Undertow

by Sydney Bauer

  7

  There was one ‘The’ who was white. His name was Spencer Bloom and he was ‘The Mechanic’. He was different from the other ‘The’s’. Not just because of his skin (which was white, but tanned almost as dark as the others), but because he was funny and sweet, and treated her more like a friend than a Whitman. And so she called him Spence.

  ‘Spence,’ she said in her sleep. And she could see him now, standing on the bottom veranda step of their large white Green Farms estate, his hands glistening with grease, his brow shiny with perspiration and a look of embarrassment on his face as her father retold the story of how he had saved his life.

  We were stationed in the East Solomons, on the USS Enterprise,’ she could hear her father say. ‘I was Captain of the artillery unit and Spence the best damned Lieutenant on the carrier. He treated those engines like his very own children: respectful of their power and mindful of their quirks.’

  ‘Tell us about the battle, Daddy,’ she heard herself say, now not sure if she was actually asleep or not. And her Daddy would smile and Spence would take his cap from his sunburned head and screw it in his hands, embarrassed by the attention.

  ‘There were over a hundred fighter pilots’ he would begin, looking up as if the action was playing out above him, ‘launched from our ship and the USS Saratoga and they were soon joined by hundreds more from the Shokaku, and Zuikaku – the Japanese airmen weaving and dive bombing in a sky filled with fire and smoke.

  ‘Spence was moving as fast as he could, on his way to give me an update in the chief petty officers quarters. And that was when the first bomb hit.’

  Elizabeth shifted in her bed, a faint sense of anticipation in her expression as her dream played out like a movie, the characters familiar, the colours bright and the warmth of her memories all encompassing.

  She could hear her father recall the explosion that ‘ripped six foot holes in the hull’ and how Spence ‘broke his right arm and three ribs’ and still managed to rescue his Captain who lay ‘unconscious, under a collapsed steel strut’.

  A noise in the hallway broke her focus and opened the door for reality to rear its ugly head and invade her temporary respite. She forced it away, determined to stay in this safe, familiar place as long as possible.

  Spence – the man who saved her father’s life and was repaid with a job for life. Spence – the man who never spoke of his past or the places and people in it. It seemed to Elizabeth, who was surrounded by possessions, that Spence was grateful for what little he had and, most importantly, cherished the one person that gave his life meaning – his ten-year-old son, Topher with the long dark hair and the deep brown eyes. He was . . . he was . . .

  ‘Elizabeth,’ he said, standing at her door, newspaper in one hand, glasses in the other.

  ‘Rudolph,’ she said, jolted from her dream, the guilt of her memories sending a hot flush throughout her entire body.

  ‘It’s after nine. You’d better get up. Agnes has laid out your clothes.’

  ‘The Chanel?’ she asked, not knowing what else to say.

  ‘I have no idea.’ He stood there, looking at her.

  ‘It’s all right, Rudolph. I’m getting up.’

  ‘Right.’ And then he paused a few seconds longer before turning to walk down the corridor.

  She sat up in bed, searching the corners of her brain for something to send him away.

  The bag should be Prada, she pondered. Simple, small, black. And the shoes . . . the Gucci’s: modest heel, understated. Yes, yes, that was it. The perfect attire for a society funeral. They would do just fine.

  When, she wondered, did it happen? When did a child become an adult, a little girl become a woman?

  She was seventeen. Well almost, close enough, and maybe this was it? Maybe that was why this morning she looked at her reflection and knew the little girl inside her was dead.

  Teesha Martin used her hand to wipe away the steam that sat like a thin veil on the surface of her aunt’s bathroom mirror. Her long hair was piled on top of her head and, as she released it, she realised that the change was internal. She didn’t look any different. She used her index finger to push a strand away from her left eye. She looked the same but different, unchanged but affected.

  They had allowed her to make the decision herself, and she had decided to go. Her mother had advised against it, worried what some might say or do. Her aunt had agreed it was dangerous and that it might be best if they offered their prayers for Christina in private. But this was her best friend’s funeral and this decision, they agreed, had to be hers.

  She had led a charmed life. Sure, her dad had died when she was little but, to be honest, there was little pain there. Her memories were few but sweet and she had been too young to suffer the grief that comes with years of closeness and familiarity.

  Her mom was the best, her Aunt Delia like a second mom and her Uncle Tyrone was always there for her, even though he lived a few hundred miles away.

  She was smart, getting straight-A’s in school. She was on the debate team, the track team and, thanks to her mom’s job, didn’t want for anything.

  She didn’t have a boyfriend but last Friday night Justin Winter had called and she was going to find the right time to ask her mom if she could go out with him. But first she would tell her best friends. They would be happy for her, they would laugh and give her advice and tell her what she should wear and lend her some jewellery and hang out for all the details of the date the next day.

  She hadn’t even got the chance to tell Christina that it was Justin who had called, and that he asked her to a movie the following weekend which would have been this coming Saturday. But that was in her other life when Chrissie was still alive, before Francie had betrayed her and when the little girl inside her still smiled.

  And so she had decided to go, for that is what an adult would do and today she was older and wiser than she had ever been before.

  ‘It’s a bad idea, David. No, it’s not just bad, it’s insane.’

  It was early Wednesday morning and Detective Joe Mannix had spent the past half hour trying to talk David out of going to Christina Haynes’ funeral.

  ‘It will look like harassment. You’re a good lawyer David, one of the best, but you have a problem when it comes to knowing when to pull back. This, my friend, is one of those times.’

  David sat in Mannix’s office, drinking a disgusting potion disguised as black coffee in an effort to stay awake and fuel himself for the day ahead. He had not slept.

  He and Sara had spent the rest of Tuesday between Suffolk County Jail with Rayna and David’s offices, trying to make some sense of Francine Washington’s claims and what they meant to their case – or rather, how they destroyed it.

  ‘Look Joe, I’m not going to harass the Haynes. I just want to observe. I need to see who is there and who isn’t. Who is sitting where, what is the ratio of black to white, is Francine Washington in Rudolph Haynes’ pocket?’

  It had not taken long for David, Sara and Arthur to work out that the Washingtons had been ‘reached’ by Haynes. David was pretty sure the Senator was pulling the strings and feeding Katz the ammunition. They would have to talk to Francie of course (if her father would allow it), and to Teesha and Mariah, but today was going to be hard for all three of them, so the plan was to lie low and watch from the sidelines.

  David knew Mannix would be there in his role as Commander of the Homicide Unit. This was customary considering the charge was now murder two.

  ‘Okay,’ said Mannix with a sigh. ‘If I can’t talk you out of it, just make sure you stay out of sight. I’ll be hanging around the back of the church with Petri.’

  ‘Lucky you.’

  ‘Paul’s not so bad David,’ said Mannix and David could see he was a little miffed at David’s attempt at sarcasm. ‘His wife is sick. The guy’s just going through a rough time.’

  ‘Whatever you say.’

  ‘Just stay close to your car. Anyone else from your legal team going?
’

  ‘Sara will be inside with Teesha.’

  Mannix shook his head.

  ‘She’s like a big sister to Teesha.’

  ‘And you need a set of eyes inside the church,’ finished Mannix. ‘Jesus, you guys are gluttons for punishment. I really don’t think it’s smart, the kid turning up and all, for her own sake.’

  ‘She’ll be with Sara and Rayna’s sister Delia.’

  Mannix got up from his desk and took David’s stained coffee mug before starting for his office door.

  ‘All right, but one word of warning: if I see your sorry ass anywhere near that church I’ll kick it from here to hell and back.’

  ‘That your way of saying you want to protect me, Joe?’ David couldn’t resist a smile.

  ‘Sure, because you sure as hell can’t look after yourself.’

  She should have worn the Saint Laurent.

  Elizabeth Haynes sat in the back of the black town car next to her husband.

  The Chanel was too big, she must have dropped five pounds in the last five days, and the skirt was swivelling around her waist.

  ‘You’re pleased with yesterday then,’ she said softly, as much to make conversation as anything else.

  ‘Yes, of course. It’s a good first step, Elizabeth. Fitzgerald is a good man, I knew he would get the ball rolling for us.’

  They sat in silence as the car crawled out of the long, red gravel circular drive and headed towards the city and Trinity Church. She felt him looking at her.

  ‘Are you all right?’ he asked.

  ‘Yes,’ she said, both of them knowing it was not true.

  ‘All the formalities will be over soon, then we can get back to it,’ he said.

  She knew ‘it’ was her husband’s obsession with going after Rayna Martin and whilst she was glad it was giving him some form of comfort she could not understand how he could think it would make things better.

  She would like the Martin woman to feel the full fury of the law but knew that even life imprisonment was a walk in the park compared to her own new lot in life. Five days after the fact, somewhere in this grey sea of confusion, she had come to one simple, single, obvious conclusion. Losing a child was the ultimate hell.

  It was worse than a million life sentences. It was condemnation to endless years of nothingness, an existence filled with agonising memories and dreams of what might have been. And for it to end as it did . . . How could he not see this?

  She took a deep breath and fixed the small black hat on her groomed golden hair, checked her makeup in her compact mirror and straightened her skirt yet again. She should have worn the Saint Laurent.

  It truly was impressive, thought Sara as she stopped in the middle of Copley Square to look up at the breathtaking structure before her. She could remember reading somewhere how Trinity Church, with its rough-faced stone walls and clay-tiled roof, was a true breakaway for its time – designed in the early 1930s by a young architect who shunned the preferred Gothic style to win a competition to build this American Romanesque masterpiece.

  Delia and Teesha had gone ahead, allowing Sara the opportunity to take in the activity surrounding the Church. Copley Square, a park normally filled with mothers and their children, professionals eating lunch and tourists admiring the Church’s historic grandeur, was today packed with a different sort of observer – those with zoom lenses and live-to-air TV cameras, conservative suits and microphones, and a mish-mash crowd of curious passers-by being urged by uniformed police to steer clear of the entrance and move along.

  Once inside she could see why the stained glass windows had earned their reputation as some of the most beautiful in the world. This morning the sunlight filtered through the front north-eastern windows, throwing splashes of muted colour across its crowded pews, with hundreds of black suits and dresses providing a dark canvas for the splotches of reds, blues, greens and golds.

  Sara joined Delia and Teesha in a pew towards the middle of the church. Next to them sat the Jordans – Mariah, her parents and her little brother William. They would normally be joined by Francie but today, if the Washingtons were here, they had decided to sit elsewhere which, under the circumstances, was no surprise.

  As mercenary as it may seem, Sara knew that as much as she was here for Teesha, she also had a job to do and set about taking in as much detail as possible. She noted that, despite its expansive interior, the Church still could not accommodate all the mourners. The overflow spilled out onto the street.

  The average age of the crowd was middle aged or older, obviously friends and associates of the Senator and his wife. Many had famous faces, including US Chief of Staff Maxine Bryant, Boston Mayor Moses Novelli, who Sara knew was one of the Senator’s oldest friends, and ex-Vice President Larry Howell.

  Scaturro and Katz sat about six rows from the front, across from her on the left-hand side of the church. The former kept her head down whilst the later managed to look up every now and again and give the appropriate nod to the more ‘I’ of the VIPs.

  Behind her fell row upon row of students from Milton Academy, wearing the school’s colours of navy and orange. They looked impressive in their numbers; some carrying leather bound hymn books, others seeking solace in each other’s embrace, many whispering quietly as they waited for the service to begin. There were other young people scattered throughout who must have known Christina in one way or another – a young man in a tennis camp blazer, a poised young woman in a dancer’s cross-over wrap who might have been her ballet teacher. Sara estimated that, disregarding the mixed nature of the Milton Academy students’ origins, which was still disproportionately white, the congregation in general was approximately 90 per cent Anglo.

  Haynes and his wife entered last. Both wore black.

  They walked down the aisle towards the casket and sat in the front row to Sara’s left. The Senator walked head high, holding on tightly to his wife’s elbow and Sara’s heart went out to the woman who was trying desperately not to look at her daughter’s coffin.

  Sara had met Christina a number of times and now saw where the girl had got her prettiness. Elizabeth Haynes was the picture of elegance. The horror of the past week was etched on her face but she still looked incredibly beautiful.

  The casket was white and covered with pale pink roses that seemed to pour down its sides like strawberry milk. It was simple, without the usual carvings and embellishments, as if paying homage to the angelic being inside that needed no adornment.

  The service itself was moving but conservative, with readings offered by everyone from Mayor Novelli to a white student named Cassandra Cummings who was introduced as Christina’s closest friend. Sara wondered how that reference would be received by Teesha and Mariah.

  In his homily, the Bishop urged all present to thank God for what little time they had with Christina and trust that, although impossible for us to conceive, the brief nature of her life was all part of the Almighty’s greater plan. He preached about God’s teachings of forgiveness and mercy, of compassion and understanding – a subtle reference to Rayna (and one which insinuated guilt) which, Sara knew, was falling on deaf ears.

  As well as monitoring the details, David had told Sara to soak in the atmosphere, to get a feeling for the level of emotion surrounding the case, so she tried to define the sentiment around her. She could feel something beyond the throb of grief, something more powerful. It was something dressed up as sympathy and disguised as sorrow. It lacked compassion and cried out for revenge. There was no other word for it . . . she could feel hate. This was a hatred any normal person would feel for someone they thought, or were told was responsible for such a travesty. Their anger at Rayna, their condemnation of her actions was unspoken but screamed like a siren through the silence of the ceremony.

  At the end of the hour, six young white pallbearers from Milton Academy, carried the casket to the back of the church where it was placed in the rear of a Rolls Royce hearse.

  The crowd started to fold out into the stre
et.

  David and Arthur had parked a block north on Berkeley Street. Arthur had agreed with Mannix. It was a mistake for David to be here.

  Sara had a legitimate reason for attending and Arthur had the ability to blend in with the crowd. But whether he liked it or not, as Arthur had lectured, David was the public face of the defence – the enemy – and he was too damned tall and good looking to play the curious bystander.

  So David had promised to stay on the other side of Boylston Street, to listen to the people milling around the Square and get a feeling for their take on this whole crazy mess. Arthur had stressed the importance of public opinion. The case was already being tried in the media, and he knew this would intensify. The photos of Christina showed a golden-haired angel, the photos of Rayna a dark-skinned, tired-looking woman holding a number. There was no contest when it came to the aesthetics.

  David knew the African–American community would rally behind his client but even this could play against them. If the case became a forum for racial debate, the public, and more importantly the jury, could lose track of the core truth, the fact that Rayna made the right decision in dire circumstances.

  David would do everything to make sure this case did not turn into an ‘us against them’. He had seen hate crimes turn a mild natured community into a bunch of savages and this one had the potential to do this and more. Overall, David and Arthur both noted the obvious – a general rift in opinion based on colour. This was no surprise, it just confirmed their fears of the growing emotional debate.

  The crowd started dribbling through the back doors of the Church, a flow that soon became a throng of mourners adjusting to the sunlight and the world of the living outside the huge hand carved doors. The students from Milton had formed a guard of honour and the congregation moved in an orderly fashion down the stairs and onto the front grass where they milled around, looking up every now and again to see if the Haynes, who had chosen to leave last, were at the back doors.