John Hart - The King Of Lies

“She had a pool. Growing up, she had a pool.”

I walked back to the bed. When she rolled her face off the pillow, I could see the wet spot of her tears. “A pool,” I said, letting her know I was there and that I was ready to listen. I sat down. Her eyes were huge and raw; she showed them to me briefly, then turned back to the wall. I looked at her back and waited for her to go on. Finally, she did.

“It was one of those aboveground pools, like we used to make fun of when we were kids. A poor kid’s pool. She didn’t care that it was cheap or flimsy. She didn’t care that it sat behind a single-wide or that it was visible from the road. She was a kid, you know. And it was a pool.” Jean paused. “The best thing that ever happened to her.”

I could see it as if I were there; yet I already sensed the truth of it. It was the way she said it. The pool was not the best thing that ever happened to her. Not by a long shot.

Jean continued. “When she turned seven, her father implemented the new policy. That’s exactly how he said it. ‘We’re implementing a new pool policy.’ He tried to make a joke out of it. She didn’t care one way or another. But if she wanted to hang out around the pool, she had to be wearing high heels and makeup. That was the policy.” She paused, and I heard her sharp intake of breath. “That’s how it started.”

I knew where this was going, and I felt my insides clench in disgust. Hank had been right.

“The policy didn’t include her mother. Just her. She told me once that her mother stopped hanging out at the pool after that. She didn’t do anything about it. She just didn’t want to see it. Her father was out of work that year, so that’s what they did. They hung out at the pool. In the summer, I guess, that was enough. Watching, I mean. But two weeks after they closed up the pool for the winter, it started.”

I did not want to hear this. I wanted her to stop. But I had to hear it and she had to say it. We were trying to find the road.

“He didn’t just fondle her, Work. He raped her. He sodomized her. When she fought back, he beat her. After that summer, she wasn’t allowed to have pajamas. For God’s sake, she had to sleep naked. Another policy. It didn’t start slow and build up. It exploded into her life. One day she was seven. The next day she was getting it regular. His term. But in spite of that, it somehow got worse over time, like he got bored with her and had to find new ways to make it fun. She can’t talk about some of the things he did, not even now. And she’s the strongest person I know.

“It went on for years. He never did go back to work. He drank more and he gambled more. On three occasions, he loaned her out to cover his gambling debts. A hundred dollars here, two hundred there. She was eleven the first time. The guy was a shift foreman at the rubber plant in Winston-Salem. He weighed three hundred pounds. Alex weighed a little over seventy.”

“Her mother…” I began.

“She tried to tell her mother once, but she didn’t want to hear it. She accused her of lying and slapped her. But she knew.”

Jean fell silent.

“She could have gone to the authorities,” I said.

“She was a child! She didn’t know any different. By the time she turned thirteen, it started to get a little better. He molested her less and beat her more.” Jean rolled her eyes to me. “She was getting too old for him. She hit puberty and he started to lose interest.”

“She was fourteen when she killed him,” I said. “Well past puberty.”

A sound escaped Jean’s throat, part laugh and part strangled cry. She turned her entire body over, raised herself up on one elbow as if to meet me eye-to-eye. “You don’t get it, Work.”

“If he’d stopped abusing her-”

“She had a sister!” This time, she yelled. “That’s why she did what she did. A seven-year-old sister named Alexandria.”

Suddenly, I understood. I understood everything.

“On the day that Alex killed her father, her sister had just turned seven years old. Her party was the day before. Guess what her daddy gave her.”

I knew the answer.

“High heels, Work. Her own high heels and a tube of lipstick. For daddy’s little girl. And she loved it. She didn’t know what it meant; she just wanted to dress up like her big sister. That’s why Alex killed him.”

I didn’t want to speak. I didn’t want to hurt my sister further, but knew that I probably would. Hank had told me that Jean loved Alex like a preacher loves his God. So be it. But this was no divine being, no benevolent soul. She was damaged, a killer, and Jean had to understand the truth of this. For her own good.

“What happened to her sister?” I asked. “Did Alex ever tell you that?”

Jean sniffed loudly, but her voice was calmer. “She doesn’t talk about her sister. I guess they lost touch after Alex was locked up. Her sister probably didn’t understand, not at that age.”

I had to do it fast, before I froze. She had to know.

“Her sister died, Jean. She ran back into the house and she burned to death along with her father.”

Jean’s mouth formed into another silent, seemingly toothless black circle.

“Accident or not, she killed her sister. And for some reason, she took her name. Alexandria, Alex. It can’t be a coincidence. She killed her father, she killed her sister, and, as far as I’m concerned, she killed Ezra, too.”

Jean’s body trembled. “She would have told me,” she said, then looked suddenly suspicious. “Why are you doing this?” she demanded.

“I’m sorry, Jean. I know it hurts, but I had to tell you. You deserve the truth.”

“I don’t believe you.”

“I swear it, Jean. On our mother’s name, I swear it’s the truth.”

“Get out of here, Work. Get out and leave me alone.”

“Jean…”

“You always took Dad’s side. You’ve always hated her.”

“She killed our father, and she wants me to fry for it.”

Jean rose from the mattress, a gray and quaking shadow of herself; her sheets fell away and she swayed on the narrow bed. I feared she would tumble off and crack her skull on the hard floor. Her finger stabbed at me, and I saw the denial in her. I’d pushed it too hard, too fast.

I’d lost her.

“Get out!” she screamed, and burst into tears. “Get out! Get out of here, you fucking liar!”

I fled the room because I had no choice. Jean was distraught; I’d pushed her to a dangerous place. She had two things in this world, Alex and me. But right now, Alex was all that mattered to her, and I’d tried to take that away.

But at least I had the truth, finally. Jean had not killed Ezra. She was not a murderer, and without that weight on her conscience, she might eventually pull out of the nosedive that had brought her to this hospital in the first place. Yet the alternatives could be equally devastating. Someone was going down for Ezra’s murder, and the way it looked now, it would either be Alex or me. Could Jean recover from either of those eventualities? She would have to. It was just that simple.

For me, things had changed dramatically. I might have been willing to take the rap for Jean, but not for Alex. No way in hell.

I leaned against the wall. It was hard and cold under my back, and I closed my eyes. I thought I heard her weeping, but then the sound was gone. Imagination, I told myself. Guilty conscience.

When I opened my eyes, a nurse was standing in front of me. She looked worried.

“Are you okay?” she asked. The question took me by surprise.

“Yes.”

She studied me. “You’re as pale as a sheet and look dead on your feet.”

“I’m okay. Just tired.”

“I’m not going to argue about it,” she told me. “But if you’re not a patient, you’ll have to leave. Visiting hours aren’t for another hour.”