Paper Castles Page 14

  PJ’s fork hung in mid-air as he stared at his sister. Savannah glanced at Neenie for a clue and Neenie rolled her eyes.

  “Well, let’s see,” Angela said. “What did I do? Oh yeah, I went to the cemetery to visit my father’s grave. It was Daddy’s birthday, remember?”

  The air hissed out of the room like a punctured tire, and the evening began to break down.

  “When was the last time you were there, Mother?” Angela had taken to calling Savannah Mother since the murder. No longer Mommy or Mom. She was removing herself in every way possible.

  Savannah folded the napkin in her lap into neat pleats. “I’m glad you went, honey,” she said, keeping her voice calm. She had forgotten it was Price’s birthday. Something she’d have never done when he was alive.

  “Why won’t you go to Daddy’s grave?” Angela shoulders were thrown back, chin jutting out like a warrior’s. A Joan of Arc riding into battle. Beneath her shiny armor, Savannah saw the little girl running to her mother with a skinned knee. She wanted Mommy to make everything all right.

  “Angela, please.”

  “I’m just asking you a question.”

  Savannah saw the tears ready to fall, tears always at the ready because Angela lived life on the edge of hysteria.

  “I don’t want to fight tonight.”

  “We wouldn’t have to fight if you’d just say it.” Angela’s eyes were wild. Her body shaking, crying, completely undone, barely breathing as the words tore from her chest. “Tell me you didn’t kill my father.”

  “Baby...”

  “Don’t call me Baby,” she shouted. “Just answer me.”

  “Angela, shut up,” PJ said, his head in his hands, looking sick to his stomach. “Just shut up. You don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  “You shut up.” Angela screamed. “I have just as much right to my opinion as you do. You know she did it. She hated Daddy.”

  Savannah saw her daughter splitting into pieces: Daddy’s little girl, the vindictive woman and the child who still needed her Mommy. The three personalities rose up in unison and formed a firing squad, lined up against Savannah.

  “Just tell me you didn’t do it,” Angela cried.

  Savannah got up and walked around the table. She knelt beside Angela and looked up at the tear-stained, frightened face.

  “You know I don’t remember that night,” Savannah said. “I don’t believe in my heart that I could’ve harmed your father.”

  “Say you didn’t do it.” Angela’s lips were trembling. “Please.”

  “I—”

  “You can’t, can you?” Angela pushed Savannah away with enough force to knock her mother over, along with half the dishes on the table. Savannah froze at the sound of glass shattering on the floor.

  “You ruined everyone’s life. You killed everything.” Angela stormed from the room.

  PJ came to help Savannah up. “Don’t listen to her Mom. She’s nuts.”

  Savannah shook her head. “No. Don’t say that.”

  PJ wrapped her up in his arms and the two survivors held on for dear life as Neenie returned with a broom and dustpan to clean up the broken pieces.

  PHIL WAS back. And Savannah was glad. It leant a bit of normalcy to her days. Things had been extremely tense since the last blow-out with Angela. Savannah was holding her breath until school let out in a few days. The kids would go down to Florida to visit Price’s parents and Savannah prayed the trip would help her daughter find some peace.

  “So we don’t know her name,” Phil said, bringing her back to the present. Like a dog with a bone, he kept coming back to the woman Savannah saw with Price the night of the Valentine’s Day dance.

  “What do we know?” Phil asked himself.

  “Nothing,” Savannah sighed.” She’s a ghost. The detectives said she didn’t exist.”

  “Right. Detectives.” Phil bit down on the pencil between his teeth.

  He was looking over the roster of attendees from the Valentine’s Dance. They’d been over it together a dozen times. Name by name. Some names were scratched out in red. A few had been circled, then after further investigation, scratched out too. Even Phil’s interview with the gossiping Delores unearthed no clues. Savannah was startled to learn the troublemaker who’d said “That’s not what I heard,” had in reality heard nothing at all.

  Savannah could hear Price saying, “See, I told you, you were making it up. You’re crazy.” She shook her head, shaking the voice from its perch on her shoulder.

  “Damn.” Phil tossed his pencil on the desk and ran his hand through dark hair. She watched as he took off his glasses and pinched the bridge of his nose with two fingers.

  “Let’s take a break,” he said.

  “Let’s get away from this desk. I’ll make us a snack and meet you in the backyard.”

  Phil was settled on the porch swing when she pushed open the screen door. She carried a tray with chicken salad sandwiches, a pitcher of iced-tea, and a cold beer for Phil who gagged at the syrupy sweetness of sweet-tea.

  “Might as well hook yourself up to an IV drip of sugar,” he said, the first time he tried the southern staple.

  “Yankees,” both Neenie and Savannah mumbled.

  The late May afternoon was warm and the garden was in full bloom. Savannah looked at the showy Iceberg roses surrounded by rows of neatly-trimmed boxwood. She remembered all the plans she and Gio had made for the garden tour this year. Those plans were gone. So was Gio. Like so many other things, he was a luxury she could no longer afford. She cried when she had to let him go, but he hugged her hard.

  “Arrivederci Signora,” he said. “E buona fortuna.”

  “Thank you Gio. I need all the luck I can get.”

  Then he leaned in close and whispered. “In culo alla balena.”

  Savannah laughed at their old joke. Up the whale’s ass. Gio delighted in teaching her silly or even slightly naughty Italian phrases. Savannah was an excellent pupil and replied as Gio had taught her.

  “Che non scoreggi.” May it not fart.

  Gio smiled and nodded as he got in his beat up pick-up truck full of rakes, shovels, and bags of mulch, and drove out of her life.

  One more good-bye.

  She looked over at Phil who held his beer in one hand and sandwich in the other, the muscles in his jaw flexing as he chewed. He seemed to be chewing on something more than chicken salad. A determined look was in his eyes as he stared past the courtyard. In fact, he hadn’t quite seemed himself since he got back in town.

  Maybe he has something going on in his personal life.

  The thought unnerved her for some reason. He’d never mentioned anything about a girlfriend. But why would he? It was none of her business.

  They ate in silence, the only sound between them the splashing of the fountain in the center of the courtyard, a Greek goddess pouring water from an urn into the pool below. She’d poured the same stream for years, her expression never changing.

  “Seems like this city is one big park full of fountains,” Phil said.

  “One thing we Southerners have learned is how to keep cool. Just the sound of running water is enough to shave off a few degrees.”

  Phil nodded slowly, chewing to the rhythm of the porch swing. “It’s so beautiful out here.”

  “So much work that hasn’t been done,” Savannah said, eyeing the weeds that needed pulling. The garden needed constant attention. It was a chore she used to love, but she had neither time nor energy for it now.

  She shrugged and turned her eyes away from the yard and back to Phil.

  “How was Kip when you saw him?” she asked.

  “Fine.”

  Something’s wrong. She felt it in her stomach—her old friend, Panic, revving its engine. Something was off.

  “Just fine?”

  His eyes flicked over her, taking the temperature of the moment, as if he were testing her strength.

  “Remember I told you Kip and I were having a strategy session?
”

  “Yes.”

  “Actually Kip and I, as well as your father, have done a lot of strategizing about the tack we should take for your defense.”

  She’d been pushing her toe against the wooden floorboards to keep the swing in motion. Now she stopped. He had her full attention. She watched him, looking for clues tucked behind careful words.

  “We’ve wracked our brains trying to come up with another solution.”

  “What do you mean another solution? As opposed to what?”

  Phil looked over at her, his eyes gentle, his words gentler. “As opposed to you not remembering what happened.”

  She sat staring at that implausible excuse. Knowing when it was handed over to the jurors, they’d hand it right back, insulted.

  “So...” She tilted her chin toward him.

  “Look Savannah, I’m going to poke all the holes I can in every bit of the D.A.s so-called evidence. But that’s still a long shot. We need a defense.”

  “A long shot?” For some reason she’d believed that things were going swimmingly. Now she was a long shot? Savannah Palmerton: Long Shot. Hundred-to-one-odds.

  “Jury trials are always a walk into the unknown, but most of the time, the jury wants to find you not guilty. It’s my job to give them a reason, a way out. Something they can believe in. Something they can hang their not guilty verdict on and walk out of that courtroom with their heads held high. Do you understand?”

  “Of course.”

  “Your father and Kip and I would like for you to meet with a doctor.”

  Suspicion coiled around her ankles. “What kind of doctor?”

  “A psychiatrist.”

  The word came whizzing out of left field, whooshed by her head, and landed in the fountain with a splash. The Greek goddess went on smiling and pouring.

  “Are you planning on pleading insanity?” Savannah said, her voice barely a whisper. “Dad and Kip agreed to this?”

  Phil nodded. “We think it’s a way out.”

  “Out?” She found the breath behind her voice. “To where? The nuthouse? So we’re going to march into court and tell everyone I’m crazy?”

  “Of course not,” Phil said. “We’re not saying anything of the sort. The D.A. still has a case to prove, but we have to give the jurors a plausible explanation for why you can’t remember.”

  “Maybe I just can’t remember. Or how about we tell the truth, that I was drunk and took sleeping pills and passed out? Why do I have to be crazy?”

  “Because having my client passed out on pills and booze isn’t exactly the picture I want to paint for the jurors. The statute says ‘A voluntarily intoxicated person maintains his or her responsibility for his or her conduct, and a person who voluntarily puts himself or herself into drugged condition is capable of forming intent to kill.’”

  She stood abruptly, unimpressed with his memorized speech. The swing lurched back. Phil looked thrown off by her response, as well.

  “So not only will I be a murderer, but I’ll be insane?”

  “Wait a min—”

  “I have no say in this?”

  “Of course you do. We’re discussing it now.”

  “No, I’m being told what’s been decided. You’re not going to do this to me. I won’t let you. I won’t let them.”

  “Savannah, let’s talk about this.” Phil reached out for her hand, but they were balled up in fists and her feet were taking her off the porch and inside.

  “The answer is no,” she said. “Hell, no.”

  The screen door slammed behind her.

  “I APOLOGIZE,” KIP said over the phone. “I should have talked to you first.”

  “It would have been easier,” Savannah said. Hard truths were always softer when followed by a hug.

  “I know it’s difficult, but we’re all thinking about what’s best for the case. Try not to take any of this personally.”

  “How do I not take insanity personally?”

  Kip had talked her down off the ledge, just as he’d done many times before. Kip understood where her “Hell, no,” came from. Where it was born. Where it grew up. He lived there, too.

  Curled up with the phone to her ear, and the cord wrapped around her hands like shackles, Savannah let him lead her through the woods. Hansel to her Gretel, knowing the way home.

  It was a long conversation. Kip convinced her with facts and her father followed up with the same conversation a day later. In the end, she acquiesced to seeing a doctor, too tired to fight any longer.

  She was insane.

  Fine.

  Tomorrow was the last day of school. Assembly in the morning, with achievement awards handed out. Then bells would ring and doors would be flung open as kids poured out into streets, parks, pools and front lawns all over the city.

  PJ was slated to receive an award, top honors for science. Savannah wouldn’t miss seeing it, but a certain amount of planning was involved.

  Once the assembly began, she’d quietly sneak in and stand up against the back wall. She’d wear a scarf and sunglasses, like Greta Garbo hiding from the press. As soon as PJ had his award, she’d sneak back out again. Ridiculous, but she would be there to see her son. And he would know she was there.

  Parking was terrible and Savannah had to hike a good distance to the auditorium. She pulled open the heavy front door and stole down the empty halls, a burglar in high heels.

  When she opened the auditorium door, several people turned in their seats to look at the stream of light coming from the entrance. For all her attempts at anonymity, Savannah was standing in a spotlight. She let the door close, now thrust into darkness and blind. She ducked to the side and felt along the wall for a place to stand, stepping on several toes in the process.

  “Ouch.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  “Shh...”

  She was finally shoved into an open space between two women and she flattened herself along the wall.

  So far, so good.

  Mr. Weston’s thin voice crackled over the microphone. “And now for excellence in science for grades nine through twelve. This year’s award goes to Price Palmerton, Jr. for his science project, investigating fluid viscosity.”

  PJ walked across the stage and received his certificate. He held it up over his head with a big grin and Savannah knew he was looking out into the dark for her.

  I’m here, Peege. I see you.

  “Thank you, Ladies and Gentlemen.” The principal wrapped up the ceremony and without warning the house lights came up.

  Damn. Savannah reached for her sunglasses.

  She turned to make a quick getaway and plowed smack into Birdie Westfall. Of all the souls to run into, why did it have to be Birdie Westfall? She’d been a bully in high school and time hadn’t improved her.

  “Well, if it isn’t Savannah Kendall Palmerton. Or is it just Kendall now since you’ve killed off your husband?”

  Birdie’s voice was still loud and obnoxious and heads turned in their direction.

  “My, my, how far the Homecoming Queen has fallen.”

  “I’m in no mood to deal with you Birdie. Excuse me.” Savannah kept her voice low and tried to squeeze past, but Birdie pushed her up against the wall. Just as she had in high school.

  “You have a lot of nerve showing your face in public.” Birdie was so close, Savannah could feel her hot breath. “I know you’ve always lived in your ivory tower, but did you assume you could get away with murder too? Your Daddy and brother going to sweep this one under the rug for you? Murderer.”

  A teenage Savannah would’ve cringed, but the woman who stood there today narrowed her eyes, through with taking crap.

  The slap across Birdie’s face rang out like a warning bell in the auditorium. Birdie’s eyes bulged with shock and if Savannah’s palm didn’t sting, she never would have believed she’d done the slapping. An instant of exhilarating triumph. Then Birdie lunged at Savannah.

  Savannah Palmerton was no match for the woman who knew h
er way around a fight. Birdie’s hands seemed to be everywhere. All Savannah could do was try to deflect. A pair of strong arms circled her waist, dragging her back from the scene, while someone else was brave enough to grab Birdie, still kicking and clawing.

  “I always knew you had a hot-headed temper under that cool exterior.”

  Birdie’s hair hung in her face, and she was panting, struggling against the arms that held her, looking ready to go for another round. “Is this what happened the night your husband was mysteriously shot to death?”

  “Shut the hell up,” Savannah screamed. Every eye was on her. She heard the gasps, saw glee disguised as genteel shock on the faces of the PTA mothers. Not for Birdie, but for her. Savannah was the show they’d all come to see today.

  She turned in the arms holding her and looked up into Phil’s face. She buried her head in his shirt, throwing herself on his life raft. He made a pathway for the two of them and led her outside, past Birdie’s shouts. Savannah didn’t let go until they reached his car. He opened the passenger door without a word and she slid onto the seat, buried her face in her hands, and wept.

  NEWS LIKE this wouldn’t sit still a minute. Before the school buses finished running their routes, everyone knew about the fight or knew someone who knew. The story elaborated with the telling, gossip carried home in every grocery bag in town. By the time Beverly Kendall got the story, Savannah and Birdie had been rolling around in the dirt, trading punches.

  “It wasn’t that bad, Momma.” Savannah took advantage of the inflated story to soften the blow.

  She held the phone an inch from her ear through the predictable harangue that followed. She practically mouthed the words along with her mother.

  Never been so embarrassed. How could you? Not the way you were raised. Where did I go wrong? So disappointed in you.

  Savannah let her mother vent her frustration. Of course Beverly was disappointed in her. No sooner had the crown slipped off her daughter’s head than, she was brawling in the streets like a common criminal.

  “Yes, Momma. I know. I understand. I will. Goodbye.” She dropped the receiver in its cradle and walked back into the kitchen. Defeat followed like a shadow. She never should’ve poked her head into the light of day. She belonged in the dark.