by Ellery Kane
“What are you—a ninja?”
“Actually, it’s pretty basic self-defense. You lost your focus—I saw an opening.” He grinned. “But you were pretty tricky, grabbing my gun like that. Let me guess, it’s a Texas thing?”
I shrugged, annoyed with myself. “Please. I heard from Ginny. I think she’s with some guy named Marco. Just let me leave. I won’t tell anybody about you.”
He walked to his backpack and rummaged inside, producing his cell phone. “At least read this before you make your last stand at the Alamo.”
I got no further than the breaking news headline before I felt my knees buckle.
Body of SFO employee discovered at Candlestick demolition site, police suspect foul play, fear escaped prisoner Cullen involved.
6
THE WRONG CLARE
I let Levi help me to the curb, then watched as he dragged Skinny deeper into the park. I listened to the sound of his limp body swishing the dewy blades like a grass snake. For the second time that night, I had the feeling of witnessing myself. Who is this girl? What is she doing?
When Levi joined me, I felt grateful for the two feet of space he left between us. “Just breathe,” he said. I was trying.
“I thought you said Ginny would be fine. That she’d turn up.” I spoke through a tunnel of panic—my words echoing strangely in my head.
“That was before.”
“Before what?”
Levi paused, and I knew. Whatever he was about to say was bad. Life-altering bad. “Before I knew who you were.”
Who I was? Who was I? An eighteen-year-old girl from the sticks. A star basketball player, sure, but nothing else. Nothing special. “What do you mean?”
“Your mom . . . her past.”
I felt like I was back in fourth-period Calculus, Mr. Willett writing gibberish on the board. C’mon, Ms. Bronwyn, you know this one. Derivatives, remember? “My mom? You know her?”
Another mile of silence stretched between us before Levi shook his head. “No. I’m sorry,” Levi murmured. “I thought she would’ve told you.”
“So you don’t know her?”
“I know of her.”
“I think you’ve got the wrong person. My mom owns a clothing boutique in Bellwether. She has chickens and cows. Lots of them. Her name is Clare—”
“Keely,” Levi finished for me, but it was wrong. All wrong.
“Bronwyn. Same as me,” I corrected.
“And it’s always been Bronwyn?”
I glared at him. “Yes, always. She kept her maiden name when she married my dad and passed it along to me. He’s dead, by the way. Or did you already know that too?” Pity wrote large all over Levi’s face, and it rankled me. He was the one confused. “You’ve got the wrong Clare.”
“Right,” he said. “The wrong Clare.” He stood up, fidgeting with his hands. “We, uh, you should probably get out of here. Skinny’s going to wake up soon. At least let me come with you, wherever you’re going.”
I knew I should stand and start walking. Ginny. I had to go to her. But I felt cemented to the ground. My limbs pinned by four words. Clare, come find me. “So who is Clare Keely?” I asked.
September 9, 1996
“Looks like we’re both new around here,” he said. Half of his mouth was smiling at her, and she smiled back. Pleasantries. Not exactly what Clare Keely—Doctor Clare Keely—expected from her first session with Clive Cullen. But then again, nothing about her inaugural week at San Quentin State Prison had gone the way she’d imagined it.
That morning, as she slipped her tweed jacket over a red blouse, she practiced. She’d already broken her supervisor’s first rule—don’t look too nice—so she wanted her introduction to roll off her tongue, effortless. Not like the ink was barely dry on her diploma.
Hello. I’m Dr. Clare Keely. It sounded rehearsed.
Hi, I’m Dr. Keely. Too casual.
I’m Dr. Keely, but you can call me Clare. Bad idea. Very bad. This doctor thing would take some getting used to, but damned if she wasn’t going to use that title. She’d earned it.
Cullen watched, amused. Magnetized, her eyes went straight to his hands. They were clasped on the bare table. Strong and capable. Capable of crushing her windpipe. Splintering her bones. Snapping her neck like the pencil in her hand. Clare tapped its eraser against the thick file on her lap, knowing the only thing between them was the rudimentary push-button alarm she’d checked every morning. It would take at least ten seconds for the officer to make it up the stairs from his post. She’d timed it herself.
“You transferred?” She already knew the answer. It was right there in that file. Everything she needed to know about Clive Cullen. Cutthroat. She had to be careful not to call him that by accident.
“I started down south. Wasco in Kern County. It’s a level four.” Level Four? Clare was certain she should know exactly what that meant—they’d reviewed all this during the orientation—but she couldn’t remember. Neal had been right. The prison was another world with its own language, and its own set of rules. She felt like a newbie, but she nodded anyway. “Then they sent me to Corcoran. Real nice place. Manson’s digs. And now, lucky me, here I am. The prison by the Bay.”
“Why did they transfer you here?”
He cocked his head at her, grinning, and a flush crept up her neck. “You already know why. Are you testing me?”
Clare cursed herself silently. She felt outmatched. Incompetent. And they’d barely begun. “Um, I was just trying to . . . ” She tested the options in her mind. Build rapport? Hear you tell it in your own words? What would her clinical psych professor say? Her supervisor, Dr. Fitzpatrick?
Cullen laughed. A real laugh. Soft and deep. It was the nicest sound she’d heard all day. “I’m just kidding,” he said. “I’m sure you want to hear it from the horse’s mouth.” He pointed to himself. “Me. Horse.”
She giggled before she could stop herself, then busied her own delicate hands, opening Cullen’s file. Overfamiliarity. It was the first word on the first page of the disciplinary infraction that sent him to San Quentin two months ago. A prison word. Clare had to ask Fitzpatrick what it meant.
“I’ll admit I got too close to her.”
“Who?”
“Gina. She worked in the library where I was a clerk. I know it must sound crazy—no pun intended—to you, Doc, but I thought I was in love.” Cullen ran his fingers through his dark hair, then looked up at her. His stare felt intense. Like he was casting a spell with those eyes as gray-blue and mercurial as the sea. This is what happened to Gina, she thought.
“Have there been others in here?”
“A few. I can’t help it. Prison is lonely, you know? That’s why I got depressed in the first place.”
Clare fingered the diagnosis in Cullen’s file—adjustment disorder with depressed mood. As if anybody could make a seamless adjustment to this place. She made a noise of agreement before the irony hit her like a brick to the face. Or more appropriately, a knife to the throat. “But . . . you’ve always had . . . ” She stepped around the land mines selecting her words. “Problems in relationships . . . with women?” It had the sound, the lilt of a question, but they both knew it wasn’t.
There was that sheepish grin again. “Dr. Keely, that might be the understatement of the century.”
Before Clare knew it, she laughed again. A real laugh.
Clare printed five sentences in Cullen’s chart. She selected her words with care, using the example note Fitzpatrick had given her, the morning of their first supervisory meeting.
Inmate attended appointment. He was oriented to person, place, and time. Mood was neutral. Inmate was introduced to the undersigned clinician and reminded of limitations of confidentiality. Inmate discussed criminal and relationship history.
According to Fitzpatrick, “Don’t use their names. It makes things easier.” What things? she wondered. And brevity was key. “Less there for them to hang you with,” he’d said. Whatever that meant,
whoever them was, Clare planned to play it safe. Before she closed the file, she turned to one of the pages she’d marked. The autopsy report for Cullen’s last victim. She couldn’t stop reading it. It was as appalling as it was fascinating, the way it reduced human brutality to weights and measurements. Unfeeling science. This is my life now, she thought. These kinds of men.
* * *
Office of the Alameda County Coroner
DATE and HOUR AUTOPSY PERFORMED: 3/7/90; 8:30 a.m. by
David Keller, M.D. 2000 Broadway Avenue Oakland, CA 94607
Assistant: Frederick Gaines, M.D.
Full Autopsy Performed
SUMMARY REPORT OF AUTOPSY
Name: Pierce, Emily B.
Coroner's Case #: 189
Date of Birth: 8/9/68
Age: 22
Race: White
Sex: Female
Date of Death: 3/5/90
Body Identified by: Susan Pierce, mother of deceased
Case #: 000-A6-980-11B-1990
Investigative Agency: Alameda County Sheriff’s Department
EVIDENCE OF TREATMENT: N/A
CRIME SCENE EXAMINATION:
Apartment was small and situated near a college campus, having 3 rooms sized 15 feet x 10 feet each. There were no signs of forced entry. The room in which the body was found had 1 door. Body was seated upright in bed. There was pooling of blood in the front and along the sides of the body. There was spurting of blood on the floor and bedding at a distance of 1 to 2 feet away from the site where the body was lying. Furnishings were properly arranged in the room, and there were no signs of struggle. An empty wine bottle and one half-empty wine glass were intact on the bedside table.
EXTERNAL EXAMINATION: The autopsy is begun at 8:30 a.m. on March 7, 1990. The body is presented in a black body bag. The victim is wearing a white cotton nightgown and light-blue underwear. The front portion of the gown is completely blood soaked. Jewelry included one heart-shaped, cubic-zirconia pierced earring, worn in the right ear. The left ear also was pierced with no earring present.
The body is that of a normally developed white female, measuring 65 inches and weighing 125 pounds, and appearing generally consistent with the stated age of 22 years old. The body is cold and unembalmed. Lividity is fixed in the distal portions of the limbs. The eyes are open. The irises are brown and corneas are cloudy. The hair is light blonde with tight curls and approximately 9 inches in length at the longest point.
On the neck, there is a cut-throat injury in the form of a deep, gaping incised wound present over the front aspect of the neck, cutting through the skin, superficial fascia, platysma, sternocleidomastoid muscle on the left side, left jugular vein, left common carotid artery, and anterior and lateral wall of the trachea. The wound is 6 inches in length with a maximal depth of 3 inches.
On the left wrist, there is a fully healed, raised, linear scar—two inches in length consistent with a prior cut injury. The mother of the victim reported the wound occurred in 1988 as the result of a failed suicide attempt by razor blade.
The genitalia are that of an adult female; there is no evidence of injury. Vaginal and perineal swabs were preserved for analysis. Limbs are equal and symmetrically developed. Both hands were partially clenched. There were no defense markings present on the arms or hands. The fingernails are short and painted red. There are no other scars, markings or tattoos.
Drug Screen Results: Urine screen was NEGATIVE. Ethanol: .10 mg/dl, blood
Valerie Skaggen, Ph.D. Chief Toxicologist
OPINION
Time of Death: Body temperature, rigor and livor mortis, and stomach contents approximate the time of death between 9:30 p.m. and 11:30 p.m. on 3/5/90.
Immediate Cause of Death: Shock and hemorrhage as a result of cut-throat injury caused by a hard, sharp-edged object
Manner of Death: Homicide
Remarks: None
//Hui Chen, M.D. Alameda County Coroner’s Office 3/7/90
* * *
It was a minor detail—the one missing earring—that intrigued her most. Emily Pierce didn’t seem like the kind of girl who lost an earring, even if it was cubic zirconia. Though she had no reason to be, Clare felt certain of that. She would ask Cullen. Not right away, of course. She imagined his gloved hands as skillful as a surgeon’s, removing the earring, slipping it in his pocket. A sick memento. Without thinking, Clare touched her own gold hoops.
“Clare?” Fitzpatrick barged in without knocking. He wore a standard, sad uniform—a white, coffee-stained button-down, pleated khakis, and scuffed penny loafers. This is where supervisors go to die, she thought, trying to avert her eyes from the gray bags under his. She closed Cullen’s file and arranged it with the others on her desk. “How’d it go with Cullen?” he asked.
“Okay, I guess.”
“Did he hit on you? Say anything inappropriate? Get too personal? He does that. It’s his thing.” She wanted to laugh. He should know. A month ago, after her callback interview, Fitzpatrick had asked her out for a drink, giving her that hand-in-the-cookie-jar face when she’d rebuffed him.
Clare knew she sparkled. It was her curse. She’d known it since that seventh-grade slumber party when Lisa Taylor’s stepfather slipped his hand onto her knee under the vinyl birthday-balloon tablecloth. She was dangerous. Like a siren. The kind of pretty that turns men’s heads, leads them out into deep water. And men are willing to drown themselves for shiny things. Even supervisors.
“I don’t think so,” she said. “He was actually . . . ” Clare shuffled through a deck of words, considering. Funny. Nice. Insightful. “ . . . polite.”
Fitzpatrick shook his head. “Oh boy. You’re in more trouble than I thought.” Then he winked at her.
September 16, 1996
Clare fiddled with the ruby ring on her finger. Probably not even a real ruby, mind you, but she couldn’t bring herself to part with it. Even though she and Neal—Dr. Neal Barrington by now—had broken up months ago, it was a touchstone. A touchstone of rage.
“You’re seriously breaking up with me because I took a job at a prison? How sexist are you?” Clare sat on the edge of Neal’s bed, fuming, watching him run a hand through his chestnut hair until nothing remained of its gelled perfection.
“It’s not that, Clare, and you know it. I can’t be with someone who won’t acknowledge her own issues. You’re in denial. Complete and total denial.”
“Thank you, Freud. Remind me to never date another shrink. It’s exhausting.”
“Yeah? Well, remind me to never date a shrink who hates therapy.”
It was true. Clare had gritted her teeth through every one of her fifty-two required sessions. Only because she couldn’t graduate without checking that box. Her therapist had reminded her of Neal. Always acting like he knew her better than herself. They both seemed to think Clare’s chosen profession—criminal psychology—had to do with her past. That birthday party and everything that came after. What did they know?
“I’m taking the job, Neal, whether you like it or not. I have to prove to myself I can do it.”
“Prove away. I’m not coming along for the ride.”
She stormed out the door without telling Neal the truth because it sounded ludicrous. Mental, even. But the truth was, she got them. Criminals, the dredges of society, the castoffs, the undesirables. She understood their darkness, as if she’d been born from it herself.
“Is that from someone special?” Cullen asked her, noticing the ring as he took the seat opposite her desk.
“Uh, no,” she blurted before she could stop herself. Dammit, Clare. Boundaries. “What I mean is, we should really stay focused on you.”
“Of course, Doc. I shouldn’t have asked.” He leaned back in his chair, wide-eyed. “The spotlight is on me. What do you want to know?”
Clare put a tight lid on the hundreds of questions she had for him. Too soon. “What would you like to talk about today?”
His breathing was audible in her small office. It mark
ed time. “I’ve never done this before,” he offered.
“Therapy?” Clare knew that wasn’t true. There were stacks of notes from his five years in prison—mostly carbon copies of Fitzpatrick’s exemplar. Miles of data, saying nothing.
He shook his head. “I want to talk about something . . . someone . . . I’ve never talked about before.” She waited for him to continue. “Emily.”
Her heart hitched in her chest—she didn’t expect Cullen to open up so soon—and she turned the ring on her finger. This is why, Neal. This, she lived for.
September 24, 1996
“Are you sure you don’t need an escort?” Clare shook her head. Shoulders drooped, Sergeant Briggs—aka Robocop—seemed disappointed, but Clare couldn’t be sure. His eyes were walled off behind black-mirrored frames. Hence her secret nickname for him. “Just keep walking up past the lower yard and West Block is on your left.”
Clare stared straight ahead, walking along the cement path at the perimeter of the yard. She’d only walked it a few times. And just twice on her own. But Fitzpatrick was right. It got easier, now that she knew where to look. She focused on the sky, blue as a robin’s egg. Past these walls, invisible to her now, was the postcard view she marveled at every morning. Yesterday, third session, Cullen had told her that view was his least favorite part of San Quentin. “It’s a tease,” he’d said. “Beautiful, sure. But completely unavailable. So close, it hurts.” There was an ache in his voice that chilled her. Was he still talking about the view?
On her right were two picnic tables. Inmates lounged there like construction workers on a lunch break. She passed them and their chorus of good afternoons without a word. To Clare, their pleasantries were no more than catcalls. And those who didn’t speak, stared. She’d never been so aware of her own body. Her tan runner’s legs hidden in boring slacks. The cream sweater that hugged her chest. Her bright blonde hair pulled into a messy bun at the nape of her neck. Not since the second day of that fateful slumber party—when Mr. Taylor had accidentally brushed against her budding breasts in the Taylor’s swimming pool—had she felt so conscious of every part of herself.