Martin Misunderstood (9 page)

Martin sat at a plastic table in the visitors'
lounge, watching his mother get searched for
contraband. She kept up a constant stream of
chatter as hands patted her down and the wand
waved over her body. Apparently, she said
something funny, because all the guards laughed.
Evelyn Reed was one of the most popular visitors
at the prison. Nay, one of the most popular
mothers in the country. She had been on every
talk show and appeared above the fold on just
about every newspaper printed. She was a
celebrity of her own making, a star of stage and
screen. Even the Ladies' Hospital Auxiliary had
begged her to come back.

There was a hush in the nearly packed visitors'
lounge as Evie made her way toward Martin.
Some women raised their fists in the air to show
their solidarity. Others stared in wonderment
while still others took advantage of the distraction
to pass drugs they had secreted in various
cavities.

'Martin,' Evie called, waving her hand as if he
couldn't see her. She certainly had a spring in her
step these days. She'd started working out with a
personal trainer after seeing herself on
Oprah
('Why didn't you tell me I'd put on weight?'), and
between the new exercise regime and her
personal chef, she had managed to lose thirty
pounds. Add to that the face-lift and the Botox,
and you could understand how the 63-year-oldwoman
before him looked closer to Martin's age
than her own.

'Hello, Mother.'

'Oh, why are you always so dire when I come
to visit you?' she scoffed, taking a pad and a pen
from her Prada bag. 'You're such a downer.'

'I'm on death row.'

'Please,' she grumbled, and he could have
sworn she had started using an English accent.
'You should see what these shoes are doing to my
bunions.' She held out her leg so he could see the
four-inch heel on her Jimmy Choo. 'I wore them
on
Regis and Kelly
the other day and by the time
I walked off stage, I was ready to kill somebody.'
She had a sparkle in her eye. 'Figuratively
speaking, of course.'

'Of course,' Martin said. They both knew
what had happened. Martin was no fool – at
least he wasn't as big a fool as his mother
thought. He had spent a lifetime of reading
crime stories and murder mysteries. By simple
process of elimination, he had figured it out.
There were only two people who could have
committed these heinous crimes, and Martin
knew
he
hadn't done it.

'Now,' Evie said, writing 'Chapter Twelve' at
the top of the page with her bright, gold pen. 'My
editor thinks we should talk a bit more about
your childhood right after your father died.
You're still blaming yourself for that, right?' She
seemed hopeful. Martin nodded. 'What about
that time I came home and found you in my
underwear?'

'That never happened!' he screeched, horrified
that the other prisoners might have heard. 'You
can't write that!'

A guard appeared instantly. 'Dial it back,
Martin.'

He nodded, gripping his hands together under
the table. They were all on his mother's side here.
She'd fooled them completely.

'Mother,' Martin began, 'why don't you tell
them how you always bought clothes that were
too big for me, so that when I went to school I got
teased?'

She waved this off with a perfectly manicured
hand. 'All mothers do that. Kids grow so fast you
can't keep up with them.'

The guard paced back and forth behind
Martin, apparently feeling the need to protect
Evelyn. Martin kept his mouth shut. He had
nothing more to say on the subject. There was no
use arguing, because she would only point out
that it wasn't her fault that Martin didn't grow.
The too-big shoes, the baggy pants, the loose
underwear that facilitated wedgies – these would
all somehow be turned around on Martin and it
would suddenly be his own damn' fault.

'What about men?' she asked, a pleasant lilt to
her voice. 'Are you meeting anyone in here?'

Martin just stared at her, listening to the
footsteps behind him as the guard paced
away.

'Well, I'm trying, Martin. I really am. I come
visit you. I talk to you. I try to bring a little
happiness in your life . . .' She waited for the
guard to pass, leaning over and hissing, 'Listen,
you little fucker! If you hate it so bad in here then
tell them the truth. Is that what you want to do?
How interested do you think your precious
detective would be if she knew that you were just
a normal everyday putz who couldn't hurt a fly
. . . and of course I love you, Martin. I could
never hate you. I hate your crimes, but you will
always be my son.'

Martin sighed. The guard had come back. He
waited for the man to turn again and head in the
other direction. 'Tell me how you did it,' he
murmured. 'I saw you in bed when I got home
from the massage parlor.'

'Massage?' Her eye twitched as her brain sent
a message to raise her eyebrow, only to be told
that the Botox had paralyzed the nerve. 'Is that
what you want to call it, boy-o, a massage?'

'Handjob,' he sighed. His language had gotten
coarse in prison, but then you couldn't see a man
pull a shiv out of his rectum and stab another
man and still say things like, 'Darn, that was a
heck of a move, buddy!'

Evie was silent, her lips curved in a tight smile
(though, honestly, after the face-lift, everything
was tight). The guard walked away and she said,
'Pillows. You saw pillows.'

Martin leaned forward. She seldom talked
about this and he wanted to strike while the iron
was hot. 'What about when I came home from
work?' he asked. 'You said you had a headache.'

'Your father used to fall for that, too,' she
cracked. 'I put the car in neutral and rolled it out
of the driveway.'

'How did you do it?' Martin whispered,
desperate to know. This was where the scenario
always got hung up in his mind. He understood
that his mother had driven the Cadillac back to
Southern Toilet Supply, but he could not for the
life of him see anyone, especially Evie, being able
to get one over on Unique. She was much too
sassy.

Evie sighed, twisting her pen closed. She
glanced up at the guard, who was talking to
another prisoner. 'It's her own fault for still being
there when I drove up. She was loading her car
with UrWay.'

Martin 'tsked.' Office supplies were one thing;
urine cake quite another.

'I asked her to help me to the bathroom. I'm an
old lady, you know. I need help walking
sometimes.' She winked on this last part – an
unnecessary flourish, Martin felt. 'When we got
inside, I "accidentally" dropped a twenty on the
floor and pretended not to notice. I headed for
the stall, and when she bent down to pick it up, I
clobbered her with the sanitizer.'

'Hmm,' Martin said. Death by FreshInator. It
seemed appropriate. 'And the mop handle?'

'It had to look sadistic, Martin. The sexual
component is what sells.' She added, 'Besides,
who would guess in a million years that she'd
already had sex with you?'

'Shocked the hell out of me,' he admitted.
'But, what about Sandy? What did she ever do
to you?'

'Who do you think wrote "twat" on your car?'

Martin put his hand to his chest. 'That was
Sandy
?'

'No, you idiot, it was me – but it seemed like
something she would do.'

She had a point. Sandy could certainly take a
prank too far.

'I just . . .' Evie shook her head, her voice
catching. 'Martin, I just wanted a better life for
us. I wanted you to stand up to people. I thought
with the "twat" you might . . .' she shook her
head, unable to speak. Martin reached out and
held her hand. 'You have no idea how hard it is
to raise a child on your own. I feel like I didn't
give you things that you needed. Tell me what I
did wrong! Tell me how to heal you!'

Martin realized the guard had come back. He
let go of her hand.

Evie dabbed under her eyes and smiled at the
guard until he left. 'I thought you might grow a
pair,' she snapped at Martin. 'I thought it might
convince you to actually
do
something with your
pathetic, miserable life – but,
noooo
, all you did
was complain. "Wah, wah, somebody scratched
my car. Poor me. Nobody loves me." If you had
confronted Sandy, we wouldn't be here right
now.'

'Are you insane? Confronted her for doing
something that
you
did?'

'Maybe it would've sent her a message that she
couldn't get away with teasing you.' Evie made
her voice even lower. 'You never understand,
Martin.'

Her attacks were starting to sting. 'What don't
I understand?'

'Did it ever occur to you that I was doing you
a favor by taking her out? It wasn't easy getting
her to meet me. I had to pretend that I had found
illegal drugs in your sock drawer.'

'Illegal drugs?'

Evie shrugged. 'She had a problem.'

'Really?' Martin frowned. He'd never pegged
Sandy for a drug user.

'That's not the point,' Evie snapped. 'I did it
for us, Martin, to give us new lives. When I
bashed her in the head, I was bashing her for you.
I ran over her three times with your car, Martin.
One roll for every decade she humiliated you.'

The math added up, but still Martin shook his
head. 'It was never about me. You wanted
something bad to happen so you could trot
yourself out there as the victim. You couldn't
make me gay or give me ALS, so you went out
and killed somebody.
Two
somebodys.'

'Martin.'

'The minute I was arrested, you were on the
phone with Families and Friends of Violent
Criminals.'

'The FFVC has been very kind to me and I
don't appreciate your bad-mouthing them,' she
quipped. 'And, besides, I could have done
something to
you
– did you ever consider that,
genius? I could have poisoned you. I could have
stabbed you.' She didn't wait for an answer,
which was just as well because he didn't have
one. 'I could've whacked you over the head and
made you retarded or ran over your legs with a
lawnmower.' She was clearly exasperated. 'Don't
you see, Martin? Can't you understand that this
way is better, because we
both
get a second
chance out of it?'

Martin threw his hands into the air. 'I give up.
I really give up.'

'What is your problem?' she whispered, her
voice hoarse. 'Why can't you grasp this basic
thing?'

'What basic thing?'

'Is it so wrong to want to be around people?
To be cared about? Isn't that why you keep
making all those false confessions, so An keeps
coming back to interview you?'

Martin crossed his arms over his chest, turning
his head to look out the window.

'You've got it pretty sweet in here, Martin.
You get to read all day. You work in the
warden's office doing the books. The other boys
respect you, for once in your life.'

She had a point on that last one, he had
to admit. Martin was on death row. People
didn't mess with him nearly as much anymore
(unsurprisingly, no one wanted to have sex with
him in prison, either).

Evie pressed, 'You've carved out a nice little
niche for yourself. It's much more than you
would have if you were still living with me.'

He shook his head, coming to his senses. 'I
think it's pretty obvious who's really benefiting.
We have televisions here, Mother. I saw you on
Entertainment Tonight
drinking champagne at
George Clooney's villa.'

She smoothed down her skirt, picking an
invisible piece of fluff off the cashmere. 'Don't sit
there and pretend you're not exploiting your own
situation.'

'I'm at least doing some good,' Martin insisted.
Some of the crimes he had taken credit for had
been unsolved for years. He had read in
People
magazine that the mother of one of his 'victims'
had actually said, on her death bed, 'At least now
I know.' Was Martin to be blamed for not killing
and raping the woman's daughter? Was it
his
fault that he hadn't committed the crime? Was it
his fault that he would say anything to keep his
beloved Anther coming to see him?

Aye, there's the rub.

'Martin?' Evie snapped her fingers in front of
his face. She had packed up her legal pad and
pen. 'I have to go. I'm meeting with the producers
about your movie.'

Martin scowled. He had not approved of
casting Philip Seymour Hoffman in the lead.

'Oh, knock that look off your face. Phil's a
lovely boy.' She stood up, pronouncing loudly,
'Now, give your mother a kiss goodbye.'

He puckered up and she put first one cheek,
then the other, near enough to his lips to pass for
affection.

'I'll see you next month.' She wagged her
finger at him. 'And you'd better have some good
stories for me. Dark fantasies. Uncontrollable
thoughts. Seething hatred. You get the idea.'

Martin rolled his eyes. Bob, one of his favorite
guards, came over. Martin held out his hands for
cuffing, but the man told him, 'You've got a
private visitor.'

'An's here?' Martin felt his heart flutter in his
chest. 'She didn't tell me she was coming.'

'They've found another body,' Bob said.
'Thirty-year-old prostitute with a meth habit.'

'Oh, I see,' Martin murmured. He specialized
in confessing to prostitute deaths – he'd found
early on that this particular type of victim tended
to have had very little recent contact with their
families, which made it easier for Martin to
fabricate a nice backstory. He asked, 'Was this
on Madola Road?'

'Abernathy,' Bob provided. 'What were you
thinking, man?'

Martin shook his head. 'I just can't help
myself, Bob. I get these urges.'

'Why the rope?'

Martin struggled for an explanation. 'My
father liked to tie knots.'