Sisters On the Case

by Sara Paretsky

  Back on the bench once more, I felt my concern increase to see that the now howling wind of the approaching storm was assisting the incoming tide to hurl massive waves over the reef, all but hiding it with their assault and its resulting spray. The gulls that earlier had coasted circles in the air above the cove had fled away to some shelter of their own, leaving the sky empty of all but a blackish green wall of cloud moving rapidly toward land and casting ragged lines of lightning into the watery maelstrom beneath.

  Narrowing my eyes and sheltering them with a hand to my brow, I peered seaward, yearning to see the boy in the boat pulling hard for the safety of the cove, but there was nothing among the huge, endless waves rolling one after another onto the reef and shingle below. From the few huddled cottages that make up our small village, a number of folk had hurried down to haul their boats higher on the sand and secure them from the greedy fingers of the rising sea. I could make out the widow Kale, hair and skirts a-toss in the blow, and her two tall sons as they struggled to drag their old dory up over the wet sand. Lost at sea in just such a storm three years before, her good man had left her little but helpless dread at the need to send her boys out as fishermen in his wake.

  As soon as the boats were made safe as possible, the shingle quickly emptied as they all rushed back to shelter, except for the widow, who hesitated and swung slowly around to have one last look at the oncoming storm. Then, suddenly, she turned her back on the writhing sea, lifted her face and, following the direction of her gaze, I saw that she had marked the two gray-clad figures of Death and her cousin, as they slowly made their way along the cliff top, now hand in hand as they watched the sea. So the widow too was familiar with the pair. But it was apparent that she bore them no acceptance as she made a quick sign against evil in their direction, whirled and caught up her skirts to hasten to the consoling shelter of her hut.

  Not long after her disappearance, as the first fat drops of rain began to fall and splash dimples in the dust of my yard, before seeking my own shelter I took another look beyond the waves dashing over the reef and was at last rewarded for my watchfulness by the sight of two figures in a boat as it rose on the crest of a wave, then was whirled out of sight into the trough that followed. It was only a glimpse, but I could tell that both were now rowing, hard, and had not far to go to gain the shelter of the cove, though that was now little calmer than the open sea that poured and pounded into it. A sudden lump of fear in my chest bent me half over with concern for them.

  Again the craft rose, a bit closer, and I could tell that the rowers were making an attempt to ride the crests whenever possible in endeavoring to reach safety. Very slowly they pulled nearer and, as I could see them even in the troughs now, I could tell that the man, rowing closest to the bow of the boat, was angrily shouting something at the boy in the stern, but it was impossible to hear his voice over the roar of the wind and crash of the waves. There was no response from the boy, his back to his stepfather, struggling to pull the heavy oars evenly and keep the boat headed for shore.

  Again the man moved as if he were shouting, leaning forward, letting both oars drag through the water from the oarlocks. There was still no answer from the boy, intent on his rowing, who had little chance of hearing within the fury of the storm that had swept over them in a deafening curtain of rain.

  As it reached me, I hauled myself partially erect, fighting a stab of pain in my chest, to gain the shelter of the door to my cottage, and saw that the cousins had reached the foot of my path and hesitated there to join me in watching the pair in the boat. Though the wind still tossed their skirts and the lace of their petticoats, the rain that had half soaked me through in a moment seemed to have no effect on the shadowy fabric of their dresses.

  I was more concerned with the two in the boat, who were silhouettes against a sudden flash of lightning, and I could see that the craft had now almost gained the cove. That gain must have been made from the efforts of the boy alone, for the man had slid forward onto his knees and taken one of his oars from its oarlock, ignoring the other. He held it raised high over his head, clearly meaning to bring it down on the head of the unsuspecting boy with murderous intent.

  ‘‘No-o-o,’’ I cried, clutching at the air between us with the gnarled fingers of one hand. The other dangled strangely unresponsive at my side when I attempted to draw it up to hold against the pain of panic in my chest. The pain turned suddenly to a fire that ran down that arm and a great weakness came over me. Only by leaning against the frame of the door was I able to tell what happened next, for it occurred so very quickly.

  Frowning, and shaking her head slightly, Fate withdrew her hand from that of her cousin and raised it toward the boat we could just make out in the distance and made a swift and subtle gesture.

  With a last stroke of the boy’s oars the boat was caught by a rogue wave that came out of nowhere, unexpectedly catching it sideways and flinging it forward to stop abruptly, hard on the stones of the reef now hidden by the tide. Their jagged sharpness tore a hole in the hull, crushing it like an eggshell, ruining the precarious balance of the man and tossing him, oar still raised above his head, out of the boat and onto the rocks as well. There for a moment or two he lay quite still, then was washed off into the outer waters of the sea and sank from sight, leaving only the oar to rock and spin in the foam of the turbulent surface.

  The boy had been cast backward into the bottom of the boat, but I saw him scramble up in the sinking vessel and look about in confusion for his stepfather, seeming dazed at seeing no one.

  Now completely awash in the sea, the boat began to slip and disappear as the steep outer side of the reef lost its hold. Slowly, inexorably, it sank, following the man into the depths, threatening to take the boy as well. But at the last moment he rose and, leaping nimbly out of it onto the sharp stones of the reef, threw himself over into the slightly calmer waters of the cove, where he began a determined swim toward shore.

  Gasping and faint, I sank to my knees in my cottage doorway, apprehension fading along with anger in the relief of knowing he would easily reach the safety of the shingle with no more trouble.

  A long time later, I woke to find myself in my own bed.

  The sharp pain was still there in my chest, but it was less, and I lay still in concern that I might wake it again.

  The storm had passed and through the window I could see that the night was full of darkness and welcome silence. A small fire crackled and I could see the kettle steaming gently over it. Near it was the boy, peacefully asleep on a rag rug near the hearth.

  I closed my eyes, deeply glad to see him alive and whole and, best of all, free, then opened them again, feeling the presence of someone else.

  The door, which at times complains, opened without so much as a whimper and enough moonlight slid into the room to define the pair of shadows that fell across the floor. I looked up to see not only Sister Death, but also her cousin, Fate, standing together in the doorway, as I had long expected them to appear one day.

  ‘‘Come in and welcome,’’ I whispered as well as I could through my twisted mouth and beckoned with the fingers of my one good hand.

  They came in together and closed the door.

  Fate said not a word, but smiled and nodded before crossing to the three-legged stool where she sat, slim and graceful, by the fire, staring intently into its bright, compelling ribbons.

  Sister Death stepped close to the bed, stood looking down at me patiently, and, saying nothing, said everything.

  Without words, she had asked and I answered.

  At last we had struck that long-anticipated bargain, she and I.

  Slowly, she reached one pale hand with its slender, translucent fingers and laid its coolness with infinite gentleness on my brow.

  The pain disappeared and I took a deep breath.

  You are weary, she told me silently. Sleep.

  Obedient, I closed my eyes and was content, but for one thing.

  Care . . . for the boy, as thought fa
ded.

  Yes.

  Hearing Her Name

  by Susan Dunlap

  They didn’t look at her. Not one of them. ‘‘That’s a bad sign, right, Dennis?’’

  ‘‘Means zip. And anyway, it’ll all be over soon.’’ Dennis Haggarty flipped back the pages of his yellow lined notepad, dropped it in his briefcase and pushed himself up from the defense table. ‘‘Elizabeth—’’

  ‘‘Carla! Call me by my real name. Carla,’’ she snapped, then relented. ‘‘Despite everything, it’s just good to be called who I really am.’’ She looked over her too-thin, too-unkempt lawyer and wondered yet again if she had made a mistake hiring a man who couldn’t even remember her true name. When the media latched on to the breaking story it was FEDS CAPTURE FUGITIVE IN HIDING FOR 24 YEARS, and she was Elizabeth Amanda Creiss, her fugitive name. Carla Dreseldorf meant nothing to them or their readers. It was Elizabeth Amanda Creiss and her two decades on the run that made the front page. For the eight months run-up to this trial every shabby room Elizabeth Amanda Creiss had hidden in, every menial job, every guy she had spent a night with was a day’s hot story. It was impossible to turn on the radio or television without hearing ‘‘Elizabeth Amanda Creiss.’’ Even her high school graduation pictures had run over the caption ELIZABETH AMANDA CREISS 25 YEARS AGO. Carla Dreseldorf was merely a footnote. Before Carla went underground, no one bothered with her name. And when the other conspirators were caught and created their own rounds of publicity, the news stories often didn’t mention her. As Dennis repeated every time she worried aloud, she had been the most peripheral conspirator, present at only one meeting of the much-more-radical-than-she-realized group before they attacked the power plant. She hadn’t even known what kind of explosive they were using. They were making a statement with their smoke bombs, they had told her; never had they said they were trying to blow up the plant. ‘‘Everybody has endgames,’’ her mother would have told her. ‘‘You don’t pay enough attention to see them.’’ True. And way too late now to think about that. Better to remember what Dennis said, that to the conspirators, she was akin to the political campaign worker who dropped off the doughnuts and trotted on home. Besides, Dennis concluded every single time, no one had been killed, and all the evidence against her was circumstantial.

  Still, when they filed out the jurors hadn’t looked at her.

  Dennis turned to her. ‘‘Look, juries are ecstatic that testimony has finally ended and they will never have to sit in those chairs again. They’re like kids heading for the playground. They don’t waste time looking at you. They’ve had weeks of you. They’re sick of the sight of you, and me, and Jefferson K. Markoff over there, not to mention the judge. Trust me, I have never seen a jury pause for a last look.’’ He stood, yanked ineffectually at his ill-fitting tweed jacket and turned toward the door. ‘‘Come on, let’s get some coffee.’’

  The speed with which the courtroom gallery emptied had increased with each week. Already, reporters would be outside calling in their updates. Lawyers who turned up for the summations and the judge’s final instructions fled as soon as the last word was out. The groupies knew the routine after these three weeks. Even the sensation junkies raced out. Carla was shocked at how much the trial, her every action, affected people. She would never have guessed.

  She walked through the double door that Dennis always held open for her—‘‘to remind viewers that you are a person worthy of caring about’’—and to the kiosk. ‘‘Just juice, Dennis, I don’t think my stomach can handle coffee anymore.’’

  ‘‘Hang in there, Elizabeth, we’re coasting now.’’

  She didn’t bother to correct him. Instead, she took the plastic bottle of orange juice and stood against the wall. Orange juice—that was an unfortunate color. How many years would she be wearing orange? Or do prisoners only wear those ugly-on-everyone jump-suits in court? Conspiracy for malicious explosion: fifteen to twenty years. She shivered so violently the orange juice shot over the side of the bottle and she just caught the flow with her napkin. In prison, would they call her Carla? Or Elizabeth? Or just seven nine nine oh four eight?

  All the regulars had their spots in the gray marble hallway. This corner for defense. In the far corner Jeff Markoff angled his bald head to say something to his assistant, a newbie in the DA’s office who must have been a basketball star in college. From the near corner a blond woman in her early forties offered a timid smile. Carla sucked it in as if its hope could fill her. The blonde had been at trial almost every day. Carla felt a bond and wondered if the woman felt it, too. Sometimes out here when the wait went on and on, she made her eyes go blank like she had learned to do in the subway in New York, and fantasized about the woman’s life, a life that could have been hers if only she had said no to the seduction of saving the world. The woman’s blond hair fell just at her shoulders with the ease of alignment only a stylist could achieve. She wore a wedding ring, probably had children in college now, maybe one still in the last year of high school. She took notes every day on an unruled pad. Maybe she’d gone back to college herself now that her kids were older. Taking notes for a law class, or a journalism seminar? After court let out each day she could call her friends—she would have friends, old friends, friends she could speak to without monitoring every sentence lest something give her away. Or she could fly to Paris, London, Saigon, using her utterly legitimate passport in her real name. If Carla had ever imagined the last twenty-four years, she would never have guessed how important a name was, how much she would miss her own, how she would loathe hearing ‘‘Elizabeth Amanda Creiss.’’ She swallowed, and tried to smile back at the blond woman.

  The defendant was looking at her! Laura Powley felt a tingle right down her spine. But she wouldn’t write that, not ‘‘tingle,’’ too trite. She was trying to be a writer; she needed to be able to come up with a more original word to describe emotion. Rush? Shiver? Quiver, maybe? No. Still trite. Besides, her reaction didn’t matter. What was important—key?— was to ‘‘get’’ Elizabeth Amanda Creiss now, because everything would be over so soon. She was a mere observer, not one who had joined the club of the brave, not like Elizabeth Creiss who had risked all because she believed in something so much. Her essay assignment merely allowed her to peek in the door.

  Look at Elizabeth Creiss leaning against the dark wood panel, shoulders so straight she could be holding up the wall rather than vice versa—nice. Keep that. She wasn’t afraid to let gray muddy her brown hair, didn’t waste time on expensive cuts. Laura knew that her dark blue sweater, plaid wool skirt, and flesh-color stockings must have been chosen to give the appearance of wholesomeness. Bet she’d tear them off the minute she could. She was so strong on the stand, never made excuses for herself, but never let that slime of a DA twist her words either. It was her testimony that set the groundwork for her pound dog of a lawyer insisting that to even be called ‘‘circumstantial’’ the DA’s accusations had to have some relation to evidence. Look at her! Never once did she have family or friends to support her here; she stood tall on her own. Laura Powley tried to sip her orange juice, but she was too anxious, too excited. She just wished she could tell her how impressed she was.

  The jury could be walking back to the court right now. It could end any minute. But Elizabeth Creiss wasn’t nervous; she was so cool. Look at her!

  In the far corner Carla noted the older couple. They made no eye contact, not with her or anyone else. Some days they didn’t even speak to each other. There was a bench in the middle of the lobby, but they never used it, as if that would be an admission that they were part of the whole soap opera. Once, a week or so ago, Carla had caught the woman’s eye; the woman had jerked her head away before there was time for reaction. But there had been plenty of time after for Carla to wonder about them, if they were like her mother. How would it have been to telephone them whenever she wanted, to tell them what she was doing, where she was? Tell them she missed them so much she ached from the hollowness of it? They
had winced with her when Dennis failed to remember her name, or maybe she just wanted to believe that.

  That first night after the explosion, she got off the bus somewhere in Nevada by a thirty-dollar-a-room motel. She had been desperate to call home, just to tell them she was okay, alive, that it was all an awful mistake. But she didn’t dare, not then. She had thought she was just postponing the call, that she’d find a safe time. She hadn’t known the chance wouldn’t come for twenty-four years, that by then not only would she have created identities, one after another,but her mother had created one for her—the girl who had lied, abandoned her family and disgraced them. The girl who didn’t care.

  ‘‘Elizabeth, do you want to walk outside in the courtyard? The bailiff will call us.’’

  She jerked back to the gray marble hallway. ‘‘That’s okay, Dennis. For now. How long do you think the jury will be out?’’

  ‘‘The longer the better. If they’re going against you, they’ve already decided. The vote will be a formality.’’

  Icy cold shot down her spine. She stared at the juice, the orange. Years in prison. The rest of her life, till she was old, way older than the old couple, till no one at all remembered her real name. She had never, not once, allowed that thought in, but now it was smothering her. ‘‘How long, if they go . . . against me?’’

  ‘‘An hour, three hours. Like I say, it could go very fast. You should take that walk.’’

  ‘‘Then—’’ Her voice was a squeak. She had to swallow and start again. ‘‘Then you think it will go bad?’’

  ‘‘I’m not saying that. Just that a walk outside in the air, under the blue sky, would be a good idea.’’