Criminal (15 page)

I stared down at my hands. Without thinking, I had been picking at a chipped edge of my old nail polish. I wasn't really aware of doing it even as I watched myself.

“We need to know—what we're asking you—is if there's more detail you can remember.”

I chipped more and more away from my nail. Bird had done
them for me before any of this happened. Hampton shifted in her chair and let out a long breath. Almost like she was about to say something.

“For example,” Bianca pressed, “you say that on the morning of the twenty-fourth, you and the accused, Denarius Pavon, were staying at your friend's house. Your friend, let's see . . .”

“Bird didn't have anything to do with any of this,” I blurted. “You have to believe me that she didn't know anything. No one needs to question her any more.”

I could feel Bianca watching me. But I didn't want to see her face. I was remembering Dee. And me. The sweaty smell of the futon. His telephone on the floor, chiming,
Dooooom. Dooooooom. Doooom.
Bird with her mouth full of pins, concentrating on Kenyetta's dress. Knowing nothing. Trusting me.

“Nikki—” Hampton's voice showed she was already tired of me. “What Bianca is trying to say is that we know you've lied already to the police, on more than one occasion, and we know there are reasons why you might continue to lie to us now. Or, at least, withhold information.”

I couldn't say anything to that. I didn't know if I had to, really. I'd told them basically what had happened. I was already here in jail. From what Doug was telling me, I was going to get punished no matter what I did or said anyway. They had Dee too. They had my whole life. I was here for a murder I still didn't really
think I'd committed. And now they wanted me to tell them more? To make sure the man I'd loved—even if he didn't care anymore—would rot in prison forever? Did they really think that little of me?

Bianca leaned over and whispered something then to Hampton, who flicked her eyes at me and nodded.

“Nikki, are you aware”—Hampton straightened up—“that Mr. Pavon had a two-year relationship with the victim's daughter, Nicole Palmer? And that as recently as the day he was arrested, he was calling her?”

I flushed. Two years? The tattooed
N
swam before my eyes.

“That's impossible. We started dating in October. And he didn't—”

But it was like she didn't hear me or care what I had to say. “Did you also know that on May twelfth of this year, a restraining order was filed against Mr. Pavon? By Deputy Palmer? To keep him from seeing Nicole?”

May. My breathing stopped. Dizzy swirls crossed my vision. Dee had texted me right around Memorial Day weekend. Appearing from nowhere, after we'd been broken up for months. Bird and I had taken Jamelee out to Stone Mountain and I'd left my phone at home. When we got back, I found that message. Saying he'd been missing me. Wanting to know how I was and could I go see a movie or something. The end of May.

“Detectives confiscated the Palmer family computer, and they found e-mails between Mr. Pavon and Miss Palmer as recent as the month before the murder. Even though we haven't gone through everything yet, I can tell you the basic nature of them is certainly . . . romantic.”

Her slimy tone slipped between the cracks of me. The month before the murder. July. Dee'd taken me to watch fireworks at Lenox Mall. He'd poured wine coolers into Gatorade bottles before we left Bird's to make sure we wouldn't get caught drinking in the parking lot. We'd made out on a blanket, not caring about families sitting five feet from us. He'd driven me back—late—and I'd wanted him to stay over. But he was tired, he said. Had to work out in the morning. And then I didn't hear from him for a week.

“I'll also tell you,” Hampton went on, shifting gears but keeping her voice pointed, “that there are witnesses. More than one of them reported seeing two people in the vehicle at the scene of the crime. A man and a woman. Neighbors also described a purple Mustang, with a distinctive symbol on the back. The one we now know belongs to your friend—”

“Bird.” Her name was lead in my mouth.

But it was like she didn't hear me. “There were also gun casings at the scene of the crime. Over a dozen of them. From two guns: one nine millimeter and another from a forty-five.
Police found a nine millimeter registered under Mr. Pavon's name when they searched his house. The other weapon has yet to be found.”

I could see the gun like it was in my hand this minute. Wiping it off with the edge of my shirt. I knew they were trying to scare me, making me think they could imply that I was the one who actually fired it. And for a minute or two, I felt like I had.

But Hampton kept going. “Ms. Dougherty, we know by his phone records that Mr. Pavon and Nicole Palmer had lengthy phone calls on August ninth, twelfth, and fourteenth. That he called her on the day he was arrested. We know, from those same phone records and your own admission, that you and Mr. Pavon were also actively involved at the time. You called him often. You told the police he stayed at Ms. Brown's home with you. It's clear that you also had a romantic relationship.”

I didn't want any more of this. Not her questions, not the memories, and, most of all, not the falling, sinking feeling that was starting to swallow me down. My hands were shaking. All of me was shaking. Because I was starting to understand the real reason why he'd done this. Done it because he thought it meant he would be with her. Used me to help just because he knew I'd do anything he said. And no amount of anything was going to make it an easier truth to swallow.

I covered up my face.

The prosecutor's voice was kinder this time: “I understand that this is probably upsetting to you, Nikki, but it would help me to at least know whether you had any knowledge of Mr. Pavon's relationship with Ms. Palmer and if there was anything he said or did—either before that day or during it—that might help us?”

She don't have nothing to do with us.

I didn't say it out loud, but it was all I could think. She didn't have nothing to do with us, but she had everything.

Restraining order. E-mails as recent as July. Phoning her up until the day he got arrested. And it was her
Daddy
who was dead. Killed by Dee to get him out of the way so that the two of them could be together.
You'll be my wife.

I started to cry. I couldn't help it.

I cried so hard I couldn't talk.

THEY HAD TO END THE MEETING. I WAS CRYING SO MUCH I
made myself throw up, and everyone cleared out of the office. Outside, in the hall, Hampton and Bianca told me they knew this was difficult, but their faces didn't seem that way. They shook hands with Doug and said they'd make another appointment if I was willing to talk to them more. After they left, Doug tried to soothe me a little, saying he knew that it was hard, but that this would be really important for a lot of reasons. His hand patted between my shoulder blades a few times. I'd stopped crying, but I'd stopped talking, too. I was too exhausted. I needed everything to disappear. Especially myself.

“I'll give you time to think about it,” he told
me. “Just call me when you've considered what you want to do. You can take as long as you need.”

I nodded, I guess. Said something. Next thing, a guard was there unlocking things, taking me back to the common room. I felt like I could hardly lift my feet, following her. And I didn't want to see anyone.

“Keep your chin up,” she said as we went through the door.

But I felt too mean and dead inside for it to sink in she was being nice.

NO ONE WAS IN THE COMMON ROOM. THE GUARD TOOK ME
straight to my cell, where Priscilla was already. Pissed-offness poured out of her like steam.

“What happened?” we both wanted to know of each other at the same time. Her, seeing my blotchy, destroyed face, me, wondering why everyone was locked up in their cells in the middle of the day.

“Exactly what I told you,” she started right in. “That new girl Dew'ann. Contraband from wherever she came from. Snuck in, whatever. Doesn't matter where she got it. Didn't take them but an hour or two to pin it down. Loudmouths.” She shook her head. “And now the rest of us have to stay here, God knows how long. Cell search too.”

For no reason, I felt relieved I'd mailed off those letters to Jamelee. From my stepfather, I knew every piece of anything that went in and out of here was read by someone, but it felt better knowing they were reading it as part of an official process instead of finding them among my private things. Treating them like some sort of
discovery
.

That was about as good as I could feel, though.

Priscilla was hunched over on the edge of her bunk. “What they do to you?”

Flashes went before my eyes. Dee pushing up off me, walking into the kitchen. The detectives coming to the salon. Those cops turning things over in Bird's car. That plastic sample bag. Hampton's unforgiving hands, the words that wouldn't stop coming out of her: Dee and that girl Nicole together for two years. The whole time he was with me, lying. Leaving me and going to her. Maybe every single day.

“I don't want to talk about it.”

She grunted. “Talking's all there's gonna be for a while.”

“Yeah, but I ain't gonna.”

I pulled myself up the two railings to my top bunk, lay down. I crossed my hands over my eyes that wouldn't stop seeing.

Dear Jamelee—

It's been lockdown for hours, and there isn't much else to do, so I might as well warn you: there are things in people that are dark and mean. I don't necessarily want you to curl yourself up away from them—from people—but it's my job to tell you this now. The ones you love will turn their backs on you. They will plot against you even as you love and care for them, give them everything inside you. You will do the most hateful things for them, and you won't even know those things are wrong because you believe in that person so much. In their love for you.

But let me be a lesson to you. People are snakes inside. Most of them, anyway. Your momma ain't one. But mine is. And others, too. They are snakes who will not think twice about squeezing
everything they can out of you, then swallowing you whole. They will take and take and take from you for their own gain. They will smile as you writhe in pain. And they will get away with it if you let them.

HOURS IN THE CELL. LYING THERE. WAITING. WRITING A
little bit and then not being able to write. Priscilla working at her crossword puzzle but then getting mad, breaking the tip of her pencil, cussing. We only had each other to talk to, but I still didn't want to talk. After I figured out there wasn't anything more I could say to Jamelee, I just lay there in the bunk, staring at the ceiling. There was so much to think of. Unwanted things, and not just about this life in jail. Things I'd forgot before. They kept coming over me, spilling one on top of the other. Things like the very beginning, when I very first met Dee in that Ferris wheel line at the county fair—how he smiled so sly, got me to give him my number even though I was sure a boy who looked like him asking a girl who looked like me for my number was some kind
of prank. My surprise when he called, a day later. Talking slick like I was something expensive he wanted to make sure and win. And then movies. Dinners. A hand on my thigh that wasn't about an exchange. Just wanting. Wanting me and only me. Only that. For a while. Until December, when all the questions everyone else was asking me started coming out of my mouth: When were we gonna get married? What was his intention? What did he think about our future? And then him gone. My phone empty and dead for months. No more questions from me because all there was on the other end was his silence. His refusal.

Bird filling the gap. Helping me every day and letting me help her. Dealing with breakfast and dinner and the baby, plus getting to work. Making things happen. Showing me sometimes you just had to fake it because that was all there was to do. Reminding me there were more immediate problems like the phone bill and the mortgage and getting the baby to sleep and all the other business that just took over anything else, no matter how badly you wanted to let other things swallow you. No matter how far you wanted to sink.

Then May. May and Dee coming around again. Waking me from some kind of coma. Every inch of me electric, in a way I didn't fully understand had got switched off when he left the first time. All from the sound of his voice. A stream, after that, of seeing him. Sex all the time. Everywhere. Like he couldn't get
enough. Except for when he disappeared for no reason. And me this time keeping my mouth shut, not asking questions. Because questions only end up in your ass getting left.

Fighting with Bird. Or, more, living with her silence. She hated him, I knew. Even more so when he came back and I didn't kick him to the curb. But she never really took it out on me. She went to work, paid the bills. Insisted I do it too, even after weekends that he spent over and I felt wrung out in more ways than one.

He'd gotten that tattoo while we were broke up. The
N
with the angels. He pulled his shirt over his head the first time we were going to make love again, and I saw it and I didn't say anything. I just knew, without talking, that it was for me. I saw it, and everything swirled gorgeous.
It means something
, I told myself.
We aren't wrong to be in love.
I felt like, looking at that tattoo, that every mistake I'd ever made before or since could be wiped away with those few sweeps of ink. He loved me. It was in his skin. Permanent.

But now, lying on my bunk in our cell, I knew it was for her. Never for me, like he said. He got it for her after we split up, and then he lay in my bed and let me think that it was for me.