Just Mercy: A Novel (16 page)

TWENTY-EIGHT

Fin had to talk to his mom in person. This was too good to tell her on the phone. He was sure she’d be as surprised as he was by what he’d found out today, although he doubted that she would be as happy, or as hopeful, about it as he was. He got on the #20 bus and paid his fare, wondering if the day would ever come when he didn’t think that if this same bus were always on time, then Veronica would still be alive today. He found a seat by a window and closed his eyes, turned his thoughts away from the past and toward what was possible.

At his folks’ house, his stomach knotted up when he found his dad out back on the deck, sitting in a lounge chair, sipping a Coke. But when Marty looked up from his book and broke out in a normal smile, looking the way he always did—meaning not sick—Fin let out a sigh of relief.

“Well, I didn’t expect to see you today,” Marty said.

“Hey, you look good, Dad.”

“I’m feeling fine. Why are you here?”

“I have something important to tell you and Mom.”

“So your phone doesn’t work now? Your mom went to Killeen this morning to see Maxine Blackwell again.”

“Shouldn’t she be home by now? It’s after six.”

“Like a dog with a bone, that’s your mom when she’s on a mission, you know. So what’s so important for you to take the bus over here during rush hour?”

“I know how to stop the execution.”

“Now, Fin…”

“Come on, Dad. You’ll feel different when you hear what I have to say.”

“Hello? Anybody home? Oh, here you are. What a day! I .  . .” Bernadette’s outstretched arms halted in midair when she saw Fin leaning against the railing. She rushed over to hug him.

“Sorry I’m so late,” she said, kissing Marty on the cheek. “Maxine Blackwell seems to have disappeared without a trace. But on my way home, I stopped at Central Market. Oh dear, I forgot the groceries in the car. Anyway, I ran into my old friend Clarissa, remember her, Marty? She looks the same. She suggested I talk to our adoption worker. I don’t know why I never thought about that before. So I drove out there. Talk about timing. Mary Jane Crenshaw is leaving her job at the end of this week, but she’s going to help me. So why are you here, Fin? I’m glad to see you, but it’s a bit unusual for a workday, isn’t it?”

“He thinks he can stop the execution again.” Marty nodded toward Bernadette with a knowing glance that didn’t escape Fin’s notice.

“Fin…”

“Just hear me out, Mom. You won’t believe it. Remember what I told you about the sodium thiopental shortage? Well, guess what? Texas only has
two
doses left, and they’re about to expire.”

“They’ll get more from another state,” Bernadette said, “or they’ll use a different drug.”

“I figured you’d say that, but this is where it gets even better.” The words gushed out of Fin’s mouth now like water pumped from a well. “Over thirty other states are running short of the drug, too, and that’s not even the best part. Other countries are refusing to sell
any
drug to the United States if it’s used for executions. Italy was the first. Then Germany, the United Kingdom, Denmark. Even India. Who knows what other countries will follow?”

“But Texas still has it,” Bernadette said, “and in time for Rae.”

“Not if there’s another delay. Not if the governor stops it again.”

“Fin—”

“We can make a direct appeal to her. Come on, it’s worth a try, Mom. If the Supreme Court delays its decision in the Arizona case, that could be grounds for an appeal, too. And it wouldn’t hurt to contact the Innocence Project. You know better than anyone how many convictions they’ve gotten overturned.”

“Rae is not innocent.”

“She didn’t mean to do what she did. She didn’t even know what she was doing.”

“That doesn’t make her any less responsible.”

“Come on, you’re the one who always says all you have to do is scratch the surface to get at the reasons people do things.”

“There’s no excuse for choosing to murder someone.”

“Was it really a choice for her? Why isn’t the state responsible? If someone had protected her, she wouldn’t have ended up like she did.”

“Haven’t we had this conversation enough times already?” Bernadette said with a sigh. “Life isn’t fair, Fin. It just isn’t.”

“I
hate
it when you say that.” The childlike whine in Fin’s voice made him think about when he stopped believing in Santa Claus, who up until then had been the ultimate arbiter of justice, back when life was simple. If you were good, you got presents; if you were bad, you didn’t. He’d never forget the day he found out that Santa Claus didn’t bring presents to some children.

“Those children are
not
bad,” his mom had said, much to his surprise. “They’re just poor.”

“No,” he had insisted, “they did something bad. They had to.”

“Sweetie,” she’d said as she folded him into her arms, “those children deserve presents just as much as you do.”

“We have to tell Santa Claus they’re poor, then,” he had wailed, “so he’ll bring them even
more
presents.”

At least, he thought now, something good had come out of that childhood trauma. It shaped the belief he held to this day that those who had less should receive more. But the real reason he hated it when his mom said life was unfair was because he hated that it was true.

“The point isn’t to claim that the world is just,” Bernadette said now. “The point is to help make it so.”

Fin rolled his eyes at his mom’s standard line and felt his body stiffen. “Being able to tell Raelynn Blackwell what became of her family isn’t going to do anything but make
you
feel better.”

“We do what we can do,” Bernadette said.

“It’s the way things are,” Marty said.

“Don’t you care? Don’t either of you care?” Fin’s voice cracked. The whine was back.

Bernadette took both of his hands in hers and kissed away a tear that fell onto the tip of one of her fingers. “It’s time to move on, Fin,” she said. “Sometimes we just have to accept life on life’s terms.”

“I can’t,” he said, jerking his hands away from her with a sharp shake of his head, “and neither can you, Mom. Neither can you.”

TWENTY-NINE

Bernadette pulled off the highway and parked on the shoulder. A torrential downpour had hit full force, without warning, and the wind gusts shaking the car and the jagged lightning were way too close for comfort. She turned on the radio.

“The storm is moving southeast at ten miles an hour,” a crackling voice reported, “with a flash flood warning along Shoal Creek until nine a.m.”

So much for being on time. She rummaged through her purse and then dumped the contents onto the passenger seat in frustration when she realized she had forgotten her cell phone. She told herself to calm down. MoPac wasn’t going to flood. It wouldn’t be the end of the world if she was late. And fretting was not going to make the storm pass any faster.

She rested her head against the back of the seat and tried to hold onto the cautious optimism she’d had before she left home. Though she didn’t dare to be too hopeful, one thing did seem clear: if Mary Jane Crenshaw had no intention of helping, she would have canceled their appointment today. But what if she said she would help, but only if the request came from Maxine Blackwell? Well, then, tomorrow was another day. She would have to go back to Killeen again and try to find her, that’s all. At the very least, she hoped Mary Jane would be able to cut through some of the red tape in the short time that was left.

She thought about the advice she’d given Fin about accepting life on life’s terms, advice that she would be wise to take as well. But there was a big difference between what she was trying to do and what Fin wanted; Fin’s quest was hopeless, while hers at least had a chance of being successful. Nonetheless, just as Fin was going to do what Fin was going to do, whatever happened with Mary Jane today was going to happen, and all the worrying in the world wouldn’t make one iota of difference.

Bernadette listened to the rain pelting the roof of the car, pouring down so fast and furious that it rendered anything beyond the windshield invisible. And then, in a flash, the car turned silent. The storm was over. It made her dizzy how like life the storm was, how it could change in an instant. She pulled back onto the highway. She might get to her appointment with Mary Jane Crenshaw on time, after all.

When she arrived, the Health and Human Services department’s parking lot was packed, so she had to park two blocks away and then navigate around all the puddles to get to the main entrance. Once she was inside the imposing building, her eyes blinked at the glaring florescent lights and her nostrils burned from the smell of sweat, soiled diapers, and disinfectant. Her soaked sandals sucked at the linoleum floor as she walked past three rows of plastic chairs on which dozens of weary women sat, anxiety and defeat written all over their faces as they shushed crying babies and squealing toddlers.

“I see you’re back,” the receptionist said as Bernadette approached the desk.

“This time I have an appointment.”

“You’re lucky Crenshaw is still here.”

“She got another job, I guess.”

“Not after the trouble she got herself into, I wouldn’t think.”

“Oh?”

“People have to follow the rules.”

“What did she do?”

“Uh-uh, I’m not one to gossip,” the receptionist said with a wag of her bony, misshapen finger. “The waiting room is down the hall to your right. I’ll tell them you’re here.”

***

Compared to the chaos and sadness of the reception area, the adoptions waiting room was upbeat, with pictures of fat, happy children on the walls; and it was comfortable, too, with a thick-cushioned dark blue sofa and two matching oak-framed chairs. Bernadette sat down and reached for the current edition of
Parenting
magazine on the coffee table. Then she peeled off her wet sandals and tucked her feet under her on the couch.

“Mrs. Baker?”

She unfolded her legs and scrambled to put her sandals back on. A young woman stood before her, chunky and not pretty in the traditional sense, more like cute in a ruffled red blouse and short denim skirt. She kept tucking her hair behind her ears the way Veronica always had, which endeared her to Bernadette immediately.

“I’m Briony Reid,” the young woman said. “I’m an intern here.”

“Nice to meet you, Briony. What high school do you go to?”

“I’m a senior at UT. It’s okay,” she said with a wave of her hand, “Everyone says I look younger than I am.”

Briony’s upturned nose and the smattering of freckles on her round, rosy cheeks didn’t only make her look young; in Bernadette’s opinion, she looked way too innocent and vulnerable to be working at a place like this.

“Ms. Crenshaw’s running late,” Briony said. “Is there anything I can get you?”

“I’m fine. I don’t mind waiting.”

But, of course, she really did mind. She opened the magazine, pretending to read, and speculated about what Mary Jane might have to tell her and whether there was any hidden meaning to her tardiness.

Bernadette glanced up at the clock on the wall. Marty would be at the doctor’s office about now.

“I’ll be okay,” he’d said when he kissed her goodbye that morning.

“I should be going with you,” she’d said.

“I don’t plan on dying soon.”

“You’d better not be.” She’d forced a smile, tried to make it sound like a joke.

But in spite of Marty’s reassurances, she knew she was letting him down, and it made her feel guilty to imagine him sitting there all alone at the doctor’s office. She tried turning her mind to other things, like how much longer she would have to wait, what kind of trouble Mary Jane Crenshaw might have gotten herself into, the blood on the floor in Maxine Blackwell’s house, how everything was going to be over after Raelynn’s execution in a couple of weeks. But no matter how hard she tried, her thoughts kept returning to Marty and what she’d said to Fin about acceptance. Well, some things in life were too unacceptable to be considered even remotely possible. Losing Marty was one of those things.
That,
she could never accept. And wasn’t she here instead of with him at the clinic right now because she knew he was
not
going to die, but Raelynn Blackwell was? She stood up and stretched, then sat back down and reached into her purse for the list of questions she had brought along.

Just as she was checking the list to be sure she wouldn’t forget anything, Mary Jane Crenshaw was ready to see her. The first thing Bernadette noticed was that Mary Jane didn’t seem on edge as she had on Monday. In fact, she appeared quite confident—or was it determined? Her office, on the other hand, no longer felt warm and welcoming. With the pictures, plants, and most of the books gone, it now had a stark, almost desolate feel about it. One lone box remained in the corner, waiting to be filled with last-minute personal items. There was a folder on the table that was about three inches thick and frayed around the edges, bulging—Bernadette hoped—with all the information she was looking for. Her heartbeat sped up in anticipation of such good fortune as she squinted, stretched her neck, and tried to read the name on the tab without being too obvious about it.

Mary Jane nodded at the folder and motioned for her to sit down. “It was in the archives,” she said. “Nowadays, of course, everything’s computerized.”

Briony came into the office and sat behind them on a chair by the wall and a look of irritation flashed across Mary Jane’s face. She leaned over the folder as if protecting its contents from the young intern.

“You understand that I’m only allowed to give you general information,” Mary Jane said with a surreptitious glance in Briony’s direction.

“Yes.”

“But there is one thing I can tell you.” Mary Jane slapped her hand on the folder. “The Blackwell children had to be better off anywhere other than in that home situation.”

“Even Rae? What about what happened to her in foster care?”

Briony leaned forward in her chair, her eyes watchful, and Mary Jane Crenshaw shrugged her off with a flick of her shoulder. “What happened to that girl should
never
have happened,” she said, “but things did turn out better for the other children. At least it seems so.”

“What can you tell me?”

“The two boys were placed in separate foster homes.”

“Were they allowed to see each other?”

“That information would be in the foster care file, which I don’t have. But after their mother terminated her parental rights, a middle-aged couple with no other children adopted both of them.”

Bernadette smiled. This was far better news than she’d expected.

“Do you know what happened to them?”

“There was some suspicion that Timothy might have learning disabilities. Maybe fetal alcohol syndrome.”

Briony coughed in the background, and Mary Jane shot her another irritated look.

“What about Raelynn’s sister?”

“Jennifer was three years old when the children were removed from the home. Her foster parents ended up adopting her. They had three older children of their own and two other adopted children. I think you can assume things worked out okay for her.”

“I can’t tell you how much this means,” Bernadette said with a smile.

Mary Jane Crenshaw did not smile back but instead held Bernadette’s gaze as if she were turning something over in her head. Then she glanced at her watch and started to talk faster.

“The baby, of course, was adopted at birth. I’m sorry, Bernadette. Right now I have to leave to get some papers signed. It shouldn’t take long. Fifteen minutes, max.”

She stood up, patted the cover of the folder with her open hand, and took a step toward the door. But then she hesitated and came back. “Sometimes,” she said, touching Bernadette’s shoulder, “it’s better not to dig too deep.”

Mary Jane motioned to Briony with a brusque flick of her finger. The intern, looking confused, followed her out of the room, leaving Bernadette to wonder if something more happened to Rae’s siblings than Mary Jane had told her. She decided that, even if there was more to the story, she already had all the information she needed. Or did she? She averted her eyes from the folder and looked out the window to see that the sky was darkening and another storm was rolling in.