What I Remember Most (42 page)

“I’m so sorry, Grenady, soul sister.” She patted her heart. “I am so sorry. I love you.”

“Love you, too, Rozlyn, soul sister.” Our tears ran together when I bent to hug her.

My eyes fell on my lily bracelet. It still sparkled after all these years. I would have thought the sprayed-on gold would have faded, but it hadn’t. I would leave it with Rozlyn, my friend, while I was in jail. For luck. In friendship. A promise to her I would be back to be with her and Cleo.

Cleo hopped in a minute later wearing foil wrapped around her from neck to knee. “Hi, Grenady! I’m a Uranus zombie.”

On my drive to Portland, through the snowy, icy, curving Santiam Pass, I replayed my delicious time with Kade, every caress, stroke, moan, sigh and pant, my heart racing, his keeping pace with mine. I thought of kissing his mouth, his face, his neck, his chest, lower. I have never been a huge fan of blow jobs, but for him, and seeing how much pleasure he got out of it, how it made him lose control in a sexy way, well, I’ve now changed my mind.

Blow jobs for Kade, and Kade only.

I thought of how I’d run my hands over the scars on his back, the bullet hole, the knife swipes. I thought of how strong and solid he felt in my arms, how I felt in his as he held me close. I thought of his voice, what he said, his love, his strength, his courage, and how he had the strength and courage to cry.

I missed him.

“Ms. Wild,” Dale Kotchik, stern and solemn assistant U.S. attorney, said to me, “I understand you want to talk to us about your plea.”

“I do. I am changing my plea.”

He blinked a couple of times, then steepled his hands together like last time. The whole Scary Gang from the first meeting was there: the IRS, the FBI special agents, including the human calculator, the postal service mail fraud man, the woman from the finance and corporate services division, assistants, and other suits.

They all stared back at me at that long table in the intimidating building in the expensive office in downtown Portland, with the furniture made by prisoners.

“Why?” Dale asked.

“Because I’m guilty.” My hands were clasped, tight and white. I was wearing my black skinny slacks, knee-high black boots, and a thick burgundy sweater with a clasp in front over a black turtleneck. I was freezing cold.

“I’m going to tell you one more time, Dina,” Millie said, so mad she leaned all the way into my arm, inches from my nose and spit out, “Do not say another word. Let’s leave now.”

“No, Millie.”

“This is a mistake.”

“Guilty of what?” Dale said.

Millie made a loud, guttural groaning sound. “Think, Dina. Think. I want it on the record that I have advised my client against this. She is not guilty.”

“I’m guilty of signing those documents,” I said, “and I knew what I was doing.”

Millie threw her head back and swore at the ceiling. “You’ve lost your head. Where is your brain? Are you not capable of rational thought?” She gave Dale one of her piercing glares. “She’s innocent. You know the lying, arrogant, narcissistic, possessive husband. She’s doing this because of him.”

There was a tense silence in the room . . . and something else. I saw those seriously anal people exchange glances with each other. One coughed. A couple wiggled in their chairs.

“Which papers in particular, Ms. Wild?” Dale asked.

“All of them that I said I signed and all of them I said I didn’t sign.” Damn but I hated that butthole Covey. “The ones where I said my signature was forged, I signed.”

“And you’re signing away your life,” Millie sputtered. She grabbed my arm and squeezed it. She is quite strong. “You should not be doing this. Please shut your mouth.”

I didn’t blame Millie for her electric fury. It’s her job to defend me to the best of her ability, and she could not do it with a client like me. I was grateful to her. She had worked hard for me. She’d been honest, and tough, from the get-go. Now I was messing things up.

“Dina,” she snapped. “We all saw those signatures. They’re not yours.”

“Yes, they are.”

“No, they’re not.”

“Sometimes I . . . I write differently.”

“No, you don’t.” Millie shook her head so vehemently her black curls whipped her face.

“Yes, I do.”

Dale leaned forward in his seat. I saw the FBI lady raise her eyebrows at the FBI human calculator. The IRS people stared hard at me.

“I don’t understand,” Dale said. “You said you signed five of the documents last time we met. Now you’ve requested this meeting and you’re saying you signed all of them.”

“What is there not to understand? I’m pleading guilty.” I felt myself leaving me. I felt myself shutting down and shutting out. I felt myself, the myself I’d gained in the last months in Pineridge, working for Kade and Tildy, making friends with Rozyln and Eudora, painting with Cleo and starting my art again, fading, smearing away, getting lost in the fog.

“To which charges are you pleading guilty to?”

“All of them that I was charged with.”

“All of them?”

“Yes.”

“Can you list those charges for us?”

“Fraud. Embezzlement. Theft . . .” There was another one. “Money laundering.”

Millie cut in. “My client had no idea what her maniacal husband was doing. She’s having a mental breakdown of some sort.” She put her face too close to mine again. “You are not guilty.”

“Then why is she pleading guilty?” Dale asked.

“Because her creepola of a husband is threatening to bring her down with him. Because she doesn’t want to risk a trial. You people have scared the crap out of her. She’s pleading guilty to get the eighteen months you already offered and not risk five years. This is not justice, this is a woman who has been badgered and threatened into pleading guilty.”

I had not told Millie that the other reason I was pleading guilty was because I needed to be out in eighteen months for Rozlyn and Cleo. If I had, she would have told all these scary people, because she’s my attorney and has been charged with aiding in my defense, and that information would have ended the meeting. Intimidating Assistant U.S. Attorney Dale Kotchik would not allow me to plead guilty at that point knowing why I was doing it.

Then I would have to go to trial and risk five years.

Dale thrummed his fingers on the table. “Tell us why you’re guilty, Ms. Wild.”

“You already know, Dale.” I was a little irritated. I could tell he was surprised that I’d used his first name.

“Tell us anyhow. Give us the details so we’re all clear.”

“I will. But I want your word that my jail sentence will be eighteen months if I tell you what I know.”

“We’ve already discussed that.”

“Say it.”

“If you cooperate and you’re guilty, your sentence will be eighteen months.”

I studied him and his owl features. He was relentless. Smart. Dedicated. Like an owl pit bull. But he was honest, and he had authority. Though he’d been my nightmare, I actually trusted him.

He suddenly leaned forward, as if he’d made a decision. “Ms. Wild, did you help Covey Hamilton, your husband, move money from one investment account to another to hide it?”

No. I wouldn’t even know how to do that, but this was it. I felt myself sinking into an iceberg. “Yes.”

“For God’s sakes. For all hell’s sakes,” Millie sputtered. “She did not do that. She wouldn’t even know how.”

“Yes, I would.” I was slightly offended that Millie thought I couldn’t do that, even though I couldn’t.

“No, you wouldn’t.”

“Yes.”

“No!”

“How did you move the money around?” FBI lady asked with her brown hair and, again, a brown suit.

How? I had no idea. Over the phone? Do you call banks for that stuff? Aha! I remembered. “By signing the papers. That gave Covey the ability to move the money. It gave my permission. My signed permission.”

“You knew he was moving around the money, then?”

Hell, no. “Yes.”

“She did not!” Millie interjected.

“To banks?”

No. “Yes.”

“To offshore accounts?”

No. “Yes.”

“She’s a lying client!” Millie said.

“To shell companies?”

No. “Yes.”

For a moment, no one spoke in that room with the furniture built by people in prison.

Dale adjusted his glasses. He clasped his hands. He bent his head then, after a few seconds, lifted it again. “Ms. Wild, did you know that Mr. Hamilton was moving money to shell companies in Thailand?”

Thailand? What the heck? “Yes.”

“Thailand?” Millie semishrieked.

“And to the stock markets in France and Russia?”

France and Russia? Had they talked about that earlier? “Uh . . .yes.”

“What in tarnation are you talking about?” Millie said, pounding a fist. “When did France come into this?”

“So you knew,” Dale said, owl eyes never leaving mine. “That Covey had created an artificial tech company in Kansas to launder money?”

That shithead. “Yes.”

“And a metal scrap business in North Carolina to launder money?”

I wished I could put Covey under one of those scrap metal smashing machines. “Yes.”

“And you knew about the fake ball bearings factory in Utah?”

Ball bearings? Covey needed
balls
. “Uh. Yes.”

“What the hell is going on here?” Millie demanded. “I didn’t know about any of this. What happened to disclosure?”

There was a dead silence in that room. I felt the intensity, the judgment. I tilted my chin up and wrapped my arms around my waist. Colder and colder.

Dale rubbed his chin. IRS man rolled his shoulders. FBI brown woman tilted her head and studied me like a bug.

More silence. A couple of the seriously anal people shuffled papers. They exchanged glances with each other, then back to me. I didn’t know what was going on.

“You’re pleading guilty, but you could go to trial,” Dale said. “You could be found not guilty.”

“And I could be found guilty. You said you would ask for five years, at least, of jail time.” My voice wobbled. I teared up. I thought of Rozlyn. I thought of Cleo.

I thought of Kade.

I thought of myself. Five years. I would lose my mind. I know I would. I would shut down so hard I wouldn’t come out of myself.

Eighteen months, though, and I would be out in time to help Rozlyn at the end and be a mom to Cleo. I would be a wreck when I came out, but I could put myself back together. I could.

I wiped the tears off my cold cheeks with cold fingers.

They waited.

Tears filled my eyes again. I wiped them off again. My fingers were freezing, and so was my face. Millie patted my shoulder a bit too hard. “We’re done,” she snapped. “We’ve got broken rules all over the place here. No one informed me about France or Russia or Thailand or any ball bearings factory. Let’s go, Dina.”

I felt that familiar depression settling on my shoulders. Black and heavy. I felt an unbearable sadness. I started to feel claustrophobic thinking about being trapped in a cell. I wondered if I would see Neanderthal Woman again. Alice, My Anxiety, buried her head. I saw a red kite. And fog. Dark trees. I don’t know why.

“Ms. Wild,” Dale said.

“Yes?”

“We have a problem here.”

“Yes, I know.” I swear there was ice around my heart.

“I don’t think you do.” He leaned back in his chair. “Covey did not set up a shell company in Thailand. He did not move money into the stock markets in France and Russia. There is no artificial tech company, no metal scrap business, and no fake ball bearings factory.”

“There isn’t?” I asked

“No,” Dale said.

“Oh.”

“And now we have to ask you why you just lied to us about your involvement with Covey’s business when you’re clearly not involved at all.”

“And,” the human calculator said, “why you’re pleading guilty when you’re not.”

To: All Staff

From: Margo Lipton

Date: February 12, 1992

Re: Daneesha Houston

Please welcome Daneesha Houston back! As you know, she retired in 1989 but has decided that traveling the world is not exciting enough for her.

She will be working half time.

Daneesha, we’re glad to have you back!

Children’s Services Division

Child’s Name: Grenadine Scotch Wild

Age: 16

Parents’ Names: Freedom and Bear Wild (Location unknown)

Date: March 28, 1992

Goal: Adoption

Employee: Daneesha Houston

I am delighted to write that Grenadine’s placement with Mr. Sean Lee and his sister Ms. Beatrice Lee is going well, as I knew it would. I have known the Lees for fifteen years. They live in an expansive, modern home over-looking the city on the west side, and they have plenty of room.

Grenadine is in counseling for some drug and alcohol abuse, although the abuse was not serious. There was some promiscuity, but that behavior, I am confident, has stopped. She had a physical and was diagnosed with chlamydia, but she has the medication and it will be cleared up soon.

The Lees have taken excellent care of her.

There have been outbursts, swearing, tears, and throwing things at the Lees’, and Grenadine has already been in one fight at school, but they seem steadfast in their devotion to her, perhaps because of Mr. and Ms. Lee’s own placement in foster care fifty years ago when they were children.

Ms. Lee is an artist, and she and Grenadine work on their art together for hours. Ms. Lee has encouraged Grenadine to “art out” her feelings. Grenadine is working with paints and learning more about collage.

As an interior decorator, Mr. Lee has shown Grenadine the art of decorating, and she is working with him in his business in the evenings. She says she loves it.

Mr. Lee says that she is a natural decorator. He and Grenadine painted her bedroom yellow, then painted birds across the wall. A few have lilies in their mouths. Mr. Lee bought Grenadine her own sewing machine, showed her how to use it, and she made curtains for her room and a bedspread and a bed skirt.

Mr. and Ms. Lee sent Grenadine to an educational specialist, and they say that Grenadine has dyslexia. They have hired a tutor to come and work with her after school.

The tutoring does not interfere with her Wednesday night art class at the university, or her Saturday art class at Portland Craft, which lasts all day. They wanted Grenadine to quit her waitress job; she adamantly refused, but they did manage to convince her to work only ten hours a week.

The three of them enjoy going to the Lee family beach house.

Children’s Services Division

Child’s Name: Grenadine Scotch Wild

Age: 16

Parents’ Names: Freedom and Bear Wild (Location unknown)

Date: September 16, 1992

Goal: Adoption

Employee: Daneesha Houston

I am extremely happy to announce that the Lees would like to adopt Grenadine. Grenadine has agreed. We will begin the paperwork, home visits, interviews, etc., immediately.

Grenadine says she wants to be called Dina Wild from now on. She and the Lees thought it would be a new beginning for her, plus Grenadine says she doesn’t like having the name of a syrup used in drinks. I don’t blame her.

In even more wonderful news, Grenadine entered her work in several local art competitions and won first prize in one and third prize in two others. She painted the backdrop for the school play, which, the drama teacher told me, was the finest backdrop he’s ever seen. It was for
Les Mis
, and she painted a French city. . . . She is unbelievably talented.

Children’s Services Division

Child’s Name: Grenadine Scotch Wild

Age: 18

Parents’ Names: Freedom and Bear Wild (Location unknown)

Date: June 14, 1994

Goal: Adopted

Employee: Daneesha Houston

On Tuesday Sean Lee died of AIDS. Grenadine was with him, as was his sister, Beatrice Lee. There was a tearful memorial attended by hundreds of people, including my husband and me.

Grenadine gave a eulogy. She spoke about Mr. Lee being a father to her and how he was kind and loving when she arrived in his home, even though she was angry, difficult, hurting, threw things, and swore like a “horse thief.”

She talked about how Mr. Lee taught her to decorate a home and why having beauty and color around you was so important. She talked about the tutoring he and his sister provided, the art classes, the trips to the beach.

Mostly she talked about how Mr. Lee made her feel special, and wanted, and loved, even when he himself wasn’t feeling well.

She said, “Mr. Lee and Beatrice probably saved my life. How do you thank someone for that?”

She cried. By the time Grenadine was done, I swear there was not a dry eye in the whole place. I cried a hundred tears. Even my husband cried, and that man never cries.

Heartbreaking.

Grenadine/Dina will continue to live with Beatrice. Beatrice told me if she didn’t have Grenadine, she didn’t know what she’d do.