To Die For (27 page)

I’m planning to write a letter to Billy Joel too. Thinking maybe he’d be interested in writing a song about my story. Or maybe even do a benefit concert for costs incurred in my defense. I also wrote to Walter Cronkite and enclosed that picture from the paper of me holding Walter when he was just a puppy. We figured he’d get a kick out of that. I won’t be surprised if I hear from him any day now.

W
E WENT TO THE
bail hearing of course. Not that anything we can do now dulls the pain of losing our son. But you wanted to look her in the eye. You wanted the judge to see you sitting there, so he couldn’t forget for a moment this human being that got snuffed out at the age of twenty-four had a mother and a father who loved him with all their hearts, and now those hearts are broken. You didn’t want to let him get away with thinking, for even one second, that maybe our son’s life didn’t matter so much as her precious rights, her precious freedom, innocent until proven guilty, and all that. You knew her lawyers were going to talk about the injustice of keeping her locked up all those months, while the state prepared its case. When the judge heard those remarks, we wanted him to be looking at us, sitting there. Talk about the pain of having to go to jail, I’ll give you pain. The pain of going to the cemetery and putting flowers on your boy’s gravestone. Pain of walking through the door of the restaurant, still expecting to see him standing there whistling as he polishes the bar. Let the judge see that with his own eyes.

I tried to concentrate on what the DA said, but my mind kept wandering. I know he said something about the gold chain showing up at the pawn shop. The tattoo. A kid that saw Suzanne driving with the Emmet boy one time. Position of the body on the carpet. Didn’t fit the MO of a burglary. And why didn’t these so-called burglars take the TV set?

The big news was the tape of course, of what Suzanne said to Lydia that day at the mall, when the police had her wired for sound. We were so sure once that came out Suzanne would be nailed for good. I looked over at Suzanne’s mother when it got to the part about her saying “send us to the fucking penitentiary for the rest of our lives.” I wanted to scream, “Still think your little girl is such an angel, Earl?” But of course I held my tongue.

It was what happened next that did me in. Her lawyers moving in on some technicality about the way the girl got Suzanne over to the mall in the first place. I started to go dizzy at this point, but it had to do with crazy things, pointless things, how she phrased her questions, the way she put it when she mentioned the gun. Next thing you know one of Suzanne’s high-price lawyers is making a motion to rule the tape as inadmissable evidence on the grounds of entrapment. Next thing you know the judge is doing it. Bail granted. $200,000. That’s when Joey had to carry me out of the courtroom, but our daughter tells us the Stones approached the bench after that, turned over the deed to their home—which believe me, is well over the $200,000 mark.

My husband and I were long gone by the time the court adjourned, but we watched it on the news that night. Her walking out the door of the courthouse, free as a bird, and smiling like she’s about to start giving the weather report. She stops to talk to a reporter that’s sticking a microphone in her face. “Today’s decision to grant me bail only reaffirms my faith in the American justice system,” she said, and blah blah blah. “I want to thank all the wonderful people whose thoughts and prayers have sustained me during these trying times. The first thing I’m going to do when I get home? Walk my dog.” You wanted to throw up.

“How do you plan to spend the months ahead, as you await your trial?” says the reporter.

“I know my husband would have wanted me to go on with my life,” she says. “My lawyers and I will be busy preparing our case, naturally. And then, there have been so many television and movie offers to consider. There just aren’t enough hours in a day.”

I
’M NOT WORRIED
about myself. I know the truth will eventually be heard, and I’ll be able to put this ridiculous chapter of my life behind me. I’m a fighter. But how do you explain a thing like this to your dog? Nobody ever thinks about people’s pets in a situation like this, but dogs have feelings too. Can you imagine how traumatic it was for Walter, when I was being held in jail? If you want to talk about a crime, I’ll tell you one: Animals have no rights in this country.

I have to do something about my hair. The roots are growing in. It looks unbelievably gross. I mean I’m a natural blonde and all, but I help it along. And now with all this business, I haven’t been able to do a thing with it. I’ve got to pick myself up some L’Oreal.

Looks aren’t everything. But let’s be realistic. When you meet someone, and she’s covered with acne or she weighs three hundred pounds or something, do you feel the same about her as when you meet someone that takes care of herself, and has a pleasant appearance? There’s a saying my mother passed on to my sister and me. “You never get a second chance to make a first impression.” I’ll always remember that. I’ve been meaning to cross-stitch it on a sampler or a pillow or something. It’s one of those things that really gets you thinking, you know?

With me for instance. Quite frankly, I know one of the things I have going for me is my appearance. When people see a photograph of a nice looking person in the paper, they’re naturally going to think to themselves, Wait a second. She doesn’t look like the type to get into this kind of trouble. She looks like somebody we’d like to have living next door. I mean, why would a person that has everything going for them do something like they accuse me of? It just wouldn’t make sense.

Of course, there’s always that other element. The bitter ones.

The ones with the acne and the three hundred extra pounds themselves, that always wanted to be a cheerleader or attain some other kind of goal like that, but they never managed to. There used to be girls like that at my high school, and again at college. The kind that’s so jealous, you know they keep hoping you’ll get a pimple or something. Maybe those people are happy now. Which is another reason why it’s important that I continue to look my best, and not let myself go in any way. Just to maintain my dignity.

I’ve got to pick some things out to wear at the trial. I’m a perfect size six, there’s never any need to try anything on, as long as it’s a good-quality label. A couple of little suits, simple yet elegant. Did you see Diane Sawyer’s interview with Maria Maples? I love that kind of shirt she was wearing. And some little gold earrings, to pick up the highlights in my hair. Once I attend to my roots.

Some people say they’re sure to make a movie about this. If so, I’d like to see Julia Roberts play me. Or that actress that just got married to Tom Cruise in real life—I can’t think of her name. I can picture Harrison Ford as my lawyer. Or Mel Gibson. I was thinking they could have Billy Joel do the sound track. I don’t think he’s ever done a movie sound track before, so he’d probably love it.

I’ve started writing a book about this. Just the other day I came up with a good title.
Chance of Showers.
It would be kind of a play on words, you know, about my being a weather reporter and all. I’d take the profits from my book and establish a fund in Larry’s name for aspiring communications students at Sanders College. My alma mater.

You’ve got to think like that. Keep accentuating the positive. I believe there’s something to be gained from every experience in life. In this case, maybe it’s going to establish my career. Although of course this wasn’t how I’d planned on doing it.

But let’s be honest. Once the trial begins, I’ll be on display in a way. Now I know how people like Madonna and Princess Diana feel. You’ve got to look your best every second. That one moment when you wrinkle your nose or get a piece of spinach stuck on your front teeth or something, you know that’s the moment someone’s going to snap your picture. So you just have to be prepared every second. My video journalism teacher taught me that.

If I were the prosecuting attorney now, I’d get Lydia on a diet. Not that they’d have any luck. I know, because I tried to help her lose some weight myself, and got nowhere. And of course, the assistant prosecutor is not exactly skin and bones herself. Which to me is a sign of a person that simply doesn’t have their life under control. I mean, whose side would you rather be on?

Y
OU WANT ME TO
be all bent out of shape because some college girl got my boy to help her off her old man? You want me to act like I’m so shocked. Let me tell you, it takes a lot to shock me these days.

Where I come from, you shit in a hole in the ground until the hole got all filled up. Then you took out your shovel.

I was one of thirteen myself. My mother was sixteen when I came along, and I wasn’t her first neither. My dad? Who knows.

Christmastime, growing up, they’d come around from the church with these packages people wrapped up for kids like us with labels on them that said “Boy, seven.” or “Girl, ten to twelve.” Year I was six I said I wanted a baby doll. In my package was a baby doll all right. Only had one arm though. “What can you expect,” says my mom. “Watch out for that Santa in the department store. He’s probably just some old man wants to put his finger up your butt.” You think I listened for them reindeer? Who had a chimney?

One thing I was always proud of. My hair. I mean, up until I was ten years old, I had this pure gold hair, clear past my rear, naturally curly. Poor as we were, I always kept that hair clean and brushed. Did without my lunch milk three weeks in a row to buy me a hair bow. I always figured, those rich kids over Lancaster, they might have a million dollars and still they didn’t have hair like mine. You know what I’m saying. It was my special thing, ain’t nobody was going to take that away.

First day of fifth grade, the school nurse does a head check like always. She gets to me and gets this look on her face like she just swallowed a prune pit. “What’s the matter?” I say, but she just writes something down on a piece of paper and says, “Here, take this to your mother.” She don’t know and I don’t tell her that my mother can’t read.

But I can. It says I got these head lice bugs crawling around in my gold hair. Egg sacs too. I got to use this special shampoo every day to kill them. That plus we got to wash all our sheets and towels (well, that’ll take about a minute, I think) and vacuum up the whole house too. And then there’s a long list of other what you call precautions.

Now I don’t want to tell my mother this, knowing how she’ll cuss and scream. Other hand, I got to get these bugs out of my hair. Got to get that shampoo. So I wait and wait, and finally I do it. “Ma,” I says. “I got head lice. We need to get this special shampoo or the other kids might catch it. Maybe they got it already.”

My ma, she don’t say nothing, just goes to get the scissors. I’m hollering “No, don’t cut it,” but she just gets my brothers to hold me down and they go at it, right at the roots. When it’s over, I’m pretty near bald. What’s left, she pours kerosene on that. “There,” she says. “You just let that set a while.”

After a few months my hair started to grow back, but it wasn’t gold no more. Just ordinary brown like everybody else.

It was one of my brothers was the first one to jump me. I couldn’t say which one, it was dark.

Thirteen years old, I start to feel like I got some kind of bugs again, only this time they’re crawling inside me. I lie there on the floor and there’s this wiggling going on in my belly. I didn’t notice no missed period on account of I never got no period in the first place. But my ma figures it out. “You’re knocked up,” she says. She didn’t ask me who done it on account of, whoever it was, it was family, so why bother?

That baby was born dead. Strangled on his cord most likely. I looked at him before they took him away. Spitting image of my brother Arnie, so at least I figured that part out.

Once it happened, seems like it’s only a matter of time before it happens again. Sure enough, maybe four, five months later, I get that feeling again. This time it’s a girl. That’s Regina there. Same one made me a grandma herself when she was just fourteen. Thirty years old and I turned into a grandma. Can you beat that?

After Regina, then comes Russell, so quick I still had Regina sucking on my tit when I’m pushing Russell out. One hungry mouth on one tit, one on the other. Seemed like all I was was a bunch of holes. One to put a dick into, two to take milk out. I could talk about my uncle that liked to do it from the rear to boot, but there’s kids around.

After Russell comes Sheila, then Roseanne, then Clyde—no, then Vera, then Clyde. Clyde had a twin, but there was this woman over in Greenfield that called me up when she heard I had two of them. Said she heard I had an extra I hadn’t counted on—now isn’t that the truth—and would I be interested in talking about maybe seeing my way to letting one of them go to this lovely childless couple she was working for, where the woman had one of those operations that make it so you can’t have no babies. “Where do I get me one of those operations?” I wanted to ask her.

She gave me five thousand dollars cash, so long as I got this blood test showing Babe was the father, and not no brother of mine or nothing. And that was the truth, it was Babe. By that time my brothers was both over at the county farm, so you knew it wasn’t them.

Russell, for some reason he had really took a shine to that little sister of his—Crystal we called her, for the month or two we had her, before they took her away. Search me why, out of all the babies come and go around our place, he had to take a shine to the one that wasn’t sticking around, but that’s what happened.

Day they come for Crystal, he’s sitting on the step holding her. Didn’t cry or carry on or nothing. He just holds her real tight until the lady comes that took her away. Don’t ever let them tell you money don’t matter in this life, I tell him. Money’s behind everything. A person got enough money, they can do anything. Go anyplace. And get away with it.

First time he got arrested was throwing rocks at cars down on the freeway. He was twelve. They sent him to a reform school kind of place for a couple of months. That’s where he learned how to hot-wire a car.