Mazie Baby (30 page)

“How did they find us?” she’d asked
him once she’d invoked her right to counsel and they were alone in the Cornwall
police station. “Was it Ariel’s arrest?”

Norman nodded. “Fingerprints. AFIS
matched her exemplars to latents from the crime sce— from your house.”

Mazie squeezed her eyes shut. “She
didn’t tell me they’d printed her. I should have known that. We should have run
when we had the chance.”

Now here she stood, in the same
building Cullen had pled guilty to assaulting her. But in a much bigger
courtroom.

When the clerk read the charge
against her, murder in the first degree, the peace that had permeated her body
since her arrest melted into a puddle at her feet, like so much pee on the gym
floor during a grade four game of dodge ball.

Murder. In the first degree. Intentional.
Premeditated.

At the preliminary hearing, the
judge read the charge again. She sat up on her judgey throne, in her black
tunic with the silly white collar under her second chin, and the blue sash that
rested on her shoulders and hung over her breasts  like some kind of
gender-camouflage.

She’d reviewed the evidence, she
said. Determined there was plenty to move ahead to trial. To put Mazie away for
life.

Didn’t they realize she was already
serving a life sentence? Wasn’t time served with a future filled with
self-loathing and regret sufficient?

The woman peered over her reading
glasses and trained her laser-eyes on Mazie. “How do you plead?”

Guilty. She’d done it. She’d killed
the bastard. And she’d do it again to save Ariel from years of rape and abuse.

Norman cleared his throat. “Your
honour, on behalf of my client, the plea is...”

Mazie straightened her shoulders.
“Not guilty.” Her voice bounced off the judge’s bench and echoed in her own
ears.

“Not guilty,” she whispered.

~~~~~~~~

“I’ve got an apartment downtown.”
Norman tossed his jacket over the back of a chair.

The guard pulled the door closed
and locked them inside the cramped interview room — the only bastion of
free-speech in the entire institution. No one recording Mazie’s every whispered
word. No one spying on her through surveillance cameras or flashing beams of
light in her eyes.

“How can you afford it?”

“Don’t you worry about that. I’m
here until the trial is over and you are finally free.”

She stared at her hands. “What
about your other clients?” She drew a sharp intake of breath. “What about
Betty?”

“All taken care of. A colleague has
taken my cases. I’ll consult about Betty. Might have to fly back to Cornwall now
and again. She’ll get off. They’ll probably stick her in a facility though. Not
sure she can cope in the real world. But she won’t be in jail.”

Mazie shook her head. “That’s not freedom.”
No, Betty would never be free.

He reached across the table and
took Mazie’s hand.

She flinched at his touch.

He pulled away and leaned back.
“Remember, Char-” He clenched his lips and balled his fists. “Mazie.” His
cheeks pinked. “Just remember, you can trust me. You truly can.”

She crossed her arms in front of
her chest. “I think I do.”

“Good. Then let’s talk out your
case. I’m going to file a motion to dismiss all charges.”

“What? You can do that?”

“I always do that. Never works.
Just part of the process. Maybe a motion for a change of venue.” He clicked
open the briefcase and pulled out a stack of files and a pen. “I have the
Crown’s witness list. You ready?”

She nodded.

He reeled off the name of two of
Cullen’s friends. Men she didn’t know, had never met. Probably cigar bar
buddies. Or maybe fishing pals. People from the half of her husband’s life he’d
never let her in on. The happy half.

“Then there’s an Edgar Applebaum.”
Norman eyed her over his reading glasses.

“Next door neighbour.” She
scratched at a scab on her arm.

“He says he heard screaming the
night of the murder.”

Whenever they talked about the
case, Norman was all business. He didn’t coddle her, didn’t take the edge off
the realities of what she’d done. She appreciated that.

“Well if he did, he didn’t bother
to check in on us. Just like he never checked in when it was me doing the
screaming. But in the past few years, I learned how to take it without making
much noise. If I screamed, he just hit me harder.”

Norman leaned back in his chair.
“Mazie, I have to ask. How did Ariel not know what was going on?”

Tears brimmed in her eyes.
“Apparently she did. Not everything, but she’d seen bruises, cuts. And of
course my arm cast. She says she heard us fighting and him yelling. But the
worst of it? He’d do that when she was at school or at a friend’s. When she was
anywhere but right there in the house. He always had an excuse ready. Mommy
fell down the stairs. Mommy was in a car accident. Mommy is a klutz. Mommy
broke a glass and cut herself.” She covered her eyes with both palms. “Mommy
never did any such thing.”

“Hazel McClellan.”

Mazie dropped her hands into her
lap. “Who?”

Norman scanned the page. “Cullen’s
aunt.”

“I only know of one aunt, the one
that raised him after his parents were killed in a car accident. Total piece of
work, too. Would let her husband, her third I think he said, beat the crap out
of him. Yardsticks, belts, fists.” It all sounded so familiar. Maybe Cullen
couldn’t help it. Maybe violence was all he knew. “But she’s dead and buried.
Died when he was eighteen.”

“According to the Crown, she’s
alive and well and living in Saskatchewan. And they’re putting her on the
stand.” He scratched his pen across a yellow legal pad. “I’ll file a motion to
exclude her.”

~~~~~~~~

The chill in the interview room
soaked into Mazie’s flesh and cut her to the bone. She rubbed her hands over
her arms. She must look oh-so fetching with black roots to her ears and blonde ends,
dried and frizzy from shitty shampoo and no conditioner, her face naked and
exposed, her scarred neck bare. Not to mention the navy prison-issue sweat
suit, droopy in the ass and armpits, that never quite kept her warm. She must
look like the frumpy housewives at the grocery store on shopping day. The ones
who’d given up. Or who had husbands who loved them no matter what they looked
like.

The buzzer sounded and the squeak
of crepe soles on concrete neared.

Her heart flipped. She smiled and
sat straighter, ran one hand over her hair in a vain attempt to tame the mess.

Keys clicked in the lock, the guard
opened the door, and there was Norman and his huge grin. He dropped his
briefcase on the table and held out his hand. Mazie took it and stood.

It had become their custom to greet
with a hug. A gesture of friendship, a sign of faith in each other. But for her,
the brief connection had become an anchor. He prevented her from drifting into
a sea of infinite pessimism.

She sank into his kind and gentle
arms, inhaled the vanilla of his cookie scent. When he began to pull away, she
tightened her grip on his waist and held on for a few more seconds. He needed
no encouragement to return the long embrace.

When they finally released, he
brushed hair from her eyes. “You okay?”

She smiled. “Yeah. As okay as
possible.” Goosebumps broke out on her arms.

He took off his suit jacket and
placed it over her shoulders.

She was certain he cared for her as
much as she did for him. Was she ready to call it love? No, not yet. That scared
the hell out of her. Love was dangerous. Love hurt like hell. And what was the
point? All she could offer him were shackles and prying eyes, iron bars and no
future. He’d be better off without her.

“We’ve got a date.”

Mazie squinted. “A date?”

“Trial date. September eighteenth.”

She wrapped his jacket around her
body and hugged it. “What day is this?”

“July twenty-third.”

~~~~~~~~

“How are final exams?” Mazie rested
her palm against the grimy Plexiglas wall that kept her from touching her
little girl. Though little or girl could hardly describe the Ariel who’d
strolled into the remand centre for their regular Saturday visit. Every week
brought changes, a new level of maturity. She was too damn young to be so damn
adult.

“Not bad.” Ariel held the receiver
of the phone on the visitor’s side in one hand, her other hand against the
glass where Mazie’s palm rested. The closest they could get to actual contact.
“Eighty-seven in English. Seventy-nine in social. Math mark sucks, but I
passed.”

Mazie smiled. “Well, just don’t be
an accountant, then.”

Ariel laughed. “Definitely not.”

Other than the obvious, something
about her was different. Mazie scanned her face and hair and blouse. “Where’s
your necklace?”

Ariel touched a finger to her bare
neck. “I — I lost it.” She focused on the table top and traced a random pattern
with one finger.

Mazie swallowed. “Lost it how?”

Ariel sat back. “Fine, I threw it
away.”

“Oh, bug. Why?”

“I’ve tried to just think of the
good parts of Daddy. The fun stuff. But every time I look at that necklace, all
I see is your blood on his fists, that angry vein throbbing in his forehead.
All I hear is him yelling.” She sniffed. “So I tossed it in the toilet and
flushed it. Except it just sat at the bottom and didn’t go anywhere.”

“Oh, dear. What did you do?”

“George reached in and grabbed it.
Then Rachel took me to a pawn shop. It wasn’t worth much. I gave the money to a
homeless guy.” 

“I’m so sorry. I never wanted you
to lose the best parts of him.”

“Mom, how long are you going to be
in here? It’s been months already. When is the trial?”

“September eighteenth.”

Ariel nodded. She dug a hand into
her purse. “Want to see pictures from the lake trip last weekend?”

Mazie swallowed hard and plastered
a smile on her face to camouflage the wave of jealousy that rolled over her.
The Simpson’s cabin at Sylvan Lake. A place Mazie would never see. A trip she’d
never make. “Did you take Nick?” Ariel’s new boyfriend, according to the
snapshots on the iPhone Norman had bought her, was a skinny fellow with warm
eyes and a sheepish grin. Mazie didn’t voice her constant concerns, didn’t
remind Ariel of the warning signs of control and abuse. She knew them by heart.

“Nah. Too soon for that. Maybe at
the end of the summer. And don’t worry, Rachel already told me he’d be sleeping
on the couch. And George would be sleeping with one eye open.” Ariel held the
phone up to the glass and shared pictures of a bright June weekend, Ariel and
Polly up to their knees in the shallow waters of the lake, both of them
winter-pale but smiling and happy, each photo marred by the fingerprints and
filth past offenders and visitors had smudged on the glass cage.

Ariel glanced over her shoulder.
“Mom, can we cut this week a bit short? Rachel has to talk to you.”

“What? No. Why?”

But Ariel was already standing.

“Love you, Mom. See you next week.”
She blew a kiss and retreated, a door buzzed, and Rachel’s face poked around
the partition that gave the inmates privacy from each another. When every visit,
audio and video, was recorded, privacy was a relative concept.

Rachel plopped into the chair and
snatched the phone receiver from the wall. “Whoa. Serious roots, Batman.”

Mazie touched the crown of her
head.

“Don’t they let you dye it?”

“I haven’t asked. I figure a couple
more weeks and I’ll just get it all cut off. Start over. With my real hair.”

Rachel nodded. “Good plan.” She
dropped a stack of papers on the table. “So, look. George and I, we kind of
kept something from you.”

One eyebrow crept up Mazie’s
forehead. “Kept what?”

“We sort of saved your house from
foreclosure.”

“You did what?” Mazie sat
straighter.

“Look, I know you said to let it
go, but shit, honey, there’s money in that house. So we took those final notice
letters to the bank and we’ve been making the payments. We got it cleaned up,
too. Had to replace the carpet in your room and repaint.”

Heat rose in Mazie’s cheeks.
“Rachel, I told you I couldn’t afford to repay you. What if I’m convicted?
You’ll never get that money back.”

“Well, first off, we don’t care.
Second, yes you will. Sell the damn house of horrors. Neither you or Ariel want
to live there. Hell, the darling girl can’t even look that direction. It’s
always right there, every day. She even keeps Polly’s blinds drawn since her
room overlooks your back yard.”

“Shit.” Mazie rested one elbow on
the table and dropped her forehead into her palm. She looked back to Rachel.
“Can I do that from here, sell a house?”