Archives:
July 29-August 4, 2007
July 29, 2007
The elevator doors on my grandmother's floor slide open. “Hello, Allie,” I say, stepping inside.
“ Preston , how goes it?” she asks, leaning against the back wall.
“Not bad. Aside from the rain, that is,” I say, tilting my umbrella up in the air.
“Rain showers bring flowers,” Allie says, disinterestedly looking at the front of the elevator.
We pull to a stop on the ground floor. Allie brushes past me, out into the lobby, pulling the hood up on her windbreaker. The old people in the lobby smile as we pass, the way they always do when visitors come or go.
“So you know, you might have a shot.” Allie says, standing under the overhang just outside the building.
“What's that?” I ask, pushing my umbrella open.
“With Valerie. From what I'm hearing, her and Adam are very much on the outs.”
“Is that right?” I think of how Valerie hasn't really spoken to me since her testimony. As much as I've been a little confused, and a little disappointed about that, it's nice to hear Adam isn't faring much better.
“Had a visit from the ape last night. He asked about what was going on with her, and he asked about you.”
“He asked about me?”
She nods. “Don't get me wrong, I never liked the guy. But he's never come and visited me personally before.”
“Did he threaten you or something?”
“If he threatened me, I wouldn't have hesitated to call the cops and got him locked up for the night,” she says. “I'm not worried about myself, or even you. But I'm not so sure about how he would interact with Valerie.”
“What do you mean?”
Allie shrugs, then walks out into the rain, hurrying toward her car.July 30, 2007
“I just want to finish putting away these files, or I know I'm never going to get to it,” I say, sitting in Natalie's office chair.
“All right, well don't work too hard,” Dad says, taking his blazer off the coat rack and slinging it over his arm. I'll see you back at the house.”
“You've got it.” I actually feel bad about how little work I've done this summer, spending most of my days just watching him in court. I turn back down to the files, my goal to complete the file migration from the old filing cabinet by the wall to this drawer in Natalie's new desk.
“Well hey Valerie,” Dad says, the door still open.
I look up, and she's there, still in the white blouse and floral skirt she wore to court today, her skin glowing with a thin film of perspiration.
“Hey, Mr. Burns, how are you?”
“Good, good. Was there something I could do for you?”
“Actually, I wanted to talk to Preston ,” she says, looking back toward me.
Dad pats her upper arm in his hand. “Well I'll leave you two be then. I'll see you later.”
I slot the folder in my hand, then turn my full attention to her. “Have a seat,” I say gesturing to the seats across from me.
She nods, and sits down, crossing her legs. “I'm sorry I haven't really been talking to you these last few days.”
“Yeah, is there something wrong?”
“Sort of,” she says, looking down at the front of the desk. “It's complicated.”
I get up from Natalie's chair and have a seat next to her. “Well, tell me about it.”
“It's Adam,” she says, her eyes still fixed on the desk. She puts a hand on her head. “He's got me worried.”
“What is it?”
She shakes her head. “I just don't want to talk to him now. But it's like he always knows where I am. And I don't want to tell him not to come to court, because I know he feels like he has to be there. But then I asked him not to come around the house—”
“And he isn't listening to you?” I say, as I realize I'm squeezing my arm rest in my hand.
“He hasn't been around for a few nights. But the last time he was—he kind of scared me.” She closes her eyes. “That, and it's like he knows I'm there, and he knows I'm alone.”
I feel like I should hold her hand or something, but I know that that's not quite right. My father would probably know exactly what to do, and, for a second, I wish he was here.
“I don't know,” she shakes her head. “I just don't want to stay at the house tonight.” She looks at me for the first time since she's sat down. “I know this is probably stupid, but is there any way I could stay with you?”
“Stay with me?” I fight back a smile, scratching the back of my head. “I don't know. I mean, wouldn't you want to stay with one of your friends, like Allie or somebody?”
“I—I just feel safe around you. Like that night we went to the bar. It was the first time I wasn't worried about making Adam angry about something.” She shakes her head again, looking back down. “I'm sorry, it was probably stupid for me—”
“No, it's not at all. I—I'm flattered that you would say that. And yeah, it shouldn't be any problem at all for you stay the night.”
Valerie smiles. “Thank you, Preston .”July 31, 2007
I hear my bedroom door close, rousing me from sleep. The bright red digits on my clock radio show that it's just past 3 in the morning. I roll over to face my door, and find Valerie standing there.
I sit up straight in bed. “Valerie—”
“I'm sorry to wake you,” she says. “I just couldn't sleep.”
I rub my eye and look at her. She's wearing these shiny silk pajamas, a dark maroon that looks black in the dark of my room. “That's all right. Is everything OK?”
She sits at the edge of my bed. I thought about letting her take my bed in the first place, but I was self conscious about the drool stains on the pillowcase, and any remnants of my childhood that she might find lying around, and ended up setting her up in Ray's old room.
“I just can't stop thinking about everything—the trial, and my father, and my mother and Adam—it's just so much.”
“Yeah,” I back up, leaning against my headboard, “you've got a lot weighing on you.”
“It's just like, I wish I could do everything over again—that I could go back in time, and never have to come back to now.”
I scratch my head, not sure if I'm not really following her because I'm still groggy, or if she isn't making sense.
“I knew you liked me when were kids,” she goes on, looking me right in the eye. “And I liked you a little bit. And that makes me think of what would have happened if we had gotten together back then.”
“Well, Valerie, that was a long time ago.”
“But if we had gotten together, maybe I never would have let Adam take me to the movies, and maybe I never would have fallen for him. And if I hadn't fallen for him—” She trails off.
“What—”
Before I can finish Valerie is on me, her lips parting mine, her tongue sneaking through, and her fingers in my hair. I put my hands on her hips, moving her back. She holds tight, and I push harder, before she slips off the bed, falling onto the floor.
I sit still for a second, breathing heavy, not sure if I should apologize, or run, or ask her to leave. Or ask her to stay.
Valerie stands up, and straightens the top of her pajamas. “I—I'm sorry. I should go.” She turns toward the door.
“Wait, Valerie—let's talk about this.”
“I shouldn't have come here. I'm just going to get my things together and head back to my place.”
“No, don't be silly. It's 3 in the morning—just—just spend the night in Ray's room, all right? No hard feelings or anything.”
She looks at for me a second, her bottom lip trembling. She nods, then turns around to leave my room.August 1, 2007
Valerie hugs her father, then walks out of the courtroom, hardly waiting for Adam, not even acknowledging me, just like the day before. Somehow, since the other night, when she decided to kiss me, my stock has dropped to the point where she won't look at me. I suppose it might have something to do with pushing her to the floor when she was coming on to me.
I turn on my cell phone, and almost instantaneously, it vibrates in my hand. Looking at the caller ID screen, and can't help swallowing when I see Teri's name.
“Teri, what's up?”
“Well hey there,” she says, “I wasn't sure if your phone would be on yet after court.”
I chuckle, feeling my pulse pound in my neck. “I'm actually just on my way out.”
“Gotcha. Well I just wanted to say hey—you know, after you didn't call me last night.”
I glance behind me, as Valerie walks out of the room. “Really? Did I forget to call?”
“Glad our conversations are so memorable to you.”
“They are—really—”
“Relax, Preston . I'm just busting your balls.”
I scratch my forehead, smiling, then twisting my hand in sort of an awkward wave to Darryl as he nods to me, being escorted out of the room. “Sorry, guess I'm just a little stressed out with the trial and everything.”
“Aww—it's cute the way you care about Darryl—about that whole family,” Teri says. “Are they all doing okay?”
“Yeah, I'd say so,” I say. My father starts to head toward the exit, and I follow, a few steps back. “Of course, they're that much more stressed than me.”
“I suppose that whole thing with the man's life being on the line will do that to you.”
I maneuver through the crowd in the lobby as I do every day, losing bits of what Teri says. I'm out just in time to see Valerie's viper roll by.
“Hello? Preston ?”
“I'm sorry,” I look down, “what did you say?”August 2, 2007
I sit on my car, looking at the reflection of its blue frame in the front window of The Crystal Castle. I think of how many times I've come here this summer, and why I've come. I wonder if the case really was what had been most important to me. I wonder if the case mattered at all.
I suppose that I should just leave Valerie alone. As close as I may have become, as much as I've learned about her and Adam, I still haven't gotten any closer to cracking the case. And that's assuming there's a case to be cracked at all. For all I know, Valerie's just a girl who lost her mother, and has an asshole for a boyfriend—and as much of an asshole as he is, I haven't got any proof he's a murderer. The way her life was going, the last thing Valerie needed was someone like me in her life, getting in the way, flirting with her when I've already got a girlfriend, then pushing her away when she makes a move.
I get out of the car, and head to the store, with the sense that I've got to apologize for some of that, or all of that—for making everything worse.
Of course, I also just want to talk to her again.
The little bell of the door rings as I step into the cool of the air conditioning inside. Valerie stands up, a feather duster in hand.
“Hey Valerie.”
She looks down. She's wearing this thin, purple long-sleeved shirt that clings to every curve of her body. She walks toward the counter, setting the duster down. “Hey Preston .”
I scratch the back of my head, peeling my eyes off of her. “Look, I wanted to apologize—”
“You shouldn't be apologizing. I'm the one who's sorry. I don't know what I was thinking the other night—”
“But I shouldn't have let things get to that point. I mean—the whole thing was stupid.” I smile. “I was flattered that you came to me the other night. But I've got a girlfriend. And you have Adam.”
She nods a couple times, and keeps her face pointed downward on the last one. She sniffs and runs her fingers under her eyes.
I wrap my arms around her, hugging her close. She puts a hand on my chest like she's going to push me away, but just ends up touching me. She shudders, letting her hand drop, so her arms hang limp a her sides. I rub my hand up and down over her back.
“ Preston , there's something I have to tell you.”
I loosen my hold on her, taking a step back, then pulling my arms off of her altogether. I feel a little awkward, and end up sticking my hands in my pockets and taking another step back. “What is it?”
She keeps her eyes fixed on the ground. “What happened to my mother—it's not what you think. It's not what anyone thinks.”
“What is it?”
She doesn't say anything.
“Valerie, do you know what happened?”
She looks up at me, and runs her index finger under one eye, then the other. She opens her mouth, then closes it again, before shaking his head. “My—” She stops again.
My mind spins with the possibilities of what she'll say next. I think that Adam did it after all. Or wonder if Darryl could be guilty.
“My father isn't guilty,” she says, as if she's reading my thoughts. “I just know it.”
She's done. I can feel my shoulders sink, my whole body relax, seeing I'm getting no where. I wonder if she had more to say—if there was ever more to know.August 3, 2007
“Twenty-one years. That's an awful long time to be married, isn't it?” Shelly, the prosecutor asks, still seated behind his table.
“Not nearly long enough,” Darryl says, looking right at him from the stand. My father has just led him through an emotional testimony which left two women in the jury crying, and one man in the front row nodding his head.
Shelly nods, standing and fastening the top button of his blazer. “Time really can fly as you get up in years, like you and me. But there can come a point when you don't even notice just how much you've been arguing. I know my wife and I go at it like cats and dogs sometimes.”
“Objection,” my father calls out. “Will prosecution be asking any questions in this cross examination.”
The judge nods. “Mr. Shelly, let's get to it.”
Shelly nods. “Mr. Goodman, did you ever argue with your wife.”
“Of course. Everybody does every now and again.”
“And how did you go about arguing?”
“The same way anyone does. We'd disagree about something, and we'd talk about it.”
“Just talk?” Shelly asks, stepping out from behind the table.
“We'd get to hollering sometimes.”
“And did these shouting matches ever grow physical?”
“I don't know that I would call them shouting matches. But no, I never physically hurt my wife.”
“You never hurt her. Did you ever try to?”
“No.”
“Did she ever hit you?”
Darryl raises his hands, “I suppose she gave me a charlie horse a few times.”
“Did she ever hit you in the context of an argument?”
“We never made our disagreements physical.”
“Did you ever think of killing your wife?”
Darryl opens his mouth, then closes it. He shakes his head. “Absolutely not.”
“Why the hesitation?” Shelly asks, stepping closer to him.
Darryl locks his eyes on him. “Because for a second I was going to address you using some words I wouldn't want for my daughter, or the other ladies in the courtroom to hear.”
“Would you use those words in addressing your wife, when you were angry with her?”
Darryl shakes his head, and even smiles a little. “Mr. Shelly, I love my family more than anything in this world. And you can make mountains out of molehills, and try to suggest that every disagreement Cheryl and I had was the foundation for me killing her. But the truth of the matter is, I would never hurt that woman.” The smile is gone. “I would never hurt that woman. I love Cheryl. And the only thing carrying me through this trial, and through her loss is the knowledge that she's looking on from heaven, and that she can be strong for the both of us.” A woman in the jury gasps, starting to cry again. “And that one day we will reunite up there, and never have to spend a second apart again.”
I turn to my side, to see a tear sliding down Valerie's cheek.August 4, 2007
“Well look who's finally up,” Dad says, as I rub an eye with the back of my hand, and make my way toward the kitchen cupboards.
“Yeah, ended up being a late night with Joey last night,” I say popping open the cupboard and scanning our cereal selection. It's only 10:30 in the morning, so I'm not sure why I'm even making excuses.
“How's he doing? Still working with his father?”
“That he is.” I decide on Cheerios, pulling down the box, then proceeding to bring a bowl down, and take the milk from the fridge. “So what have you been up to over the last seven or eight hours you've been up?
Dad waves a hand. “Slept in until eight today. Been working on my closing statement,” he says, raising his legal pad, and slapping it against his other palm.
I nod. “Things are looking good, huh? I mean Darryl was great on the stand.”
“Darryl was Darryl. I don't think there's a soul in town who'd really peg him for a murder based on his personality. What it's going to come down to is if they could conceive of someone else doing it.”
“But it's like you said,” I say over the sound of the Cheerios falling from the box. “If the house and the gun got left unlocked, it could have been anyone.”
“Those are a couple of decent-sized ifs. Or at least they will be to the jury.” Dad rolls the legal pad between his hands. “But, you're right. Darryl was great on the stand. And the prosecution hasn't made its case.” He nods. “We're going to be just fine.”