Triptych

CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE

“You” was all Lydia Ormewood said when she’d opened her front door to find John and Joyce standing there.

Michael’s mother had aged well, or more likely she’d spent enough money to make sure she looked like it. Though John knew the woman was in her late sixties, the skin on her face was smooth and healthy-looking. Even her neck and hands, the usual giveaway, were as smooth and young as Joyce’s.

Life had obviously been very good to her. She lived in Vinings, one of Atlanta’s more expensive suburbs, in a brand-new, three-story house. White walls loomed over everything, white carpets scattered around the bleached oak floors. A gleaming white grand piano was in the living room, and two black leather couches faced each other by a marbled fireplace. Cream silk curtains hung in the windows. Abstract art with bold primary colors hung on the walls, all of it probably original work. Lydia herself was monochromatic. She wore black. John did not know if this was her regular attire or if she was in mourning for her son.

Joyce had been at the DeKalb County courthouse when John was arrested, going page by page through old records, looking for Lydia. Since then, she had taken days off work, digging through all the public records she could find. Lydia had married and divorced twice since her husband Barry had died. Her surname had changed each time, but Joyce had finally managed to trace Michael’s mother through a contact who worked at the social security office. Uncle Barry had been fully vested in the system when he died. Lydia had started to collect his social security checks four years ago.

Joyce had the woman’s address in her hand three days later.

They sat in front of the fireplace, Joyce and John on one uncomfortable couch, Lydia on the other. Their aunt sat with her spine straight, knees together, legs tilted to the side, like a photograph out of Miss Manners. She looked at John with open distaste.

He knew he looked like hell. Ms. Lam had knocked on his door at five o’clock that morning. She’d handed him the specimen cup, then started searching his room for contraband. He’d come back from the toilet to find her holding the picture of his mother in her hands. John had stood there holding his own piss, feeling a slow shame burning inside him. This was just one more degradation he had forced on Emily. When would it end? When would his mother be able to rest in peace?

Joyce said, “We’re here about Michael.”

“He was my son,” Lydia told them, as if it was that simple.

Joyce stiffened beside him, but John shook his head, willed her to be patient. He loved his sister, but she lived in a world of black and white. She didn’t know how to deal with the grays.

John told Lydia, “The little girl he kidnapped is going to be okay.”

“Well,” she said, dismissing this with a shrug of her narrow shoulders. John waited, but she didn’t ask about Angie Polaski, didn’t seem interested in the health of her son’s last victim. As a matter of fact, she didn’t seem interested in anything.

John cleared his throat. “If you could just-”

“He hated you, you know.”

John had already figured that out, but he needed to know. “Why?”

“I don’t know,” she answered, smoothing her skirt with her hand. She had a large diamond ring on her finger, the gold band at least half an inch wide. “He seemed quite obsessed with you. He kept a scrapbook.” She stood suddenly. “I’ll get it.”

She left the room, her slippers gliding across the white carpet.

Joyce hissed out air between her teeth.

“Calm down,” John told her. “She doesn’t have to do this.”

“She’s holding your life in her hands.”

“I know,” John said, but he was used to having other people control his life, whether it was his father or Michael or the guards at the prison or Martha Lam. John had never known a moment in his adult life when he wasn’t trying to keep somebody happy just so he could live through another day.

Joyce started to tear up again. He had forgotten what a crier she was. “I hate her, John. I hate her so much. How can you stand to be in the same room with her?”

He used the back of his finger to wipe away her tears. “We need something from her. She doesn’t need anything from us.”

Lydia returned, holding a large photo album to her chest. She put it on the low leather ottoman between the couches as she sat down.

John saw a photograph of himself pasted to the outside of the book. At least, he thought it was his photograph. The face had been scratched out with an ink pen.

“My God,” Joyce murmured, sliding the album over. She opened the cover to the first page, then the second, as John looked over her shoulder. They were both speechless as they saw pictures of John from junior high-class pictures, team photos, John running in his track uniform. Michael had catalogued each moment of John’s teenage life.

“It was Barry who made it worse,” Lydia said. Uncle Barry, her husband, their mother’s brother. “Barry talked about you all the time, used you as an example.”

“An example of what?” Joyce demanded, obviously horrified by the scrapbook.

“Michael went down the wrong path after his father left. He had problems at school. The drugs… well, I don’t know. There was an older boy at school who got him interested in the wrong things. Michael would have never done anything like that on his own.”

Joyce’s mouth opened but John squeezed her hand, warning her not to speak. You didn’t get what you wanted from someone like Lydia Ormewood by telling her what to do. You came with your hat in your hand and you waited. John had done this all of his life. He knew that one false word could ruin everything.

Lydia continued, “Barry thought you would be a good role model for Michael. You always did so well in school.” She sighed. “Michael was a good boy. He merely gravitated toward the wrong crowd.”

John nodded, like he understood. Maybe, on some level, he did. John himself had gotten sucked into Michael’s crowd. So had Aleesha Monroe. She had hung around Michael’s house all the time, had even been there the night of the party. She’d had good parents, siblings who were always at the top of their classes. Would John have ended up like Aleesha if Mary Alice hadn’t died? Would his life have been wasted like hers no matter what had happened?

Lydia’s chest rose and fell as she sighed again. “I made him join the military,” she told them. “I didn’t let him sit around after you went away. He fought in the war. He tried to help keep those Arab people safe and got shot in the leg for his trouble.”

Joyce was so tense John could almost hear her humming like a piano wire.

Lydia picked at a speck of fuzz on her skirt. “And then he came back to Atlanta, settled down, had a family.” She looked up at Joyce. “That girl he married, she obviously had something wrong with her. Tim was not Michael’s fault.” She spoke vehemently, and John looked around the room again, trying to find photographs of Michael or his son. The mantel over the fireplace was bare but for a glass vase of silk flowers. The stark metal table on the back wall held nothing but a neat stack of magazines and one of those princess phones like Joyce had in her room when they were growing up. Even the thick cord dangling from the telephone hung in a straight line, as if it, too, was afraid to displease Lydia.

The whole place was like a tomb.

“He got a commendation for saving a woman’s life,” Lydia continued proudly. “Did you know that?”

John’s reply almost caught in his throat. “No. I didn’t.”

“She was in a car accident. He pulled her from the car before it exploded.”

John didn’t know what to say. Michael may have saved one woman, but he had ruined countless others, selling drugs to the working girls, raping and murdering for his own sick pleasure.

“Michael was good,” Lydia insisted. “That other part of him”-she waved her hand, dismissing the evil her son had wrought-“that wasn’t my Michael. My Michael was a good boy. He had so many friends.”

So many friends he got hooked on hard drugs, John thought. Like Aleesha.

“And such promise,” she continued.

“You can’t do this.” Joyce’s voice shook with anger. “You cannot sit there and tell us what an angel Michael was. He was an animal.”

“Joyce,” John tried. She didn’t know the rules, didn’t know how to give up her control. She had never had someone throw feces in her face just for looking the wrong way. She had never tried to go to sleep while the sixty-year-old man in the next cell whispered about what a beautiful body you had, told you in minute detail what he wanted to do to it.

Lydia raised a thin eyebrow. “You should mind your brother, young lady.”

“Don’t you dare talk about my brother.”

Amusement flashed in Lydia’s eyes. John knew they had lost. In that one moment, they had lost everything.

Lydia asked, “Are you threatening me?”

Joyce exploded off the couch, yelling, “You knew John didn’t kill Mary Alice!”

“I knew no such thing.”

“How can you defend him?” John tried to pull her back to the couch, but Joyce slapped his hand away. “How can you just sit there-”

“You don’t have children so you don’t know,” Lydia snapped. “You and your… lady friend.”

Joyce clenched her fists. “No,” she answered. “I don’t have children. You’re right. I didn’t raise a child. I didn’t raise a rapist and murderer, either.”

Lydia looked as if she had been slapped. “You’ve no right to speak to me in that tone.”

“Did you tell Mama?” Joyce demanded. “When you went to the hospital, is that when you told her what happened, that your child murdered Mary Alice, not hers?”

Lydia advised, “Let the dead rest in peace.”

John didn’t know if she meant Emily or Michael. For his part, John wasn’t sure if Michael’s death brought him any peace. Standing there in that cellar, he had wanted with every ounce of his being to fall to his knees, beat the life back into Michael’s chest, do whatever it took to bring him back to life so he could kill him again with his own hands.

But, he hadn’t. John had saved Jasmine instead. She had stopped breathing, and John had breathed for her, giving her CPR for over forty minutes until the ambulance had arrived at the little cabin Michael had bought in John’s name. The same hands that had mutilated Cynthia Barrett had given life to another little girl. There had to be some kind of justice in that. There had to be some kind of peace.

John watched his sister as she walked to the other side of the room, putting some space between herself and the woman who had destroyed her family. Joyce was just trying to defend him. He knew that. He also knew that she had ruined any possibility they had of clearing his name.

Still, he had to try. John had learned patience in a way his sister never had to. He had also learned how to talk to the people in charge.

“She’s upset,” he told Lydia, a half-apology he knew she was waiting for. “It’s been hard for her.”

“You’ve got your freedom,” Lydia pointed out. “I don’t know what you want from me. I’m an old woman. I just want to be left alone.”

“It’s not that easy.”

“You’re out, aren’t you?” She said it as if it was a simple thing, as if John wasn’t always looking over his shoulder, always waiting for those cuffs to be put back on, for those guards to throw him into a cell with Zebra. He had nearly shit his pants when Will Trent slammed him into the wall. There were some prisons you never got out of.

John took a deep breath, made himself explain to the former criminal lawyer how the justice system worked. “I’m a registered sex offender. A pedophile. I can’t get a decent job, buy a home. I’ll never have a life.”

“What about Michael?” she demanded. “He doesn’t have a life, either.”

Joyce made a noise of disgust. She was standing by the piano, arms crossed over her chest. She looked just like their father.

John turned back to Lydia, speaking gently, trying to lead her through it. “Michael killed a woman named Aleesha Monroe.”

“She was a prostitute.”

So, she had been watching the news.

“He kidnapped a police officer,” John continued. “The bones in her wrist are so badly broken that she may be permanently disabled.”

Lydia didn’t have an answer for that one.

“He kidnapped a little girl and raped her, nearly beat her to death.”

“From what I’ve gathered,” she said tartly, “the girl was hardly inexperienced.”

“He bit off her tongue.”

Lydia smoothed her skirt again, keeping silent.

“Michael bit off her tongue, just like he bit off Mary Alice’s.”

If John hadn’t been looking at Lydia, he would’ve missed her reaction. For just an instant, he was certain she had been surprised.

John said, “I know about the report the state’s dental expert wrote.”

Her chin went up in challenge. “I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

“I think you do.”

“I have no recollection of a report.” She added, “And even if I did, there’s nothing I can do about it now.”

“You can give me my life back.” John tried, “All you’d have to do is make a sworn statement-”

“Don’t be ridiculous.”

“That’s all I want, Lydia. Swear under oath that it was Michael who killed Mary Alice and not me. Convince them to clear my record and I’ll just-”

“Young man,” she interrupted again, her tone clipped. He could tell from her posture that it was over. She pointed to the door. “I want you and your sister out of my house right now.”

John stood automatically, always one to follow orders. Joyce was still at the piano. Tears of defeat welled into her eyes. She had fought so hard for him and now she had finally realized that there was nothing more that she could do.

She mouthed, “I’m sorry.”

He looked around the house, the mausoleum Lydia had built with the money she’d earned from suing corporations and doctors and anyone else who had made a mistake she could profit on. She’d spent hours with John at the county jail trying to fabricate his defense. Twenty years ago, she had told him not to testify on his own behalf. She had handled the lab tests, the experts, the character witnesses. Lydia was the one who came to Coastal that day to tell him that it was over, that there were no other legal avenues left to explore. She’d started crying, and he had tried to comfort her.

John also remembered another day at Coastal, that first visit his mother had made after Zebra had ripped him in two.

“You will not give up,” Emily had ordered, gripping John’s hands so hard across the table that his fingers started to go numb. “Do you understand me, Jonathan? You will not give up.”

You didn’t go through twenty years of hard time without learning something. Prison was nothing but a big clock that never stopped ticking. All any of them had was time, and they spent that time talking. There was trash-talk-plans of escape, plans to shiv the bastard who disrespected you in the lunch line-but you could only bullshit for so long. Invariably, everyone ended up talking about how they’d wound up in the joint. All of them were innocent; framed by some crooked cop, fucked over by the system. All of them were working some angle, some way to snatch that get-out-of-jail-free card.

In 1977, the United States Supreme Court handed down a decision that led to the establishment of adequate law libraries in all state and federal prisons. No one knew exactly what adequate meant, but the library at Coastal rivaled any law school’s, and every man in the joint eventually ended up with his head tucked into some case book, searching for an obscure passage, an arcane edict, any loophole they could exploit. Most cons knew more about the law than the lawyers the state had appointed to represent them-a good thing, since you usually got what you paid for.

John picked up the vase of flowers on the mantel.

Lydia stood, spine stiff as a board. “Put that down.”

He hefted the vase in his hand. Leaded crystal, heavy as a brick. Probably worth its weight in gold. That was the only thing Lydia cared about now-money: how much she could make, how much she could hold on to. Four marriages, a son, a grandson, and all she had to show for it were these cold little objects scattered around her pristine mansion.

He said, “You’ve got a nice place, Aunt Lydia.”

“Both of you. Get out of my house this instant.”

“Your house,” John repeated, sliding out the flowers, dropping them one by one on the expensive white rug. “That’s an interesting way to put it.”

“I’m going to call the police.”

“Better duck first.”

“Wha-” She was old but she moved fast when she saw John raise the vase. He threw it well over her head, but the shards of glass that shattered off the wall rained onto the couch where she had been sitting.

Lydia shrieked, “How dare you!”

The vase was probably worth more than he’d made since leaving the joint, but John didn’t give a shit about money. There were rich people all over the world who were living in their own prisons, trapped by greed, shut off from the world around them. All he wanted right now was his freedom, and he was going to do whatever it took to get it back.

He asked his sister, “How much do you think this house is worth?”

Joyce stood frozen in place, her mouth gaping open. Any conflict in her life usually consisted of heated negotiations and thinly veiled threats made across a polished conference table or martinis at the club. A veiled threat didn’t count for much at Coastal State Prison.

John guessed, “Quarter of a million dollars? Haifa million?”

Joyce shook her head, too shocked to respond.

“You!” Lydia said, her voice shrill with anger. “You have exactly one minute to get out of this house before I call the police and have you arrested.”

“A million bucks?” John prodded. “Come on, Joycey. You handle real estate closings all day. You know how much a house is worth.”

Joyce shook her head like she couldn’t understand. But then she did something that surprised him. She glanced nervously around the room, took in the two-story cathedral ceiling, the large windows looking onto the graciously manicured back lawn. When she looked back at John, he could tell that she was still confused. But she trusted him. She trusted him enough to say, “Three.”

“Three million,” John echoed, incredulous. He’d thought he was rich when he cleaned out the thirty-eight hundred dollars Michael had left in the fake John’s banking account.

He said, “Divide that by twenty years, you get-what-about a hundred fifty thousand bucks a year?”

Joyce was slowly getting it. “Yeah, Johnny. That’s about right.” “Doesn’t seem like nearly enough, does it?” His sister’s eyes sparkled. She smiled. “No.”

“What do you think she has in the bank?” He turned back to Lydia. “Maybe I should be directing these questions to you?”

“You should be walking out of that door if you know what’s good for you.”

“What kind of car do you drive? Mercedes? BMW?” He felt like a lawyer on a television program. Maybe he could have been a lawyer. If Michael Ormewood had never entered his life, maybe John Shelley could have been a doctor or a lawyer or a teacher or a… what? What could he have been? He would never know. No one would ever know. “John?” Joyce sounded concerned. He had gone too quiet. His voice was not as strong when he asked Lydia, “How about that ring on your finger? What’s that worth?” “Get out of my house.”

“You’re a lawyer,” John told her. “You’ve obviously made a very good living by suing people for everything they’ve got.” He indicated the-house, her useless things.

“I want you out of here,” Lydia commanded. “I want you out of here right now.”

“I want this house,” he told her, walking around the room, wondering what would make her break. He pulled a monochromatic canvas off the wall. “I want this,” he said, dropping it to the floor as he continued his stroll. “I want that piano.”

He walked over to Joyce’s side, thinking that no matter what happened, nothing would be more valuable to him than knowing she believed in him. Michael had tried to destroy him, but he was gone now. Nothing could change the past. All they could focus on now was their future.

He asked his sister, “How many times did Mom yell at us about practicing our scales?” “All the time.” John trailed his hand along the keys. “She’d like this,” he said, playing a couple of notes he remembered from a million years ago. “She’d like the idea of me taking up the piano again.”

“Yeah,” Joyce agreed, a sad smile on her face. “I think she would.”

“You can stop right there,” Lydia barked.

John warned, “I think you should be careful how you talk to me.”

Lydia tucked a hand onto her hip. “You don’t have nearly the grounds you need for a criminal conviction. Even with this recent… innuendo… you have leveled against my son, you don’t have proof of anything.”

“The burden of proof is lower in a civil suit. You know that.”

“Have you any idea how many years I can hold up depositions and hearings?” She gave a crocodile grin that showed pearly white teeth. She made her voice softer, frail. “I’m an old woman. This has been a terrible shock. I have my good days and my bad…”

“I can freeze your assets,” John told her. “I’m sure you’ll have plenty of bad days living in a one-room condo on Buford Highway.”

“You can’t threaten me.”

“What about the press?” he asked. “Joyce found you. I’m sure the reporters can, too. Especially if she gives them a little help.”

“I am calling the police,” Lydia warned him, walking stiffly to the phone.

“All I’m asking for is a sworn statement. Just tell them Michael framed me, that he killed Mary Alice, and you’ll never see me again.”

“I’m calling the police right now to remove you from my house.”

“How would you like a bunch of reporters camped out on your doorstep? How would you like to explain to them how you knew your son was a killer and you didn’t do anything to stop him?”

She took off one of her chunky gold earrings and put the receiver to her ear. “I knew nothing of the sort.”

“Michael told me a funny thing in that cellar, Aunt Lydia.” Her fingers hovered over the keypad but she did not dial. “He knew he was going to die. He was absolutely certain that he was going to die and he wanted to tell me something.”

The cord slapped against the metal table as Lydia let the receiver slide to her shoulder.

“Michael told me that he killed Mary Alice and that you knew all about it. He said it was your idea to frame me. He said that you planned the whole thing from the very beginning.” He gave her a wink. “Deathbed confessions aren’t considered hearsay, right? Not if the person knows for sure he’s going to die.”

She clutched the receiver in her bony hand. “No one will believe you.”

“You know that cop he took-the one he kidnapped, nearly beat to death and was about to rape and kill?” He lowered his voice as if he was telling her in confidence. “I think she heard him say it, too.”

The table banged against the wall as she sagged against it. Her eyes blazed with outrage.

John asked, “Who do you think the prosecutor is going to listen to when he’s trying to make the decision about whether or not to file charges against you for obstruction of justice, false imprisonment and conspiracy after the fact?”

A noise came from the receiver, a recorded voice advising her that if she would like to make a call, to please hang up and dial again.

“The prosecutor will come to us,” John continued. “He’ll ask me and he’ll ask Joyce whether we want to pursue criminal charges against you or just drop it.” The phone started to make a loud busy signal that echoed in the cavernous room. “Let me tell you one thing I’ve figured out, Lydia: Michael was a predator, but you were his gatekeeper. You were the one who knew what he was and still let him out in the world.” No…

“Go ahead,” he dared her. “Dial the number. Make the call.”

Lydia stared at him, nostrils flared, eyes wet with angry tears. He could almost see her thinking it out, that fine legal mind of hers working all the angles, considering all of the options. Somewhere in this pristine white prison of a house, a clock was ticking. John silently counted the ticks in his head, biding his time.

“All right,” she finally agreed. “All right.”

John knew what she meant, but he wanted to hear her say it, wanted to be the one who made her say it. “All right what?”

Her hand trembled so badly that she could barely replace the phone in the cradle. She could not look at him. Her voice was choked with humiliation. “Tell me what I have to do.”