A Map of the World - Jane Hamilton [94]
“That’s helpful,” I said. I managed to get up, on the pretense of needing to pull my handkerchief out of my pocket. I blew my nose away from the direction of her sympathetic gaze. I hadn’t had much of a chance to talk with Rafferty about Susan Dirks, the assistant D.A. She was a slim woman, elegant. She had the kind of hair I think of as endemic to Wisconsin, Minnesota, Michigan, and Iowa. Maybe Indiana, for that matter. It’s ruffled hair, like corrugated metal, with short stuff in the front that looks as if it’s been blasted out of an aerosol can. She was wearing a glittery black jacket and a short, black skirt. By choice she had a lot of cumbersome gold jewelry around her arms and neck. When everyone was assembled, Alice, in contrast, in her oversized orange pants, looked all the more like she’d been the stupid one, to come to the party wearing the wrong clothes.
As I sat back down next to Theresa, telling her that neither one of the lawyers gave much in the way of opening statements, she said, “What was that about the admission, the ‘I hurt everybody’ line? Suzannah Brooks kept saying that in my face, just about gloating.”
I winked a few times, involuntarily, thinking I hadn’t heard her. The admission had cost me a night’s sleep. I hadn’t been planning on mentioning it to Theresa. I guess I still didn’t know if I was primarily worried, or baffled, or angry. To get anywhere, I knew I had to choose from the three possibilities. I had tossed for hours trying not to give way to anxiety. The investigating officer had testified at the end of the hearing. Under oath he stated that Alice had shouted at him, shouted, “I hurt everybody.” I had wanted Theresa to tell me what Alice was without my having to supply some of the crucial information. I hadn’t known how I would tell her some of the more damning assertions. Without repeating the incriminating evidence, I wanted to ask, Did she do it? Theresa would say no. She’d say no a second time. Her look would change then. She’d show a side I had never seen before. She’d frown, disbelieving at first. And then somehow contempt would mar her pretty face.
She didn’t give me a chance to wonder how Suzannah Brooks had heard something that was said behind locked doors. She turned and put her hands on my arm again. “I can imagine why Alice would say that, can’t you? I mean, with what happened to Lizzy, it makes sense to me that she’d feel generally culpable. I know I would. Rafferty will make sure the confession is excluded from the trial. He’ll find a loophole, you know how lawyers operate. Probably she hadn’t had Miranda read to her yet, so anything she said will be inadmissible. That was Alice expressing what was a feeling, not a fact. If you know her the way we do, it makes sense. She doesn’t very often let down her guard, but it’s obvious she’s got a lot to work through. I don’t think she’s resolved half of her family issues. That’s one of the reasons she can seem so funny, because she’s really so raw. She’s turned a lot of her pain into humor, but we all know that deep down it’s just plain hurt.”
I couldn’t help turning to look at her, at her unwavering gaze. I saw that she was certain she was right. She wasn’t making up something to soothe me. I suppose the qualities she described were what had drawn me to Alice in the first place: She could alternately seem self-possessed with her hair in a bun, and then she’d untwist her braid and dance with abandon. I was grateful to Theresa, grateful she could account for Alice’s remark. For about three seconds I’d say I felt practically euphoric.
“That’s what I love about Alice, don’t you?” Theresa went on. “She blurts out these things that are refreshing, these searing one-liners, only sometimes she doesn’t have brakes working, and you wish you could gag her.”
If a person could gag her. If only