For Good (24 page)

Marydale had not ventured into the yard since her arrival at Holten Penitentiary. Upon hearing of Neiben's confession, she feigned a flu and stayed in her cell, watching the women file past her on their way to meals, watching for the quick flip of Gulu's wrist lest she toss a shiv or some other contraband into Marydale's cell. It had been days since she had eaten a proper meal, but it didn't matter. Her cellmate, Kelso, had not asked any questions and had not offered any confidences, but she had begun sneaking bits of bread in to Marydale, and the woman named Leena had supplied her with packs of ramen, which she ate dry and washed down with tap water.

Then one morning as Kelso left the cell, the guard grabbed the bars before they could swing closed.

“Get up, Rae,” the man said. “Infirmary's seen you. They say you're fine.”

“Please.” Marydale spoke without moving. “I'm sick.”

“Lots of people are sick. Come on.”

Slowly Marydale lowered herself to the floor. She wished it was the silver-haired guard. She didn't know the man who stood in front of her, his uniform barely disguising his youth.

“Sir,” she said very quietly. “I've got a hearing coming up. It's important. I'm scared.”

“It's prison. Everyone's scared.”

“Please. I'll do my work crew. I just don't want to go out there.” She knew better than to mention Gulu's name.

“Get on,” the man said, turning his eyes away from her.

Reluctantly Marydale moved toward the door. “Do I have to go in the yard?”

The man latched the bars behind her. “Mr. Holten's orders,” he said, his voice taking on a fierceness it had not had before.

Outside, it was still winter. The brown grass was tipped with white, and the air smelled of frost. Marydale gazed up at the low clouds.
Clouds are
God's parade floats
, her mother had often said, but these were not the solid, whipped-cream clouds that looked like castles. These clouds were like paint wiped over graffiti, flat and gray. Marydale walked to the outer edge of the yard, where she could lace her fingers through the links of the fence.

Kristen thought they had a case.
Of course, nothing is ever certain
, she had said, but she had leaned forward across the table until the knuckles of their folded hands touched, the first contact since their stolen kiss.
I've got Eric's testimony in writing, and he's agreed to come to the court.

Marydale took a deep breath. She stared across the brown landscape, a few ribs of snow still visible on the distant hills. In Portland, the
Tristess
would be bobbing against the pier. The distillery would be filled with the damp peat smell of the fermenting tanks. Portland would be thinking about summer: the Rose Parade, the Big Float, the Naked Bike Race, and a hundred tastes of this neighborhood or that neighborhood, all waiting for a sample of Solstice Vanilla to sweeten the twilight.

“Well, well, well. Who came out of hibernation?” a voice said behind her.

Marydale turned.

Gulu had arrived with an entourage. Four women stood with their arms swinging too casually.

“I heard your fancy girlfriend was 'round.” Gulu tucked her hands into the elastic of her sweatpants. “You still think she's going to get you out?”

Marydale scanned the prison deck for the silver-haired guard, but besides the guards in the towers—invisible and armed—the only guard on the yard was a man with a shaved head and tiny, close-set eyes. She'd heard him talking about her behind her back.
I can see why the dykes are out to get her.
She'd wanted to spit back,
I am a dyke
, but she had to walk past him feeling his gaze crawling across her ass.

“Is it true, Scholar? You leaving us?” Gulu asked.

“You told me nobody gets out,” Marydale said. “You said we have a
caul
on us.”

“You haven't been eating.”

“I'm just doing my time.”

“See, I don't think you are.” Gulu took a step closer, her voice quiet and her posture loose. “How would that posh Jane of yours like you with a little cocaine up your pussy, or do you city girls do that already?”

Marydale stepped back, but there was only the fence behind her.

Near the prison building, two women were urging the guard over to the exercise equipment, where another woman lay on the ground, holding her leg.

“Really, Gulu?” Marydale said.

Marydale folded her arms and tipped her chin up. As soon as Gulu threw the first punch, the other women would jump in. It was solidarity and it was cover. To the guards it would look like six women breaking up a fight, but when they stepped away, there'd be no one in the middle. She ran her tongue along the bridge that held her fake tooth in place. At the time, she had barely felt it break off.
Who hit you, Rae?
the guard had asked.
I bit my tongue
. Later, in the bathroom, Gulu had held her for a minute, before shoving her away with a quick benediction.
You're tough, Scholar, and you know not to talk. I like that.

“I looked up to you,” Marydale said.

Gulu snorted. “You should.”

“And now Ronald fucking Holten. What's he paying you?”

“Who said Ronald Holten is paying me anything? I like you, Scholar. I don't want you to leave.”

“Did Holten promise you something if you stuck it to me? Some money on your commissary? A radio?” She looked down at Gulu's sneakers. They were black with white laces like the prison-issue, but there was a little rubber logo stamped on the side. “What are they? Converse? Sketchers? Does it matter? You'd sell me out to Ronald Holten for a pair of sneakers. You're such a badass.”

She knew how the first blow would feel. There was a time when she was used to discomfort. Ranching hurt. Prison hurt. Now her body felt like a soft creature that had tiptoed out of its shell. The prison soap stung her skin. Her back ached from the thin mattress. But if she won her case, it wouldn't matter. If she didn't win, what Gulu did to her would matter even less.

“He probably got them donated by some charity, grabbed them on his way in, and you think you're the big man.” Marydale went on. “Do you know how fucked that is? You think you're so tough.” She didn't want to fight Gulu, but if she couldn't hide from her, it was the only option left. “You can break every rule. Right? You're the one who can get away with anything, but you're going to suck Ronald Holten's dick for a pair of sneakers. And this is what your life has come down to. You think it feels big. You got your vendettas. You think there's something between us. You think this”—she spread her arms wide, inviting the blow—”is something we do.”

She remembered Aldean saying,
You and Kristen Brock. It's epic.
It felt epic, as though she and Kristen were part of all the love stories Marydale had read in the grimy volumes in the Holten Penitentiary library. Romeo and Juliet. Tristan and Isolde. Stephen Gordon and Mary Llewellyn. Only maybe, just maybe, there would be a happy ending this time.

“We have nothing, Gulu. I was a kid who got caught up in the system. I was seventeen. I thought you cared about me. I was scared of you.”

“You'd better be scared of me.”

Gulu balled a fist and rubbed it against her palm and stepped forward. The women behind her didn't move.

“You know what you are outside these walls?” Marydale spoke into Gulu's hot breath. “This is just an ant farm, just a couple little ants running around in a handful of sand. And you think you're something? You were a player back in the day? You weren't even a dyke on the outside. You weren't strong enough to be a dyke. You were just a dumb girl who got caught up with a bad man and did his work for him and now you're doing his time.”

“You don't know anything about my time.”

“They have programs at this prison. You could be learning something. You could be reading or getting a degree or making this place better for some of the girls.”

“Making macramé bracelets with the bugs.” Gulu sneered.

“It'd be better than whatever you're doing here.”

Gulu's fist shot out, but Marydale dodged faster. Gulu hit the fence. Marydale watched her and watched the women behind her. Their heads were cocked. One woman examined a tear on her cuff. Another leaned to her neighbor and said something Marydale could not hear. They weren't going to fight. As if watching their reflection in Marydale's eyes, Gulu stepped back, and Marydale realized she was winning.

“You little…” Gulu began.

A guard's voice called out over the frozen grass. “Rae! Clarocci! Get over here.”

Marydale moved away from Gulu quickly, keeping her distance as they marched to the deck.

A guard approached, his baton in hand, ready to swing.

“Clarocci, that's a shot.”

“Sir!” Gulu protested.

The guard turned to Marydale. “Rae, your hearing got moved up. Court transfer will be here in thirty. Transport manager will have your clothing for court.”

Marydale froze.

“Well, go!” the guard said. “You have a pass, Rae.”

“You'll be back,” Gulu whispered. Then, when Marydale was almost to the door, she called out, “Goodbye, Scholar.”

Marydale was the only prisoner in the transport van. She fingered the cuffs of the suit Kristen had bought her until she felt a button start to loosen. She wished there were someone to distract her. Even an addict coming down in a spray of vomit would have been preferable to the rumble of the engine and the enormity of the thought: she might leave court a free woman, but she might just as easily return to Holten, change back into her prison uniform, and stay. For months…for years, if Gulu had her way.

When they arrived at the courthouse, a van from one of the television stations in Bend had parked outside the courthouse. The guard escorted her in, and Kristen met them in the lobby. She looked beautiful and impeccably coiffed, her soft brown hair swept up into a perfect French twist. She wore a different pair of glasses, their silver frames suggesting a powerful executive more than a sexy librarian. She squeezed Marydale's arm.

Walking into the courtroom, Marydale was hit with a wave of recognition. Here was where it had all happened. She remembered everything: the faux-wood paneling, the wallpaper printed with Grecian columns. It looked like a movie set for a cheap thriller, everything pasted together and painted the color of something it wasn't.

Aldean, Sierra, and her friends sat on one side of the aisle along with Grady, Neiben, and a few other townspeople. On the other side, like parties at a contentious wedding, Ronald Holten and District Attorney Boyd Relington sat in the front row, their backs glowering at her arrival. They had amassed their own small group of locals. One woman sat with her head bowed, one hand raised and the other on a Bible. An old man with a crew cut was furiously writing notes on a legal pad.

“She's here,” someone said. There was a murmur of voices. Someone hissed, “Killer. Pervert.”

Kristen indicated a seat in the front and positioned herself between Marydale and the aisle. “It'll be okay,” she said, but she kept opening and closing the leather portfolio in front of her.

“Who's the judge?” Marydale asked.

Kristen hesitated. “The law is the law.”

“But it matters.”

Kristen put her hand to her own shoulder, as though to ease some tension that had gathered there. “Kip Spencer.”

“Spencer?” Marydale thought she had steeled herself for the possibility of a guilty verdict, but the disappointment she felt at hearing Spencer's name told her nothing could prepare her. “He won't let me out. Kristen, it doesn't matter what the evidence says or the attorney general. You can't hurt a Holten and get away with it.”

“But the attorney general isn't going to respond, and that's a good thing.” Kristen still looked worried, but there was a note of confidence in her voice. “It's you against the state, and the state is represented by the attorney general. If he doesn't respond, it's like their key witness saying it didn't happen. It means the attorney general doesn't think there's a case against your post-conviction relief. He's basically saying you should never have been convicted, and he won't oppose your release if the judge thinks it's right.”

“But Kip Spencer…”

“We have to trust the process. He's sworn to uphold the law.”

Eventually the door to the judge's chambers opened. Judge Spencer appeared, older and thinner but with the same white handlebar mustache. He took a seat behind the bench, looking down at the room.

“All rise,” the bailiff said, and announced the case.

Judge Spencer motioned for them to be seated. “This is an open hearing on the post-conviction relief plea entered by Ms. Brock on behalf of Ms. Marydale Rae. As you know, a post-conviction relief hearing may reduce the original sentence or revoke it entirely. Given that Ms. Rae has already made parole, Ms. Brock is asking that the court void Ms. Rae's sentence and erase her record. The attorney general has chosen not to respond. Ms. Brock, would you like to proceed?”

Kristen rose.

“Today I will show that Ms. Rae received incompetent council that led to her wrongful conviction for the murder of Aaron Holten. We have records here that indicate the police investigation at the time of Aaron Holten's was…ambiguous. Some notes leading up to the final report suggest that Aaron Holten's death was deemed self-defense.” She went on, running through several pages of her report. “Police now say there was no reason to expect that Aaron Holten was at Ms. Rae's house under anything less than free will and that—”

“Get to the point. All this could have been determined at the time of the trial,” Judge Spencer cut in, “or at appeal.”

“And we have the testimony of Mr. Neiben.” Kristen paused.

Relington and Holten eyed Neiben with new interest.

“Today,” Kristen continued, “I will prove that defense attorney Eric Neiben failed to participate in voir dire, failed to mount a defense of self-defense, failed to request the charges be reduced to manslaughter, and did not petition to have vital evidence entered into the record. What is more, Mr. Neiben is here to state that he failed in these duties deliberately and at the behest of Ronald Holten, Aaron's uncle, and that Ronald Holten in fact paid him ten thousand dollars to lose this case.”

“That's bullshit!” Holten stood up. His ruddy complexion paled. “You know it! Throw this shit out, Kip!”

Spencer adjusted his mustache. “Ronald, this is my courtroom.”

“It's lies. Fucking lies! My nephew was a decent man. And she…she lured him into her sick little world and killed him because he wouldn't make a decent woman out of her.”

Kristen shook her head, and the anger Marydale saw in every muscle of Kristen's face calmed her racing heart just a bit. At least Kristen knew the truth.

Relington joined in. “I prosecuted that case. I stand by my record. Just because she hired some big-firm lawyer to represent her—we don't do loopholes around here. You know that, Kip!”

Judge Spencer placed both hands on the table. “Boyd.”

“Kip, the record stands! This is slander!” Holten said.

“Then let it stand. If it stands, it won't matter what we hear from Mr. Neiben.”

“I can't believe you'd listen to this,” Holten fumed.

Judge Spencer slowly shuffled his notes into a stack and pushed them aside. He propped his elbows on the table. “Ron, you know Boyd is a damn good attorney. He's served this county for years, and his father did, too, and his grandfather.” He looked at Relington. “And we know what the Rae girl did, so let's settle this once and for all, hear them out, and decide.”

Marydale wanted to sink her head into her hands.

“Ronald Holten is a good man,” Relington said.

“I know. He ran my campaign,” Judge Spencer said.

“You don't have to hear this petition. You can throw it out,” Relington said.

Spencer ignored him, turning his gaze back on Holten. “I remember, Ron, you said you were glad we elected judges in the state of Oregon. That was the only way to get a fair hearing. We put your name up on this courthouse, and I stand by that. But, Ronald, I know your boys get rough from time to time.”

“That's family business,” Holten said.

“I agree. But fair is fair. I've kept a lot of stuff out of court for you. Now the Rae girl wants to be heard. We're going to hear this petition, and we're going to hear from Mr. Neiben.”

“That man is a liar,” Holten said, backing away from the bench and glancing at the exit. “I'm calling my attorney.”

Kristen touched Marydale's hand.

“You're making a mistake, Kip,” Relington said before following Holten toward the door.

When the door closed behind them, Judge Spencer said, “Now, Mr. Neiben, if you're ready, come forward.”

Neiben walked slowly down the center aisle, his feet barely lifting off the worn carpet. He took the stand like a man on the gallows.

“I am.” He wiped his forehead, then rubbed his hand on his pants.

“How are you related to the case?”

“I was Marydale…Ms. Rae's public defender.”

“And in that capacity, did you do your due diligence to effect a positive outcome for Ms. Rae's case?”

Neiben looked around the courtroom. Marydale felt his gaze dart away from her. Above Judge Spencer's head the wall clock froze between seconds. Eric Neiben was going to lie. Marydale's head throbbed. Her ears rang. She wondered if the adrenaline coursing through her body could actually poison her. There was no proof. There was no paperwork. No one wrote a receipt for a bribe. Neiben would say no, and the judge would believe him.

Then Kristen would clutch her hand, not knowing when they would touch again, or maybe she would just look down at her papers. Neither of them would cry. It was all too big, too final. Kristen, Portland, the distillery, the
Tristess:
Marydale felt it all slipping away. In their place was a cell and then life in a county where she'd be lucky to find someone willing to rent her a filthy apartment at double the price because no one wanted a felon living around decent, law-abiding citizens.

She hung her head. The second hand strained, then clicked forward. Neiben cleared his throat.

“I took a bribe to lose Marydale Rae's case,” he said.

Marydale looked up sharply. She waited for a clue that she had misheard. Kristen
mouthed,
Yes
.

“And who offered you that bribe?” Spencer asked.

“Ronald Holten.”

“How do you know it was him?”

“I met him. He gave me five thousand dollars in cash before the case went to trial and again after Marydale was convicted. My daughter was…She'd been in an accident. We needed the money.”

“Can you describe how you perpetrated this fraud on the court?”

Eric Neiben took an index card out of his shirt pocket and proceeded in a monotone. His explanation took a long time. “Any good defense attorney would have called for a 
forum non conveniens
…have investigated the police department's reports on the case…”

While Marydale did not understand all the terminology, she understood the story.

“Intent was determined based on Ms. Rae's alleged invitation…Her seduction of Aaron Holten was no more than hearsay…If she had taken the stand…”

When Neiben had finished, Spencer asked, “I find it hard to believe that Mr. Holten specifically told you to lose. He's a man of his word and a pillar of this community.”

Neiben checked his index card. “He said he wanted the right result. He made it really clear what that was.”

“Do you think you achieved the right result?”

Neiben's voice grew rough. “I always thought Marydale was the victim, not Aaron.”

“That is also what your written testimony suggests,” Spencer said. “Mr. Neiben, you may sit down.”

Kristen stood up quickly. “Your Honor, may I question Mr. Neiben?” Kristen asked.

Judge Spencer held up his hand. “I think you've done enough, Ms. Brock.”

“Your Honor, I have a right to—”

“Hold your horses, Councilor. Sit down.” Judge Spencer took out a laptop from beneath his table and typed something.

“I will file a due-process complaint,” Kristen said.

Marydale felt Kristen clutch the back of her chair.

Judge Spencer closed his laptop and propped his elbows on the table in front of him.

“Ms. Rae?” he began, looking directly at her.

“Yes, sir?”

“Stand up when I'm talking to you.”

Marydale stood up.

“Aaron Holten was a young man. He wasn't a perfect man, but he was a young man with a future ahead of him, and you took that from him. He never had a chance to raise a family, to carry on his name, to make amends. Do you understand what that means?”

Marydale lifted her chin, feeling her hair drape over her shoulders, unkempt but golden. She could feel Trumpet's saddle beneath her.
If you lose
, she heard her mother whisper,
you ride out tall.
She took a deep breath. She knew what happened in courts, in jails, in prisons, in one parole office after another.

“Yes, sir,” she said.

“And your…ways, your life choices, made it very difficult for some people in this town to accept you. You can't burn a flag or spit on a Bible and not expect someone around here to step in and say that's just plain wrong.”

“I would never burn our flag,” Marydale said. “And I would never defile a Bible.”

“Oh, I think a lot of people would say you already have, Ms. Rae…metaphorically speaking.”

Judge Spencer paused, looked at his laptop, then hit one more key. “But,” he added with a sigh. “The law is the law, and I am sworn to weigh the facts and make just findings given the evidence presented.”

He looked past Marydale to the small group of people assembled behind her. “And while I know there isn't one father or uncle out there who wouldn't do what Ronald Holten did to get justice for that boy, I find substantial denial of Ms. Rae's constitutional rights. On account of her attorney's failure to provide effective council and in light of Mr. Neiben's confession of tampering with the court, I hold the original verdict in the
State of Oregon v. Marydale Rae
void. Ms. Rae, your post-conviction relief is granted. You are released from your obligations to the state. I will draft my official statement by the end of the week. You are now free to go.” He nodded to the transport guard from the penitentiary. “I have alerted Holten Penitentiary that you will be returning without Ms. Rae.”

The guard rose, thanked Judge Spencer, and walked out. The judge gave a curt nod and stood up. A moment later he had disappeared into the judge's chambers. The court was silent.

“Is that it?” Marydale asked. She was waiting for Spencer to reappear, to say that there was an exception, a loophole, a technicality. She was still guilty. Holten Penitentiary owned her, and they were taking her back