Her Pretty Face

by Robyn Harding

  “Hi.” He smiled. “I’m Shane.” As if he needed an introduction.

  “I’m Frances.” She purposely omitted her last name. Chances were infinitesimal that Nelson would ever be paroled, but just in case . . .

  “Nice to meet you, Frances.” He was grinning, maybe even flirting. He thought she was a fan; he was enjoying the audience.

  “I want to talk to you about Amber Kunik.”

  The sagging face instantly darkened. “What about her?”

  “Amber lives near me. In the Pacific Northwest.” She was intentionally vague. “Our sons go to school together. They’re friends.”

  “How cute,” he sneered. “How old are Amber’s kids now?”

  It couldn’t hurt to tell him. “Eleven and fourteen.”

  “Poor little bastards,” he scoffed. “She still married to her lawyer?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Amber could manipulate anyone,” he sniped. “Men, women, the judge, the jury . . . No one had a chance with her.”

  Frances played along. “It must seem very unfair. You’re locked up. She’s free, living a normal life.”

  “Yeah, it’s fucking unfair. . . . Especially since Amber killed that girl.”

  “So, you stand by that claim?” Frances said. “Even now?”

  “Of course I stand by it. It’s the fucking truth.” Nelson leaned back in his chair. “But no one in court would believe me. They were all under Amber’s spell.”

  Like she was magic. Like she was a witch.

  “It was her word against mine. They chose hers. But my lawyer believed me. He knew I was telling the truth.”

  Martin Bannerman’s words niggled at the back of Frances’s mind.

  It wasn’t until he met Amber Kunik that a girl ended up dead.

  “I wasn’t even there when it happened,” Shane continued, tipping forward. “Amber sent me out for chicken. I came home, and Courtney was dead. Her head all bashed in and shit. Amber said the kid got herself untied and tried to escape. They tussled. Amber grabbed an iron and hit her with it.”

  Frances could feel beads of sweat on her upper lip. “Amber claimed that you abused her, that she had to do what you wanted, or you’d beat her.”

  Nelson let out a sardonic chuckle. “We abused each other. She hit me, I hit back. Harder. Maybe too hard. But most of the time, she started it.”

  “What about the rapes? Do you put that on Amber, too?”

  “I take responsibility for what I’ve done,” he snapped. “I was sick then. I was a deviant and a sadist. I deserve to be locked up for it.” He leaned forward, his face blurring, spilling off the screen. “But I didn’t kill Courtney Carey. I wasn’t even there.”

  He sounded so sincere, so adamant, but Frances couldn’t let herself be swayed. Shane Nelson was a psychopath who’d attached himself to a narrative: the wrongly convicted killer, the pawn of an evil, manipulative woman. The call had been a waste of time. It had been a mistake.

  But Nelson wasn’t finished. “That bitch cost me everything: my freedom, my friends, my family. . . . People think I’m a monster. The only person who stood by me was my mom. She’s dead now. Diabetes.”

  “I—I’m sorry.”

  “Thanks.” There was no sadness, evidence that Frances was not dealing with a normal, sentient being here. The prisoner leaned toward the camera, his face filling the screen, pixelating before her eyes.

  “Amber Kunik is an evil, lying bitch. You’d better watch your kid—” His voice cut off.

  The screen flickered, and static filled her ears. The image of Nelson was frozen, disintegrating, the prison stripes losing their symmetry. Then the screen went black. Frances closed the laptop.

  She felt unnerved, shaky . . . and dirty. Hurrying to the shower, she turned the water to hot, and washed away the filth of her encounter. With a facecloth, she scrubbed away the lipstick and eyeliner, washed the anti-frizz product from her hair. Then she stood, lost in her thoughts, as the hot water beat down on her and steam filled the tiny room.

  Nelson had provided no more clarity than his lawyer had before him. Talking to the men involved in the trial was pointless. They still had their agendas, they still clung to their disproven claims. And then, as Frances rinsed the conditioner from her hair, she realized to whom she needed to speak. There was one person who knew Amber better than anyone.

  She turned off the water.

  dj

  THEN

  When DJ had first observed Shane Nelson’s defense attorney, he had compared him to a bulldog. Now, as Martin Bannerman resumed his cross-examination of Amber Kunik for the third day, the boy realized he was more like a terrier: tenacious, scrappy, determined. The attorney was not going to let this slight girl defeat him. He was going to show the judge, the jury, and the gallery, that Amber was a lying, deceitful monster.

  “Tell me about your relationship with Courtney Carey,” he instructed.

  DJ tensed at the sound of his sister’s name. His father sat up straighter.

  “I liked her,” Amber said, sweetly. “I felt like we were friends. We did stuff together, like put makeup on each other, and we painted each other’s nails.”

  “Where was Shane when you were doing your makeup and painting your nails?”

  “He was watching TV. Or out getting food or booze or whatever.”

  “So, he left you and Courtney alone?”

  “Sometimes.”

  “Why didn’t you let her go?”

  Amber hesitated for just a beat, long enough for DJ’s chest to fill with hope. “I was afraid. Of Shane.”

  “But Shane wasn’t there,” the attorney said, feigning confusion. “You could have let Courtney go and you could have run away, too. You could have gone to your parents.” The lawyer indicated Amber’s mother and father, sitting, like stone, across the aisle from DJ and his dad. The Kuniks came every day, unwavering in their support for Amber. Not once did DJ see them glance his way.

  “Your parents would have helped you,” Bannerman continued. “They would have rescued you.”

  “Shane said he’d kill my mom and dad if I ever told them.”

  “You could have gone to a friend. You could have gone to the police.”

  “I was too scared. And I was too ashamed.” She looked down, playing the part. “I didn’t think people would understand the things Shane had made me do.”

  “But you said you liked Courtney. And you knew Shane was going to kill her, eventually.”

  “I—I didn’t know for sure.”

  “You didn’t know for sure, Ms. Kunik? You testified that Shane said, ‘We have to get rid of her.’ ”

  “I don’t know,” she said, flustered. “I wasn’t sure what he meant.”

  The lawyer paced for a moment, ramping up the tension. “Ms. Kunik, was it actually you who decided this game had gone on long enough? Was it you who decided to get rid of Courtney?”

  “No . . . I never said that.”

  “Isn’t it true that you sent Shane Nelson out to buy fast food on the afternoon of March 5? And, while he was gone, Courtney managed to get herself untied and saw an opportunity to escape. You tried to stop her. The two of you struggled, and, in your panic, you hit Courtney on the head with an iron.”

  For just a moment, Amber looked like she might break. Her eyes fell on DJ, but he couldn’t read them. What did she see when she looked at him? A fat kid who spent too much time eating junk and playing video games? A boy whose shaggy brown hair needed cutting? Whose shabby clothes he’d outgrown?

  Or did Amber see a brother who had lost his only sister? A son whose mother’s heart had been so crushed that she could no longer be a parent? A child whose father’s pain had made him mean and violent and drunk?

  Amber turned her gray eyes back to Martin Bannerman.

  “It was Shane who bashed Courtney’s head in with that iron. Not me.”

  DJ knew then that Amber Kunik had no soul.

  frances

  NOW

 
It was approximately a three-hour drive from Bellevue to Portland, but Frances was on track to complete it in under two-and-a-half. She’d dropped Marcus off at school a little early this morning and set off from there. Her son must have sensed her impatience, because he’d obediently deposited his iPad in its case, kissed his mom’s cheek, and climbed out of the car at the drop-off point. She was now approaching the bridge that housed the Washington/Oregon state line. By her calculations, a five-hour round trip would allow her just under an hour to speak to Amber Kunik’s mother and still make school pickup.

  Kate had mentioned that her mom lived in a mobile-home park north of Portland. Armed with that information, it had not taken long to find the matriarch. The Kuniks had moved from Arizona to Oregon after the trial, but Marlene hadn’t changed her name, despite the continued, and justified, fascination with her only child. What kind of woman raised a daughter who became a killer? Surely, Frances wasn’t the first person to wonder.

  There were many photos online of Marlene Kunik and her husband, Terry. Frances learned that the patriarch had died years ago, while his only child was still incarcerated. Heart attack. By all accounts, he’d been a smoker and a drinker. The images depicted the couple attending their daughter’s trial, escorting Amber to and from court. They held the girl’s hands, or linked arms at the elbow: protective, supportive, loyal. Marlene was an attractive woman then, a little hard, a little heavy. Her husband had a stalwart European look to him, but his lifestyle was already taking its toll.

  Frances had considered calling, but she couldn’t risk Marlene hanging up on her. And she needed to see the woman in person, to connect to her as a mother. Marlene knew her daughter like few others could, and she had stood by her. If Marlene could forgive Amber, perhaps Frances could, too? As her tires crunched along the gravel drive of the “mobile living community,” her nerves activated. Mrs. Kunik could refuse to speak to her, could slam the door in her face, could tell her to go to hell. She should have phoned first.

  But there was no time for procrastination if she was going to make it back to Forrester in time for the end of her son’s school day. She parked the car in front of Marlene Kunik’s shabby double-wide trailer. It had a drooping wooden porch extending from its side, a wart on an ugly nose. Exiting the car, Frances marched up the wooden steps, slimy with moss and damp, and rang the bell. The sound was met with a chorus of high-pitched barks from an unknown number of small dogs inside. She could hear Marlene shushing her pets, moving slowly, laboriously, toward her.

  The door opened a crack to reveal Kate’s mother. The plump but pretty woman from the photographs had disappeared, swallowed by this bloated, flabby version of her. Marlene was eating or drinking her pain; Frances, of all people, understood the psychology. The older woman’s puffy eyes narrowed at the stranger on her porch. Frances would not have been the first to stand here.

  “Hi, Marlene. My name’s Frances Metcalfe. I’m your daughter’s friend. Well, I’m Kate Randolph’s friend. I just found out who she really is. . . .” Emotion made her voice wobble. “I need to talk to you.”

  “You’re not a reporter? You’re not writing a book?”

  “No. I’m a mom. My son is friends with your grandson, Charles.”

  The woman’s pudgy features relaxed. “Come in.”

  Stepping into Marlene Kunik’s home was like stepping back in time. The décor looked untouched since the seventies: plaid couches, matted shag carpets, and avocado kitchen appliances. How had Kate developed her sense of style? Perhaps it was born of deprivation. Above the mantel of a faux-brick fireplace was a family portrait: Kate, about thirteen, her dark hair cut into the poufy mullet popular in the late eighties, was flanked by her pretty mom and striking father. As in all family portraits, the subjects looked stiff, awkward . . . normal. Jesus . . . what went wrong in this family?

  Three small dogs, curly mutts, swarmed around Frances’s feet, yapping and jumping on her. Marlene scolded them and swatted at them as she hobbled to an oval dining table, its plastic tablecloth dusted with crumbs. Amber’s mother slowly, painfully, lowered herself onto a chair. Frances sat across from her.

  “Do you want some tea?”

  “No, thanks.” Frances didn’t have the heart to make her stand up again. And the smell in the trailer—mildew, fried food, animal urine—was unappetizing. “I won’t stay long, but I wanted to ask you a few questions. About Amber.”

  “You’re not writing a book about her? Or one of them murder blogs?”

  “No. I’m her friend.” Her chest filled with emotion again, but it suddenly seemed indulgent. She looked at the obese woman across from her, the mother whose baby had grown up to commit such a heinous crime, and shook off her self-pity. “I’m trying to understand who she really is. . . .”

  “Well, she’s innocent. That’s for sure.”

  A swell of hope filled Frances’s chest. “You don’t think she had anything to do with Courtney Carey’s murder?”

  “Anything Amber did, it was because Shane made her do it.”

  “Because he beat her? And abused her?”

  “Yes.” A dog hopped up on Marlene’s lap and licked her face vigorously. “Amber kept it hidden from all of us, but he was horrible to her. She put on a brave face, pretended she was happy, pretended she was in love. But we found out later that she was terrified.”

  “So . . . you never suspected he was hurting her?”

  “He was so handsome and charming. He seemed so loving. Shane fooled us all.”

  Or had Amber fooled them all?

  Marlene seemed to read Frances’s doubts. “I took the stand at Shane’s trial. His defense attorney asked me why, if Shane was such a monster, I hadn’t seen any evidence of the abuse.” She stroked the ball of fluff now curled comfortably on her soft, pillowy stomach. “He tried to make it look as if Amber was lying. But she wasn’t. She just didn’t want to worry us, so she put makeup on her bruises, she wore long sleeves and scarves, and she kept her mouth shut.”

  “Did she tell anyone? Any of her friends or anyone at work?”

  “No . . . But they don’t, do they? The battered women . . .” She pushed the dog off her lap. “They think they’re in love, so they protect their abusers. It’s all a big head game.”

  Frances nodded, her eyes on the specks on the table before her. They were cookie crumbs, a boxed brand, chocolate chip. She felt a strong urge to sweep them up, brush them into her hand, and dump them in the trash. But she didn’t want to offend her host. She looked up.

  “What was Amber like? As a little girl? As a teenager?”

  “She was sweet. And so smart. All her teachers loved her. She always had the neatest handwriting in the class, always had the top marks. . . . She was a leader, too. A regular little bossy boots.” Marlene smiled at the reminiscence, and Frances smiled, too. This sounded like the Kate she knew: the perfectionist, the brave warrior unafraid of the mean moms.

  “She changed a little in high school, went through all the normal phases. For a while, she dyed her hair crazy colors and wore goth makeup. She always loved horror movies.” Marlene seemed to notice the crumbs for the first time, and brushed them into a little pile with her fat fingers. “She went through a phase where she carved designs into her legs: stars and crosses, mostly.”

  “Carved? Like with a knife?”

  “Just a little penknife. It didn’t last long.”

  Frances was puzzled, both by the woman’s indifference to her daughter’s self-mutilation, and her willingness to talk about it. If Marcus was cutting himself, she would have immediately plunked him into therapy (more therapy, in his case). And she would have told no one, would have blamed herself for her son’s disturbing actions. But it was a different time then. And clearly, Marlene Kunik was a different type of mother. Frances pressed on.

  “Would you say Amber had a happy home life?”

  “For the most part, yeah. We were a normal family. Terry and I had a normal marriage, the usual ups and downs. He had
a little problem with the hookers, which pissed me off, of course. But otherwise, he was a good husband. And a good dad.”

  Frances felt her cheeks flush. “Did Amber know about the uh, hooker problem?”

  Marlene played with the pile of cookie crumbs. “She knew. The police came to the house. Terry went to court. Ended up doing a little time, weekends only.” She pressed a chocolate chip onto her finger and popped it into her mouth. “Amber was pretty disgusted with him.”

  “That must have been hard on her.”

  “It was hard on Terry. Amber was so angry. She called him Pervert after that, not Dad. . . . Good night, Pervert Thanks for the ride, Pervert. Love you, Pervert.”

  Frances felt queasy. The smell of dogs and food and unwashed body was almost overwhelming. The Kunik family was toxic, sordid, and dysfunctional. But were they bad enough to turn their daughter into a killer? Marlene read the struggle on her guest’s face. She leaned forward, elbows on the table.

  “We went through some hard times, but Amber had a lot of happy years. And then she met Shane, and he ruined everything.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  “It wasn’t all bad. . . .” She clapped a clammy palm on top of Frances’s hand. “When Amber was in prison, she got her art history degree. For free.”

  “I should go.” Frances stood. Marlene watched her, seemingly considering the effort it would take to see her guest out. “Don’t get up, please. . . .”

  With dogs swirling around her feet, Frances rushed to the door.

  * * *

  She drove to a diner she’d passed on the way to the trailer park. She wasn’t hungry—quite the opposite—but she was rattled, unnerved, concerned about her ability to drive. The meeting with Marlene Kunik had been shorter than anticipated, so Frances had some time to spare. When the middle-aged waiter approached her, she ordered a gin and tonic. “And a club sandwich with fries,” she added, for appearances. It was 11:48. No one would bat an eye.