Murder Is Forever, Volume 1 Read online

  “I want to play something for you,” Draper says, angling the screen in Gypsy’s direction.

  “All right,” Gypsy says.

  Draper presses Play. It’s a clip from Gypsy’s appearance on Mornings with Anne-Marie, the moment when she claims that she and her mother are “like the same person…two peas in a pod.” They finish each other’s thoughts, are stronger together than they could ever be apart. When the segment is done, Draper spins the laptop back around, hits Stop.

  “That was just a short while ago,” Draper says. “Were you lying?”

  “No.”

  “When did it become a lie?”

  “It didn’t.”

  “Really?” Draper asks, unconvinced. “Let me show you something else.”

  She calls up a screenshot from Gypsy’s Christian Couples account, begins reading aloud from a series of messages between Gypsy and Nicholas, reading only Gypsy’s part:

  “It’s [The it here is your mother.] got $4,000 in a safe and I know the combination…Once it takes its sleep meds it don’t wake for nothing…Better make that an extra-long knife. LOL! Ha ha ha!…I’ll be sure the door ain’t locked.”

  Draper snaps the laptop shut.

  “There’s no doubt that you were the mastermind, Gypsy,” she says. “The point of my talking to you today isn’t to get a confession. We don’t need one. This is your chance to explain why. Get your story on record. How did you go from that interview with Anne-Marie to killing your mother just a few months later? What happened?”

  Gypsy looks everywhere but at Draper.

  “I learned some things,” she says.

  “You mean about your illness?”

  “I ain’t ill. That’s what I learned. It was her making me ill.”

  “Since when?”

  “Since always. Since before I can remember. ’Cause I can’t remember no time when I was normal. When I could eat what other people ate. When I didn’t have tubes sticking out of me. When I had hair. When I had all my teeth and none of them was cracked or crumbling. When I could see right. When I could walk. And then I find out that I could’ve been normal the whole time. I could’ve gone to school. I could’ve had friends.”

  “But you can walk now,” Draper says. “Why didn’t you just walk away? Walk somewhere and tell someone?”

  “It ain’t that easy.”

  “Why not? Pretend I’m sitting on your jury. Make me understand.”

  Gypsy bangs her open palms on the table. For the first time, she raises her voice, looks Draper straight in the eyes.

  “Where were you people before? How come what I did is a crime and what she did ain’t?”

  “Maybe it was a crime,” Draper says. “We didn’t know.”

  “Yeah, well I didn’t know neither.”

  “But how is that possible? How can you have two perfectly healthy legs and not know it?”

  “Cause no one told me different. From when I was a baby. It was always just her telling me things.”

  “What kinds of things?”

  “That I had defects in my chromosomes. That my own blood was trying to kill me. That real food was like poison to someone sick as me. That it was just her saving my life day in and out and wouldn’t nobody else ever want the job. That my brain was weak on account of everything else wrong with me. That I’d never get hired to do nothing ’cause there wasn’t nothing I could do as good as other people. That my legs was born dead and we might as well cut ’em off for all the good they did me. That I’d better pray the end came for me before it came for her or I’d find out what this world was really about.”

  Draper listens, struggles to maintain a neutral expression. Whether or not Gypsy is telling the truth, the scope of what can go wrong between two people—between a mother and daughter—has stretched beyond the bounds of her imagination. She’s beginning to understand why Slater is so jaded.

  “And you believed all of that?” she asks.

  “I told you—no one gave me nothing else to believe.”

  “So what changed, Gypsy? Was it Katrina? Moving here?”

  “I been thinking on that ever since Mama died. Moving here sped things up, but really it started with that trip we took last year.”

  She tells Draper about her encounter with Robert, the fake bionic man.

  “Maybe he was a deviant, like my mama said. But then maybe he wasn’t. I started thinking that maybe what happened down there could happen again. And again and again. As many times as I wanted. And if that was true, then a lot of what my mama said just couldn’t be. I think I half knew it already—I just didn’t know where to start looking for the truth. There were so many lies. Nothing but lies. Then we moved here and met Pastor Mike.”

  “Was it Pastor Mike who helped you understand that you weren’t sick?”

  “Yeah, but he didn’t mean to be helpful that way. He was like a new audience for my mama, and I could see him believing every word out of her mouth without asking no questions. She could’ve said anything and he would’ve believed her. She could’ve told him I was part giraffe and he wouldn’t have batted an eye. And then I could see he felt sorry for her. For her, not me. And he’s a grown man. That made me mad in a way I ain’t never been mad before. And that’s why I went on that site. ’Cause I wanted to prove to him and her and myself that Robert the bionic deviant wasn’t the only one in this wide world who could want me. There had to be other Roberts out there, and some of ’em had to be good people. That’s just math.”

  “So when you opened your Christian Couples account you still didn’t know for sure that you could walk? That you could eat solid food? That you could grow your hair as long as you like?”

  “No, ma’am. That all came later.”

  “When?”

  “When that doctor told me to stand up in his office and I did it and then I saw Mama’s face. Her face told it all. The whole story.”

  On the other side of the two-way mirror, Slater turns to Dr. Ryan, raises an eyebrow.

  “I guess that would be you,” he says.

  “I guess it would.”

  Chapter 22

  “Munchausen syndrome by proxy,” Dr. Ryan says.

  “What now?” Slater asks.

  “It’s a kind of mental illness. Dee Dee forced Gypsy to pretend she was sick. More than that, she tricked Gypsy into believing she was sick. Although ‘tricked’ may not be the right word. Chances are Dee Dee believed in Gypsy’s illness, too.”

  “So you’re saying it’s Dee Dee who was mentally ill?”

  “In so many words, yes.”

  “How does that happen? What kind of misfire in the brain makes a mother hurt her own child?”

  Dr. Ryan shrugs.

  “Dee Dee didn’t think she was hurting Gypsy,” he says. “Quite the opposite. People break with reality when it isn’t meeting their needs.”

  “That sounds awfully convenient. What was it Dee Dee Blancharde needed?”

  “If I had to guess, I’d say security. Emotional security. I’m willing to bet she didn’t have any in her own childhood. She turned Gypsy into someone who couldn’t function without her. Someone who could never leave her. A lifetime of guaranteed love.”

  Slater sniggers.

  “She managed to squeeze a new house out of it, too. And a lot of swell trips. Not to mention the four grand Gypsy and Godejohn made off with.”

  “That’s just part of the disease,” Dr. Ryan says. “The world owes me, so I won’t be shy about taking.”

  Draper, who’d left to give Gypsy a short rest, is back now carrying two bottles of water and a bag of chips. She pulls open the bag, holds it out to Gypsy.

  “Since you can now,” she says.

  The gaps between Gypsy’s front teeth become painfully obvious when she chews.

  “I want to talk about that night,” Draper says.

  “You mean the night Mama died?”

  “I mean the night she was murdered.”

  Gypsy looks startled.

 
“Murdered? It was self-defense,” she says.

  “No, it wasn’t. We need to be clear about that.”

  “You don’t think she would’ve killed me the way we was going? Look at me. I took on ten pounds already and still I look like this.”

  She holds her rail-thin arms out to the sides for Draper to examine.

  “I understand,” Draper says. “But the problem is, you didn’t need to kill her to make yourself safe.”

  Draper is trying to draw out some sign of remorse or responsibility—anything that might sit well with a jury.

  “But I didn’t kill her,” Gypsy says. “Nicholas did that.”

  “He held the knife, but you—”

  “I was screaming for him to stop. Once he started, I didn’t want it no more. Mama, she didn’t hardly make no noise at all, but I was screaming so loud Nicholas just about ran out of the house. I loved my mama. I know that sounds crazy now, but I did. I loved her. I still do.”

  Draper takes a long breath.

  “So why did you let Nicholas into your home to kill her? I know you must have been angry. You must have—”

  “It wasn’t ’cause I was angry. I mean, I was, but that wasn’t it.”

  “What was it, then?”

  “I didn’t see no other way.”

  Gypsy reaches absently for the bag of chips, then pulls her hand away.

  “I had this idea,” she says, “that I’d never be OK while Mama was still alive. I couldn’t just leave.”

  “Because she’d find you?”

  “That was part of it. She found me in Florida. But it wasn’t just that. It was like—I couldn’t undo what she done to me by myself. Someone who wasn’t me had done all these things to me, and I needed someone who wasn’t me to set it all right.”

  Draper works to hide her confusion.

  “You’re talking about revenge?” she asks.

  “No, I ain’t. I…how was I supposed to know the whole world wasn’t like Mama? How was I supposed to run off if I didn’t know what I was running to? And Nicholas said he’d look after me. He was gonna take me with him to Canada. We were gonna live up in the mountains and he was gonna teach me to fish and hunt and ski. I hadn’t ever walked before, but now I was gonna ski down a mountain.”

  “I understand,” Draper says.

  She leans back, takes a quick drink of water. She feels suddenly as though she could sleep for days on end.

  Outside the room, Dr. Ryan turns back to Slater.

  “She wasn’t just leaving her mother,” he says. “She was leaving a universe. A universe that included just one other person. She couldn’t imagine that world going on without her.”

  “So now you’re a shrink?” Slater asks.

  “Just an observer,” Dr. Ryan says.

  They go back to watching the interview.

  “What’s gonna happen to me now?” Gypsy asks.

  “That’s up to the judge and jury.”

  “But what about now?”

  “You’ll have to wait for your trial in jail.”

  “But they can’t do nothing too bad to me, right? On account of my age.”

  “What do you mean?” Draper asks.

  “I mean I ain’t an adult yet, so they can’t lock me up for real.”

  “But you’re…”

  And then Draper understands.

  “Gypsy,” she says, “how old do you think you are?”

  Gypsy rolls her eyes.

  “I know how old I am,” she says. “Fifteen next month.”

  “Gypsy,” Draper says, “we have a copy of your birth certificate. You’re nineteen years old.”

  Gypsy giggles a little, then turns serious as this final lie sinks in.

  “Jesus Christ,” Slater says.

  “Now are you convinced?” Dr. Ryan asks. “That girl has lived her whole life in an alternative reality. She doesn’t know this world that you and I live in.”

  “Well,” Slater says, “prison should get her up to speed.”

  “You think she deserves that?” Dr. Ryan asks.

  Slater shrugs.

  “I think it isn’t up to me.”

  Chapter 23

  After a month-long trial, it took the jury just a few hours to find Gypsy guilty. Now she is back in court for sentencing. She sits with her state-appointed lawyer at the defendant’s table. Aleah, sitting just a few feet away in the front row, hardly recognizes the friend she’d spent so much time with. In place of her ridiculous hat with the dangling pompoms, Gypsy has a full head of spiky black hair. Her posture is straight and strong. No oxygen tank, no tubes, no wheelchair. And her clothes—even her orange prison jumpsuit—no longer hang off her body like drapery.

  The bailiff demands the room’s attention as Judge Raymond Parnell takes his seat. He is past middle age but still young for a judge, with close-cropped salt-and-pepper hair and very fine, almost feminine hands. He does not smile, does not so much as glance at Gypsy or make eye contact with anyone in the court. Instead, he slips on a pair of glasses, takes up a single sheet of paper, and begins reading. Gypsy remains motionless. Aleah shuts her eyes, listens.

  There is a brief preamble concerning the facts of the case and the options available to the court before Judge Parnell arrives at his decision: “In light of the long history of abuse endured by the defendant at the hands of the deceased,” he begins, “in light of the sequestration, if not downright imprisonment, that robbed her of anything resembling a proper childhood, and in light of the legitimate if misguided fear she undoubtedly felt for her own life, it is the ruling of this court that Gypsy Rose Blancharde shall serve the minimum sentence permitted by law, which is to say no more than ten years and no fewer than seven.”

  Aleah has to clasp her hands over her mouth to keep from cheering. There are tears in her eyes, but when she looks at Gypsy she sees nothing: no joy, no anger, no sadness. Not even resignation.

  A female bailiff signals for Gypsy to stand, then cuffs her hands behind her back and begins to lead her from the courtroom. They are within inches of Aleah before Gypsy spots her friend. She smiles, and Aleah notices for the first time that Gypsy has been fitted with new teeth.

  “Can I get just a second?” Gypsy asks. The bailiff nods, takes a single step back. Gypsy turns toward Aleah.

  “It’s real good of you to come,” she says. “I ain’t seen you in a while. You been all right?”

  Her voice is lower-pitched and more relaxed than Aleah remembers.

  “Who cares how am I?” Aleah says. “How are you? That’s good news you got today. At least, compared to what it could have been.”

  Gypsy starts to answer, then sees that Aleah is crying, or maybe trying hard not to.

  “What’s wrong?” she asks.

  “It’s just…I don’t know. I miss you. I wish you could come home now. And I feel…God, I’m so sorry, Gypsy. I had no idea. If I’d known—”

  “It’s OK, Aleah,” Gypsy says. “It’s all OK.”

  “But how? How can it be OK?”

  Gypsy smiles.

  “I’m at peace now,” she says. “I’m freer than I’ve ever been in my whole life.”

  “Yeah,” Aleah says. “I guess you are.”

  She leans forward, gives Gypsy a quick peck on the cheek.

  “We’ll go paddle boating on the lake when you’re out,” she says. “The two of us. And I’ll teach you to drive.”

  The bailiff tugs on Gypsy’s arm. Gypsy looks over her shoulder as they walk off.

  “I hope to God you’re far away from here by then,” she says. “But wherever you are, I promise I’ll come visit.”

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