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“Jail’s not worse.At least in there, everyone sees you for what you are.”
“And you?”
Her gaze narrows.“I’ll tell you.But you first—I have to know.What’d he do?The cop?”
“He called me a murderer.”
“And are you?”
“Almost.”
She smiles.Soft, smooth, and welcoming.
“Anyway,” I say.“I asked about you.”
I’d heard through the grapevine that Elizabeth was here on account of her promiscuity, but no one could provide any concrete detail.It’s not an easy task to ask a woman whether she’s a whore, and if so, what that entails, exactly.
“I’m being tried for a murder,” she quips.“A murder that I didn't commit.”
I’m thunderstruck.Speechless.Is this some kind of prank?No one, as far as I’m aware, has accused Elizabeth of murder.She’s too perfect.Tart and sweet, like candy.You know it’s bad for you, but you can’t help yourself.
“What murder?”I ask her.
“I’m being tried for killing the clerk of the hotel that we had been staying at, in Hemsing City,” she tells me.“He had come to our room to see what was taking me so long.He wanted payment.”
“He wanted payment?”
“That’s right.He called my name, and I was equally surprised and naked, so I hid in the bathroom.I pretended I was busy, if you know what I mean.”
“And then what?”
“I powdered my nose.Applied a little lipstick.Freshened up.And then the next thing I know when I come out, he was dead.”
She speaks in a matter-of-fact tone.Her story is too unbelievable to have happened to anybody, and my first thought is to ask her what really happened.
“Who killed him?”
“I don't know.But he's dead, isn’t he?”
I want to slap her.She had completely lost her mind.How could she be so shameless as to admit to a crime she never committed?I hate that I have to ask.
“Why would you confess to a murder you didn’t commit?”
“I had a very bad headache.”
“That’s what aspirin is for.”
“Come on, Grace.You know I hate taking pills.”
I learn very quicklythat the rituals and inner workings of insane people are not something that can easily be explained.I don't know what the psychiatrist here at the asylum would say about it, but I believe there's some special kind of logic behind it, a logic that I can only explain as a sense of senselessness in itself.
Once Elizabeth starts talking, once she starts telling me about her life, she doesn’t stop.I don't know what started it, only that it’s more than I bargained for.She tells me all about her "relationship" with her father, which is so disturbing I make it a point to never allow my own father to enter my mind.
Elizabeth said that she didn't like the idea of being "some man's charity case," so she made sure to keep her father's attention on her, which meant that she had to learn how to be interesting.
She did this by manipulating him into keeping her near him, but not too near, while still being enough of a lady to be what he wanted in a young girl.This, she said, is how she learned about men.
“One day, after I got home from school, I found Mama collapsed on the bed.The fire department came and determined there was a leak.Carbon monoxide.”
