Don't Slay the Dragon (The Chronicles of Elizabeth Marshall Book 1) (2 page)

Chapter Three

How had I come back to this?  I asked myself.  How had I come back here to confront some of my deepest nightmares?

It had
all started with a letter I had received two days ago.  Just a simple letter that had ended up at my parent’s house, forwarded through several different addresses.  I had looked at the Provo, Utah postage stamp, the vaguely familiar handwriting, and opened it up with hardly a thought, never realizing what a Pandora’s Box was before me. 

“
Caitlyn,

“Please, I need your help.  You’re the only one that can save me, the only one that can help me.  They’re telling me that I killed Barbara.
How could they say that?  I don’t remember anything, but they say I did it.  They say they have evidence.  You know I would never do such a thing,
we
would never do such a thing!  Barbara and I didn’t always get along, but you know I would never do something like that.  To kill my own mother? 

“That’s why I need you.  You’re the only one that can
talk to the family.  You’re the only one they trust, the only one they’ve
ever
trusted. They can tell you I didn’t do it. 

“They’ve sent me back to Provo.  You have to come see me.  Help me prove I didn’t do this.  I’ve cleared you for visitations.  Please help me.”

It was signed “Lisbeth”, a simple signature with little flourish.

With a sense of shock,
I had asked my parents if they knew anything about the “murder”.  It had been all over the local news here just a month before I had moved back to the area.  “Local woman found stabbed numerous times in her home, daughter considered prime suspect”.  They had wanted to tell me at the time, but I was still living in North Carolina, going through a nasty divorce. They hadn’t wanted to add to my stress by telling me that my former best friend had been accused of killing her mother.

My dad had pulled out several news articles they had saved about the murder.  I remember numbly sitting down at their kitchen table and pouring over the clippings.  Barbara Marshall had been found in the kitchen-dining area of her small mobile home.  She had been stabbed thirteen times, once fatally to the heart.  It looked as though she had been having dinner with a guest at the time of the murder
. The table was set for two.  There was undisclosed DNA evidence pointing to her daughter Elizabeth as the prime suspect. 

The clippings continued.
Neighbors being interviewed and telling of a sometimes violent relationship between mother and daughter.  Elizabeth being brought in for questioning then having some sort of a “mental breakdown”.  The “suspect” then being taken to the psychiatric unit of the local hospital to be evaluated for trial.   The articles hadn’t mentioned that she had been transferred down to Provo.  Maybe the media didn’t know yet.  It really didn’t sound good for her one way or the other.

My parents had been sympathetic but kept their usual hands-off approach.  They weren’t ones to get involved in other people’s lives if it wasn’t absolutely necessary. 

I had waded through the hazards of getting caught up in Lisbeth’s life again, the danger, the stress.  Just the pain of seeing what she had become was enough to drain me.  How could I be the one to prove her innocence when I probably knew better than anyone just how dangerous she could be? 

I had about decided not to get involved when I got a phone call yesterday on my cell.  I didn’t recognize the number so I just ignored it and let it go to my voicemail. 
I was in my psychology class anyway and didn’t want to be disrupted.  We were having an involved discussion on child abuse and the possibility of planted false memories.  Professor Craig was playing devil’s advocate.  He was forcing us to defend the validity of falsely planted memories and if they can be proven in a court of law.  It was the kind of debate the entire class enjoyed.

Still caught up in the discussion, I exited the building and began walking across campus to my car when I remembered the earlier phone call.  Dialing my voicemail, I listened to the message as I walked along.

“Ms. Stewart, this is Mark Jacobs.  I hope you don’t mind that your parents gave me your cell number.  I’m the public defender for Elizabeth Marshall.  I’m at my wit’s end on how to defend this case.  I’m sure you’re familiar with it.  I want to go for the insanity defense but Elizabeth flatly refuses.  She insists that she’s innocent and she says that you can prove it.  I spoke briefly with your parents and they assure me that you weren’t even in the state at the time of the murder, so I don’t know how you can help, but Elizabeth is adamant.  Please call me back.  We go to trial in three months and I’ve never defended a first degree murder case, especially one as complicated as this.  I could really use you help with this.”

He finished by giving me his number and again stressing how urgent it was that he talk to me.  He sounded so young an
d inexperienced.  It frightened me that Lisbeth’s fate and future could be in this one man’s hands. 

After I got back to my apartment, I called him back.  He sounded even more lost and desperate than he had in his message.   How had this guy even passed the bar? 

I searched my mind for a possible way to hire a better lawyer.  Lisbeth had no extended family, just a father who had abandoned her and her mother when she had been a baby then gone off to start a new family in another state.  There was no one I could go to for help.  I was a student getting by on student loans and a part-time job.  I had a few family members with some money, but no one I felt comfortable asking to go out on a limb like this.  

After much begging and pleading from the lawyer, I reluctantly agreed to travel down to the state mental hospital, brave the demons of the past, and see what information I could gather from my one time best friend.
 

Chapter Four

The woman before me straightened up in her chair, squared her shoulders and gave me a cynical look up and down, sizing me up as though I was a fierce opponent.  To say she looked hard was putting it nicely.  She pulled off the cap with a yank and ranked her fingers through her limp red hair.  Her eyes darkened to an icy green.

“I heard you might show up
.  After all these years I doubted you actually would. Didn’t think you’d have the balls to show up here again.”  She sneered at me as she said the last bit.

“I thought I would see if I could come and help, Maxine.”  She gave a very unladylike snort at that comment.
 

Maxine was a tough broad.  She was a trucker, hard as nails, tough as leather, a rough woman trying to survive in a masculine world.  If you were to ask her, she would tell you about her numerous tattoos, covering
both arms, her back, stomach, legs and feet.  They were garish and violent pictures, with blood, skulls and torn flesh.  Each had an elaborate story to tell, each a voice of their own.  She would tell you about her piercings too, in her ears, face and tongue.  Even some in places that I would rather not know about.  If she had her way, a fresh Camel cigarette would be dangling between the fingers of her left hand.  She would be using it to point at me as she spoke.

“What a joke!” She smirked.  “You disappear for all these years, not even a word from you in all that time, and you expect to come back and help now?  What do you think you could do? Hold that stupid lawyer’s hand? 
Take notes at that farce of a trial?”

I knew from experience that at this point her temper
would just accelerate and her voice would rise in volume until everyone in the room would be able to hear every word.  I needed to stop this before she got out of control and a nurse went for a syringe full of Haldol.

“Maxine
, I need to speak to Lisbeth.”  I spoke in my most calm yet authoritative voice, striving to show little emotion besides firm control. “Can I speak with Lisbeth please?”

“That little pansy is gone.”  She gritted out harshly.
“I sent her away, back to the La-La land where she belongs.”

She tossed the sketchbook on the floor
along with the charcoal then tried to turn her back on me. I knew it was important to maintain eye-contact.  I had to keep her focus but without touching her.  At least I had succeeded in distracting her enough to keep her temper from flaring.

“Maxine, can
I talk to anyone else? Can Beth talk to me, or Lizzy?”

She gave me a frightening glare.  The old saying “If looks could kill” came to mind.  If that were the case I would have been burned to a cinder.  I held my breath and waited for the impending explosion.  One moment, then two, I waited, frozen and not knowing what would happen next.

Gradually, the shoulders drooped, relaxed, then hunched in to a ball.  She drew her knees up to her chest again and wrapped her arms around them.  She hid her face behind her knees, head bowed, shaking slightly.  I gave her a moment to adjust and watched as a pair of shy, inquisitive eyes peeked out behind the threadbare, denim covered knees.

“Lizzy?  Is that you?”  I spoke as a mother would to a frightened child.

“Catty?”  Her voice was small and timid, the voice of a girl of seven or eight.  “Where have you been?”

I knew I could reach over and touch her hand now, Lizzy would allow that much. 
Her hand was cold and clammy, still clutching her leg.  She allowed one finger to wrap around one of mine, a big concession for Lizzy.  It was a sign of acceptance from her.  I gradually relaxed a bit.

“I’m sorry, I’ve been away
.  I got married and moved far away.”  I tried to reassure her. 

You had to be very careful with Lizzy.  She was fragile and easily frightened.  She had been abused severely, in some ways I was even now still trying to understand.  Lizzy wouldn’t talk to m
en, especially if they had dark hair or facial hair.  The small details started to come back to me. 

“You left us,” she accused in a small voice.  Somehow, that tiny voice was so much more condemning than the rude accusations from Maxine.  The pain stabbed deep.

“I know Lizzy, and I’m so very sorry.  I’m here now though.  I’m here to help.  Can you help me, Lizzy?  Can you tell me why you’re here?”  She hid behind her knees again and gave a small shake of her head.  Lizzy probably wouldn’t know much, she was usually kept pretty sheltered by the others.  I wasn’t sure what she would be able to tell me, but at least she wasn’t as mouthy as Maxine.  I knew that if I continued to question her she would just withdraw further.  I had to find a way to draw her out.  “Have they been treating you ok here, Lizzy?  Have you felt safe?”

Again, she gave a little shake of her head.  It was sometimes hard getting her to talk.

“There’s a man that comes here sometimes.”  Her voice was a small whisper.  “He comes to see Lisbeth.  I don’t like him.  He asks her questions.  It upsets her.  I stay away when he’s here.”

A strange man?
  Could that be Mark Jacobs, her public defender?  I remembered that Lizzy had a fear of most men. 

“I have something to show you.  Do you wanna see?”  Her bright green eyes now peeked back out from behind her knees.  There was just a hint of a mischievous smile on her narrow face.  It wasn’t unusual for her to change subjects quickly.

“I’d love to see it,” I told her gently. 

She hesitated briefly then jumped up with the energy of youth, scooped up the sketchbook and charcoal off the floor then started walking away.  When I didn’t imm
ediately follow she looked back then waved me forward.  Reaching back, she linked one of her fingers through one of mine and began leading me through the main common room and down the hall towards her own room. 

The hall was wide and bright with the fluorescent lights
.  There were several bulletin boards along the walls, filled with calendars and upcoming events.  They had tried to make it a bit more cheery, more colorful, but no amount of construction paper and tin foil could change what this place represented.  Sadness, depression, mental illness.  Several doors down we stopped at was must have been her room.  There were two twin beds on opposite sides of the small square room.  She must have had a roommate but they weren’t here at the time.  The room seemed quite bare at first, with just a few personal effects.  There was a worn but comfortable quilt on her bed, a few small stitched pillows that didn’t match but seemed to suit her.

The most fascinating thing in the room was the vari
ous pictures and sketches on just one side of the room.  They covered the walls in a haphazard jumble of colors and shapes.  They ranged in style from the finely drawn fairies I had seen Lisbeth drawing earlier to very basic crayon and finger painted pieces that looked like they belonged in a Kindergarten classroom.  There were unicorns and elves, wood sprites and mermaids.  They all belonged in a fantasy world of Lisbeth’s own making.

Lizzy took me over to stand before one picture in particular.  It was a simple child’s drawing, done in bright crayon on a yellow piece on construction paper.  Two stick figures stood side by side, one with orange-red hair, and tiny green dots for eyes.
The first one touched finger to finger with the other stick figure, this one with curly yellow hair in spirals and blue dots for eyes.  There were happy smiles on both faces.  A bright circle sun shone from the corner and the words “Best friends” was spelled out in blue crayon in a simple child’s print. 

“I did this.”  She gave a shy but proud smile.  “Do you like it?”

The simple picture brought back a flood of memories.  The drab gray walls of the mental hospital faded away, years stole by, eons it seemed, though it was hardly fifteen or so years.  I was no longer in the sad little room with the colorful pictures but in a brown hall, floors and walls carpeted in the same drab brown.  Back to where it all began.  Back to one of the most terrifying places to a young teenage girl.  Junior High School.