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Three weeks back, the night before my trial started, my lawyer goes, “I don’t want to scare you, Charmain”-(Sure!)-but he explains how unless I testify so he can bring up about the drug stuff and weird sex stuff and the 911 and the rest of it, I could get Death.
I’m like, “Well, okay, then, I’ll take Death. But I won’t take the stand.”
He’s like, “Great. You know who’s go
I say, “Excuse me but I heard you the first time.”
“This is State’s evidence. These are exhibits the State’s go
Well, I didn’t know what “deleterious” means but from the twitch in his mouth I could tell it wasn’t good. I looked at the papers. Stuff like:
STATE EXHIBIT #7. One desert eagle mark VII.44-caliber Magnum pistol, black matte finish. Six-inch barrel. Fingerprints of defendant on grip.
STATE EXHIBIT #13. Eight-round clip of.44 Magnum shells. Two rounds fired.
STATE EXHIBIT #28. Emptied kerosene can. Fingerprints of defendant on handle.
STATE EXHIBIT #51. Two.44 Magnum slugs taken from cranium of the deceased.
STATE EXHIBIT #85. Five-page letter of confession to shooting on Marriott stationery signed by defendant.
STATE EXHIBIT #97. ACC tournament basketball with bullet hole.
STATE EXHIBIT #103. Photographs of partially burned corpse of the deceased.
I said it did look like they had plenty of exhibits. Tilden Snow just nodded like his head was on a spring. But he was right about them making the most of what they had. For two weeks mornings and afternoons that sour-faced District Attorney, Mr. Goodenough, kept shaking plastic Baggies with those exhibits in them in front of the jury’s faces. He made it all sound like I was the original black widow spider. The worst was the pictures of Kyle’s body. I didn’t look at them. But the foreman lady, Dr. Rothma
I’d rather be dead anyhow probably. I mean, I already tried. And failed flat as I did Algebra II when I was going out with Kyle every night, which was a shame, I mean the algebra ’cause it was kind of interesting. But at the time, I’m sorry to say, not as interesting as Kyle, who was already such a big basketball star at Creekside High he was on the news just about every week, leaping and dribbling and dodging and tossing. He could have had any girl he wanted in Creekside High and I was such an idiot I was glad he picked me.
Anyhow, I tried to die after I killed Kyle but I didn’t. I woke up alive in the ICU and I could just hear Kyle laughing that snuffling way he had about how Charmain Luby never could do a single thing right. But I did try. I bought a shelf’s worth of every pill Wal-Mart’s had on display, then I went to the Marriott and got most of them down with a bottle of vodka which tasted terrible because I’m not much of a drinker. I propped my letter to Mawmaw against the ice bucket and took out my silver-framed picture of my baby Jarrad (that Mrs. Markell got named Kyle, Jr., on the certificate) and I lay down with the picture on the bed and cried myself to sleep. I felt like I was dying and they said I would of too if it hadn’t been for the highway patrol knocking the door down and rushing me to the emergency clinic.
It was my brother’s Mercury Cougar got the police there, which I didn’t know was a stolen vehicle at the time I parked it out in front of the Marriott on Old 89, not that anything Ta
I always wanted to stay in that Marriott. Or any Marriott. Even on our honeymoon Kyle took me to a Motel 6 at the beach. “I’m not paying good money for a bed in the dark.” He wouldn’t eat in nice restaurants either. “I’m not paying good money for something that’s going to turn to shit in three hours.” Kyle always called it good money and I guess what was good about it was he never spent it on me. He spent it on drugs and what he called Antique Vehicles. He collected old junk motorbikes, cars and trucks, and anything else crappy that used to move and now couldn’t anymore. He claimed their “value” was “going through the roof” someday and then he’d fix them and sell them for a fortune on the Internet. But he never did, surprise surprise. All he did was leave them there turning to red rust and weeds I couldn’t get at to pull. Between his antique vehicles and his basketball court, he used up all the space in my yard so I couldn’t grow a vegetable garden. He squashed my peonies under a 1952 Ford truck and he shot free throws standing on top of my tulip bulbs. Mostly up Kyle’s nose is where the good money went. And I got Motel 6.
Where I really always wanted to stay at was the Polynesian Resort at Disney World. But considering what’s happened, it don’t take the Psychic Hotline to tell me Disney World’s not in my future, because even if I don’t get Death, I’ll get Life.
My brother Ta
I picked the Marriott because I figured as far as me and a nice motel goes it was sort of now or never, since I pla
Then when I was lying on the king-sized bed in the Marriott swallowing those pills, it hit me how there was no way Kyle was ever going to pitch another fit over the Visa bill or the other million things he blamed me for, like his whole entire life, which I used to be dumb enough to think was my fault. And then it hit me how it was Mawmaw that was go