Bright Young Women(99)
I supposed I had no right to be furious with Carl for leaking this to the defense. It was like leaving the trash out and blaming the racoons for getting into it. Carl Wallace was just doing what every member of the rodent-faced press did back then.
“She said that Roger pushed her head into his lap.”
“To perform oral sex, isn’t that correct?”
My neck flushed violently. “Yes.”
“Did Bernadette say how she felt about that?”
It was like being strapped into a speeding vehicle with my hands tied to the wheel and a brick on the gas pedal. I could see the point of impact drawing nearer, and yet I could not turn or slow down. The impact would be unavoidable and deadly.
“She said she was scared and that she didn’t want to,” I answered helplessly.
“What was she scared of?”
“She couldn’t breathe. She was scared Roger would accidentally kill her.”
“Did you also have a frightening experience with Roger in January 1978, approximately one week after Robbie and Denise were killed?”
“Yes.”
“What happened there?”
“He jumped behind the wheel of the car when I was in the passenger seat and drove off without my consent.”
“And for that, you pressed charges against him, didn’t you?”
“Yes.”
“Aggravated kidnapping charges. Of which he was convicted last fall, correct?”
“Correct.”
“You had the choice not to press charges, and yet you did. How come?”
The answer was the base of the tree, coming at me one hundred miles an hour. “Because I thought he was dangerous and should be behind bars.”
“I have nothing further.” Veronica Ramira turned to The Defendant, who in just a few short months would be described by theNew York Times as a “terrific-looking man with light brown hair and blue eyes, rather Kennedyesque.” That was on the heels of theMiami Herald asking Is Quiet, Bright Student a Mass Killer? Though any flashes of brilliance in that bleak room emanated directly from Veronica Ramira, no one wanted to remember it that way.
“I have no more questions,” The Defendant concluded with a parasitic smile, looking tremendously self-satisfied for doing fuck all but attach himself to a woman who was good at her job.
PAMELA
Tallahassee, 2021
Day 15,826
Eileen once told me it felt like getting a tooth pulled. Pressure where there should be pain, adrenaline the body’s natural novocaine. That is the danger zone that few come back from, doctors told her later. Pain is your body’s way of saying something is wrong and you still have time to do something about it. But pressure. That is palliative care.
I wake with inhuman strength, clawing blindly until I feel skin scrape and curl beneath my short fingernails. The pressure sweeps open like a stage curtain, revealing pain. I open my eyes with the profound gratitude that follows a hyperrealistic nightmare. If I am in pain, I still have a chance.
The room makes complete sense at first and then none at all. I am reminded of the nurse’s office at my daughter’s old middle school. The little cot against the wall, the apple juices next to the stacks of clean gauze, the filing cabinet with the glass jar containing an assortment of lollipops in an array of primary colors. It is a place to administer medical attention but not the lifesaving kind.
There is a whistling intake of breath through teeth, and I look over to see a woman in her early seventies with cascades of silver waves swabbing dampened cotton pads over what look like cat scratches all up and down her arms.
“Hi,” the woman says, continuing to tend to her injuries.
“I am—” So sorry, I am about to say, but something iron-from-the-fire-hot jabs at me. I run my tongue over my bottom lip and feel the telltale ridge of stitches.
“I can wear sleeves,” the woman says, assuming I was about to apologize. She smiles quickly at me and touches her own lip, indicating. “It’s only two stitches. I was able to do it here. But I do want to get you to Tallahassee Memorial for a more thorough checkup.”
“He came after me,” I say slowly, remembering not so much Carl’s face but the cut of his figure in the khaki safari hat as he came toward me, the way that ridiculous hat stayed on his head even as we fell to our knees in the grass. I plant my hands on either side of my thighs and draw myself up to a seated position with a sore-sounding groan. My neck feels tender and tight. He had his hands around my throat, but I remember thinking that I could still breathe, that it takes several minutes to kill someone by strangling, and that help would arrive soon enough, so there was no need to panic. I was calm when I passed out from lack of oxygen.
“There was no fecal incontinence, which means the injuries are likely surface.”
I raise my eyebrows. “I like giving the good news last too.”
Dr. Linda Donnelly sincerely laughs at that. We have never met in person, but it has to be her. She is the right age, and she’s wearing a gold charm bracelet on her slashed-up arm that features a ruby-eyed owl, the most flaunted of our sorority’s symbols.
“Do I have to go to the hospital?” I ask.
“I’d feel a whole lot better if you did.”
“Will you allow me to talk to him again tomorrow if I go?” Somewhere in the room, a cell phone begins to rattle.