Where the River Ends (32 page)

Abbie pushed her feet down into the sand, her toes resting in the water. She took a deep breath and her face relaxed—telling me that she remembered. “Honey…Abbie?” A helicopter sounded in the distance. “Honey…Abbie…” Her eyes fluttered. “We’re here.” I could hear men running toward us in the marsh. Her father’s voice in the background.

She turned toward me and wrapped her arms about my waist. I wiped her face with the scarf but the bleeding soaked through. I cradled her head. Words came hard. “Abbie…?”

She pulled my hand to her face, placing my index finger just above her ear and closed her eyes.

A few minutes later, she was gone.

49

THE FIRST DAY

T
he sun broke through the bars of my cell and landed on my face, warming my skin but little else. It was the same sun that we’d woken to yesterday morning. Bright, lonely and now hollow. The kid next to me chewed on what was left of one of his fingernails while both his legs bounced like popcorn.

A dozen or so men crowded the cell where they held me until my hearing with the judge. Given that it was Sunday, I imagine the judge wouldn’t be too happy about it. Strike one. The kid leaned in. “What ’choo in fo’?”

I hadn’t slept in four or five days, so I pushed the words around my mouth before getting them out. He was skinny, and his eyes never seemed to land any one place.
Where do I start?
“Uh…umm…murder.”

His eyes lit. “You bust a cop?” The walls around me were littered with graffiti, but I don’t know where they got a pencil given the cavity search they had given me before they walked me in here. I shook my head. He spat a nail sliver. “Who?”

A man next to me stood, walked to the wall urinal and peed everywhere but in the urinal. It ran down the wall and trickled into a drain on the floor. “My wife.”

He quit chewing on his finger, his eyes settled on me and then grew wide. “You da dude dey been talkin’ ’bout on TV. You da one done kilt the sen’tor’s daughter. That model.” He snapped his fingers. “The one on all the magazine covers. What her name?”

Most of the faces in the cell turned toward me. I whispered, “Abbie.”

“Yeah, da’s it. You da dude that kill Abbie.” He shouted across the room, “Hey…dis da honkey that shot the swimsuit model.”

“I didn’t kill her.”

He shrugged, legs bouncing again. “Well, she dead.”

I shook my head. A large, smelly man lying in the corner lifted his head off his arm and said, “Nervy! Shut the hell up.”

The kid sat quiet a minute and nodded at the big man. He whispered, “He call me Nervy cuz he say I got nervous legs.” A minute passed. “And if he tell you to shut up, you better do as he say. He big.” Another minute passed. “You shoot her?” I shook my head. “But dey say dey foun’ a gun. A fo’ty-fi’.” I tried to translate but couldn’t. He whispered more slowly. “A forty-five.” I nodded. “Wuz you gunna?” I looked at him and frowned. “Well, CNN say you want the family money.” I made no response.

The big man climbed off the floor, swayed back and forth, took three steps and grabbed my nervous friend, lifting his head to the ceiling, his shoes four feet off the floor. He banged his head twice against the bars, then carried him to the urinal, where he submerged his head against the porcelain and pulled the flush handle. The kid sputtered and whined, which caught the dutiful attention of the napping guard down the hall. He banged his stick against the bars and said, “Hey, shut up!”

Swaying man returned to his bed on the floor while the kid sat next to me. This time closer. Dripping, he leaned in. “Wuz it the money?”

I looked at the man on the ground and then the kid, wondering if he’d lost his mind. His eyes narrowed. “Look, man, you da one been on the news for two weeks. You crazy. Not me.” He had a point. He held his hands out, palms up. “So?” I shook my head. He turned his slightly. “It wadn’t da money? You tell me wher’ dey hid it?”

“No.”

“Shi…” He trailed off. “You dumb as a bag of hammers. You shudda took the money and runned off.” He waved his hand through the air like a kid hanging his arm out the window of a car on the highway. “Skee-daddle.”

Despite the fact that my friend next to me was murdering the English language, he did get his point across. Most of the heads in the cell were pointed at me. My eyes were heavy with sleep. My shorts had dried, as had Abbie’s blood on my shirt and hands. The Superglue stitching above my left eye was itchy and infected. He pointed. “She do that?”

The walls were cold, concrete, trimmed with steel and rivet—rising up out of a world bordered by razor wire and the possibility of speeding lead projectiles. The hard part is not this. I’d only been here a few hours but prison seemed like paradise compared to the possibilities. To hurt, to know punishment, you must be living and I am only half alive. Given that, the pain in my head hurts half as much. Pain in the heart is another matter.

I looked at my hands. The palms were bright red, badly blistered, and knuckles had been rubbed skinless. He pointed. “Shi…dat hurt?”

I turned them over. “I don’t know.”

“Well, it look like it hurt like hell.”

Hell. There’s a thought.

He asked again, “She do that, too?”

The big man on the floor didn’t move, but I kept quiet and shook my head. “Who den?” His face had broken out in ten or fifteen sores and many of his teeth had rotted out. Based on the maggot-breath coming out of his mouth, I’d imagine rotting was an ongoing process. I’m no drug expert, but he looked like the pictures that I’d seen of folks who were hooked on crystal meth.

“Some men we met…on the river.”

“You shoot dem, too?”

“No, and I didn’t shoot my wife either.”

“Da’s wha’ dey all say.”

A few of the other men in the cell laughed, and one of them slapped his leg and said, “Dat’s what I be talking ’bout.” Three seats down, a graying man with a two-day beard, wearing a dirty blue suit, sat leaning against the wall. One eye was purple, swollen shut, and he reeked of alcohol and vomit. His shirt was half untucked, the front of his pants was wet and he was missing a shoe, but oddly, his Windsor knot was snug against his neck. I doubted it would help.

The guard unlocked our cell and began leading us one by one to a table where two other guards cuffed our wrists and ankles. The twelve of us paraded down three flights of stairs to courtroom number 4. My scabby-faced friend whispered up at me, “Dis ain’t good. No good at all. Da’s Judge Fergy’s bench and dey’s a nor’easter comin’ in.”

“So?”

“Dat means da surfin’ be good and he be stuck here wit’ us.” He nodded toward the bench. “Bettuh get yo’ story skrait.”

The bailiff stood and said, “All rise.” We did, the sound of hungover grunts and uncomfortable chains echoed across the chamber. A balding man with a dark tan and draped in a black robe walked through a door in the back. He sat quickly, tapping his foot, reading through a stack of papers. He nodded to the bailiff. “The court calls…” He looked down and shook his head. His eyes narrowed on Nervy. “Ellswood Maxwell Lamont Augustus the Third.”

Nervy stood up. The judge dropped the papers in front of him and folded his hands across his desk. “Nervy, I thought I told you I didn’t want to ever see you in my courtroom again.”

Nervy smiled. “I missed yo’ comp’ny, Yo’ Honuh.”

Judge Ferguson looked down at his desk, then back at the kid. “Looks like you’re still cooking in your backyard.”

Nervy shook his head. “No suh.” He pointed at the large man who’d flushed his head in the urinal. “He be.”

The judge frowned. “Then what’s that crap on your face.”

Nervy shrugged. “Skin cancer?”

“You’re trying to tell me that those leper-looking sores on your face were caused by the sun?” Nervy nodded enthusiastically.

The judge sat back. “And let me guess. You’re innocent.”

Nervy smiled. “Abso-frickin-one-hunrid-percen-lutely.”

“Is that your plea?”

He pointed at the big man. “He guilty. Not me. I was minding my own bit’ness. Watching TV.
American Idol.
Thinkin’ ’bout trying out, when—”

“Nervy, have you been to the city morgue lately?”

Urinal man to my left whispered beneath his breath in a voice that rivaled James Earl Jones, “No, but he keep dis up and he be going real soon.”

Nervy’s eyes grew wide. “Judge, um…Yo’ Honor, he be threatenin’ me.”

Judge Ferguson leaned across his bench. “It’s full of kids just like you. My patience has run out.” The judge rolled his eyes and turned to the bailiff. “Set a date, get him an attorney. Bail is set at twenty thousand.”

Nervy sat down, nodded his head and smirked. “He in a good mood.”

The bailiff said, “The court calls Stephen Doss Michaels.”

I stood.

Judge Ferguson looked at me, chewed on his lip then spit whatever it was off the end of his tongue and out across his bench. Nervy leaned forward. “He do that sometime when he be thinkin’.”

I tried to find my voice. “Yes, sir.”

He leaned back, his chair squeaking, and rocked a minute. “Looks like they finally caught up with you.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Must be hard to outrun the television. What with all the helicopters.” I made no response. He tapped himself in the chest. “I, like most every other person in this country, have been following your story. CNN. Fox. All the biggies.” He paused. “Where’d they catch you?”

Good question.
“At the end, sir.”

“You being smart with me?”

I shook my head. “Sir?”

He frowned. “Do you understand the charges made against you?”

“I’m sorry, sir?”

“Do you understand why you’re standing in my courtroom on a beautiful Sunday morning while six-foot swells spill gently across North Jax Beach?”

Nervy nodded, legs bouncing. “Oh, he be pissed now.”

The judge reached behind him and clicked on an oscillating fan that circulated out across the room. I suppose it was his way of fending off the smell of us. Mr. Windsor Knot–no-shoe-wet-pants had started to hiccup. He gagged once and we all heard it coming. He leaned forward, hiccuped one last time and blew last night’s party all over the judge’s floor. The judge shook his head and motioned to one of the four officers sitting in the courtroom. While the man wiped his face with his tie, something he’d done repeatedly over the last few hours, the officer led him from the courtroom.

The fan blew gently, wafted the fragrance under my nose and carried me to the court reporter. She was maybe mid-fifties, her fingers tapping almost as fast as Nervy’s legs.

I stared at the reporter, but my mind sitting on a bench in Central Park and asking, What is the name of that perfume?

Judge Ferguson pounded his gavel, and raising his voice, said, “Excuse me, Mr. Michaels. Am I keeping you from something?” He sat back, eyes narrowing. “We’ll just wait until you’re ready.”

Nervy sat back and scooted away from me. “Oh, you don’ did it. He be really pissed now.”

The cuff on my left hand was tight, and my fingers tingled. My hand felt stiff from the caked blood. The edge of the cuff was rubbing off red flakes embedded in my wrist. I opened my hand and stared at the four busted blisters. He pounded his gavel again.

“I’m sorry, sir.”

What is the name of that perfume?

He took a deep breath. “Do you understand the charges made against you?”

I shook my head. Nervy scooted a few more inches away. “Nope. Don’ do that neither. He ’spect you to speak when spoke to. When he aks, you ansuh.”

I looked at the judge. “Not…not really, sir.”

The judge raised an eyebrow and spoke mostly to himself, “What is it with me, northeasters and idiots?” He leaned forward. “Mr. Michaels, you are being charged with…” He eyed the stack of papers on his desk. “Kidnapping. Breaking and entering. Tresspassing. Larceny. Grand Larceny. Possession of a controlled substance. Resisting arrest. Assault. Battery of an officer. Illegal administration of a drug. And last but not least, first degree murder.” He tapped the desk with his index finger. “Down here, Mr. Michaels, ‘euthanasia’ is just a sophisticated name for murder. And a premeditated one at that.”

Nervy nodded and looked up and down the row of men next to us. “He good.”

I swallowed. The judge continued, “Do you understand these charges as I’ve read them to you?”

“Yes, sir.”

“How do you plead?”

“Well, I mean…”

“Mr. Michaels.” Sweat beaded on his forehead and trickled down the ridge of his nose. “The charges made against you are either true…or not. Yes? Can we at least agree on that?”

The fan made a ticking noise as it turned. The name of the perfume hung on the tip of my tongue.

“Son.” The judge waved at me. “Are you guilty or not guilty?”

I turned to the recorder. “Ma’am? Excuse me, ma’am?” She stopped tapping long enough to look up. “What is the name of your perfume?”

The judge stood and slammed his gavel on the desk. “Mr. Michaels! I will find you in contempt of this court if you do not answer my question. Now”—his forehead was starting to glisten—“while there’s still an ocean to surf in. Guilty or not guilty?”

The tape of the last two weeks ran across the backs of my eyes. Sorrow, laughter, deep-down hurt and a touch I could not reach tumbled together. Raindrops in the river. I stared at the judge—my mind miles from his oaken courtroom. “Sir, I didn’t kill my wife. Least not intentionally.”

“There are some people in very high places who believe otherwise.” He scribbled something on the desk in front of him. “I’ll take that as ‘no contest.’”

“Sir, you can take it however you want, but—” He held out his hand, but I spoke over him, “I’d do it again.”

He shook his head and sat down. “Mr. Michaels, do you have counsel?”

“Sir?”