by Lutz, Lisa
“What were you looking for?” I asked.
“Drugs, Isabel.”
“Get over it. It was a one-time deal.”
Once Henry was satisfied that I hadn’t brought contraband into his office, he offered me a seat.
“I need a favor,” I said.
“Of course you do. Why else would you visit me?”
There was enough of an edge to Henry’s reply that I felt, well, guilty. And here’s something that might surprise you: I don’t feel guilty all that often.
“That’s not true,” I replied, even though as far as I could recollect, it was true.
“What do you need?” he snapped.
“Now I feel bad. I’m not going to ask.”
“Go ahead,” he said.
I quickly got to my feet and said, “I’ll be back later.” Then I made an abrupt exit.
Two hours later
I returned with a picnic basket (i.e., a large paper bag) full of farmer’s market items—anything I could find in the unprocessed food category, including organic cheese and crackers, since I can’t make a meal of apples and whole-grain bread.
“Can you take a break?” I asked when I entered his office.
“What’s in the bag?”
“Drugs,” I replied. “And lots of them.”
Henry rolled his eyes.
“A snack. I thought we could have an afternoon picnic.”
“Seriously?”
“This picnic will include entertainment.”
“They always do. In the form of ants.”
“This entertainment I’m speaking of is better than any episode of Doctor Who in the history of Doctor Who.”
“That’s not possible.”
“Get your coat. It’s chilly outside.”
An hour later Henry and I were seated on a wool blanket just outside the fence of the organic garden in which Rae was doing time. While the inspector and I dined on sustainably-grown nourishment, our afternoon’s entertainment was the pained expression on Rae’s face as she dug ditches, planted zucchini, and watered the tomato plants. The frozen look of disgust on her face carried an uplifting comedic edge. In fact, we both lost our appetites because we were laughing so hard. I hoped that as long as her probation lasted, she would rail against her punitive assignment. Henry, on the other hand, simply enjoyed the fact that Rae was forced out of her comfort zone and into a job that served society rather than manipulated it.
As we gathered our picnic remains, our spirits were considerably elevated, I imagine in the same way someone leaving a great theater production might feel.
“That was the best show ever,” Henry said, smiling. He doesn’t smile all that often, so it was a surprise.
“I know. I came here the other day, out of curiosity. Stayed an hour. Figured I shouldn’t keep it all to myself.”
“Kind of you,” Henry replied.
On the car ride back to the precinct, Henry said, “Okay, what do you want?”
“I need to look at police files from when Harkey was on the job. Preferably before DNA evidence had really evolved and for anything that was a potential capital offense.”
“I gather this is in regard to the Merriweather case?” Henry asked.
“You gathered correctly.”
“Is this about freeing Merriweather or taking down Harkey?”
“Tomato, tomahto.”
LAWYER DATE—THE FINAL CHAPTER
If you found my relinquishment of choice in the lawyer-date matter suspicious, you were on the right track. I was simply making sure that when my final lawyer date went down in flames, Mom would take the brunt of the fallout.
In truth, I had kept the secret long enough. My mother had few weapons left beyond her knowledge of Prom Night 1994. It was time I took that sword away from her. But I get ahead of myself. First, may I introduce you to Jason Berendt, Lawyer #5, RIP?
We met at some swanky bar in the financial district. I wore my JUSTICE 4 MERRIWEATHER T-shirt, a corduroy jacket, and a knee-length skirt with boots. I ordered a whiskey on the rocks and waited at the bar.
[Partial transcript reads as follows:]
JASON: Isabel?
ME: Jason, the lawyer?
JASON: Yes. But Jason is just fine.
ME: Have a seat.
JASON: Thank you. Bartender, can I get a Budweiser?
ME: My mother didn’t tell me you drank piss beer.
JASON: [long pause] I guess I never mentioned it to her.
ME: Interesting.
JASON: Who is Merri—
ME: Merriweather. Demetrius Merriweather. Wrongly convicted for murder twenty years ago.
JASON: I see. You want justice for him.
ME: Now that I know you can read, tell me something else about yourself.
JASON: I’m a lawyer.
ME: That I know. It’s in the rule book.
JASON: Excuse me?
ME: Nothing. So what do you do for fun?
JASON: Golf. Snow sports. I’m a total gym rat.
ME: Why is it all you people play golf?
JASON: “You people”?
ME: You know, white, male lawyers.
JASON: I don’t think we all play golf.
ME: Most of you do.
JASON: [hostility creeping in] What do you do for fun?
ME: I don’t have as much fun as I used to.
JASON: What did you use to do for fun?
ME: Rebel.
JASON: What were you rebelling against?
ME: What have you got?1
JASON: You’re not like your mother described.
ME: Especially not today.
JASON: I’m beginning to doubt we have much in common.
ME: We have nothing in common.
JASON: This wins as the weirdest blind date in the history of my blind dates.
ME: Thank you.
JASON: Not a compliment.
ME: Did you know that in the Ice Age, giant beavers the size of grizzly bears roamed the earth? Can you imagine that?
JASON: No.
[End of tape.]
I studied my mother as she listened to the recording. Her scowl took a shape that only Botox could fix, and fortunately I have the kind of mother who won’t submit to torture for her looks. Sadly, I knew that scowl would vanish the moment our conversation came to a close.
“You know this doesn’t count,” my mother said. “Why waste your time sabotaging a date when you know you’ll only have to redo it?”
“I’m done with all the secrets,” I said.
“Really?” Mom replied skeptically.
“There’s something you should know. Connor and I broke up.”
“I’m sorry,” Mom said, and she put her arm around me.
“You already knew, didn’t you?”
“Yes.”
“Did you know he was cheating on me?”
“I did.”
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
“You know why,” Mom replied.
“Is that why you made me go on these lawyer dates?”
“That and I thought it would be fun.”
“For whom?”
“Me, mostly.”
“So, no more lawyer dates, Mom. I’m done.”
“Are you?” Mom said, thinking she still held all the cards.
“I’m going to tell Dad what happened that night.”
My mother suddenly became speechless. I could see her mind spinning, various scenarios playing out in her head.
“No, you’re not,” she said.
“Why?” I asked.
“Because it’s not just your secret anymore.”
PROM NIGHT 1994
If I really stretched the truth, I could blame the whole thing on Petra. She had come to school the week before junior prom with a Cheshire cat smile on her face.
“You are not going to believe what I discovered in the back of my mothe
r’s closet.”
“What’s its resale value?”
“We’re not selling this shit.”
Petra then handed me what appeared to be her lunch. Inside was a dime bag of marijuana.
“Smell it,” she said.
I opened up the baggy inside and my sophisticated nose told me we were dealing with some prime Humboldt County weed.
“Oh my god,” I said.
“I know,” Petra replied.
“Won’t she know it’s missing?”
“Maybe. But that’s not even a fourth of what she had.”
“I didn’t know your mom was a pothead.”
“She’s been under a lot of job stress lately and she’s got this new boyfriend. It could be his.”
“We totally scored.”
• • •
Fifteen minutes later, flanked by giant trash bins behind the cafeteria, Petra and I took a few hits before history class. We thought it might make the Declaration of Independence a little more interesting.1
While I fought back a coughing fit, Petra had an idea.
“You should search your parents’ room.”
“My dad’s an ex-cop. There’s no way he has any contraband in his room. No way.”
“You’re probably right,” Petra replied.
The bell rang, Petra put her pipe away, and we headed to class.
That night, my parents went to a movie. David was studying at a friend’s house and I was babysitting my three-year-old sister. I read from the Encyclopedia Britannica as her bedtime story. I chose the entry on photosynthesis and she passed out within minutes. I watched some television, tried to pick the lock on the liquor cabinet, and then considered that maybe my parents kept some booze in their bedroom. And then searching their room didn’t seem like a bad idea at all.
There was no booze to be found (and believe me, if it was there, I would have found it). I explored every inch of that room. But I didn’t leave empty-handed. In the bottom dresser drawer, under my father’s old police uniform, I found his badge. And I took it.
Flash-forward two weeks: Petra arrived at my house in a red velvet evening gown that was cut in such a way that it appeared the shoulders had made a run for it, as if in direct protest to the massive shoulder pads of the eighties. I was in an unfortunate forest-green number that my grammy Spellman had bought for me a month earlier. Wearing the dress was my punishment for some minor curfew infraction.2 One picture was taken, which I later destroyed.3
Before I left, my mom said, “Isabel, please stay out of trouble.”
Her voice had a pleading tone. But that never stopped me.
Petra and I had no intention of going to prom. She picked me up at seven P.M., and we stopped at Mel’s diner, had French fries and Cokes, and changed into street clothes in the bathroom. A few hours later, we were crossing the bridge to Berkeley. Petra had learned of a college party that night. And we were going to crash it.
The thing about college parties is that not everyone at them is in college. The house was easy to locate—revelers spilled out onto the sidewalk like sloppy drippings from a sundae. It was the parking that was impossible. Petra eventually settled her car in a red zone three blocks away and we hoped for the best.
We fought our way through the crowd and located the booze. A guy named Scott was doling out shots of Jägermeister. After we sank our first drink of the night, Petra switched to beer, since she was driving. I poured myself a tumbler of vodka, ice, and lemonade and we worked our way out onto the balcony.
I finished my vodka drink and filled the tumbler with beer from the keg, since it was parked right in front of me. At some point a guy named J. T. approached the two of us. He was attractive in a one-weekend-only kind of way. The sleaze factor would get old after a while. But I remember he was fine entertainment for the night.
“You ladies got some ID on you? Because I think you look like jailbait.”
The last thing we wanted was to be pegged as high school students. I pulled my father’s badge from my pocket, flashed it, and said, “Run along, now.”
J. T. didn’t run along. He held out his hand and identified himself, or his initials.
“You got a name?” he said.
“Nope,” I replied.
“My kind of girl,” J. T. said.
Now here is where things get fuzzy. Petra met a guy on the lawn bowling team. She’d never met anyone who actually played that sport and was taken with him immediately. Then she vanished, as far as I knew. J. T. kept filling my tumbler with a wide mix of alcoholic beverages and telling me tall tales of his travels in Europe. He was an art dealer, a talent scout, and briefly a spy. All lies, I knew.
I woke up in an empty bed in a cheap Oakland apartment, having almost no recollection of the night before. My clothes were scattered about the floor. I dressed quickly, despite the throbbing pain in my head, and made a quick escape. I never set eyes on J. T. again.
Without a cell phone or any other means of contacting Petra without phoning parental units and incriminating myself, I found my way to the closest BART station. I reached into my pocket for my wallet and was pleased to find I had enough cash to return home. When I reached into the other pocket, a jolt of adrenaline and fear shot through me. My father’s badge was gone.
I arrived home and climbed through the window. On my bed was a note from my mother that informed me I was grounded for the next three weeks. I took a shower and got into bed. My mother took a boom box and a CD of Rae’s sing-along tunes and planted my sister as a steady source of pain right outside my door. She stayed all morning.
I lived in fear for weeks, not knowing when, how, or in what form the discovery of my father’s missing shield would take place. I decided that outright denial was my only option and I mentally prepared for my defense. It never occurred to me that the badge would turn up again.
Exactly four weeks after Prom Night, I returned to my bedroom and found my father’s police badge on my pillow, accompanied by a note in my mother’s hand: I own you.
And this is where it becomes my mother’s story.
The day before, Mom had caught a call from the Redwood City Police Department. A man named J. T. Schaeffer had been arrested for possession of a controlled substance and impersonating a police officer. Schaeffer’s record gave the arresting officers leverage, and Schaeffer agreed to cooperate, telling a tall tale of some fresh-faced, brown-haired woman selling him the badge for fifty dollars.
My mother arrived at the station and asked to speak with Schaeffer. He gave her a description of the woman; my mother filled in the blanks—including the blank that I probably slept with a stranger and he nicked the badge after I showed it off. She knew I wouldn’t sell it. Or at least she knew I’d ask for more than fifty bucks.
To keep my father out of it, my mom suggested to Schaeffer that he plea out on the drug charges and turn informant for the PD. She then tactfully asked the arresting officers if they could keep this incident quiet. She was vague about her reasons but persuasive, as she always is, and besides, cops like to look after other cops. No one ever knew what happened besides me, my mother, and J. T. Oh, and Petra. Because I told her.
For six months following the incident, I was on my best behavior. And when I started to slip again, my mother had other tools of coercion and we never really brought up Prom Night again.
Now, sixteen years later, I was ready to come clean. Turns out my mother wasn’t.
“Hold on a second,” Mom said, after I said I was going to tell Dad the truth. “You’re not going to tell your father anything.”
And this, my friends, is when the leverage in the relationship shifted. It never occurred to me before, but my mother’s secret was far worse than mine.
“I really want to tell Dad the truth,” I said. “It would feel good to get this off my chest. But I’m willing to negotiate.”
THE $500 PAYBACK
What would have been extremely hard but satisfying l
abor for a single person ended up as a two-man job. Rae was at school and then gardening probation, which gave us a window of eight hours. We shopped for the necessities the day before, managing to stay just within my budget—$479.84, when you added up the receipts.
For two women with little experience in decorating—especially decorating out of their aesthetic—I think we did a brilliant job. My third and final attack on my sister would be realized that evening.
I sat in the living room, drinking a beer and watching television. My mother, wiped out from the day’s labor, sipped a cocktail and put her feet up. Rae returned home, spirits crushed after a long afternoon of commingling with nature, and climbed the stairs to find solace in her own personal space.
The scream that emanated from upstairs was one of the most satisfying sounds I had ever heard in my life. As predicted, footsteps racing down the stairs followed the scream. Then Rae stood in front of me and Mom and gawked at us with a look of disbelief.
“What have you done?” she said.
Let me tell you what we had done: We painted Rae’s bedroom canary yellow; we replaced her navy-blue corduroy comforter with a lacy pink duvet with ruffles and hearts. We plastered boy-band photos all over the walls; we hung mobiles with glitter; we painted her desk white and did a hideous decoupage with a mermaid theme.
There were tears in Rae’s eyes.
“How am I supposed to sleep in that?”
“Guess what?” I said. “The fairies on the wall, they glow in the dark. You don’t need a night-light anymore to find the bathroom.”
Rae went to the kitchen and poured herself a ginger ale. My mother followed her in and laid out the parameters of the punishment.
“You live in it for two weeks. Then you can restore it how you wish. I saved your duvet and all your wall art.”
Rae didn’t talk to anyone for the rest of the evening. In the morning, she phoned me. I was prepared for a deluge of abuse. Instead, all I got was this:
“I’m sorry, Isabel. I’m really, really sorry.”
CASE CLOSED?
That afternoon, as I drove to the Winslow mansion to check on all things butler related, my cell phone rang. It was Connor. Or it was someone else calling from the Philosopher’s Club. I let the call go to voice mail. But I had to admit: I missed that bar.
After I parked in the circular driveway, I listened to the message.