At last I set down my drawing and pull out the box of court transcripts from beneath the bed, keeping quiet in consideration for Janny. With her arm in the cast it’s been difficult for her to sleep, and this evening she didn’t go down to the chow hall for dinner because she said she was too tired and her arm ached too much. Now she’s lying quietly beneath the blanket, and I don’t want to disturb her, but there’s a section of Clinton’s testimony I want to look over again. Before I can locate it I come across another page of Forrest’s commentary—his examination by the prosecutor. I settle down onto my knees and read it.
Q: You stated that it was Ms. Mattingly who drove back to the residence after you left the rectory.
A: Yeah, it was her car, and she drove. I sat next to her, and everyone else was in the back.
Q: What was her demeanor like?
A: Calm. They were counting the money back there, and she didn’t say anything to me or to them. We got back to the Cathouse, and the rest of us started scrubbing up at the kitchen sink, taking off our clothes and whatnot, and next thing I know I hear the shower come on upstairs.
Q: And that was Ms. Mattingly?
A: Yeah. She took this long, hot shower—it was hazy around the door from all the steam—and then she came downstairs wearing jeans and one of Ricky’s T-shirts. The shirt she had on was from Spectrum Supply. It had the logo on the front, the little brush and paint palette thing. Her hair was blow-dried.
Q: You’re telling us she shot two people and then went home and blow-dried her hair.
A: I suppose so, yeah. I mean, that’s what she did. Ricky and Chris were in the living room fighting over where to go. Ricky wanted to go to Mexico, but Chris said the cops would be expecting that and had some place in western Oregon he wanted to go to instead. Clara went into the kitchen and got the glass with the Smurfs on it that they used for smoking hash—like, they’d light it, turn the glass upside down on it, and let it fill up with smoke, and then stick bendy straws underneath to suck it out. She came in with it and asked Ricky if there was any hash left. He told her it was upstairs.
Q: Was that something she did often, smoking hashish?
A: No, but once in a while she’d join in. She turned on the radio—I remember it was Phil Collins type stuff, because I was like, oh, God, what is this shit… Sorry. Then she and Liz sat at the coffee table and got high, and they watched the guys argue. Clara had a cat on her lap, like always. I was watching at the windows for cops, pretty terrified. I definitely didn’t want to get stoned at that moment.
Q: Do you feel like there was any impediment to Ms. Mattingly leaving at any point, if she chose? Was there any threat to her?
A: No. No. I mean, Chris probably would have tried to stop her, but after a while she just went upstairs to the bedroom and she didn’t try to leave. And Ricky wouldn’t have stopped her. If Chris had tried to break bad with her, Ricky would have defended her. He let her do whatever she wanted, always.
Q: That’s interesting that you tell us that, because there have been suggestions that he was physically abusive or intimidating to her.
A: God, no. In fact, at dinner that evening he was joking about how she’d hit him in the mouth earlier and it still hurt. He touched her all the time, but it wasn’t violent, I can tell you that much. She ruled the roost.
I know this stretch of testimony was particularly damning in terms of the sentence I received. A young, churchgoing woman with a spotless record is a pitiable case; but add in that she smokes hash, primps herself post-murder, and bosses around the kingpin, and all of the good work of my character witnesses is negated. It’s the Intérieur of Ricky and Clara, and it’s not especially flattering. I wish I had known Forrest well enough that I could understand why he painted it this way, but Forrest’s mind was a mystery to me. He looked so bland and unthreatening, but then, I guess they always do.
There’s a rustle in the bed, and Janny sits up. “Why you gotta be like this?” she demands, her voice jarringly loud and abrupt.
“I’m sorry. Was I too noisy?”
“You spying on me again? Is that what’s up?”
I frown, feeling a red flag of alarm pop up in my mind. I’m sure she could hear papers rustling, but I can’t imagine why she would assume they were hers. “Janny—no. These are my own court transcripts.”
“Like hell they are, you bitch.” She swings her legs over the side of the bed and starts shouting at me, her voice slurring as if she’s drunk. “Fucking puta. Who sent you here to spy on me—Javier? Some fucking zorra he found on the corner? Get over here so I can kick your ass!”
I back up toward the bars as she gets out of bed and starts toward me, the fingers of her non-casted hand tracing the bunk to orient herself. Her curly dark hair puffs out in snaky tendrils from the braid I made for her this morning, and her face is flushed. “Guard!” I shout, and at the sound of my voice she lunges for me, but staggers toward the right, as if the weight of her cast is throwing her off-balance. I go left, sliding my back along the bars. She stumbles into the corner of the desk and howls in pain.
Fast footsteps approach behind me, and my cell door clangs open. “Hernandez!” the guard yells, but he hesitates. Normally the order would be to get on the ground, but that’s not a logical order to give to a blind woman with a broken arm. “Hands on the wall,” he says instead, ad-libbing.
“Fuck you, motherfucker,” she shouts, and takes a swing at the air with her healthy arm.
Another C.O. rushes into the cell, and I back into the corner. The two of them manage to get a cuff around Janny’s free wrist, and she kicks and flails as the second one works to cuff her ankles. The first turns and meets my eye. “When did this start? Was she drinking?”
“No. I’ve never seen her like this.”
Janny begins shouting in Spanish, but the only words I can pick out are the profanities. Other officers are just outside the cell now, and the two who have cuffed her wrestle her through the door and into a waist chain. Now that she isn’t threatening me directly anymore, I feel a swell of pity for her as she’s forced into chains like an animal. My cell door pulls shut, and I stand with my hands on the bars watching Janny struggle and twist away from them. “Take her to the Hole,” the sergeant orders, and as she’s pulled away suddenly a realization dawns on me.
“Don’t throw her in the Hole,” I shout. “She didn’t have dinner. She’s diabetic.”
“What?” one of the guards says.
“Take her to the clinic. Maybe it’s her blood sugar. She needs to eat.”
The guard with a hand on Janny’s cast says, “She needs a smack upside the head, is what she needs.”
“I think she’s drunk,” the sergeant says, but he looks uneasy. “All right, take her to the clinic first. We don’t want a lawsuit.”
“Can you come back and tell me how she is?” I call out, but they’re wrangling her toward the double doors amidst the howls and cheers of the other inmates. “Come back and tell me,” I shout, straining my voice to be heard over theirs, but I know it is lost in the clamor.