Thicker Than Water (18 page)

THE WALK BACK TO THE COURTROOM FEELS LONG AND HOLLOW,
like some kind of death-row rehearsal. I realize the death penalty isn't on the table here, but that doesn't mean I can't imagine what it would feel like. I sit in my chair, stiff and unyielding, as Jennifer calls her final witness.

“Medical examiner” is just a nice way of saying “corpse cutter.” As Dr. Jefferies walks up to the stand, I picture him taking a scalpel to my skin and slicing until all my secrets spill out. He's wearing a pale gray suit. I imagine that his lab coat is in the backseat of his inevitably nice car. When he sits down facing me, I look away. Jennifer does the opposite.

“Dr. Jefferies, could you state your job title for the record?”

“Lead medical examiner, Bryson County.”

“Thank you. Now, Mr. Jefferies, you were brought in from a neighboring county as an expert in your field. Could
you please tell the court about your findings regarding the body of Cyrus Price?”

“Based on the autopsy, Cyrus was a longtime intravenous drug user,” Dr. Jefferies begins.

“Objection, Your Honor!” Mason shouts, springing up from his seat. “We're well aware of Cyrus's past mistakes.”

“Sustained.”

“Dr. Jefferies,” Jennifer continues, as though she hadn't been interrupted, “what drugs did you find in Cyrus Price's system?”

And again—“Objection, Your Honor. We've already spoken to a medical examiner. Cyrus Price died of an overdose—no one can dispute that.”

But this time—

“Overruled.”

Jennifer's smile taunts her opponent before she turns back to the witness.

“Dr. Jefferies?” she prompts.

“Cyrus Price tested positive for one narcotic substance—OxyContin. However, he also had promethazine and Xanax in his system.”

“Can you tell us anything about these medications?”

Jefferies nods and I think about veins—the one in his neck is bulging above his collar. I wonder if it has to work harder to keep up with his big brain.

“Promethazine is an antinausea medication. It's often prescribed to recovering addicts to help with withdrawal symptoms.”

“And Xanax?”

“Well, that's typically used for anxiety.”

Jennifer reaches over the defense table and pulls out two bags—one of pill bottles and the other paper.

“I'm submitting these as Defense Exhibits B and C. These are the prescriptions, both the physical bottles and the physician's orders, that Cyrus Price received at the hospital in March, less than a month before his death.

“So, Doctor,” Jennifer continues, turning back around to face the witness stand, “are narcotics usually prescribed alongside equally strong doses of Xanax?”

“Xanax is a benzodiazepine—combined with narcotic medication, it can depress the respiratory system in dangerous ways. It's not unheard of that they be prescribed together, but it would be carefully monitored by a physician.”

“And what if someone took a large dose of narcotics with their benzodiazepine? Could one dose be potentially lethal?”

“It could, yes.”

If Jennifer were a snake like Mason, she'd be coiling now. I can feel the venom, the need to strike. This doctor isn't the enemy, but he is at her mercy.

“Dr. Jefferies, in your expert opinion, what killed Cyrus Price?”

“A drug overdose.”

“And that overdose included all three of the aforementioned medications?”

“Yes.”

“So, would you say that one of those drugs alone would
have been lethal? Or did it take all three drugs to cause that reaction?”

“Objection,” cries a beet-red Bruce Mason. His face is stained with a little fear and a lot of anger. “This is speculation. How could Dr. Jefferies possibly predict a variable other than medical fact?”

Jennifer spins to face her opponent and I picture her in a wrestling match, breaking a folding chair over the back of his expensive suit jacket.

“Because Dr. Jefferies has a medical degree, Mr. Mason. And he's been a medical examiner for over ten years.”

Mason rolls his eyes and turns back to the judge. “Your Honor, we already had a well-respected medical examiner present his findings to the court. I move to have Dr. Jefferies's testimony be stricken from the record on the grounds that it's superfluous.”

The judge looks frustrated, like a parent refereeing an argument between brother and sister. He opens his mouth, then closes it, as though he's considering all options.

“I'll allow Ms. Reinhart to continue, provided that she has an ultimate destination for this line of questioning,” he finally says.

“I do, Your Honor.”

“Then please get to it. Quickly.”

Jennifer faces the doctor again and I swallow hard. My ears pop like I'm at an elevation much higher than this, and I wonder where my body thinks I am.

“Dr. Jefferies, in your opinion, did OxyContin kill Cyrus Price?”

In District Court, the entire room is made of wood. Wood-paneled walls, wooden tables and benches, and my wooden heart, hollow and somehow still thumping.

“I believe Cyrus Price overdosed through a combination of OxyContin, an opiate, and the benzodiazepine Xanax.”

“And do you believe that the quantity of OxyContin—
just
OxyContin—that was found in Cyrus Price's body would have caused an overdose?”

Dr. Jefferies's Adam's apple dives downward toward his collar. I think about the bungee cord it's connected to—his voice rising from his esophagus.

“No. Cyrus Price overdosed because of a drug interaction, not because of a quantity,” he says. “OxyContin alone did not cause his death.”

Today I learned something about the human brain: When a realization blooms, it's nothing like a flower. Instead, it blasts into being like an explosion. It plunders and pillages the environment around it and inevitably leaves a gaping hole of shock in its wake.

IT TOOK ME ALMOST FIFTEEN MINUTES TO FINALLY CALL 911, BUT IT
took less than ten minutes for the police to get to my house. I guess a dead body and a murder confession will do that. I was standing in the living room, staring out the bay window, when the cruisers flew up the driveway, lights flashing and sirens echoing. In the past, when I'd thought about Cyrus and police, I'd always pictured him in handcuffs. I unlocked the front door, then went back downstairs to be with my brother.

There was no knocking, no doorbells. Once they were inside, it took only a minute for officers to fill the first floor, and then the basement. Unsure of what to do, I crouched down behind the couch and waited. Maybe if I was quiet, they'd come in and take Cyrus away without seeing me at all. Maybe they'd be more concerned with the body and less concerned with the pale girl hiding in the corner, the one
who gave her brother the murder weapon in the first place.

They saw Cyrus before they saw me. Two paramedics ran toward his body, calling out directions to anyone who would listen. It was hardly a moment later, though, when two officers noticed me. By the look on their faces, I was something they'd never been able to catch before. I guess criminals don't usually stay at the scene of the crime and wait for law enforcement.

Once they had me on the ground, I saw Cyrus being covered with a white sheet and I was filled with an inexplicable sense of satisfaction. Like our childhood “Rabbit Hole,” it was a barrier to block out the storm. All of a sudden, I was pulled up to standing. Something scratched my knees and ankles.

“Put your hands against the wall,” a female cop said gruffly.

I spread my fingers wide against the drywall and closed my eyes. Arms wrapped themselves around my body and patted me down. It was a reverse hug, the opposite of a warm embrace.

“Got any weapons on you?” the officer asked me.

I shook my head and tried not to wince as the strange hands dove into the pockets of my jeans. It was a whole other kind of robbery. They came out empty-handed and still managed to steal something.

This was the beginning of my new life full of “firsts.”

First time being handcuffed.

First ride in a cop car.

First time I started squinting, trying to blur out reality and blink back tears. I was always a multitasker.

Everything you've seen on TV about interrogation rooms is pretty accurate, except for the lighting. They always look so dark on cop shows; in reality, they're lit up with the same fluorescent lights they've got at Walmart. They make everyone look bloodless.

The man sitting across from me was a detective. Actually, a
D
etective—like, a label that came before his given name. A title more important than his identity. When we arrived at the precinct, he rushed me into this tiny room and left me alone, stewing in brightness and regret. When he returned hours later, he started to grill me in a way that could only be described as clichéd.

“It didn't take us long to figure it out.” Detective is holding my prescription bottle in one hand. He keeps turning it upside down and right side up, letting the little pills rattle like some kind of tuneless musical instrument.

I'd seen enough
Law & Order
to know that I didn't have to answer anything yet.

“I want a lawyer,” I said for the millionth time.

“They're sending someone from the public defender's office. Until then, it's just you and me.”

He stood up and started to pace the room. I sunk back into my thoughts, trying to drown out the sound of the soles of his shoes scraping the floor. I let memories flow through me like water—the farm, the school, the hospital. The settings from my life flashed in my mind like one of those old
seventies viewfinder toys. I started to squint again until the room grew hazy.

“A search of your house revealed some pretty interesting things, Ms. Price. Tampered MRI films with the name changed. A shoe box of cash in your closet. And a bottle of pills you got from over state lines. Not to mention the dead body in your basement. So, tell me, CeCe, how long have you been your brother's dealer?”

I bit down hard on the inside of my cheek and he shook his head.

“We found your prescription next to your dead brother and we've got at least two witnesses who say you've been dealing pills for months.”

I let my lashes sink; they were a curtain call. I was not responsible for an encore. There would be no standing ovation.

And then the door opened.

“I'm Jennifer Reinhart,” a petite woman with dark, would-be-curly-if-it-weren't-so-frizzy hair said to Detective, her voice kind of brusque. “I'm from the public defender's office. Can I have a moment with my client, please?”

Jennifer wasn't what I was expecting, but it didn't matter. She shuffled through some papers and I watched her hands move like tiny birds, floating and flying between files. I wondered what it felt like to be that kind of busy, to feel like you had a goal that was reachable—a goal you could meet on your own.

“Cecelia?” she asked. Her face was a mask of professionalism. I wondered: If I threw something at it, would it shatter?

“I'm Jennifer,” she repeated, as though I hadn't been here when she said it the first time. I nodded and she pushed a sheet of paper across the table for me to read.

“I've been assigned to your case. This paper details the current terms of your arrest and what charges are being filed against you. Do you understand what it says?”

I looked at the charges, listed in order by statute. I read it. I nodded. Detective wasn't bluffing. But this was a list so unlike groceries, I felt that it shouldn't be in list form at all. I imagined something like a telegram—the word
STOP
separating the accusations, trying to undo them again and again.

Jennifer continued talking, but this time her words faded in and out as though we had a bad connection. As if I were driving through a tunnel with no hope of resurfacing.

Some words I heard were:
hearing
,
bail
,
officer
,
Cyrus
,
psychological assessment
,
holding cell
,
placement
,
murder
,
Piedmont
,
behavioral therapy
.

The ones that echoed were:
Cyrus. Cyrus. Cyrus.

Murder. Murder. Murder.

“How long have you been your brother's drug dealer?”
Detective had asked.

“Were you your brother's drug dealer?” Jennifer was asking.

Here's what I knew for sure: There was no place for me to go. There was no place left that wasn't ruined, and the only avenues available to me now had bars on the doors.

I took a deep breath. I squinted again. Off in the distance
I watched my future fade like some kind of dream. Like a mirage I never had a chance of reaching.

“I gave him the pills,” I said. “It's my fault. He's dead because of me.”

County lockup. Yeah. It's as bad as it sounds.

The last time I'd stayed awake for twenty-four hours was when Natalie and I stood in line all night long for concert tickets to our favorite boy band. It had been September and unbearably muggy. Everyone had tents and sleeping bags, but no one really used them. One guy brought a grill and served hot dogs. We all sang a lot.

This was a whole different kind of vigil.

I didn't
choose
not to sleep. I
couldn't
sleep. The factors that prevented it were internal and external. Even my need for sleep battled against itself. On one hand, I just wanted to fall into oblivion and numb out some of this horror. On the other hand, I was absolutely terrified of what could happen to me in this cell while I wasn't awake.

There were two other women with me. Both were drunk. Neither was friendly. One of them was a prostitute who'd been picked up for soliciting. When they locked the cell door behind her, she spit in the officer's face. Which is when I realized what the worst job ever was.

The other woman in the cell kept crying and talking about “Benji,” which I thought was her son, but could have been her dog. None of us were communicating with one another, but we were all communicating outward in our
own way. The woman crying, the prostitute spitting, my staring at the ceiling—I can practically hear the words.
Let me out
, our eyes say.
You don't understand. It's not what you think. I can explain.

But, really, I can't. Explain, that is. Or get out. The white-blue glow of the lights has a faint, high-pitched buzzing emanating around me, and I let it envelop my body like a cocoon of sound.

I know I fell asleep because it was morning when someone walked into the cell and boxed my ears. I sat straight up on the bench and was almost nose to nose with a female officer who looked weirdly like Grandma Jeanie, my dad's mom.

“Up and at 'em, sunshine,” she rasped, her breath warm and syrupy, like the air at an IHOP. “You've got a visitor.”

The glass between the living and the incarcerated is thick enough that it can't really be considered transparent. I mean, I realize I can see Dad sitting there on the other side of the window, his ear pressed to the old-fashioned telephone receiver, but it's almost as though he's a different color or tone or version of himself. And not paler, which is what you'd expect. Instead, he looks full and reddened. Swollen, I guess. I sit in front of him and pick up the phone on my side.

The silence is stereotypically deafening. Or, more accurately, it makes me wish I were deaf.

“Why, Cecelia?”

When you're in jail, be it temporary or long-term, I think there should be a limit on the intensity of the types of questions
you are required to answer. I look at the mottled countertop between us. His side is a little bluer.

“Why what, Dad?”

The thick, resinous mix of pain and shame is practically oozing out of him.

“How could you do this, CeCe?”

What?
I forced myself to look up at him. His eyes, blue and practically rheumy with the echoes of tears, were as shattered as eyes could be.

“Dad—I—I never meant for this to happen. I thought . . . I thought Cyrus was clean.”

“Cyrus WAS clean!” His words took aim and launched right at my face. I was suddenly grateful for the glass.

“Cyrus worked so hard to get over his addiction. You of all people should know that. And you just—you just threw it away. You threw
him
away. Like trash.”

My hurt condensed and frothed and I thought about rabies—about dogs that involuntarily foam at the mouth. I narrowed my eyes.

“I didn't throw anything away. Cyrus threw himself away. And you know what, Dad? You threw him away long before that.”

“Bullshit.” Dad's voice rose to a roar and I felt somewhat chastened at the sound. His broken, raw cry reminded me of all the ways I've tried not to disappoint him and all the ways I failed. I looked down at my hands.

“I can't . . . I don't know what to say, Dad. I screwed up. But I couldn't control Cyrus. No one knows that better than you.”

I wanted to ask him what I was supposed to do now. I wanted to know our next step. In the past, whenever there was a problem, we'd always come to some sort of consensus about how to move forward. There was always a game plan or a company line or a workable approach.

Today, there was nothing but blame. The ones who are blamed don't get to move forward. Not with other people, anyway.

“They assigned me a public defender,” I told him, because I wasn't sure what else to say. Dad sort of nodded, then stared through the glass at my new orange ensemble. I wanted to make a joke about looking good in bright colors. I wanted to say anything that could possibly make him not hate me.

“Please don't hate me” is what I finally came up with.

He didn't say anything for a long time. We both sat there, holding our obsolete phone receivers. Mine had a sticky texture on the side of the handle, as though someone had put tape on there twenty years ago and someone else just decided to peel it off.

In jail, there's a whole list of things you don't get—privacy, decision-making privileges, a balanced diet—but they never say how much you
do
get. Like this, now, this moment I have fingering the nubby glue residue left behind and having the time to ponder its origins. There is nothing, nothing in jail if not time. Endless, empty time. Time that multiplies and breathes and gets bigger. Time that's like an equation without a solution.

Finally, Dad said, “I'm glad they're getting you a lawyer.”

He kicked a leg out to loosen the cuffs of his pants. I couldn't see his legs, but I knew that's what he was doing. It's a trademark move.

“Thanks.”

He was getting ready to stand up, then he looked right at me.

“I don't hate you, Cecelia. I love you in a way I can't possibly describe.”

And my heart blew up and open, the Hiroshima of major organs. It was the last time I believed there was a light at the end of this tunnel.

“I love you, too, Dad—” I began. But he wasn't finished. And I hadn't yet gotten my Nagasaki.

“But no matter what”—he looked around at the painted cinder blocks and the partitions and the nothing—“I know you are here for a reason. This is where you belong now.”

He swallowed.

“I'm just glad your mother isn't here to witness this.”

Direct hit. The impact is immediate and brutal.

After that, I saw things happen, but I couldn't hear them. I knew he hung up the receiver with a clatter and when he pushed back in his chair, it scraped the floor. I knew his boots' rubber soles squeaked on the tile and that the door clicked shut when he left.