Triptych (Will Trent #1) - Karin Slaughter Page 0,161
was hardly inexperienced.”
“He bit off her tongue.”
Lydia smoothed her skirt again, keeping silent.
“Michael bit off her tongue, just like he bit off Mary Alice’s.”
If John hadn’t been looking at Lydia, he would’ve missed her reaction. For just an instant, he was certain she had been surprised.
John said, “I know about the report the state’s dental expert wrote.”
Her chin went up in challenge. “I have no idea what you’re talking about.”
“I think you do.”
“I have no recollection of a report.” She added, “And even if I did, there’s nothing I can do about it now.”
“You can give me my life back.” John tried, “All you’d have to do is make a sworn statement—”
“Don’t be ridiculous.”
“That’s all I want, Lydia. Swear under oath that it was Michael who killed Mary Alice and not me. Convince them to clear my record and I’ll just—”
“Young man,” she interrupted again, her tone clipped. He could tell from her posture that it was over. She pointed to the door. “I want you and your sister out of my house right now.”
John stood automatically, always one to follow orders. Joyce was still at the piano. Tears of defeat welled into her eyes. She had fought so hard for him and now she had finally realized that there was nothing more that she could do.
She mouthed, “I’m sorry.”
He looked around the house, the mausoleum Lydia had built with the money she’d earned from suing corporations and doctors and anyone else who had made a mistake she could profit on. She’d spent hours with John at the county jail trying to fabricate his defense. Twenty years ago, she had told him not to testify on his own behalf. She had handled the lab tests, the experts, the character witnesses. Lydia was the one who came to Coastal that day to tell him that it was over, that there were no other legal avenues left to explore. She’d started crying, and he had tried to comfort her.
John also remembered another day at Coastal, that first visit his mother had made after Zebra had ripped him in two.
“You will not give up,” Emily had ordered, gripping John’s hands so hard across the table that his fingers started to go numb. “Do you understand me, Jonathan? You will not give up.”
You didn’t go through twenty years of hard time without learning something. Prison was nothing but a big clock that never stopped ticking. All any of them had was time, and they spent that time talking. There was trash-talk—plans of escape, plans to shiv the bastard who disrespected you in the lunch line—but you could only bullshit for so long. Invariably, everyone ended up talking about how they’d wound up in the joint. All of them were innocent; framed by some crooked cop, fucked over by the system. All of them were working some angle, some way to snatch that get-out-of-jail-free card.
In 1977, the United States Supreme Court handed down a decision that led to the establishment of adequate law libraries in all state and federal prisons. No one knew exactly what adequate meant, but the library at Coastal rivaled any law school’s, and every man in the joint eventually ended up with his head tucked into some case book, searching for an obscure passage, an arcane edict, any loophole they could exploit. Most cons knew more about the law than the lawyers the state had appointed to represent them—a good thing, since you usually got what you paid for.
John picked up the vase of flowers on the mantel.
Lydia stood, spine stiff as a board. “Put that down.”
He hefted the vase in his hand. Leaded crystal, heavy as a brick. Probably worth its weight in gold. That was the only thing Lydia cared about now—money: how much she could make, how much she could hold on to. Four marriages, a son, a grandson, and all she had to show for it were these cold little objects scattered around her pristine mansion.
He said, “You’ve got a nice place, Aunt Lydia.”
“Both of you. Get out of my house this instant.”
“Your house,” John repeated, sliding out the flowers, dropping them one by one on the expensive white rug. “That’s an interesting way to put it.”
“I’m going to call the police.”
“Better duck first.”
“Wha—” She was old but she moved fast when she saw John raise the vase. He threw it well over her head, but the shards of glass that shattered off the wall rained onto the couch where she had been sitting.