“Mason’s sister was Mary-Lynne Huckabee. She was raped by that guy—what was his name?” Sam tried to remember. “Somebody Mitchell from Bridge Gap. Kevin Mitchell?”
Charlie kept shaking her head. “Why does everyone know this but me?”
“He raped her, and she hanged herself in the barn, and Dad got him off.”
Charlie’s shocked expression revealed a sudden awareness. “He told me to call Dad. Huck, Mason, whatever he’s called. When Kelly was arrested, the police were being, well, the police. And Huck told me to call Dad to represent Kelly.”
“I guess Mason Huckabee knows what kind of lawyer Rusty is.”
Charlie looked visibly shaken. “I had forgotten about that case. His sister was in college.”
“She was home for summer break. She drove down to Bridge Gap with friends to see a movie. She went to the bathroom, and Kevin Mitchell attacked her.”
Charlie looked down at her hands. “I saw the pictures in Daddy’s files.”
Sam had seen them, too. “Did Mason recognize you? I mean, when you asked him for help with your juvenile offender?”
“We didn’t talk much.” Again, she gave a half-shrug. “A lot was going on. It happened really fast.”
“I’m sorry that you had to see that. The little girl. With Miss Heller there, it must have brought back memories.”
Charlie kept staring down at her hands, one thumb rubbing the joint of the other. “It was hard.”
“I’m glad you have Ben to lean on.” Sam waited for her to say something about Ben, to explain the awkward moment between them.
Charlie kept working the joint of her thumb. “That was funny, what you said to Dad, about another hole in your head.”
Sam studied her sister. Charlie was a master at skirting around a topic. “I’m not usually given to crude language, but it seemed to sum up the mood.”
“You sound so much like her. Look like her. Even stand like her.” Charlie’s voice got softer. “I felt this weird kind of thing in my chest when I saw you in the hall. For a split second, I thought you were Gamma.”
“I do that sometimes,” Sam admitted. “I’ll see myself in the mirror and—” There was a reason she did not often look in the mirror. “I’m her age now.”
“Oh, yeah. Happy birthday.”
“Thanks.”
Still, Charlie did not look up. She kept wringing her hands.
Their adult selves might very well be strangers, but there were certain things that age, no matter how cunning, could not wear away. The slope to Charlie’s shoulders. The softness in her voice. The quiver in her lip as she fought back emotion. Her nose had been broken. There were bruises under her eyes. The easiness she had shared with Ben had become noticeably discordant. She was plainly hiding something, perhaps a lot of somethings, but just as plainly she had her reasons.
Yesterday morning, Charlie had held a dying little girl, and before midnight, she had learned that her father might die—not for the first time, undoubtedly not the last time—but this time, this one time in particular, she had gotten Ben to email Sam.
Charlie had not asked Sam here to help make a decision that she had already made once before.
And Charlie had not reached out to Sam directly, because even as a child, she was always asking for things that she wanted, never for the things that she needed.
Sam turned her face up to the sun again. She closed her eyes. She saw herself standing at the mirror inside the downstairs bathroom at the farmhouse. Gamma behind her. Their reflections echoing back from the glass.
“You have to put that baton firmly in her hand every time, no matter where she is. You find her. Don’t expect her to find you.”
Charlie said, “You should probably go.”
Sam opened her eyes.
“You don’t want to miss your flight.”
Sam asked, “Did you talk to this Wilson girl?”
“No.” Charlie sat up. She wiped her eyes. “Huck said that she’s low functioning. Rusty puts her IQ in the low seventy range.” She leaned toward Sam, elbows on her knees. “I’ve met the mother. She’s not bright, either. Just good country people, since we’re doing Flannery O’Connor today. Lenore put them up in a hotel last night. Inmates aren’t allowed to have visitors until after they’re arraigned. They must be frantic to see her.”
“So it’s at least diminished capacity,” Sam said. “Her defense, I mean.”
Again, Charlie shrugged with one shoulder. “That’s really the only strategy in any of these mass shooting cases. Why else would someone do that if they weren’t crazy?”
“Where is she being held?”
“Probably the city jail in Pikeville.”
Pikeville.
The name felt like a shard of glass in her chest.
Charlie said, “I can’t take the arraignment because I’m a witness. Not that Dad had any ethical qualms, but—” Charlie shook her head. “Anyway, Dad has this old law school professor, Carter Grail. He retired up here a few years ago. He’s ninety, an alcoholic, hates everybody. He can fill in tomorrow.”
Sam forced herself up from the bench. “I’ll do it.”
Charlie stood up, too. “No, you won’t.”
Sam found Stanislav’s card in her purse. She retrieved her phone. She texted him: Meet me out front.
“Sam, you can’t do this.” Charlie nipped at her heels like a puppy. “I won’t let you do this. Go home. Live your life. Be that less mean person.”
Sam looked at her sister. “Charlotte, do you really think I’ve changed so much that I’m going to let my little sister tell me what to do?”
Charlie groaned at her obstinacy. “Don’t listen to me. Listen to your gut. You can’t let Rusty win.”
Stanislav texted back: FIVE MINUTES.
“This isn’t about Rusty.” Sam put her purse on her arm. She found her cane.
“What are you doing?”
“My overnight bag is in the car.” Sam had planned to stay at the Four Seasons and visit the Atlanta office tomorrow morning before heading back to New York. “I can have my driver take me to the police station or I can go with you. Your choice.”
“What’s the point of this?” Charlie followed her to the gate. “I mean, seriously. Why would you do anything for that stupid asshole?”
“You said it before. It’s not fair that Kelly Wilson doesn’t have someone on her side.” Sam opened the gate. “I still don’t like it when things aren’t fair.”
“Sam, stop. Please.”
Sam turned to face her sister.
Charlie said, “I know that this is hard for you, that being back is like drowning in quicksand.”
/> “I never said that.”
“You don’t have to.” Charlie put her hand on Sam’s arm. “I would’ve never let Ben send that email if I had known how much this would affect you.”
“You mean because of a few slurred words?” Sam looked at the winding, paved path that led back to the hospital. “If I had listened to the doctors about my limitations, I would’ve died in that hospital bed.”
“I’m not saying you can’t do it. I’m asking if you should.”
“It doesn’t matter. I’ve made up my mind.” Sam could think of only one way to end this conversation. She closed the gate on Charlie, telling her, “Last word.”
10
Riding in the car with Charlie, Sam understood that she had never been a nervous passenger because she had never before been driven by her little sister. Charlie only gave a cursory glance in her mirrors before she changed lanes. She liberally used her horn. She talked to drivers under her breath, urging them to go faster, go slower, to move out of her way.
Sam sneezed violently. Her eyes were watering. Charlie’s car, a sort of station wagon/SUV hybrid, smelled of damp hay and animals. “Do you have a dog?”
“He’s on temporary loan to the Guggenheim.”
Sam gripped the dashboard as Charlie swerved into another lane. “Shouldn’t you leave your signal on for longer than that?”
“I think your verbal paraphasia is back,” Charlie said. “You said ‘shouldn’t you,’ when you meant, ‘you should.’”
Sam laughed, which seemed inappropriate given their destination was the city jail.
Representing Kelly Wilson was secondary to finding out what was wrong with Charlie both physically because of the bruises and emotionally because of everything else, but Sam did not take lightly the job of representing the school shooter. For the first time in many years, she was nervous about talking to a client, and worse, walking into an unfamiliar courtroom.
She told Charlie, “My Portland cases were in family court. I’ve never sat across from an accused murderer before.”
Charlie gave Sam a careful look, as if something might be wrong with her. “We both have, Sammy.”