So—privilege, money. They were not things of which Trudy had ever availed herself. Until the day that a young clerk at Sussex had called Terry out of the blue and said she was the person who read all of Walter’s incoming and outgoing correspondence, to make sure it met the prison’s standards.
“Is there something specific we should know?” Terry had asked.
“Oh no,” the woman had assured him. “He’s careful. He understands the rules and he wouldn’t violate them. But the women who write him—they’re all over the map. I mean, there’s nothing that interesting now. But there might be. You never know.”
“Interesting?”
“Who’s on his call list, for example. Whether he thinks he has a valid shot at an appeal. I mean, all the lawyer stuff—that’s in person or on the phone, strictly confidential. That’s a right that can’t be tampered with. But when Walter turns around and tells someone else what’s going on—that’s not protected.”
Trudy had picked up the extension at Terry’s invitation. It was hard for her not to break in, explain to Terry what was going on. She’s inside, she wants a bribe, she’ll tell us what we need to know. Since Holly’s murder, Trudy had learned that Terry, like his daughter, was dangerously trusting. She had to be the vigilant one, the mean one, the cynic.
“If you knew,” the woman continued, “how little they pay us to work here. It’s really kind of shocking.” The voice had a youthful twang, yet Trudy believed it had to be someone older, someone who had put in enough time in state government and was ready to play the angles. Did she make this offer to the victims of every man on death row? Granted, it wasn’t a large population, and as Trudy had learned, most victims were as poor as the perpetrators. But even if this clerk picked up ten, twenty dollars a month from five families, that would be quite the little stipend.
“We would appreciate,” Terry said carefully, “any help you could give us.”
“Same here,” the woman said. “Why don’t you write me? I’ll give you my PO box.”
The first month, Terry had sent twenty-five dollars, in cash, and they had received a rather perfunctory report back. The next month, he sent an American Express gift card of $100, and the report lengthened considerably. Yet, over the years, the information hadn’t amounted to much. Walter was not as loose with details about his legal situation as the clerk had led them to believe, although one of his correspondents, Barbara LaFortuny, was more reliably indiscreet. And it was distressing to be told of the women who wrote him what could only be called love letters. What was wrong with people? With women? Trudy couldn’t imagine men writing lovelorn letters to female murderers.
It was more distressing still to hear that Walter and Elizabeth had corresponded and that it had somehow slipped through their source’s net. “We spot-check,” she had defended herself, when called on this oversight. “And her letter might have arrived on a day when I wasn’t working. But I can swear to you up and down that he did not send any letters to Elizabeth Lerner from this facility. We would have been on that like white on rice.”
“But she’s not Elizabeth Lerner,” Terry had pointed out to their source, careful not to offend, but also perturbed at what thousands of dollars had failed to buy. “She’s Eliza Benedict.”
“Right, and how do you know that? Because of me. You also have her phone number, which you can drop into any online reverse directory and get an address. That’s more important than any ol’ letter she sent.”
Trudy did not agree. But now she found herself studying the ten digits. What would she say, if she dared to dial them. (Trudy was still old enough to think “dial,” even if she was modern enough to use a cell phone.) The words How dare you came to mind. Those would cover a multitude of sins.
That phrase jolted her and she pulled out her Bible, tried to find the reference, but she had to cheat and use the Internet to narrow it down. Various things covered a multitude of sins, apparently. Love and charity. In Peter, it was written: Love covers a multitude of sins. That was not a passage that interested Trudy today, or any day. She kept clicking until she found a Web site whose interpretation worked better for her. From James 5:20. Remember this: Whoever turns a sinner from the error of his way will save him from death and cover over a multitude of sins. Love could help a sinner repent, the Web site instructed, but it must not turn a blind eye. That was not justice. Perhaps Trudy had been affiliated with the wrong church all these years, perhaps she should have embraced the hard-core fundamentalists. Her parents, both descended from Charleston’s French Huguenots, had been scandalized enough by her conversion to Catholicism upon her marriage to Terry. If Trudy had joined a church where people rolled on the floor and spoke in tongues, they would have been just as mortified by the sheer tackiness of it all. Her parents were alive, distressingly healthy. Distressing because it meant that Trudy was genetically predisposed to live a long time.
How dare you? What are you thinking? What are you up to? She found herself dialing—okay, furiously poking—the ten numbers that she had managed to commit to memory without even trying, this at a time when she could barely remember an errand from room to room. The phone rang and rang and rang and rang. She imagined the house in which it rang, a house with a husband, maybe children. A happy house. That was privilege.
How dare she. How dare she.
28
ISO WAS GROUNDED. GIVEN THAT this was a first for her, it was also a first for Eliza and Peter, who were still trying to work out how to define the punishment. They allowed her to play soccer, because they had rationalized that Iso’s transgressions should not punish the entire team. (Although her team was quite good, its bench was a little thin, and Iso’s nonparticipation could force them into forfeits.) She was permitted to watch television, but only programs that other family members chose. Eliza hoped that this would at least lure Iso out of her bedroom, force her to interact with her family. Finally, they had taken her phone away and limited her computer time, but Iso said she needed to use the Internet for some of her homework, and she appeared to be telling the truth.
Appeared to be was the key phrase. For Iso, while now an exemplary citizen at North Bethesda Middle School, had been caught lying about her after-school activities. She had told Eliza that she and a classmate needed to go to the library on a Saturday to research a project; the other girl’s mother would pick them up and bring them home. Eliza had checked with the other mother, not out of suspicion but caution. If Iso had garbled the message in any way, two young girls might be left waiting in front of the library at dusk. Granted, they would be in supersafe Bethesda, almost within walking distance of the Benedicts’ house. But Eliza wanted to be sure she wasn’t imposing on the other mother.
“The library?” The mother, Carol DeNadio, had a warm, throaty voice and laugh. “I wish Caitlin wanted to spend Saturday afternoon at the library. No, I was going to drop them off at Montgomery Mall.”
Eliza, caught off guard, embarrassed and humiliated that Iso had set her up this way, blurted out: “Is that safe?”
“The Montgomery Mall? Safe as anywhere, I suppose. Especially when the girls are together in their gaggle. Iso has lovely manners, by the way. I wouldn’t mind if that rubbed off on Caitlin.”
“Th-th-th-thank you.”
“I suppose that’s from living in England? Or maybe you’re just a better mother than I am.” The latter was said with breezy self-deprecation. “But, seriously, I’ve been dropping Caitlin off there since she was eleven. I give her three hours and strict instructions. She’s not allowed to leave the mall, and there will be hell to pay if she’s not at our meeting point. Also, her phone has to be on, and she has to take my calls. Screen me, and she loses the privilege.”