change in an instant. She pulled back onto the highway. She might get to her appointment with Mary Jane Crenshaw on time, after all.

  When she arrived, the Health and Human Services department’s parking lot was packed, so she had to park two blocks away and then navigate around all the puddles to get to the main entrance. Once she was inside the imposing building, her eyes blinked at the glaring florescent lights and her nostrils burned from the smell of sweat, soiled diapers, and disinfectant. Her soaked sandals sucked at the linoleum floor as she walked past three rows of plastic chairs on which dozens of weary women sat, anxiety and defeat written all over their faces as they shushed crying babies and squealing toddlers.