47. Mara
47
MARA
M y breath catches when the courtroom door opens, and Tillie enters two steps in front of Ark. The past week has been the longest we’ve been away from each other. I’ve missed her so much, but the pain has been manageable since I know deep in my heart that she is being well cared for.
Ark loves her as if she is his own. I have no doubt about that. What he did for her already proved it, but the way he included her in all aspects of his life in the three days following his confession outright verified it.
“Mommy!”
I hug Tillie the best I can in the prison shackles the guard has yet to remove, squeezing her tight and breathing in her scent. I almost cry. Now Ark’s obsession with my shampoo makes sense. You don’t realize how for-granted you take things until they are removed from your grasp.
Tillie inches back before I’ve had close to my fill and does a twirl. “Do you like my new dress? Riley made it for me.”
She speaks at a million miles an hour, but I refuse to slow her down. She’s flourishing under Ark’s care, and it assures me that I made the right decision accepting a victim advocacy lawyer’s advice.
The courts will be less harsh on me since I am a woman who has faced inexcusable abuse that is well-documented in numerous medical files.
They’d throw the book at Ark since none of his abuse made it into a file.
Well, they hadn’t.
He has spoken out in the past week, and the stance he’s taken against predators has made me incredibly proud. He is removing the stigma victims of abuse forever endure and touching the lives of many—Tillie and Riley included.
By speaking up, Ark’s approval rating has surged to record highs.
The same can’t be said for Veronika. When her plans to out an underage victim of abuse for personal gain were unearthed, she lost hundreds of thousands of followers in a day and was stripped of multiple endorsement deals.
She will be licking her wounds for years, if not decades.
I shift my focus back to the present when Tillie discloses, “Riley made a new dress for you, too. It’s in your closet at home, next to Ark’s clothes.” Her giggle warms my heart. “Do you know he wears stuffy suits and ugly ties every day? Mrs. Lichard said it is because he’s a business mogul.” She peers up at me with her nose screwed up. “What is a mogul?”
She is given an answer from a man I will walk through hell to shelter as well as he protected her. “It is a man who won’t stop fighting until he gets everything he wants and deserves.” As I admire the crispness of Ark’s designer suit and his gorgeous face, he drinks me in like I don’t look wretched before he shifts his rapidly narrowed eyes to the bailiff. “Get the shackles off her, now.”
“Sir—”
“Now!” Ark repeats, yelling.
“It’s okay,” I whisper, unbothered by the restraints.
I pled guilty to murder. I deserve to be in shackles.
I just hope they won’t be on for much longer.
Since I pled guilty, I automatically waived my right for a trial. My lawyer said the ADA would rather plead out my case than see it go to court, but the DA took a stance no one anticipated. He left my fate in the hands of a judge I’ve never met.
I could have recanted my confession and faced a jury of my peers, but I couldn’t risk them finding me not guilty or calling a mistrial. That would keep the case open, and the investigation into my relationship with Ark would be ongoing.
I don’t want Ark to spend the rest of his life looking over his shoulder, waiting for the authorities to catch up with him. I want him to live his life as freely as a snap decision he made will allow Tillie to live hers.
He gave her the freedom I’ve been desperately seeking to unearth for the past ten years, and he has the means to make sure she lives her life to the fullest.
I could barely afford to buy a pair of gym shoes, so I’d serve thirty consecutive life sentences if it was the only way I could give my daughter the life she deserves.
When the bailiff instructs the court-goers to rise, I hug Tillie for a second time before I watch Ark guide her to an empty section of a pew near the front.
The courtroom is full. Journalists fill the back of the pews, victims of abuse take up the middle, and a small handful of people I class as family stretch across the front two pews.
The bailiff demands quiet when the tension in the room reaches fever pitch, and a handful of SA protestors can’t help but shout their anger at the system that did them wrong.
“She wouldn’t have needed to kill him if the courts had done their job.”
“We should be paying her for taking out the trash.”
“This is what is wrong with the system. They always make out the victims are the perpetrators.”
The judge doesn’t appear bothered by the catcalling and booing. He walks to his bench with a mountain load of files stuffed under his arm and his glasses balancing precariously on the end of his nose.
The room falls into silence when we’re instructed to sit.
My backside has barely touched my seat when I am told to remain standing.
Here it comes. The outcome of my decision is about to be unearthed.
“I am of the belief you’ve pled guilty, Ms. Palkova?” When I nod, the judge looks down at me over his glasses. “Have you been threatened or coerced into pleading guilty?” Shock rains down on him when I switch my nod to a head-shake. “Would you like to say anything on your own behalf before I make my ruling?”
My attorney announced the verdict would be quick, but I didn’t anticipate proceedings to move so fast.
After a big breath, endeavoring to remove the nerves from my voice, I nod. “Only that I trust your v-verdict and the process on which you took to reach it.”
He dips his chin. Appreciation that I’m not going to hold up proceedings longer than necessary is seen all over his face. “Have you reviewed the pre-sentence report with your attorney?”
Again, I nod.
“So you are aware the ruling handed down today will be ratified immediately and without further endorsement from either the ADA or your attorney?”
I dip my chin, too choked with emotions to speak.
“Very well.” He breathes out noisily, silencing everyone. “Under Section 272, if a person has assaulted another or provoked an assault from another, and the victim believes they need to use force to defend themselves or they will be killed or seriously harmed, the victim is not criminally responsible for the consequences.” I lose the ability to breathe when he says, “However, in the case presented before me, there is no evidence that the victim caused grievous bodily harm to Ms. Palkova?—”
“This time, your honor, but what about the multiple other times!”
The judge acts as if my attorney didn’t speak. “And as such, I am under no obligation to accept the claimant’s claims that the act was under the pursuant of self-defense.” He pushes his glasses up his nose before peering down at me. “Your pledge of guilt is accepted by the court, and as so, I order a three-year non-probationary period to be served at a medium-security prison.”
He whacks down his gavel, sending the court-goers into a frenzy.
I’m shocked but also relieved.
Three years is nothing compared to how many wonderful years Tillie has left to live, and I suffered almost daily abuse for far longer than that, but how could the judge have read my files and not understood why I would fear for my life while standing across from my father? Ark understood from nothing but a glance. That’s why he killed my father. He knew if I were in the same predicament, I would have done the exact same thing.
He saved me that night as much as he did Tillie.
That’s another reason I’m taking the blame for his crime.
“Mommy,” Tillie whispers in confusion when the bailiff commences moving me back toward the dock before I get to say goodbye.
“It’s okay, baby. Everything will be okay.”
She’s upset and crying but mercifully being comforted by the man I know is never capable of hurting her.
Ark bobs down to Tillie’s level to wipe away her tears and whisper promises in her ear. He’s shockingly calm. I shouldn’t be surprised. The lengths a parent will go to safeguard their child is remarkable, second only to how honorably they love them.
I’m pulled partway through the dock’s door by a correction services officer when his steps are thwarted by a raised voice. “Can I please approach the bench?”
I can’t breathe when Detective Pascall bursts through the swinging doors that separate the court from the pews like permission was given. I haven’t seen her since I invited her to Ark’s apartment to hear my confession. Her presence wasn’t necessary, but I needed her to hear my confession in person. Its impact wouldn’t have been anywhere near as effective if she had read it on a piece of paper.
I needed her to identify the signs of abuse so she could make sure her daughter holds none of them.
“Ms. Pascall, the hearing is over,” the judge says. “Any chance for rebuttal shall be saved for if the defendant chooses to appeal my verdict.”
She nods as if familiar with court proceedings before wetting her lips. “It is important, your honor.”
“It very well could be, but you have no jurisdiction here. The verdict has been handed down and already implemented.”
When the judge gestures for the court officer to remove Detective Pascall from the courtroom, words shoot out of her mouth like bullets. “She didn’t kill the man you found her guilty of murdering, your honor.” The courtroom gasps in sync when she says, “I did.” She shoots her eyes to Ark standing motionless with Tillie before she slowly trails them back to me. “I followed you to his hotel. He was bleeding and a little woozy”—she makes a gesture with her hand that shouldn’t say as much as it does—“but he was still breathing.”
The hurt in her eyes exposes that she isn’t thinking about my father right now while recalling the scene she witnessed. Someone far more important is occupying her thoughts.
My heart sinks when recognition dawns as to the true cause of the pain in her eyes.
Oh god.
She found out too late.
She found out about her child’s abuse after her daughter took steps to make it stop.
When I step closer to her, one mother desperate to comfort another, she holds her hand out, pleading for me to stop, like she doesn’t deserve my sympathies.
“I met your father shortly after Luba’s death.” She sucks in a pained breath that she releases with a sigh. “He never disclosed your connection. He just said he had footage that proved I was there the day Luba died and that it could expose the true cause of his death.” She spins to face the congregation as if they deserve more answers than me. “Luba’s life insurance policy wouldn’t have paid out for suicide, so when my unit was called to the motel, I made it seem as if he had been murdered. He owed a lot of people a lot of money, so it wasn’t a hard stretch.” Her eyes return to me. They’re wet and somewhat honest. “But they took it all, anyway. Every cent. I would have gone under?—”
“If it weren’t for my father?” I murmur, recalling how he kept people’s suspicions low by killing them with kindness. He had everyone fooled. Doctors, nurses, my teachers. Everyone believed that he was an admirable man.
Sanya nods, snot dribbling from her nose. “He made out you had been syphoning Luba’s bank account for years by threatening to tell me about your relationship if he didn’t pay up. He never disclosed the rest, and I never questioned him about it because…” She’s too ashamed to admit her reason. No one wants to admit they fell in love with a monster.
“I heard what he said to you when he learned he had a granddaughter.” I picture the agony Ark went through when she whispers, “In an instant, he went from wanting money to wanting her.” The disgust in her tone announces she heard the need in my father’s tone as readily as Ark did. “When I confronted him about it, he became abusive. He hit me and told me my daughter’s death was my fault. I snapped.” Her eyes flicker as if this part of her story is a true confession. “I pushed him. He hit his head on the corner of the bar in his room on the way down.”
“Did you call anyone?” the judge asks, as invested in her story as I am.
Detective Pascall shakes her head. “I watched him take his last breath, relieved that he couldn’t hurt anyone anymore, before I had him cremated and buried as a John Doe.”
There are holes in her story, many of them, but everyone but me seems oblivious to them.
The judge warns her as to the consequences of her confession in a court of law, and that acquitting me after a verdict has been decreed will shelter me from further prosecution, but she maintains her stance.
She takes blame for a murder she didn’t commit, and I’m helpless to stop her.