Black-Eyed Susans (36 page)

Bill appears with two St. Pauli Girls in his
hands. I want to think this means he took note of my favorite beer and stocked it.

“In case you’re
wondering,” he says, gesturing with his beer, “I’m a squatter. My dad
enjoys flipping town homes after retirement, which I guess is better than playing
baccarat at Choctaw. My mother decorates. So I’m just here making it look lived in
until it sells.” He takes a swig and settles on the couch directly across from
me.

“I have to confess,” he says.
“Kayley called to warn me you were coming.”

“So you could get your gun out.”
I smile.

“Well, it wouldn’t be the first
time,” he says.

I switch the subject back to Terrell.
“How many times have you won a reprieve in a death penalty case?”

“A reprieve? Five or six. That’s
the real goal most of the time. To extend life as long as possible, because if
you’re sitting on Death Row in Texas, you are most likely going to die on that
gurney. I’ve only worked one case with a Capra-esque ending. Angie was the lead. I
don’t do this full time. But you know that.”

“That one time … you must have
been … elated,” I say.

“
Elated
isn’t exactly
the right word. It doesn’t change that the victim died a horrible death.
There’s a family out there who might always feel like we set a killer free. So
I’d say, more like very, very,
very relieved. Angie insisted we
did our high-fiving in private.” Bill pats the side of the couch. “Come
here. You’re too far away.”

I get up very slowly. He pulls me down into
his arms and drags a kiss along my mouth. “Lie down.”

“I thought this wasn’t a good
idea.”

“This is a very good idea. We’re
going to sleep.”

The fierce pounding rocks both of us
upright and fully awake.

Bill jumps from the couch, leaving me
gracelessly sprawled against the pillows. He’s already peering through the
peephole before my feet touch the floor. In a second, I’m beside him. “Go
into the kitchen,” he orders, “if you want to keep us a secret.”

I don’t budge, and he turns the
knob.

I’m blinded by lime green. A ski
jacket meant to stand out to rescue helicopters on a snowy slope. Jo’s head is
sticking out of it. She pushes her way into the room like she’s been here
before.

She’s quickly figuring out what my
presence means. “Tessa? Why …?” She shakes her head. “Oh, never
mind. It doesn’t matter. You should know, too.”

“Know what?” I’m awkwardly
smoothing my hair.

“About Aurora.”

“Is something wrong? Is she
hurt?”
Or dead?

“No, no. It’s her DNA. We found
a match. It’s bizarre.”

“Come on, Jo. What’s up?”
Bill, impatient. Watching my face.

“We have a DNA match from Aurora to
the fetal bone from the Black-Eyed Susan grave. They shared the same father. They would
have been half-sisters.”

“A DNA match to … Lydia’s
daughter?” Bill is asking the incredulous words while I’m trying to catch
up. To let go of the picture of Lydia and a high school boy in a naked tangle.

Lydia slept with the killer. Or she was
raped.

I’m the one with the answers,
a Susan whispers.

Bill’s phone begins
to bleat. He pulls it out of his pocket, annoyed, and glances at the screen. His face is
suddenly locked down.

“I have to take this.” He points
a finger at Jo and me. “Hold off saying more until I’m off the
phone.”

Jo guides me by my elbow back to the couch.
The Susans are whispering very low, like the wind humming through that tiny hole in my
tree house.

That night, the Susans come to me in my
sleep. They are frenzied, running around, a blur of youthful limbs and bright swirling
skirts, more alive than I’ve ever seen them. They are searching for my monster in
every nook and cranny as if their mansion in my head is about to explode. As if it is
for the very last time.

They are shouting and cursing at each other,
at me.

Wake up,
Tessie!
they are shrieking
. Lydia knows something!
They are spreading
out like Army men. Opening and slamming closet doors, tearing off bedcovers, dusting
cobwebs off chandeliers, ripping weeds out of the garden. Merry, sweet Merry, is falling
to her knees to beg God’s mercy.

A Susan calls out.
Over here! I’ve
found the monster!
She’s telling me to
hurry, hurry, hurry
because she can’t hold him down for long.

I teeter on the edge of consciousness. The
Susan is planted on top of him, her red skirt swirled over his body like blood. She is
using every last bit of strength to twist his neck around so that I can see. A worm is
gyrating out of his mouth. His face is caked with mud.

I wake up sobbing.

My monster is still wearing a mask. And
Lydia knows exactly who he is.

MR. LINCOLN
: I think
we’re all done, Ms. Bell. Thank you for your testimony. I’m sorry it’s
been a difficult day for you.

MS. BELL
: It wasn’t
difficult. I have one more thing. It’s about Tessie’s journal.

MR. LINCOLN
: I wasn’t
aware she had a journal.

MR. VEGA
: Objection. I know
nothing about this journal. It is not in evidence, your honor, and I don’t see its
relevance.

JUDGE WATERS
: Mr.
Lincoln?

MR. LINCOLN
: I’m
thinking.

JUDGE WATERS
: Well, while
you’re thinking, I’m going to ask the witness a few questions.

MR. VEGA
: Objection. I
believe you are overstepping a little here, your honor. We only have this
witness’s word that it exists.

MR.
LINCOLN
: I believe I have to object as well, your honor. I’m walking a
ledge just like Mr. Vega here, not knowing its contents.

JUDGE WATERS
: Thank you for
your united interest in pursuing the truth, gentlemen. Look at me, Ms. Bell. I need you
to speak very generally. Did you bring up the journal because you think there is
something in it pertinent to this trial?

MS. BELL
: Most of it was
running times, personal stuff. Sometimes she’d read to me from it. A fairy tale
she made up. Or show me a little sketch she did. Or …

JUDGE WATERS
: Hold on, Ms.
Bell. Did Ms. Cartwright let you read her journal?

MS. BELL
: Not exactly. When
she was acting funny, I would, though. And I’d go through her purse or drawers to
make sure she wasn’t hoarding Benadryl and stuff. That’s what best friends
do.

JUDGE WATERS
: Ms. Bell, I
need you to answer my question with a yes or a no. Do you believe there is something in
the journal that is pertinent to this trial?

MS. BELL
: That’s hard
to say but, you know, like, I wonder. I never read the whole thing. I skimmed. We used
to do our journals together. It was one of our things.

JUDGE WATERS
: Do you know
where Tessie’s journal is?

MS. BELL
: Yes.

JUDGE WATERS
: And where is
that?

MS. BELL
:
I gave it to her psychiatrist.

JUDGE WATERS
: And why did
you do that?

MS. BELL
: Because it had a
picture she drew when she was blind of a red-haired mermaid jumping off her
grandfather’s roof. You know, killing herself.

Flowers are restful to look at. They have neither
emotions nor conflicts.

—Lydia, age 15, reading the words of Sigmund Freud
while lounging on her father’s boat, 1993

Effie is standing on my front porch holding a
lumpy brown package. Her flimsy robe is billowing out behind her. The neighborhood is
dead asleep, except for us and a few streetlights. Before she knocked, I was wide awake
trying to read
The Goldfinch
but thinking about Terrell.

Three days left.

“I forgot to give you this
earlier.” Effie plops the package into my arms. “I saw some girl in a purple
dress drop it off. Or maybe it was a handsome man in a suit. Anyway, I saw it on your
front porch this afternoon. Or yesterday. Or maybe a week ago. I thought I should bring
it in for you.”

“Thank you,” I say,
distracted.

Tessie
scrawled on the front. No
stamp. No return address. It feels squishy, with something stiff in the middle.

Don’t open it.
A Susan,
warning me.

I cast my eyes past Effie, onto the dark
lawn. I survey the lumps of bushes crouching between our property lines. The shadows
dancing to a tuneless rhythm on the driveway.

Charlie is at a sleepover. Lucas is on an
overnight date. Bill is at the Days Inn in Huntsville because Terrell begged him.

Effie is already floating back across the
yard.

This is not my best friend.

This is a thing, with a Bozo the Clown wig
and a slack face and tubes running everywhere like an insane water park except the water
is yellow and red.

I’m holding Tessie’s hand and
squeezing it, timing every squeeze by my watch, because her Aunt Hilda told me to.
About every minute,
she said.
We want her to know we’re
here.
I’m trying not to squeeze the part of her hand where the bandage is
turning a little pink. I overheard a nurse say Tessie’s fingernails were ripped
out, like she was trying to claw her way out of a grave. They had to pick yellow flower
petals out of the gash in her head.

“It can take like eighteen months for
toenails to grow back,” I say loudly, because Aunt Hilda said to keep talking
because
we don’t know what she can hear
and because I’d already
reassured Tessie that her fingernails will only take six months.

As soon as I heard Tessie was missing, I
threw up. After twelve hours, I knew for sure something evil got her. I started writing
what I’d say at the funeral. I wrote how I wouldn’t ever again feel her
fingers braiding my hair or see her draw a lovely thing in about thirty
seconds or watch her face go animal when she runs. People would have cried when they
heard it.

I was going to quote Chaucer and Jesus and
promise I’d devote my entire life to looking for her killer. I was going to stand
at that pulpit in the Baptist church and throw out a warning to the killer in case he
was listening because killers usually are. Instead of saying
Peace be with you,
people were going to flip around in their pews and give each other jumpy stares and
wonder from now on what exactly was living next door to them. There’s a knife in
every kitchen drawer, pillows on every bed, anti-freeze in every garage. Weapons
everywhere, people, and we’re ready to blow. That would be my message.

Tessie thinks humans are basically good. I
don’t. I’m dying to ask if she thinks evil is an aberration now, but I
don’t want her to think I’m rubbing it in.

The monitor over the bed is screeching for
the hundredth time, and I jump, but Tessie doesn’t move. I feel like my hand is
squeezing a piece of mozzarella cheese. It hits me full blast for like the tenth time
that she’ll never be the same. There’s a bandage on her face that’s
hiding something. She might not be pretty anymore, or funny, or get all my literary
references, or be the only person on earth who doesn’t think I’m a total
ghoul. Even my dad calls me Morticia sometimes.

The beeping
won’t stop.
I
punch the call button
again.
A nurse swings open the door, asking me if an
adult is coming back in soon. Like
I’m
a problem.

I don’t want to be dispatched to the
waiting room again. There are a million people in there. And Tessie’s track coach
was driving me crazy. Repeating how lucky it is that the
calvary
got to Tessie
in time.
Calvary is where Jesus died on the cross, you moron.
I tell the story
to Tessie again, even though I already did a few minutes ago.

Tessie’s eyelids flutter. Except her
Aunt Hilda warned me her eyes do that regularly. It doesn’t mean she’s
waking up.

I picked out Tessie in second grade, the
instant I sat down at the desk next to hers.

I squeeze her hand. “It’s OK to
come back. I won’t let him get you.”

I close the door. Finger in the security
code.

Turn around and almost stop breathing.

Merry’s face is pressed into the
mirror’s reflection on the wall.

She’s trapped on the other side of the
glass, just like the night she pressed her face against the car window in the drugstore
parking lot. How much effort it must have taken for her to throw herself up from the
backseat, half-dead, half-drugged, gagged with a blue scarf, one last-ditch effort to
hope that someone like me would happen along to rescue her. Of all the Susans in my
head, Merry’s the least needy, the least accusing. The most guilty.