Sleep Toward Heaven Read online

  “What?” said Franny. “Did you say Jack?”

  “I didn’t…” said Deborah.

  “He told you about me?” said Franny, incredulous. But as she looked at Deborah, it fell into place. “You and Uncle Jack,” she said. “Of course.”

  Deborah did not answer, but did not look away. Finally, she said, “I didn’t know how to tell you. I guess I was afraid you’d be hurt, or something.”

  “No,” said Franny, “I’m glad.” They stood in the room, the remnants of the wedding around them, and Franny said, “I drank your Tab.”

  Deborah smiled. “It’s fine,” she said.

  Franny looked at the scuffed floor, covered in muddy footprints of all sizes. There was so much mud. The room was a mess, littered with wrappers and rice that guests had thrown on Jimmy. Even Uncle Jack had shared his life. There were a hundred breaths filling the room, pressing in on Franny. Inside her, there was nothing.

  Let’s be honest. There were nights when Franny got drunk. She sat in her old room at Uncle Jack’s house and drank until things seemed loose and even funny. Usually, it was the cheap wine from the Spurs Gas Mart, but sometimes it was beer or whiskey. She got drunk. And then she called people and hung up. She called college friends, she called Nat’s mother, she called her old number in New York to hear the answering machine. (Nat had changed the message, of course, and now it said, It’s Nat. You know what to do.) Once, she called Christopher, the Houston newscaster she had met at the Motor Inn Lounge.

  She would listen to the ringing phones, hear the pause after people had waked and picked up, but before they remembered where they were, or what to say. She listened to the hesitant “Hello?” The second, puzzled, “Hel-lo?” and the various curses: “Asshole!” “Hello? Hello? Fucker!” Nat’s mother hung up after the second hello. When Franny ran out of familiar numbers, she would just dial, to see what happened. Nothing much happened.

  She watched ants. There were ants in her room, and they climbed up the wall. The amazing thing, she thought, was that the ants followed each other’s trails. It was as if they knew where the previous ants had been. Perhaps they left an invisible scent? They climbed up the wall by Franny’s bed, and then into one of the crevices. Franny tried not to leave food out, but she forgot, and the ants came, and Franny watched them.

  At the request of Tiffany’s lawyer, Franny had taken a blood sample from Tiffany for DNA testing. Tiffany had been pale and quiet when Franny had inserted the needle. Franny sent the blood to Dallas to be analyzed at the same lab where the skin underneath the twins’ fingernails was being tested. Some of the nurses in the Medical Center had opinions about Tiffany’s innocence, but Franny stayed clear of their discussions. While Franny was drawing Tiffany’s blood, Tiffany bit her lip. When it was over, she said “Thank you” in a voice as sweet as candy.

  On Wednesday evening, Franny went to the Gatestown Public Library, and looked up old newspaper stories about Tiffany. The old men no longer stared when Franny came inside, simply nodded.

  According to the papers, Tiffany had been brought up as a Dallas socialite. There was a picture of her as the Homecoming Queen at her prep school, Ravenwood. She was standing in front of a football player, his thick arms around her hips. Her smile was wide and joyless.

  There was no evidence of abuse, although one childhood friend (now the wife of an oil executive in Midland, Texas) claimed Tiffany had said she’d learned everything there was to learn about sex from her father, an Exxon landman. In the pictures, Tiffany’s father was tan and arrogant-looking. His wife, Tiffany’s mother, was thin as a whisper. Her name was Sissy.

  Tiffany went on to become a cheerleader at the University of Texas, and surprised everyone when she married a computer designer, Dan Brooks. Dan was short and wore glasses. He founded Brooks Solutions, and sold his output management software for millions. The couple lived in a sprawling mansion on the outskirts of Houston (their house looked like a Tuscan villa), and had twin girls, Joanna and Josie. In the backyard there was a large pond.

  Dan, who became a freelance software consultant, traveled often, leaving his family alone in their giant house.

  A neighbor, a dog groomer named Doris, claimed that Tiffany suffered from depression, and on one occasion locked her two daughters in the yard. “They ran around naked as jaybirds, and who knows where Miss Cheerleader was,” said Doris. Tiffany, according to Doris, “took a lot of naps.”

  But many other neighbors called Tiffany “an ideal mother,” “a real sweetheart,” and “someone who does the baking cookies thing.” She seemed to be well-liked at the twins’ nursery school, where she volunteered as a Reading Buddy. “She was a hottie,” confided one local teen.

  At a ballet recital, according to Madame Clouchet, a Houston teacher, Tiffany arrived in a leotard and tutu that matched her four-year-old daughters’. This, said Madame Clouchet, “was a bit, how you say, bizarre.”

  On September twenty-fourth, 1991, Tiffany and Dan hired a babysitter, Laura Volman, and went to dinner at Goode’s Seafood. Dan ordered the mesquite catfish and two Shiner beers, Tiffany a side salad with lite vinaigrette and a glass of white zinfandel. Their waitress, Shirley Smith, says they “were real nice, whatever, you know, it was busy.” Dan paid in cash.

  After returning home, Dan drove the babysitter to her house. “He gave me twenty bucks. They always paid well, because they were rich,” said Laura. Laura had played Barbie with the twins, and then turned on the television. “I was supposed to, like, read to them, but ‘Beverly Hills 90210’ was on,” said Laura.

  Dan had gone to bed upstairs. He left Tiffany and the twins watching a Disney movie in the TV room downstairs. He thinks the movie had an elephant in it.

  At three-twenty a.m. on September twenty-fifth, Tiffany called 9-1-1 in hysterics. The conversation was reported in a Houston Chronicle article:

  9-1-1, how can I help you?

  Hello? Hello?

  Ma’am, how can I help you?

  My babies! My babies! They’re gone, my babies!

  Ma’am, can you give me your name?

  They’re gone! Help, oh my God…

  Please calm down, ma’am.

  Calm down? Calm down? Oh, my God! Oh, my God!

  Please give me your name.

  Tiffany Brooks. Oak Spring Road. Tiffany Brooks, oh my God…

  Ma’am, do you need an ambulance?

  No, no, they’re gone! Somebody kidnapped my babies! I don’t know…

  What happened?

  I was asleep. I fell asleep, I woke up, there was a man, and now they’re gone! Someone came in my house…my babies, help me!

  Ma’am, what is your exact address?

  I found a knife…I’m hurt. I picked it up. Oh no, I ruined the fingerprints! Oh, God, help me!

  According to Tiffany, she had fallen asleep in front of the television with the twins. The next thing she remembers is Josie calling her. She heard Josie saying, “Mommy!” She recounted the next few minutes in her court transcript:

  I heard Josie call me and I woke up. There was blood on my shirt. It is very blurry, I can barely remember what happened next. I called for Josie and Joanna. They did not answer me. They were not in the room. I heard footsteps in the kitchen. I ran into the kitchen. I saw the back of someone, a man. He ran out the door. He dropped a knife. I picked up the knife. I ran outside. There was nobody, no car. I screamed. I called 9-1-1.

  Dan, according to his court transcript, woke when he heard Tiffany’s screams:

  I heard her screaming. She was screaming, “Oh my God.” I got out of bed and ran downstairs. Tiffany was in the kitchen, and she was stabbed, she was bleeding and screaming. The back door was open. I ran outside, but I couldn’t see anything. The twins were gone.

  The ambulance arrived and took Tiffany to the emergency room. She had been stabbed in her chest and neck. The doctors concluded that the wounds were from a knife. The police ordered roadblocks and searched the neighborhood for Josie and Joanna. It was the
next morning when, searching the grounds of the Brooks’ home, a police officer found a small sock in the mud at the side of the pond. When the pond was searched, the bodies of Josie and Joanna were found. They both wore sleeping suits, which had been filled with rocks.

  As the investigation wore on, Tiffany began to emerge as a suspect. Her stab wounds could have been self-inflicted, doctors determined, although one wound, on her right forearm, would have been very difficult for her to have caused. Also, Tiffany’s behavior was deemed strange by psychologists—the mention of picking up the knife and the ruined fingerprints in her 9-1-1 call. Her story of a strange man running out the back door yielded no leads. A window screen had been slashed, but the dust on the windowsill beneath it had not been disturbed. No prints were found in the house and on the knife other than Tiffany’s. Tiffany and her husband maintained their innocence.

  “Why would I kill my babies?” Tiffany said to a reporter, crying. No answer to that question was ever found.

  A jury convicted Tiffany Brooks of drowning her two daughters. She was sentenced to death.

  Tiffany and Dan had been fighting to get the DNA under their daughters’ fingernails examined for years when the approval finally came through. Whoever’s skin was under the girls’ nails was undoubtedly the person the girls had struggled with while being drowned. Only faint scratches were found on Tiffany, but much of her skin had been torn from the stabbing.

  On Friday, the call came from Dallas. They had received the results of Tiffany’s blood test, and compared it with the DNA in the tissue samples. Franny assured the lab that the sample had been Tiffany’s blood, and they told her the results: the DNA samples were the same.

  Yoga with Yolanda! Franny decided to go. She thought it was time for a little stress relief. Even after her running shoes had arrived from New York, she had barely used them. It was just too hot for exercise, and Franny felt sluggish and heavy.

  On Wednesday night, she put on sweatpants and a T-shirt and walked to St. David’s Catholic Church. It was on the corner of Main and Sixth, a brick building with high windows and a large, brass bell. By the time she arrived, she was about ten minutes late, and couldn’t find the basement entrance. A woman came out the front door and folded her arms over her chest.

  “Oh, hello,” said Franny.

  “You’re stepping on the grass,” said the woman. She had a pinched face, and wore an apron.

  Franny looked down at the parched dirt underneath her sneakers. “I’m looking for yoga?” she said. When the woman did not respond, she said, “With Yolanda?”

  “Yolanda Berks?” The woman’s voice was skeptical.

  “I’m not really sure. It’s in the basement of St. David’s?”

  The woman did not uncross her arms. She sniffed. “Basement’s down here,” she said, pointing to some wooden stairs and stepping back for Franny to enter the front door. This woman could use some yoga, thought Franny.

  The church smelled like cedar and incense. It was cool and dark, with candles flickering deep inside. Franny had been brought up without religion, but felt a sharp pang of yearning as she looked inside the church. How nice it would be, she thought, to believe someone else was in charge. Or, like Karen, to believe there was an escape in death. To believe that one could make a mistake and still be saved.

  As Franny descended, each step creaked beneath her. The basement was a large, wood-paneled room filled with older women in leotards. They were bending, touching their toes, and Franny was confronted with at least ten women’s bottoms. As they concentrated on stretching, the women’s faces filled with blood, some bit their lips, their hair hung down. At the front of the room was the woman from the Gatestown Motor Inn Lounge, the piano player who drank martinis and slurred Broadway show tunes. “Focus on your chakra, feel it, feel it,” she was saying.

  The women groaned, their rumps shook, faces grew redder. Franny tried to turn her gaze away from them, but there was nothing else to see. Finally, the lounge singer said, “Release!” and they stood.

  “Hello,” she said, then, “I’m Yolanda. Welcome, new friend.” Some women turned around, and Franny recognized Betty, the front desk clerk at the Motor Inn, and the librarian, Louise. Franny smiled nervously.

  “New friend, look at your clothes,” said Yolanda. “I cannot see your joints in those pants.”

  “I’m sorry,” said Franny.

  “Next time, a leotard!” said Yolanda, who sported an aqua one on her portly frame.

  “I’m sorry,” said Franny again.

  “No matter,” said Yolanda. “Grab a sticky mat.” She gestured to a pile of rolled green mats at her side. Franny took one, and unrolled it in the very back row.

  “New friend,” said Yolanda. “Come to the front.”

  Franny sighed, and took her mat to the front.

  “Now we down dog!” said Yolanda.

  They stretched and flexed, obeying Yolanda’s every command. As they held yoga poses, Yolanda walked among them, pushing on a hip here, steadying an arm there. By the end of the class, Franny felt wonderful, giddy and light. “Now, it is time for rest,” said Yolanda, and she handed out blankets and little beanbags.

  The women stretched out on their mats, pulled up their blankets, and placed the beanbags over their eyes. Yolanda played a tape of sitar music. “You are letting go,” said Yolanda. “Let go, from your toes to your head, and let your soul float to the stars.”

  On her thin mat, Franny closed her eyes. She relaxed her toes, knees, hips. By the time she had reached her shoulders, she smelled a lavender perfume, and felt Yolanda place a blanket on her, warming her.

  That night, Franny dreamt of Nat. They were in their apartment, in the dark, dancing. Nat slipped his hand underneath her shirt, pressed his lips to hers. It was such a vivid dream—his breath hot against her ear, his sleepy smell, his palm touching her breast—that when she woke, she remembered how much she had once loved him, and before she could stop herself, her eyes were wet with tears.

  celia

  It seems that saying “fuck” to a patron is not acceptable librarian behavior. My supervisor, Kaytee, called me in for a chat. “Why don’t you take a teensy vacation?” she said.

  I looked at Kaytee, her fake blonde hair. “I don’t have anywhere to go,” I said.

  “How about Florida?” she said brightly. “Florida is lovely this time of year.”

  “It’s August,” I said.

  “Righty-o,” said Kaytee. “How about Reno, Nevada?”

  “How long?”

  “Hm?”

  “How long do you want me gone?” I said.

  “How about a few weeks? Why don’t you come back in September. Just take a nice break, Celia.” She did not mention the execution of my husband’s killer. “You just seem distracted,” said Kaytee.

  I went home, and found a large manila envelope in my mailbox. The return address was Underwood & Associates. The name sounded familiar, but I couldn’t place it. I thought of the hot new lawyer in town, but I knew in my heart that he had not sent me a manila envelope.

  I pushed aside a pile of dirty plates, sank onto the couch, and opened the envelope. On top of a folder of Xerox copies was a note in a messy scrawl: Dear Ms. Mills, Can you take mercy on Karen Lowens? Her execution is August 25th. A letter from you could save her life. Thank you for your time. Sincerely, Rick Underwood.

  You have got to be fucking kidding me is what I thought. But I kept reading. The first page was a doctor’s examination notes: Karen’s physical exam on the night she was arrested.

  Karen Lowens, Black Female, DOB 07/03/68

  Patient highly agitated, Blood Alcohol Level 3.2

  Evidence of two (2) prior breaks in jawbone.

  Evidence of severe trauma to left eye. Patient claims her eye was “knocked out” by a male fist.

  Four (4) broken teeth (details in dental records).

  Neck shows evidence of recent bruising.

  Evidence of prior break in right collarbone.<
br />
  Evidence of prior breaks in three (3) ribs.

  Severe scarring in anus and buttocks, evidence of puncture wounds to anus.

  Severe scarring in vagina, several tears in vaginal wall, evidence of cigarette burns on vaginal wall.

  Evidence of prior break in right ankle.

  So Karen Lowens had been beaten up. I knew this information already, and I was not interested in thinking about it. Save her life! As if Henry had been given a chance to save his. I threw the package away and called my mother. My voice was trembling.

  “Celia,” she said, alarmed. “What is it?”

  I told her everything: the boy-toy, swearing at Geraldine, the faux-vacation, the letter from Karen Lowens’ lawyer. “Oh, sweetie,” said my mother. “Oh, my sweet girl.”

  “How can they think I would write a letter for this woman?” I said.

  My mother paused. “Listen,” she said. “You listen to me, sweetie. I want you to call Maureen, and then I want you to go out and buy something nice for dinner. I’m coming to Texas, sweetie, just hang on.”

  “You don’t have to come,” I said.

  “Don’t be absurd,” she said. “I’m calling the travel agent right now.”

  I did not call Maureen. I turned on the television, and I watched “Law & Order”. I wondered: would Angie Harmon forgive a murderer? My mother called to say she was coming in three days, could I hang on? I said yes. I was not sure this was true.

  That night Henry came down to talk to me. I saw him on the end of my bedpost, and here is what he said: Celia, let go. He was wearing the Elvis T-shirt I had bought him in Graceland, on our honeymoon. Write the letter, he said, do something good.

  He did not mention fucking the boy. I was relieved about that.

  karen

  On Saturday morning, Tiffany is given the results of the DNA test. The skin underneath her children’s fingernails belongs to her. There is no evidence of foreign DNA. “I can’t believe it!” says Tiffany, her eyes blazing. “It’s just fucking ridiculous!” She is brushing her hair; it is visiting day. “How did that motherfucker do it? How did he drown the girls without getting any evidence on them?”