Karin Slaughter - Martin Misunderstood

'Martin Harrison Reed Junior, I hereby sentence you to death by lethal injection.'

Death! It seemed a bit harsh, but then maybe An had developed a soft spot for Martin over the months of interviewing him. They had spent so many hours together, yet she still felt that she hardly knew him at all. He had even tried to learn Dutch (she hadn't the heart to tell him that her family was actually from Friesland – Dutch was hard enough; Frisian would have probably driven him to suicide). Really, if you didn't look at him or talk to him for very long, he was actually a rather nice guy.

Of course, people had started to notice at work that An was acting differently. Bruce had picked up on it first, noting that she had ironed a shirt or brushed her hair. Working with a bunch of detectives, you'd think one of them would have put together the fact that An only took care of her appearance on the days that she talked with Martin Reed. Then again, the thought of her actually falling for someone who was soon to be a convicted murderer (the case was a slam dunk) was fairly preposterous.

Had she fallen for him? Well – maybe. An tested the waters first, trying to see how it would feel. She sent herself flowers at work (boy, had that caused a stir) and took off early one Friday to get ready for a 'dinner date'. There was teasing and smiles and pats on the back. Part of her was a bit hurt that they seemed to have so easily forgotten Jill, but then Doug, her boss, had called her into his office one day and said, 'You know, I'm glad to see you moving on. Jill would've wanted you to be happy.'

An had felt tears well into her eyes.

'So,' Doug said, a teasing lilt to his voice, 'what's the lucky lady's name?'

'Mary,' she told him, stroking her neck the way that she imagined Jill used to. 'Her name is Mary.'

Martin sat at a plastic table in the visitors' lounge, watching his mother get searched for contraband. She kept up a constant stream of chatter as hands patted her down and the wand waved over her body. Apparently, she said something funny, because all the guards laughed. Evelyn Reed was one of the most popular visitors at the prison. Nay, one of the most popular mothers in the country. She had been on every talk show and appeared above the fold on just about every newspaper printed. She was a celebrity of her own making, a star of stage and screen. Even the Ladies' Hospital Auxiliary had begged her to come back.

There was a hush in the nearly packed visitors' lounge as Evie made her way toward Martin. Some women raised their fists in the air to show their solidarity. Others stared in wonderment while still others took advantage of the distraction to pass drugs they had secreted in various cavities.

'Martin,' Evie called, waving her hand as if he couldn't see her. She certainly had a spring in her step these days. She'd started working out with a personal trainer after seeing herself on Oprah ('Why didn't you tell me I'd put on weight?'), and between the new exercise regime and her personal chef, she had managed to lose thirty pounds. Add to that the face-lift and the Botox, and you could understand how the 63-year-oldwoman before him looked closer to Martin's age than her own.

'Hello, Mother.'

'Oh, why are you always so dire when I come to visit you?' she scoffed, taking a pad and a pen from her Prada bag. 'You're such a downer.'

'I'm on death row.'

'Please,' she grumbled, and he could have sworn she had started using an English accent. 'You should see what these shoes are doing to my bunions.' She held out her leg so he could see the four-inch heel on her Jimmy Choo. 'I wore them on Regis and Kelly the other day and by the time I walked off stage, I was ready to kill somebody.' She had a sparkle in her eye. 'Figuratively speaking, of course.'

'Of course,' Martin said. They both knew what had happened. Martin was no fool – at least he wasn't as big a fool as his mother thought. He had spent a lifetime of reading crime stories and murder mysteries. By simple process of elimination, he had figured it out. There were only two people who could have committed these heinous crimes, and Martin knew he hadn't done it.

'Now,' Evie said, writing 'Chapter Twelve' at the top of the page with her bright, gold pen. 'My editor thinks we should talk a bit more about your childhood right after your father died. You're still blaming yourself for that, right?' She seemed hopeful. Martin nodded. 'What about that time I came home and found you in my underwear?'

'That never happened!' he screeched, horrified that the other prisoners might have heard. 'You can't write that!'

A guard appeared instantly. 'Dial it back, Martin.'

He nodded, gripping his hands together under the table. They were all on his mother's side here. She'd fooled them completely.

'Mother,' Martin began, 'why don't you tell them how you always bought clothes that were too big for me, so that when I went to school I got teased?'

She waved this off with a perfectly manicured hand. 'All mothers do that. Kids grow so fast you can't keep up with them.'

The guard paced back and forth behind Martin, apparently feeling the need to protect Evelyn. Martin kept his mouth shut. He had nothing more to say on the subject. There was no use arguing, because she would only point out that it wasn't her fault that Martin didn't grow. The too-big shoes, the baggy pants, the loose underwear that facilitated wedgies – these would all somehow be turned around on Martin and it would suddenly be his own damn' fault.

'What about men?' she asked, a pleasant lilt to her voice. 'Are you meeting anyone in here?'

Martin just stared at her, listening to the footsteps behind him as the guard paced away.

'Well, I'm trying, Martin. I really am. I come visit you. I talk to you. I try to bring a little happiness in your life…' She waited for the guard to pass, leaning over and hissing, 'Listen, you little fucker! If you hate it so bad in here then tell them the truth. Is that what you want to do? How interested do you think your precious detective would be if she knew that you were just a normal everyday putz who couldn't hurt a fly… and of course I love you, Martin. I could never hate you. I hate your crimes, but you will always be my son.'

Martin sighed. The guard had come back. He waited for the man to turn again and head in the other direction. 'Tell me how you did it,' he murmured. 'I saw you in bed when I got home from the massage parlor.'

'Massage?' Her eye twitched as her brain sent a message to raise her eyebrow, only to be told that the Botox had paralyzed the nerve. 'Is that what you want to call it, boy-o, a massage?'

'Handjob,' he sighed. His language had gotten coarse in prison, but then you couldn't see a man pull a shiv out of his rectum and stab another man and still say things like, 'Darn, that was a heck of a move, buddy!'

Evie was silent, her lips curved in a tight smile (though, honestly, after the face-lift, everything was tight). The guard walked away and she said, 'Pillows. You saw pillows.'

Martin leaned forward. She seldom talked about this and he wanted to strike while the iron was hot. 'What about when I came home from work?' he asked. 'You said you had a headache.'

'Your father used to fall for that, too,' she cracked. 'I put the car in neutral and rolled it out of the driveway.'

'How did you do it?' Martin whispered, desperate to know. This was where the scenario always got hung up in his mind. He understood that his mother had driven the Cadillac back to Southern Toilet Supply, but he could not for the life of him see anyone, especially Evie, being able to get one over on Unique. She was much too sassy.

Evie sighed, twisting her pen closed. She glanced up at the guard, who was talking to another prisoner. 'It's her own fault for still being there when I drove up. She was loading her car with UrWay.'