The Murderer's Daughters (39 page)

“Me, too?” Ruby asked. “Can I get a toy?”

“Anything you want, sweetheart.” Buying happiness for my children sounded like an excellent choice today.

Audra’s youngest daughter, Traci, smelled of stale cigarette smoke. She clutched my arm as I tried to back away from her mother’s bed. Audra’s vital signs had plummeted in the last few hours. The family waited for the on-call oncologist, a man they’d met only once before.

“Please, Doctor.” Traci pinned her light blue eyes to mine. “Stay until he comes. He’s so difficult to speak with; he intimidates everyone. You’re the only one Mom trusts.”

“Stop, Traci,” Audra’s reedy voice broke in. “You’re being rude.”

“I’m not being rude, Ma.” She wrapped her hands around the steel bed railing. “You tell her, Owen,” she said to her brother.

Audra’s children visited in rotation. She had so many I hardly remembered their names, but I remembered Traci, the intense one.

Owen rose from the molded plastic chair he claimed on each visit. Owen resembled his father as I imagined he’d been before the cancer. Ruddy. Widely built.

“Calm down, Trace.” He put an arm around his sister. “Doctor Winterson, it would mean the world to us if you saw your way clear to help us speak to this new oncologist.”

He looked at Audra with a sad smile. “You give my mother hope and will.”

I waited for Audra to tell Owen to stop, let the busy doctor go. Instead, her watery blue eyes pleaded as life leaked from her.

I bent close to her. “Audra, what is it you want?”

Audra’s papery palm slipped against mine. With tremendous effort, she pulled herself up, bringing us closer to eye level. “You’re my lifeline.”

I’d see if Merry could pick up the girls.

I watched Ruby and Cassandra through the window of the courtroom’s child-care center. Cassandra read a Bugs Bunny book to a toddler, giving the girl little kisses on the top of her head as she turned the pages. Ruby rolled a green speckled ball back and forth between twin toddler boys, clapping each time one caught it.

These girls owned me.

After picking them up an hour ago, I’d had an unavoidable meeting. To head off my nieces’ complaint that they weren’t babies who needed a playroom, I’d asked them to help the child-care counselors, leaving a box of cheap, sugary donuts, the kind Drew and Lulu never allowed in the house, as incentive.

The drop-in center had opened only a few months before. Plastic push toys still gleamed, and the jigsaw puzzles were still complete. Community for Peace had fought for the playroom, tired of seeing children watch their mothers and fathers stand, sometimes defiantly, sometimes shamefully, in front of the judges.

Colin, in a rare display of humanity, hadn’t blocked the playroom once the community cleared the necessary bureaucratic hurdles. Even he hated watching the kids standing still and stiff in their tiny pressed shirts and dresses, as if keeping their clothes neat would help Mama or Daddy. On the other hand, maybe he just hated seeing kids, period. Having the child-care center kept them out of sight. Either way, we got the place.

I blew kisses through the playroom glass before going in to get my nieces. “Time to leave.” I carefully shut the door behind me after entering. Having children loose in the court wouldn’t earn me any brownie points.

“Two more minutes?” Ruby pleaded.

Cassandra glanced up from the book she was reading, giving me a quite-grown-girl expression, which I interpreted as meaning, only a few pages to go.

I perched on a child-size wood chair and watched the girls, who looked so serious, so lovely, that I wondered if I’d been wrong in nagging Lulu to tell them the truth. Perhaps you could bury the past and live with it. Look at my nieces, so sweet and helpful.

The girls enjoyed playing miniature grown-ups, but, unlike Lulu and me, they’d never have to face actually living out the roles. Maybe if I stopped worshiping the truth, they could remain innocent. Maybe I hadn’t been thinking of Ruby and Cassandra all these years. Maybe I just hadn’t wanted to be alone with Dad.

I should take a lesson from Lulu. Compartmentalize. Lock my father in a box. I still hadn’t responded to his letter. Next week I’d go to Richmond County Prison. I’d take care of him, but keep him away from the girls. I’d protect them from the ugliness. I could control my father if I had to. If he wanted my help, he was going to need to give up all this “my granddaughters” crap.

Cassandra closed her book and lifted the little girl off her lap. “Come on,” she called to Ruby. “Aunt Merry’s waiting.”

“Just because you’re done doesn’t mean I am.” Ruby shook her head. Her unraveling braids flew around. “I promised we’d play ten rounds.”

I sent a pleading look to Asia, the center director.

“Don’t worry, Ruby,” Asia said. “Now’s quiet time anyway.”

I didn’t want my sister finding us here. Not that I’d make the girls lie. I just didn’t want Lulu having to search for us.

Ruby handed Asia the ball. “It’s Kenny’s turn,” she said. She picked up her book bag and turned to me. “Can we come here again? Could I get a job here? Not for money, just like a helper.”

Cassandra rolled her eyes. “Sure, Mom will let you work here.”

“It’s nice that you want to help, honey, but you’re a little young,” I said. I steered the girls toward the probation department. “Regulations wouldn’t permit it.”

“Or Mom,” Cassandra said.

“Speaking of Mom,” I said. “Let’s get back to my office before Mom comes. She promised she’d be here before my next meeting.” I had to appear before the judge with an out-of-compliance client, and I couldn’t worry about the girls during that time. I glanced at my watch, praying Lulu wouldn’t be late. This particular judge was a stickler, and this particular client was a pain in the butt.

“Will she be mad if we’re not waiting for her?” Ruby asked.

“Not mad,” I said. “But possibly a little worried.”

When we got to my cubicle, I cleared a space at the edge of the desk opposite from where I sat. “Read or do your homework.” I checked my watch. “Mom should be here in ten minutes.”

“I’m going to draw a picture of Kenny and Sean,” Ruby announced, referring to the twin boys she’d been playing with. “After I finish my homework.”

I pushed a half-eaten box of ginger snaps toward the girls. “Do me a favor. Wait until the ride home before telling Mom about the playroom.”

“Weren’t we allowed to be there?” Cassandra asked.

“She might worry because it’s in a court.”

“Is it dangerous?” Ruby asked. “Criminals are everywhere, right?”

“Yes,” I said. “But policemen are everywhere also.”

“Do killers come here?” Excitement laced Ruby’s question, as though I worked with the glitterati: Murderers! Rapists! Thieves!

“Poor Mom’s always worried. Probably because your parents’ dying makes her scared,” Cassandra told me in a confidential tone.

“Maybe we shouldn’t tell her about the playroom, then.” Ruby knelt on the wooden office chair, leaning over her homework sheet.

“It’s okay not to tell her,” I said. “But you can’t lie.” Explaining sins of omission versus sins of commission seemed a little sophisticated, but I hoped they got the point.

“Aunt Merry, how much is twelve times twelve?” Ruby asked.

“Isn’t that supposed to be your homework?” I shuffled through papers until I found the report I needed.

“I did it. I just want to see if I’m right.”

I took the paper from Ruby. “You got it, honey.”

“Hey.
Mizz
Zachariah.”

My client, Victor Dennehy, stood in the doorway. “Who are the kids?”

“What are you doing here, Victor?” I rose to head him off. His date with the judge was in an hour. “You’re supposed to meet me in the courtroom.”

The moment I got close, I smelled the alcohol. His hooded eyes belied his casual stance. I’d seen Victor earlier in the week, and we’d gone over his awful recent record. He’d missed every session I’d put as a condition of his probation: AA, batterers’ intervention, NA, a parenting course. He’d had two dirty urines. Then I’d received a call from his frightened girlfriend telling me he’d started smacking her around again.
Get him cleaned up,
she’d begged.
For the baby.

“Why you got to disrespect me?” Victor spoke in his Boston brand of white-kid-speaking-tough-black. A traditional Irish scally cap covered his rusty brown hair. The guards would have made him take the hat off when he came in. He’d probably shoved it in his pocket, putting it back on the moment he was out of their sight. Last week I’d had to ask him to remove it twice.

“I have to be to court”—he whacked his right hand into his left— “because of you.”

“Calm down, Victor. We can talk in just three minutes.” I pointed toward the hall. “Wait in the lobby, okay? Three minutes.”

“Fuck that.”

I prayed someone had heard him swear and would call security.

“Victor, I have children here. Three minutes.”

“They yours?” Before I could answer, Victor laughed. “Pretty stupid, bringing your kids here. And you say I’m stupid.”

“I never said you were stupid, Victor.”

“Yeah, you did.” Victor looked as though he might cry.

His mood was swinging from one end of the spectrum to the other. Drunk, high, or both? I chose my words carefully. “I said not going to your programs was a stupid thing to do. Not you. You’re anything but stupid. You’re a smart kid. That’s how I know you’ll go wait for me.”

“Why you wanna send me to jail? I can’t go back.”

Victor, though wide, was short. I grabbed his eyes with mine. “Of course not. We’ll talk about it. Soon. Like I said.”

“You should talk to me now.” Victor marked each word by hitting the wall. “Not be babysitting.”

“I hear you.” I moved left, blocking my office entrance as much as I could.

He rolled his shoulders and filled his chest. “Did you know I got a court date in an hour?”

“I know that.” I turned for a moment and saw Cassandra and Ruby standing statue-still. I should have left them in the playroom. “I’ll be with you.”

“Can’t you make it go away?” he pleaded. “Can’t you make them cancel it?”

I nodded and made my voice sympathetic. “Okay, I’ll tell the judge you’re doing better.”

“Do you promise?”

“Of course I promise.”

“And I won’t go to jail. For sure?” Victor’s voice shook. His chubby cheeks made him appear younger than his twenty-two years.

“For sure.”

“My girlfriend’s always worried about the baby. Who’ll support her? Support the kids. And my mother will kill me if I go away again.”

“I hear you.” I couldn’t help but have some compassion for this screwed-up kid thinking his mother would be angry with him. I imagined her, tough, with thinning hair and a widening middle, her looks murdered by pregnancies, booze, and worry.

“You got to promise,” Victor begged in a loud voice.
Good, be loud,
I thought.

The office door next to mine opened. Paul Lunden came out. Bald, three hundred pounds, and fond of pink Brooks Brothers shirts. No one missed Paul or ignored him. “You okay, son?” he asked Victor as he lumbered over.

“I’m not your son, spook,” Victor said, stumbling a bit as he spoke. “Now you really fucked it up, Ms. Zachariah, calling over your boy.”

Victor was drunker than I’d thought. Coked up, also, I’d bet.

Paul put his hands up, taking the one-down position. “We can talk this over. Don’t want to say things you’ll regret, do you?”

“Faggot,” Victor said and spit. He slammed me out of the way and pushed his way into my office. Grabbing Ruby by the arm, he swung her in front of him. “You going to talk to me, Ms. Zachariah? Do I have to wait now?”

Ruby screeched as his hand closed around her little arm.

“Aunt Merry!” Cassandra screamed. “Help her.”

“You’re hurting me,” Ruby cried.

“Shut up.” The warning seemed meant for all of us. Victor held Ruby with his left hand and circled her throat with his right. “Otherwise I’ll snap her neck.”

I took a step. “Victor, let her go. We’ll see the judge. I promise.”

“Sure. I bet. The minute I let go, that fat asshole will be all over me.” He pointed his chin at Paul. “You get the judge down here now with something guaranteeing I won’t be in jail. In writing. And I want my lawyer. Otherwise you’ll be taking home one dead kid.”