Alissa Nutting - Tampa

Having been in custody all night, I had no idea of how fast my story had spread in just sixteen hours. The bail hearing was packed with journalists and photographers who called out my name immediately after the proceedings and flashed cameras as they barked questions. Overall the attention felt more adoring than judgmental; they relished the audacity and vanity of my defense. “Your Honor,” my attorney began, “my client’s looks would make her a particularly susceptible target for sexual violence and harassment in prison. She’s too beautiful to be in the general population of jail.” There was a hushed chorus of shock from the packed room of reporters; their whooshed inhale was the sound made just before a match thrown on a pool of gasoline erupted in flame. The prosecution had a logical rebuttal—they argued we’re not a society whose penal system has a sliding scale based on attractiveness. But whether the judge agreed with my attorney, took into account my previously stainless record (for all the times I’d been pulled over, I’d never once actually received a speeding ticket, even before marrying Ford) or just confirmed from my personal banking statements that I didn’t have the monetary resources to flee (I knew without ever testing them that none of my credit cards would work any longer), he agreed I could be on house arrest until the trial.

I was charged with six counts of lewd and lascivious battery against two minors—a laughably small amount given the number of times I’d been with Jack and Boyd, but apparently what the prosecution felt they could prove beyond doubt. Though the DA’s office made it known to my attorney that according to Jack’s version of events I should have been charged with attempted manslaughter for chasing after Jack with a knife, they only flirted with actually trying to make a case. Dennis and I met with the DA a few days after my bail hearing to discuss a possible additional indictment, and it was clear their evidence was scarce.

“This implication that my client was seeking Jack Patrick out in order to commit a violent stabbing—well.” My attorney rubbed his hand across his mustache and the corners of his lips several times, as though the allegation was a piece of cake he’d just eaten that had deposited crumbs all over his mouth. “We know for a fact, and Mr. Manning’s account of events supports this, that Jack attacked him in a fit of rage and possibly homicidal agitation. How much of a leap of faith is it that my client felt threatened by him as well? When he ran from the room, isn’t it likely she thought he was going to go retrieve a gun from his father’s bedroom? That he himself was going to get a knife and come back to attack her or lie in wait for her somewhere else? Of course my client grabbed a knife and ran. She was so terrified and frightened for her life, she didn’t even feel like she had time to put clothes on first.” He placed a hand onto mine and turned to me. “I bet you could cry just thinking about it, couldn’t you?”

I nodded. The detectives had their heads tilted slightly askance, examining each microexpression I made for traces of guilt. “I could,” I said quietly.

“Don’t blame you one bit,” my attorney bellowed. Then, looking back at the detectives, he repeated himself. “I don’t blame her.”

While my attorney continued to play up the fear I’d felt that evening, I thought about how I probably wouldn’t have actually killed Jack even if I’d caught up to him. Not unless he’d made some sort of aggressive move—lunged at me, grabbed at the knife—or had been entirely unreasonable in conversation and forced me to take preventative action. I’d only wanted to make him see the benefits of storytelling. He could’ve gone back and tended to Boyd until I gathered my things from the house. Then, after I’d left, he could’ve called an ambulance and spoken an innocent-enough tale: that he and Boyd were friends who’d been play-wrestling and the head injury was an accident. I believe that Boyd would’ve been conscious enough to understand the tale and go along with it, or at least commit the scenario to memory before blacking out.

The detective exhaled and traced his finger along the table in large circles. “You know,” he said, “Jack tells us you were banging his father, too.” The other detective lifted a coffee cup to his mouth and spat a clump of chewing tobacco inside. I realized I’d begun to hold my breath with fear that he was about to continue—to relay Jack’s accusation that I’d purposefully let his father die so that my shameful secret would die with him. This could open a whole new mess of legal charges, vastly complicate our defense and the public’s perception, and even cause Dennis to drop the case if he felt too put off by the surprise or guessed that others were likely in store. But apparently the past few months of despondent copulation I’d had with Jack were paying off: he hadn’t passed this information on. Jack himself felt too implicated in it all—he’d been too much a part of the process of having done nothing in Buck’s last hour of need. He’d also continued to sleep with me after I’d made sure Buck couldn’t be saved.

My attorney’s head pivoted subtly from side to side, considering. “If that were true, it would seem to go toward establishing the fact that my client is a troubled young woman desperately searching for love. Not the ‘ravenous pedophile’ the DA has been referring to her as in media interviews.” I couldn’t help but give Dennis a delighted smile—having his nimble mind on my side was truly an advantage.

The second detective spat into his cup again with more force. “Or she could just be a ravenous pedophile and a whore,” he said. The commencement of name-calling meant our burden of defense had been met—they weren’t going to bring any additional spurious charges beyond the sex crimes.

“With that, gentlemen, I believe we’re done for the day.” My attorney stood and I followed; the second detective stared at me as we walked past. His eyes took in the details of my body with a conflicted gaze that I knew well: even having seen all the facts of the case, he still wanted me. He wanted me despite knowing what that meant about him.

The months before my trial were spent alone on house arrest in a shoddy Tampa apartment; it had wheezing air-conditioning and low-quality gray carpet that I refused to walk on barefoot. Droves of pear-shaped soccer moms set up camp on the sidewalk across the street and picketed day and night with homemade posters declaring me to be a sick child molester who deserved life in prison. I could only imagine their husbands were happy my case had given these beastly women a new hobby that got them out of the house.

Yelling and shaking signs, they became workers in a protest economy whose currency was appreciative car honks; any time they received the blaring horn-tap of a supporter, the women’s beefy arms would raise up and they’d high-five one another. Of course none of them actually looked fearful about anything, least of all me. It was quite the opposite—in my trial they’d found a sense of purpose that rendered them giddy and energized. On weekend nights when their numbers were greatest they’d often deliver choral group chants into a feedback-ridden microphone, “Teachers not touchers” being one of the more popular. There were never any men among the group, though occasionally some of the mothers did see fit to bring their young children along to practice the valuable life skill of standing on the side of the road with indignation. My house arrest stipulations allowed for court-approved prescheduled excursions to purchase food but I most often ordered in, and once it became apparent to the onlookers just where a given food order was headed, they’d incorporate the employee into their calls and protestations. “Are you over eighteen?” they’d yell to a bewildered pizza deliveryman. “You’re not safe unless you are!”