Bright Young Women(47)
Roger’s chin touched his chest and his head snapped up. “I didn’t do it,” he insisted.
Tina ignored him. “In Colorado, he filed a pro se motion to represent himself, arguing that it was a violation of his constitutional right to a fair trial to be restrained while using the law library at the Aspen courthouse.” Tina’s upper lip curled to indicate what she thought about The Defendant’s rights. “The judge agreed, with the condition that he must be supervised at all times. Only, the guards took one look at the guy and decided he didn’t pose a real threat, and it wasn’t long before they were leaving him to do his research in the library while they popped out for a smoke break. One of those times, he opened the window, jumped two stories, and took off. A week later, he was apprehended in the mountains. The public was understandably outraged, and so the sheriff moved him to a higher-security prison, about an hour outside of Aspen, and put him on a twenty-four-hour watch. Within six months, he escaped a second time. What the hell kind of incompetence happened there, God only knows. In any case, that was December. Exactly one month before you saw him at your front door.”
Roger’s head landed on his forearm with a final-sounding whump. I poked him, to be sure he was really out, before whispering, “Can you call the police? I think he was trying to hurt me.”
Tina went over to him, shoving her hand down the waistband of his jeans. It was only then I noticed that fresh blood was streaking his upper thighs. When had he started bleeding?
Tina extracted what appeared to be a small Swiss Army knife, partially unlatched.
I gaped at the blade. “How did he not feel that?”
“I’m a licensed therapist,” Tina said. “Everything in my toiletry kit is legal.”
I glanced at the open bathroom door, the leather kit on the sink, where Tina had stood a few minutes ago, washing out the glass she gave Roger.
Tina went over to the nightstand and lifted the phone from the receiver, dialing the police. “Please don’t tell the sheriff that part,” she said to me. “He already thinks I’m some kind of black widow.” Her laugh was gravelly, like it wasn’t all that ludicrous a thing to think.
I waited while she explained our situation to the operator. “It’s the Days Inn on West Tennessee Road. Room two-oh-three.”
“Why did the sheriff tell me not to spend any time alone with you?” I asked when she hung up.
Tina groaned—this again? “I was married to a rich old dinosaur who died of natural causes, and I got almost everything even though he had five adult children who are all nearly twice my age.”
“So he thinks you had something to do with his death?”
“Yes.”
“Did you?”
“Even if I did,” came Tina’s non-answer, “I have no reason to want to hurt you.”
“My family has money,” I said. “Maybe you’re somehow after that.”
Tina smirked. “I’m scraping by, all right.” She started tidying the room—fluffing the pillow she’d held in her lap and propping it against the headboard. “Come to Colorado with me,” she said, moving on to make the other bed. I got up to help her. It mattered to me too that when the police arrived they found a tidy room. “I’ve been in touch with The Defendant’s old cellmate. He’s agreed to put me on his visitors’ list.” In unison, we drew up the top sheet and gave it a half-foot fold.
“What is talking to him supposed to accomplish?” I asked as I lifted my side of the mattress and tucked in the corners of the comforter.
“Think about it,” Tina said while we straightened the pleated bed skirt. “You’re stuck in a six-by-six cement box all day, nothing to do, no one else to talk to in the world but your cellmate. You get to sharing things. About your plans. About friends, family, places where you can hunker down, and people who will help you go undetected.”
“Isn’t talking to him the sort of thing the sheriff should do?” I shook out the pillow, then gave it a good pounding with my fist. Tina held out her arms. I tossed it to her.
“It’s good policework,” she said, catching the pillow with a little bend at her knees. “So, no. Not your sheriff. Not any sheriff I’ve come across in all this.”
I stood staring at the freshly made bed, thinking about how much of my life I’d spent feeling simultaneously like a child and the only adult in the room. Why couldn’t people just do their jobs? Why was it that I could rely only on myself?
“I can’t just take off,” I said. “We’re moving back into The House in a few days. I have to show everyone there is no reason to be afraid. I have to be the example.”
“Well”—Tina laughed, collecting the dirty glasses and taking them to the bathroom for a rinse—“there is plenty to be afraid of. The Defendant is here in Tallahassee, and it’s in the papers that there was an eyewitness. You’re not safe as long as he’s out there.” The water went on, and Tina raised her voice to be heard over the stream. “Look at what just happened to you!”
“So this is about keeping me safe?” I fired back.
The tap went off. “It is as inhuman to be totally good as it is to be totally evil.”
I’d read A Clockwork Orange twice the summer I turned fifteen. “I can quote Anthony Burgess too, but I’d prefer an answer that doesn’t evade the question.”