Invisible Boy (41 page)

Elsie nodded. “My granddaughter was a gentle child. She never meant anyone any harm. But that man didn’t just kill her mother,
he killed a part of Angela, too. Something inside her was gone after that. Butchie died in prison, but his damage still had
her by the neck, and it wasn’t ever letting go.”

“I’m so sorry for your loss. Mrs. Underhill. I have no more questions.”

Hetzler walked back to the defense table.

Bost stood up. “The prosecution rests, Your Honor.”

“Court is adjourned for the day,” said the judge. “We’ll hear from the defense starting tomorrow morning.”

It was dark in the living room at home. I was curled up on our sofa this time, talking quietly to Dean, long distance.

“How’s Texas?” I asked.

“Actually, I finished there early. I’m in Canada.”

“Okay, then how’s the great white north?”

“Cold,” he said. “Boring. Not so great.”

“I miss you.”

“I miss you, Bunny. I wish I could come home.”

“Yeah,” I said.

“Well, I’d better go forage for dinner before they roll up the sidewalks here on the
boulevard Ducharme
.”

“What’s the cuisine in fashionable La Tuque? Escargots à la Gretzky?”

He sighed. “PFK.”

“PFK?”

“
Poulet Frit Kentucky,
” he said.

Given my yelp of laughter, it was a profound blessing that I did not happen to have a mouthful of beverage at that moment.
It would’ve shot straight out my nose.

“That’s what I treasure most about you, Bunny,” said Dean. “Your compassion.”

Yeah, like you’ve asked me anything about the trial. Or even remembered it’s happening.

I shook that off. I didn’t want him to know. Or ask. He had too much at stake to worry about me.

“Dude,” I said, trying to sound lighthearted, “you know my sympathies are
totally
with you in this dark time of culinary sorrow, but it’s still fucking hilarious.”

“It would be way funnier if it weren’t the only restaurant in town, or at least the only one open within sight of Le Motel
Ranch.”

“Le Motel Ranch? What, no vacancies at Le Motel Chunky Blue Cheese?”

“
Vey iz mir,
” he said. “Don’t get me started.”

“You’ve been gone so long it feels like forever…. When do you get home?”

“They want me up here at least a week. We’re doing a trial run with one of the BOD machines on their wastewater as part of
the sales call. Christoph really wants this account.”

“A week?”

He didn’t answer.

“Not even home for the weekend, you mean?”

“No.”

“Wow.”

“I miss you so much, Bunny. You know I want to be home.”

“What about the wedding?”

Valentine’s Day.

“I’ll do my best,” he said. “I can’t promise at this point.”

“Hey,” I said, “you should probably go get dinner. I don’t want to keep you.”

The phone rang again an hour later. I picked it up, hoping it would be Dean again, après-PFK.

“Hello?” I said.

“Mad?”

Astrid
.

“I’m leaving,” she said. “Tonight.”

“Leaving for where?”

“Wherever. Just leaving Christoph.”

“Okay,” I said.

“Okay?”

She was pacing again. I could hear her heels clacking back and forth across the floor.

“Astrid, I’ve had a long shitty day and a long shitty week. You want to leave your husband, fucking leave him. I don’t care.
Why do
you
even care about my opinion?”

“I have my clothes packed up,” she said, as though I hadn’t spoken. “And I want you to promise me something.”

Getting packed was new, but it didn’t make me any less exhausted with the whole thing. “Sure. Fine. Ask away.”

“I want you to promise me that Dean will quit tomorrow.”

“Quit what?”

“His job.”

“Astrid, wait a minute—”

“You’re
my
friend, aren’t you?”

“Of
course
I’m your friend, but that’s not my decision.”

And I didn’t trust that she wouldn’t change her mind and then report back anything I’d said to further her own advantage.
God knows I’d been a pawn in enough breakups to know how often that happened.

“If he doesn’t quit tomorrow, I’ll never speak to you again.”

“Astrid, please—”

“This is it, Maddie. Dean quits or I’ll know I can never trust you again.”

“I can’t promise you that.”

“Fine,” she said, and hung up.

T
he phone’s ring woke me up the following morning. I looked at the clock-radio.

Eight
A.M.
? Infidels!

“Hello?” I croaked.

“Maddie, a very good morning to you.” It was Christoph.

Excellent. Not.

“Same to you,” I said.

Was she gone? Did he think she was hiding out here?

“I am hoping I might ask you for a favor,” he said.

Here we go.

“When Dean calls home could you ask him also to ring me?”

“Um, certainly.”

“I have a new home number, if you could take it down.”

“Did you move out?” I asked.

“Yes, just this morning.”

Why did he sound so happy?

“I must say it’s lovely here—I finally have room for my little horses, and Astrid is really quite pleased with our new place.”

“She
is
?”

“Surprising, no?” He laughed. “Who would have thought she’d like New Jersey?”

I refrained from comment. The whole thing just made my brain hurt.

Angela Underhill was wearing another flowered dress, this time with a pink cardigan over it that stretched across her enormous
belly. She walked slowly and flat-footed to the witness stand, one hand pressed to the small of her back.

Sworn in, she smiled down at Hetzler. I wondered if she thought her impending nativity could possibly sway the jurors in her
favor.

Marty Hetzler didn’t strut as he approached the stand this time. Instead he walked up until he was within arm’s reach of Angela
Underhill, circling in quietly as though she were a wounded bird he hoped to catch.

She put her hand over the microphone so he could lean in to pat her on the hand and offer some words of encouragement, his
good side angled toward the jury.

“Mr. Hetzler?” prompted the judge.

“Yes, Your Honor,” Marty said, backing away. “We just needed a moment.”

He squared his shoulders a little. My view of him was now straight on from the back, but I pictured him raising a hand to
check the knot of his tie before he spoke again.

“Angela, I’d like to talk to you about something Ms. Bost mentioned earlier, all right?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Ms. Bost talked about you being raised by your grandmother, but that wasn’t always the case, was it?”

“Only from the time I was nine on.”

“Before that, who did you live with?”

“My mother.”

“And when you came to your grandmother, did your mother come with you?”

“No. I come alone.”

“Can you tell us why?”

“My mother passed.”

“When you were nine years old?”

“Mm-hm.”

“And your father?”

“Don’t know.”

“Angela, how did your mother die?”

“The man she with then, Butchie? He shot her.”

How was it possible that this woman was related to Elsie? It boggled the mind.

Bost stood. “Objection, Your Honor. Relevance?”

“It goes to my client’s state of mind,” said Hetzler, “at the time of her son’s death.”

The judge said, “I’ll allow it.”

“Angela,” said Hetzler, “you saw Butchie kill your mother, didn’t you?”

“Yeah.”

“They’d been arguing?”

“What woke me up. I come out to see.”

“From your bedroom?”

“Just the corner. Behind the sofa, you know. I slept out there when Mama have a boyfriend.”

“What were your mother and Butchie fighting about?”

“Me.”

Hetzler waited.

“It was winter,” she continued. “Mama axe Butchie could she buy me a coat, you know.”

“What did he say?” asked Hetzler.

“Not my
daddy
, not
his
fault I don’t have no coat.”

“And then?”

“Mama said, ‘Give me back just a little money, Butchie. Enough for that and you know I want you to have the rest.’”

“What did he say?”

“He didn’t say nothing, just grab her by the throat and start knocking her head up against the wall—left a big hole in it,
with cracks all around.”

“And what happened then?”

“I run out to grab his arm, try and make him leave off.”

“You were such a little girl,” said Hetzler, holding his hand waist-high from the courtroom floor. “Could you stop him from
hurting your mother?”

“He let go her neck and start hitting me instead. Broke out my side teeth, knock me down.”

“What did your mother do?” asked Hetzler.

Underhill looked away, forearm draped across the top of her belly so she could pick at a loop of yarn on her pale-pink sweater’s
cuff.

Hetzler leaned in, gentle. “Angela?”

Her voice was quiet. Flat. “Mama screaming: ‘Don’t you
hurt
my baby,’ and all like that, you know.”

“Did Butchie listen?”

“Listen?” Her shoulders twitched beneath the pink sweater. “Butchie have a
gun
.”

“Did he have to go get it?”

“He pull up his shirt and I seen it then, stuck in his belt.”

“So he pulled the gun out of his belt?”

She nodded. “Smack Mama once with it right off, real hard in the face.”

“How hard?”

“Smashed her nose flat. He hit her again and she fall over acrost me—like this.” Angela raised both hands, making an X with
her slender wrists.

Hetzler didn’t say a word.

She let her hands drop.

“What happened then?”

“Butchie step close and lean down. He say, ‘Shut up’ and shoot my mama twice in the head. Then he walk out.”

“He left you there?”

“After he reach back in to turn off the lights, you know. Close the door after him, before he go.”

Hetzler let those words sink in for a moment.

Angela resumed picking at her cuff, as though she’d just reminded him they needed eggs and milk, at home.

“You were there a long time, weren’t you, lying in the dark with your mother?”

A quick glance at the jury told me I wasn’t the only person in the room substituting
under
for that euphemistic
with
. His slick bait-and-switch of a single word rendering Hetzler compassionate, and his client worthy of our sympathy.

Underhill didn’t look up from her sweater. “Till morning. I slept some, right there.”

“Do you remember anything else about that night?” asked Hetzler.

Underhill pursed her lips, thinking. “First Mama felt warm. Then she cold.”

“And who found you?”

She lifted her chin toward Mrs. Underhill, seated in the gallery’s front row. “Someone call my grandma. She come.”

“Angela,” said Hetzler, “when your mother tried to protect you that night, she was killed, wasn’t she?”

Her pink shoulders twitched again. “Mama passed. That’s all.”

Hetzler patted her hand. “No further questions, Your Honor.”

“Ms. Underhill,” said Bost, “I’d like to ask you about your boyfriend, Albert Williams.”

Underhill nodded.

“Was he Teddy’s father?”

“No.” She placed her hands high on her jutting belly, protective.

“And how long have the two of you been together?” asked Bost.

“Two years, something like that.”

“When you and Albert Williams first moved in together, you were living in Brooklyn, is that right?”

“That’s right,” said Underhill.

“Why did you leave that apartment and move to Queens?”

“The social worker,” said Underhill.

“Why was that?”

“That woman downstairs. She reported us.”

“For what, Ms. Underhill?”

Underhill said nothing.

“Ms. Underhill? What did the neighbor report you for?”

“Said we hurt Teddy.”

“And did you?”

“Not me,” said Underhill, raising her chin.

“But Mr. Williams
did
hurt your son?”

“When Teddy act up.”

“Can you tell us what you mean by ‘act up’?”

“Maybe eat too slow, or complain about things.”

“So if your three-year-old son ate more slowly than Mr. Williams thought was appropriate, what would he do?”

“Sometimes.”

“Sometimes what?”

“Only sometimes. Not every time,” said Underhill.

“On those occasions when Teddy’s speed at meals was of concern to Mr. Williams, what might he do in reaction?”

“Punch him, you know. Or lift him up and shake him.”

“What would Teddy do?”

She shrugged. “Cry.”

“And what did
you
do, Ms. Underhill, when your boyfriend would punch your son with his fist?”

“I tried to stop him one time.”

“And what happened?”

“Albert had a knife. He cut me.”

“Where did he cut you?” asked Bost.