The Good Wife (5 page)
Authors: Stewart O'Nan
SHE CAN’T EVEN CALL HIM. HE CAN CALL HER, BUT ONLY AT PREARRANGED times and only collect. She’s taking unpaid leave, so there’s no paycheck coming in where there used to be two.
“We better get off,” she says.
“Yeah,” he says, and then they stay on.
Their calls are taped, his letters to her opened. She’s not allowed to bring him any food or money or cigarettes, not even a blanket. Sometimes she gets to kiss him hello and goodbye when she visits, sometimes not, depending on the guard, depending on the guard’s mood. Her doctor says the metal detector won’t hurt the baby as long as she doesn’t go through it four or five times a day. Some days she goes through two or three times and then worries.
The first time she meets their lawyer she wishes she’d tried harder to come up with the money. He’s young and looks nervous in his skinny tie, a college kid dressed for an interview. She’s supposed to call him Andy.
To start, he says he believes Tommy’s not guilty, then goes on to talk about the problems of the case as if that doesn’t matter. They can place him at the scene, so there’s no way to prove he’s
completely
innocent. Luckily they don’t have to. The DA has to prove he’s guilty beyond a reasonable doubt, that’s their one advantage. The first thing they have to do is ask for severance, make the DA try the cases separately. If they can do that, he wouldn’t be surprised if
both of them walk on the murder charge, the evidence isn’t there. If not—and the DA’s not going to want to do that, it makes things a lot harder for him—they could be in trouble. Either way they’re definitely going to see time for the burglary. The danger in a case like this is the other guy taking a plea and testifying against him to get his charges reduced. They’ll have to keep an eye on that. Patty doesn’t ask how.
completely
innocent. Luckily they don’t have to. The DA has to prove he’s guilty beyond a reasonable doubt, that’s their one advantage. The first thing they have to do is ask for severance, make the DA try the cases separately. If they can do that, he wouldn’t be surprised if
both of them walk on the murder charge, the evidence isn’t there. If not—and the DA’s not going to want to do that, it makes things a lot harder for him—they could be in trouble. Either way they’re definitely going to see time for the burglary. The danger in a case like this is the other guy taking a plea and testifying against him to get his charges reduced. They’ll have to keep an eye on that. Patty doesn’t ask how.
That’s the problem—she doesn’t know what to ask him. She thinks she should do more than just sit there and nod like an idiot.
She understands why Tommy doesn’t squeal on Gary, but if they’re such good buddies, why is Gary hanging him out to dry like this? He should stand up and be a man. Instead, the two of them are acting like little kids. Their strategy is to shut up, say nothing. The lawyer says it’s actually the best thing they can do at this point.
The cops still have the truck, and Mr. McChesney wants her out by the end of the month. Eileen says she can stay with her and Cy for a while, but for how long, and where’s all of their junk supposed to go? On top of that, her mother’s invited everyone for Thanksgiving, including Shannon and her family.
Her mother comes over to see her. As always, Patty can sense her grading her dusting, the contents of the refrigerator. They talk about Casey mostly, avoiding the real subject. “I’ve always said Gary was bad news,” her mother huffs, then finishes her cup of coffee and heads off to the library before it closes.
Eileen goes back to work, and Cy expects her home at night, so Patty’s alone most of the time. She wanders around the house, wrapping their breakables in old
PennySavers,
deciding what she needs and what can go to storage. She’s learned to not stop and moon over the wedding pictures of him without his mustache or
the heart-shaped box she kept from the chocolates he gave her one Valentine’s Day. The pile that’s going to Eileen’s grows. And still, she can’t attack his closet. It will all come with her—she can use it. Already she’s wearing his flannel shirts to stay warm, using his sweatpants as pajama bottoms.
PennySavers,
deciding what she needs and what can go to storage. She’s learned to not stop and moon over the wedding pictures of him without his mustache or
the heart-shaped box she kept from the chocolates he gave her one Valentine’s Day. The pile that’s going to Eileen’s grows. And still, she can’t attack his closet. It will all come with her—she can use it. Already she’s wearing his flannel shirts to stay warm, using his sweatpants as pajama bottoms.
She sleeps late, and still she’s exhausted. He can’t always tell her when he’ll call next, so she’s always waiting. All morning the snow light reaches through the windows, warming her hands. She walks by the phone, willing it to ring. She packs and packs, taking breaks to rest her back, kneading her kidneys with a fist. Lunch comes. The soap operas are on, but they no longer tempt her, full of murders and hollow plots. The afternoon passes, icicles glinting in drips, birds skirmishing at the feeder, making it swing. The sky fades to gray above the trees and the cars flying by outside turn on their lights. She can’t get used to cooking for herself, and ends up with leftovers. Normally she’d watch TV, but she’s afraid of the news. At seven she’s ready for bed. Some nights he calls around nine and they stay on until she’s sleepy, tucked under the afghans on the couch with her eyes closed, the two of them murmuring the way they do in bed. When they hang up, the day’s over. After ten she won’t answer the phone, lies still, listening between rings, as if someone’s in the house.
It’s strange not having to get up for work in the morning, a luxury she knows she’ll pay for later. She goes to the jail to visit him, then comes home and feels trapped inside the house. She doesn’t go out, speaks to no one except Eileen and her mother and the lawyer. Donna hasn’t called, and none of his friends. The Myersons don’t look in on her, so she doesn’t bother them. If she needs something—packing tape, more boxes from the liquor store—she drives to Elmira to get it. She gasses up at the self-serve, treating herself to a Snickers bar, humming as she chews. She’s never liked
the idea of living in a city before, but now she can see the two of them taking the top half of a duplex and parking on the street, going to work and coming home, completely anonymous.
the idea of living in a city before, but now she can see the two of them taking the top half of a duplex and parking on the street, going to work and coming home, completely anonymous.
Taking apart the rooms she put together, she imagines Mrs. Wagner’s house sitting empty and half-burnt. The man who called could have been a neighbor, the police said, or maybe it was just a nut. Patty thinks she should go over there, take some flowers to say she’s sorry, but it’s not on the way to anything.
She unplugs the TV. She takes apart the stereo and tapes the gathered cords to the backs of the speakers, tapes down the arm of the turntable the way she’s seen Tommy do it. The records are too heavy; she can barely lift the cinder blocks the shelves rest on. She’s already done most of the dishes. She can’t box up the toaster oven yet, and the tapestries she’s saving for last—their bright patterns the only relief from the white walls.
She’s never done self-storage before. She drives by one all the time on her way to work. It’s new-looking, rows of prefab garages surrounded by high fences topped with barbed wire—a prison for their stuff. The ad in the Yellow Pages lists the different sizes. The only really big thing is the couch; the waterbed comes apart. She figures it’ll take five or six trips; they can probably get away with the small. There’s the tarp in the garage if the weather gets bad—at least the cops didn’t take that. She should put it over everything, in case the place leaks.
When she calls to reserve a unit, the price seems high and the guy has all these questions. Does she want heated or unheated? How long of a lease is she going to need? Long-term, short-term, the price is different. What about insurance? How much are the contents worth, ballpark?
Without Tommy there to ask, she can’t answer the man. She says she’ll have to check and get back to him and hangs up feeling
the same way she does when the lawyer tries to explain the difference between the arraignment and the preliminary hearing.
the same way she does when the lawyer tries to explain the difference between the arraignment and the preliminary hearing.
There’s so much she doesn’t know.
THE LAWYER HAS TOLD HER OVER AND OVER THAT THE PRELIM means nothing, so why do the TV people have their lights set up outside? She circles the courthouse, trolling for a parking spot, hoping they don’t know what her car looks like. It’s the middle of the morning, the Tuesday before Thanksgiving. She expected downtown to be quiet, everybody working, getting ready to call in sick tomorrow—the only reason Eileen’s not here. She would have taken off if Patty asked.
She finds a spot on the far side of the building and struggles out from behind the wheel. There’s another entrance here, the same arched vestibule like a church. Climbing the stairs, she thinks she might get away with it, then finds the doors are locked. She can see cops and lawyers far down the hall and knocks on the glass, but no one hears her.
She tries taking the back way, skirting the frozen garden and the Union soldier’s statue, screened by the building. At the last second she gathers speed and rounds the corner, walks straight toward the crowd as if everything’s normal.
They have their backs to her, mobbing someone else—not Donna but a tall woman hiding behind Jackie 0 sunglasses, her hennaed hair freshly done under a purple scarf. A guy wearing oversized headphones notices Patty and points, and they all turn. A flash dazzles her, makes her raise a hand, but she keeps walking, meeting them head-on. The reporters are two deep, the ones in back shoving their microphones over the front line.
“Mrs. Dickerson,” one calls out, “do you have anything to say to the family of the victim?”
“Excuse me,” Patty says, trying to push by. She bounces off the wall of people and barely stays on the sidewalk. Can’t they see she’s pregnant? She shoulders into them like a running back. “Excuse me, let me through.
Excuse
me
.”
Excuse
me
.”
“Mrs. Dickerson, did you know that Mrs. Wagner was legally blind?”
She ducks her head to watch the steps, her lips clenched in a hard line.
The cameramen push through the door with her and flare out, running ahead, walking backwards, blasting away like she’s Patty Hearst. She didn’t think they were allowed inside. She ducks into the ladies’ room to get away from their lights, taking a stall and blowing her nose with the stiff toilet paper.
Blind. She closes her eyes to imagine it.
A steel catch slaps open—she’s not alone. She waits for the other woman to finish washing her hands, leans forward and peeks through the narrow gap of the door and sees the purple scarf.
The woman carefully lifts it off and checks her hair in the mirror. Without the sunglasses, her face is narrow, doll-blue eyes, a long jaw and horsey front teeth Patty remembers even without the whistle on a shoelace and the navy one-piece with the Red Cross patch
and the chlorine-blond ponytail. Elsie Wagner. She looks old, her cheeks sunken and rouged.
and the chlorine-blond ponytail. Elsie Wagner. She looks old, her cheeks sunken and rouged.
Patty waits until she hears the door swing open and the noise from the hall. In the mirror, she looks like she’s been smoking dope.
The cameramen are waiting. She keeps her head down as if it’s raining and scurries across the hall. She knows they’re not allowed in the courtroom. The same elderly security guard shepherds her through, as always, without a word.
The court is fuller today. She sees faces from the arraignment, including the two reporters. Elsie Wagner sits alone in the front row behind the DA’s table, and for a second, walking up the aisle, Patty thinks what it would mean if she sat down beside her and offered her her hand.
Donna’s saving a place for her. She’s had her hair cut short, a neat shoulder-length swing. She’s not wearing any makeup and has on a dowdy flower-print dress.
“What’s with all this?”
“It wasn’t my idea,” Donna says.
“You’re not wearing your rings.”
Donna holds up her hands. “I know, I feel naked. They tell me it’s supposed to help. You’re lucky, you don’t have to worry about that.” She tips her chin at Patty’s belly.
“Yeah, I’m real lucky.”
“You know what I mean.”
Patty wants to ask her why she didn’t call this week, but knows Donna could say the same thing.
As they’re waiting, the door by the jury box opens and in walks a round woman in her forties with what looks like a makeup case—the court reporter. She takes the table in front of the judge’s bench
and sets up her equipment while the lawyers file in, the DA first. Tommy and Gary must be sharing the defendants’ table, because her lawyer and Donna’s both come over, lean across the rail and shake hands with them.
and sets up her equipment while the lawyers file in, the DA first. Tommy and Gary must be sharing the defendants’ table, because her lawyer and Donna’s both come over, lean across the rail and shake hands with them.
The lawyer’s already told her it’s a show. All the DA has to establish is reasonable cause, and he will. Patty doesn’t understand. They’re supposed to lose, and that’s okay?
Across the aisle, the DA is consulting with Elsie Wagner, and Patty feels foolish for ever thinking she could have apologized to her.
“Here they come,” Donna says, and the cops bring in Gary and Tommy in their prison scrubs. At least they let him shave and comb his hair this time. She hears a camera click and whir behind her, though she knows they’re not allowed either.
Tommy’s face looks better, the swelling down to a mouse, the scratch a scabbed line. As the cops maneuver him to his chair, he nods as if everything’s under control.
“All rise,” the bailiff calls, and the lawyer turns him away from her.
Across the aisle, Elsie Wagner is staring at Tommy and Gary.
It’s the same judge, the woman with the tight hair and dark lipstick. She leans over the edge of the bench to say hello to the court reporter, then settles herself The whole courtroom waits while she messes with her papers. She finds the one she wants and holds it up, reads the case number into her microphone, then instructs the DA to call his first witness.
It’s a man named Ayres, Mrs. Wagner’s neighbor from Blodgett Road. Patty tests his voice against her memory of the late-night caller, but it’s not him. The DA takes forever to get his address and the exact location of his house with respect to Mrs. Wagner’s place, the day, the date, the weather, the moon, the visibility. Tommy’s
lawyer scribbles notes on a yellow pad, and Patty wishes she’d brought something to write on. With the reporter tapping away and the courtroom nearly full, the proceedings seem more official, as if everything counts now. She wants to challenge everything he says, tries to remember back to that night, the moon on the fields, what time she got to bed. She listens intently, waiting for him to make a mistake.
lawyer scribbles notes on a yellow pad, and Patty wishes she’d brought something to write on. With the reporter tapping away and the courtroom nearly full, the proceedings seem more official, as if everything counts now. She wants to challenge everything he says, tries to remember back to that night, the moon on the fields, what time she got to bed. She listens intently, waiting for him to make a mistake.
“You said in your statement that something outside caught your eye,” the DA feeds him.
The questioning is a slow form of torture. Blodgett Road is a dead-end. Mr. Ayres can see the dead-end from his window, and the creek. Mr. Ayres saw the truck’s brake lights down in the dead-end. Mr. Ayres stood at the window for maybe ten minutes. Mr. Ayres could see the shadow of the truck in the moonlight; it had its lights off. Mr. Ayres saw two figures get out of the truck. Mr. Ayres saw the same two figures walk back up the road toward Mrs. Wagner’s house. This is when Mr. Ayres telephoned the sheriff’s department—the DA has the exact time of the call.
This part is new to Patty, and she realizes how little Tommy has told her about what actually happened.
That’s all the DA has for Mr. Ayres.
“Does defense wish to cross-examine?” the judge asks.
Andy lets Gary’s lawyer answer. “No, your honor.”
The next witness is the deputy who responded to the call. The DA wastes a half hour asking him about the day, the date, the time of the call, the visibility, the road, the truck (caught in his spotlight, a dark color), the location of the two houses, what time the fire company arrived. Beside her, Donna shifts positions. Patty realizes she has her arms crossed tightly on top of her belly and folds her hands in her lap.
“When I entered the residence there was a strong smell of gasoline,”
the deputy testifies. “I also noticed a red metal gas can on a table in the dining room.”
the deputy testifies. “I also noticed a red metal gas can on a table in the dining room.”
The DA is taking them through Mrs. Wagner’s, leading the deputy to the bedroom, and Patty can’t help but think of her mother, alone in their old house out on Tinkham Road, the key under the mat for anyone to use. She doesn’t want to hear what comes next, and focuses on Andy’s hand needling his pen across the page.
“I would say the fire damage was basically confined to the rear hallway and the master bedroom where the deceased was discovered,” the deputy says.
“And where was she discovered?”
“On what was left of the bed.”
“What was the condition of the deceased?”
“She was burned over a good portion of her body.”
“Were there any other indications of foul play?”
“Her face was bruised and cut.”
“Cut how?”
“She had a gash under her left eye.” The deputy points to his own.
Their lawyer objects to this, since he’s not a medical professional. Across the aisle, Elsie Wagner is dabbing at her eyes with a wad of tissue.
The deputy discovers the guns in the hockey bag with Gary’s name on it.
“Let’s go back to the truck you saw parked at the bottom of the hill,” the DA says. “Did you have a chance to examine this truck?”
“I did,” the deputy says, and identifies Tommy’s truck as if it committed a crime.
Again, there’s no cross-examination. To Patty, it feels like they’re just letting the DA win.
The third witness is another deputy, maybe her age, who goes
through the whole day, date and time deal and then describes seeing Tommy and Gary running up the hill on the other side of the creek, their jeans soaking wet. “At that time I placed the defendants under arrest and advised them of their rights.”
through the whole day, date and time deal and then describes seeing Tommy and Gary running up the hill on the other side of the creek, their jeans soaking wet. “At that time I placed the defendants under arrest and advised them of their rights.”
“Thank you,” the DA says.
And that’s it, no cross-examination, no further witnesses. It’s not quite lunchtime.
The judge sums up: “The court determines there is reasonable cause to believe that the felony of murder in the second degree was committed, and reasonable cause to believe the defendants committed such felony. Defendants are ordered held without bail for action of the Tioga County grand jury.” She raps the gavel, and everyone starts talking.
The cops come to take Tommy away. He says one last thing to Andy, then turns and looks back at her and winks. Donna stands there with her, watching as they file through the door in their slippers. When they’re gone, Patty sees that Elsie Wagner is watching her. Patty turns away.
“Well that sucked,” Donna says, oblivious.
“It doesn’t mean anything,” Patty says.
She keeps her back to Elsie Wagner, takes her time pulling on her coat and then fishing a Tic Tac from her purse. When she’s finally ready to go, she sees that it worked—she’s gone.
They catch up to her in the hallway, surrounded by TV cameras and wearing her sunglasses. She’s reading a statement from a piece of paper, something Patty thinks she and Donna could never get away with.
Outside there are more reporters, more lights. Donna’s parked behind the Great American, so they split up. Patty doesn’t hide this time, just keeps a closed, concerned face as the pack bombards her with questions. She takes the back way, and once they realize she’s
not going to say anything, most of them give up. Only one photographer follows her to the Dart, clicking as she turns the key and fastens her seatbelt, then checks her mirrors and pulls into traffic.
not going to say anything, most of them give up. Only one photographer follows her to the Dart, clicking as she turns the key and fastens her seatbelt, then checks her mirrors and pulls into traffic.
On the way home, she feels even more deeply that they’ve lost something. From the evidence—and now that evidence is official—one of them did it. She’s not a lawyer, but she doesn’t see how they’re going to beat the charges if they’re tried together. It’s clear to her, though Tommy’s not going to want to hear it: he’s going to have to testify against Gary.
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