“Then why tell me this now?”
“Because this is the only way I have left to stop Jennifer.” He raised his eyes to Leisha, but she knew he didn’t see her. “For her sake. There’s no one in Sanctuary who can stop her anymore—hell, they encourage her, especially Cassie Blumenthal and Will Sandaleros. My kids…Criminal charges over the patents will at least scare off some of her Outside contacts. They’re scary people, Leisha, and I don’t want her dealing with them. I know that even with my testimony, unsupported hearsay, you don’t have much of a case, and probably the whole thing will get thrown out of court—do you think I’d be here if I thought she could be indicted for anything? I studied Wade v. Tremont and Jastrow v. United States very carefully and I want it on the record that I did. I just want Jenny stopped. My kids—the hatred for Sleepers they’re learning, the sense of entitlement to do anything—anything, Leisha—in the name of self-protection; it scares me. This isn’t what Tony intended!”
Leisha and Richard had never, after the first time, been able to discuss what Tony Indivino had intended.
Richard said, outwardly more calm, “Tony was wrong. I was wrong. You become different, walled away with only other Sleepless for decades. My kids—”
“Different how?”
But Richard only shook his head. “What happens now, Leisha? You turn this over to the U.S. Attorney and he brings charges? For theft and tampering with government records?”
“No. For murder.”
She watched him closely. His eyes widened and flared, and she would have bet her life, then, that he knew nothing about Timothy Herlinger’s death. But a week ago she would have bet her life that Richard knew nothing about stealing, either.
“Murder?”
“Timothy Herlinger died an hour ago. Under suspicious circumstances.”
“And you think—”
Her mind was ahead of his. She saw him catch up, and she took a step backward.
He said slowly, “You’re going to charge Jennifer with murder. And make me testify against her. Because of what I’ve said here.”
Somehow she got the word out. “Yes.”
“Nobody at Sanctuary planned a murder!” When she didn’t answer he seized her wrist hard. “Leisha—nobody at Sanctuary…not even Jennifer…nobody…”
His faltering was the worst thing yet. Richard was unsure that his wife was incapable of political murder. Leisha looked at him levelly. She had to hear it, all of it, because…because why? Because she did. Because she had to know.
But there was no more of it to hear. Richard’s fist closed on the flower he held and he started to laugh. “Don’t!” she begged, but he went on laughing anyway, a braying heaving sound that went on and on, until Leisha opened the office door and told her secretary to call the District Attorney.
11
The foamstone cell was five paces by six. It held a built-in bed platform, two recyclable blankets, one pillow, a sink, a chair, and a toilet, but no window or terminal. Will Sandaleros, prisoner’s counsel, had protested the lack of a terminal; all but isolation cells had some sort of simple read-only terminal of unbreakable alloy, welded to the wall. His client was allowed access to newsgrids, to approved library items, and to the United States E-postal system. The county jailer ignored the protest; he wasn’t trusting any Sleepless with a terminal. Nor would he allow the prisoner communal exercise or dining, or visitors in the cell, even Sandaleros. Twenty years ago the same Cattaraugus County jailer, younger and harder, had lost a Sanctuary Sleepless to a prison killing. Not again. Not in his jail.
Jennifer Sharifi told the lawyer to discontinue his protests.
The first day, she carefully scrutinized the four corners of her cell. The southeast corner was assigned to prayer. By closing her eyes she could see the rising sun rather than the foamstone wall; within a few days she did not need to close her eyes. The sun was there, summoned by will and belief.
The northeast corner held the sink. She washed completely twice a day, stepping out of her abbaya and washing that too, refusing the prison laundry and the prison garb. If the surveillance panel broadcast her daily nakedness, that was as irrelevant as the foamstone wall was to seeing the sun. Only what she did was relevant, not how subhumans viewed what she did. By their prurient viewing they had forfeited the humanity that would have allowed her to consider them.
The remaining two corners were spanned by the cot. She left the bedding folded under it, day after day, untouched. The bed itself became her place of learning. She sat on the edge, straight-backed in her still-wet abbaya. When hard-copies she requested were given her, erratically and intermittently, she read them, permitting herself one reading only of each tabloid, each law book, each library printout. When there was nothing to read, she learned by thinking, creating detailed scenarios covering every contingency she could imagine. She thought of the contingencies of her legal situation. Of Walcott’s research. Of the future of Sanctuary. Of Leisha Camden’s choices. Of the economic underpinnings of each division, each organization, each significant personal or professional relationship within Sanctuary. Each contingency branched at several places; she learned them all until she could close her eyes and see the entire great structure, decision tree after decision tree branching and rebranching, dozens of them. As new data came to her from hard-copies or from Sandaleros, she mentally redrew every affected branch. For each decision point she assigned a text from the Quran or, if there were conflicting possible applications, more than one text. When she could see the enormous balanced whole spread out behind her closed lids, she opened her eyes and taught herself to see it in three dimensions within the cell, filling the space, palpable growing branches like the tree of life itself.
“All she does is sit and stare,” the matron reported to the District Attorney. “Sometimes with her eyes open, sometimes closed. Hardly ever moves.”
“Does it seem to you a state of catatonia that needs medical attention?”
The matron shook her head, then nodded, then shook her head again. “How the hell would I know what one of them needs!”
The District Attorney didn’t answer.
Wednesdays and Sundays were visiting days, but the only visitor she would ever permit was Will Sandaleros, who came daily to the usually empty visiting gallery, where she sat separated from him by thick plastiglass under a ring of surveillance panels.
“Jennifer, the grand jury returned an indictment against you.”
“Yes,” Jennifer said. There were no branches on her decision tree in which the grand jury did not indict her. “Have they set a trial date?”
“December 8. Motion to reconsider bail was denied.”
“Yes,” Jennifer said. There had been no branches for bail, either. “Leisha Camden testified to the grand jury.” It wasn’t a question.
“Yes. The testimony has been released to counsel; I’m trying to get a hard-copy to you.”
“There have been no hard-copies brought to me in two days.”
“I’ll move again on that. The newsgrids are about the same; you don’t want to see them.”
“Yes,” Jennifer said, “I do.” The newsgrid hysteria was necessary: not to her learning but to the strengthening of her prayer. “A reminder to believers,” the Quran said. “Sleepless Murder to Control World!” “First Money—Now Blood?” “Secret Sleepless Cartel Plots Overthrow of United States—Through Murder!” “Turncoat Sleepless to Reveal Death Total of Sanctuary Mafia.” “Local Gang Claims Fatal Beating of Teen: ‘He Was Sleepless.’ ”