The Pact (33 page)

Steve and Chris both sat up in bed at the sound of Hector, playing xylophone across the front of the cell with the legs of a bridge chair. “Oh,” he said, grinning, when he saw them. “Were you guys sleeping?”

“Jesus,” Chris said, swinging his legs off the bunk. “What is with you?”

“No, professor,” Hector said. “What's with you!” He leaned across the threshold, his breath still stale with the night. “Guess now it makes sense. You compare notes?” Chris rubbed his eyes. “What the hell are you talking about?”

Hector leaned even closer. “How long did you think it would take me to find out that you killed the girl 'cause she was having your kid?”

“You motherfucker,” Chris said, his hands flying of their own volition around Hector's neck. Behind him, he could feel Steve pulling at his shoulder, but he shook him off easily, putting all his strength and all his concentration into strangling the asshole in front of him who'd spoken such a filthy lie.

It did not occur to him to wonder how this information had become public knowledge. Perhaps Jordan had mentioned it to the nurse, and an inmate had been washing the floors outside the medical office at the time. Maybe a guard had overheard. Maybe it had been leaked into the papers which were available for the inmates in the day room.

“Chris,” Steve said, the voice floating thin over his shoulder. “Let go.” And suddenly Chris could not stand the fact that everyone in this-this hellhole-would be lumping him together with Steve. There was a huge difference between hanging with Steve because Chris wanted to, and hanging with Steve because there was no one else.

Hector's eyes were bulging, his cheeks puffed and eggplant purple, and Chris did not think he'd ever seen anything so beautiful. And then all of a sudden his arms were wrenched behind his back and handcuffed and he'd been driven to his knees by a blow to the neck. Hector, restrained by another officer, was getting back his color and his wind. “You little fuck,” he shouted, as Chris was dragged out of the pod. “I'm going to get you for this!”

It was not until Chris reached the control desk that he managed to ask where they were going. And even then, he didn't get an answer. “You act like an animal,” the officer said, “you get treated like one.”

He led Chris to the isolation cell. Before the officer unlocked the handcuffs, he checked beneath the mattress. There was no pillow.

Without another word, the officer freed Chris's hands and left him alone.

“Hey!” Chris said, rushing toward the door, solid metal except for the slat where his food tray would be passed in. He stuck his fingers through the slat. “You can't do this to me. You have to have a DR for me.”

From somewhere down the hall, he could hear laughter.

He sank down on the floor and turned around bleakly. He would have his disciplinary review eventually, he supposed, sometime after he'd served his punishment. In the meantime, he was stuck in the hole for God knew how long, and the small cell had not been cleaned up from its last inhabitant. There was a puddle of vomit in the corner, and feces smeared one-of the walls. Chris sprang up, stretching to reach along the three-inch ledge at the top of the shower, just to see if anyone had left something behind. He scrabbled beneath the mattress and the nailed-down bunk, to no avail. Then he settled back in his original position, huddled against the door, his knees drawn up to his chest, gagging with every breath.

At 12:15 his lunch was shoved through the slot.

At 2:30 the maximum security inmates went to the exercise room, passing the isolation cell. One of them spat through the slot, mucus streaking across the back of Chris's shirt. At 3:45, when the medium security men came to the exercise room, Chris took off his shirt and slid it under the door, a flat fabric puddle. He waited for something to fall onto it as the thunder of feet passed by, and then carefully drew back the shirt. Someone-Steve, he supposed-had tossed him a pen.

He tried to draw on the walls, but the ink didn't take to the cinder block. Or to the metal bunks or shower stall, which left only one thing. For the next three hours, until dinnertime, Chris drew on his prison-issue pants and shirt, wild designs that reminded him of Emily's artistic doodling. After dinner he lay on his back and ran through every practice relay his coach had ever written on the locker room chalkboard. He crossed his arms over his chest and pictured his blood coursing from heart to artery to vein.

When he heard the squeak of crepe-soled shoes outside, he was certain that he'd imagined it. “Hey!” he yelled. “Hey! Who's there?”

He tried to squint out the opening, but the angle of the metal prevented him from seeing anything. Honing his senses, he made out the roll of wheels and the slush of a mop. The custodians. “Hey,” he said again. “Help me.”

There was a definite pause in the routine swing of the mop. Chris tilted his head against the slot again, then jumped back when something winged him in the temple.

He scrabbled at his feet, hoping for food, but felt the unmistakably thick binding of a Bible. With a sigh, Chris crawled onto the bunk, and started to read.

Christmas vacation began on Thursday, so Selena was extremely grateful when Mrs. Bertrand agreed to speak to her Wednesday afternoon.

She sat uncomfortably in the small wooden chair, wondering who the hell thought this furniture was conducive to learning. Chris Harte was nearly as tall as Selena's six feet; how could he ever have jammed his legs under a table like this? No wonder today's adolescents couldn't wait to get out of school“I am so glad,” Mrs. Bertrand said, “that you called.”

“You are?” Selena was taken aback. In her professional career, she could count on one hand the number of people who didn't look at her funny when she said she was working for a defense attorney.

“Yes. I mean, of course I've read the papers. And the very thought of someone like Chris ... well, it's ridiculous, that's what.” She smiled broadly, as if that was enough to acquit. “Now, what is it I can help you with?”

Selena extracted her ubiquitous pen and pad from her coat pocket. “Mrs. Bertrand,” she started.

“Please-Joan.”

“Joan, then. What we're looking for is certain information that can be presented to a jury to make the murder charge seem... as you said, ridiculous. How long have you known Chris?”

“Oh, four years, I suppose. I had him in ninth-grade English, and then I sort of knew what he was doing even in the years I didn't have him-he's the kind teachers are always talking about, you know, in a good way-and then he was put in my class this year, as well.”

“You teach honors English?”

“Advanced Placement,” she said. “The kids take the test in May.”

“So Chris is a good student.”

“Good!” Joan Bertrand shook her head. “Chris is extraordinary. He has a gift for clarity, for getting to the heart of a complicated tangle. It wouldn't surprise me if he went on to college to become a writer. Or a lawyer,” she added. “The thought of that sort of mind just. . . wasting for months in a jail,” she shook her head, unable to continue.

“You're not the first person to feel that way,” Selena murmured. She frowned at the filing cabinet, lettered with the alphabet.

“Student portfolios,” Joan said. “Writing folders.” She leaped to her feet. “I should show you Chris's.”

“Did you have Emily Gold as a student too?”

“Yes,” Joan said. “Again, another straight-A kid. But more reserved than Chris. Certainly, they were always together-I imagine the principal could even have told you that. But I just didn't know her as well as I do Chris.”

“Did she seem depressed in class?”

“No. Very attentive to her work, as usual.”

Selena looked up. “Could I see her folder, too?”

The English teacher brought back two manila leaves. “Emily's,” she pointed. “And Chris's.” Selena opened Emily's folder first. There were poems inside-none that mentioned death-and a creative writing piece fashioned like Arthur Conan Doyle's work. Absolutely nothing useful. She closed the folder and glanced up again. “Did Chris seem depressed?” She had to ask, although she knew what the answer would be. It was unlikely that an outsider would have noticed suicidal tendencies that were never there. “Oh, good Lord, no.”

“Did Chris ever come to you for help?”

“Not in schoolwork; he was capable of that on his own. He asked me about colleges, when he started applying. I wrote him a letter of recommendation, too.”

“1 meant personal things.”

Joan's brow wrinkled. “I encouraged him to come to me, after-after Emily died. I knew he'd need someone. But he didn't have a chance,” she said delicately. “We had a memorial here for Emily. To everyone's surprise, when Chris was asked to make a speech, he started to laugh.” Selena reconsidered the wisdom of putting Mrs. Bertrand on the stand.

“Of course, knowing Chris the way I do, I chalked it all up to stress,” she said. Clearly uncomfortable with the recollection, Joan reached for Chris's folder and opened it in front of Selena.

“I told the teachers who were gossiping about it to read this,” she said, slapping her palm against an argumentative essay. “Any mind with this much promise wouldn't be a party to murder.” Selena didn't really agree, having met her fair share of intelligent criminals, but she politely glanced down at the essay. “The assignment said to come down on one side of a sensitive issue,” Joan explained. “To present convincing evidence for that side, and then to dismiss the alternative point of view. This is something, you know, that most college graduates can't even do. But Chris pulled it off beautifully.”

Chris's paragraphs were neatly aligned, justified by the computer printer. “In conclusion,” Selena read, “being 'pro-choice' is a misnomer. There is not really an issue of choice at all. It is against the law to cut short someone's life, period. To say that a fetus is not a life is to split hairs, since all major bodily systems are in place at the time most abortions are undertaken. To say that it is a woman's right to choose is also unclear, because it is not only her body but another's as well. In a society that stands behind the best interests of a child, it seems strange indeed . ..” Selena lifted her head and let a white grin split over her face. “Merry Christmas, Mrs. Bertrand,” she said.

It SEEMED ARCHAIC to offer a Bible as comfort, in a world where a vial of crack would probably have been preferred two to one, but Chris found himself entranced. He had never really read the Bible. For a brief stint, he'd gone to Sunday School, but that was because his father insisted on belonging to the local Episcopal church for the social statement it made. Eventually, they stopped attending with the exception of holidays, when one was most likely to be seen. The familiar quotations leaped out at him, making Chris feel as if he'd populated the small cell with old friends. “Ask and you shall receive, seek and you shall find, knock and it shall be opened to you.” He stared at the heavy door. Not bloody likely.

When the lights went out-no warnings, up here, just a misty darkness-Chris rolled off the bunk and got to his knees. The floor was freezing beneath the thin cotton of his pants, and in the new dark the smell of the shit on the wall seemed suddenly stronger, but he managed to knot his hands together and bow his head. “Now I lay me down to sleep,” he whispered, feeling very, very young. “I pray the Lord my soul to keep.” He furrowed his brow, trying to remember the rest of it, but couldn't.

“I haven't done this in a long time,” Chris said, feeling foolish. “I hope You can hear me. I don't blame You for putting me in here. And I probably don't deserve any favors.” He let his voice trail off, thinking of what he most wanted. Surely, if he only asked for one thing, he had a fighting chance of getting it. “I want to pray for Hector,” he said softly. “I pray that he gets out of here soon.”

Chris wondered whether God had met Emily yet. He closed his eyes, imagining the long blond hair he'd wrapped around his hands like reins; the point of her chin and the soft blue hollow of her throat where he could touch his lips to her pulse. He remembered something he'd read that night: “A new heart also I will give you, and a new spirit will I put within you.” He hoped, now, Emily had that. As he drifted off to sleep, still kneeling on the floor like a penitant, Chris heard God. He came on the sounds of footsteps, of key turns and disembodied whistles. And He murmured, stirring the fine hairs on the back of Chris's neck: “Forgive, and you shall be forgiven.” Gus WAS AWAKENED BY a heavy object falling across her chest. Startled, she began to fight her way out, only to realize that it was Kate pinning her. “Get up, Mom,” she said, her eyes shining, her smile so infectious that Gus momentarily forgot waking meant she'd have to get through another day.

“What?” she asked groggily. “Did you miss the bus?”

“There is no bus,” Kate said. She sat up, cross-legged. “Come on downstairs.” She poked under the covers, receiving a grunt from her father. “You too,” she said, and ran from the room. Ten minutes later, Gus and James walked into the kitchen, dressed and bleary-eyed. “You want to start the coffee,” Gus asked, “or should I?”

“You can't start the coffee,” Kate said, bouncing in front of them. She grabbed each of their hands and drew them toward the shoji screen that separated the kitchen from the living room. “Ta-da!” she trilled, stepped away to reveal a scraggly, potted eucalyptus tree, hastily decorated with a handful of glass balls and ornaments. “Merry Christmas!” she sang, and wrapped her arms around her mother's waist.

Gus glanced at James over Kate's bowed head. “Sweetheart,” she heard herself say. “Did you do all this?”

Kate nodded shyly. “I know it's kind of dorky, the tree from the foyer and all, but I figured if I cut down something outside you'd be pretty bummed out.”

Gus had a fleeting image of Kate pinned beneath a fallen pine. “This is lovely,” she said. “Really.” The Christmas lights, small and winking, were on a timer. They faded in and out, reminding Gus of the ambulance parked outside the hospital when she was summoned for Chris.

Kate walked into the living room and happily settled herself beneath the small tree. “I figured you guys weren't around enough, with everything that's been happening, to decorate.” She held out a package to Gus, and another to James. “Here,” she said. “Open them.” Gus waited while James unwrapped a new DayTimer calendar in a faux alligator-skin cover. Then she tore away the wrapping paper from her own gift, a pair of jade earrings. Gus stared at Kate, still beaming, and wondered when her daughter had been to the mall. She wondered when her daughter had decided that at all costs, she was going to celebrate a normal Christmas.