Chapter 49
I pace my concrete-block isolation cell at the Hennepin County Public Safety Facility and chew my nails down to their nubs.
The air is cold. The floor is colder. After my tantrum on the boat ride over, the cops eighty-sixed the stretcher.
They processed me through booking, took mug shots and fingerprints, searched me, took all my personal possessions, and dumped me in this grim, eight-by-eight room in a gray uniform that looks like they fished it out of a garbage dump.
It hangs on me as if it were meant for someone else. Someone who didn’t make it out.
I used my designated phone time to call my mother, a rock as always, who told me she’d be right over with Tom Kim in tow.
As I pace the cell, I try to make sense of it all.
This must be a setup. I know I didn’t kill anyone.
But then I remember the night Laelynn died, waking up soaking wet.
No, that was sweat. But the cuts on my arms, my cheeks?
From my fight with Vivek or the trees? Did Olivia scratch me while I was sleeping, so it appeared I did this?
Wait, Eric said Olivia’s been dead for eighteen years.
That’s not true. I was talking to her, for God’s sake. I saw her in the woods.
The two of them must be conspiring. This was their plan from the start. They wanted Big Island to themselves, then invited me to be the pawn. They figured if they could convince me and everyone else that I’m insane, then no one would suspect them.
It was the drinks.
They drugged them to confuse me. First bootlegs, then wine, then tea.
For a moment, their plan worked. I was questioning my sanity. Did Olivia really exist? Could I have killed the girls, Laelynn, Vivek, and Freida? But in the bright light of day, I realize that can’t be true. I could never do something like that.
The external door to my cell squeaks open, and two corrections officers enter.
“Your attorney’s here,” one of them barks at me.
The guards escort me through a tunnel of locked doors to a private room with a table bolted to the floor and cheap plastic chairs.
The overhead light buzzes faintly, interrupted only by the occasional sounds of metal doors slamming, inmates shouting.
It smells of bleach and steel and sadness.
The room has no windows, no clocks, no sense of time.
Only the quiet hum of the fluorescent bulb and the hollow ache of waiting. A purgatory of sorts.
My cheeks rise into a smile when I see who’s greeting me. It’s my mother and our old family attorney. My mom looks her usual self. She wears gray slacks with a white blouse and a yellow cable-knit sweater draped around her shoulders. A burst of light in this drab confine.
Tom is as frumpy and adorable as I remember. Wrinkled suit, tie with a stain on it. A round, kind face beneath a mop of black hair. He helped me when Olivia fell and my dad died. He’s my guardian angel.
My mom rises from her chair.
“Oh, darling,” she whispers, brushing her hand against my cheek. “I’m so sorry. We’re going to figure this out. I promise.”
“Okay,” I say. I force the tears back. “How did you get in here? I thought family wasn’t allowed.”
She waves her hand. “Oh, it was nothing. Tom told them I was a necessary agent of the defense, and voilà.”
At the mention of his name, Tom rises and offers his hand and a hesitant smile. I shake his meaty palm, expecting the warm grip of an old friend, but something about it is distant, rushed, overly formal, like he’s working a reception line. I search his eyes, but he looks away.
“Sit, sit,” my mother says to me. “Let’s get to the bottom of this.”
Mom and I sit down, the plastic cold against my back, but Tom remains standing.
He has a manila folder in front of him and taps his fingers on it repeatedly.
“If you don’t mind, Julie, I’d like to speak to Charlotte alone for a minute.
You know, attorney-client privilege and all that. There’s a waiting room just outside.”
My mom bites her lip, and for a moment I think she might protest, but she relents. “Of course. Apologies. I’ll be right outside when you need me.”
Tom sits across from me once my mom exits. He pulls out a thermos and a couple of paper cups from his bag and pours us cups of coffee. He sighs and again taps the file in front of him.
“Okay, why don’t you tell me what happened?” His voice is calm and nasally.
I tell him everything that’s happened over the past few days. About my suspension, the Adwanis, Olivia, Laelynn, and the twins. As I’m talking, Tom takes a deep breath and leans back in his chair and begins staring at the wall behind me. He seems lost in thought, as if he’s barely listening.
“I’m sorry, Tom. Am I boring you?” I snap.
His eyes return to me. They’re the same sad eyes that I saw on Eric Parker last night.
“No, I’m sorry. It’s just, well, frankly, your story’s not adding up, Charlotte.”
“What do you mean?”
He slides his hand over the folder and opens it. A police report stares back at him. He places his frameless reading glasses on his owl nose. “First, the report says your pajamas were covered in blood. Is that true?”
“Yes, but—”
“I assume this was the twins’ blood?”
“Yes, but that’s from when I discovered them. I checked their pulses to see if they were dead.”
He sighs and frowns and returns his gaze back to the report. “Second, the girls had skin under their fingernails.” He peers over his reading glasses at my forearms. “Based on the cuts on your arms, I’m guessing the DNA lab is going to come back with your skin under their nails.”
“No, that can’t be. The cuts on my arms are from something else. The trees. Eric was chasing me. I was running through the forest. I’m not sure. Olivia might have made those marks on my arms while I was asleep to frame me.”
“C’mon, Charlotte. Don’t you think if someone had scratched your arms while you were sleeping, you would have woken up? Now, I’m not the judge or jury here. I’m on your side. But I need a story that makes sense.”
“You don’t understand. I was exhausted. I hadn’t slept all week, and Eric made tea for me before I went to bed. He might have drugged it. I think he and Olivia are framing me.”
“Who is this Olivia you keep referencing?”
“The Parkers’ daughter. Olivia Parker. We need to find her.”
Tom takes his glasses off and massages his temples. “Olivia’s been dead for eighteen years, Charlotte.”
I stand up out of my chair, propelled by the frustration. “Goddamn it. She’s not dead. That’s what Eric said. That’s what they want you to think. That’s part of the setup. I spoke to her myself.”
The edges of the interview room fuzz. I feel the familiar detached feeling I felt last night. I count the concrete blocks of the cell to steady myself. One block, two blocks, three blocks, four.
“Charlotte. Olivia died at the State Fair. Don’t you remember?”
“No, you’re wrong. She fell, but she didn’t die. I saw the ambulance take her away.”
“I talked to you myself after the incident because your mom was afraid the Parkers might press charges.”
A memory breaks into my mind. Me, Tom, and my mother talking in hushed tones. “Yeah, she was in a coma then. She recovered. My mom told me she recovered.”
He pulls another paper from the folder and hands it to me. “The detective heard you mention her name, so they added this to the file.”
Certificate of Death
Name of Deceased: Olivia Parker
Date of Death: August 28, 2007
I drop the paper on the floor like it’s on fire.
He keeps talking. The ringing in my ears grows louder. The room grows fuzzier. My airways tighter.
He raises his voice. “Charlotte? Are you listening?”
“Yes, I’m sorry. I’m listening.”
“I think our best step forward at this point is to get you transferred to a medical unit for a full psychiatric evaluation.”
I continue pacing, chewing my nails but saying nothing. The walls inflate and then deflate.
I search his face. It’s flat, emotionless.
Then it hits me.
The coffee. He drugged it.
Tom’s in on this.
They’re all conspiring to frame me.
He’s the final nail in my coffin. Here to convince me I’m insane. Convince me to plead guilty.
I pace faster. I count faster. Twenty-four blocks in the wall. Twenty-five blocks. Twenty-six blocks.
“How much did he pay you, Tom?”
“What? Who?”
I slam the coffee cup on the table. “Eric. How much did he pay you to doctor the death certificate, to lie to me?”
“Nothing. I don’t work for Eric. I work for you. I’ve known you since you were twelve.”
“I’d like to speak to my mother.”
“Charlotte, I don’t think you’re hearing me.”
“I’d like to speak to my mother. Now!”
He leaves the room, and my mother returns minutes later. Just smelling her perfume slows my pacing. As she enters, our eyes meet, and I notice a hardness behind the soft blue. A lifetime of battles, of pain.
She reaches out and takes my hands in hers.
“Talk to me, darling,” she says.
“We need a new attorney. Tom Kim is in on this. He’s working with Eric and Olivia.”
Her eyebrows rise, and an eye twitches, but then she recovers herself. “Okay, dear. Calm down. We’ll get you a new attorney. Whatever you need. We’ll fix this just like we did with Olivia and your fa—”
She stops herself.
“Olivia and Dad? Those were accidents. What do they have to do with this?”
Her mouth creases, and I watch her eyes dance left and right, searching mine.
“Nothing. It was an accident. It’s not your fault. Mom will make it better.”
Something in the way she says it seems off, more like she’s reciting a mantra than the truth. It was an accident. It’s not your fault. Mom will make it better.
Those words unlock something in me.
Memories resurface in my mind like Laelynn’s body.
Olivia lying on the fairground pavement. A halo of blood around her head.
It was an accident. It’s not your fault. Mom will make it better.
My dad. A shard of glass jammed into his neck, glistening.
It was an accident. It’s not your fault. Mom will make it better.
Laelynn. Vivek and Freida. Heathcliff. The twins.
The rope, the knife, the axe. The blood.
It was an accident. It’s not your fault. Mom will make it better.
It can’t be.
My breath seizes. My temperature rises.
The room spins. The fluorescent lights flicker and spread like a starburst, taking over my vision.
I drop to the floor, curling.
My mother hugs me and brushes my hair from my face. Just like when I was eight. We rock back and forth. I say it with her, barely breathing.
“It was an accident. It’s not my fault. Mom will make it better.”
“It was an accident. It’s not my fault. Mom will make it better.”