Laura Lippman - I'd Know You Anywhere

“Could you repeat that, Elizabeth?”

“He gave me the money and sent me into McDonald’s to buy the food.” She was proud of how consistent she was, how she said it, word for word, almost exactly as she had said it before. That was very important in these things. But the prosecutor did not seem proud of her.

“And you—”

“I ordered three Quarter Pounders. Walter didn’t like pickles, so I had to wait for his to be made special. And I had to make sure I knew which were the Diet Cokes and which was the regular Coke. Walter drank regular Coke, but he thought girls should drink Diet Coke because soda can make you fat if you’re not careful. We just guessed that Holly would eat the same things we did, because she wouldn’t say what she wanted. And I had to make sure to get enough ketchup packages. They never give you enough, only two little measly ones, and they can be grudging if you don’t ask right.”

“Grudging?”

“That was Walter’s word, I guess. I took it back to the car and we drove a little ways until we found a place where we could eat, hoping the fries didn’t get cold. Holly didn’t want to eat hers, though, so Walter did, picking out the pickles. I don’t know why he couldn’t do that with his own sandwich to begin with.”

“Elizabeth?”

“Yes?”

“When you went into the McDonald’s—why didn’t you tell someone what was happening?”

“What do you mean?”

“That you were kidnapped, that your kidnapper had another girl in the car?”

No one had asked her this before, but then—no one had gone over this part of the day in such detail. When she was rescued, the questions had been quick, mercifully so. How was she? What had he done to her? Had he—? She was the one who told them about Holly, the scream in the night, the campsite in the mountains, the landmarks that she could remember. And for weeks, months, that had been enough. But now they were preparing for Walter’s trial and everything—everything—had to be discussed in great detail. She had to tell the story the same way, in her own words. She thought she was doing that.

She had forgotten the Quarter Pounders.

“I couldn’t. He said he would hurt me.”

“But he was in the car. With Holly.”

“Yes, because she couldn’t be trusted.”

“And you could?”

“When I was good, he was nicer to me.” She looked to her parents. Her mother nodded, encouraging her, although she looked slightly stunned. Her father looked angry, but not at her. He was glaring at the prosecutor.

“How did you earn Walter’s trust?” the prosecutor asked, and her parents could no longer contain themselves.

“Really—” her mother began. “Why must you—” her father said, trying to use what Eliza recognized was his professional voice, but not quite controlling it as he usually did.

“What do you think Walter Bowman’s lawyer is going to do with this information?” The prosecutor’s manner was bland, like one of the jocks at Eliza’s new school, the kind of boy who lets a girl know she wasn’t even worth teasing. “She had a chance to get away, to save both of them. She didn’t.”

“So don’t put her on the stand at all,” her father said. “You’ll get no argument from us.”

“I need her testimony about the cash box, and how Walter refused to let Holly go. I have to establish the kidnapping or another felony to ensure he gets the death penalty, and we can’t prove rape.”

Eliza pondered that, then realized: He meant Holly. They couldn’t prove Walter raped Holly. What he had done to her didn’t count.

“Eliza’s behavior is consistent with dozens of hostage cases,” her mother began.

“Stockholm syndrome, I know.” The prosecutor’s voice was bitter, belittling. “That worked so well for Patty Hearst.”

“No, not Stockholm syndrome, not exactly. She didn’t sympathize with her captor. But Elizabeth”—her mother had trouble remembering the new name—“is a young girl and she believed he had the power he claimed he had. He threatened her. He threatened us.”

The prosecutor looked to Eliza. She nodded, then realized he would not be satisfied with a nod. “He told me all the time that he would kill me and my family if I tried to get away from him. He said he would kill them while I watched.”

He looked down at his notes. “Back at the roadside, where you first met Holly—why did you get out of the truck and let her sit in the middle?”

“Because that’s what Walter wanted.”

“Did he say that?”

“No, but I understood. He gave me a look, and I realized that he wanted the new girl to sit next to him.”

“The new girl?”

“Holly. But she wasn’t Holly yet. I didn’t learn her name until she was in the truck.”

“You were the new girl, once.”

Eliza didn’t understand his point. “Not really. There wasn’t another girl, when he took me.”

“You saw him with a shovel, digging a grave.”

“Yes, but I didn’t know that. I just saw a man digging.”

“A grave for Maude Parrish.”

“That’s who you found there, right?”

The prosecutor didn’t always answer her questions. Apparently, he owned the questions. “So you were the new girl, after Maude. And you knew that when Walter switched girls, he got rid of the old one.”

“No…” It was different, not at all the same.

“Elizabeth, why do you think Walter kept you alive? Why did he kill every girl but you?”

“I think,” she said, “it was because I always did what he told me to do.”

The prosecutor asked her to leave, so he could speak to her parents privately, but her parents refused. She was sixteen, she was going to testify in court. She should be part of every discussion.

“Okay, I’m going to lay it out for you. The prosecutor in Maryland is scared to go for the death penalty in his county, precisely because he has no evidence that Maude was kidnapped. Walter Bowman refuses to confess to any other homicides, although there are quite a few missing person cases that seem plausible. The murder of Holly Tackett is our only chance to put this guy to death, and I can’t afford to give the defense anything to play with.”

The Lerners were united in their mystification, staring at this young, pompous man in bewilderment.

“A smart defense attorney is going to go to town with this. Suggest Elizabeth wasn’t a victim at this point, but an accomplice. And once you let that idea worm its way into the courtroom, you’ve got all sorts of reasonable doubt. What if Elizabeth was the one who pushed Holly into the ravine, out of fear, or even jealousy? What if Elizabeth was really Walter’s girlfriend?”

“That is offensive beyond belief,” Inez said.

“A good attorney isn’t going to worry about giving offense. He’ll be playing for big stakes. He’s playing for Walter’s life.”

“And you’re playing,” Manny said, “for his death. That’s quite a game you’ve got going there. Some would call it playing God.”

The prosecutor studied Eliza’s parents. “You’re enlightened types, right? Don’t want to see the guy die. Don’t want to see anyone die. But then, you’ve got your daughter. Two other families, probably a lot more, weren’t so lucky.”

“As a father,” Manny said, “I want to strangle him. When I see him, I want to go over to him and pound his face off, knock him to the ground, kick him until he coughs up blood. But I know that’s not right, and I shouldn’t do it. Nor would I have the state do it for me, by proxy. So, no, I don’t believe in the death penalty, if that’s what you’re asking.”

“The Tacketts don’t feel the same way. Fact is, that’s who the commonwealth of Virginia represents in this case. Not your daughter. Holly Tackett and Virginia. I hope you haven’t let your own”—he paused for a minute, seeming not so much to search for a word, as for the spin he wanted to place on it—“altruistic ideas influence your daughter. I hope this story about McDonald’s, which I’m hearing for the first time, isn’t something you’ve cooked up to create enough confusion about events that a jury will be reluctant to consider the death penalty.”