by Jay Brandon
It was easy to see why police hadn’t pursued that case. Burglary was entering a home with the intent of committing a felony or a theft inside. If someone just broke into a building without intending to do anything illegal inside – say to get out of the rain – that wasn’t a burglary. It was what David had called it, trespassing. In the case of depraved Goldilocks, she hadn’t stolen anything, unless you could count the cigarettes.
The one that seemed most like a burglary had happened three years ago, while Edward was serving his prison sentence. Someone had gotten into a River Oaks home near Edward’s parents’ home and taken a set of 1920s era stemware. Then a couple of weeks later had gifted those glasses, anonymously, to the couple’s eldest daughter as a wedding present. This time it seemed as if some version of Robin Hood had been at work. The crime made no sense. The daughter, opening her presents in front of her family, had exclaimed over the glasses, her mother had recognized them, and the daughter dutifully returned them on the spot. Net loss: zero. Edward puzzled over that one for long minutes, but couldn’t make any sense of it.
Others were just as random. He couldn’t see the connection to Amy at all. For this crap they were going to seek a death sentence? But they might be able to get one. Reading through the reports, Edward realized he’d been subconsciously constructing a profile of a sociopath, a serial criminal with no regard not only for law but for her friends’ feelings. Burglary was a violation. It made the victim feel not just unsafe in his own home, but as if it was no longer quite his. Aside from whatever the burglar took, it was a theft of part of the victim’s identity. Someone who did it again and again, even just as a joke, felt no compassion, no empathy for her victims. Victims who were friends of hers, or at least acquaintances.
They weren’t horrible crimes in themselves, but they showed disregard for other people. That defined a sociopath. And once that serial criminal had committed murder during one of those burglaries – the ultimate violation – wasn’t it likely she would do it again? She didn’t have a sense of other people’s feelings; she didn’t really see them as human, so why not snuff out another one if he crossed her?
He found himself afraid to call his sister. Not just because he had such bad news for her, but also because Edward wasn’t sure he knew her any more. This was what mere accusation like this could do. Portray someone as a completely different person from what even an intimate had always thought her. That was one reason for accusing a defendant of every little thing he’d ever done. Each little deviation from the norm made him that much more unknowable, more beyond the pale of our lives. Edward was afraid to call his sister’s number, not knowing who might answer.
Dusk found him knocking on the door of a nice little white frame house in the Heights, a neighborhood near downtown but with a small-town feeling. In recent times, it had become gentrified, many of the homes restored to their Victorian-cottage original appearances. This was one about halfway up the scale: small, with a little front porch comfortably holding two white rocking chairs and flowers planted close to the house. Edward knocked on the door and waited.
‘Hi,’ Linda said, surprise in her tone. ‘Knocking? What’s up? Why didn’t you just come in?’
‘It’s your house. I didn’t want to—’
‘Well, it’s yours too, Teddy. At least I thought so.’
‘Wait a minute,’ he said as she was turning away. ‘Let me look at you.’
He held her shoulders and did just that. A grin took possession of Linda’s face, spreading her full lips, lifting her cheeks, adding a glint to her eyes. The eyes were brown, with long lashes, her face surrounded by wavy brown hair. She had the same smile every time he looked at her full on like this. Edward smiled back. After a few seconds Linda ducked her head.
‘How you stare,’ she murmured.
They went inside. There was music playing quietly. Edward could never quite identify Linda’s music, but he loved it. Sometimes it was classical, especially classical guitar. Sometimes the voice of a woman he’d almost, but not quite, recognize. He took her in his arms, swaying a little as if dancing. She was a perfect size, almost Edward’s equal in height. Linda leaned her head on his shoulder. He didn’t want to leave ever again. He didn’t even want to talk. Talking would bring the world in. He just wanted to be here, with her.
But that wasn’t possible for long of course.
After a while he said, ‘Do you want to go to dinner? Have a date night?’
‘Sure,’ Linda said, as if it was a silly question. ‘But we don’t need to go out. Come onna my kitchen,’ she added, with a different grin at him.
He had known Linda for years, as a friend of a friend, someone he’d seen at parties. She was a paralegal for someone he knew, so he sometimes saw her in business situations as well. They’d always been friendly, but when Edward went to prison she turned out to be more than that. She wrote to him regularly and, once in a while, sent him a care package of homemade cookies or a book from a writer she knew he liked. She even came to visit him once, sitting shyly on the other side of the mesh, picking up the phone with such timid curiosity it was clear she’d never been inside a prison before. Edward had been embarrassed for her to see him there, after knowing him in a suit or as the life of a party after three or four drinks. But he also appreciated her kindness. So many people with whom he’d thought he was much better friends had dropped him entirely once the doors had clanged shut behind him.
She was waiting for him in the parking lot the day he got out. He came stumbling into the sunlight, his paper bag of possessions in his hand, free for the first time in two years, relieved, terrified. The world looked so big. The parking lot across from the prison was an expanse of asphalt the size of a football field. A few scraggly trees bordered it. He hadn’t touched a tree in forever.
Edward was wearing the suit pants, white shirt and black dress shoes he’d been wearing in court when he was taken into custody. His hard soles crunched on the caliche underfoot. He hadn’t arranged a ride. Hadn’t even told his family the exact day he was getting released. He’d had the vague idea he would take a bus into Houston, which was only thirty miles from his unit.
Someone had gotten out of a car on the far side of the parking lot, the roof of the car shimmering in the Texas sun. She raised a hand in greeting. The glare was so intense he could barely make out that it was a woman. Edward waved back, thinking his sister had found him.
But then Linda stepped out of the glare. She had been such a peripheral part of his life that seeing her brought much of it back abruptly. He almost felt himself standing in a parking lot near the courthouse. Linda waved and he walked toward her.
‘Are you—?’
‘I’m here for you, silly,’ she said, put her arms around him and kissed him. It seemed to take a long time for her to step back. When she did she wore the biggest smile he had ever seen. Her eyes sparkled, her dark red lipstick was a little smeared. Linda was very fair, with light brown hair streaked with highlights in front, hanging down past her cheeks. She wore a simple blue dress that changed the color of her eyes a little and, now that she’d kissed him, she had pink spots on her cheeks. In profile she looked shy, her eyelashes fluttering.
Once he was in the passenger seat she pulled out confidently.
‘How did you—?’
‘I called the prison administration and pretended I was working for your lawyer. I know exactly how to do that.’
At the exit Linda stopped, put the car in park and turned in the seat.
‘I had a feeling you wouldn’t have anyone from your family meeting you. Or anyone else. If you had, I would have just watched. But I wanted to be here for backup.’
‘How could you have known that?’
‘Edward. I know what you’re like. You’d be embarrassed. You don’t want them to see you like this, ex-con not used to the world yet. You want to return to your parents in – I don’t think splendor is the word, but something like that. Looking like nothing’s changed. Probably alre
ady with a job.’
He wondered how she could possibly know that much about him, when he hadn’t even known it himself. This time Linda just looked back at him, her mouth pursed but twitching a little playfully.
It was dusk by the time they drove into the outskirts of Houston. They had talked non-stop the whole way, about her work and of course about Edward’s time inside. Linda already knew enough from his letters that she could ask questions about specific people and nod knowingly as he talked.
‘Where to?’ she asked casually.
‘I have a friend who said I could crash with him.’
‘Mike?’ Linda guessed. At Edward’s nod she added, ‘But you haven’t talked to him yet.’
He shook his head.
‘How about something to eat first?’ she asked casually.
She took him to a café on the edge of Montrose, with white tablecloths and a bound wine menu. In Edward’s white shirt and black shoes and Linda’s versatile blue dress they were dressed perfectly for the place.
When a waiter came Linda folded her hands under her chin and said, ‘Do you want a drink?’ Edward actually thought about it for a few seconds. This was the perfect time to restart his life, make himself a better person, starting with remaining as sober as he’d been for two years.
‘Absolutely,’ he said.
Over dinner they stopped talking about prison or law. Linda guided him away from that world so gently he didn’t even realize it. Instead she got him to make plans. No law license, no law practice. What else did he know? Nothing. He’d spent his adult life being a lawyer, then being a prisoner of the law.
‘Well, what skills do you have that would translate?’
Edward put down his fork and looked at her. ‘Are you interviewing me?’
She smiled at him, that glowing smile. ‘Aren’t I doing it well? Isn’t this good practice?’
He laughed. ‘So, Mr Hall,’ she continued with mock seriousness. ‘You established rapport with clients …’
‘Sometimes.’
‘Always. Or convinced them you had. You persuaded judges and juries …’
‘On my good days. I guess what I did was sell my knowledge. Of the law, but more of the system. The courthouse is scary if you’re in danger of being kept there. I was a good guide. I knew all the ways out.’
‘You sold yourself,’ Linda said, leaning toward him. She put her hand over his. ‘In a good way. You created confidence in you. You could do that with something else.’
He watched her. Linda must have thought he was thinking about her advice. But what he was thinking about was her hand on his and back to that kiss in the parking lot.
After dinner, which was long and included a bottle of wine, she took him home, to the pretty little house in the Heights. It looked so homey Edward just sat in the driveway looking at it. He could picture it inside, the pastel colors, the whites, the space, the lightness of everything.
‘You want to come in and call your friend?’
‘Sure.’
But inside he just stood in her living room. It was nearly as he’d pictured, clean but not pristine, hardwood floor with an area rug softening it, an irregular shape like a puddle the glass coffee table might have dripped if it melted.
‘There’s a phone in the kitchen.’
‘Thank you.’
But they both just stayed there. She was looking at him, he at her. Linda’s stare only looked puzzled for a moment, then it softened. Her mouth lengthened, her lips long and lush. Edward felt dirty by comparison. She looked so fresh. Edward felt sure he still had a layer of prison dust on him.
Then she stepped toward him and tilted her head as if in inquiry. Edward took the one step remaining between them and bent toward her as she lifted her lips to his. This kiss was different from her greeting, deeper, a landscape of lips, exploring, questioning and answering. It went on and on before her mouth opened more and he found his arms were around her, hers around his waist. His hands moved down, down her firm arms to her waist, feeling her hip bones, then he lifted his arms again and held her tightly against him. She pressed her leg against his.
They made it to the bedroom. They were both barefoot by that time and Edward had lost his shirt. Linda had kissed his chest after she removed it, making him shiver. The bedroom was as lovely as the living room, the queen-sized bed made with a white coverlet, extra pillows across it. Edward stood quite still on the threshold of that lovely room.
‘Are you sure?’
‘No,’ Linda said, ‘I’m having second thoughts,’ and reached back for her zipper. He hurried to help.
In bed, naked, they held each other for a long time, running their hands up and down each other’s bodies. Edward felt oddly virginal and Linda had some residual shyness in spite of her bold talk and stares. But when he separated her legs with his hand so he could stroke the underside of her thigh, she shuddered, closed her eyes and said, ‘Now.’
After he entered her he just lay still, on top of her, feeling that amazing interior world as if for the first time.
‘God,’ Linda breathed.
‘You can call me Edward.’ He risked the joke and luckily Linda laughed which caused a whole new chain of sensations and started them moving.
Later, spent, breathing deeply, still looking into each other’s eyes, she wiped a tear from his eye he hadn’t known was there. He kissed her. Linda grabbed him, held him tightly against her.
‘This is what I wanted,’ she whispered fiercely. ‘I wasn’t being nice. I was being naughty.’
She wouldn’t let him go, refused to be the one-night stand celebration. She invited him to dinner at her house, introduced him to some of her friends at a happy hour. He had hung onto Linda just as tightly as she attached to him, showing up on her doorstep late in the evening, needing someone to hold as he fell down into sleep, needing her specifically, knowing she would cling to him just as tightly, wanting that, absolutely having to have that. Sometimes he felt no connection to anything or anyone else.
Once he found his job selling security software to companies, making pretty good money for a single man with few living expenses, he took Linda out regularly and nicely. She could make an occasion out of very little, because she liked dressing up and when she did she’d have a secretive smile of amusement at her own happiness. Her secret purring joy made her a lighter weight on his arm. They could laugh and talk for hours.
The one disagreement between them, and it was rather huge, was that she wanted to meet his family. She had wanted to meet them early on and he could have done it then, except that Edward wasn’t seeing his family himself. He and the family had had the big celebratory dinner in one of the nicest restaurants in Houston a few days after his release and, after that, his mother called him once a week or so. He met Amy for drinks two or three times. But there was no regularity to his family life. He wasn’t drawn back in.
When he tried to explain that to Linda he couldn’t, or she couldn’t understand.
‘You feel like they’re judging you all the time?’ she’d asked.
‘Well, they are. But that’s always been true. But now I’m judging them back. Sort of. They’re wondering how they failed to teach me their values, while I’m thinking I just want to develop my own. I’m out of the commune. I don’t drink the Hall family Kool-Aid anymore.’
‘Can you just say what you mean, Teddy, instead of giving me these sayings? I want to understand, but—’
‘I mean I’m not only trying not to worry about the fact that I’m not living up to their standards, but to forget that I ever knew their standards at all.’ Because once upon a time he had. He had been the firstborn, the one who did everything right, who seemed like a worthy heir to his esteemed parents. It was one of the narratives of their family story, that they could count on Edward, that someday he would have a place in the world as prestigious as his father’s.
Edward had already strayed from that storyline when he’d left the D.A.’s office, not to go into a big firm d
oing respected work, but into the semi-criminal underworld of criminal defense work, as his parents saw it. They stopped asking him about his cases. He stopped telling them stories about lunch with the murderer and drinks with drug dealers, sometimes celebrating Edward’s having secured their continued freedoms. Even before his arrest he’d seen his family less and less.
But Linda only knew him post-prison, when a reason for keeping her from meeting his family seemed obvious to her.
No, it’s that they’re not good enough for you, was what he wanted to say, knowing what bullshit that would sound like. He wanted her and the life they might someday have to himself. He didn’t want them being woven into the family narrative. But Linda continued to believe only one thing about his reluctance to introduce her to them; she wasn’t good enough, so he was embarrassed by her.
He introduced her to everyone else he knew, including old friends he looked up just for that purpose. See, here’s one of my friends from prep school, a snotty rich kid and I’m happy to introduce you to him with my arm around your shoulders. Perhaps those meetings mollified Linda, perhaps she just let it go. Generally she was one of the happiest people he’d ever known. She worked at her job, laughed with her friends and performed undeserved acts of kindness that made her happy. Her sunny nature was one of the great joys in being with her.