Black as Night: A Fairy Tale Retold (15 page)

Mr. Russell picked up his brief. “The US Attorney General is prosecuting you with criminal possession of a controlled substance according to tier one on the federal trafficking schedule,” he said. “If they can prove trafficking, there’s a mandatory five-year prison sentence in most cases.”

Fish gave a low whistle, but his face was grim. “How soon until bail is determined?” he asked.

“Probably tomorrow,” the lawyer said stiffly. “However, I should warn you that they might not let you out on bail.”

“Why not?” Bear asked.

“Apparently, the DEA thinks you are a flight risk.”

Bear absorbed this. “You mean, they think that if we’re released before our trial, we’ll just pick up and leave the country?”

“It’s not unreasonable for them to think that,” Mr. Russell said. “After all, you, Mr. Arthur Denniston, have been overseas for the past few months. From the financial information you provided them, they have easily deduced that both of you have the resources to leave and to live abroad if you so desired.”

“Great,” Fish breathed. “So what do we have to do to convince them that we’re not going to try to escape our trial?”

“You have to demonstrate strong community ties,” the attorney said. “Such as a job, attending school, family—”

“Well, I’m a student at NYU. Actually, I’m enrolled in several summer courses,” Fish glanced at his watch. “I’ve actually missed two classes so far by sitting in jail. I had to get special permission to go on vacation in the midst of the course. I’d be happy to provide you with the letter from my instructor and the assignments I finished while I was on vacation.”

“That will certainly help,” Mr. Russell said. He turned to Bear. “And you?”

“I’m not enrolled in school,” Bear murmured.

“Are you employed?”

“No.”

“Any other family connections? Have you been visiting your father, for example? Could he vouch for you?”

“Haven’t seen him in over a year,” Bear said, resentful of his circumstances. “And no, he wouldn’t vouch for me. I am close to my girlfriend and her family, though. And the Fosters.”

“I see,” the lawyer pursed his lips. “Well, we’ll have to see if this judge will accept that. I have to say that the timing of these charges is fairly bad, since you just came back from overseas. MDMA is notoriously easy to obtain in Europe.”

The lawyer picked up another case file. The two brothers watched him as he read over it. At last he spoke. “This girlfriend…she is the person mentioned here, as a suspect in the embezzlement at the restaurant?”

“Blanche Brier, yes,” Bear said.

“And she was seen by security coming into your apartment, carrying a knapsack?”

“She was taking care of our plants. I gave her the keys.”

Mr. Russell pointed to a copy of the photograph from the security camera. “And in this picture, she’s carrying the same knapsack that her employers found drugs in?”

“Yes, so far as I can tell,” Bear said.

“You have no idea where she is?”

“We don’t. We were trying to find her when we got arrested.”

Mr. Russell leaned back. “I could argue to the judge that it’s clearly this Ms. Brier who is responsible for the drugs that were found in your apartment. After all, she had access to the apartment, you have both been out of the country, and since your juvenile record has been cleared, there’s no reason for them to think that you would be the owners of the drugs. After all, there were no drugs found in your luggage.”

More than slightly irritated, Bear shook his head. “I’m sorry, Mr. Russell, but that’s not an acceptable defense.”

“I agree,” Fish said.

The lawyer leveled his gaze at Bear. “I realize that she’s your girlfriend, but look at this objectively for a moment. Does she have financial need? Is it possible she might have been tempted to sell the drugs as a way of making money? Say, for college?”

For just a moment, Bear wavered, the image of Blanche’s haunted face in his mind. Just suppose…? But suddenly, clearly, he heard his father’s voice, touched with sarcasm.
And I’m supposed to believe that you wouldn’t be doing drugs? You, a teenager who spends all his time doing who knows what?

He knew what it was like to be falsely accused. He knew what it was like to be doubted, because you were lonely, and an outsider. He remembered standing by the dry fountain in the Cloister garden holding Blanche’s hand, and saying, “
I’ll believe in you if you believe in me
.”

“That’s not an acceptable defense,” Bear said again. “I don’t care if I can’t get out of jail: she’s not the one behind this. In fact,” he looked at the lawyer, “she’s been set up. By the same person who set us up.”

The lawyer shook his head. “I hate to say this, but a jury might think otherwise if the case comes to trial.” He tapped the photograph. “You may think she’s innocent, but you could have a tough time convincing others. That’s not the face of a girl who has nothing to hide.”

 “Innocent until proven guilty,” Bear said quietly, and knitted his fingers together in prayer.
I’m not going to turn against her. But God, if you can get me out of jail somehow, I would appreciate it. I need to find her.

Chapter Seven

Tuesday night the heat broke, and the rain fell. The girl heard it, late at night, and something inside her relaxed.

She wasn’t sure why the rain should make her feel relieved. But it did. For a while she stared up at the window of her room, watching the rain falling, dashes of silver through the cloud of dim darkness.

For some reason, she was feeling too furtive to turn on the light, and let someone know that she was awake. So she got out of bed in the dimness and dressed herself. There were no work dresses or skirts here for her to wear, only t-shirts and jeans. While feeling around for her sweater in the crate where she kept her clothes, she felt something hard among the folds of her yellow dress, and drew it out. The bottle she had taken from Mr. Fairston’s house. She studied it again, worried. Another mystery.

After pulling on the black cardigan with unraveling cuffs, she ran her hand through her hair. It was too short. Once again, she felt sick inside.

Stepping outside into the torrent rain, she ran to the church’s back door, tried her key in the lock, and pulled it open. It creaked shut behind her, and she stood inside, panting and dripping.

Like a shadow, she softly stepped into the sacristy, listening to the comforting thunder of the rain on the solid church roof. She looked around, the white bottle in her hand, seeking further solitude, hoping to avoid memories.

In the dusty sacristy that afternoon she had discovered a closet that opened upon a little room with a window, which was filled with old plaster statues, clearly stored there because they were in need of repair. The Blessed Mother had a chipped nose. St. Agnes had a broken hand and her lamb had only three feet.

Now she looked at the still and shabby dust-covered statues, and they seemed to invite her to join them. Some of them were as tall as she was, but others were more diminutive. Tentatively, she walked among them until she reached the largest one, who stood secluded in a corner, her glass eyes wise, her plaster harp chipped, her hand out, as though beckoning to her with three outstretched fingers. Who was she? An angel? But she was unwinged.

“Can you help me?” she whispered at the plaster woman, putting the medicine bottle in her open hand. It seemed to belong there. “I don’t know where to turn—”

After a moment, she looked away, still torn inside. She put a finger on little St. Maria Goretti’s shawl-covered shoulders and wiped off the dust. “Perhaps I should just go back, find out what happened, and risk being arrested,” she murmured. “The police might find out the truth—”

But look what had happened to Bear, when he was in high school. Innocent people got convicted: what was to stop it from happening to her?

Looking around at the statues, she noticed there were quite a few women martyrs among them. Somehow, they had all found the courage to die for the faith, and she wondered about them. Had they always been strong, or were they ordinary girls in extraordinary situations? Was it genetics or grace? She hoped it was grace.

Otherwise, there’s no hope for me…

II

Around midnight, a car alarm went off on their street, starting Brother Leon awake. He was so used to the obnoxious sound that usually he fell back to sleep within minutes. But tonight, for some reason, he couldn’t. Maybe it was the heat.

For a few minutes he drifted in and out of consciousness, annoyed at the stupid alarm for stealing his rest.
Better than being woken by a rat bite, but not much better.
With a sigh, he began a litany of prayer again, naming the saints and intercessors in rhythm, asking for prayers for his family, the people who he had met that day, Nora …

Usually, this line of defense brought him back into slumber fairly quickly. But now it failed, and he found himself becoming increasingly awake.

Irate, he sat up.
Okay, Lord. You behind this?

Apparently someone out there needed prayer, big time. Stifling a yawn, he sat up on his sleeping bag on the floor, fumbled for his sandals and habit in the dark, and dressed. Trying to avoid the creaking parts of the floor for the sake of his brothers, he walked downstairs. Just as he reached the corridor to the church, it started raining hard, and he was pleased.

Once inside the church, he knelt down in the darkness gazing at the little light before the tabernacle. He crossed himself, yawned, (of course,
now
he was tired) and started in on the rosary.

He closed his eyes, but his spirit swept outwards, over the inhabitants of the friary, out on the streets, to the traffic passing by, to the people on the corners making drug deals, or in their apartments watching TV; huddled in the darkness of the night or the darkness of sin, their eyes reflecting the suffering, the barrenness, the world-weariness. His spirit, in thought, brushed over all of them, seeking Christ, looking for the tortured features of the Man of Sorrows in the empty eyes of the people of the night.

The mystery of the night was pierced through until it surrendered to the darker mystic night, the night of the soul in search for its God. In that night, Leon went wandering, and slowly his fingers moved over the beads, with longer and longer pauses, as his body inevitably succumbed to fatigue.

Then another sound, far quieter than the car alarm, but stranger, alerted him: metal hinges. Someone was opening the back door to the church. He saw through the open sacristy door a flash of dim nightfall and a girlish figure stepping inside, brushing the rain off her hair, then the door closed and the figure was enveloped in darkness. He recognized her.

Closing his eyes, he continued praying. After some time, the shape slipped out of the sacristy and started down the side aisle, straight towards the shadows where he was kneeling.

“Nora.”

She jumped back with a cry, then clapped a hand to her mouth. “I’m sorry.”

“Sorry if I startled you,” he said softly.

She forced a laugh. “I was just going back to the vestibule.”

“To sleep?”

Now she laughed in earnest. “No. To finish sorting clothes. I couldn’t sleep.”

He could make out tears on her face in the faint glow of streetlights coming through the stained glass windows. “You upset about something?”

She was silent.

“You want to talk about it?”

She breathed, wiped her eyes, and looked at him again. Then she sat down in a nearby pew. Picking the pew behind her, he sat down and leaned back.

“You’ll think I’m crazy,” she said at last.

“Maybe, maybe not.”

She looked at him over her shoulder levelly. “I tried to tell my mother and my sister once, and they thought I was crazy,” she said.

“Try me.”

She glanced at him, and then looked away again. “I keep feeling,” she said in a low voice, “a sense of death. A premonition. As though I’m in danger.”

“From who?”

“I don’t know. Isn’t that paranoia?”

“Hard to tell,” Brother Leon said. “But I can see it’s upsetting you.”