Sara Paretsky - Sisters on the Case

The jury could be walking back to the court right now. It could end any minute. But Elizabeth Creiss wasn’t nervous; she was so cool. Look at her!

In the far corner Carla noted the older couple. They made no eye contact, not with her or anyone else. Some days they didn’t even speak to each other. There was a bench in the middle of the lobby, but they never used it, as if that would be an admission that they were part of the whole soap opera. Once, a week or so ago, Carla had caught the woman’s eye; the woman had jerked her head away before there was time for reaction. But there had been plenty of time after for Carla to wonder about them, if they were like her mother. How would it have been to telephone them whenever she wanted, to tell them what she was doing, where she was? Tell them she missed them so much she ached from the hollowness of it? They had winced with her when Dennis failed to remember her name, or maybe she just wanted to believe that.

That first night after the explosion, she got off the bus somewhere in Nevada by a thirty-dollar-a-room motel. She had been desperate to call home, just to tell them she was okay, alive, that it was all an awful mistake. But she didn’t dare, not then. She had thought she was just postponing the call, that she’d find a safe time. She hadn’t known the chance wouldn’t come for twenty-four years, that by then not only would she have created identities, one after another,but her mother had created one for her-the girl who had lied, abandoned her family and disgraced them. The girl who didn’t care.

‘‘Elizabeth, do you want to walk outside in the courtyard? The bailiff will call us.’’

She jerked back to the gray marble hallway. ‘‘That’s okay, Dennis. For now. How long do you think the jury will be out?’’

‘‘The longer the better. If they’re going against you, they’ve already decided. The vote will be a formality.’’

Icy cold shot down her spine. She stared at the juice, the orange. Years in prison. The rest of her life, till she was old, way older than the old couple, till no one at all remembered her real name. She had never, not once, allowed that thought in, but now it was smothering her. ‘‘How long, if they go… against me?’’

‘‘An hour, three hours. Like I say, it could go very fast. You should take that walk.’’

‘‘Then-’’ Her voice was a squeak. She had to swallow and start again. ‘‘Then you think it will go bad?’’

‘‘I’m not saying that. Just that a walk outside in the air, under the blue sky, would be a good idea.’’

A walk in a walled enclosure was worse than standing here. She wanted to run into the jury room and beg them to understand that she not was a conspirator. The guys who planned the explosion didn’t want her advice, didn’t tell her their plans; most of them didn’t even know her name.

After an hour she did go out, sat on the steps, looked up at the sky she might never see any other way. The courtyard reminded her not of the outdoors but of the motel rooms where she huddled time after time creating new identities, forcing herself to give up the things that could reveal her as her. Her streaked blond hair, her violet toenails, the silver snake bracelet the boy who could have become her boyfriend had just given her. She had watched her swimmer’s muscles go to flab as she avoided even motel pools. At the sight of a bookstore she had crossed the street to avoid the temptation of lingering in front of the window. Those abandonments were painful, but manageable. They were the top layer. She had ripped off the next layer like a bandage off too-raw skin: good coffee, marzipan, steak very rare. And the next: the way she automatically stood when waiting, arms crossed over her chest, her quick retorts that brought a laugh; that was the hardest, to never ever say anything that made her other than bland. To become next to nothing.

Each time she plunked down her duffle and watched the town she had called home for a year or for three months shrink to nothing outside a bus window, she had mourned her attachment to her life there. Each time she had sworn that her next identity would steer clear of the telltale link to Carla Dreseldorf that forced her to abandon this town and her few acquaintances who passed as friends.

The marble courtyard reminded her of the county record rooms and libraries she visited one after another, till she found the name of the dead baby who would have been about her age, born in the United States, died in another country. Elizabeth Amanda Creiss had allowed her to get a birth certificate, a driver’s license, a passport she hadn’t been quick enough to use. The legitimate name had made her a person again. A Frankenstein of herself. Still she had never dreamed she would come to hate it.

‘‘The jury, they’re coming back.’’

‘‘Omigod, Dennis. Is it too soon?’’

‘‘It’s okay. It’ll all be over in a minute. Come on.’’

Carla Dreseldorf walked stiff-legged up the steps. In the lobby she saw the blond woman start toward her, stop and just give her a thumbs-up, but she was too scared to respond. The old couple stepped back as she passed. It was them she felt the bond to, they who walked as tensely, stiffly as she. She passed through the bar. Dennis had to tell her twice to sit, and then pull her arm when the bailiff said, ‘‘All rise.’’

The judge spoke but his words didn’t penetrate her ears. The foreman spoke. She swallowed hard, forced herself to hear her future.

‘‘Ladies and gentlemen of the jury, have you reached a decision?’’

‘‘We have, Your Honor. We find the defendant not guilty on charge number one, not guilty on charge number two, not guilty on charge number three.’’

Carla slumped into her chair, hearing nothing but her heart pounding. Dennis’ arms were around her. ‘‘Free! Free! We won! You’re free! Let’s go celebrate! Let’s have the most expensive meal two people have ever eaten. Come on, don’t you want to get out of here?’’

She let him pull her up and guide her through the bar, down the aisle toward the double doors. Free! To go anywhere, to call anyone, to answer the phone without fear, open the door without peering through the peephole. Free to say, ‘‘Hello, I’m Carla Dreseldorf.’’ Free to call Mom, to go to Mom’s house, make her listen to the real story. Free to ask, to demand why she hadn’t come to the trial, hadn’t done as much as the blond woman, the old couple, these strangers who supported her by their presence. She pushed through the double doors and walked across the lobby. ‘‘Free to-’’

Dennis opened the courthouse door.

She stood there, letting the sunlight coat her body, looking out past the reporters at the tiny green leaves of the live oaks, the deep green pine needles, the pale, soft green grass. The gray buildings sparkled silver; cars danced in jelly bean colors. A sweet breeze rippled her collar. Gray gulls rode the winds.

On the landing below, the blond woman threw her arms up in victory. ‘‘Oh, Elizabeth, you were so smart, so brave! I’ll always be so impressed by you, Elizabeth Amanda Creiss!’’

‘‘Don’t call me that name !’’

‘‘Don’t call her that name!’’

The shot knocked Carla onto the marble steps. Her chest burned; she was freezing. Blood was over everything, her blood. ‘‘Why?’’ she whispered. ‘‘Why?’’

The old couple was standing over her. The gun hung from the woman’s hand. As the bailiff reached in, the woman bent closer. ‘‘My baby died. We had nothing left of her, nothing but her name, Elizabeth Amanda Creiss. Every time we hear her name on the news, see her name in the papers under your picture, it tears us up. All we had left was her name. And you made a travesty of it.’’