The Perfect Mother: A Novel

by Nina Darnton

  “She has asked to see the prosecutor and is ready to make a statement.”

  Jennifer had risen to hand over the baby when José appeared, but now, overcome with relief, she sat down again.

  “Is there a deal?” Mark asked.

  “None of that is worked out yet. First she must tell her story. Then they must find it credible. Then Paco will tell his. But if all goes well, there will be a deal. I will ask them to release her in exchange for her testimony. They want Paco, and she appears ready to deliver him. She wants to see you before she speaks to the prosecutor.”

  “Both of us?” Jennifer asked timidly.

  “Yes, senora. Of course.”

  Emma was standing in the middle of the room. When she saw her parents she didn’t run to them. She could barely look at them. Her eyes stared at the floor. They stood in the doorway awkwardly. Jennifer spoke first.

  “Emma, I’m so sorry.”

  At this, Emma’s eyes brimmed with tears. “I’m so ashamed,” she said.

  Jennifer walked into the room and wrapped her arms around her. Emma allowed herself to sink into her mother’s embrace. She hugged her back. They held each other for a long moment.

  “You have nothing to be ashamed of,” Jennifer murmured softly into her ear. “He lied to you. He manipulated you. Nothing in your life prepared you for someone this cunning. This isn’t your fault.”

  She remembered with a twinge of pain Emma at fourteen thinking about growing up and falling in love and getting married. “But Mom,” she had said, “how will I know? What if I make a mistake? Will you tell me? Will you promise to tell me?” And Jennifer, touched at her trust and innocence, had said, “Of course, honey. I’ll tell you.” But that wasn’t what she should have said, she thought now. She should have said, You’ll know. You’ll know because you are smart and intuitive and by then you’ll be mature enough to know those things on your own. Maybe that would have given her more confidence. Maybe if she’d had more confidence in herself and less need to prove she didn’t need her mother, this wouldn’t have happened. Maybe.

  Woulda, coulda, shoulda, she thought. It’s too late now. “If it’s anyone’s fault other than his, it’s mine,” Jennifer said.

  Mark joined them, standing on Emma’s other side and holding out his arms. “How about a hug for me, honey?”

  She let go of Jennifer slowly and then threw herself into them, laying her head on his chest, the way she had as a young child when he’d carry her in sleeping from the car.

  “Oh, Daddy, I don’t know how you can ever forgive me.”

  He just squeezed her tighter and caressed her hair. When he released her, she turned to Jennifer again.

  “I said such awful things, Mom. I didn’t mean them. Please believe me. I just said what I thought would hurt you. I was so angry, and I didn’t know what to do with it.”

  “I said some terrible things too,” Jennifer replied. “That’s what people do when they lose control. I didn’t mean most of what I said either, and some of what we both said was probably true. It doesn’t matter. We’ll have a long time to talk about it, but not now and not here. Let’s talk about what we all have to do to get you home.”

  “I know what I have to do. I should have done it all along. I’ll tell the police what really happened. You know, Paco lied to me in almost everything he ever told me. I have to live with that and what I did to go along with him and how foolish and pathetic I was. I am. But the truth is, he didn’t purposely kill Rodrigo. They had a fight, and I think Rodrigo might have killed him if Paco didn’t stop him first.” She sat down, shaking her head in anger at herself. “I wanted to tell them that at the beginning. I begged him to go straight to the police. But he said they’d put him in jail and throw away the key. He said they hated him because of his activism for the poor.” She closed her eyes and threw back her head momentarily. Then she took a very deep breath and let the air out slowly through pursed lips. “I feel like such an idiot. Such a dupe. He must have laughed at me with his friends—if he had any friends. I never really saw any. Anyway, I thought the decent thing to do was to protect him, considering all the sacrifices he was making. What was my little life worth next to his?” She laughed, and there was a shadow of that harder Emma Jennifer had seen during the past few weeks. But it softened again when she turned to José.

  “Please ask the prosecutor if he will speak to me now,” she said. “I’m ready to tell him anything he wants to know.”

  Jennifer and Mark were eager for her to get started, but José asked them to sit down first. His voice sounded more somber than they expected under the circumstances and Jennifer felt a stab of anxiety.

  When they were seated around the table in the center of the room, he pulled over another chair and sat facing Emma.

  “Emma, the story you told me may not satisfy them,” he said.

  Emma looked puzzled. Jennifer took a deep breath and Mark stiffened. “Why not?” he asked in a sharp tone.

  José sighed. “She is barely changing her story. She admits there is no Algerian, but everyone already knew that. She claims that Rodrigo Pérez tried to rape her and Paco fought him to save her and killed him in self-defense. The police, as you know, believe the story is more complicated. They think they planned to rob him and they will want to know what happened to the money Rodrigo was carrying.”

  He looked at Emma. “Did Paco take it? Did he know it was in Rodrigo’s pocket?”

  “I don’t know,” she said.

  “It wasn’t there when the police came, Emma. Someone took it. Was it Paco?”

  Emma didn’t answer and José continued.

  “Another thing: Emma is still claiming that Rodrigo was killed on the floor near the bed, but the police know that he was killed in the kitchen and dragged to the side of the bed. He was a big man and Paco probably would have had trouble moving him alone. They believe Emma helped him. In that scenario, Paco is the murderer and Emma is his accomplice.”

  Mark glanced at Emma and then got up and paced as he spoke. “But in order to have known he had money in time to make this plan, Emma would have had to know him. Roberto confirmed that there is no evidence, in spite of everyone trying to find it, of Emma ever having seen that boy before the night of the murder.”

  “Paco had to know him. Possibly Emma didn’t.”

  Mark looked incredulous. “But you say they think she seduced him. How did she do that if she’d never seen him before?”

  José nodded. “I am not saying I believe their accusations, senor; I am only reporting them. But perhaps they will argue that she met him that night.”

  “But the police, and also Roberto, have spoken to everyone they could find from the bar Emma was at and also from Rodrigo’s caseta, and no one ever saw them together,” Jennifer said.

  Mark looked approvingly at Jennifer. “Yes, exactly,” he said.

  “I think the police might recognize that not being able to prove that Emma knew Rodrigo or even met him that night will hurt their case against her. Because of that, I do think they will be ready to make a deal—Paco is who they want. They don’t care about Emma and would be glad to see her go back to the States and take the media with her. But she will have to give them more than she has offered so far.”

  Mark and Jennifer looked at Emma. “Well, Emma?” Mark asked. “Remember what you learned today. He used you. He lied about who he was, what he wanted money for, and what he felt about you. He made a fool of you. Do you still want to protect him?”

  Emma had been sitting with her shoulders caved in, not daring to look at anyone directly. Now she drew herself up and stood.

  “Let me speak to Fernando,” she said. “I will tell him everything.”

  CHAPTER 30

  It wasn’t until the next day that Fernando came to the prison to get Emma’s statement, and he brought a stenographer with him. He entered the room briskly, his face composed and his manner cordial but distinctly unfriendly. Emma appeared very nervous and she requested that
José and her parents be allowed to stay. Fernando agreed.

  “I am told you have a statement to make,” he said coldly. “I await it and regret only that it took so long for you to come to this decision.”

  Emma was contrite. “I know. You have every right to be angry. I’m so sorry.”

  “I think that Rodrigo’s parents, who will suffer from this for the rest of their lives, would like to hear that you are sorry and would appreciate knowing, finally, the truth about what happened to their son.”

  Emma looked down sorrowfully and started to say something, but her voice broke and she seemed too shaken to speak. Mark suggested she sit down and when she did, he sat next to her. Jennifer sat on her other side and took her hand. Emma looked at her gratefully, then at Mark, and finally, timidly, at Fernando.

  “I feel terrible . . . terrible for his parents. And I don’t know. I’m confused now hearing what everyone says about Rodrigo; maybe he didn’t try to rape me. Maybe he didn’t see it that way. But it felt like that. He followed me.” She turned to her father. “I don’t know what the lab tests showed and I don’t even know how good their labs are or how long they waited to do the tests, but I can tell you that he smelled of alcohol and he acted drunk.”

  Fernando bristled. “Our labs are state of the art,” he said. “As good as or better than any in the States. And the tests showed that he had some alcohol in his system. It’s questionable whether that is enough to explain what sounds like a complete break in his usual behavior.”

  Emma was about to answer, but Mark cut in. “But it was established that he rarely drank. Maybe that little bit of alcohol was enough since he wasn’t used to drinking.”

  Fernando paused, then nodded. “That’s possible,” he said. He turned to Emma. “Let’s get back to the night of his death. What happened next?”

  Emma resumed. “He came up behind me as I was entering my apartment and he pushed me inside.”

  “You said he held a knife to you to force you inside,” Fernando said.

  “Yes, I know I did. I thought he had a knife. Maybe it was just his keys in my back; maybe he was pretending to have a knife.” Mark thought about their discussion in José’s office when he had suggested that interpretation and was glad she had remembered it.

  “I had never seen him before,” she continued. “He said he’d heard about me. That I was a ‘famous American.’ I knew he meant promiscuous because I’d heard the gossip”—she looked at her mother—“the unfair, untrue gossip about me, just because I’m American and did and said things a little differently, maybe a little freer, than them. Maybe I talked wilder than I was. It was stupid, I know. I told him what he heard was wrong and he should go, but he grabbed me and tried to kiss me. I fought him, but he got me to the bed. He ripped off my blouse. I screamed, and he put his hand over my mouth. He kept acting like it was no big deal, like I was just playing and really wanted him. I couldn’t believe it. I managed to squirm away and I ran into the kitchen. I picked up the kitchen knife from the counter and held it in front of me to scare him away. But he just laughed and grabbed it from me. I screamed again and then I heard the door open and I knew that Paco had come home. He burst into the kitchen. He saw what was happening and he advanced on Rodrigo and they started to fight. Rodrigo still had the knife and as they were fighting Paco got cut a few times, nothing serious, just little nicks, on the arm and one hand. But when Rodrigo saw the blood, he got scared and he threw the knife down so they were both just fighting with their fists. But Rodrigo was stronger and he was winning and Paco finally saw the knife on the ground and picked it up.”

  “And you?” Fernando asked. “Why didn’t you call the police during this fight?”

  “I wanted to, but Paco kept saying, no, don’t call anyone, I’ll take care of this.”

  “Did you see Paco stab Rodrigo?”

  Emma was becoming more and more agitated as she remembered and recounted the scene. She bit her lip and covered her face with her hands as her voice shook. It was hard to decipher the words, so Mark very gently reached over and moved her hands away. She gripped the edge of the table and continued.

  “I don’t know, exactly. They were fighting and Paco kept sticking him with the knife, cutting him hard, purposely, like he was playing with him, tormenting him, trying to scare him and show him what he could do.” She stopped talking and they waited for her to go on.

  Finally Fernando spoke softly, encouraging her. “Yes, Emma. What happened next?”

  She covered her eyes again and then put her hands down on the table. She had started to cry. “I was screaming at Paco to stop, that he was really hurting him, that he should put the knife down, and then suddenly Rodrigo swung at Paco and went for the knife and Paco cursed and lunged forward, and the next thing I knew Rodrigo was on the ground and there was blood all over and Paco was standing over him. I was huddled in the corner crying and begging them to stop. I ran over to see how Rodrigo was, but he didn’t move and his eyes looked like glass and I think he was already dead.”

  “But you didn’t think you should call an ambulance to try to save him.”

  “Paco said he was dead. He said if the police came they would never believe he killed him in self-defense, no matter what I said. He said the only way to save him was to say someone else did it and for him to disappear until the cuts on his arm and hand healed. He made me help him move the body to the bedroom and we made up the story about the Algerian. I wish I hadn’t listened to him. I wish I had told the truth from the beginning.” She was crying.

  Fernando paused. He cracked his knuckles—first his right hand and then his left. He got up and circled Emma’s chair, leaning over, closer than seemed comfortable, to look directly into Emma’s eyes. “He made you help him move the body? How did he do that? With a knife? A gun?”

  She winced, looked down again, and closed her eyes. “No. I just did what he said. I was used to doing whatever he said.”

  Fernando approached her other side and leaned in again. “And the money, Emma?”

  She paused and swallowed and looked away, leaning her body away from his, trying to regain some personal space, but he continued to lean toward her, his face close to hers.

  “We didn’t know him. He went through his pockets to find his identification to see who he was. He found the money and he took it. He said he would give it to his movement but I shouldn’t tell the police. I knew that was wrong, but I was so afraid, so I listened to him.”

  “This is the truth, Emma?” Fernando said softly. “No more lies? Not even a little one?”

  She looked at her mother and father for help, but there was nothing they could do. Jennifer squeezed her hand. She forced herself to look straight at Fernando.

  “No more lies,” Emma asserted. “This is the truth. Paco did it, but I don’t think he meant to. He was trying to protect me. It was self-defense.”

  Fernando looked at the stenographer to be sure she had gotten it all. He moved away, increasing the space between them, and Emma took a deep breath of relief. He spoke formally, in a professional tone, telling her the statement would be typed properly and then brought to her for her signature.

  As Fernando reached the door, he turned to José. “Self-defense? I’m not sure. It may have appeared so to her. But killing an unarmed boy because he is stronger than you and is beating you in a fight is not self-defense. Especially when you add the robbery.”

  “That is for his lawyer to discuss with you,” José said. “Will you accept my client’s statement, as we agreed, in exchange for her freedom?”

  “Perhaps,” Fernando said. “Let us see what Paco says when he hears this statement.”

  When he left, Emma’s body seemed to collapse. She hunched over and no one said anything for a little while, trying to give her some space to collect herself. Jennifer assumed Emma was feeling relief, and she was elated. Even Mark, usually more temperate in his reactions, seemed to feel optimistic. For the first time it looked as if this nightmare might
end and they could bring Emma home. Finally, Jennifer spoke.

  “Well, honey, that was hard and very brave. I’m proud of you.”

  But Emma didn’t seem relieved. Her eyes looked wide and scared and she was staring ahead of her at the wall, almost talking to herself.

  “They are going to talk to Paco,” she said so softly they could barely hear her. “What if he tells them something different?”

  “What do you mean?” Jennifer asked, her sense of danger suddenly aroused. “Are you afraid of him? He can’t hurt you anymore.”

  Emma looked at her. Her voice was louder now, and they could hear every word easily. She spoke slowly, as if talking to someone who had trouble understanding her language.

  “I mean, what if he’s mad that I spoke to them and told them? I promised him I wouldn’t. What if he wants to get back at me and tells them a different story?”

  Mark looked up and so did José.

  “What different story?”

  “I don’t know—I’m not saying he will; I’m just saying he could do anything if he’s mad. He could say I was more involved than I was. Consuela said he’s a pathological liar. I know that’s true from everything that has happened, and she said he is vengeful and she’s seen him lie to hurt people, to get even, not just to get what he wants.”

  Mark and Jennifer shared a look of worry and sadness. Jennifer thought that this was more proof, as if any was needed, of how abused her daughter had been by this man. She had always thought abused women started out weak and damaged and that’s why they let the abuse happen, but Emma had seemed so strong and self-confident before. This could happen to anyone, she realized. Emma thought he had power over everything because he had such power over her. She was about to tell her daughter this, but José spoke first.