Moderator Jim is nodding. “Yes, yes, I see your point. And you, Mr. Prime Minister?”
“If that’s what the people want,” the prime minister says, the studio lights gleaming off his head, “then we’ll make it happen. I promise. Because unlike my colleague’s example of a referendum on taxes, the death penalty is a reality. Nobody wants to pay taxes, but we all know we have to do it. Nobody wants killers out on the street, and that’s something we can do something about. We won’t be messing around with exploring options. It’s time we take a firm stand on crime. If the country votes to bring the death penalty in, then my government will make it a priority and have it introduced by the end of year. That’s a promise,” he says, and my skin goes cold as I stare at the TV set. This man wants to kill me. He’s giving me nothing to make me change my opinion about bald people. “Don’t make the assumption that we’re going to hang every criminal who goes through the court system. It will only be used in extreme cases.”
“Cases like Joe Middleton?” Jim asks.
Some of the guys around me whoop at the mention of my name and somebody slaps me on the shoulder and gives me a Way to go, Joe. But at this rate the way Joe is going to go is by hanging. My skin gets colder.
“Yes, I imagine so,” the prime minister says.
“And what about those already in the system?”
“They’ve been sentenced already,” the prime minister says, “and we can’t retroactively alter their sentences. What we can do, though, for future criminals, is make their sentences tougher.”
“So in the case of Middleton,” Jim says, “who I think you’d agree has become a catalyst for this entire pro- and anti-death movement, his trial starts next week. It may last two months, so it will be over around the same time as the election. Will his sentencing be held off until the bill is passed?”
The prime minister gives a small grin. “Jim, you’re getting ahead of yourself and also off topic.” Then he wags his finger at him, like a teacher telling off a child. “It’s a good try, but I won’t be drawn into a matter that shall be decided by the courts. I think you’ll find both myself and my opponent are here to debate the issues, not to debate how Joe Middleton’s trial should be run.”
“Go Joe,” somebody yells out from across the room, and I look up to see one of the smokers up on the bench giving me the thumbs-up. A couple of others start clapping. Caleb Cole is still staring at me as if the referendum is a pointless exercise because he’s going to kill me anyway.
The topic goes from me to the economy. They lose me about six words into it. Good economy or bad economy, prison life isn’t going to change. It’s not like we’re all going to declare bankruptcy and get evicted if things are bad, and it’s not like we’re getting champagne breakfasts if things are good.
I get up and move back into my cell. We’re only fifteen minutes away from being put into them anyway. I lie down on my cot and stare up at the ceiling and wonder just how it is I’ve come to be in here—the bad luck, the out-of-whack world that would have done this to me. I think back to times in the real world not so much more than a year ago, where things were good, where The Sally would bring me sandwiches at work and at night I would either visit my mom or somebody I had taken a fancy to. Then I think to that Sunday morning when The Sally showed up outside my apartment, where The Sally jumped on me when I tried to shoot myself, and then, like other times I’ve thought about this, I wonder whether or not she did the right thing.
Everybody hates me.
Everybody except Melissa.
I pick up the books and try to find her message.
Chapter Eighteen
The gun is still inside the fat suit. Right now Melissa has no weapon. Her keys are in the ignition. She can grab them. Stab Raphael with them a few times. Messy but effective, but loud too because he’ll scream, and people will see it, and suddenly she’s not driving out here with a partner in crime like she wanted, but driving out of here in the back of a police car. She’ll go for it and hope for the best, if that’s her only option. But right now she’ll play it out—see where things go. She has a good instinct for things, and right now it’s telling her this could be a good thing.
“You can start by explaining the outfit,” he says, pointing his thumb into the backseat. “Are you a reporter? You writing a book? Who are you really?”
“It’s none of that,” she says.
“I know a lot of the victims’ families,” he says. “Daniela Walker, we asked her husband along, him and the kids. He said no. But her parents came. They were even there tonight. You’d have known that if she really was your sister,” he says, and Melissa knew it at the time—she knew giving a name was a mistake, but he was good, way too good at not letting her know he knew it at the time. She’ll have to be careful about that. “So, let me ask you again, who are you really?”
“My name really is Stella,” she says.
“Bullshit.”
She shakes her head. “It’s true,” she says with enough conviction to convince him—or maybe he’s doing that thing again where he knows she’s lying, but is hiding it.
“But Joe Middleton didn’t kill your sister.”
“No,” she says. “He didn’t. But . . .” she says, and she wipes at her face, smudges some of the raindrops across it and hopes it looks like tears, “but he did kill, kill my baby,” she says.
“Bullshit,” he says.
“It’s true,” she says. “He . . . he raped me. Last year. I was pregnant. Three and a half months pregnant and I lost, I lost the baby,” she says. “It’s why I wear the . . . wear the baby suit,” she says, “because I wanted nothing more than to be nine months pregnant, to be at that stage of giving life, but I never got there, I never got there because he killed my baby and my husband left me, he didn’t want to touch me after that because somehow he blamed me, and he hated me for not going to the police. So I’m sorry I lied, I’m sorry I wore a pregnancy suit, but I wear it because it makes me feel better, it makes me feel like things are the way they’re supposed to be, that my life stayed on the track I’d worked so hard to put it on. Only it isn’t, things aren’t the way they should be because that bastard hurt me, he took away my baby and he hurt me and I want him dead. I want him dead and I thought that if I came along here tonight maybe it would help me forgive him, or forgive myself, but all I want now more than ever is to put a bullet in him. A lot of bullets. I want him dead and I guess . . . I guess I wanted to find somebody who felt the same way. I have a plan,” she says, “a plan to kill Joe, and I wanted . . . I want somebody to help me do it.”
He says nothing. Five seconds go by. Ten. She’s sure he believes her. He’s just thinking it through. There are a few options, but not many.
“I’m . . . I’m sorry,” he finally says.
“He killed my baby,” she says.
“You should have just told us.”
“Told you? What? Go in there and tell everybody I wear a pregnancy suit because I can’t face the fact my baby died, and how I sometimes pretend I’m still pregnant because it brings me comfort?”
He doesn’t answer. How can he?
She lets the silence build. The rain keeps hammering on the roof. The passenger door is still open and occasional gusts of wind bring water into the car. Raphael is playing out several scenarios in his head. She’s playing out different ones. His involve whether he should help her or walk away. Hers involve whether she should stab her keys into his eyes first or into his throat.
“And if you found somebody to help you, what then?”
“I don’t want there to be a trial. I want Joe dead, and I want to be the one to make it happen. I don’t want his lawyer getting him off on some technicality. I don’t want him being a free man and going into hiding. I want to kill him.”
“And you have a plan,” he says.
“A good plan.”