My Brother’s Keeper (14 page)

‘It’s nothing like that,’ he said, frowning at the floorboards. His whole body was stiff with tension. ‘Karen already organised all that. With us preparing to go away and everything.’

He stalled. ‘Karen had come into quite a bit of money recently,’ I prompted. ‘When her mother died.’ I posed it as a statement, unsure how much he knew.

Manny threw me a quick glance. ‘She kept that pretty quiet, especially while she was still inside. It can be dangerous if word gets out that you’ve got money stashed away.’

‘Is it possible word did get out? And that’s what got her killed?’

He thought about the question for a long time, turning the Bible over and over in his hands like worry beads. ‘We were giving up everything we had anyway. It’s one of the rules of the commune. If it was her money they were after, well, that would be a …’ he struggled to rein in his emotion. ‘Well, that
would be a crying shame now, wouldn’t it.’ He stopped, his voice thick. Out of respect, I looked away. Untethered from my gaze, he continued. ‘Karen didn’t need anything. Except God, of course,’ he added matter-of-factly. ‘Prison teaches you that. As for me, well, I’ve never had much anyway. Giving it up is not as big a deal as you’d think.’

‘You’re still going to the commune?’

‘Aye. As soon as I’ve sorted things for Sunny.’ His jaw clenched in determination. Whatever Karen had feared for Sunny, she’d passed on that concern to Manny. I leaned forward, trying to catch his eye again. ‘Do you think Sunny’s in danger, Manny?’

He looked at me directly. ‘Aye.’

‘Then tell me what it is. I’ll help. I won’t drag you into it.’

He closed his eyes and shook his head. ‘I gave my word.’

He had retreated from me. Lips moving in silent prayer, he stroked the leather with his thumb, smoothing out the corners. There was a fine filigree of gold tracing the edges. His unconscious stroking gesture was an old learned one. At sometime in his life Manny had calmed animals. I let my frustration with him go.

‘Well, I’m sorry, Manny. I can’t help you.’

There was no way I was going to let him Bible-bash Sunny, particularly now with her father arrested for her mother’s murder. She was vulnerable, a prime candidate to get sucked into anything on offer. ‘I keep my clients’ information confidential. That’s the deal. Karen knew that when she hired me.’

We had reached an impasse. I stood, an indication there was nothing more we could say.

Neck bent, Manny frowned at the floor for a long time, breathing heavily through his teeth. He ran his hand repeatedly over the pliable leather as if he was kneading shiny pasta dough.

‘I’m the only one who can give it to her,’ he repeated.

If I had been wavering, his sudden intensity convinced me. Wolf felt the tension build and rose to his full height, letting out a high-pitched whine of displeasure. Manny’s chair screeched painfully as he pushed it back. Wolf moved rapidly. Pushing in front of me, he pressed protectively against my legs, a low rumble of discontent vibrating against my damaged knee. Manny wasn’t the eye-popping, muscle-bulging gym type but he had an intensity that hummed with strength. I looped my finger lightly through Wolf’s collar. I would release him if Manny made even the slightest move towards me.

As quickly as he’d coiled, Manny relaxed. ‘Fair enough,’ he said. ‘I wouldn’t have expected less. You shouldn’t be putting someone you don’t know in touch with that little girl.’ He reached his hand across the table to me and when I eventually took it, he squeezed mine with convincing force. ‘Could you ask your dog to let me leave unmolested, please?’ he asked politely.

‘He won’t attack unless I tell him to,’ I said confidently, and put my hand flat on Wolf’s head to remind him of it.

Manny walked slowly to the door, his shoulders hunched, the Bible clutched in front of his body. The holy book might have effectively warded off any number of dangers but not Wolf. He was most definitely an atheist. The only god Wolf paid homage to was the heaven of late-afternoon sun on his
pelt, the sacred smell of a bitch in season and the state of ecstasy reached after long hours gnawing on a bone.

Manny lifted his collar against the drizzling rain and bobbed his head in farewell, all the time keeping his eyes lowered. I was sure his aversion to eye contact was nothing more sinister than a symptom of his shyness.

For Karen’s sake I tried one last time. ‘I’m sorry I couldn’t help you, Manny. Are you sure you won’t let me give something to Sunny for you?’

For the first time he smiled at me. A transforming smile, all sloped around one side of his face. ‘No, girl. It’s not something you can give her.’

He was halfway down the path when I called out. ‘Manny.’ He turned. ‘What time did you leave Karen’s place on Friday?’

‘The police have already asked me that.’ I bet they had. Many times, no doubt. He paused, hoping it would be enough for me. It wasn’t. ‘I left around nine-thirty. We were going to have a prayer session, but she was too excited about meeting her little girl the next day so we called it an early night.’

He lifted his hand in a silent farewell, turned his back and continued down the path. Only when he was completely out of sight did I breathe properly again. His tension had been infectious.

Arohata Women’s Prison is laid out a bit like an army barracks with one long single-storey wooden building serving both as dining room and visiting area. My visitor’s permit was already on file from the last time I was here; to hear Vex describe the details of my sister’s murder. I remembered it word for word.
I could still hear the thrumming of a desperate bumblebee against the window, the background noise to her confession; could still picture it, image by image. An unexpected tsunami of grief threatened to engulf me. I held it back but the effort made my eyes sting.

Having previously been vetted, this time I only had to turn up, show my ID, endure a pat-down and relinquish my phone. The warder on entrance security studied my shattered mobile suspiciously but made no comment other than a derisive snort. She had the same response to my driver’s licence photo so maybe the snort was an habitual response. Visiting hours were coming to an end and fractious kids, bored with being cooped up all afternoon, were being packed up to go. The room smelt of soiled nappies. But it wasn’t all doom and gloom; in fact, there was a surprising family picnic atmosphere I hadn’t been expecting.

Vex spotted me before I saw her and had a chance to hide any reaction my unexpected appearance might have caused. She stayed seated and waited for me to approach. It’s one of the few defiant exertions of power available to inmates forced to deal with people from the outside. Inside the razor wire-topped nine-metre-high fences, the everyday power struggles between inmates are very real; whether you survive or not depends on your ability to understand and negotiate them. Vex was smaller than I remembered. The level grey eyes were the same, though, the whites, once startling in their healthiness, were now the colour of two-day-old hard-boiled eggs. I recognised the smattering of freckles across her nose. Her innocent look had been a staple of her prostitution work before she was
incarcerated. I doubted she would be able to pass herself off as the girl-next-door type any more.

It is oddly deflating sitting opposite the person responsible for your loved one’s death. This prison visit was starting to feel like a mistake, but it was too late to pull out now. I cut straight to the chase. The sooner I was out of here, the better.

‘Why did you send Karen to me?’

Vex raised her eyebrows at my bluntness, but her tone was flat. ‘It’s what you do, isn’t it? Find people? She wanted to find her daughter.’ My eyes were fixed on the filigree of fine lines extending from her eyes to her hairline. How dare she grow old when Niki would be stalled at twenty-one forever. She was aware of me studying her and didn’t seem to mind it one bit.

I forced my attention back to why I had come here. ‘Do you know who killed Karen?’

‘No. Do you?’ she shot back.

It would be public knowledge soon enough but I wasn’t going to be the one to break the news of Justin’s arrest. I forced myself to breathe slowly. If I was going to get anything out of this woman, I had to play it way more softly than this. Before I could come up with my next question she spoke.

‘How’s Sean?’ she asked, going back to first moves, making it clear whose terms this conversation was on. Vex had had dealings with Sean.

I answered honestly. ‘I don’t know.’

She smiled at that. We were both quiet for some time, while she decided what, if anything, she would tell me.

‘You know that Karen turned Christian,’ she said, and glanced around the room. ‘A lot of them do that in here. There’s
all sort of benefits.’ She studied one of the guards for a long time before continuing. ‘But with Karen it was the real deal. She went straight; got off the drugs, stayed out of trouble …’ she said, counting off Karen’s achievements on her fingers. Her nails were nibbled to the quick. ‘Believe me, it’s not so easy in here.’

‘When was this?’

‘As soon as she got here. Years ago now. Before my time,’ she said, batting my question away with a swipe of the hand. ‘She was totally infected with the God bug by the time we roomed together.’

If this was true, it was unlikely Karen’s conversion had been a cynical pretence to win back her mother’s approval. Vex read my thoughts.

‘It was real alright. I should know. I had to put up with the endless bloody praying.’

‘Is that how she and Manny met?’

‘Yeah. He visits Christian prisoners. He’s been doing that for years. Well,’ she added slyly, ‘since he got out himself.’

‘What did he serve time for?’

Vex leaned back, arms folded over her breasts. ‘Maybe I should be charging you for this.’

I was about to get up and walk out but she started up again before I had the chance to.

‘Not long after we roomed together she wrote to her mother, asking for her forgiveness. Christians are big on the whole forgiveness thing.’ She couldn’t resist a coy look at look. ‘Me, not so much.’ She was baiting me, but I ignored it. It was just as well Vex wasn’t big on forgiveness. I would never forgive her for
killing Niki. Not in this life, or any other. ‘So,’ she continued, relishing the power the role of storyteller gave her, ‘her mum came in to see her and they made up. All was forgiven. Mother and daughter reunited. Alleluia. Then the mum up and died and Karen suddenly has all this money. It was news to her that the mother even had any money. They’d had nothing to do with each other for years. Since before Karen killed the kid, I think. But Karen wasn’t into the money, anyway. She was going to give it up. Her and Manny were going off to live in a Christian commune. What a waste.’

‘You didn’t try for some of that unwanted money yourself?’

‘Sure I did.’ She smiled at me, one corner of her mouth sliding up. ‘I came straight out and asked her for it. Who wouldn’t? She didn’t want it! All I ended up with was a fee for giving her your contact details.’ She laughed out loud at that. ‘There’s a word for that, isn’t there? Irony? Something like that?’

I ignored the gibe. ‘Did Karen get into fights? While she was in here, I mean.’

She gave me a deep look before answering. ‘I didn’t tell anyone about her coming into money. It would have put real heat on me and I didn’t need that kind of shit. All sorts of people would be working me to get my hands on it for—’ again she looked across the room and studied the guard for a long time but the guard appeared to be paying her no attention, ‘—for other people,’ she concluded. ‘But there were rumours about the money. And Karen got the occasional rough-up to see what would shake down, but no more than anyone else really.’ She studied my face. She was on full alert. ‘Why?’

I wasn’t going to tell her about the little bleeds Smithy had found.

‘No reason. I just wondered if she’d made any enemies who might have wanted to have her killed.’

Vex shrugged. If she knew or suspected anyone, she wasn’t going to tell me. ‘Did you find the daughter?’

I hesitated. Was this a trap? Was it possible Vex was the danger to Sunny? I kept my response on safe ground. ‘Karen never got to meet her.’ Vex waggled her head. If I didn’t know better, I’d think it was a gesture of sympathy. ‘Did Karen ever talk to you about her husband? Justin.’

‘What about him?’

‘Karen was worried about Sunny. She seemed to think there was some threat to her, but I never got to the bottom of it.’ I waited, thinking she might give me something. Just when I’d given up, she spoke.

‘I used to wonder if it was him who drove the car into the river. Not her. The husband, I mean. She just didn’t seem to have it in her.’ My mouth was suddenly dry. ‘But, you know, when drugs are involved, people can do anything. Only idiots take drugs.’ It was a not so subtle reference to Niki. My sister had been an addict and Vex had been her supplier. She gave me another of those long looks. ‘I asked Karen once.’

‘What did she say?’

Vex shrugged. ‘She said it was her. That she did it.’ She looked around the room. Some of the women returned her gaze. ‘You know, in the men’s prison, they all claim they’re innocent. But not here. No one here says that. We all know what we did.’

No one smiled in response to Vex’s gaze, but the looks they returned to her weren’t threatening either. There was something that passed along the lines of sight between these women; some shared emotion that I couldn’t quite decipher. Vex turned that look directly on me. And that’s when I got it. It was pride. That’s what these women felt; what they communicated with each other. They were proud of what they’d done. ‘Most of us would do it again if we had to,’ Vex said, confirming what I’d sensed. Niki’s silent ghost rose up between us. I swallowed bile. I refused to be baited.

‘Did you believe Karen? When she said she did it?’

Vex looked away from me towards the guard who was now watching her closely. ‘I don’t believe what anyone here tells me.’ It seemed to be aimed at the guard as much as a reference to Karen.

The air outside felt fresh and cold and clean. Since the prison is right on the shoulder of the motorway, that’s saying something. I sucked it in anyway; petrol fumes, sheep truck effluent and all, relishing the freedom of it. Was it possible, as Vex claimed to believe, that it was Justin who had killed Falcon and attempted to kill Sunny and not Karen? Was that why Karen believed Sunny was in danger? Is that what Karen confronted Justin with in Wellington? Is that why Justin killed her?