The Perfect Mother: A Novel

by Nina Darnton

  “Is it true that Paco is the right size and weight for those wounds?” Mark asked.

  “I’m afraid so.”

  Mark jotted something in his notebook and looked up. “Is there anything else? What about the hashish? She told her mother that she had eaten brownies laced with hashish on that night.”

  “This is the first I have heard of that. There was nothing in the report to indicate that she was acting as if she had taken drugs. I’m not sure of its relevance.” He looked at Jennifer. “Where did she say she was when she ate them?”

  “I think she said she was at a bar,” Jennifer replied.

  Roberto looked thoughtful. “That might help us determine a time sequence.”

  Mark nodded and Roberto paused. Mark and Jennifer looked inquisitively at him, waiting for him to go on.

  “There is something else,” Roberto said slowly. “There is a problem about the blood. It isn’t clear yet so I hesitate to report it, but perhaps you should know what they are doing.”

  Mark leaned forward, alert. “Please go on.”

  “You know the police have a substance which tells them if bloodstains have been washed or rubbed away. Blood always leaves a trace,” he said ominously.

  “You mean luminol?” Mark said.

  “Yes. They have covered the floor of every room with it as well as all the kitchen knives. They already know those results, but we don’t. They are analyzing them to decide their relevance.”

  Jennifer was listening carefully. “Like what?” she asked. “What are they looking for?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “And what does Emma say when confronted with all this?” Mark asked.

  Roberto shook his head. “She is stubborn, this girl. She doggedly insists that everything happened the way she said it did in spite of any evidence to the contrary. She cries, she accuses the police of trying to railroad her, she spouts figures about unemployment and lectures the police about poverty. She gives up nothing.” He paused. “Well, that’s not completely true. She does now admit that she was with Paco earlier in the evening. She says they had a fight and she went home alone. Maybe that was when she was in the bar and ate the brownies. She gave this information only when told that Paco had given it first.”

  “Did he?”

  “Yes.”

  Roberto sat down again and took another gulp of water. He took a white handkerchief from his pocket and wiped his brow, which was beginning to perspire. Addressing both of them, he tried to explain that although the police didn’t have definite proof of their charges, they did have a reasonable, believable narrative that was supported by some evidence. Emma’s narrative was looking more and more suspect. It was the narrative, ultimately, he claimed, that in a case like this was on trial. Who would the judge and jury believe?

  “How is the jury constituted?” Mark asked.

  “There are nine jurors and a judge. The verdict is by majority; it does not need to be unanimous.”

  Mark looked thoughtful and took several minutes to review his notes. He asked Roberto if he agreed that in order for the police narrative to succeed, they would have to prove that Emma somehow either knew Rodrigo before or met him the night of the murder and brought him home; otherwise how would they wind up in bed together? If she knew him before, wouldn’t someone have seen them together? The night of the murder the fair was going on. If she met him then, someone would have seen them together—at a party, a bar, a meeting place, somewhere.

  “They have no evidence of this, do they?” Mark asked. “These are all just their own suppositions.”

  Roberto agreed and admitted that up until now no one had surfaced who had ever seen them together. They had no common friends, studied in different programs, frequented different bars, and might well never have encountered each other. Jennifer hung on to this—it was the first hopeful news she’d heard that day.

  They thanked Roberto and left the apartment, locking the door after closing the windows. Before they left, Roberto gave a last warning.

  “You’re right; it is just supposition,” he said, addressing Jennifer. “But there is always one cop who gets an idea and doesn’t let it go, who keeps asking questions until he gets the answer he knows is there. In this case, that cop is Fernando.”

  “He can keep asking,” Jennifer said. “He can’t find it if it’s not there.”

  “I hope you are right, senora.”

  Before they parted, Roberto phoned for a taxi, explaining that there were few in that neighborhood. He offered to order one for them, but they said they’d prefer to walk for a bit.

  As they headed off, Jennifer tried to sound upbeat. “You see, Mark, she didn’t know this Rodrigo. It’s crazy to think she would just meet him and sleep with him when she already had a boyfriend. We know her. We know what she’s capable of.”

  Mark walked silently, staring at the ground. He seemed far away. “I wish I knew that,” he said. “I don’t think I do. And I know you don’t.”

  She let it go. She couldn’t allow him to turn this into a verdict on her either as a wife or as a mother, although she felt accused on both fronts.

  They passed a café and Jennifer suggested they stop for coffee. They had walked for fifteen minutes and were hot and tired. They took a table inside, where it was air-conditioned, and both ordered café con leche and a pastry. It was hard to overcome the tension between them, and Jennifer felt an unaccustomed awkwardness.

  “Are you tired, Mark?” she asked gently, reaching for something to talk about that was not so fraught. “You said you didn’t sleep on the plane. Would you like to go back to the hotel and take a nap?”

  He shrugged and shook his head, and there was another awkward silence.

  “What did you think of Roberto?” she asked. “He seems very good and competent to me, and he’s been an amazing help during the tough times.”

  “Jennifer, I think you should come home for a while,” Mark said.

  She was surprised and taken aback. “What? Why?”

  “Because Lily and Eric miss you and need you too. Because you are too intensely involved here and I don’t think that’s good for you or maybe even for Emma. Because you have to get some perspective back. This is bad. It’s terrible. But we are doing whatever we can to help, and it doesn’t sound like Emma is either cooperating or appreciating it. And we have two other children who are confused by all this and need their mother.”

  She had spoken to Lily and Eric the night before and knew he was right. They wanted her home. They were frightened by what they now knew had really happened to Emma, and it was going to get worse when stories started appearing in the newspapers and on television. Even if they could keep some of it away from Eric, there was no way to protect Lily. Jennifer ached for them, but what she said was, “Right. And you’ll take my place here, is that it?”

  “You know I can’t do that.”

  “Then you know I can’t leave. Lily and Eric have you and my parents and their friends and teachers. Emma is alone here and in danger.” She was bristling with indignation. “But don’t worry. You go home. Don’t rush back. I’ll take care of things here myself. Why should this be different from anything else in our family?”

  He paid the check and got up angrily, stalking out to the street and striding ahead, barely looking to see if she was behind him. She followed and caught up with him. They kept walking, and after a while she saw a taxi. It wasn’t at a designated stand, the usual place to find taxis in Seville, but it stopped anyway when Mark hailed it. They rode back to the hotel, both lost in private thoughts.

  CHAPTER 15

  José was scheduled to arrive at 9:00 A.M. to take them to the prison. They woke early without an alarm and went about their morning ablutions in relative silence. Mark retrieved the International New York Times from the floor in front of their door and scanned it nervously as Jennifer ordered coffee from room service and went into the bathroom to brush her teeth.

  “Shit!” she heard Mark exclaim,
and knowing with a sinking feeling that he had found what they both hoped he wouldn’t, she wiped her mouth and rushed back into the room.

  He tossed the paper with the offending article over to her. It was short, stating simply that an American exchange student named Emma Lewis from Princeton University was being held in connection with the murder of a Spanish student in Seville. No further details were given, but it was enough. It would bring the rest as surely as threatening clouds bring electrical storms.

  Jennifer sank down on the bed and looked helplessly at Mark. Usually, she would take comfort in his presence, gain strength from their dual purpose, from his arm around her. But now? She felt alienated, criticized, hurt, but mostly alone. Sitting next to her on the bed, he did put his arm around her shoulders, his habitual gesture in times of trouble, but he did it absentmindedly, dutifully, and she sensed the difference.

  “What do we do now?” she asked.

  “We knew this was coming. We have prepared. This doesn’t change anything.” His voice reflected a confidence she didn’t believe he felt.

  That must be the voice he uses with his clients, she thought.

  They went downstairs intending to grab a quick bite in the hotel dining room. They were surprised to see that a lavish buffet was spread out and, hungry in spite of themselves, they decided to take part in it. Once again, the bad news had the effect of making Jennifer ravenous—a perfect example of using food for comfort instead of sustenance, a habit that was completely out of her conscious control. Mark browsed the various offerings, judiciously filling his plate, while Jennifer went straight to the egg station and ordered a cheese omelet. She added bread and several pieces of bacon, and at the last moment, having only briefly hesitated, she put a puff pastry on her plate.

  Neither mentioned the anger of the day before, but neither forgot it either. It sat between them, an unwelcome visitor in front of whom they needed to make polite small talk.

  At nine sharp they stood in the courtyard outside the hotel waiting for their ride. José pulled up a few minutes later. Jennifer waved to him, and when he pulled over in front of them, she climbed in the back, letting Mark, with his longer legs, sit in the passenger seat.

  “I thought Roberto might come,” she said.

  “He couldn’t. Only one nonfamily member is allowed at a time.”

  Mark asked José to tell them what they should expect about the place where Emma was being held.

  He didn’t respond immediately, concentrating on pulling out of the driveway onto the street crowded with rush-hour cars. After navigating a difficult turn, he said he planned to explain exactly what the protocol was and was ready to start now.

  He told them that Emma was in a women’s prison—the Centro Penitenciario de Mujeres—in a small town about thirty miles from Seville. She was there on remand after a preliminary hearing by the investigating magistrate determined she needed to be held until trial. She had been charged as an accomplice and as a hostile witness, but no trial date had yet been set. He reminded them that it could take two to four years for her case to go to trial and said it would still be possible—and obviously preferable—to clear her without a trial if she provided them with exculpating evidence.

  This was her first permitted visit since arriving at the new location, and José went on to tell them how it would go. He spoke in his usual businesslike manner, as if he were reading a brochure, not speaking directly to a prisoner’s worried parents. She and Mark would be fingerprinted and photographed. Their passports would be taken and the numbers recorded. The visit would take place in a booth with a glass partition. He rattled off the restrictions mechanically.

  “Wait. Stop. You mean we won’t be able to touch her?” Jennifer asked.

  “I’m afraid not.”

  This was too much. She exploded. “What do they think she is, for God’s sake? A murderer?”

  There was an uncomfortable silence as her words hung in the air. She grimaced, realizing what she had said.

  Mark reached behind him to comfort her. She gratefully took his hand.

  “I am sorry, senora,” José said softly. “I do not make the rules. Let me continue.”

  He said the visit could last thirty-five to forty-five minutes, not longer. He explained that prisoners are divided into three levels in Spain, with the first being the most restricted. Usually only aggressive or dangerous criminals are classified as Level One offenders. Most prisoners are in the second level, he emphasized, and the prison is a Level Two facility, which should have allowed Emma a certain amount of freedom, including one monthly visit with family members in a private room without direct police supervision. He pointed out that Level Two prisoners also have more phone use, access to art classes, and other privileges denied to those in Level One. At the moment, however, he explained, Emma was being denied some of these privileges, but he was confident he could get her status changed.

  “You can’t mean that Emma is classified as a Level One offender,” Jennifer interrupted. “That just doesn’t make sense.”

  José gave a helpless shrug. “In Emma’s case, it appears the judge believes that a harsher regimen might encourage her to be more cooperative.”

  “Is this legal?” Mark asked, indignant.

  “No, not officially,” José said. “It was a private arrangement between the investigating magistrate and the prison administrator. That is why I think I can get it changed.”

  Mark asked what the third and most liberal level entailed and wondered if that could be arranged for Emma.

  José explained that Level Three is reserved for prisoners who have shown exemplary behavior while they are incarcerated. Those women are even allowed weekend passes to a known address. “I hope she will not be imprisoned long enough to require that kind of intervention,” José said.

  Mark and Jennifer each faced the realization that Emma might be there much longer than they had hoped. Jennifer looked out the window. They had passed out of the city and had entered a flat desert landscape of baked red earth and scrub cacti. It stretched as far as the eye could see, punctuated here and there with goats, horned sheep, and, occasionally, a few black-and-white cows, listless in the humid air. The sun was shining with a blinding, almost intolerable brightness over a landscape that looked parched and lonely, adding to the uneasiness inside the car.

  In the distance the old red brick facade of the Centro Penitenciario de Mujeres came into view, a solitary building in the middle of what felt like nowhere. José drove up to the guardhouse, showed his credentials, and passed into the parking lot outside the prison wall. He led them through the formalities for which he had prepared them: They showed their passports to a prison official, who would keep them, they were told, until after the visit. They were then searched and photographed and, finally, led by a guard who opened a locked door and conducted them to the visiting room. The glass partition looked to Jennifer like the plexiglass separating the driver and passenger in New York taxis, with a grille running the length of the glass just large enough to allow prisoner and visitor to hear each other. On one side they could see several women prisoners sitting on stools and talking to their visitors, who were seated on chairs lined up on the other side. It was clear that privacy in this setup was not an option. They had been informed that they could only speak to her one at a time. The other parent would be able to sit in a chair against the back wall until it was his or her turn. Jennifer turned to Mark and pleaded with him.

  “Please, Mark, we have so little time. Let me talk to her first. I want to find out how she is before you start interrogating her.” Mark’s expression showed his annoyance with that characterization of his intentions, but he nodded his assent and moved to the designated spot.

  Jennifer peered through the glass, looking for Emma, whom she didn’t see. She caught José’s attention as he was leaving to join Mark; he signaled that they were bringing her in shortly.

  Emma appeared at the entry and looked around for her visitors. When she spotted Jennife
r, her face broke into a small, sad smile, and she hurried to the empty stool on her side of the partition. The first thing Jennifer noticed was her hair. The beautiful long dark hair she had worn since childhood was gone. In its place were ragged locks unevenly chopped to her ears. It hurt her to look at it, but she stopped herself from commenting.

  “Oh, Emma, I’m so glad to see you,” she said after a brief pause. “They wouldn’t let me come sooner.”

  Emma was still looking around, as though searching for someone. “Is Daddy here?” she asked.

  “Yes. He’s here. They won’t let us talk to you together. He’ll come when I finish.” She leaned forward and lowered her voice. “How are you? Is it awful here?”

  Emma shook her head. She shrugged and even uttered a single laugh, but it was not a joyful sound. “God, Mom, you’re always so dramatic,” she said. “Really. You don’t have to worry about me on that front. It’s actually an amazing place. It’s more like a strict boarding school than what you’d think of as a prison. I mean, it’s overcrowded and noisy and sometimes the echoes drive you crazy.” She lowered her voice and leaned closer to the partition. “And, you know, the women are kind of tough, and you have to be careful not to offend anyone or step on any toes, if you know what I mean, but they really seem to believe in rehab. If I’d been guilty of something, I’d feel lucky to be sentenced here. As it is, of course, I feel pretty pissed off.”

  If only she could touch her, Jennifer thought. It was so hard to comfort her with only words. She told her she was relieved to hear it wasn’t terrible and assured her they were doing everything they could to get her out as soon as possible. She asked if there was anything she needed, anything she could bring that was permitted. And, finally, unable to contain herself a moment longer, she asked what had happened to her hair.