Delusion

by Peter Abrahams

  What was that? Nell thought she caught a flash under the water, a quick gleam down deep, there and gone. She leaned forward, peered into the water, didn’t see the gleam. That didn’t mean she’d imagined it, didn’t mean the knife wasn’t somewhere on the bottom. True, divers had searched without success back then, but why couldn’t they have simply missed the knife, maybe buried in the mud? And now, so long after, comes Bernardine, stirring things up. Why not? The Justice Project was making the exact same claim for the tape.

  Nell rose, kicked off her shoes. She glanced around, saw no one. A minute later, in bra and panties, she slid down the bank and into the bayou.

  Nell had played in this very bayou as a kid, farther upstream where it cut across a corner of Magnolia Glade. The water had always been warm, close to bathtub temperature, but now it was cold enough to make her gasp. Had Bernardine uncovered a previously hidden spring, or something like that? Johnny would have known. She took a deep breath, cut through the surface in a quick duck dive, kicked her way down.

  The bayou was only ten or twelve feet deep, clarity nothing like the water around Little Parrot Cay, but good enough. Nell glided along the bottom, eyesight distorted by the lack of a mask, but able to pick things out: soft green algae, shells lying on the bottom, yellow and pink, a fat brown catfish with long white whiskers swimming by. Had Bernardine brought the catfish back? Nell remembered what should have been second nature—that gators lived in the bayous, too, making it a good idea to check before diving in—got the sudden feeling of something behind her, glanced back. No gators, but she saw a dull gleam in the mud at the base of the far bank. Two or three strokes and it was in her hand. A mirror, not a knife: a small round mirror in a chrome frame, the kind found on car doors.

  Nell kicked up to the surface, breathed, examined the mirror. A cracked mirror: she saw her face split down the middle. Nell swam to the towpath-side bank, found a foothold, climbed to the top.

  A Belle Ville cruiser sat beside her car, the words DEPUTY CHIEF on the side. Nell had left her clothes on a rock by the towpath. She put down the mirror, slid into the blouse she’d worn to court and was buttoning it up when the driver’s-side door of the cruiser opened and Darryll Pines stepped out. He was in uniform, cap bill pulled low over his eyes, belly sticking out over his belt. Nell reached for her skirt.

  “Hold it right there,” said Darryll Pines; his hand was on the butt of his gun.

  “Darryll.”

  “Huh?”

  “It’s me. Nell Jarreau.”

  His hand left the gun butt. “Were you in the bayou or somethin’?” His head moved in a way that suggested he was looking her up and down; impossible to tell, the way he had his hat.

  “Yes.” She wrapped her skirt around her, zipped it up.

  Darryll crossed the street, stepped onto the towpath. “Din’t recognize you there for a secont,” he said.

  Nell slid into her shoes. “It’s been a while,” she said.

  “What has?”

  “Since we’ve seen each other. The charity basketball game, I think it was.”

  “Yeah, must of been.” He came closer. Now she could make out his eyes; they were focusing down her blouse. She buttoned it to the top, picked up the mirror. “What’s that?” he said.

  “An old car mirror.”

  “Got that out of the bayou?”

  “Yes.”

  “C’n I see?”

  She handed him the mirror. He turned it over in his hands, stared at it, then into it. His hair, which she remembered as light brown, was now a yellowish white, kind of greasy, and too long; and his eyes, which she’d never taken note of before, were blue.

  “What’s important about it?” he said.

  “Nothing.”

  “Then how come you—” He cut himself off, glanced around. “This here’s where it went down, huh? The murder and all.”

  “That’s right.”

  “Was there an automobile around? I’m not remembering that.”

  “There wasn’t.”

  “So why’d you—” He waved the mirror in a short arc.

  “Cleaning up debris,” Nell said.

  “That’s nice,” Darryll said. “Lemme ask you—what’s your take on all this, DuPree and such?”

  “My take’s on the record, Darryll, and hasn’t changed. I’d be interested in yours.”

  “Don’t get too concerned with such matters, down at my level,” he said. “Justice prevails, nine times out of ten.”

  “That doesn’t strike me as a great percentage,” Nell said.

  “Sorry, ma’am,” he said. “We’ll just have to try harder.” He handed her the mirror. “Nice seein’ you.”

  “Good-bye, Darryll.” Nell walked over to Parish Street. A wire-mesh trash barrel stood on the corner. She dropped the mirror inside, got in her car, drove home; wet and clammy under her clothes.

  CHAPTER 12

  Norah?”

  Nell walked through the house, checked out back. No sign of Norah, but a tree branch, probably weakened by Bernardine, had fallen, and now floated in the lap pool; a long bare tree branch with a head of trailing brown leaves, like a crude rendering of a person. Nell went upstairs, knocked on Norah’s door. No answer.

  She opened the door. Norah lay in bed, watching television.

  “Norah? You didn’t hear me?”

  “Nope.”

  “Are you all right?”

  “Great.”

  Norah’s gaze had remained on the screen. A reporter was doing an interview outside the courthouse.

  “With me now is Susan Upton of the Justice Project. Susan, first of all—”

  “It’s Susannah,” said a woman who didn’t look much older than Norah; Nell had noticed her in court, attractive in a strong-featured way, Northern and big-city.

  “Sorry, Susannah,” said the reporter. “First, what’s your reaction to today’s decision?”

  “We’re elated,” Susannah said. “At the same time, a terrible wrong has been done, a wrong that can never be put right.”

  “You’re referring to the imprisonment of Alvin DuPree?” the reporter said.

  Susannah gave the reporter a look. “Exactly,” she said. “How does he get those twenty years back?”

  “No doubt a big question,” said the reporter. “Any indication at this time of Mr. DuPree’s future plans?”

  “Right now he’s just going to take a few days to absorb all this.”

  “There you have it—Susannah Upton of the Justice Project. Back to you in the studio, Matt.”

  “Judy? Matt in the studio. Do you happen to know if DuPree himself is talking?”

  “Negative, Matt—he’s giving no interviews at this time.”

  The words Up Next appeared on the TV. Norah switched it off, but her eyes stayed on the blank screen. “I thought you said he did it. You saw with your own eyes.”

  “I did.”

  “So they just let my dad’s killer go? Is that what you’re saying?”

  “I’m not saying anything.”

  Norah turned to her, voice rising. “Why not? You loved him, didn’t you?”

  “Yes.”

  “Then how come you’re not upset?”

  “I am upset.”

  “You don’t show it,” Norah said. “How much did you love him?”

  Now Nell’s voice rose, too. “What the hell kind of question is that?”

  Norah shrugged. Nell got a grip on her anger, sat on the edge of the bed. She could smell her daughter; Norah needed a shower, needed to brush her teeth. “What’s happened to you this year?” Nell said. “What’s wrong?”

  “Maybe it’s genetic,” Norah said, “handed down from my real dad, just kicking in now.”

  “Clay—Dad—is your real dad. He raised you from the age of two. He loves you. Don’t you realize you could have faced criminal charges for what you did? He made that all go away.”

  “He’s the Man.”

  Nell rose. “And you also don’t
understand how it tears him up to do something like that, to play favorites.” All of a sudden Nell was in tears. They took her by surprise. She grabbed a framed photograph, almost at random, off Norah’s bookshelf. It showed Clay carrying Norah—about ten, in her soccer uniform—on his shoulder, her little hands curled in his hair, big grins on both their faces. Nell thrust it in Norah’s face. “Look,” she said. “Just look.” She let go of the photo, hurried downstairs, splashed water on her face.

  Toweling off, Nell saw her face in the mirror. “Pull yourself together,” she said. She went outside, got hold of the branch in the lap pool, dragged it across the yard to the brush pile by the shed. After that, she picked up the skimmer, skimmed the surface of the water, got rid of those dead brown leaves. Then she fetched the pool vacuum from the shed, vacuumed the bottom. She was just finishing when Norah came out, freshly showered, wearing jeans and a Vanderbilt T-shirt, looking like what she was, a beautiful young woman with a golden future. They could get through this. Everything was going to be all right. The sun came out and the pool sparkled.

  “Mom?”

  “Yes?”

  “I’d like to see the pictures.”

  “What pictures?” Nell said, thinking: More of her and Clay?

  “Of my…biological father.”

  “Oh, Norah. You’ve seen them before.”

  “Not in years. Where are they?”

  “This isn’t a good time.”

  “Why not?”

  “We have to move on, return to normal life, get you back in school.”

  “School? That’s what started all this.”

  “All what?”

  “Nothing.”

  “What do you mean—school started all this?”

  “Nothing. I don’t mean anything. All this…confusion.” Norah made a gesture, taking in the pool, the yard, points beyond.

  Confusion inside her head? Is that what Norah meant? “Norah? How about the idea of seeing someone, some kind of a therapist?”

  “I don’t need to see a therapist,” Norah said. “I need to see the pictures.”

  Nell gazed at her daughter: freshly scrubbed, damp hair combed back and gleaming. But the look in her eyes was wrong. Therapist: a good idea, although Nell didn’t know any. The goal would be to nudge Norah into wanting to see one; meanwhile, what harm could there be in looking at the pictures? Pain, maybe, but not harm.

  “They’re in the office,” Nell said.

  They went upstairs where Nell had a small office, formerly the guest bedroom. She opened a closet, began unstacking boxes. The one lettered UNC in felt pen lay on the bottom. She put it on her desk, blew off the dust. Norah handed her scissors. Nell sliced through the packing tape, opened the box. She caught a whiff of that Bernardine smell, got a bad feeling at once.

  Nell removed a layer of bubble wrap. Underneath lay old art-history notebooks, a file bulging with research for her master’s thesis, never written, an introductory geology textbook bought in the hope she wouldn’t be so ignorant of Johnny’s work, some souvenirs, including postcards from Cape Cod, where they’d gone for a Labor Day weekend, and a coaster from the Chapel Hill restaurant where they’d had their first date. And at the bottom: a photo album.

  Nell took it out of the box. The Bernardine smell got stronger. She opened the album. On the first page was a picture of Johnny standing by a pool with a big smile on his face and a trophy in his hand. But none of it—trophy, smile, pool, Johnny—was visible, unless you knew what to look for, could fill in the blanks from memory. Mildew, mold, humidity, had ruined the picture, blurring and fading all that had been, leaving no more than suggestive patches of light and dark.

  “Mom?”

  Nell turned the pages of the album, faster and faster. All the photos were like that first one, or worse; all ruined.

  “I don’t understand,” Norah said, wringing her hands. “There wasn’t any flooding in the Heights.”

  But there’d been no electricity for a month, meaning no AC. “Oh, God,” Nell said. “The power went—”

  “Everything is so fucked up,” Norah said, and hurried from the room. Nell was about to follow when the phone rang. She thought: Clay; and picked it up.

  But not Clay. “Hope this isn’t a bad time,” Lee Ann said.

  “Of course it’s a bad time,” Nell said. “And I’ve got nothing to say.”

  “You don’t have to say anything,” said Lee Ann. “I just want you to listen.”

  “To what?”

  “My interview with Alvin DuPree. It’s running tomorrow.”

  “But he’s not giving interviews.”

  Lee Ann laughed—quick, low, pleased. “Making it what we in the biz call a scoop,” she said. “I left him less than half an hour ago.”

  “Where?”

  “Where did we meet?”

  “Yes.”

  “They’ve got him at the Ambassador Suites for now,” Lee Ann said. A phone rang in the background, then another. “Ready? ‘“I’ve got no quarrels,” said Alvin Mack DuPree within minutes of walking out of the downtown Belle Ville courthouse as a free man, a decision that stunned many longtime court observers.’” Lee Ann paused. “Damn. Needs tightening. ‘Mr. DuPree spent twenty years in Central State Prison on a murder conviction thrown out today by Judge Ella Thomas. “I’m at peace with the world,” Mr. DuPree told this reporter in an exclusive interview conducted in a downtown restaurant. For his first meal on the outside, Mr. DuPree ordered a cheeseburger with fries and coffee, heavily sweetened. Asked about losing an eye in prison, for which he wears a patch that evidently inspired the jailhouse nickname “Pirate,” he commented that “it could be worse.” Had he ever given up hope? “Got to have hope,” Mr. DuPree said. Did he have any thoughts on why the exculpatory evidence appears to have been moldering away inside police headquarters at One Marigot Street all these years? “Don’t know about any of that,” Mr. DuPree replied. Mr. DuPree’s conviction for the stabbing murder of a young scientist named Johnny Blanton was based partly on the eyewitness testimony of Nell Jarreau, Mr. Blanton’s girlfriend at the time, and now assistant curator of the Belle Ville Museum of Art, and wife of Belle Ville police chief Clay Jarreau. Asked about his present thoughts concerning Ms. Jarreau, who was spotted in court today, Mr. DuPree repeated, “I have no quarrels. Folks make mistakes. I just want to move on.”’”

  “Wait a minute,” Nell said. “Do you need to put that in?”

  “Put what in?”

  “My being there.”

  “You’re not disputing the fact?”

  “The fact that I was there? Of course not. But does it have to be in the story?”

  “If true, why shouldn’t it be?”

  Nell almost said, Whose side are you on?—stopping herself at the last instant. “How is it important?”

  “Human interest,” Lee Ann said.

  “But what about my privacy?” Nell said. “I was there as a private citizen.”

  “This is a public matter, Nell—couldn’t be more public. And speaking of human interest, have you got any reaction I could quote?”

  “No.”

  There was a pause. When Lee Ann spoke again, her tone was perhaps more that of a friend than a reporter. “I hope you’re not beating yourself up about this.”

  Not beating herself up about it? A friend who didn’t know her very well: Nell almost laughed out loud, a laugh that would have sounded ugly and that she kept inside. She said nothing.

  “I’ve been talking to this expert in mistaken eyewitness testimony,” Lee Ann said; paper crinkled in the background. “Professor Urbana at Tulane. He told me, quote: ‘Memory of a crime event is just like the crime scene itself—ambiguous and prone to contamination.’”

  That didn’t make Nell feel any better.

  Another pause, more phones ringing wherever Lee Ann was. “If I could just clarify one last thing,” Lee Ann said, tone reportorial again.

  “What’s that?”

  “Did you know Clay
before the murder?”

  “You already asked me that,” Nell said. “I don’t know why you keep coming back to it.” And maybe she didn’t, not in the reasoning part of her mind, but it gave her a sick feeling.

  “Just trying to nail down the timeline.”

  “As I think I told you, the first time I ever saw Clay was at my parents’ house, a few hours after the murder.” I had his blood all over me.

  More riffling paper. “I don’t have that in my notes.”

  “Then put it in now.” Nell was conscious of her tone, sharp and unpleasant.

  “My mistake, I’m sure,” Lee Ann said. “I’m sorry you’re going through this.”

  “I don’t want sympathy.” And why should she? She hadn’t spent twenty years behind bars; in fact, if there was some opposite to incarceration, better-than-normal unimprisoned life, many of those years belonged in that category for her.

  “That’s one of the things I like about you,” Lee Ann said. “But I’m not sure you get it—this is not going away.”

  “Why not?” Alvin DuPree and Clay: both had said the same thing—they wanted to move on.

  “For one thing,” Lee Ann said, “there’s no statute of limitations on murder. If the judge was right and DuPree is innocent—and that sure is the way it’s starting to look to most everybody, I’d be lying if I told you otherwise—then the real killer is still out there. Unless he’s dead, of course. Which reminds me—did Johnny Blanton have any enemies, anyone who might have borne him a grudge or had it in for—”