For a split second, as our eyes meet, I glimpse horror, as if I’d just crawled out of her daughter’s grave, like a mud monster.
The Steins have already met the coroner this morning to receive the official identification. Jo’s job is strictly to help them believe it beyond a doubt. She is explaining the basics of mitochondrial DNA, the careful lab work, the mind-blowing genetic probabilities, within half a percent, that this is her daughter. It takes about ten minutes.
“Mrs. Stein, your daughter has been handled with the greatest of care,” Jo says. “I am terribly sorry this has happened to your family.”
“Thank you. I appreciate your time with us. I believe this is Hannah.” She directs her gaze to the police. It is obvious she is having a hard time looking at me.
“Tessa.” Detective No. 2, the woman, is speaking. I heard her name but I can’t remember it. “Can I call you Tessa?”
“Of course.” It comes out scratchy, and I clear my throat.
“Since there is some… speculation… in the media about whether the right man was convicted for their daughter’s death, the Steins are curious if you can pick out a photo of a relative who took an unusual interest in their daughter. A suspect at the time. He is no longer alive, so you don’t need to be afraid of any kind of retaliation. They are simply seeking peace of mind. No one wants the wrong man executed.” She says this without rancor, but I wonder what’s really in her head.
I suddenly want Bill to be here. I want him to smother my hand with his again. “That’s fine.”
“You remind me of my daughter,” Mrs. Stein says. “Not the red hair, of course. But you give off that same… free spirit.”
The detective slides two sheets of mug shots flat in front of me. The brother, up until now a silent, poker-straight soldier, leans in. It occurs to me that he wasn’t even born when his sister disappeared. He was the recovery baby.
“He was an awful person,” Mrs. Stein tells me brokenly. The twelve men on the table swim before me. Bald, white, middle-aged.
“I believe God sent that deer in front of his car.” The brother’s first words are a cold, hard slap. “Put him in a coma so we could yank the plug. So I didn’t have to shoot the bastard myself.”
I’m bewildered. Seriously? A deer? I want to meet Jo’s eyes but don’t. Too much deer metaphor for one day. Too much coincidence. Too much anger and certainty about God’s wrath, when sometimes everything is just pointless.
“I’m sorry,” I say finally. “I just don’t know. There is so much I don’t remember.” At the same time, I realize that I am remembering something. Fabric. A pattern. I know where I’ve seen it before, but I don’t know what it means.
Impulsively, I reach my hands out to the psychic.
“Do you mind?” I ask the female detective.
“Not if you don’t.” Bemused.
Mrs. Stein is nodding animatedly, a doll brought to life. Her son is casting me a look of scathing disappointment.
I know I have to do this, whatever I believe. For Hannah. For her mom, eaten by grief. For her brother, who is probably a cop for all the wrong reasons. For her father, who is conspicuously absent.
“Something is coming back to me.” This is exquisitely true. “There’s a curtain. Can you help me see behind it?”
The psychic’s sweaty grip tightens. Her nails bite into my flesh. I feel like I’m being consumed by a slobbery shark.
“Of course.” Her eyes glisten like shards of ice, the first thing that reassures people she is special and a window to the netherworld.
“It’s a black man,” she says.
I remove my hands carefully and turn to Hannah’s mother. Rachel Stein’s eyes are not glistening. They are a boggy, open sinkhole, and I don’t want to stumble.
“Mrs. Stein, I lay in that grave with your daughter. Hannah will forever be a part of me, like we share the same DNA. Her monster is my monster. So please believe me when I say I know exactly what she would tell you right now. She would tell you she loves you. And she would tell you this woman will only hurt you. She’s a liar.”
Tessie, 1995
“Are you ready to nail a killer, Tessie?”
Mr. Vega is prowling, from desk to window to couch. “Because you need to be mentally tough. The defense attorney is going to try to screw with your head. I want to make sure you’re prepared for his little circus tricks.”
The doctor catches my eye and nods encouragement. He managed not to get kicked out of the room today. Mr. Vega and Benita have met with me two more times in the last week, once at a bowling alley and another time at a Starbucks. Mr. Vega introduced me to Mocha Frappuccinos and grilled jalapeños on hot dogs. He asked me why I like to run and why I like to draw and why I hated the Yankees so much. I went along with the “getting to know me” sessions because it was a lot less painful than hanging out on the couch with the doctor. Like Dad said, they were all just doing their jobs.
Things turned for me sometime during disco bowling on lane 16, while the lights flashed psychedelic and pins thundered and Sister Sledge got down. Mr. Vega and I were locked in a bowling duel. Benita was keeping score and yelling some crazy Spanish cheer from her high school days. Mr. Vega wasn’t cutting me any slack, even though I had to get my surgeon’s permission to temporarily strip off the boot brace to play. The man about to prosecute my monster threw a spare/strike/spare to win the game, even when I faked a limp at the end.
So maybe he was manipulative and maybe he was genuine and maybe he was a little of both. Regardless, when I sat down on the couch today to officially prepare for the trial, I was in the game-no longer on Mr. Vega’s team simply because there was no way out. I wanted to win.
“I know every play this guy has.” Mr. Vega is still roving the room, like he’s already in court.
“He likes to get kids on the yes-no train,” he continues. “Remember, the less narrative your answers, the less the jury can feel your pain. He will ask you a series of questions, where the answer is positively ‘yes.’ So you will answer, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes. Then he will slip in a question that is absolutely a ‘no’ answer, but you’ll be on the train, in the ‘yes’ rhythm. You’ll say ‘yes’ and when you are immediately flustered and change to ‘no,’ he’ll ask whether you are confused. And so it begins.”
I nod. This seems easy enough to handle.
“He will throw dates and numbers at you until your head spins. Whenever you are confused, ask him to explain himself again. Every. Single. Time. This makes him look more like a bully.” He steps toward me, and his face goes slack.
“If four times six equals twenty-four and twice that is forty-eight, what is fifty times that plus six?”
I stare at him, disbelieving. Begin to multiply.
He jams his finger in the air. “Fast, Tessie. Answer.”
“I can’t.”
“OK. That feeling right now, numb and slightly panicky? That’s it. That’s how it’s going to feel. Times four.” He is on the prowl again. I’m glad that Oscar isn’t here. He’d be going nuts. “This will be the toughest part. He will insinuate you are hiding things. Why is it that you can remember buying tampons on the day of the attack but not this man’s face? Why did you have a relationship with a crazy homeless man? Why did you run alone every day?”
“I run too fast for most of my friends to keep up,” I protest. “And Roosevelt isn’t that crazy.”
“Uh-uh, Tessie. Don’t just react. Think about the question. I always ran in the daylight hours on two routes approved by my father. Roosevelt has been sitting on the same corner for ten years, and is good friends with everyone, including the local cops. Matter-of-fact. Don’t let him get to you. You did nothing wrong.”