Faithless: Tales of Transgression Read online

  Jurors are easily confused, and it was Marina Dyer’s genius to confuse them to her advantage. For wanting to be good, in defiance of justice, is one of mankind’s greatest weaknesses.

  ∗ ∗ ∗

  “HEY: you don’t believe me, do you?”

  He’d paused in his compulsive pacing of her office, a cigarette burning in his fingers. He eyed her suspiciously.

  Marina looked up startled to see Derek hovering rather close beside her desk, giving off his hot citrus-acetylene smell. She’d been taking notes even as a tape recorder played. “Derek, it doesn’t matter what I believe. As your attorney, I speak for you. Your best legal—”

  Derek said pettishly, “No! You have to believe me—I didn’t kill her.”

  It was an awkward moment, a moment of exquisite tension in which there were numerous narrative possibilities. Marina Dyer and the son of her old, now deceased friend Lucy Siddons shut away in Marina’s office on a late, thundery-dark afternoon; only a revolving tape cassette bearing witness. Marina had reason to know that the boy was drinking, these long days before his trial; he was living in the townhouse, with his father, free on bail but not “free.” He’d allowed her to know that he was clean of all drugs, absolutely. He was following her advice, her instructions. But did she believe him?

  Marina said, again carefully, meeting the boy’s glaring gaze, “Of course I believe you, Derek,” as if it were the most natural thing in the world, and he naive to have doubted, “Now please sit down, and let’s continue. You were telling me about your parents’ divorce …”

  “ ’Cause if you don’t believe me,” Derek said, pushing out his lower lip so it showed fleshy-red as a skinned tomato, “—I’ll find a fucking lawyer who does.”

  “Yes, but I do. Now sit down, please.”

  “You do? You believe—?”

  “Derek, what have I been saying! Now sit down.”

  The boy loomed above her, staring. For an instant, his expression showed fear. Then he groped his way backward, to his chair. His young, corroded face was flushed and he gazed at her, greeny-tawny eyes, with yearning, adoration.

  Don’t touch me! Marina murmured in her sleep, cresting with emotion. I couldn’t bear it.

  Marina Dyer. Strangers stared at her in public places. Whispered together pointing her out. Her name and now her face had become medi-sanctioned, iconic. In restaurants, in hotel lobbies, at professional gatherings. At the New York City Ballet, for instance, which Marina attended with a friend … for it had been a performance of this ballet troupe Lucille Peck had been scheduled to attend the night of her death. Is that woman the lawyer? the one who …? that boy who killed his mother with the golf club … Peck?

  They were becoming famous together.

  HIS STREET NAME, his name in the downtown clubs, Fez, Duke’s, Mandible, was “Booger.” He’d been pissed at first then decided it was affection not mockery. A pretty white uptown boy, had to pay his dues. Had to buy respect, authority. It was a tough crowd, took a fucking lot to impress them—money, and more than money. A certain attitude. Laughing at him, Oh you Boogerman!—one wild dude. But now they were impressed. Whacked his old lady? No shit! That Booger, man! One wild dude.

  Never dreamed of it. Nor of Mother, who was gone from the house as if traveling. Except not calling home, not checking on him. No more disappointing Mother.

  Never dreamed of any kind of violence, that wasn’t his thing. He believed in passive-ism. There was the great Indian leader, a saint. Gandy. Taught the ethic of passive-ism, triumphed over the racist-British enemies. Except the movie was too long.

  Didn’t sleep at night but weird times during the day. At night watching TV, playing the computer, “Myst” his favorite he could lose himself in for hours. Avoided violent games, his stomach still queasy. Avoided calculus, even the thought of it: the betrayal. For he hadn’t graduated, Class of ’95 moving on without him, fuckers. His friends were never home when he called. Even girls who’d been crazy for him, never home. Never returned his calls. Him, Derek Peck! Boooogerman. It was as if a microchip had been inserted in his brain, he had these pathological reactions. Not being able to sleep for, say, forty-eight hours. Then crashing, dead. Then waking how many hours later, mouth dry and heart hammering, lying sideways on his churned-up bed, his head over the edge and Doc Martens combat boots on his feet he’s kicking like crazy as though somebody or something has hold of his ankles and he’s gripping with both hands an invisible rod, or baseball bat, or club—swinging it in his sleep, and his muscles twitched and spasmed and veins swelled in his head close to bursting. Swinging swinging swinging!—and in his pants, in his Calvin Klein jockey shorts, he’d come.

  WHEN HE WENT OUT he wore dark, very dark glasses even at night. His long hair tied back rat-tail style and a Mets cap, reversed, on his head. He’d be getting his hair cut for the trial but just not yet, wasn’t that like … giving in, surrendering … ? In the neighborhood pizzeria, in a place on Second Avenue he’d ducked into alone, signing napkins for some giggling girls, once a father and son about eight years old, another time two old women in their forties, fifties staring as if he were Son of Sam, sure OK! signing Derek Peck, Jr., and dating it. His signature an extravagant red-ink scrawl. Thank you! and he knows they’re watching him walk away, thrilled. Their one contact with fame.

  His old man and especially his lady-lawyer would give him hell if they knew but they didn’t need to know everything. He was free on fucking bail wasn’t he?

  IN THE AFTERMATH of a love affair in her early thirties, the last such affair of her life, Marina Dyer had taken a strenuous “ecological” field trip to the Galápagos Islands; one of those desperate trips we take at crucial times in our lives, reasoning that the experience will cauterize the emotional wound, make of its very misery something trivial, negligible. The trip was indeed strenuous, and cauterizing. There in the infamous Galápagos, in the vast Pacific Ocean due west of Equador and a mere ten miles south of the Equator, Marina had come to certain life-conclusions. She’d decided not to kill herself, for one thing. For why kill oneself, when nature is so very eager to do it for you, and to gobble you up? The islands were rockbound, storm-lashed, barren. Inhabited by reptiles, giant tortoises. There was little vegetation. Shrieking seabirds like damned souls except it was not possible to believe in “souls” here. In no world but a fallen one could such lands exist Herman Melville had written of the Galápagos, which he’d called also the Enchanted Isles.

  When she returned from her week’s trip to hell, as she fondly spoke of it, Marina Dyer was observed to devote herself more passionately than ever, more single-mindedly than ever, to her profession. Practicing law would be her life, and she meant to make of her life a quantifiable and unmistakable success. What of “life” that was not consumed by law would be inconsequential. The law was only a game, of course: it had very little to do with justice or morality, “right” or “wrong,” “common” sense. But the law was the only game in which she, Marina Dyer, could be a serious player. The only game in which, now and then, Marina Dyer might win.

  THERE WAS Marina’s brother-in-law who had never liked her but, until now, had been cordial, respectful. Staring at her as if he’d never seen her before. “How the hell can you defend that vicious little punk? How do you justify yourself, morally? He killed his mother, for God’s sake!” Marina felt the shock of this unexpected assault as if she’d been struck in the face. Others in the room, including her sister, looked on, appalled. Marina said carefully, trying to control her voice, “But, Ben, you don’t believe that only the obviously ‘innocent’ deserve legal counsel, do you?” It was an answer she had made numerous times, to such a question; the answer all lawyers make, reasonably, convincingly.

  “Of course not. But people like you go too far.”

  “ ‘Too far’? ‘People like me’—?”

  “You know what I mean. Don’t play dumb.”

  “But I don’t. I don’t know what you mean.”

  Her br
other-in-law was by nature a courteous man, however strong his opinions. Yet how rudely he turned away from Marina, with a dismissive gesture. Marina called after him, stricken, “Ben, I don’t know what you mean. Derek is innocent, I’m sure. The case against him is only circumstantial. The media—” Her pleading voice trailed off; he’d walked out of the room.

  Marina?—don’t cry.

  They don’t mean it, Marina. Don’t feel bad, please!

  Hiding in the locker-room lavatory after the humiliation of gym class. How many times. Even Lucy, one of the team captains, didn’t want her: that was obvious. Marina Dyer and the other last choices, a fat girl or two, myopic girls, uncoordinated clumsy asthmatic girls laughingly divided between the red team and the gold. Then, the nightmare of the game itself. Trying to avoid being struck by thundering hooves, crashing bodies. Yells, piercing laughter. Swinging flailing arms, muscular thighs. How hard the gleaming floor when you fell! The giant girls (Lucy Siddons among them, glaring, fierce) ran over her if she didn’t step aside; she had no existence for them. Marina, made by the gym teacher, so absurdly, a “guard.” You must play, Marina. You must try. Don’t be silly. It’s only a game. These are all just games. Get out there with your team! But if the ball was thrown directly at her it would strike her chest and ricochet out of her hands and into the hands of another. If the ball sailed toward her head she was incapable of ducking but stood stupidly helpless, paralyzed. Her glasses flying. Her scream a child’s scream, laughable. It was all laughable. Yet it was her life.

  Lucy, good-hearted repentant Lucy, sought her out where she hid in a locked toilet stall, sobbing in fury, a bloodstained tissue pressed against her nose. Marina?—don’t cry. They don’t mean it, they like you, come on back, what’s wrong? Good-hearted Lucy Siddons she’d hated the most.

  ON THE AFTERNOON of the Friday before the Monday that would be the start of his trial, Derek Peck, Jr., broke down in Marina Dyer’s office.

  Marina had known something was wrong; the boy reeked of alcohol. He’d come with his father, but had told his father to wait outside; he insisted that Marina’s assistant leave the room.

  He began to cry, and to babble. To Marina’s astonishment he fell hard onto his knees on her burgundy carpet, began banging his forehead against the glass-topped edge of her desk. He laughed, he wept. Saying in an anguished choking voice how sorry he was he’d forgotten his mother’s last birthday he hadn’t known would be her last and how hurt she’d been like he’d forgotten just to spite her and that wasn’t true, Jesus he loved her! the only person in the fucking universe who loved her! And then at Thanksgiving this wild scene, she’d quarreled with the relatives so it was just her and him for Thanksgiving she insisted upon preparing a full Thanksgiving dinner for just two people and he said it was crazy but she insisted, no stopping her when her mind was made up and he’d known there would be trouble, that morning in the kitchen she’d started drinking early and he was up in his room smoking dope and his Walkman plugged in knowing there was no escape. And it wasn’t even a turkey she roasted for the two of them, you needed at least a twenty-pound turkey otherwise the meat dried out she said so she bought two ducks, yes two dead ducks from this game shop on Lexington and 66th and that might’ve been OK except she was drinking red wine and laughing kind of hysterical talking on the phone preparing this fancy stuffing she made every year, wild rice and mushrooms, olives, and also baked yams, plum sauce, cornbread, and chocolate-tapioca pudding that was supposed to be one of his favorite desserts from when he was little that just the smell of it made him feel like puking. He stayed out of it upstairs until finally she called him around 4 P.M. and he came down knowing it was going to be a true bummer but not knowing how bad, she was swaying-drunk and her eyes smeared and they were eating in the dining room with the chandelier lit, all the fancy Irish linens and Grandma’s old china and silver and she insisted he carve the ducks, he tried to get out of it but couldn’t and Jesus! what happens!—he pushes the knife in the duck breast and there’s actual blood squirting out of it!—and a big sticky clot of blood inside so he dropped the knife and ran out of the room gagging, it’d just completely freaked him in the midst of being stoned he couldn’t take it running out into the street and almost hit by a car and her screaming after him Derek come back! Derek come back don’t leave me! but he split from that scene and didn’t come back for a day and a half. And ever after that she was drinking more and saying weird things to him like he was her baby, she’d felt him kick and shudder in her belly, under her heart, she’d talk to him inside her belly for months before he was born she’d lie down on the bed and stroke him, his head, through her skin and they’d talk together she said, it was the closest she’d ever been with any living creature and he was embarrassed not knowing what to say except he didn’t remember, it was so long ago, and she’d say yes oh yes in your heart you remember in your heart you’re still my baby boy you do remember and he was getting pissed saying fuck it, no: he didn’t remember any of it. And there was only one way to stop her from loving him he began to understand, but he hadn’t wanted to, he’d asked could he transfer to school in Boston or somewhere living with his dad but she went crazy, no no no he wasn’t going, she’d never allow it, she tried to hold him, hug and kiss him so he had to lock his door and barricade it practically and she’d be waiting for him half-naked just coming out of her bathroom pretending she’d been taking a shower and clutching at him and that night finally he must’ve freaked, something snapped in his head and he went for the two-iron, she hadn’t had time even to scream it happened so fast and merciful, him running up behind her so she didn’t see him exactly—“It was the only way to stop her loving me.”

  Marina stared at the boy’s aggrieved, tear-stained face. Mucus leaked alarmingly from his nose. What had he said? He had said . . . what?

  Yet even now a part of Marina’s mind remained detached, calculating. She was shocked by Derek’s confession, but was she surprised? A lawyer is never surprised.

  She said, quickly, “Your mother Lucille was a strong, domineering woman. I know, I knew her. As a girl, twenty-five years ago, she’d rush into a room and all the oxygen was sucked up. She’d rush into a room and it was like a wind had blown out all the windows!” Marina hardly knew what she was saying, only that words tumbled from her; radiance played about her face like a flame. “Lucille was a smothering presence in your life. She wasn’t a normal mother. What you’ve told me only confirms what I’d suspected. I’ve seen other victims of psychic incest—I know! She hypnotized you, you were fighting for your life. It was your own life you were defending.” Derek remained kneeling on the carpet, staring vacantly at Marina. Tight little beads of blood had formed on his reddened forehead, his snaky-greasy hair drooped into his eyes. All his energy was spent. He looked to Marina now, like an animal who hears, not words from his mistress, but sounds; the consolation of certain cadences, rhythms. Marina was saying, urgently, “That night, you lost control. Whatever happened, Derek, it wasn’t you. You are the victim. She drove you to it! Your father, too, abrogated his responsibility to you—left you with her, alone with her, at the age of thirteen. Thirteen! That’s what you’ve been denying all these months. That’s the secret you haven’t acknowledged. You had no thoughts of your own, did you? For years? Your thoughts were hers, in her voice.” Derek nodded mutely. Marina had taken a tissue from the burnished-leather box on her desk and tenderly dabbed at his face. He lifted his face to her, shutting his eyes. As if this sudden closeness, this intimacy, was not new to them but somehow familiar. Marina saw the boy in the courtroom, her Derek: transformed: his face fresh-scrubbed and his hair neatly cut, gleaming with health; his head uplifted, without guile or subterfuge. It was the only way to stop her loving me. He wore a navy blue blazer bearing the elegant understated monogram of the Mayhew Academy. A white shirt, blue-striped tie. His hands clasped together in an attitude of Buddhistic calm. A boy, immature for his age. Emotional, susceptible. Not guilty by reason of temporary insanit
y. It was a transcendent vision and Marina knew she would realize it and that all who gazed upon Derek Peck, Jr., and heard him testify would realize it.

  Derek leaned against Marina who crouched over him, he’d hidden his wet, hot face against her legs as she held him, comforted him. What a rank animal heat quivered from him, what animal terror, urgency. He was sobbing, babbling incoherently, “—save me? Don’t let them hurt me? Can I have immunity, if I confess? If I say what happened, if I tell the truth—”

  Marina embraced him, her fingers at the nape of his neck. She said, “Of course I’ll save you, Derek. That’s why you came to me.”

  THE VIGIL

  Why be ashamed? I’m not ashamed.

  You, passing judgment? The hell with you.

  Pretending to think people don’t do things like this, not people like yourself ending up like this. And this not even the end, yet.

  Not jealous but he might’ve been lonely. So he drove past the house in the early evening. Her house that had been his until the divorce. And she had custody of their daughter except for precisely scheduled visits with Daddy. Whatever you want, he’d said, if you want it so badly. He wasn’t jealous of her new life (of which he heard from friends, without inquiring), hey look: he had a new life, too. He wasn’t angry, not by nature an angry man, but he was a man you wouldn’t want to provoke, like his uncle in Minnesota of whom it was said with a bemused shake of the head you wouldn’t want to make an enemy of him, if you could avoid it.

  Just it felt necessary some nights to get into his car and drive past the house. Not every night (he had his own life!) but two or three times a week maybe. Along Ridge Road to the cul-de-sac a mile or so beyond the house, turning and driving back casually at a time of evening when his car was one of numerous cars of no special distinction, as he knew himself a man of no special distinction, not young, not old, might’ve been any husband-father-homeowner in the neighborhood returning to what’s called home. For in fact he was one of these men; he belonged here. Some nights driving past 11 Ridge Road in the early evening and seeing no lights, or just a kitchen light; or lights in most of the house meaning they were certainly home, the bluish flicker of the TV like water rippling behind glass, seeing her car (white, compact) in the carport and if not her car, the baby-sitter’s car (dark green) in the driveway meaning she wasn’t home yet from work, sometimes he’d glimpse both her car and the baby-sitter’s car and a third car intrusive and jarring to his eye, a new-model Lexus belonging to no one R knew, and he would know he’d be returning later that night, around midnight when all lights at 11 Ridge Road should be out, and there was just the single (white) car in the carport; and he would park his car on the road at the foot of the driveway and sit there quietly in the darkened car thinking, I am protecting them. The rifle he’d bring with him only at night, late. Never in the early evening.