My Sister's Keeper (11 page)

“
IT WAS A NIGHT JUST LIKE THIS,” Martha said wincing as she gazed out at the full moon and pulled her collar tighter around her neck.

“
Are you all right?” I asked kneeling in front of her.

“
No,” she whispered squinching with pain. “I need you to take me home now. I need my medicine.”

“
Why didn’t you say something earlier?” Gripping the chair, I turned her around and started back toward Mom’s house.

“
I try to get along without it as much as I can,” she uttered, no longer able to conceal the pain in her voice.

I lengthened my stride, quickening the pace. The wind was against us now and bit into my skin. “You warm enough?”

She whispered so softly I barely heard it, “Just get me home as quick as you can.”

Martha never complained about anything, even when she should have. I lowered my head against the chill, covered the next three blocks in little more than a minute, and turned left onto the dim, tree-lined road that led back to Mom’s street. The next four blocks were uphill. I arched my back and pressed forward. My legs began to burn by the end of the first block and my arms shook by the time we’d reached the end of the second.

“
Where are we?” she asked, her voice quivering.

“
Halfway,” I grunted.

Martha took short, rapid breaths to ease her pain and I tried to match her rhythm. As we moved under the street lamp at the end of the next block, she twisted further around in her chair and I saw a tear slip down her cheek.

“
One more block to the top of the hill,” I panted.

Pain suddenly gripped me in my right side and I doubled forward trying not to slow down. Martha bit down on the knuckles of her left hand as I twisted sideways to ease my cramp. My legs wobbled and my side burned as though a red-hot iron poker had been shoved into me, but I knew it could never match the pain my sister endured every day of her life.

I could no longer feel my arms and, as we neared the top of the hill, the chair collapsed against my chest. “Almost…there,” I panted.

As we crested the incline, I reached deep inside my soul and pulled out the last steps. “Just…a little…more,” I wheezed.

Turning the corner, I saw several car doors fling open across the street and three men jump out. “Richard Baimbridge?”

I couldn’t stop and I couldn’t answer. The men spread out.

“
Baimbridge! Stop right there!”

I raised my head and looked around. The men crouched twenty feet away with guns drawn. I paused leaning against the chair, but Martha looked up at me, her eyes pleading as tears rolled down her cheeks. I leaned forward and pushed.

“
Baimbridge, stop or I’ll shoot!”

“
Please…” I gasped falling to my knees. “Please…help…”

“
On the ground. Hands above your head.”

Two men jumped me pressing my face to the sidewalk as they cuffed my hands behind my back. Though my wrists were small, the cuffs pinched my skin. I raised my head and saw Sam coming toward me.

“
Sam, please. Get Martha home fast. She’s in pain.”

He took one look at her, then raced her to the house leaving me lying on the sidewalk like a trophy

like a ten-point buck draped across the hood of a 4x4 pickup being paraded around town for everyone to see. A neighbor from down the street glared at me as his car inched past. More police arrived and milled around murmuring to each other. A TV crew showed up, cranked their microwave antenna above the trees, set bright lights on tripods, and began broadcasting live from the scene. More and more lawmen came and soon there were a dozen vehicles parked up and down the street, their colored strobe lights flittering through the neighborhood. It looked like the scene of a major disaster.

Sam returned a half hour later, stood over me, and read me the Miranda rights in front of the neighbors that had gathered to see what had happened. He was so close, I could smell fresh wax on his shoes. Minutes later, they jerked me up and, with every TV station within the city now there to capture the moment—most broadcasting
live
, they shoved me through the crowd to a waiting patrol car. As they jammed me into the back seat, I caught a glimpse of Dad standing far back in the crowd.

While it was a triumphant display of force and victory for the police and a public-relations disaster for me, it was the utmost
humiliation
for my father. As we drove off, I looked back to see him turn from the crowd and head back home. The thing that hurt the most was knowing that he presumed I was
guilty
.

14

A
T POLICE HEADQUARTERS, they moved the cuffs around to the front and escorted me into a room with four metal chairs, a metal table, and what I was sure was a two-way mirror. Forty-five minutes later Sam Jones joined me tossing a thick manila envelope on the table. He had a strange look on his face as he set up a tape recorder on the table and started it recording. He then sat, identified the two of us for the tape, propped his elbows on the table rubbing his face with both hands.

“
I’m going to help you, Richard,” he said, his voice calm, quiet. “I’m going to do everything I can for you.”

“
I appreciate that, Sam. So why am I here?”

He smiled the smile of a man who had the answers to the test before he took it. “I know you did it. Ain’t no sense denying it.”

“
What the hell are you talking about, Sam?”

He rubbed his eyes with his hands. “I’m going to do everything I can for you, Richard. Your sister would never forgive me if I didn’t. But you’ve got to do something for me.”

“
Sam, if you’re trying to get my attention, you’ve got it. Now tell me what’s going on.”

“
It’s over, Richard.”

“
What’s over?”

“
Admit it. You made a mistake. You had one too many drinks. Things got out of hand.”

“
Oh, stop it! I had nothing to do with what happened to Ashleigh. If this is some kind of game you guys play to freak people out when you get them in here, guess what? It’s working. You’re freaking me out.”

“
Ain’t no game, Richard. Everything you do from here out can work for you or against you.”

“
I didn’t do anything, Sam. Whatever happened in that house happened after I left.”

“
You did it, Richard.”

“
I did not!”

“
I told you that I’m going to do everything I can for you, but you’ve got to do something for me.”

“
What? What do you want, Sam? A confession? You want to go home the hero tonight? Is that it? You want things to be easy? Detective work getting a little too hard for you, Sam?” He dropped his hands and looked at me with tired, red eyes and I saw
pity
in them. He was looking at me in the same way Mom looked at Winston—like he really cared for me and wished it wasn’t true. And
that
freaked the hell out of me. “My God, Sam. What’s happened?”

He sighed. “I know you did it.”

“
Are we talking about Ashleigh Matthews?”

“
I know you did it and you know you did it.”

“
You know what, Sam? You’re so full of shit, it’s no wonder you never solved my sister’s case.”

“
Where is it, Richard? What did you do with the body?”

“
And to think I thought police work was all about science now days.”

“
I can’t help you if you don’t help me.”

“
And I can’t tell you if I don’t know, can I?”

“
But you do know, don’t you?” I didn’t answer him. The conversation was going nowhere. “You’re not as smart as you thought you were, are you?”

I sighed. “Did you bring me down here to see if you could badger me into a confession or am I under arrest?”

“
You know that blood on your shirt cuff?” he said looking me in the eye.

“
What about it? I told you how that got there. I showed you the scratches.”

“
It ain’t
your
blood, Baimbridge. Not all of it.”

My brain tried to grasp the meaning of what he’d just said and when it did grasp at least some part of it, there was a momentary shutdown of my entire electrical system followed by a surge that rocked me in my seat.

“
What?”

He leaned across the table and lowered his voice almost to a whisper. “Don’t do that. Don’t act innocent with me. I can see right through it. You know damned well whose blood it is.” My mouth went dry as he unfastened the manila envelope and withdrew a form. “You’re A-positive, Baimbridge. The blood from Ashleigh’s is O-negative. That large spot on the sleeve of your shirt is O-negative. Now you want to tell me what you did with her body?”

“
Jesus Christ,” I whispered. My voice had lost its strength. “I think I need a lawyer.”

He exhaled and wiped his hand across his face. “Yeah, I think you do, too. You got one?”

I sighed. “Joe Forrester.”

Sam ended the interview with a few words into the recorder, turned the machine off, pushed himself up, and swaggered out the door. I cloaked my cuffed hands over my face and tried to think. Whatever had happened in that house must have happened
with me there
. But even drunk, I can’t believe I could have slept through something like that.

Jones opened the door and stood there. “Forrester isn’t answering. We’ll have to stop until he can be here.” He stepped to the side and held the door back. “Come on. A Grand Jury hearing is set for tomorrow morning. If they return an indictment, bail will be set at that time.”

My chest felt as if a flying brick had struck me dead center. They fingerprinted me, took a mug shot, and let me make a phone call to my secretary Lizzy at her home. I asked her to cancel my appointments for the next day and to see if she could get hold of Joe Forrester. My voice had a strange hollow sound to it.

“
Is something wrong, Mr. Baimbridge?”

“
Yes, something’s very wrong. I’ve been arrested.”

There was an extended pause. “Arrested? For what?”

I bowed my head. “It’s a mistake, Lizzy. I want you to keep trying to get Joe if it takes you all night and let him know where I am.”

“
What am I supposed to tell people if they ask?”

A hot flash rose up my neck. I was sure it was all over town already anyway. “Just tell them it’s a mistake.” Again silence. “And Lizzy, if you don’t hear from me tomorrow, you’re going to have to start canceling more appointments.”

The things I was saying sounded more like lines from a script than real life. I spoke in a hushed mechanical monotone. If I’d been playing this role on stage, I would’ve had more emotion. But this was no act.

“
I’ll take care of it,” she said.

“
Thanks.”

They took me to a holding cell on the third floor. The eyes of the other prisoners watched as they walked me in. Blacks, whites, Latinos, old, and young. They watched with sad, hopeless eyes as they removed the handcuffs and locked me in my own cell.

I thought I knew what it would be like to be in jail. I’d seen it in the movies and on TV a thousand times. But what you don’t get on the screen is the smell of it. Urine, alcohol, perspiration, blood, and puke.

And fear.
Fear of the unknown, fear of injustice, fear of not being in control.

Footsteps echoed around the chambers and mixed into the reverberations of men shouting and complaining, iron doors slamming, and the jangle of keys.

Sitting on the edge of a steel cot, I hung my head as my mind raced back through Sunday night over and over. So many things didn’t make sense; the circuit breaker that was turned off and that photo of her kissing me on the cheek

that couldn’t have been an accident. And how the hell did
her blood
get on my shirt?

The reality of what was happening slowly began to sink in. I’d never felt so embarrassed and helpless in my life. My dad was going to disown me. I expected that, but this was going to break my mother’s heart. It might even kill her. And who was going to take care of Martha now?

I collapsed to my knees and wept. The eyes that had watched me so intensely now turned away.

15

P
EARL BAIMBRIDGE SAT on the edge of her daughter’s bed as the Channel 3 News began:
“A local photographer was taken into custody for questioning earlier tonight in the case of missing twenty-three-year-old Ashleigh Matthews.”

Pearl clutched Martha’s hand. “This is going to devastate your father.”

“
Teresa Hedge has more in this live report.”

The picture changed to a female reporter standing in front of Ashleigh’s house holding a microphone.

“
Police arrested Wilmington photographer Richard Baimbridge earlier this evening on suspicion of murder in connection with the case of missing twenty-three-year-old Ashleigh Matthews.”