Chapter 7 - The Ledger of Blood
The deposition room in the basement of the Cole County Courthouse in Jefferson City was lit by buzzing fluorescent tubes that made everyone look like corpses.
It was mid-October. Outside, the Missouri river bottoms were blazing with scarlet and gold sumac, but inside the air was dead, recirculated through filters that hadn't been changed since the Nixon administration.
Derek sat on the far side of the table, flanked by a public defender named Miller who looked like he hadn't slept since the indictment came down. Derek was wearing an orange Department of Corrections jumpsuit. He had lost thirty pounds. The cheap, boastful swagger was gone, replaced by the hollow, trembling twitch of an inmate who had spent sixty days in county lockup without access to a bottle.
Across from him sat Sarah Jenkins, Marcus Geller’s state-appointed replacement, and me.
"We have an offer," Jenkins said, sliding a single sheet of paper across the laminate. "Second-degree conspiracy. Twelve years. El Dorado Springs Correctional. You serve eighty-five percent before you're eligible for parole."
Derek’s lawyer looked at the paper, then looked at Derek. "It's the best you're going to get, Derek. If this goes to a jury in Benton County with that video, you're looking at twenty-five to life for first-degree attempted murder."
"Twelve years?" Derek croaked. He looked up at me, his eyes bloodshot, his lips split and dry. "Claire... twelve years? I’ll be forty-six when I get out. Toby will be in college. Chloe won't even know who I am."
"You should have thought about Chloe when you were watching Travis hold a flashlight over my face," I said.
"It was Mom!" Derek burst out, leaning across the table until the chain connecting his waist-belt to his handcuffs clinked against the edge. "She’s the one who found Dad’s insurance money thirty years ago!"
Jenkins held up a hand. "Stop. What insurance money?"
Derek let out a ragged, ugly laugh. He looked at his lawyer, then at Jenkins, then at me.
"You didn't know, did you, Claire?" he sneered, a tiny sliver of his old, spiteful arrogance surfacing through the misery. "You thought Dad died broke. You thought Saint Michael left us with nothing."
My stomach tightened into a hard, cold knot. "Dad’s truck crossed the center line. The freight company’s insurance denied the claim because they said he fell asleep at the wheel."
"That's the story Mom told you," Derek said, his voice dropping into a vicious, mocking whisper. "The freight company settled out of court three weeks after the funeral. Three hundred and fifty thousand dollars. In 1999."
The room seemed to tilt slightly on its axis.
*Three hundred and fifty thousand dollars.*
In 1999, that was enough to buy our house three times over. It was enough to pay for college for Derek, Mallory, and me. It was enough to ensure that Linda never had to work another day in her life.
"Where did it go?" I whispered.
"Where do you think it went?" Derek spat. "Mom bought the lake lot near Whitmore. She gave fifty grand to Uncle Denise so Travis could open that dirt-bike track that went bust in six months. She bought herself a new Lincoln every three years. And when the money ran out in 2008, she told us Dad had left us with a second mortgage."
He looked at me, his eyes burning with an ancient, toxic resentment.
"She told me that you were Dad’s favorite. She said Dad had put away a private college fund for you, and that’s why you got out of Millhaven and I had to work at the grain elevator. She told me you were holding all of Dad’s money in Kansas City!"
"I paid my own tuition!" I shouted, the fury finally breaking through my ribs. "I worked seventy hours a week at a twenty-four-hour truck stop while you were doing lines off your pool table!"
"She lied to both of us, Claire!" Derek yelled back, his voice breaking into a dry sob. "Don't you get it? She kept us fighting each other so we wouldn't look at her! When you were successful, she told me you were laughing at me! She told Mallory you thought she was white trash! She built this! She made us hate you!"
Sarah Jenkins closed her notebook. She looked at Derek with pure, clinical disgust.
"Did Linda push Claire into the lake, Derek?"
Derek slumped back into his chair, his head hanging down between his shoulders. The chains clinked softly.
"No," he whispered. "Travis pushed her."
"Did Linda tell you to keep your hands in your pockets?"
"Yes," Derek sobbed. "She said... she said if we touched her, the forensic boys would find our skin under her nails. She said let the water do the work."
"Sign the deal, Derek," his lawyer muttered, sliding the pen toward his chained fingers. "Sign it now before she changes her mind."
Derek picked up the pen. His hand was shaking so badly he could barely form the *D*.
When he finished, he dropped the plastic pen onto the table and looked at me one last time.
"I'm sorry, Claire," he whispered. "I really am."
I stood up from the table, smoothing the lapels of my coat.
"I know you are, Derek," I said, looking down at the broken, miserable shell of the boy who used to teach me how to ride a bicycle. "You're sorry you got caught."
I walked out of the deposition room into the wide, stone corridors of the courthouse.
Arthur Vance was sitting on a wooden bench near the elevators, holding his battered felt hat on his knees. When he saw me, he stood up slowly, his old joints cracking.
"Derek took the twelve?" he asked.
"Derek took the twelve," I said. "Mallory took seven this morning. Travis is going to trial next month; the prosecutor is asking for twenty-five."
Arthur nodded slowly, looking out the tall arched windows toward the Missouri River.
"And Linda?"
"Linda fired her third public defender this morning," I said. "She’s going to represent herself. She says God is her counsel."
Arthur let out a low, dry whistle. "That’ll take about twenty minutes for a jury to come back with life."
He looked at me, his single good eye studying my face with the gentle, protective scrutiny he had always reserved for Michael Bennett’s children.
"You look tired, Claire."
"I am tired, Arthur," I said. "I feel like I've been holding my breath under that lake for twenty years."
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"Then let it out, girl," Arthur said softly, putting a heavy, calloused hand on my shoulder. "The surface is clear now. You ain't under no more."
***
